Antonio Gramsci, the most important philosopher even in this era..!

Antonio Gramsci mainly explained how the ruling class maintains power in society through his book, “Prison Notebook”. He used the word “Hegemony” to show the ruling class and their henchmen work as an entity to launch the strategies by coercion and consent in society. That means, as long as society believes them, they govern by consent of the society, but when the society starts to desist their orders, they try to govern the society by coercion. Actually, Antonio Gramsci tried to say how ruling classes were smart to connect with the society culturally. In a nutshell, we as a society are embedded with this system and there is no one other than we who contribute to run this capitalist system.

How Hegemony works..

In Gramsci’s ideas, particularly he analyzed Ideology, Culture and Economy to explain the society’s response to the ruling class when the ruling class encounters the crisis of hegemony. But the important thing is, he argued that the economy crisis would not eventually become a political crisis, but it can be a potential for a revolutionary situation in which the society can challenge it. Antonio Gramsci tried to explain that the ruling class responds in two different ways in order to face the Crisis of Hegemony. One way is to use despotic measures with military power. The second way is, to use a strong sense of Nationalism. Maybe, Antonio Gramsci had experiences in Italy by the time he was in the prison to understand the dictatorship in Italy had gone through with the common peoples huge support and the dictator Benito Mussolini and his hegemony were able to curb the situation of revolutionary stage in Italy by using Nationalism.

How Culture works in society.

According to the Marx theory, The power of society is maintained by controlling the economy and its connections. But Antonio Gramsci expanded this idea further. He expounded that both Culture and Idea also play a big roll for that. He argued that the economy and culture can’t be separated. Gramsci said that the idea controls the people and whoever controls the ideas he or she can controls the society. the ideas can be depicted the cultural affairs of the society as well. this is why actually the culture is so important. The ruling class and its hegemony are very capable of convincing to the society that, ” The Way Things are, is The Way Things should Be”. then the society believe they have to go through the hardships or any economy problems because these sort of problems are very normal and no one can change those.

Where Antonio Gramsci was born?

Antonio Gramsci was born in Ales, Oristano province of the island of Sardinia in Southern Italy. He was the fourth of seven sons of Francesco Gramsci (1860-1937) and Giuseppina Marcias (1861-1932).

Antonio Gramsci childhood.

who is Antonio Gramsci? Antonio Gramsci’s father’s family reportedly left Albania around 1821. Gramsi (Albanian form: Gramsci) is a town in central Albania. It seemed that  the Albanian origin of his father’s family hereditary claimed the Surname of Gramsci; an Italianized form of Gramshi.

By the time Antonio Gramsci was born,  Southern Italy was suffering from extreme poverty. The poor peasants in the region were engaged with feudalism era equipment for their farming culture and always causing the poor harvest plus a number of outcomes of poverty based hardships. The island of Sardinia which is 11 km far from mainland Italy, was not different from what Southern Italy suffered at that time.

When Antonio Gramsci was around 7 years of age, his father Francesco had been convicted of fraud charges and sent to prison until 1904. This unfortunate condition resulted in the Gramsci family to go through adversity and young Antonio Gramsci to abandon schooling in pursuit of a number of casual jobs until his father’s release. Apart from that, Antonio Gramsci was suffering from various health problems, specially a malformation of the spine which stunted his growth and left him seriously hunchbacked. For decades, it was reported that his condition had been due to a childhood accident, having been dropped by a nanny but more recently it has been suggested that it was due to Pott Disease, a form of Tuberculosis that can cause deformity of the spine.

Later Antonio Gramsci had his high school education in Cagliari with his elder brother Gennaro who was a member of the Italian socialist party. Gennaro brought the party’s central newspaper “Avantil” for Antonio to read and understand about socialism. Antonio Gramsci however managed to win a scholarship at the university of Turin which is in northern Italy. That was a huge change for Antonio because Turin was an industrialized city and he had a chance to overview the difference of undeveloped feudalist conditions and the pre-module of the industrial era in Italy.

Antonio Gramsci political activities.

How Antonio Gramsci became a leftist? As Antonio’s desire to delve into politics evolved, by 1913, he joined the Italian Socialist Party and became one of the key figures for writing “Avantil” quickly. The more he was engaged with politics, the more he was away from his university education. However his financial problems coupled with his poor health condition played a key role in him to abandon his educational career.

Anyway, by the time he gave up his university studies, he had acquired an extensive knowledge of history and philosophy. Antonio Gramsci was an avid reader of politics and devoured one book after another. This period, particularly from 1914, Antonio turned his reading habit into writing. He was endowed with sound knowledge of history and philosophy, so within a short period of time, he became a famous writer. In 1916, he became co-editor of the “Avantil” paper and later Gramsci started a weekly newspaper L’ordine Nuovo (the new order) with his friends Togliatti, Angelo Tasca and Umberto Terracini. The victory of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia 1919, was a huge inspiration for the leftist activists in Europe and the rest of the world. After the French Revolution, it was the second time the world experienced such a revolution and this historic event was warmly embraced by the Italian Marxists too.

Connection with 3rd International..

So Antonio Gramsci and his comrades of Italy considered the Russian Revolution a new chapter opened into history. In 1920 Antonio Gramsci and his comrades established Communist Party in Italy and he was a key leader of it. In 1922, Gramsci and a small group of the Italian Communist Party participated in the “Third International” which was organized by Lenin. Through this journey he had the opportunity to work with Bolshevik leaders. He got a clear picture of the aftermath of the revolution. He spent around 2 years in Russia. In this period, he met his wife, Julia Schucht who was a violinist. The couple had two sons, Delio (born 1924) and Giulino (born 1926) but Gramsci never saw his second son.

At the end of 1923, Antonio Gramsci came back to Italy. He started to support the ongoing social struggle in Italy. It was an eventful period around Italy because a lot of worker strikes, demonstrations and taking control of working places by workers were occurring at the time. The Italian Communist Party (PCI) had arranged to start a “Factory Council” in the workplaces. By doing this, workers had the opportunity to take control of their working places. 

In this time, Benito Mussolini, a former Socialist party member, who organized a walk to Rome with his fascist party members and soldiers took control of Italy and became the dictator of Italy. Once Mussolini’s totalitarian regime gained power, they started to curb the workers’ struggle and hunt the socialist activities. Through the extreme violence, the fascist regime was in a position to suppress all activity of leftists. then they arrested the activities.

Antonio Gramsci arrest.

According to the special order of Benito Mussolini, Antonio Gramsci was arrested on 9th of November 1926. The prosecutors of his trial hinted that “we must stop his brain from working for twenty years”. Antonio Gramsci received an immediate sentence of 5 years in confinement on the island of Ustic and then the following year was sentenced for 20 years imprisonment. Even though the fascist regime tried to stop his brain from functioning over the 20 years, Antonio Gramsci managed to write down his powerful analytical concepts into 2848 pages which are known as “Prison Notebooks”. Antonio Gramsci could not actually finish his writing before his death in 1937, but he was capable enough to send his notes of Prison Notebooks outside secretly with the help of his sister-in-law, Tatiana.

Antonio Gramsci’s health condition was deteriorating, he was moribund and barely walked or ate by 1935. A lot of international pressure mounted for his release and the fascist regime decided to release him in early April of 1937, but he died in late April 1937. His Prison Notebooks were published in Italy in 1948, and then into English in the 1970s. Even now around the world, there is a lot of debate and discourse going on regarding his powerful concepts and arguments in “Prison Notebooks”.

Ranjana Senanayake.

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Ranjana Senanayake

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