Antonio Francesco Gramsci

1. Introduction

Antonio Francesco Gramsci (1891–1937) was an Italian Marxist theorist, journalist, and political organizer whose work reoriented 20th‑century thinking about power, culture, and social change. Writing largely from prison under Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime, he developed a vocabulary—cultural hegemony, civil society, organic intellectuals, war of position, passive revolution—that became central well beyond Marxist circles.

Gramsci is often located within Western Marxism, alongside figures such as Georg Lukács and the early Frankfurt School, yet his work stems as much from Italian political struggles, linguistic studies, and debates about national unification as from classical Marxism. His reflections address a practical problem: why revolutionary upheaval had not occurred in advanced capitalist societies despite deep social conflicts, and how ruling groups maintained power through a mix of consent and coercion.

For non‑specialists, Gramsci’s significance lies in the way he connects everyday “common sense,” education, religion, media, and cultural habits to the durability of political orders. His concepts have been taken up—sometimes in divergent or even opposed ways—by communists, social democrats, Catholic intellectuals, post‑Marxists, cultural theorists, and critical educators.

This entry examines his life and context, traces his intellectual development, summarizes his principal writings (especially the Prison Notebooks), and presents his core ideas about hegemony, the state, and civil society. It then explores his analyses of intellectuals and education, his strategic notions of war of position and passive revolution, his methodological innovations in historical materialism, and the subsequent impact, debates, and contested legacies surrounding “Gramscian” thought.

2. Life and Historical Context

Gramsci’s life unfolded against the backdrop of Italy’s turbulent transition from a newly unified, predominantly agrarian kingdom to an industrializing state marked by sharp regional and class divisions.

Sardinia, Migration, and Early Italy

Born in 1891 in Ales, Sardinia, into a lower‑middle‑class family, Gramsci experienced chronic illness and the island’s economic marginalization. Many scholars argue that this background sensitized him to the “Southern Question”—the structural subordination of Italy’s Mezzogiorno—which later informed his analyses of uneven development and regional disparities.

In 1911 he moved to industrial Turin to study at the University of Turin. There he encountered a rapidly expanding working class, socialist organizations, and mass strikes. The First World War, the 1917 Russian Revolution, and postwar unrest shaped his early political activism.

Fascism and Imprisonment

The “Red Biennium” (1919–1920) saw intense factory struggles in northern Italy. Subsequent reactionary mobilization facilitated the rise of Mussolini’s Fascist movement. Gramsci co‑founded the Italian Communist Party (1921) and became one of its leading figures.

Fascism’s consolidation after the 1922 March on Rome culminated in emergency laws that repressed opposition. Gramsci was arrested in 1926, and a Fascist prosecutor reportedly declared, “We must stop this brain from working.” His imprisonment from 1926 to 1937 framed the composition of the Quaderni del carcere (Prison Notebooks).

International and Intellectual Context

Gramsci wrote under the influence of:

These conditions shaped, but did not rigidly determine, his theoretical innovations in prison.

3. Intellectual Development

Gramsci’s intellectual trajectory is often divided into distinct but overlapping phases, each marked by shifts in focus and vocabulary rather than abrupt breaks.

Formative Years: Language, Folklore, and Education

In Turin (from 1911), Gramsci studied linguistics and literature, attending lectures by Matteo Bartoli and engaging with neo‑idealists such as Benedetto Croce. Early writings on dialects, popular theater, and education reveal an interest in how language and folklore embody social hierarchies and popular worldviews. Some commentators see here the seeds of his later notion of common sense.

Revolutionary Organizer and Journalist

From 1917 to 1926, as a journalist for and editor of L’Ordine Nuovo and later a Communist Party leader, Gramsci focused on workers’ councils, the Russian Revolution, and party strategy. He explored how factory councils might embody proletarian democracy and how a revolutionary party could provide moral and intellectual leadership to broader social groups. His thought remained explicitly Marxist but increasingly critical of economic determinism and mechanical interpretations of class struggle.

Prison Period and Theoretical Reworking

Imprisonment forced a move from agitational writing to more reflective, coded analysis. In the Prison Notebooks (1929–1935), Gramsci reworked historical materialism by:

• Expanding the concept of the state to include civil society;
• Recasting ideology as a complex field of hegemony and common sense;
• Historicizing revolutionary strategy through the distinction between war of maneuver and war of position.

Scholars disagree on how far this constitutes a break from his pre‑prison positions. Some emphasize continuity in his concern with leadership and culture; others stress a qualitative deepening and partial revision of earlier assumptions.

4. Major Works and Prison Writings

Gramsci did not publish systematic treatises. His corpus consists mainly of journalism, correspondence, and the fragmentary Prison Notebooks, compiled under harsh prison conditions and censorship.

Pre‑Prison Writings

His early articles and essays (1910–1926), later collected in various editions, include theater and literary criticism, reflections on schooling, and political commentary in newspapers like Avanti! and L’Ordine Nuovo. These texts outline his views on workers’ councils, the Russian Revolution, and Italian politics, and already address themes later elaborated in the notebooks.

Prison Notebooks (Quaderni del carcere)

Written between 1929 and 1935 in several exercise books, the Prison Notebooks cover philosophy, history, political theory, linguistics, and cultural criticism. They are:

Because Gramsci could not edit them into a final structure, later editors had to impose organization.

Letters from Prison

His Lettere dal carcere (1926–1937) document personal relationships, health struggles, and reflections on reading and politics. Scholars use them to contextualize the notebooks and trace evolving concerns.

Editorial History and Textual Issues

Postwar publication, particularly the thematic editions (1948–1951) overseen by Palmiro Togliatti, arranged notebook fragments into subject‑based volumes. Critics argue this reordering encouraged certain interpretations (e.g., a more “party‑line” Gramsci). Later philological editions aimed to restore the chronology and notebook sequence to better capture the development of his thought. Debates over translation and terminology (e.g., “hegemony,” “civil society,” “subaltern”) continue to shape scholarly usage.

5. Core Ideas: Hegemony, State, and Civil Society

Gramsci’s most influential theoretical contribution concerns how modern states secure and reproduce power through a complex interplay of coercion and consent.

Hegemony and Domination

Gramsci distinguishes between domination (coercive rule) and hegemony (intellectual and moral leadership). Ruling groups maintain supremacy by presenting their particular interests as universal, embedding them in institutions, rituals, and everyday beliefs.

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“The supremacy of a social group manifests itself in two ways, as ‘domination’ and as ‘intellectual and moral leadership’.”

— Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Notebook 1, §44

Hegemony operates not only through formal politics but through religion, education, media, and cultural practices.

Expanded Concept of the State

Gramsci conceptualizes the state as an “integral state,” encompassing both political society (government, law, police, army) and civil society (associations, schools, press, churches). The balance between these varies across societies.

Proponents of this reading highlight how Gramsci blurs a rigid state–society boundary, seeing them as moments within an overarching hegemonic order.

Civil Society as Terrain of Struggle

Civil society is not merely a buffer against the state but a strategic field where hegemonies are constructed, maintained, and contested. Gramsci argues that in advanced capitalist societies, struggles over curricula, journalism, religious life, and cultural production can be as decisive as economic conflicts.

Interpreters differ on the normative implications: some see Gramsci as a theorist of democratic pluralism emphasizing civil society’s autonomy; others emphasize his focus on how ruling blocs organize consent, underscoring its role in stabilizing domination.

6. Intellectuals, Education, and Common Sense

Gramsci assigns a central role to intellectual activity in the making and unmaking of hegemony, broadening the notion of who counts as an “intellectual.”

Traditional and Organic Intellectuals

He distinguishes between traditional intellectuals, who see themselves as autonomous (e.g., clergy, academics, literati), and organic intellectuals, who emerge from specific classes or groups and articulate their experiences and interests.

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“Every human being is an intellectual, but not all human beings have the function of intellectuals in society.”

— Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, Notebook 12, §1

This formulation suggests that intellectual capacities are widespread, while the social role of intellectuals is historically organized. For Gramsci, every social class that strives for hegemony must develop its own organic intellectuals.

Education and Formation

Gramsci views education broadly as the ensemble of institutions and practices that form individuals’ worldviews and habits. He analyzes formal schooling, but also workplace discipline, the press, and religious instruction as sites where hegemonic values are inculcated. Debates among educational theorists concern whether his remarks support a radical, dialogic pedagogy or a more disciplined, classical humanist model; both readings draw on different passages of the notebooks.

Common Sense and Good Sense

Common sense (senso comune), for Gramsci, is a heterogeneous bundle of beliefs, proverbs, and assumptions, often containing both reactionary and emancipatory elements. It is historically layered and internally contradictory. Within it, he identifies the possibility of good sense—more coherent, critical insights that can be developed through collective education and political practice.

Scholars in cultural studies and critical pedagogy have used this framework to analyze how popular beliefs can both support and resist existing power structures.

7. Political Strategy: War of Position and Passive Revolution

Gramsci rethinks revolutionary strategy for contexts where direct insurrection appears unlikely, emphasizing long‑term struggles over institutions and culture.

War of Maneuver vs. War of Position

Drawing analogies from military strategy, he distinguishes war of maneuver (direct, rapid political confrontation, as in 1917 Russia) from war of position (slow, cumulative struggles within civil society typical of advanced Western states).

Gramsci argues that in societies with dense civil institutions and broad suffrage, a war of position—constructing counter‑hegemony through unions, parties, schools, and media—becomes indispensable. Interpreters differ on how far he thereby endorses parliamentary, reformist politics versus viewing war of position as a precondition for eventual ruptures.

Passive Revolution

Passive revolution describes processes where ruling elites implement top‑down reforms to modernize society and neutralize subaltern demands without a popular revolutionary rupture. Gramsci applies this to episodes such as Italian unification (the Risorgimento) and Fordist industrialization.

Characteristics often associated with passive revolution include:

• Limited incorporation of popular demands;
• Preservation of fundamental power relations;
• Use of reforms to fragment or co‑opt opposition.

Later scholars have extended the concept to interpret neoliberal restructuring, authoritarian modernization, or postcolonial state formation. Others caution that such broad usage risks diluting its historical specificity in Gramsci’s texts.

Together, these strategic notions link his theory of hegemony to concrete questions of political organization, alliance‑building, and state transformation.

8. Methodology and Historical Materialism

Gramsci’s methodological reflections in the Prison Notebooks offer a distinctive, historicist version of Marxism that resists mechanistic determinism.

Historical Bloc and Structure–Superstructure

Central is the idea of the historical bloc—a configuration in which economic structure and cultural‑political superstructures form a relatively coherent ensemble.

Gramsci insists that social analysis must grasp how material interests, institutions, and forms of consciousness interrelate in specific conjunctures.

Against Economism and Idealism

He criticizes both economism (reducing politics and culture to economic causes) and pure idealism (detaching ideas from social relations). Instead, he proposes a form of absolute historicism, where philosophical categories and social structures are seen as historically situated and transformable. Some commentators view this as a continuation of Marx’s own method; others emphasize the influence of Italian neo‑idealism and argue that Gramsci shifts Marxism toward a more culturalist orientation.

Philosophy of Praxis

Gramsci often substitutes the phrase “philosophy of praxis” for Marxism, partly to evade censorship, partly to stress its character as a practical, historical science rather than a closed doctrine. This approach:

• Treats theory as immanent to political practice and class struggles;
• Emphasizes the role of intellectuals and education in transforming common sense;
• Rejects the notion of fixed, transhistorical laws of history.

Debates continue over whether his historicism undermines claims to scientific socialism, with some reading him as an early post‑foundational thinker and others as defending a renewed, non‑dogmatic historical materialism.

9. Impact on Marxism, Critical Theory, and Cultural Studies

Gramsci’s posthumous influence spans multiple disciplines and political traditions, often with selective emphasis on particular concepts.

Within Marxism and Political Theory

In postwar Italy, the Italian Communist Party drew on Gramsci to legitimate strategies of “national‑popular” alliance and parliamentary engagement. Eurocommunist theorists later highlighted his ideas on civil society and hegemony as resources for democratic socialism.

Western Marxists and critical theorists, including Perry Anderson and Jürgen Habermas, engaged Gramsci’s expanded state concept and his focus on communicative and cultural power. Some praised his move beyond economic reductionism; others criticized subsequent “Gramscianism” for sliding into reformism or culturalism.

Cultural Studies and Post‑Marxism

British cultural studies, particularly through Stuart Hall and the Birmingham Centre, made hegemony a core analytic tool for understanding media, subcultures, and race. Hall interpreted Gramsci as a theorist of articulation and contingency, helping to conceptualize how race, gender, and nation intersect with class.

Post‑Marxist thinkers such as Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe reworked Gramsci to argue that political identities are discursively constructed and that democracy requires an ongoing contest of hegemonic projects. Critics contend that such appropriations sometimes detach hegemony from its Marxist anchoring in class relations.

Beyond Marxism: Education, Anthropology, IR

In education, Paulo Freire and later critical pedagogues drew on Gramsci’s concepts of common sense and organic intellectuals to advocate emancipatory schooling. Anthropologists, discourse theorists, and international relations scholars have used his framework to analyze state formation, nationalism, and global governance.

Interpretations diverge over how far these wide‑ranging uses remain faithful to Gramsci’s texts; nonetheless, they attest to his extensive and cross‑disciplinary impact.

10. Reception, Debates, and Misinterpretations

Gramsci’s reception has been shaped by editorial choices, political contexts, and disciplinary appropriations, generating substantial debate over what “Gramscian” thought entails.

Editorial Mediation and Early Readings

The first major Italian editions of the Prison Notebooks (1948–1951), organized thematically under Palmiro Togliatti’s influence, presented Gramsci in ways compatible with the Italian Communist Party’s line. Some scholars argue this emphasized his contributions to party strategy and underplayed heterodox or experimental aspects. Later critical editions sought to restore chronological order, revealing shifts and unresolved tensions in his thinking.

Key Debates

Major controversies include:

Some Marxist critics claim later “Gramscians” dilute his revolutionary intent, while others see his work as opening Marxism to pluralism and democracy.

Misinterpretations and Overextensions

Commonly noted misreadings include:

• Treating hegemony as mere media manipulation, rather than a complex ensemble of institutions, practices, and beliefs;
• Using “Gramscian” to label any cultural explanation of politics, regardless of its relation to historical materialism;
• Reading isolated quotations (e.g., on pessimism/optimism) as expressions of personal stoicism detached from his broader theory of political will and leadership.

Scholars often emphasize the need to read Gramsci’s concepts within the specific historical and strategic problems he addressed, while acknowledging that his fragmentary style invites divergent interpretations.

11. Legacy and Historical Significance

Gramsci’s legacy lies less in a closed system of thought than in a set of concepts and questions that have remained generative across changing historical contexts.

Reframing Power and Consent

His theorization of cultural hegemony reshaped understandings of how modern orders secure stability without constant repression. By integrating civil society, education, religion, and media into analyses of the state, he provided tools for examining liberal democracies, authoritarian regimes, and postcolonial states alike.

Influence on Democratic and Left Strategies

Across the 20th century, socialist, communist, and social‑democratic movements drew on Gramsci to rethink alliances, party organization, and relations to national culture. His notion of war of position has been invoked in debates on how left projects might engage electoral politics, unions, and social movements while pursuing structural change.

Enduring Concepts for Social Analysis

Concepts such as organic intellectuals, common sense, historical bloc, and passive revolution continue to inform research in sociology, political science, history, and cultural studies. They have been adapted to analyze topics ranging from neoliberal globalization to identity politics and the rise of new populisms.

While assessments differ—some portraying him as a key reference for democratic socialism, others as a precursor to post‑Marxist or post‑foundational thought—there is broad agreement that Gramsci’s prison writings represent one of the most important efforts to rethink Marxism in light of 20th‑century historical experience, with continuing relevance for analyzing contemporary forms of power and resistance.