Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was a Marxist journalist, political leader, and social theorist from a poor Sardinian background, small, disabled, and chronically ill. The Italian fascist state famously declared: "We must prevent this brain from functioning for twenty years." Arrested and imprisoned in 1926 at age 35, ten years before Benito Mussolini declared his empire in Africa, Gramsci wrote copious notes in 33 school exercise books during periods when he was allowed pen and paper. These writings became his major work, the Prison Notebooks (Quaderni del carcere).
The Prison Notebooks: A Political Text
According to political theorist John Schwarzmantel, the "fundamentally political text" of the Prison Notebooks examines "the forces acting to preserve and to change the nature of a political and social order." Gramsci wrote as revolutionary hopes of the 1920s and early 1930s collapsed. He rejected dominant Marxist thinking of his day, arguing that classical Marxism was overly materialist and fatalistic, seeing history propelled by shifting structures of economic production. Gramsci proposed a more humanistic Marxism, emphasizing how people could be conscious actors in history and stressing the role of the battle of ideas, which could lead to cultural shifts necessary for revolutionary transformation.
In political philosophy, international relations, sociology, and cultural studies, his concepts have been adapted to topics from international political economy to gender power relations. Schwarzmantel observes that Gramsci inspired thinking about civil society as "the sphere of diversity and difference characteristic of liberal-democratic society" and "the arena for struggle against one-party rule in communist systems." Surprisingly, given his leftist orientation, Gramsci has also become a source of ideas for a resurgent radical right.
Early Life and Political Activism
The young Gramsci, impressed by the Turin working-class movement, joined the Italian Socialist Party in 1913. After World War I, he co-founded and edited the newspaper L'ordine nuovo (The New Order), urging workers to educate themselves, organize, and form an alliance with peasants. Over half a million Italians were killed in the Great War. Deep dismay at these losses and inspiration from the Russian Revolution of October 1917 converged in the view that a "new order" was being born. Gramsci played a leading role in strikes and occupations of Fiat car factories in Turin during the Biennio Rosso ("two red years") of 1919–20. In 1921, the Italian Communist Party was formed, and Gramsci became a member of its Central Committee.
Political upheaval was followed by fascist reaction. Mussolini seized power in 1922. Historian John McKay Cammett noted: "The industrialists had lost their faith in the 'liberal state' and had become receptive to political expedients of quite a different order. The hour of fascism was at hand." The same year, Gramsci went to Moscow as Italian representative on the executive of the Communist International. Returning to Italy in 1924, he was elected to parliament and became secretary general of Italy's communist party—a revolutionary party operating in a fascist state.
Arrest and Imprisonment
Gramsci believed he was entitled to immunity as an elected MP, but he was arrested and sentenced by a "Special Tribunal for the Defence of the State." Already frail due to a physical disability from a fall as an infant and chronic ill health, harsh prison conditions deteriorated his health over 11 years; he died at age 46. Throughout incarceration, "this brain" continued to function at a high level.
Hegemony: A Key Concept
Classical Marxist theory failed to predict revolution in Russia or the rise of fascism. In the Prison Notebooks, Gramsci sought to understand why revolution did not spread beyond Russia and what accounted for Mussolini's rise. He analyzed the unification of Italy in 1861 to develop oppositional strategies for revolutionary parties in Western liberal democracies. His key innovation was the theory of "hegemony," described by Marx scholar David McLellan as "one of the most important, if elusive, concepts in contemporary social theory."
Derived from the Greek verb "to lead," hegemony refers to how a dominant class maintains its ruling position not simply by force but also by consent. A class that uses coercion to impose its will can be said to "dominate"; it becomes "hegemonic" when it provides "intellectual and moral leadership" over allied groups in civil society. Gramsci argued that education, news media, literature, arts, trade unions, churches, and intellectuals shape people's perceptions. Since power battles occur partly outside the political system, revolutionary parties needed to overcome hegemonic power within civil society. Transforming capitalist countries required transforming cultural processes through which dominant groups secure power.
Gramsci viewed education as potentially "a democratic force […] a means of breaking down rather than reinforcing class divisions," in Schwarzmantel's words. He emphasized the role of intellectuals as knowledge workers who contribute to the climate of opinion and maintenance of the existing order. Some are directly connected with the state, but many support hegemony at the level of civil society. Although their views generally support mainstream perspectives, intellectuals might help turn socialism into a "common sense" view. For Gramsci, "common sense" often amounted to acceptance of social injustice, such as significant wealth inequality and diminished democracy. Bourgeois social and economic relations are internalized as "natural" via socialization, leading the governed to consent to their own oppression. This reduces the need for capitalist states to apply brute force, which they still use in crises, and preserves class domination behind notions of "natural order" and "social harmony."
Gramsci's Influence on the Radical Right
Gramsci's time in the Soviet Union led him to worry that the socialist state was not establishing consent among wide populations and was heading in an authoritarian direction. In the Prison Notebooks, he grappled with what social theorist Steven Lukes calls "the problem of democratic consent and how to win it for socialism." Gramsci believed this required political organization, mobilization, and development of counter-hegemonic culture, contrasting with dominant Marxist views that regarded the suspension of bourgeois democratic freedoms as compatible with socialism.
In recent decades, the radical right has gained ground worldwide with opposition to "liberal globalism." A recent study argues that this new right adheres to democracy but is "anti-liberal or illiberal in its worldview and transformative ambitions." Gramsci's influence appears in Europe: Giorgia Meloni's government in Italy has had culture ministers vowing to overturn "left-wing cultural hegemony." In Hungary, the deposed illiberal government of Viktor Orbán decried "cultural Marxism." Orbán wrote a master's thesis using Gramsci's ideas to analyze Poland's "Solidarity" movement in the 1980s.
In the United States, Gramsci's influence is evident in how the Trump movement, the "alt-right," and allied groups have sought to reshape the intellectual and cultural climate. Like European movements, they fight perpetual "culture wars," mobilize people, and establish think tanks, educational institutions, and publishing houses. However, their concept of "cultural hegemony" is simplified; they act as if "battles of ideas" or "culture wars" are all there is. This suggests a poor understanding of Gramsci's concept, which he viewed as unfolding simultaneously across economic, political, and ideological spheres. Cultural power is always connected to economic power.
Historian Quinn Slobodian, in his book Hayek's Bastards, examines the connection between neoliberalism and the populist right. He suggests that, despite political sound and fury, one would struggle to put a cigarette paper between the new right and the corporate elite on issues like wealth inequality, corporate taxation, monopoly power, and financialization. In referencing Gramsci, the new right has failed to grapple seriously with his linking of culture to political economy. Even in well-established democracies, yawning inequality and dizzying capital accumulation concentrate power, disenfranchising citizens and undermining institutions—including those the radical right claims to care about.
