Gramsci's Laboratory: Philosophy, History and Politics

Historical Materialism #204

by Alvaro Bianchi

A milestone in the contemporary Brazilian reception of Gramsci, focusing on the unity of politics, philosophy and history in Gramscis Quaderni del carcere.

306 pages, ebook

Published December 16, 2019

Reviews

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not worth the time spent. Trotskyist partisan reading of Gramsci; Gramsci has an ideological affinity with Trotsky in spite of his clear criticisms but the same cannot under any circumstance be said for Bukharin, Gramsci had hidden critiques of the USSR and Stalin and where he was sympathetic it was a "bizarre" result of his lack of information in prison. Togliatti is interpreted as the regular villain, a Stalinist stooge perverting Gramsci's legacy, etc., etc. If you've one Trotskyist reading of Gramsci, you've read them all. No different than claiming he was a 1:1 follower of any other Soviet leader.

Very little of the actual argument is original or new. Every Gramsci scholar minus Bobbio already knew the key nature of philosophy, history, and politics and their intersection in praxis. Of course Gramsci's writings and thought developed over time and shift dialectically, of course they were conditioned by his imprisonment under Fascism. That this became "influential" in Portuguese-language Gramsci Studies in 2008 terrifies me for its state at the time.