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Selections from Political Writings: 1910-1920
Antonio Gramsci is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the twentieth century. The selections in this volume, the first of two, span the period from his initial involvement in Italian politics to the "Red Years" of 1919-1920, and feature texts by Bordiga and Tasca from their debates with Gramsci. They trace Gramsci's development as a revolutionary socialist during the First World War, the impact of this thoughts concerning the Russian Revolution and this involvement in the general strike and factory occupations of 1920. Also included are his reactions to the emerging fascist movement and his contributions to the early stages of the debate about the establishment of the Communist Party of Italy.
414 pages, Paperback
First published September 6, 1974
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About the author
Antonio Gramsci
554 books947 followersAntonio Francesco Gramsci was an Italian Marxist philosopher, linguist, journalist, writer, and politician. He wrote on philosophy, political theory, sociology, history, and linguistics. He was a founding member and one-time leader of the Italian Communist Party. A vocal critic of Benito Mussolini and fascism, he was imprisoned in 1926, where he remained until his death in 1937.
During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources — not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism and 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 describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies. In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. He also attempted to break from the economic determinism of orthodox Marxist thought, and so is sometimes described as a neo-Marxist. He held a humanistic understanding of Marxism, seeing it as a philosophy of praxis and an absolute historicism that transcends traditional materialism and traditional idealism.
During his imprisonment, Gramsci wrote more than 30 notebooks and 3,000 pages of history and analysis. His Prison Notebooks are considered a highly original contribution to 20th-century political theory. Gramsci drew insights from varying sources — not only other Marxists but also thinkers such as Niccolò Machiavelli, Vilfredo Pareto, Georges Sorel, and Benedetto Croce. The notebooks cover a wide range of topics, including the history of Italy and Italian nationalism, the French Revolution, fascism, Taylorism and 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 describes how the state and ruling capitalist class — the bourgeoisie — use cultural institutions to maintain wealth and power in capitalist societies. In Gramsci's view, the bourgeoisie develops a hegemonic culture using ideology rather than violence, economic force, or coercion. He also attempted to break from the economic determinism of orthodox Marxist thought, and so is sometimes described as a neo-Marxist. He held a humanistic understanding of Marxism, seeing it as a philosophy of praxis and an absolute historicism that transcends traditional materialism and traditional idealism.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
November 19, 2023
Selections from Political Writings by Antonio Gramsci is as advertised. The collection is mostly made up of editorials from party newspapers which he contributed to. It also is made up of some personal correspondence and unpublished essays. Like it says in the title all of the works were written before or around 1920. The latest essay was written five years before Gramsci’s imprisonment; correspondingly this book does not include many of Gramsci’s most famous contributions to Marxism. That isn’t to say that these early writings added nothing to Marxism. Much like in his prison notebooks, a large amount of his writing is focused on interpreting Italy through a materialist dialectic. Even though I do not live in Italy in the early 20th century, his interpretations provide a guide for interpretations of the modern. Particularly, his critique of the Italian Socialist and Communist parties provides an interesting framework for how to create political change in the modern world. With that being said, the most interesting part of this book was seeing Gramsci’s political development. We get to see the lessons that he learns from the First World War, the Russian Revolution, to almost the rise of fascism in Italy. Overall this is a pretty interesting work that gives us an unintentional autobiography of Antonio Gramsci as well as a guide for interpreting the modern world.
March 30, 2022
Reading this was actually super interesting. Not as political philosophy or anything (that part was actually quite bad & v bolshevist which is not cool) but like, as a historical source. Which is not what he was going for, but I liked it nonetheless. Don't read this if you actually want some good political philosophy though.
October 13, 2015
Gramsci has been going through something of a renaissance recently, especially in the Anglophone world, due to a combination of factors. First, there's the fact that he's been wildly influential on the Greek left and the Spanish left. The version of Gramsci they offer tells us a lot about those political formations. For many in Greece, Gramsci is a kind of radical reformist, a Left-Eurocommunist who offers us a strategy of radical ruptures within and without the state. For those in Spain, principally those in Podemos, he's a founding figure of post-marxism, and the strategy is one that transcends class. The second factor in the Gramsci renaissance is the fact that in the Post-Stalinism period theory has been shaken up and theorists like Gramsci have been freed from their place in an crystallised ideological structure. The last reason is the publishing program of the group around the Historical Materialism journal, who are bringing to light, or republishing earlier work that speaks to us anew in this new conjuncture. Particularly important is Peter Thomas's book, The Gramscian Moment.
Gramsci's early writings are mostly sidelined by the debates over his famous 'Prison Notebooks', but there is a lot of fascinating material in this early volume. In his earliest 'Crocean' socialist phase, Gramsci is like an early version of Sartre. His emphasis is on eduction and moral development (which, like much existentialism) almost reads like modern self-development pop-psychology). His second, more interesting phase, was as the theorist of the 'factory council' movement in Turin. Most of the pieces here are republished from the paper Ordine Nuovo, which Gramsci edited and which achieved mass circulation and great popularity at the time. During this phase, Gramsci is keen to differentiate the councils from the trade unions, which are, in his eyes, simply mechanisms for workers to defend themselves within the framework of capitalism. They were bureaucratic in structure and consciousness. The councils, on the other hand, were the seeds of a new state within the old one. No longer was culture and education so important, for it was through the practice of the factory councils - the radical democratisation of the factories - that workers came to understand their place within society. The debates in the book (are councils the same as soviets? what is the role of a party?) between Gramsci and others (Bordiga and Tasca) are fascinating. Sometimes Gramsci is in the wrong yet his work has a liveliness and originality that is reminiscent of Rosa Luxemburg or the early Leon Trotsky, both in theoretical outlook (emphasis on the spontaneous creative powers of workers) and style. By the final few essays of the book, Gramsci runs up against the problem of the Socialist Party, which was actively undermining the council movement and occupations in 1920. For the first time the 'political' proper - that which later defines him as a theorist - begins to dominate his thought, and he moves closer to Bordiga's call for a new party. The final essay is written only days before the Livrono conference when they split from the PSI, a move that later Gramsci considered a grievous error.
These pieces are, needless to say, of their time and place. The working class has been so transformed in advanced countries that it's difficult to imagine factory councils emerging as they did in Turin, which was a city dominate by metalworkers and autoworkers. Though one could imagine councils emerging in industrial countries on the semi-periphery (China (Foxconn!), Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, etc). This is also a work predating the emergence of Lenin as a theorist, and it's marked by that absence. Particularly lacking are notions of strategy or tactics more appropriate to party formations.This was all about to change. Within a decade socialists across the world - including Gramsci - were to associate themselves with the Soviet Union and 'Leninism', and then shortly after that Stalin was to finally take power and stamp out the kinds of liberatory currents that Gramsci here represents. But by then Gramsci himself was imprisoned in a fascist prison by Mussolini, and it was there that he was to write his most influential work.
Gramsci's early writings are mostly sidelined by the debates over his famous 'Prison Notebooks', but there is a lot of fascinating material in this early volume. In his earliest 'Crocean' socialist phase, Gramsci is like an early version of Sartre. His emphasis is on eduction and moral development (which, like much existentialism) almost reads like modern self-development pop-psychology). His second, more interesting phase, was as the theorist of the 'factory council' movement in Turin. Most of the pieces here are republished from the paper Ordine Nuovo, which Gramsci edited and which achieved mass circulation and great popularity at the time. During this phase, Gramsci is keen to differentiate the councils from the trade unions, which are, in his eyes, simply mechanisms for workers to defend themselves within the framework of capitalism. They were bureaucratic in structure and consciousness. The councils, on the other hand, were the seeds of a new state within the old one. No longer was culture and education so important, for it was through the practice of the factory councils - the radical democratisation of the factories - that workers came to understand their place within society. The debates in the book (are councils the same as soviets? what is the role of a party?) between Gramsci and others (Bordiga and Tasca) are fascinating. Sometimes Gramsci is in the wrong yet his work has a liveliness and originality that is reminiscent of Rosa Luxemburg or the early Leon Trotsky, both in theoretical outlook (emphasis on the spontaneous creative powers of workers) and style. By the final few essays of the book, Gramsci runs up against the problem of the Socialist Party, which was actively undermining the council movement and occupations in 1920. For the first time the 'political' proper - that which later defines him as a theorist - begins to dominate his thought, and he moves closer to Bordiga's call for a new party. The final essay is written only days before the Livrono conference when they split from the PSI, a move that later Gramsci considered a grievous error.
These pieces are, needless to say, of their time and place. The working class has been so transformed in advanced countries that it's difficult to imagine factory councils emerging as they did in Turin, which was a city dominate by metalworkers and autoworkers. Though one could imagine councils emerging in industrial countries on the semi-periphery (China (Foxconn!), Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, etc). This is also a work predating the emergence of Lenin as a theorist, and it's marked by that absence. Particularly lacking are notions of strategy or tactics more appropriate to party formations.This was all about to change. Within a decade socialists across the world - including Gramsci - were to associate themselves with the Soviet Union and 'Leninism', and then shortly after that Stalin was to finally take power and stamp out the kinds of liberatory currents that Gramsci here represents. But by then Gramsci himself was imprisoned in a fascist prison by Mussolini, and it was there that he was to write his most influential work.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews