Antonio Gramsci

Antonio Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, journalist and politician, a founder and later leader of the Communist Party of Italy. Born in Sardinia, he studied in Turin, where he took part in the factory council movement. Arrested by Mussolini's regime in 1926, he spent the rest of his life in prison or under guard in clinics, and died in Rome in 1937. In his Prison Notebooks he asked why revolution had failed in the West, and answered with his theory of hegemony: ruling classes rule largely by winning consent through culture, not by force alone.

Key ideas

• Cultural hegemony: a ruling class maintains power mainly by making its worldview seem like common sense.
• Every social group produces its own 'organic intellectuals', who give it coherence and awareness of its role.
• In advanced societies, a 'war of position' to build counter-hegemony in civil society must precede any direct seizure of power.
• A 'passive revolution' changes society from above while absorbing some popular demands and preventing deeper transformation.

Major works

• Prison Notebooks (written 1929–1935)
• Letters from Prison (written 1926–1937)

In the Book corner

• Prison Notebooks 1929–1935 (written); first published 1948–1951 · Advanced
  The notes written by the Italian Communist leader Antonio Gramsci in Mussolini's prisons, where he was held from 1926. Working under censorship…

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