• Antonio Francesco Gramsci (1891–1937) was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician.

• He was a founding member and leader of the Italian Communist Party.

• Gramsci was a vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, leading to his imprisonment in 1926, where he remained until his death in 1937.

• During imprisonment, Gramsci wrote over 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis, known as the Prison Notebooks.

• The Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory.

• Gramsci drew insights from a range of thinkers, including Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce, in addition to other Marxists.

• The notebooks covered a wide range of topics, including Italian history, Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism, Fordism, civil society, the state, historical materialism, folklore, religion, and high and popular culture.

• Gramsci is best known for his theory of cultural hegemony, which explains how the bourgeoisie uses cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies.

• According to Gramsci, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion.

• Gramsci attempted to break from economic determinism in orthodox Marxism and is often described as a neo-Marxist.

• He saw Marxism as a humanistic philosophy of praxis and absolute historicism, transcending traditional materialism and idealism.

Life Sketch

Early life

• Antonio Francesco Gramsci was born in Ales, Sardinia, on 22 January 1891, as the fourth of seven sons of Francesco Gramsci and Giuseppina Marcias.

• His father, Francesco Gramsci, was born in Gaeta, Lazio, to a well-off family of Campania and Calabria descent, with Arbëreshë (Italo-Albanian) origins.

• Gramsci’s father’s family likely left Albania around 1821, and the surname Gramsci is derived from Gramsh, a town in Albania.

• Gramsci’s mother belonged to a Sardinian landowning family from Sorgono, Nuoro.

• Francesco Gramsci worked as a low-level official and faced financial struggles, which led the family to move across various villages in Sardinia before settling in Ghilarza.

• In 1898, Francesco Gramsci was convicted of embezzlement and imprisoned, leaving the family in poverty. Gramsci had to abandon his schooling and worked various jobs until his father’s release in 1904.

• As a child, Gramsci suffered from health problems, including a malformation of the spine that left him hunchbacked, possibly caused by Pott disease (tuberculosis of the spine).

• Gramsci attended secondary school in Santu Lussurgiu and later in Cagliari, where he lived with his brother Gennaro, a former soldier and militant socialist.

• Initially, Gramsci sympathized with Sardinian autonomism and the grievances of Sardinian peasants and miners, who were mistreated by the industrialized Northern Italy.

• In 1911, Gramsci won a scholarship to study at the University of Turin, where he studied literature and linguistics under Matteo Bartoli.

• During his time in Turin, he witnessed the industrialization of the city, with factories like Fiat and Lancia recruiting workers from poorer regions, sparking the first industrial social conflicts.

• Gramsci joined the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) in late 1913, becoming an active member and observing the Russian Revolution.

• Although talented in his studies, Gramsci struggled with financial problems and poor health, which led him to abandon his education in 1915 at age 24.

• At university, Gramsci was influenced by thinkers such as Antonio Labriola, Rodolfo Mondolfo, Giovanni Gentile, and Benedetto Croce, particularly the philosophy of praxis.

• From 1914 onwards, Gramsci wrote for socialist newspapers like Il Grido del Popolo, building a reputation as a journalist and political theorist.

• In 1916, Gramsci became co-editor of the Piedmont edition of Avanti!, the Socialist Party’s official organ.

• Gramsci was involved in the education and organization of Turin workers, giving talks on subjects like the French Revolution and the Paris Commune.

• After the arrest of socialist leaders in August 1917, Gramsci became one of Turin’s leading socialists, joining the party’s provisional committee and editing Il Grido del Popolo.

• In April 1919, Gramsci, along with Palmiro Togliatti, Angelo Tasca, and Umberto Terracini, founded the weekly newspaper L’Ordine Nuovo.

• In October 1919, despite internal divisions, the PSI voted to join the Third International, with Vladimir Lenin supporting the L’Ordine Nuovo group.

• Gramsci’s group advocated for workers’ councils, which emerged in Turin during the large strikes of 1919-1920, seeing them as essential for workers to take control of production.

• Gramsci believed these councils were critical for the working class to prepare for the conquest of power and government.

• Gramsci’s stance was attacked by Amadeo Bordiga for betraying syndicalist tendencies, influenced by thinkers like Georges Sorel and Daniel De Leon.

• After the defeat of the Turin workers in 1920, Gramsci was almost alone in defending the workers’ councils.