Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937) was a reputable twentieth-century political activist and interpreter of Karl Marx. He helped found the Italian communist party in 1921, which he led for two years until being imprisoned by Benito Mussolini’s fascist government in 1926. He was confined in prison until his death.

.Gramsci rejected orthodox Marxism’s strict economic determinism and presented a flexible interpretation of base and superstructure. He stressed their dialectical relationship and differences within the superstructure between civil society and the state. The roles that leading cultural actors (intellectuals) played in reinforcing or challenging the social order were very important to Gramsci.

In his view, the working class was oppressed by its relationship to the means of production, vulnerability to state coercion, and by the fabrication of consent to the dominant ideology through education and other cultural means. It is therefore at the levels of ideas that the social struggle is to be conducted.

Gramsci’s posthumous Prison Notebooks, written between 1929 and 1935, expressed a humanistic Marxism that emphasized the need for a transformed self-consciousness or “battle of ideas” in society before revolution would occur. This rejected the historical fatalism and materialism of orthodox Marxism. While writing these notebooks, Gramsci reflected deeply on Marxist theory, social struggle, and the obstacles to Marxism in Western democratic countries.

He also produced writings about other subjects of interest during his captivity, such as Italian history, religion, philosophy, art, and literature. These were collected and posthumously published as the Prison Notebooks (1991).

The notion of hegemony was a major theory proposed by Gramsci. It referred to the concealed domination of all positions of institutional power and influence by members of one class. The dominant class maintains its position not only by force but also by consent. Hegemony is sustained through social relations, a network of institutions, and ideas. All this challenges the prospects of revolution, which is why revolutionary activity requires infiltrating and weakening the structures that hegemony occupies.

Gramsci claimed that working required unity through ideological autonomy differentiating it from the ruling class and that this ideology needed to have major influence over official or academic intellectuals that normally defended the social order.

Gramsci reasoned that the working class required unity through ideological autonomy differentiating it from the ruling class. This ideology needed to have major influence over official or academic intellectuals that defended the social order.