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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 March 2014
1967, ONE MIGHT SAY, HAS BEEN GRAMSCI'S YEAR IN ITALY. In April a conference on the communist thinker was held in Cagliari, the capital city of his native island, Sardinia. A noteworthy book and several important essays dealing with his work, and a new history of the PCI from 1921 to 1926, have considerably enriched the already vast literature on the subject. Impassioned debates over Gramsci's political and intellectual legacy have vivified the usually drowsy atmosphere of the ‘cultural dubs’ in a number of middlesize towns, especially in the South. The time seems therefore appropriate for a reappraisal of Gramsci's role in present-day Italian culture and politics. In other words: how does Gramsci affect the contemporary Italian intellectual? More significantly, what does Gramsci mean to the leaders of the crisis-tom party he contributed to found and controlled before the day of his imprisonment?
1 Lentini, Giacinto, Croce e Gramsci, Palermo‐Rome, 1967.Google Scholar
2 Paolo Spriano, Storia del partito comunista italiano. Da Bordiga a Gramsci, Turin, 1967. See also Prassi rivoluzionaria e storicismo in Gramsci, Rome, 1967, a special supplement of the bi‐monthly Critica marxista. The first five essays, by G. Amendola, A. Natta, L. Gruppi, N. Badaloni, E. Garin are particularly relevant to the subject matter of this paper.
3 Rosario Romeo, Risorgimento e capitalismo, Bari, 1959. On Romeo's critique of Gramscian historiography, see Cammet, John M., Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism, Stanford, 1967, pp. 213–22.Google Scholar
4 See especially the report by Giuseppe Galasso. Also at Cagliari the communist historian Renato Zangheri, co‐editor of Studi storici, pointed out Galasso's ‘constructive approach’ as vividly contrasting with Romeo's aggressive disposition. (The proceedings of the Cagliari meeting have not yet been published and the above quotations are based on the recollections of G. Galli who attended the conference.)
5 Lentini, op. cit., p. 7.
6 Orfei, Ruggero, Antonio Gramsci, coscienza critica del marxismo, Milan, 1966, pp. 239–42. Orfei is dose to the St Fedele study group of the Milan Jesuits which held a two‐day conference on Gramsci's thinking in April 1966. Many communist scholars attended the meeting.Google Scholar
7 Mondolfo, Rodolfo, Intorno a Gramsci a alla filosofia della prassi, Milan, 1955.Google Scholar
8 Tamburrano, Giuseppe, Antonio Gramsci, Manduria‐Bari‐Perugia, 1963.Google Scholar
9 Paris, Robert, ‘Una revisione nenniana di Antonio Gramsci’, Rivista storica del socialismo, 01–04 1964, VII, 21, pp. 163–79.Google Scholar
10 Maitan, Livio, Attualità di Gramsci e politica comunista, Milan, 1955.Google Scholar
11 Del Carria, Renzo, Proletari senza rivoluzione, Vol. 2, Milan, 1965, p. 265.Google Scholar
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14 Cortesi, Luigi, ‘Un convegno su Gramsci’, Rivista storica del socialismo, 01–04 1967, X, 30, p. 160.Google Scholar
15 Fiori, Giuseppe, di, Vita Antonio Gramsci, Bari, 1966.Google Scholar
16 See, among others, Lisa, Athos, ‘Discussion politica con Gramsci in carcere’, Rinarcita, 12 07 1964 , XXI, 49, p. 17.Google Scholar
17 On this point, see Casucci, Costanzo, ‘II carteggio di Antonio Gramsci conservato nel casellario politico centrale’, Rassegna degli Archivi di Stato, 09–12 1965, XXV, p. 432.Google Scholar
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19 Berri, Giuseppe, ‘Appunti e ricordi 1919–1926’, Annali Feltrinelli, IX, 1966, p. 184.Google Scholar
20 Amendola, Giorgio, ‘II significato dells svolta nel PCI’, Pinarcita, 10 03 1967 , XXIV, 10, p. 21.Google Scholar
21 Antonio Gramsci, Note. sul Machiavelli, sulla politica e sullo Stato moderno, Turin, 1954. It is common knowledge that to continue writing in jail and elude censorship Gramsci had to alter the names of most communist leaders (e.g. Stalin is translated as Giuseppe Bessarione).
22 ‘State‐force’ in Gramsci's prison vocabulary.
23 For this interpretation, see especially Fabrizio Onofri, Partito a classe operaia, Bari, 1957, p. 260.
24 See Lichtheim, George, Marxism. An Historical and Critical Study, New York‐Washington, 1965, pp. 345, 366.Google Scholar
25 This point has been developed by Federico Mancini during the conference on Populism held at the London School of Economics and Political Science in May 1967. See a summary of his contribution in Government and Opposition III, 2, Spring 1968, p. 160.
26 Paris, op. cit., p. 175.
27 Cortesi, op. cit., p. 173.
28 Calamandrei, Franco, ‘Il convegno di Cagliari’, Critica marxirta, 03–04 1967, V, 2, P. 183.Google Scholar
