[en] Gramsci in Germany (1927-1989). Historical-Bibliographical Profile

Introduction

On the occasion of the seventy years since the death of Antonio Gramsci, numerous events and conferences were held two years ago in Italy and around the world to commemorate the figure of the Sardinian politician and thinker. Beyond the formal ceremonies or political instrumentalizations that such events inevitably entail—perhaps less visibly in Italy but certainly elsewhere in the world—over the last decades, we have witnessed a fortunate maturation and updating of studies on Gramsci. In this light, the writings of the author of the Prison Notebooks are no longer treated as a Bible from which to extract doctrine but rather as a source of texts and Gramscian categories that provide new tools for analyzing society, politics, and culture from a contemporary perspective[1].

In this innovative sense, Italy cannot be said to be at the forefront, still anchored as it is to a massive and well-rooted tradition of studies that, since the 1960s, has continued to re-examine, often in repetitive ways, those Gramscian categories that elsewhere are read and reformulated through a contemporary lens. A part of this responsibility undoubtedly lies with the political and educational framework suggested—or imposed—by historically significant institutions like the PCI (Italian Communist Party) and the legacy of its educational tradition; another part is attributable to a class of intellectuals highly attentive to partisan politics in its various hues and nuances.

In an occasionally monotonous Italian landscape, external contributions certainly provide a breath of fresh air, especially for that generation of young people—or those very close to them, of which I feel a part—who have realized that the world no longer revolves around the same economic-political and social mechanisms and balances as in the early twentieth century or the post-World War II era. This generation perceives in the Sardinian’s work the contemporaneity of his observations and tools suited for analyzing "the world" in its global dimension as it enters the new millennium[2].

Gramsci’s study remains likely too specialized and confined within isolated compartments—a plausible consequence of the lack of that widespread dissemination hoped for in Italian society after the Second World War. Italian examples of popularizing the biography and work of the Sardinian thinker are neither as numerous nor as modern as this figure would deserve. Moreover, there is a certain difficulty in reading Gramscian studies within Italy for those not directly involved in the field. However, there are sometimes positive examples of study and dissemination that simultaneously take up and spread the main results of research in this area[3].

More than a decade ago, a critical strand of literature emerged that aims to take stock of the situation and identity of Gramscian studies both in Italy and worldwide, a necessity felt on an international level given the vastness of the Gramscian bibliography[4]. Nevertheless, some gaps remain, and it is to help fill one of these, at least in part, that this thesis aims to contribute.

While we can count on extensive, even monographic studies regarding the reception of Gramsci’s work and figure in multiple languages and countries, the same cannot be said for the German context, which remains obscure due to the substantial lack of translations of German studies into our language. This historiographical gap, concerning a linguistic area that is among the most philosophically active and from which the leading figures of global leftist and Marxist thought have emerged, is entirely unjustified. This study—within its own limits—intends to contribute to filling it.

The aim of this research is thus to outline a historiographical profile of the reception of Antonio Gramsci’s work in Germany, a profile documenting the paths, political and cultural influences, and, where applicable, the limitations of Gramscian studies within the German linguistic, political, and national context. The project, which at first glance seems to operate primarily on the level of cultural history, has been understood in a Gramscian sense, thereby giving importance to the relationships between culture and politics and between both and civil society. One of the objectives has been to historiographically link the reception of the Sardinian thinker’s ideas to the political and cultural history of the country over time.

Taking a broad view, the two Germanies offer, at least up to the turning point of 1989, a landscape dominated by the attempt—always variously conditioned, in the East as in the West, by political and cultural demands—to translate and acclimate the most relevant results of Italian research into the German context. In this way, an autonomous approach to the issues raised by the author of the Prison Notebooks was launched. Against this backdrop, the flourishing of Gramscian studies during the 1980s created an essentially new phenomenon in Germany, which my thesis introduces for the year 1989: I refer to the conferences entitled Die Linie Luxemburg-Gramsci, the preparation of the great historical dictionary of Marxism by the InkriT group, and, not least, the complete translation of the critical edition of the Prison Notebooks.

To understand this transition from an essentially receptive to a creative form of reading Gramsci, I believe it is important to immediately highlight what I would call the long and articulated gestation of the process of “Gramscization” of at least a part of German Marxism. I point this out so that this guiding thread is kept in mind during the course of the reading. Below, I provide two types of introduction: the first is a methodological premise intended to clarify the method used in each step of my work—a method partially used previously, yielding good results, albeit for a substantially different endeavor in my undergraduate thesis. Additionally, I offer a historiographical introduction to outline the serious lack of translations of Gramsci’s work in Germany compared to other European linguistic areas.

In developing the thesis, I believed it appropriate, when dealing with an almost unknown field, not to limit the research to brief reports accompanied by bibliographic data but to provide information on the content of these contributions, also seeking to contextualize them politically and historiographically. In this regard, I still found it useful to create a critical apparatus, Appendix I, to avoid overburdening the text with additional notes. In Appendices III and IV, I have divided the secondary bibliography used for this work. The German Gramscian bibliography is not included here, primarily because most of its titles are already listed in John Cammett’s bibliography. However, I remain available via email at elisabetta.roggero@gmail.com for clarifications and additional information.

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to the staff of the Staatsbibliothek (Unter den Linden and Potsdamerstr.) in Berlin and the head of the internal copy shop at the Unter den Linden branch for their efficiency, help, and kindness over the past three years.

A special thanks goes to Matteo d’Ambrosio, the head of the Library of the Gramsci Institute in Turin, for his great availability and punctuality, as well as to the Gramscian Library of Gonnosnò, directed by Giuseppe Manias.

Thanks are also due to Cristina Crivelli of the ISPI Library in Milan for her diligence and friendliness in assisting with research, as well as to the Sormani Civic Library in Milan and, not least, the Einaudi Foundation in Turin, for their promptness and courtesy.

I owe my gratitude to Professor Anna Tonelli, who had faith in me and my work.

The assistance I received for the research and study forming the basis of this thesis was above all thanks to the InkriT group, beginning with founders Wolfgang Fritz and Frigga Haug, masters of the Gramscian method; to Thomas Weber and Peter Jehle for their attention to my studies; as well as to many of the scholars I encountered during the Die Linie Luxemburg-Gramsci conferences: first and foremost, Ruedi Graf, translator of Gramsci's notebooks in the critical edition by Argument, an invaluable interlocutor with immense patience and precision; Juha Koivisto and Mikko Lahtinen, excellent Finnish Gramscian scholars who assisted me in interpreting the historiographical lines on which this thesis is based; and finally, my friends from Aachen: Alban Werner, a young political scientist now active in Strasbourg for Die Linke., and Richard Gebhardt, a political scientist and scholar of the phenomenon of new right-wing movements in Germany, both invaluable informants on German events and indispensable supports for my research.

To Danilo Maccioni, my thanks are due for his substantial help over the past three years, particularly in supporting my decision to leave a previous work environment. Without the strength and inspiration drawn from the hacker ethic, which he passionately encouraged, I would not have had the full awareness and courage to make the right decisions.

This work would not have been presentable without the invaluable help of Professor Fabio Frosini, who embraced my solitary endeavor, drafted over three years, and, rolling up his sleeves, committed himself to its revision, offering guidance despite his own pressing schedule, and showing me a path to improve a text barely in its infancy.

These pages are especially dedicated to my mother, Germana Scuvero, whose unmatched dedication supported and endured even these last years of study. Her physical and moral strength, her determination, allowed me to complete this work. Thank you, Mom.

I would also like to remember the affectionate figure of my elderly cousin Felix Ferrero, a renowned painter who passed away a year ago in San Francisco. Though distant, he followed me and, despite the short time we spent together, helped me understand what it means to have a grandfather.

Without the moral legacy of my father, Oscar Roggero, an ENEL worker and Alpine soldier (and those who are familiar with these two realities will understand what I mean), a rare example of integrity, rectitude, and courage, I doubt I would ever have felt truly Gramscian.

Methodological Premise

This study focuses on works about Antonio Gramsci in the German language, published in Germany (both East and West) from 1927 to 1989. The work began by consulting the Gramscian bibliography compiled by John Cammett[5], recognizing the necessity of noting even minor texts such as journal articles and reviews to better understand the scope of major Gramscian studies in the German-speaking world and the foreign influences that may have shaped their course. What is absent, unlike in a comprehensive Gramscian bibliography, is a systematic review of popular magazines[6], school textbooks, and similar tools that could provide a truly complete picture of the presence or absence of political dissemination of the Sardinian’s work. However, the intent here was not to offer statistics on dissemination but to construct a broad overview of Gramscian studies, their influences, and favored themes, following a fairly rigid scheme intended to complement the list of works included in Cammett’s bibliography.

As a preliminary step to analyzing Gramsci's reception, it became necessary to compile a comparative bibliography of Gramsci's writings published in the major European languages, to highlight interest in Gramsci and the actual opportunities for German audiences to access his works in their language—a necessary step for studying a foreign thinker.

Certain typographical choices, in my opinion, make the text more accessible. For this reason, in the notes, unlike the secondary bibliography, works examined in the thesis belonging to the German bibliography (or translated into German) on Gramsci studies, and therefore drawn from summary cards compiled in the preparatory phase of this thesis, are indicated with the author’s surname in small caps.

Below, I include a graph that provides reasonably explicit data on the chronological distribution of publications concerning Gramsci in the German language. These preliminary data, based on Cammett’s bibliography, have been enriched with new titles discovered during the research. Compared to Cammett’s bibliography, I selected only titles in German published in Germany.

Abbreviations

For citations from Quaderni del carcere (Prison Notebooks), I use the abbreviation Q, followed by the notebook number, paragraph, and the corresponding page from the critical edition by Valentino Gerratana.
Additionally, an online collection of Gramscian writings is available on the LiberLiber website (www.liberliber.it/), which is based on the postwar thematic edition. I have deemed it appropriate to also reference this publication in the footnotes, using the volume abbreviation as indicated in this Table of Abbreviations, which was compiled in 2003 for my Master's thesis.

TABLE OF ABBREVIATIONS
Systematic Collections

MS     Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce, Einaudi, Torino 1948, XXII- 299 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 2]

QM     La questione meridionale, a cura della Commissione culturale della Federazione torinese del Pci, Tipografia popolare, Torino 1949, 35 p. [Cultura nuova, 1].

IOC     Gli intellettuali e l'organizzazione della cultura, Einaudi, Torino 1949, XV-208 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 3], 1966⁸, XV-202 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci. Quaderni del carcere, 2].

NM      Note sul Machiavelli sulla politica e sullo Stato moderno, Einaudi, Torino 1949, XXI- 371 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 5], 1966⁶, XXII-371 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci. Quaderni del carcere, 4].

R                 Il Risorgimento, Einaudi, Torino 1949, XIV-235 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 4], 1974¹¹, [Quaderni del carcere, 3].

AF              Americanismo e fordismo, a cura di Felice Platone, Feltrinelli, Milano 1950, 94 p. [Universale economica. Storia e filosofia, 9].

LVN            Letteratura e vita nazionale, Einaudi, Torino 1950, XX-400 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 6], [Quaderni del carcere, 5].

PP              Passato e presente, Einaudi, Torino 1951, XVIII-274 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 7], 1966⁶, XVIII-273 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci. Quaderni del carcere, 6].

ON             L'Ordine Nuovo. 1919-1920, Einaudi, Torino 1954, XV-500 p. [Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 9].

Antologies

AR              L'albero del riccio, Presentazione e note di Giuseppe Ravegnani, illustrazioni di Felicita Frai, Milano-Sera editrice, Milano 1948, 226 p. [Biblioteca di lettura. Serie letteratura], 1949³, [Biblioteca di cultura. Letteratura, 2].

QM    La questione meridionale, Rinascita, Roma 1951, 111 p. [Piccola biblioteca marxista, 30].

Epistolaries

LC               Lettere dal carcere, Einaudi, Torino 1947, 260 p. a cura di Sergio Caprioglio, Elsa Fubini, 1965, XLV-949 p. [Nuova Universale Einaudi, 60; Opere di Antonio Gramsci, 1].

The Backend of the Work

Borrowing the term from computer programming, I would like to illustrate here the working method followed to research, analyze, and finally present the results of a work as extensive as the one I undertook to write this thesis. I used a methodology that, at least initially, was in some ways similar to the one used for the writing of my Master's thesis (Bibliografia gramsciana ragionata. 1952-1956)[7].

1.         Compilation of the Starting Bibliography
The first step was compiling a bibliography of all the texts in German related to Gramsci: fortunately, much of the work had already been done years ago by John Cammett with his comprehensive international bibliography on Gramsci[8]. To this initial compilation, I added further materials found through targeted research in major international OPACs, but especially through references and cross-references derived during the reading of the studies themselves. From the list of German texts, which grew during the course of the research, I excluded texts in the German language but of Swiss and Austrian origin. At the same time, I began the intense and demanding logistical activity dictated by the necessity to minimize trips to Germany due to the costs.

2.         Localization
The localization of the texts was largely done through search engines starting with the very efficient Karlsruher Virtuelle Katalog (KVK), accessible at the address: http://www.ubka.uni-karlsruhe.de/kvk.html. This is a search engine made available by the University Library of Karlsruhe, allowing specific searches in 19 countries through 40 national or specialized SBNs and OPACs. Naturally, German, Austrian, and Swiss-German catalogs allowed for targeted searches. The second search channel used was the Italian national SBN catalog, which previously referred to the ICCU, the Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico delle Biblioteche Italiane e per le Informazioni Bibliografiche (http://www.internetculturale.it). For local searches, I used the OPAC of the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze and the catalog of the Biblioteca della Fondazione Istituto Gramsci di Roma, accessible through the Polo SBN of the Cultural Institutes of Rome (http://www.istituticulturalidiroma.it). Very useful for the precise retrieval of texts in the Turin area was the Piedmontese SBN hub known as Librinlinea (http://sbnweb.csi.it:8092/BASIS/opacx/udmopac/esimplex/sf), while for volumes present in university libraries, I relied on the Catalogo unico d’Ateneo of the Università degli Studi di Torino (http://cavour.cilea.it/SebinaOpac/Opac).

3.         Procurement
A small portion of the material was found in national libraries; I found many of the studies in Turin libraries, and the Biblioteca della Fondazione Einaudi in the capital of Piedmont was particularly useful, where over a hundred titles are available, especially essays published in journals. Texts of a similar nature can still be found in Turin at the Biblioteca Interdipartimentale “Gioele Solari”, the Biblioteca “Giovanni Tabacco” of the Department of History of the Università degli Studi di Torino, as well as at the Biblioteca Nazionale Universitaria di Torino. Regarding research in Germany, I dedicated, with some collaborations, several weeks to research at the Staatsbibliothek in Berlin in the central section of Unter den Linden (digitally connected to the Potsdamer Straße section), where I was able to retrieve in copy or photograph most of the material I used. For retrieving material in other German libraries, I was assisted by German colleagues and scholars from the Inkrit group. For the remaining texts, I turned to other Italian libraries, such as the Gramscian Library of Gonnosnò (Oristano) and the Biblioteca dell’Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale in Milan. In procuring the last texts, I found it more economical to buy them online rather than incur the significant costs of further trips to peripheral libraries in Germany.

4.         Reading
For purely logistical reasons related to the retrieval of texts, the research initially could not follow strictly chronological criteria, though I tried to adhere to them as much as possible. For this reason, the results of my work had an uneven progression, fostering uncertainty and the fear of providing a historiographically unbalanced, if not outright falsified, idea due to not having all the material produced for each chronological tranche immediately available. Alongside a chronological division of the material, a formal analysis was undertaken, with a scheme for recognizing studies according to their nature (essays, monographs, collected monographs, articles) and their place of publication (BRD, DDR).

5.         The Introductory Analysis

a.             Overview of Existing Historiography
The introductory analysis began with a review of publications in Italian and other languages dealing with Gramsci's reception in Germany (even if marginally), in order to finally make a comparison with the conclusions of the thesis.

b.             Quantitative Data
It was necessary to continuously update the starting bibliography to include new texts as they were found.

c.              Special Studies

                                       I.          Gramscian Texts Available in German (and Other Languages)[9]
The investigation aims to understand which Gramscian texts were available to scholars at the time the contributions were written, at least concerning the German, French, and Italian linguistic areas (many German authors in the 1980s still referred to reading Gramsci from Italian[10]). The investigation took into account certain elements, especially regarding the German publications of Gramscian texts previously translated into Germany:
the formal nature of the texts (collections or anthologies), linking them to the historical period in which they were conceived and published, and considering how these works were received. The analysis was facilitated by reference to reviews published at the time
the place of publication of the texts (BRD or DDR), the Italian texts used for translations,
a concise overview of editorial events that did not succeed[11]
a table of publications in Italian, German (divided between BRD-DDR), French, Spanish, and English, useful for a quick comparison.

                                     II.          II. Relations with the Italian Gramscian Bibliography

     I considered the bibliography in Italian[12] and the contemporary German production; further reflections on the following period are possible based on works such as Il Gramsci conteso by G. Liguori and Leggere Gramsci by G. C. Jocteau[13].

                                   III.          Characteristics of Gramsci’s Reading in Germany

     In anticipation of verifying certain themes that emerged during the reading of the Italian Gramscian bibliography, identified in some of the texts subject to my research, I deemed it necessary to deepen certain specific themes:

-        Italian mediation in the reading of Gramsci until at least the early 1960s (following the death of Togliatti)

-        Bordigist political-ideological positions, related not only to those of the founder of the PCI but also to the political movement connected to his thought

-        Hegelian-Marxism, Galvano della Volpe, Tronti

-        Deepening of the philosophical thought of Schmidt, Althusser, Poulantzas. Deepening of the political thought of Rosa Luxemburg and other German and non-German thinkers (Karl Korsch, György Lukàcs, members of the Frankfurt School, Otto Bauer), with connections to Gramsci found in German studies

-        Brecht's work

-        Deepening of the history of linguistics and Gramscian linguistics, starting with Lo Piparo's essay, elaborations by Derek Boothman and Peter Ives.

-        Political thought of the G.R.E.C.E. of de Benoist

-        Political and social history of the BRD and DDR

-        Political lines and history of the SPD

6.         Analysis of the Studies
In general terms, for this work it was necessary to define an internal periodization within the German Gramscian bibliography: it was organized based on the reading of the studies, and the index in this sense can provide an immediate general idea.
For each study, I tried to assess the political and philosophical attitude of the author towards Gramsci and his work, without neglecting their affiliation with parties, political movements, and philosophical schools.
Some Gramscian categories also emerged from the work, in addition to themes that were more widely debated depending on the period under examination and closely connected with the political and social history of the country. Where possible, I integrated this information at the end of the analysis of the studies in a specific paragraph dedicated to these aspects.

Some Integrations

In addition to the strictly necessary notes, I considered it appropriate to create two appendices that constitute a critical apparatus to the Thesis, both to avoid burdening the main text and to provide more information for understanding the political orientations of scholars and institutions. These are biographical or historical entries arranged alphabetically. The first appendix contains the biographies of the scholars who made the greatest or most original contributions to the development of Gramscian studies, with the awareness that many of these names are largely unknown to the Italian audience. The second appendix is dedicated to publishing, including publishing houses and journals, following the same criteria for selection.

Translating and Not Betraying

In writing the Thesis, I had to confront substantial linguistic issues determined by the need to provide a translation as faithful as possible to the original and to maintain the contextual meaning of the quoted passages. Starting from this essential factor, I thus tried to make the translation as faithful as possible to the original, through careful selection of Italian terms in the most appropriate nuances, so as not to betray the German version.
I consider all of this not as a justification but as an objective fact: although my knowledge of the German language made it possible to methodically write this work, I have nonetheless realized that many of the limitations stem from the fact that I am not a native German speaker and do not belong to the German cultural context. While pursuing the goal of making the "translation" (in the Gramscian sense) in Italian of the studies that appeared in this context as faithful as possible, some of these limitations will likely be particularly evident from the perspective of the German cultural sphere.

Historical Introduction

The publications of Gramscian writings in the major European languages[14]

In Appendix II, a comparative bibliographic outline is provided, following the chronology of the publications of Gramscian writings from Italian into German, French, English, and Spanish.

In Italy

In 1947, Lettere dal carcere (Letters from Prison)[15]  was published in Italy, a work that allowed for the knowledge of Gramsci, his personality, and biography, and for the first time provided a deep portrayal of the Sardinian's character. The importance of this editorial event cannot be overlooked, as, even though incomplete, Lettere manages to offer the Italian people, who had just emerged from the Second World War with a new perception of themselves, one shaped through the Liberation struggle against Nazism and Fascism, an important tool for reflecting on the reasons behind the recent historical events and a catalyst for acquiring a more mature self-awareness. Gramsci's figure began to become important in the collective imagination, especially for his battle against Fascism: the Lettere highlight not only the literary value of Gramsci’s prose, but above all, the dignity and moral value of the man. Gramsci became a national icon, even transcending political divisions. The emotional impact on Italians and the high regard for him within literary circles were recognized when he was awarded the Premio Viareggio in the same year as the publication, alongside testimonies from intellectuals like Benedetto Croce, who asserted, beyond ideological evaluations, that Gramsci "was one of us"[16].
The great success of this publication continued with the immediate release of other Gramscian works. It had been about ten years since Togliatti had first had partial access to the manuscripts of the Quaderni, and despite the difficulty of preparing the thematic edition, the following year the first volume of the Quaderni was published by Einaudi with the title Il materialismo storico e la filosofia di Benedetto Croce (Historical Materialism and the Philosophy of Benedetto Croce)[17]. The publication was completed in 1951, consisting of six volumes, followed by Lettere and the collection L’Ordine Nuovo (The New Order) in 1954. Immediately after this edition, there were many doubts, sometimes turning into outright accusations of manipulation of the texts by the editor behind the scenes, Palmiro Togliatti, while at other times the criticisms were justified by the grim period of the Cold War[18]. In the editorial work on Gramsci’s writings, there emerged a confrontation of interpretations: on the one hand, Togliatti's line of the Salerno politics that aimed to build its tradition on the axis that started with De Sanctis, passed through Labriola, and reached Gramsci; on the other hand, a sudden interruption of this direction due to Stalinist interference[19].

The establishment of the Istituto Gramsci in 1950 was a project aimed at the widespread dissemination of Gramsci’s thought through events and conferences, with the first conference dedicated to Gramsci in 1958 being particularly successful, as was the care and organization of the Gramscian publications in Italy and the authorizations for translations abroad. Under Franco Ferri, who first headed the general secretariat and then became director of the Institute from January 1957 until 1979, a broad network of relationships was established with foreign publishing houses interested in publishing the works of the communist leader.
The critical edition of the Quaderni had a long gestation. Already in the 1958 conference, Gastone Manacorda called for a new edition that would "faithfully reflect the chronological order" and "as far as possible", the exact placement[20].
In 1975, the critical edition of the prison writings edited by Gerratana was published by Einaudi: in the preceding years, a very strong relationship had developed between the publishing house and the Istituto Gramsci for the care of this publication, and a potential help from Einaudi was envisaged in facilitating communication and organizing relations with foreign publishers for the translation of Gramsci’s works. In this regard, Ferri stated in a 1974 interview:
"Translations of the Lettere or of Opere scelte exist in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Romania, Hungary, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, Israel, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, the United States, Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Japan, Australia. The scope of knowledge of the writings is much broader, as the texts circulate in all the countries within the linguistic area of the respective translations"[21]. By 1975, there were already 29 contracts in progress between the Istituto Gramsci and foreign publishers concerning the publication of Gramscian writings.

Gramsci in French

In 1953, Éditions sociales published, with a preface by Togliatti[22], the Lettres de la prison, accompanied by two essays by Denis Richet, published in periodicals[23], which would open the doors to the knowledge of Gramsci’s figure and thought in France. In the closing note to Gramsci et l'histoire de France, Richet announces the imminent publication of a Gramscian anthology by Marc Soriano. Soriano, who "claims credit for having discovered Gramsci and introduced him across the Alps"[24], will recall the open mistrust of French communists toward authors considered "bourgeois"[25]. Despite the publication of some excerpts from the Quaderni in periodicals, it is only at the end of the 1950s that a collection of Gramscian writings, Oeuvres Choisies, will appear, becoming the subject of a dispute between Éditions Sociales and the Istituto Gramsci over the publication rights, as the publisher had already undertaken two separate negotiations with the Romanian Editura Politica and La Rencontre of Lausanne for an anthology based on this 1959 collection. In 1964, a long correspondence begins with Gallimard for the publication of several volumes edited by Texier, who, after withdrawing due to illness following his work on the theoretical introduction to the Gramsci edition published by Seghers in 1966, is replaced by Robert Paris. Paris's role as editor of the work will not be well received in Italy: although Ferri acknowledges him as a serious scholar, he fears the "anti-Gramscian polemical bias"[26], but the favorable opinion of Sartre and Verstraeten, directors of the series that was to host the volumes, leads Gallimard to favor Paris's name. This choice is still contested by Natta at the presentation of the first volume of Écrits politiques: "Behind the Gramscian label, the true aim is that of a biased and narrow contestation of the PCI’s politics"[27], a comment referring to the introduction in which Paris hints at the possibility of a manipulation of texts by Togliatti in the Italian thematic edition. Gallimard specifies that it intends to rely on the critical edition being worked on by Gerratana for the future publication of the Quaderni. Both the Istituto Gramsci and Gerratana respond, reassuring the French publisher that "the critical edition holds no surprises as regards the unpublished works... Everything that was not published in the Einaudi Edition ultimately amounts to a few excerpts, a few omissions, all of which were subsequently made public on various occasions and are, overall, of secondary importance. The scandal of censorship is a fable, as the critical edition will demonstrate"[28].

From the mid-1960s, Ferri is in contact with Althusser, who responds to concerns about Gallimard’s delays and proposes an alternative with the Maspero publisher; the correspondence, focused on editorial issues, will suffer a sharp slowdown after the French philosopher’s refusal to participate in a conference organized by the Institute on "Marxist humanism"[29].

From the mid-1970s, growing interest in Gramsci raises the issue of the delay in Gallimard's publication of Gramscian texts. Only in 1978 does the first volume dedicated to Quaderni 10-13, based on the Gerratana critical edition, appear. The timing of this edition is particularly fortunate and allows the opening of the theoretical debate on the renewal of Marxism.

Gramsci in English

The first edition of Gramsci’s writings in English had to wait until 1957, both in Great Britain and the United States. Gramsci debuts with The Modern Prince in London, while across the ocean, he is introduced through a very brief collection translated and edited by Carl Marzani. The London publishing project belongs to the intellectual environment of the History Group, which includes many young communist-leaning historians: Hill, Hobsbawm, Thompson, and Marks, the latter being the editor and translator of the previously mentioned collection, published by the Communist Party’s publishing house Lawrence and Wishart. The project presented by Marks includes texts from the period 1919-1926, the essay on the Questione meridionale, and two sections of writings from the Quaderni. A substantial critical apparatus allows for an anti-Stalinist interpretation, which is why, since the party was not yet ready, the publication is delayed until the direct intervention of editorial director Cornforth, who manages to unlock the situation. In the years to come, Ferri will identify this collection as the most inaccurate edition both in terms of translation and bibliographic and interpretative apparatus.

From the environment of the New Left Review, a Marxist journal founded by former communists, the project for an anthology of the Quaderni takes shape, published in 1971 again by the party’s publishing house and based on the Oeuvres Choisies selection from 1959, but with extensive verification work carried out by Hoare and Nowell Smith[30], who were invited by Ferri to Rome to examine the original texts. Two years later, Letters from Prison is published by Harper and Row of New York.

Further Gramscian publications are again handled by Lawrence and Wishart, in constant contact with Ferri and the Istituto Gramsci: from 1977 to 1985, several selections are published, first dedicated to political writings, then cultural writings, and in 1988, a selection of writings from 1916 to 1935 edited by Forgacs.

Gramsci in Spanish

In April 1937, Radio Barcelona was one of the first foreign broadcasters to announce Gramsci’s death, and in May, Camillo Berneri, shortly before dying in clashes between anarchists and communists, read a commemoration for the antifascist martyr on the FAI (Federación anárquica ibérica) radio in Barcelona. Although Spain was oppressed by the Francoist regime, a fact that conditioned the spread of Gramsci’s thought until the mid-1970s, the publication of Gramsci’s writings in Latin America and an ill-prepared censorship for writings in Catalan allowed this vast linguistic area to avoid being deprived of Gramsci’s works. Thanks to the uniqueness of Catalan identity and language, Manuel Sacristán Luzón, a communist academic from Barcelona, was able to present Gramsci’s figure and works to a relatively wide audience[31] with *La obra postuma de Gramsci[32]. Meanwhile, Jordi Solé-Tura published the first collection from the Quaderni, still in Catalan in 1966, and in Spanish the following year under the title Cultura y literatura. In the following two years, using the same method—first in Catalan and then in Spanish—El Príncipe moderno was also published. The association with Catalan is not a mere affectation or artifice; in reality, the circle of communist intellectuals close to the PSUC (the Catalan branch of the PCE) organized itself as a true channel for the diffusion of Gramscian thought, even creating an ideal connection between Barcelona and Turin[33].

The 1970s were an important decade for the spread of Gramsci in Spain, even before the end of the regime: in 1970, Solé-Tura edited Introducción a la filosofía de la praxis, an anthology from the Italian volume Il materialismo storico, while the Siglo XXI publisher in Mexico published an Antología that remained the most comprehensive reference to Gramsci’s work for a long time; the volume was censored by the Francoist regime and published in Spain, taking many risks, only in 1974. The Cuadernos publisher released the Lettere, Cartas desde la carcel, in 1972, previously known to the Spanish public only through the 1950 Argentine edition. Meanwhile, discussions and contracts with the Grijalbo publisher and Editorial Fontamara for the publication of the complete works in the former case and political writings in the latter failed to materialize.

With the end of the Francoist regime, a "Gramsci fashion" emerged in Spain, encouraged in 1977 by the political anthology Actualidad del pensamiento político de Gramsci, edited by F. Buey.

In Argentina, after the first publication of the Lettere, Héctor Agosti edited the first Spanish-language edition of the Quaderni, following the thematic edition: the volumes were published from 1958 to 1962. The intellectual environment surrounding the communist journal Cuadernos de cultura, influenced by contacts with a generation of socialist and liberal-democratic Italian thinkers such as Treves and Mondolfo, promoted this publication. The journal would change its name to Pasado y presente, and the group would be expelled from the PCA for asserting "autonomy from any pre-established ideological form and adopting Gramscism as a method for historical and political research"[34]. From 1968, the journal directed by José Aricó and published by Siglo XXI, based in four cities covering the entire Iberian and Latin American area—Madrid, Buenos Aires, Bogotá, and Mexico City—continued its work in exile after the 1976 Argentine military coup, and the following year published Escritos políticos. 1917-1933. Despite the difficulties related to the political situation, interest in Gramsci was continuously cultivated with numerous essays published by Siglo XXI.

In Argentina, Granica of Buenos Aires published Pasado y presente and El Risorgimento, translated by Manlio Macri in 1974 from the thematic edition, while in Mexico, thanks to Siglo XXI, a fortunate era for Gramsci studies began. Between 1978 and 1981, three Gramscian study seminars were held in Mexico City, Morelia, and Oaxaca, with foreign scholars as guests. At UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico) and Puebla, the intellectual environment in exile continued its activity, and the country became a center for the diffusion of Gramsci's ideas as well as for critical work on the Marxist tradition in Latin America. In Mexico, a re-publication of the thematic edition of the Quaderni was released, and later, between 1981 and 2000, the translation of Gerratana’s critical edition was published by Ediciones Era; to this day, interest in Gramsci in Mexico is strongly evidenced by events, conferences, and numerous studies dedicated to him that dominate bookstore shelves.

Gramsci in German

Upon the announcement of the imminent publication of an anthology of the Quaderni edited by Soriano[35], the Dietz Verlag, interested in offering a selection of Gramscian writings, contacts Soriano to obtain the table of contents of the work in preparation. Despite the interest of the Gramsci Institute, however, the project did not continue, although the following year Die Süditalienische Frage appears with this same publisher. A year later, a selection of the prison letters is published in Briefe aus dem Kerker, which are republished by Reclam in Leipzig in a pocket edition in 1962 and again in the Federal Republic, translated from the 1965 edition by Sergio Caprioglio and Elsa Fubini, edited by Gerhard Roth for Fischer in 1972.

Multiple testimonies refer to the preparation of a translation of all the Gramscian works already available in Italian by the end of the 1950s in the GDR[36]. Guido Zamiš, referring to the preparation of this translation, states in his intervention at the 1977 Florence conference: "The Dietz publishing house intended to continue the series of Gramscian publications with a selection of notes from the Quaderni and another selection of articles republished in the first volume of Ordine Nuovo, those from 1919-1920. However, the realization of this plan soon faced unforeseen difficulties," the author refers not only to linguistic ones but to the main lack of writings from the youth years of 1917-1918 and the preparation for the Congress of Lyon; Zamiš, who was part of the commission tasked with editing these works, continues: "How could we have introduced our readers to Gramsci as the revolutionary leader of the Italian working class [...] with documentation that still lacked the most important parts? [...] Therefore, the commission abandoned the execution of its plan and postponed everything to a later date"[37]. Another testimony confirming this failure in the publication of Gramscian texts in the GDR comes from Theodor Pinkus, who mentions the Akademie publishing house as a collaborator in the edition edited by Zamiš. Furthermore, according to Pinkus, the progress of the translation of Gramscian writings seemed to be well underway[38]. Michael Grabek, at the 1989 Formia Conference, attempts to explain the reasons for "thirty-three years of stubborn silence, barely interrupted by three editions from the Reclam and G. Kiepenhewer publishing houses in Leipzig. A silence whose fundamental reasons did not lie in naive-nationalist ignorance, but in rigid interventionist practices." Grabek argues that the SED's intervention in publishing activity prevented editorial autonomy; "The first opportunity arose in the 1950s when a volume of articles from Ordine Nuovo almost complete was supposed to appear, followed by a selection of texts from the Quaderni del carcere. However, with the suppression of an initial debate on Stalinism after the 20th Congress of the CPSU in 1956 (with the slogan: 'Now, please, no wrong discussions!') and with the condemnation of Lukács, Bloch, and others, the Gramsci projects also sank into oblivion." A second opportunity, according to Grabek, came in the 1960s, but Gramsci, again "suspected of being subjectivist, idealist, or a philosopher of praxis, was banned." The third opportunity arose in the 1970s, despite the specter of Eurocommunism: "The Political Bureau of the SED called upon experts to answer the question: 'What did this man want?' and allowed for a cautious expansion of the old horizon," providing a Leninist and cultural-theoretical Gramsci, which appeared in the Reclam edition of 1980 Zu Politik, Geschichte und Kultur, "which contains what is vainly sought in the 1967 West German edition edited by Riechers"[39].

Although for over ten years no further publication of political writings and the Quaderni appeared, Togliatti, Ferri, and several German publishers were in contact to organize an anthology of Gramsci’s works. The first project to take shape was with Fischer Verlag (which had Togliatti’s direct involvement in 1964). The editor of the work could have been Cesare Cases, who promptly informed Fischer of the rights acquired by another publisher: Europäische Verlaganstalt, also in Frankfurt. The publishers’ projects differed in form: Europäische would aim at a specialist audience, while Fischer, on the other hand, aimed for a large print run at a limited cost but with a rich critical apparatus suitable for young people. Moreover, a prestigious preface was sought, such as one by Abendroth or Habermas. The volume was published in 1967, with translation and editing by Christian Riechers, a sociology student, and a preface by Wolfgang Abendroth. It has been noted that this volume fits into the interpretative path of "Western Marxism" inaugurated by the New Left in England. The main limitations of the anthology are found in its questionable choice of texts, which does not fully convey Gramsci’s thought. The shortcomings involve both the translation of the texts and the pervasive interpretation of the editor, with Bordighist leanings[40]. For decades this collection remained the only volume in German available to study Gramsci's thought. This editorial operation effectively contributed to the lack of development, if not the freezing, of Gramscian studies in Germany, which would continue only from those who could read Gramsci directly in Italian or, at most, through French and English translations.

In 1976 Ferri was in contact with Suhrkamp in Frankfurt for a Gramscian anthology: this was the beginning of a troubled affair that would end in failure. Alessandro Mazzone was designated as editor, planning an anthology in four volumes, totaling 1,600 pages, with political writings and a selection from the prison texts. In 1970, Mazzone was in contact with Valentino Gerratana, and it was advised to limit the work to 300 pages dedicated to political writings and an expanded selection of 900 pages from the Quaderni; the volumes would also have a substantial critical apparatus and individual introductions for each volume.

Between late 1977 and early 1978, Mazzone informed the Gramsci Institute that a team of translators had been formed and that delivery was expected in the spring of 1981. However, in the preceding years, a complicated publishing affair saw the project move from Suhrkamp to Europäische Verlaganstalt, part of the Syndicat group: for this reason, Mazzone submitted to the Institute the possibility of an alternative publishing proposal, involving the Academy of Social Sciences of the GDR and the Institute for Marxist Studies and Research in Frankfurt, a choice that would carry important political and editorial significance. The project involving Mazzone stalled in 1982, after a difference of opinion between the editor and Axel Rütters, the head of Europäische, which had by then become Syndacat Verlag and later Athenäum Verlag. The conflict between the two was irreconcilable, and the contractual breakdown marked the failure of the publishing venture.

The publication of the Quaderni, based on the critical edition by Gerratana, only began ten years later thanks to the Argument publishing house in Hamburg and the consistent commitment of the group of scholars coordinated by Wolfgang Fritz Haug[41].

In the 1980s, however, several essential anthologies were published dedicated to specific themes within the Gramscian fields of interest. Guido Zamiš, who in numerous essays and articles had shown himself to be one of the first figures active in spreading Gramsci's biography and ideas for the dissemination of his thought, edited a florilegium of youth and prison writings aiming to outline the thought of that "party man" highlighted by Togliatti[42]. Furthermore, through the critical apparatus and a substantial afterword, the editor sought to provide a political context for the presented writings[43]. Three years later, an intellectual trained in the GDR, who would become a very important name for Gramscian studies in Germany in the 1980s, Sabine Kebir[44], translated into Marxismus und Kultur the anthology edited by Giuliano Manacorda, Marxismo e letteratura[45]. The German editor added a brief introduction of her own. The volume, published by VSA in Hamburg, includes a wide selection of youth and prison writings centered on Gramsci’s concept of culture, from literary criticism to popular culture, and even issues related to linguistics. On this linguistic front, to which in Italy Franco Lo Piparo dedicated an important essay in 1979[46], linking the roots of the concept of hegemony to the young Gramsci’s university linguistic studies, the linguist Klaus Bochmann also addressed this theme in Germany, presenting an anthology supporting the interpretation of Gramsci as a theoretical linguist. Language, culture, national culture, philosophy, and language policy are the themes emerging from this florilegium of letters, youth writings, and prison texts to which Bochmann adds a substantial theoretical introduction.

A second Gramscian anthology is dedicated by Guido Zamiš to the theme of culture as the highest consciousness. In this work, the selected writings explore some of the fundamental directions of Gramsci’s thought: from reflections on the Renaissance, Humanism, and the Reformation to pedagogical issues, from literary criticism and popular literature to folklore, theater, and journalism. The edition, published in 1987, includes an afterword to which Zamiš[47] worked tirelessly despite his serious illness in the last period of his life, and he could still see the manuscript delivered to the publisher just before his death.

At the dawn of the 1990s, Germany still lacked a systematic edition of Gramsci's works, and Argument in Hamburg would address this serious gap with dedication in the years to come, enabling the flourishing of new and original German studies on Gramsci.

According to a study by Stuart Woolf, international interest in Gramsci began in the 1960s and took off during the 1970s[48]. The phenomenon was visibly downsized in Germany compared to other European or Western countries. The thesis will reveal the consequences of the lack of a complete German translation of Gramsci's work, a gap that was filled only by the efforts of a few scholars particularly comfortable with the Italian language and accustomed to using international research and studies. These individual skills, initially solitary, when combined, allowed for the creation of an incipient "Gramscian" literature in German.

1. From the Arrest to the First Critical Contributions (1927-1966)

The Arrest, the Trial, and the Campaign for Liberation

In the autumn of 1927, one year after Gramsci’s arrest and on the eve of that famous trial before the Special Tribunal, later known as the “Great Trial,” Palmiro Togliatti dedicated a piece to the most important figure of the Communist Party of Italy[49] and launched, from the pages of Lo Stato operaio, what would later be internationally recognized as the press campaign for the liberation of Antonio Gramsci. From this moment on, the “intellectual and political management” of the “Gramscian legacy”[50] takes shape. A few days later, on the pages of Die Weltbühne, Alfons Steiniger[51] “gains an unwitting primacy” as “the first foreigner to write about Gramsci”[52] with a description of the phases of the “Great Trial”[53]. Steiniger opens this article by noting the indifference of the major liberal newspapers to the crime committed a few months earlier in the United States against two Italian immigrants, Sacco and Vanzetti. Indeed, after a two-year trial, the two men, from Foggia and Cuneo, were executed in the electric chair on August 23, 1927, a sentence that sparked many popular uprisings in Europe, especially in Germany. The journalist clearly draws a parallel between the two trials: in Italy, Mussolini “wants to crown the first five years of his regime with a second, perhaps even more horrific Sacco case”[54], prosecuting no less than nineteen people before that Special Tribunal established in January of the previous year with a Law for the Defense of the State. Steiniger argues that the novelty of this trial is not just the large number of defendants, but the evident monstrosity of its legal and political nature, judging by the few surviving witnesses of political and public life. The author expresses his grave concern that the same could happen in Germany, where the stifling of public life has only just begun (at the time of writing, six communist leaders are being accused), while in Italy the procedure is a generalized attack against the entire communist parliamentary faction. Steiniger's legal expertise and political analysis seem quite prescient[55], given that in just a few years, following the rise of Nazism, this model will be perfected in Germany with the establishment of the Volksgerichtshof[56].

The pretext for the “monstrous” trial in which Gramsci is involved is the assassination attempt on Mussolini on October 31, 1926. The article contains precise references to the health conditions of the defendants; indeed, the journalist notes that Antonio Gramsci’s physical state is critical. The Sardinian is portrayed not only as a professor but as a theorist of the workers’ councilist movement and is presented as an intellectually recognized figure throughout Italy, even confirming this popularity with a supposed invitation from the University of Hamburg in 1919, an offer that never materialized due to his political commitments[57].

Only in 1930, three years after Steiniger’s article, does the German translation of Memoirs of a Barber[58] appear, based on the Russian original[59]. The following year, translations into Italian, French, and English[60] follow. The volume, Genosse Kupferbart. Aus den Erinnerungen eines italienischen Revolutionärs is published by the Internationaler Arbeiter-Verlag, a publishing house with branches in Berlin, Vienna, and Zurich[61], and for the first time in German presents a testimony of Gramsci's political path during his youth. Germanetto, a companion of Gramsci in early 20th-century Turin, allows us to understand with what clarity the communist leader had interpreted the Russian Revolution and criticized the political strategy of the Italian Socialist Party, not without a political project formulated with the councilist theories, put into practice during the decisive experience of the Factory Councils.

For years, Germanetto's work will remain the first and only attempt to widely disseminate the true biography of the Sardinian, albeit in broad strokes, focusing on his political experiences in Turin.

In the 1930s, Germany saw the rise of Hitler’s chancellorship, which led to the dissolution of parties and trade unions, while in Italy Mussolini sharply contrasted fascism with democratic regimes. Through the network of Italian political exiles, news of Gramsci’s rapidly worsening health managed to cross national borders, and the international press could dedicate space to the worsening of his physical condition. Even from the pages of Rundschau[62], the publication that succeeded the Comintern's organ Inprekorr, news, testimonies, and articles soon appeared regarding the dramatic situation of the communist leader. In May 1933, two articles dedicated to the health conditions of the prisoner called for his release, and these joined the many interventions present in the magazine, usually divided by country of origin, dedicated to the victims of international Nazi-fascist repression, providing updates on their political and physical conditions or describing the state of political freedoms in a given country.

In Rettet Antonio Gramsci[63], an unsigned article, Gramsci’s health is reported with a detailed certificate, transcribed here in German, written by Dr. Umberto Arcangeli[64], the head of a Roman hospital and a meticulous doctor who was a witness to the tragic health conditions of the Sardinian. The certificate in question had been transcribed the previous day in L’Humanité and later in L’Unità operaia in New York[65]. Just two weeks later, the article *Wir müssen den Genosse Gramsci retten!*[66] announced that at an antifascist conference in Paris, the immediate release of Gramsci had been demanded, and similar assemblies were being organized in Vienna, Prague, Brussels, London, Scandinavian countries, and the United States, hoping that even in countries where fascism was dramatically triumphant, voices could be raised about the imminent assassination by fascists.

A victim of the Nazi-fascist regimes like Thälmann, Torgler, and Dimitrov[67], Gramsci was named Honorary President of the European Antifascist Congress held in Paris from June 4 to 6. At the end of the same month, Germanetto sought to explain, through his personal testimony, the repressive strategy carried out by the Italian bourgeoisie and the reasons why the elimination of the communist leader[68] was deemed necessary. He was the soul of the Communist Party of Italy, and moreover, with Ordine Nuovo, he had led the councilist movement during the factory occupations, the peak of revolutionary movements during the biennio rosso, in a political environment that succeeded in gathering and uniting many ideological nuances (from anarchism to reformism). That period shook and terrified the bourgeoisie, which sought comfort in the inefficacy of the trade union leaders (D’Aragona, among others, later joined fascism) and other leaders of the workers' movement. The author also expresses his revulsion for the social democratic environment that at the time refused to support the workers' movement due to fears of Bolshevism (the example of Nenni is cited), and now, from the columns of Avanti!, Libertà, and Populaire, it defends Gramsci. Germanetto still hopes for the creation of a united front of all workers against fascism, but also against the leaders of social democracy, where only the action of the Italian working masses and international solidarity can save Gramsci and other victims of fascism.

The following year, in contrast to the polemical style characteristic of the testimony of Gramsci’s Turin companion, an appeal appeared destined to have a very wide international resonance. Romain Rolland, Nobel Laureate for Literature during World War I, published a pamphlet on the victims of fascist prisons[69]. After a quick but sharp overview of the German and Italian fascisms, the figure of Gramsci appears in all its importance among the victims of fascism. Rolland briefly reviews the characteristics of the human and political figure of the Sardinian, and in order to describe his political and philosophical line with precision, he lets excerpts from Gramsci’s articles speak directly. The interest is directed towards Gramsci the councilist, a political experience that leaves no room for spontaneity. Rolland adds to the text some references from the testimonies of Athos Lisa and Carlo Reggiani, who were also detained in the Turi prison in Bari.

Meanwhile, the appeals for Gramsci’s liberation continue, with his health in increasingly dramatic conditions: from Paris, news still arrives on the pages of «Rundschau»[70] that the International Legal Association is alarmed about the health of the communist leader, who is suffering from tuberculosis. A curiosity: among the names of political prisoners under the fascist regime, the socialist Pertini is also mentioned here. At the beginning of 1935, from the same columns, informed by «L’Humanité», contradictory news[71] is published about the conditional release of the communist leader, and a delegation is exerting pressure on the French embassy in Rome to act and take care of the health condition of the communist leader. Meanwhile, doubts arise from Milan regarding the location to which Gramsci will be transferred, although the rumor spreads that, considering his state of health which requires treatment, it is likely that he will be transferred to his country of origin: probably Sardinia or southern Italy.

The sporadic interventions listed, from 1927 to the 1930s, show how the left-wing German press, now destined for exile in order to survive, highlights an interest in Gramsci focused on the urgency of his health conditions and the need for a broad International Campaign for Liberation, a phenomenon that was common at the time for many left-wing leaders. However, the importance of that dense network of information exchange and contacts between exiles should not be underestimated, as it surely contributed to making Gramsci’s name known, first of all, among the most prominent figures of antifascism and international communism, to an audience much larger than just the Italian borders.
The German bibliography accuses, due to the increasingly dramatic political situation, a real collapse: for more than fifteen years, no news of Gramsci will appear either in the press or in literature. The end of the Second World War, coupled with the time needed for a difficult reconstruction, however, promises to bring the ideas of the victims of fascism and Nazism back into the spotlight, and in Germany, the first editorial attempts will be made to bring forth the biography of the communist martyr.

Gramsci presented by Togliatti

As mentioned, the political upheavals that swept across Europe, and particularly the German-speaking world, cast a heavy veil of silence over the figure of Gramsci. This is evidenced by the fact that it was only almost a decade after Germania Anno Zero[72] that one could finally think about the historical reconstruction of the struggles of the most significant international figures in the opposition to fascisms. The significant contribution and constant effort of Palmiro Togliatti in spreading and ingeniously reconstructing the figure of Antonio Gramsci, communist martyr and one of the most important political and intellectual figures in the international workers’ movement, should be highlighted. Naturally, the steadfast focus on such a high figure, the dissemination of his works and, later, the development of Gramsci’s thought, would play a decisive role in favor of Togliatti in introducing the “new party” concept and emphasizing the democratic and national character of the PCI’s actions[73]. John Cammett remarked, commenting on the data that emerged from his Gramscian Bibliography, that “from 1947 to 1952, there was an average of more than fifty publications annually on Gramsci. In those years of the Cold War, perhaps not of ‘iron and fire’ like the 1930s, but certainly of a sterile confrontation between two ‘different social systems,’ only the PCI, among all the communist parties of the world, had the courage to begin a new inquiry into the nature of Marxism and its applications in understanding the past and the present. Naturally, only the PCI had Antonio Gramsci and, we must add, Palmiro Togliatti, the director behind the publication of the Quaderni”[74]. As shown by the quantitative data collected in Cammett’s Gramscian bibliography, the German world, in comparison to other European countries, seemed to open, from the postwar period, this countertrend, which would become increasingly evident quantitatively and, in some ways, qualitatively, with the passing decades.

Still, during part of the 1950s, there is no trace of other writings, even journalistic articles, that indicate any interest in Gramsci in liberated Germany; as a sign of increasing ideological rigidity in the East, the 1950 Third Congress of the SED hailed “the appearance of the first two volumes of the German edition of Stalin’s works”[75] as a significant ideological event. On the 15th anniversary of Gramsci’s death, the first German article dedicated to him was written by Guido Zamiš[76], a figure who would play a central role in spreading the biography and works of the Sardinian in the German-speaking world. Zamiš met Gramsci in 1923-1924, when the Party decided to assign him to Gramsci during his stay in Vienna[77]. In this article, the Triestine writer portrays Gramsci as born in “ärmlichen Verhältnisse,” outlines the major events that made him a protagonist in the history of the PCI and international communism; above all, he emphasizes his role as a martyr for Italian antifascism, not forgetting the “innige Freundschaft”[78] that tied him to Togliatti. It would indeed be a contribution from Togliatti that would finally break the veil of silence that had fallen over Gramsci, through the translation of a collection of speeches dedicated to the Sardinian, which had already been published in Italian at the end of the 1940s[79].

In the volume translated by Dietz publishers[80], some of the most important testimonies by Togliatti, made during his exile and in public speeches delivered on politically significant occasions, are presented. Erste Rede. Der Führer der italienischen Arbeiterklasse[81] introduces to a wide audience the figure of Gramsci as the first true Italian Marxist, one who was able to fully understand the teachings of Marx and Engels. Described primarily as a man of the party in opposition to the socialists and opportunists, he spread in Italy the experience of the Russian Revolution and Lenin’s teachings. As the leader of the ordinovista experience first and of the PCI later, he often found himself in full disagreement with Bordiga. Togliatti emphasizes the happy unity of revolutionary theory and practice that Gramsci was able to achieve.
In Zweite Rede. Gramsci, Sardinien, Italien![82], Togliatti describes to the audience in Cagliari Gramsci’s attachment to his homeland, a bond that, starting from his youthful reflections on the island’s independence, comes to understand, alongside his growing proximity to the “Continent” and socialism in Turin at the time, in an increasingly broader vision, the class nature of the Questione meridionale; for Gramsci, the necessity of fighting the inequalities of the South through the liberation of workers and peasants from the bourgeois yoke becomes evident, in a movement of renewal that involves Italian society as a whole. In Dritte Rede. Gramsci als Denker und als Mann der Tat[83], Togliatti presents to the audience in Turin the formative value of the Gramscian experience “under the Mole,” both at the human and political level with the socialist experience, and at the academic level, where the Turin university contributed significantly to shaping the critical consciousness of the young Sardinian in opposition to prevailing idealism. The fourth part of the volume, Anhang. Bericht über Gramscis Tod[84], provides information about Gramsci’s death through the detailed account of his sister-in-law, Tatiana, to her sister and to the comrades.

As will be seen later, the dissemination of Gramsci’s biography and works in Germany is increasingly in close contact and sometimes even mediated by Togliatti’s perspective. Meanwhile, the PCI’s secretary has to deal with the first dissensions regarding the party’s historiographical line, summarized and widely disseminated in 1952 with the Quaderno di Rinascita Trenta anni di vita e lotte del P.C.I.[85]; the publications that manage to challenge what can be defined as an uncontested historiographical domain, characterized by some “omissions and distortions”[86], are mainly two essays: the first is Storia del Partito comunista italiano by Galli and Bellini[87], where Amadeo Bordiga, who will probably be more known in Germany than in Italy, is not only mentioned but recognized in a prominent role, even in opposition to the Gramscian political line. The second contribution is by Angelo Tasca, who, with his testimonies in the columns of Il Mondo[88], radically denies the Togliattian interpretative line, citing documents (including the 1926 letter), previously unknown or little known, or recounting episodes that were censored or downplayed[89]. This phenomenon of opposition to the communist historiography of the 1950s is just beginning, but it will soon usher in a new phase of historiographical rethinking and reconstruction, which in Italy will emerge and lead to new studies on Gramsci, but in Germany it is still far from happening.

The Southern Question

The unfinished essay La Questione meridionale was the first Gramscian text translated into German, by Dietz of Berlin. This choice does not surprise us, considering the policy initiated by the SED during the 1950s aimed at the construction of socialism in the countryside: from 1952, in just six years, the percentage of private property in the countryside decreased from 90% to 60%; the results achieved in favor of the collectivization process assumed a fundamental value in the territories of the DDR, still predominantly agricultural[90].
In the editorial note by the Italian edito[91], the history of this essay by Gramsci, which remained unfinished following his arrest, is explained. The booklet also contains some prison notes taken from Il Risorgimento, from the Italian thematic edition. The choice is due to the fact that many of these fragments are an addition and evolution of the theories outlined in the 1926 essay and concern national unity, the relationship between the State and territory, and political leadership in the construction of the nation and modern Italian State.

Another contribution by Germanetto, a figure of international communism popular since the 1930s, is found in the translation of the history of thirty years of struggles of the Italian communists, written by him together with Paol[92]. The volume collects contributions dedicated to the key moments in the history of the party, from the Russian Revolution and the Livorno split to fascist violence, the defeat of Bordigism, and the consequences of the reconciliation between the State and the Vatican. The opening of the volume features the text Un grave lutto del P.C.I.: la morte di Antonio Gramsci, dedicated to the death of the communist leader directly caused by Mussolini’s responsibility. The commemoration of Togliatti in Moscow, a few days after the comrade’s passing, is also recalled, and the introduction of the method for the training of cadres in the party’s political practice, introduced by Gramsci, is praised.

The floor is returned to Togliatti in the introduction to Briefe aus dem Kerker[93], with the speech given at the University of Turin in April 1949, where the writing on La Questione meridionale is presented as a turning point, although embryonic, in Italian historiographical studies. The speech had been prepared by Togliatti two years earlier, for the tenth anniversary of Gramsci’s death in Cagliari (it is no coincidence that the importance of the Sardinian period for the development of the political thought that would emerge in the essay on the Southern Question is emphasized). Togliatti celebrates the Turin formative experience as a moment of civil development and improvement in research, but above all highlights the importance of Turin in bringing Gramsci closer to the workers’ movement. The journalistic activity carried out by the Sardinian in the Piedmontese capital demonstrates his ability to immediately grasp the significance of epochal events such as the October Revolution and the meaning of Lenin’s activity, pushing him to study the Russian language. Gramsci is here described, with brief biographical notes, as a leader already recognized in 1915 within the left wing of the socialist movement. Accompanying the collection is an editorial notice already compiled for the original volume by Einaudi.

Guido Zamiš, in a review of the volume[94] published in the first issue of the journal Deutsche Aussenpolitik, laments the insufficiency of German publications on contemporary Italy, but above all notes the lack of Marxist works, despite the publication of Dreißig Jahre Kampf der italienischen Kommunisten and the biography of Togliatti, which he himself translated[95]. The role of the Dietz publishing house in breaking the deadlock with the publication of the Lettere and La Questione meridionale is appreciated, and Zamiš focuses on the latter publication to highlight the multiplicity of themes it encompasses, as it deals not only with the relationship between the South and the North in the history of Italian unification but also proves to be a valid source of universal values. The Triestine historian focuses on a crucial point: the lack of a Jacobin role and popular demands in the Partito d’azione and the Italian bourgeoisie; for this reason, unification could not address two of Italy’s greatest issues: the agrarian question and the relationship with the Church, as well as the confrontation with the Austrian military power.

In the DDR, where the SED is organizing into a politically "new type" party, a tremendous collective political and social effort is demanded from the people to implement a rigid and burdensome economic program, which, with the pace of a forced socialist construction, severely impacts the weakest classes. In this dramatic context, the uprisings of June 1953 break out, suppressed in blood by the Soviet military apparatus. In a politically precarious situation already accustomed to purges, it is understandable how any dissemination of ideological contributions must be filtered, mediated, and carefully constructed, especially since at the time the only acceptable key to interpretation was that dictated by the orientations of a fraternal communist party. It is still interesting to note how the first Gramscian publication occurs in the DDR, touching on the Italian themes that could interest precisely those regions of Germany, still predominantly agricultural and ravaged by war. However, with 1956 and the XX Congress of the CPSU, some theoretical stimuli shake the political and cultural world. The first responds critically, albeit somewhat superficially, while from the second emerge critical spirits that will be swiftly suppressed: in the fall of 1956, in fact, the DDR experiences "the triumph of cultural repression"[96] through some arrests in that cultural opposition movement that had developed in universities and was gathered around intellectuals such as Ernst Bloch and Wolfgang Harich[97].

The interest in the developments of Italian culture

If Zamiš hoped for the dissemination of works on contemporary Italy, one response came from a brief monograph by Hans Hinterhäuser, dedicated to understanding Italian reality through multiple types of analysis of society and politics[98]. This study attempts to offer German readers "ein (fragmentarisches) Bild vom italienischen Leben im letzten Jahrzehnten"[99]: it records that peculiar division in society which is reflected in politics, with identification either in the Christian Democracy or the Communist Party: "die beiden Kampffronten, in die sich das gesamte italienische Leben nach einem ersten Auskosten der neugewonnenen Freiheit ausspaltete, sind nach der geläufigen politischen Farben-symbolik als Schwarz und Rot gekennzeichnet"[100]. To describe this social fracture, Hinterhäuser considers the fundamental political developments, as well as the economic reconstruction and the religious situation; from the state of education, the discussion moves to the literature of self-determination, to neorealism in prose, painting, and cinema. From theater to cinema to architecture, the author outlines a panorama of Italian production and interests. Among the names of the intelligentsia and politics of the peninsula, the figure of Antonio Gramsci stands out, cited by Letteratura e vita nazionale, for his theory on the role of intellectuals, especially regarding their detachment from the people: the main factor in the popular preference for foreign writers[101].  The author indicates the authority and seriousness of Gramsci's work, asserting: "die Briefe und Aufzeichnungen Gramscis [...] sind von höchstem geistesgeschichtlischem Interesse und warten auf eine – ideologisch unvoreingenommene - Auswertung."[102]

For the 20th anniversary of Gramsci's death, Alfred Antkowiak dedicates two dense pages to the work of the communist leader in Die Literatur und das Volk[103]. Despite the brevity of the piece, Antkowiak manages to describe with precision the most important Gramscian themes, starting from the biographical-political experience to the literary theme, from reflections on De Sanctis' literary criticism to notes on folklore, and from the theme of the national-popular character of literature to the role of intellectuals in the class organization of culture. Affirming the analytical capacity of the Sardinian thinker on a variety of topics from the political to the literary, even though "naturgemäß werden Gramscis Bemerkungen über Literatur und Literaturkritik die besondere Aufmerksamkeit der deutschen Schriftsteller und Literaturwissenschaftler beanspruchen," they touch on "Frage, die auch für uns noch lange aktuell bleiben werden. Ein Grund mehr, es nicht unbeachtet zu lassen."[104]

To provide an overview of the German bibliography on the Italian Communist Party, its history, and its protagonists, Horst Bunke reviews several texts in the monthly Der Bibliothekar[105]. Once again, a prominent figure stands out: that of Palmiro Togliatti, who offers his key to understanding Gramsci's work. The undisputed leader of the strongest communist party in a capitalist country, second only to the French Communist Party, "Il Migliore" was the subject of a biography by Marcella and Maurizio Ferrara. To trace the history of the Party, the monograph by Robotti and Germanetto is recommended, from which the figure of Antonio Gramsci also emerges: "der erste Marxist-Leninist Italiens, und seine ideologische Position bestimmt seine Grundhaltung in den Studien über die wirtschaftliche, soziale und geistige Struktur und Entwicklung Italiens im 19. und im ersten Viertel des 20. Jahrhunderts"[106]. Bunke then reviews, highlighting their significance, the reflections on Italian political-social history from the early Risorgimento to the 20th century, through studies on the relationship between peasant and worker masses, and no less significant are the reflections on the role of intellectuals, as noted by Togliatti. Bunke describes the collection Briefe as capable of "interessieren und erschüttern vor allem durch die reichen Gefühle, die sie ausdrücken oder mitunter nur ahnen lassen, weil Gramsci den zensurierenden Beamten möglichst wenig Einblick in sein Seelenleben geben wollte[107].

On the occasion of the Congress of Gramsci Studies held in Rome from January 11 to 13, 1958, Zamiš dedicates several pages in the journal Deutsche Aussenpolitik to describing the event[108]. All the participants, the countries of origin, and the themes discussed are covered. A more detailed report is dedicated to the interventions by Garin, with a philosophical focus on the relationship between Gramsci’s thought and Machiavelli and Marx, Cessi's intervention on historical studies in the Quaderni and the language used to evade censorship, while Luporini advocates for the hypothesis of a fully conscious decision by Gramsci to best convey the direction of his thought. Inevitably, "zum Höhepunkt der Tagung […] der Bericht Togliattis"[109], to which Zamiš dedicates a few columns, which reprises the relationship between Gramsci and Leninism and the political biography of the Sardinian. Among the other contributions in the discussions, Albert Schreiner's is appreciated, particularly for his personal experience in Stuttgart, regarding the role of factory councils as a weapon of the proletariat for the conquest of power. Zamiš also reflects on an article published in the Christian Democrat journal Il Popolo concerning the Congress, which draws attention to the secular basis of Gramsci's thought, pointing out a danger in the intellectuals participating in the meeting, those same men who "an den Universitäten unsere Söhne lehren"[110].

Italian Gramscian literature undergoes a shift after 1956, with the 20th Congress of the CPSU, the end of Stalinism, and the Cold War. A "more favorable climate" is created, even on the left, for free scientific research in historiography, as the "third-internationalist custom of considering the history of the party as a place of constitution and legitimization of leadership" comes to an end. With the beginning of the publication of Gramsci's writings prior to his arrest, space is finally opened for the dissemination of a Gramsci who is striking for "l’apertura mentale, l’antidogmatismo, la ricerca critica, impostazioni di metodo e di sostanza radicalmente 'antistaliniste'"[111]. While in West Germany, 1956 is the year in which the KPD is banned by the Constitutional Court and intellectual life in the GDR is inextricably linked to party directives, which shortly thereafter will solidify with the cement of an "antifaschistischen Schutzwall"[112], creating a political and theoretical attitude that, directly or consequentially, leaves little room for debate. For these reasons, the characteristics of Italian historiography cannot yet flow freely into German Gramscian literature. The situation of Gramsci studies elsewhere is different: in countries such as France[113], there is already an initial phase of enrichment, soon followed by studies that will overwhelm the interpretation of Gramsci in the United Kingdom[114] with scholars like Eric Hobsbawm, or more clearly in the United States with Open Marxism by Carl Marzani or Consciousness and Society by Stuart Hughes, which stands in sharp contrast to the silent caution of U.S. orthodox Marxism[115]. In Latin America, some early tentative attempts to engage with Gramsci's thought can also be observed in the first enthusiastic Gramscian readings from the Argentine edition in Chile[116], or in early 1960s Brazil[117], with first references from Carlos Nelson Coutinho, Leandro Konder, and Michael Löwy.

The Marxist theorist and the founder of the PCI

In 1962, Iring Fetscher, a scholar who would also be a guest at the 1967 Cagliari conference, edited an anthology of writings titled Der Marxismus[118], aimed at explaining its nature and reasons through the original works of its main theorists, covering the major themes of political and cultural discourse. In the first volume of the work dedicated to philosophy and ideology, the author introduces the German Marxist public to a reference to Gramsci’s work in three sections of the collection: the critique of religion, with a passage dedicated to Christianity as the greatest utopia of humanity[119]; the philosophy of history, with some excerpts, among which are notes on German idealism and Marxism, the exact concept of ideology, and the problem of historical relativism from a Marxist perspective; concerning the section on Weltanschauung, Fetscher’s choice spans from Gramsci’s critique of the Kantian noumenon to observations on popular realism. As a preface to the thematic sections, the author provides a general presentation, where Gramsci is described as the most significant Italian Marxist theorist, as well as a co-founder of the PCI, and approached as a theorist first to Ernst Bloch for his critique of religion and later to Lukács for his philosophy of history. The author, who counts a variety of tendencies among the Marxist classics (ranging from Hegel to Marcuse or from Lenin to Bukharin), emphasizes how Gramsci is suspected of a proximity to Hegel according to the orthodoxy of Soviet Marxism.

Ten years after the first article dedicated to Gramsci, for the 25th anniversary of his death, Zamiš continued his work on spreading the figure of the Sardinian, designating him "der Gründer der Kommunistischen Partei Italiens"[120], a title that in 1974 would be reduced or clarified by the same author to "geistiger Gründer und Führer"[121]. This contribution condenses many of the political themes emerging from the Quaderni as well as from his pre-prison writings. It is interesting to note how the author does not dwell on general remarks about Gramsci’s work but instead quotes extensively from key passages of the Einaudi edition of Gramsci’s writings. Among the sources used by Zamiš are Gli intellettuali e l’organizzazione della cultura, Note sul Machiavelli, Il Risorgimento, L’Ordine Nuovo, Die Süditalienische Frage (as well as Carbone and Lombardo Radice’s Gramsci biography, some of Togliatti’s writings on Gramsci, and passages from Lenin’s Ausgewählte Werke).

Zamiš revisits Italian history as Gramsci experienced it, beginning with the Giolittian political context; from the First World War, with the creation of the economic and social conditions for the rise of fascism and the political split marked between peasants and workers due to religious circles. The focus is on the literary and ideological culture of the time, when mysticism, irrationalism, and decadence (with the Futurist example) gained prominence over positivist and verist trends. In this way, the seeds of the harvest that would yield fascism are sown. In response to the cultural crisis on the irrationalist and idealist front of Crocean inspiration, Gramsci thought the working-class movement should respond by clarifying its position: only under the guidance of a properly Marxist-Leninist party could it evade purely syndicalist-reformist claims and face more complex needs.

Among the biographical notes accompanying the development of Gramsci’s thought, along with attention to the October Revolution, is the opportunity to establish the Italian Soviets through the emancipation of the Internal Commissions into factory councils. In this regard, Lenin’s recognition of the revolutionary vanguard platform of L'Ordine Nuovo as positions belonging to the Third International is mentioned. Following the history of the PSI up to the Livorno split, Zamiš recalls Gramsci’s dissent with Bordiga’s abstentionism. Among the passages cited by Zamiš, an important testimony of the Italian political situation and Gramsci’s analytical clarity is found in an excerpt from Per un rinnovamento del Partito socialista, an article written in 1920 denouncing the crossroads in which the working class found itself, caught between seizing power or suffering "a tremendous reaction from the propertied class and the governing caste"[122].

In his description of the prison period, Zamiš asserts Gramsci’s opposition to Trotsky, while the prison fragments are constructed around the figure of the "modern prince" beginning with Machiavelli's political analysis to outline a new entity: the political party. From his reflections on Machiavelli’s Prince, Gramsci refines and develops the characteristics of the new Party based on the relationship between its organic base and its superstructure. The author explains how Gramsci’s prison works, "der ein enzyklopedisches Wissen besaß"[123], embrace the entirety of Italian political life, and, when revisiting cultural history, the primary critiques made by Gramsci to Croce’s neo-Hegelian idealism, as well as the theoretical dismantling of expressions of vulgar economic determinism. Zamiš emphasizes how each of these themes is taken up with a fundamentally dialectical approach tied to the idea of the Italian working class's struggle for power, finding Gramsci’s imprint in the PCI’s contemporary cultural policy. The author also points out how Gramsci was able to view past problems in relation to the present; thus, the numerous references to the Risorgimento and Italian Unification, the Enlightenment, and the French Revolution, the Renaissance and Humanism in its reactionary form, as well as the relationship between these two periods, emerge: the lack of a Reform, questioning whether there were real premises for its realization.

In conclusion, Gramsci’s awareness of the identity between philosophy and politics is revisited, and it is noted how the expression philosophy of praxis was not meant to evade censorship, but carried with it an original meaning of dialectical unity between thought and action.

The genesis of the Italian Communist Party is also recalled by Julius Braunthal[124] in his description of the split process of the International in which the Italian faction plays a role; the Party leadership, initially guided by Bordiga, only later, under Gramsci’s direction and the Theses of Lyon, comes to realize the need for a united front of antifascist democratic forces.

In a volume by Dietz that collects writings and speeches by Togliatti on the struggle of the Italian and German working classes[125], we find strong support for Zamiš’s thesis: it is the translation of the speech delivered at the Adriano Theatre in Rome at the beginning of 1961[126], where Gramsci, heavily influenced by Lenin’s thought and the Russian Revolution, is undoubtedly identified as the true founder of the PCI.

Johannes Hösle also discusses Gramsci as the founder of Italian communism, this time in the pages of the liberal magazine Merkur[127]. The author reflects on the inseparable bond between the biography of the undisputed PCI leader, Palmiro Togliatti, recently deceased, and the brief yet intense work of Antonio Gramsci, the true founder of the party: "in der Tat war es nicht Togliatti, sondern der nur zwei Jahre ältere Gramsci, der in der Krisenjahre nach dem ersten Weltkrieg die entscheidenden Schritte zur Gründung des PCI unternommen hatte"[128]. With a polemical tone, Hösle describes how, while Gramsci died a victim of fascism, Togliatti instead arrived in Italy after seventeen years alongside Stalin. The figure of the Migliore is painted in strong and crude terms, even for the habitual sharpness that characterizes German critique, as well as self-criticism: to demonstrate "wie sehr Togliatti ein Taktiker war, dem es nicht in erster Linie um die Gesinnung, sondern um den Erfolg ging"[129] and, in this regard, the author cites the communist vote in favor of the Concordat. After this hyperbolic critique of Togliatti’s figure, Hösle dedicates the remainder of his article to Gramsci’s biography and especially his work, from literary studies to the occupation of the FIAT factories, also citing Gobetti’s descriptions of the Factory Councils and Gramsci’s political intentions, characterized by a "kalte und überlegte Klarheit"[130]. From his works, the fundamental factor of the Gramscian method, autodiscipline, emerges, while it is inevitable on a journal like Merkur to also emphasize the confrontation with Croce’s theory; the author, unexpectedly, does not argue the critique of Crocean aesthetics or other theoretical elements, but instead offers a rebuke to the Marxist Gramsci, who cannot accept "die großbürgerliche Auffassung, Religionen seien gut fürs Volk; denn für ihn war ein Glaube, der sich nicht in ‘volkstümliche’ Sprache übersetzen läßt, schon der Ansatz zum Klassenbewußtsein einer privilegierten Schicht"[131].

Surveying other Gramscian themes, Hösle believes that for Gramsci, Machiavelli embodies the voice of the people in his interpretation of the modern prince, that is, the party, builder of collective will, which seeks to become universal and total. According to Hösle, one can even trace the identification of the figure of the Prince with that of the Duce. Concluding the article, the Quaderni are described in their fragmentary nature simply as a diary, "eines der unpersönlichsten Tagebücher der Welt"[132], from which a political opinion emerges strongly.

The critique of Togliatti is not spared even in the pages of Osteuropa in an article dedicated to the Italian communists[133], where concerns are raised about the strategy pursued by the communist leader, especially from 1956 onward. In this context, Gramsci is mentioned only as a member of the Ordine Nuovo group, politically "zentristisch eingestellt"[134], but willing to support Bordiga’s positions in front of Moscow.

Gramsci’s responsibilities in leading the PCI are clarified in the first article signed by Christian Riechers, the future editor of the Gramsci anthology Philosophie der Praxis[135], in the SDS (Sozialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund) journal Neue Kritik[136]. Questioning whether the party’s strategy had changed in some way, the young sociology student reaches a rather blunt and simple (if not simplistic) answer: since 1926 with the Theses of Lyon, the party has maintained the same political line, already sanctioned in the following decade by the Seventh Congress of the Communist International in 1935 concerning the antifascist struggle and the Popular Front politics. A communist party emerges that looks to the French Revolution rather than the Bolshevik one and does not present itself as a true class party, despite the "rhetorische Reverenzen"[137] to the working class. Il risultato agli occhi dell’autore è la costituzione di un partito popolare, di coalizione tra operai, contadini e ceto medio produttivo.

In realtà la critica di Riechers, pur partendo da questi presupposti che ci fanno intendere quanto l’apporto politico di Gramsci al PCI per l’autore sia stato sostanzialmente errato e fautore di pessime conseguenze, punta, nelle sue osservazioni al partito, a problemi fortemente radicati nella società italiana quali l’accettazione del Concordato con il Vaticano stipulato da Mussolini oppure, nel quadro della via italiana al socialismo attraverso la democrazia, è presa in considerazione la Costituzione italiana. Riechers ne riconosce la natura progressiva, «weitaus progressiver als die der Bundesrepublik»[138], in quanto emanazione del movimento di Liberazione italiano nelle sue varie forme. La Costituzione italiana è fondata sul lavoro e rende possibile la statalizzazione, ma rimane pervasa dall’apologetica della proprietà e dell’iniziativa privata, facendosi così più garante dello sviluppo del capitalismo piuttosto che fornire le premesse per il passaggio al socialismo. Non per ultimo l’autore dà un quadro molto critico verso l’interesse del partito al dialogo con i cattolici ed ai progetti di alcune ali del partito per un grande partito socialista, ponendo così seri dubbi sulle reali possibilità di governo del PCI.

1.6 Lukács and Gramsci on Croce

Cesare Vasoli presents his philosophical contribution for a collection of essays on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of the birth of Lukács[139]. The text, although not foundational for the study of Gramsci’s work, is one of the first attempts published in the German-speaking world to compare the Sardinian thinker with such a popular Marxist for the German public. Another characteristic of the essay is the emergence of one of the interpretative strands typical of the early German Gramscian literature: the Crocean influence on Gramsci or, in a contrasting historiographical line, Gramsci’s critique of Croce.

The discussion is divided into two parts: the first aims to highlight the interpretative divergences between the Hungarian theorist and the Sardinian thinker regarding Croce’s philosophy; the second considers the influence of the philosopher from Pescasseroli on much of the twentieth century.

The historical and ideological judgment of the Hungarian philosopher on Croce is expressed in La distruzione della ragione: Lukács believes that, unlike in Germany where the 1848 revolution led to the destruction of idealism, in the Anglo-Saxon countries and Italy, Hegelianism played a dominant role for much longer. Lukács views Croce as being linked to the liberal and reactionary Hegelian component, of an irrationalist origin, that is, to those elements that the philosopher from Abruzzo believed to still be alive in the Hegelian tradition, overlooking what he considered perished: the revolutionary power of dialectics and the principle of objectivity. This view recalls the tendencies of the late German Hegelians: "die radikale Subjektivierung der Geschichte, die radikale Entfernung jeder Gesetzmäßigkeit aus ihr"[140], interpretations that share a rejection of Marxism and a specific conception of Hegel’s thought against the purest product of the Hegelian tradition.

Vasoli explains that while Lukács arrived at Marxism through studies on historicism and Max Weber, Gramsci’s work belongs to a historical context in which the Crocean influence was significant and whose "reform" of philosophy and culture brought positive results. In a famous letter from prison, Gramsci describes how he and his companions followed the "moral and intellectual reform movement promoted in Italy by Benedetto Croce, whose first point was this: that modern man can and must live without religion, and by religion, it is meant without revealed or positive or mythological religion or whatever else one may call it."[141] Gramsci sees in Croce’s historicism a modern theory, one that the ruling classes have painstakingly developed in its contradictions. This Crocean "reform," according to Vasoli, influenced Marxism through Gramsci’s critique of neoidealism as the ideology of the Italian ruling class. Gramsci thus positions himself at the theoretical level of the two leading figures of contemporary Italian philosophy (Croce and Gentile), using their method. Vasoli quotes the communist leader to show that Gramsci’s study seeks to find among idealist elements those that are still alive and usable, to highlight points of convergence useful to the Italian working class in its revolutionary perspective.

It is necessary to make the same reduction for Croce’s philosophical conception that the first theorists of the philosophy of praxis made for the Hegelian conception. [...] The legacy of classical German philosophy must not only be inventoried but must be made to become an active force again, and to do so, it is necessary to deal with Croce’s philosophy, which means for us Italians that being heirs of classical German philosophy means being heirs of Crocean philosophy, which represents the contemporary world stage of classical German philosophy.[142]

This view combines some traits of Italian Marxism with the radical critique, advanced by the group gathered around Gramsci, of the deterministic and positivistic tendencies in the Italian tradition. The philosophy of the Hegelian spirit is set aside to delve into the analysis of Croce’s historiographical method, whose foundation, the ethical and political lesson, is still considered.

Gramsci sees Croce in the role of an intellectual creator of an ideology useful to the ruling class; among the characteristics of Croce’s political philosophy, Vasoli highlights the philosopher’s explicit preference for the conservative tendencies of liberalism, his criticisms of organized parties, and a certain aversion to some typical institutions of modern democracies. Vasoli thus suggests the image of a Croce who sees himself as the national leader of a specific cultural movement engaged in a rigidly conservative solution to the old political powers, which would also be in opposition to Modernism.

The Sixties in the Federal Republic

The 1960s in the Federal Republic marked the end of the long "Adenauer Era." Nearly fifteen years of government under the conservative rule of "keine Experimente" were abruptly ended by the "Spiegel Affair." German society was left "shaken by a wave of indignation and protest against the anti-liberal and police-like practices that inevitably evoked the easy precedent of political justice and persecution against the democratic press, unleashed in the Weimar Republic."[143] This opened the period of the Erhard government, which did not change the political line of its predecessor, focused on demonizing the opposition.

In the East, the period opened with economic competition with the FRG, through the introduction of a new Seven-Year Plan (1959-1965) aimed at increasing production in heavy industry and completing agricultural collectivization. However, the problem of "the drain of labor from the West and the resulting monetary and economic disorder" remained and worsened, culminating in the decision to "close the 'open border' of Berlin on August 13, 1961."[144]

The political divide between the two republics is reflected in publications on Gramsci. While on one hand, Zamiš and the latest writings of Togliatti help introduce the name of the Sardinian in the GDR, even with strong Marxist-Leninist accents, in the FRG, it seems that the interference of a communist party, such as the PCI personified by Togliatti, is intolerable, with efforts to distance Gramsci from the Party’s tradition or minimize his theoretical contributions.

Outside these historiographical battles, but deeply embedded in the communist ones, is Riechers’ contribution, who, drawing many of his interpretive keys from the Bordigist school, not only explores the history of the Communist Party but also analyzes Gramsci’s thought.

2. On the Eve of the Discovery of Gramsci (1967-1969)

Since the early 1960s, we witness a phase of crisis that overwhelms the German labor movement, deeply rooted in the ideological opposition between the two German states. Specifically, in West Germany: since 1959, the SPD approved the Godesberg program, which calls for a complete revision of the Party’s policy, now ready to explicitly renounce any revolutionary impulse and sketch an economic strategy that is far from defined. Social democracy is in fact abdicating its "class representation to align and adapt increasingly to the existing political-social order and, for this, to the dominant political forces"[145]. In fact, the SPD is increasingly transforming into a Volkspartei, and this accommodating direction gives the Party the opportunity to present itself more and more as "regierungsfähig" (capable of governing). While this line proves successful electorally, the trade-off is that a large part of German society is left without political representation. Following this shift and the declaration of incompatibility between the Party and associations such as the SDS, some left-wing social democratic groups move into trade unionism or form dissident groups[146].

In 1966, the SPD comes to power through a "Große Koalition" with the conservative parties; it thus prepares to approve the stringent "security" measures required by its allies to fight the "internal danger": the "Notstandsgesetze" (emergency laws) amend a large part of the Basic Law of the FRG in order to set certain conditions for the defense of the State in which citizens' fundamental rights are restricted.

From the lack of representation and an adequate political synthesis, the need to build intellectual and political-theoretical reflections and elaborations also grows; in this context, the movements fully emerge: it is a heterogeneous group starting from the Universities, such as the student movements led by the SDS[147], or from civil society, which chooses to form an extra-parliamentary opposition, with "the participation of intellectual, political, and trade union groups dissatisfied with both the integration and absorption process developed by capitalist society and the more typically authoritarian traits expressed by the German political regime"[148].

L’antologia di Riechers

In the young and fertile intellectual and political landscape that leads to the protest movements, the first signs of a spontaneous interest, often individual and accompanied by the knowledge of Italian reality[149], for Gramsci's theoretical elaboration begin to emerge. This kind of interest, personal and heterogeneous, leads to the publication of the first anthology of writings by the Sardinian, translated and edited by the young scholar Christian Riechers.

A collection of Gramsci's writings could probably not have been presented better than by an intellectual like Wolfgang Abendroth[150]: a political scientist who did not renounce his proximity to the movements, paying the consequences of the Diktat of clear closure imposed by German social democracy. In fact, the editor himself, Christian Riechers[151], before his experience in Italy, which led to this translation, was part of the student movement that originated from the Freie Universität in Berlin and later spread, with its contestatory charge, throughout the Republic.

In his preface[152], Abendroth states that Gramsci was one of the most interesting representatives of the generation of young Marxist theorists in the face of the revolutionary situation against imperialist war created by the workers' movement in October 1917. At that moment, Gramsci attempted to overcome the mechanistic thought characteristic of the Second International. Abendroth emphasizes the influence of Italian philosophy on Gramsci, particularly referring to the lessons of Benedetto Croce: for this reason, the author compares the Sardinian to Lukács, both not entirely free from the influences of the humanities sciences of the early 20th century, and thus from the German philosophy of the time. The biographies, when compared, highlight the experience of Lukács within the Hungarian Communist Party during the First World War and the October Revolution, and that of Gramsci, a twenty-five-year-old at the outbreak of the First World War, an intellectual, with experience in the ranks of the Italian Socialist Party. The PSI, very different from other European parties of the Second International, bureaucratic and strong, had been severely tested in 1911 with the Libyan War and later with the First World War; however, it did not capitulate. The PSI's débâcle comes with the rise of fascism. Gramsci manages to find favorable conditions for the theoretical development of his thought in Italian socialism, which is not dogmatically closed as in other European countries. The author demonstrates this thesis by describing the situation of German socialism when Kautsky sought to cover with erroneous and deterministic interpretations the theories of Marx and Engels. In contrast to a general line of international social democracy dominated by revisionist strategies, in Italy Marxist thought had been mediated by the interpretation of Antonio Labriola, whose work, however, is still unknown in the German context.

The author shows how Gramsci, already in 1917 reflecting on the problem of revolutionary struggle, founded L’Ordine Nuovo less than two years later: the periodical that became the organ of the factory council movement. The general strike of 1920 and the September occupation marked the peak of the struggle, and Gramsci concluded that Italian workers could only fight under the guidance of a party that had a clear understanding of the possibilities of proletarian struggle and freed itself from maximalism "à la Serrati." According to the author, this is the path that leads Gramsci to the foundation of the Italian Communist Party; the Gramscian direction will encounter initial opposition from the revolutionary activist utopianism of Bordiga, but after the second Congress in 1924, it will be Gramsci who assumes the role of Party secretary until the tragic fascist repression. With references to Gramsci's imprisonment, Abendroth recalls how the Quaderni (Prison Notebooks) and the Lettere (Letters) have become among the most important sources of Marxist thought, hoping that even in the FRG (Federal Republic of Germany) it will be possible to discuss Marxist issues, following new publications of works by Lukács and Korsch after the most acute period of the Cold War.

Riechers' introduction[153] already recalls some of the points that will become the heart of the Gramscian interpretation in his future doctoral thesis, published by the Europäische Verlagsanstalt three years later[154].
Riechers states that Gramsci's work is currently used by the Western left in an anti-Stalinist function, although parts of this very anthology show critiques of the nature of the Stalinist-type party, and many pages of the Quaderni are dedicated to examining and condemning Bukharin’s Manual: the use of Gramscian texts through their decontextualization cannot be said to be appropriate from a historical standpoint.

The editor emphasizes that Gramsci's position should not be confined within orthodox, vulgar, and mechanistic Marxism, as the interpretative roots of his Marxism lie specifically within the Italian tradition: Croce, Gentile, and Mondolfo are the theorists who, in the first quarter of the 20th century, had already set some central points in the revision of dialectical historical materialism. Gramsci's theories do not only derive from this type of critique but are forged by a historical situation in which the proletariat, having lost the battle after the hopes of the biennio rosso (two red years), must redefine its strategy for conquering power, and Gramsci intends to contribute to this. The author asks what and how much the Gramscian writings can contribute to the analysis of contemporary society compared to traditional dogmatic Marxism. Riechers further argues that the Sardinian anticipates some of the social-democratic theories that certain European communist parties refer to. As already in his short essay for Neue Kriti[155], here too attention is drawn to the political importance of the 1935 Communist International Congress and Stalin's adoption of the theory of socialism in one country. A "keinesfalls willkürlich"[156] parallel is also drawn between the main representatives of international national communism, namely Gramsci and Mao: both develop theories under the pressure of the societies in their respective homelands, Gramsci between 1924 and 1926 and during his imprisonment, Mao following the massacres of the urban proletariat in Canton and Shanghai in 1927. Both are influenced more by their respective national cultures than by orthodox Marxism and similarly interpret Marxism in a voluntarist sense, emphasizing the role of revolutionary praxis, the dialectic. The editor goes further: many of Gramsci’s maxims could be collected in a political catechism, just like Mao's Little Red Book. The similarities between the two are further supported by the observation that their works have known wide popularity even outside their national borders. Riechers comments that many of the theorists of Western European communist parties engage with Gramsci’s hegemony and its theoretical peculiarities, but also within intellectual circles on the margins of state communist parties, such as in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, or in Scandinavian and American leftist groups, or again, as in the case of the London-based New Left Review, where the author records a significant number of studies related to the concept of Gramscian hegemony for the study of the British model of influence on political and social relations.

In the presentation of the selected writings, the editor addresses the main themes emerging from the collection, and, focusing on the pre-prison period, the necessity felt by Gramsci to establish a network of factory councils throughout the country, together with a broad cultural preparation of the working class in view of the Revolution, is mentioned. Riechers never fails to emphasize the Italian cultural tradition as an essential element at the base of Gramsci’s thought, as well as of the theoretical and political line of the PCI (Italian Communist Party).

The year following the publication of the collection, Heinrich Opitz[157] reviews Riechers' work, outlining some of the themes that would later become fundamental in the critique of the distorted, "leftist" interpretation of Gramscian thought. The author begins with a description of Gramsci's figure and some motifs taken from Togliatti regarding Gramsci's perceived need for a new type of proletarian organization to accompany the dictatorship of the proletariat in building the foundations of the proletarian state. Riechers is criticized for an excessive use of superfluous notes in the texts to steer the reader towards a contrast between Gramsci's thought and Marxist thought, while the main components of the Gramscian interpretation are to be found in the Marxist reception of the Italian bourgeois-academic tradition. Opitz also rebukes the editor's attempt to bring Gramsci's thought closer to that of Mao, uniting them in a national-communist thought. The author advises avoiding the editor's introductions to the texts, which may confuse the reader, and going directly to Gramsci's text.

Gerhard Roth, a scholar who will leave a mark on German Gramscian literature in the next decade, publishes a review of Riechers' volume in the «Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung»[158]. The author describes the volume through the sources and main themes chosen by Riechers, among which Roth notes how the Crocean influence on Gramsci is particularly emphasized. However, he concludes by commenting that "Gramsci is seen here as more rooted in the Italian revisionist tradition than in the succession of orthodox Marxism"[159]. For the different interpretations of Gramsci's work, it is necessary that there also be a direct theoretical confrontation with Gramsci's work in the German context, and in this direction, Riechers' collection is only a first step.

The Issues of 1968

Three years after the original French publication, in 1968, Louis Althusser’s Für Marx is published in German[160]. The French intellectual fights to overturn the philosophical provincialism that has invaded the French university and notes that in other countries (for example, Germany and Italy), the philosophical tradition of historical materialism and its developments is distinctly more flourishing. To demonstrate this thesis, he cites among the Italians, after Labriola, Antonio Gramsci. From the Sardinian, Althusser takes up the concept of the intellectual, which he believes is far broader than its "cultural translation" in French; the intellectual must lead the masses to free Marxism from the mechanistic layers accumulated throughout its history. In this sense, only Gramsci succeeded where even Lukács did not: the Sardinian thinker embarked on an exploration of superstructural elements where the concept of hegemony becomes a theoretical solution to real problems both in the economic and political spheres[161].

Althusser’s work and, consequently, his interpretation of Gramsci’s thought will captivate many German scholars, so much so that in the years to come, there will be, in our case, about the interpretation of Gramsci, contributions profoundly influenced by the theories of the French philosopher, sometimes even explicitly aimed at supporting or criticizing[162] the work of the French philosopher.

From the revolutionary wave of the 1968 movement, ready to cross national borders from France to Germany[163], a testimony about the experience of self-management at the Centre d’études nucléaires in Saclay[164] is then followed by a text by the British Perry Anderson on the Turin Factory Councils, according to Antonio Gramsci’s experience. The latter is a republication of a contribution that appeared in the same year in the New Left Review, as an introduction to about ten Gramscian writings dedicated to the councilist experience. The author paints the historical picture in which many European labor movements find themselves during the period of the biennio rosso, and the relations with the Soviet experience just beginning. The figure of Gramsci emerges, an intellectual who will soon become a political leader: in the Factory Councils theorized by the Sardinian, there is an inherent power much more effective than that achievable through the work of the union, but by April 1920, it is already evident the incapacity of the PSI to confront, understand, and wish to use this revolutionary force at the national level.

The Marxist historian highlights the importance of Gramsci’s analysis of the Revolution in the West, but dwells on the creativity of the Factory Councils, retracing the themes most commonly discussed by Gramsci during the ordinovista period: the development of democracy within the working class and the socialist state: the Councils become a model for the future dictatorship of the proletariat. These new bodies differ from bureaucratic organizations such as the unions in that they allow for continuous confrontation-struggle: a perpetual class struggle in which the working class must be conscious of its own role and reclaim the primary tool of the means of production, namely itself: only in this way can the phenomenon of alienation be brought to an end.

The role of Ordine Nuovo in the course and development of these struggles was decisive, but in 1920, the Councils were not under the leadership of any revolutionary party, nor a "dynamische und disziplinierte Avantgarde"[165], that could have taken power and destroyed the bourgeois state; in the continuation of Gramsci’s work, Anderson observes, we in fact read reflections that move in a different direction: aiming towards Jacobinism and the development of a revolutionary party.

Contributions from Italy

In a landscape of heterogeneous studies, not yet defined at the "national" level as the Gramscian one in Germany, the contributions that come from Italian literature seem to be completely foreign elements: some of these follow the Italian historiographical path and its impulses, as well as the related influences. Other texts, belonging to the historiographical tradition of the PCI, can instead rely on a contextualization already initiated earlier. The Italian Communist Party and, above all, Togliatti's determination were able to export their interpretive line abroad, a dissemination that was impossible without the help of the parties and organizations close to the workers' movement; however, it must be acknowledged that on the eve of the 1970s, the studies exported to Germany that fall within this trend are mostly focused on the Leninism of Gramsci[166] and date back to an interpretation developed over a decade earlier.

Starting from the first case, it is interesting to observe that even from Italy there is an attempt to emphasize the fundamental role of Italian cultural roots in Gramsci's work. This is the case of Franco Ferrarotti, who develops for the "Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie" some observations on the development of Marxism in Italy[167]. Despite the title, the contribution does not follow the developments as much as it searches for the roots of Italian Marxism, which the author considers to be engaged at a primarily philosophical level, without venturing into empirical research. This is due to the Italian cultural and intellectual tradition: Ferrarotti places Labriola, Gramsci, and Mondolfo within his own philosophical tradition, that is, in relation to the neo-idealist domain. The author focuses on the theoretical characteristics of Labriola and Mondolfo's thought, seeking affinities and influences with Croce and Gentile. In this analysis, Gramsci is cited as a critic of Labriola, capable of overcoming the dualism between theory and practice and the opportunism of the Second International. From an educational perspective, Labriola's thought is noted to be conservative, which Gramsci cannot in any way share. The Sardinian thinker indeed brings Marxism from a systemic perspective to an open philosophy, rich in humanism, but which risks "einer reinen, einfachen, heuristischen Anwendung ohne genaue strukturelle Richtlinien"[168]. Both Labriola and Gramsci see Marxism, combating the battle against the fideistic residues of mechanism, as a guide, a method. According to Gramsci, it is the necessary help to orient the people who influence the development of history, so that Marxism becomes absolute historicism, the absolute humanism of history.

In Italy, the Cagliari Conference of April 23-27, 1967 has just ended when Iring Fetscher, from the columns of the "Allgemeine Frankfurter Zeitung"[169], reports on the Italian studies dedicated to Gramsci. Here, the particular innovative charge of the communist leader’s thought within the Marxist tradition is recognized. In fact, Fetscher states that according to Gramsci's teaching, base and superstructure should be understood in a less geometric manner than traditional thought; they are not spatial realities, but active forces that, as a whole, form a historical block. The author takes up Norberto Bobbio's emphasis on the primacy of culture in the Sardinian’s thought, an element that differentiates him from Lenin's work, particularly centered on political organization. Fetscher believes this dissonance between Gramsci and Lenin is a consequence of different historical-political contexts: on the one hand, the struggle in countries with developed capitalism, and on the other, the revolution in the East. Referring to the thesis of the dichotomy between the West and the East, the author explicitly mentions the situation of the FRG, as well as England and the United States, where the chances of success for a revolutionary organization are very slim. The author's analysis is focused not on a mere socio-economic reality but extended to the revolutionary consciousness and culture in the proletariat: elements that can change with the mere intervention of intellectuals.

Another Italian contribution tries to outline Antonio Gramsci’s political thought for the German Marxist audience[170]: Ernesto Ragionieri first reflects on the international interest in Gramsci on the 30th anniversary of his death, demonstrated by international congresses (Moscow and Cagliari 1967), as well as the production of Gramscian studies with examples from the works of Cammett, Stipcevic, Marek, and Texier. In Germany, this interest is exemplified by the anthology edited by Riechers, which expresses the European, international character of Gramsci’s analyses; however, the article aims to clarify some ambiguous issues that arise from the anthology. To do this, the author finds it useful to begin with a parallel between the development of Gramsci's thought and Lukács', and, as previously explored by Cesare Vasoli[171], confirms the Crocean influence on the young Sardinian, just as the spiritual sciences influenced the intellectual formation of the early Lukács. Here, the cultural and political currents of Italy and Germany before the First World War are considered and described: while in Germany there was the development and organization of a social democracy (Kautsky), in Italy after the successful period of Marxist elaboration and dissemination thanks to Labriola, its development was interrupted. In this sense, revisionism in Italy could not base its spiritual direction on the party but was consolidated through the contribution of bourgeois intellectuals, which led to a mutual estrangement between the workers’ movement and young intellectuals. The Sardinian origin of the communist leader is one of the premises of his critical interest in the alliance between the industrial class of Northern Italy and the large landowners of the South within a monopolistic capitalist economic system; in light of this, Gramsci considers a defined program necessary for the workers’ movement in recognizing the priorities to address regarding the Southern question. In his interpretation of the October Revolution, during his Turin period, with the articles "La rivoluzione contro il Capitale" and "Il nostro Marx", Gramsci polemicizes against the tendency to interpret Marxism in a positivistic way, opposing it to the liberating character of the Revolution. Gramsci does not recognize Lenin as the founder of a system, but as an innovator of Marxism: he is a revolutionary who has found in political action the premises for an adequate development of Marxism. The author explains how Gramsci’s conception does not limit itself to interpreting Marxism as an evolution of thought: he recognizes its true foundation in the struggle for the liberation of the working class; therefore, the affirmation of the historicity of Gramsci’s philosophy of practice involves the awareness of the possibility of reconstructing the fundamental Marxist principles in light of a new spiritual and political context. In the period of transition from capitalism to socialism, characterized by the phase of the dictatorship of the proletariat, Marxism is the political knowledge that deals with the construction and development of the State: according to Gramsci’s theory, this is based on a new conception of the revolutionary party, where the State is the goal of the collective will and social organization. Ragionieri brings Gramsci’s theories onto the international stage and precedes, however, by stating that Gramsci’s activity between 1922 and 1924 is not yet fully known, so it is not yet possible to systematically reconstruct the stages of the development of his thought without considering the influence of the discussions at the Fourth Congress of the Comintern, the formulations of the principles of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the role of trade unions in the NEP, as well as the steps leading to the subsequent elaboration of the concept of hegemony. Ragionieri asserts that the issue of the United Front at the Fourth Congress is much more than a mere adaptation to necessities: for Gramsci, it is clear that the policy of the united front embodied the expression of the new relations in Russia, so communist parties had to agree to address a power issue. In 1923, Lenin's work "Rapporto sulla guerra e la pace" was published, a text that the Sardinian absorbed, where Lenin differentiates between the conquest and consolidation of power by the working class in Russia and in Western Europe. The concept of hegemony, already elaborated by Lenin for the working class with its federates, is taken up by Gramsci as a superior and fundamental methodological principle for the development of a broad base of action for the Communist Party. In this sense, at the Cagliari conference in 1967, Bobbio showed the difference between the interpretations of hegemony by Lenin and Gramsci. While Lenin sees hegemony as the next step after seizing power, the Italian thinker places it during the struggle for power, which thus results in a completely new meaning. The thought of the Italian leader is not a repetition of Leninist thought, but an original approach within the Italian and Western European conception. Ragionieri also investigates Gramsci’s view of the State and the role of intellectuals and confirms that, according to the first studies, Togliatti’s judgment is appropriate, stating that one cannot read the Quaderni without considering Gramsci’s cultural background: the decision to deal with the problems of political theory and science was certainly induced by the issues that arose with the leftward turn of the Sixth Congress - International Communist Plenary, fearing a departure from unity and a return to the strategy of frontal attack.

In reference to Ragionieri's contribution, Karl A. Otto works in his review of the Riechersian anthology[172]; he reports the Gramscian judgment on the importance of Lenin not as an innovator of Marxism but as a revolutionary, showing, with this and other key elements of the Quaderni, Gramsci’s anti-dogmatism. According to Otto, Gramsci's discovery lies within the "Marxismus-Renaissance" wave that has been crossing the FRG in recent years, showing a shift from the closed ideological tendencies typical of the Cold War.

The Legacy of Togliatti and Gramsci's Leninism

In the pages of Marxistische Blätter[173], Thomas Müller presents Gramsci's work by describing the writings available in German and those in Italian, highlighting their political and especially philosophical analysis. His contribution is divided into three parts: the man and history, the philosophy of praxis, and the relationship between Lenin and Gramsci.

In the first part, which includes numerous Gramscian citations, the author refers to Althusser's critical considerations regarding the lack of a clear separation between the level of being and consciousness. The French philosopher claims to have discovered a "disproportion between the consciousness of historically acting humans and science"[174]. From this disparity, Müller questions whether Gramsci's writings allow for a form of awareness that can be considered, due to its peculiarities, as knowledge. Müller believes that Gramsci, like Marx, starts from the observation of social activity ("praxis"), considering it absurd to seek knowledge and truth outside of humanity.

Citing philosopher Karel Kosík, the author argues that at every stage of their development, humans are the product of their actions. To support this thesis, he references a passage from the Gramscian anthology of pedagogical writings curated by Giovanni Urbani for Editori Riuniti in the same year[175].

For Gramsci, humans are the only objective element of truth; they are the meeting point of all relationships: between humanity itself and nature, to which the dynamic result of reciprocal relationships among humans is added. The historical process thus appears as a process of humanization, an increasing order that connects human society to that of things (societas rerum and societas hominum). The productive economic reality is made available by human labor on nature.

Knowledge, Müller continues, is founded on historical awareness; its very origin is linked to the historical process and, from a Marxist perspective, has the ability to recognize ideological forms. The author, while considering the distinction between direct consciousness and knowledge necessary, warns against eliminating history from the constitutive elements of knowledge. In this sense, he refers to an analysis by Cesare Luporini[176], with which Müller tries to explain how the historical fracture between ideology and knowledge in Marxist thought can be traced to the break between Hegel and Marx.

In a section dedicated to the concept of the philosophy of praxis, the author argues that it is capable of overcoming the dualism between matter and knowledge by viewing these two elements as abstractions of a fundamental and primary reality. Being, in fact, is in the future: the realization of a unity between man and the world, and praxis expresses the priority of practical sense over theory, action over passivity. Praxis, therefore, means the implementation of the unity between man and the world and is the structure of the future that presents itself in the interpenetration and unity between interiority and exteriority, production and product, subjective and objective. Any fracture in this structure brings with it mystifying forms of thought.

The final theme of this contribution is dedicated to comparing Gramsci's thought with Lenin's; the author does not deny the profound affinity in the work of the two thinkers but considers it essential to understand the different starting points in their analyses. Both support historical materialism, but Lenin primarily focuses on its idealistic component, while Gramsci is concentrated on the historical aspect. Müller retraces the philosophical concordances between the two communist leaders: the political character of philosophy and its total understanding of the world, both contrasting with the dominant concept of philosophy in the Second International, which reduced philosophy to mere history or sociological knowledge. In this sense, the author's references go to Adler, Kautsky, and Bogdanov.

Three years after Togliatti's death, Neue Kritik Verlag published a brief collection of the writings of "Il Migliore"[177]. Among these are: Der Leninismus im Denken und Handeln Antonio Gramscis[178], Die Entstehung der Führungsgruppe der Kommunistischen Partei Italiens in den Jahren 1923-1924[179], and Die marxistische Konzeption der politischen Partei der Arbeiterbewegung[180]. In these contributions, the Gramscian lesson is cited both in the Marxist conception of the PCI and in a historiographical sense regarding the creation and consolidation of the party's leadership group[181]. However, it is in the writing dedicated to the Leninist components in Gramsci's thought that we find some of the central points of the Sardinian's conception according to that Togliattian reading that has especially made its mark in Italy.

In an analysis by points, Togliatti explains how the identity between theory and praxis is crucial for understanding Gramsci's theory at the moment of political activity: the science and synthesis of each one's philosophical thought. Togliatti uses Gramscian categories of the war of movement and position to describe the historical moment that both Italy and the Soviet Union were experiencing in the first half of the century, recalling how the Marxist and Leninist method and the reflections emerging from the prison writings cannot be separated from the content: revolutionary action.

The author presents the results of his research on Gramsci's knowledge of Lenin's texts. According to Togliatti, Gramsci was already familiar with Lenin from 1905 but read him extensively only from 1918. Following a mention of Gramsci's stay in the Soviet Union, it is specified that Gramsci fully understood the chasm between Leninist conception and Trotsky's abstractionism or Bukharin's lack of dialectics. During the internal struggle within the Soviet leadership group in 1926, Togliatti affirms Gramsci's conviction in the "rightness of the political line that the majority of the Bolshevik party supported against the small group of opponents"[182].

Regarding the conception of revolution for Lenin, Gramsci's article La rivoluzione contro il Capitale is considered, which condemns the "grammatical" interpretations of Marx's work and historical economism, supporting Lenin's struggle by anchoring his method to the absolute historicity of social reality.

With extensive references to the council experience and its independence from trade union bureaucracies and reformist tendencies, Togliatti traces Gramsci's policy for the alliance between workers and peasants to the Soviet experience led by Lenin. From here, the idea of the historical bloc develops, and Togliatti addresses the role of intellectuals in Gramscian elaborations, starting from the essay on the Southern Question and in the development of ideologies. Concluding, almost as a summary of the elements brought forth, the author focuses on the prison analysis of the party, showing its decisive significance in the political struggle. In this context, a brief mention is made of the presentation of the theme of hegemony for the Sardinian in relation to the division between civil society and politics, but especially in its peculiarities concerning the concept of domination, dictatorship, and the state[183].

Neumann and Lenk, engaged in a collection of texts on the theory and sociology of political parties[184], revisit writings by Michels, Weber, Lenin, Stalin, Bukharin, Lukács, Otto Bauer, and Rosa Luxemburg. In the section dedicated to the theme "party and class," we find a contribution by Togliatti, Massen- und Kampfpartei der Arbeiterklasse, which reports some of the key points of the analysis of the party as a nomenclature of social classes and the conception of the Gramscian proletarian party as a "collective intellectual"[185].

According to Thomas Müller's review[186] of the Togliattian works recently published in Italy, edited by Ernesto Ragionieri, the first volume, although substantial, is not enough to shed light on the thought and figure of Togliatti, who, along with Gramsci, brought the Italian working class to the consciousness of its historical mission. In an interpretation that does not yet see a clear distinction between the thought and work of the two Italian communist leaders, Müller once again invites German Marxists to engage in the dissemination of Togliatti's and Gramsci's thought in German, given that their thought is internationally recognized as significant.

Continuing the interpretative line already pursued by Togliatti on Gramsci's Leninism, there are also contributions of a very general historical nature, dedicated to the history of international communism, which cannot help but emphasize the importance of Leninist experiences and thought in Gramsci's thought, but especially in his political biography. This is also the case in a study dedicated to the founding of the Communist International in relation to Lenin's work and Italian socialism[187]. The sources used for the essay range from Italian, French, and Russian publications of the time to archival documents that were little known until then. The author, Helmut König, retraces the history of the PSI (and the PCI) from the beginning of the 20th century to beyond the 1921 split through Zimmerwald. In this context, much importance is given to the Turin factory council movement, and there is a reevaluation, compared to Italian historiography, of the role of Bordiga and the Milanese maximalists, whose political strategies are explained in relation to the Ordine Nuovo movement.

Gramsci, at the head of the "Ordine Nuovo" group, which exerted great influence on Turin students and workers, did not understand that at the peak of the council movement, the country was not experiencing a moment in which revolution was practicable; this is the judgment that coincides with the point of view of the Milanese group, which instead took into account the role of the union and did not imagine the transformation of the party into a soviet based on factory organization.

Nevertheless, the recognition of Lenin in the Ordine Nuovo spirit against the reformist socialist wing is clearly evident, but the ideological and theoretical role of the Turin group is significantly downplayed, and especially the 1921 split is interpreted as a generational clash, with the core of the struggle consisting of the expulsion of the reformists. In this context, König considers the figure of Bordiga and the Soviet group indispensable. Serrati, whose attempts to soften the November 1920 clash yielded no results, is presented as a severe critic of the Ordine Nuovo movement, while Turati is depicted as an internal saboteur.

König's essay is reviewed by Bruno Frei[188] along with a volume of Togliatti's writings and the previous year's collection of Gramscian writings. The Austrian publicist writes from the pages of "Das Argument," a magazine that in the following decades will play a decisive role in the dissemination of Gramsci in Germany. Most of Frei's attention is dedicated to Philosophie der Praxis, for which the author takes the opportunity to give, albeit in broad strokes, an idea of Gramsci's figure using Togliatti's writings and König's essay. The author describes the communist leader as fighting against the erroneous mechanistic interpretation of historical materialism, while managing to avoid overestimating the role of consciousness, a flaw, Frei adds, of the Chinese Marxist vision. Gramsci distinguishes amateurish approaches from the organic ideologies necessary for the orientation of revolutionaries. Ideology conceived as an instrument of domination, "Herrschaftsinstrument," is to be combated in view of the intellectual independence of the governed, to destroy one hegemony and build a new one.

From Gramscian analyses, the author reports that the philosophy of praxis does not attempt to peacefully resolve the contradictions of history but is the theory of contradictions: the expression of the subaltern classes that want to rise and also know uncomfortable truths. Frei records some of the most important Gramscian categories that emerge from Riechers' collection: cadornism, public opinion, and the role of intellectuals; however, this collection does not adequately consider the aversion to economism that united Gramsci and Lenin.

Gramsci in BRD and DDR: A Necessary Discovery

A contribution by Kurt Gerhard Fischer demonstrates the "necessity" of discovering Gramsci for Germany with a review of some Italian Gramscian publications and Cammett's Gramsci, which was released the previous year[189]. The Sardinian is recognized by the cultured Italian bourgeoisie in the literary pantheon following the publication of Lettere dal carcere, thus overshadowing the decidedly political character of his work. For others, he is the co-founder of social-communist theory and praxis, which affirmed the overcoming of social-democratic revisionism. What is certain is that he is the founder of the PCI, a martyr in the struggle for freedom against fascism.

Even in Germany, the author testifies, there is a strong interest in Gramsci: the political left, which has long been without direction, seems to find guidance in him, while young people of all tendencies seek an example in him. Despite this, Gramsci has not yet been "discovered" in Germany, and Fischer thinks this is due to the unlikely ideological necessity in the DDR for an independent thought like Gramsci's, which does not fit well with Stalinism. The author notes that many Gramscian volumes have recently appeared in second-hand markets in the BRD, but he still considers a new edition of the Lettere and the 1800 pages of his prison "diary" necessary, proposing thematic volumes like the Italian edition and a collection of pre-prison political writings, which Einaudi, for example, collected in L’Ordine Nuovo (1954).

Regarding the recent anthology edited by Riechers, Fischer questions whether the selection of writings, especially concerning the youthful ones, is the most appropriate for the German audience, unfamiliar with Gramscian themes, but he expresses his perplexity particularly about the choice of passages related to criticisms of Bukharin.

As an ideal closure to the 1960s, one might consider the first contribution, presented with explicit historiographical intentions, on the presence of Gramsci in the DDR[190]. Hans Conrad laments the lack of publication of the complete Gramscian work in German, although projects in this direction have been initiated[191]. The communist thinker is not yet well known among German historians and philosophers, but today he is beginning to gain popularity even outside Italian borders. Many modern Marxist theorists who sought to overcome the stagnation of the Stalinist era are influenced by Gramsci or arrive at the same conclusions through different paths. In a review of the collection Philosophie der Praxis, the theoretical organ of the Austrian communists, Weg und Ziel[192], indicates that Gramsci's Marxian interpretation, after its remarkable resonance in Great Britain, France, and Poland, has long attracted strong attention even in the Soviet Union. In a socialist country like the DDR, except for a few exceptions, this discovery has left no trace.

The reasons can be manifold: Gramsci's biography is closely linked to that of Togliatti, and the latter is considered persona non grata in the DDR, while an intellectual like Croce judges him " einer der größten Gestalten der italienische Geschichte und des 20. Jahrhunderts"[193]. The author recalls that an anthology has recently appeared under the Fischer imprint in the BRD; such a publication could not occur in the DDR because Gramsci's antidogmatic thought is in stark contrast to the fossilized belief system of the Democratic Republic; "was dem faschistischen Staatsanwalt Isgro nicht gelang, Gramscis Hirn an der Arbeit zu hindern, das will die SED auf ihre Weise nachholen. Da dieses Hirn doch gearbeitet hat, sollen seinen Gedanken verbannt werden"[194]. The author wonders why, if Gramsci was a danger to Italian fascism, he should also be a danger to the DDR; one reason is the interpretative divergence of Marxism between the Sardinian thinker and that prevailing in the DDR, where the philosophical idea of the SED is still dominated by a strong mechanistic materialism.

Following some observations on the alleged ability of DDR Marxism to produce predictions, Conrad concludes with a quote from Gramsci, who, criticizing Bukharin's Manual, asks, " wie könnte auch die Voraussicht ein Akt der Erkenntnis sein?"[195]; the Sardinian states that one knows what has been or has not been, not what will be or does not exist, which by definition is unknowable. Still, in the Notes on Machiavelli, the communist leader touches on the theme of prediction: he first observes how analyzing the past means finding the fundamental and permanent elements of the historical process, but he states that those who intend to prophesy actually have a program they want to see triumph, and prediction becomes a useful element for success.

Conrad picks up some of Franz Marek's reflections in Cosa ha veramente detto Marx regarding laws with a tendency character, and to support these observations, Gramsci's words against vulgar materialism are borrowed again, stating that it must be fought as a primitive theoretical infantilism, while in the DDR, mechanical materialism plays a fundamental role to the extent that social laws are as valid as natural laws. The author also cites the publications that most influence Marxist education, such as Grundlagen der marxistischen Philosophie[196].

***

Although Riechers' work has the merit of bringing a collection of Gramscian writings to a large audience[197], its tendentious interpretation, implicit here in the translation as well as in the brief prefaces to the texts[198], intends to bring the communist leader's thought back to cultural roots and a very circumscribed historical context compared to the reality he perceived and lived; the young Bordighist's interpretation reduces Gramsci's thought to the sole Italian intellectual reality and, with an interpretative leap, places him at the center of the revisionist current along the line of "Bernstein, Kautsky, and Zetkin"[199].

In Italy, at the Cagliari conference for the thirtieth anniversary of Gramsci's death, a historiographical and philosophical result is noted that, after the "storms of '56," sees a certain openness of the PCI towards intellectuals politically foreign to its tradition, among them: Garin, Bobbio, Galasso, and Sapegno. This availability, however, results in "a rather dated response to the new trends that were stirring in society and culture," as well as "inadequate in the face of the transformations of the 1960s, too marked by the polemic against new interpretative trends (particularly structuralism and Althusserism) and by the reaffirmation of the historicist perspective"[200]. In this context, Ernesto Ragioneri's contribution appears, which distances itself "profoundly in the attempt to place Gramsci in the real historical-political context in which his ideas matured," "starting from the fact of his political militancy, and therefore starting from October and the relationship with Lenin," in contrast to the interpretative line that wanted him "already formed before '17, but as a Crocean who would remain so, in his heart, even after meeting Lenin"[201]. For this reason, it seems significant that at the same time in Germany, Riechers attempts to propagate the first seeds of a Gramsci reading inclined towards Croceanism, other contributions go in a decidedly opposite direction; although the latter have a decidedly lesser historiographical weight, they allow a contextualization of the Sardinian's thought that, paraphrasing Togliatti, is inseparable from the experience of the man of action. Thus emerges the indispensable influence of Lenin and the Russian Revolution, according to the line already indicated in Italy by Togliatti.

When considering the figure of Togliatti, there is often a tendency to bring it so close to that of Gramsci as to confuse their thought and work in the past of Ordine Nuovo; this is the case of the anthology edited by Lenk and Neumann, but also of the close communion between the two communist leaders proposed by Müller in his review of Togliatti's works. It is Müller, who deals closely with Gramsci's work, who feels the need to elevate the analysis of the Sardinian's thought from the deepest peninsular roots to the rank of a European philosopher: Gramsci must be compared with the other great names of the Marxist theoretical tradition, and a study on the relationship with contemporary communist philosophers such as Althusser is also necessary. In Germany, where Für Marx has just been published, the Gramscian reading given by Althusser has not yet created a school, just as Anderson's contribution is currently quite marginal, limited to a brief introductory essay to Gramscian council theory.

Still, in the same period as the publication of Riechers' anthology, a burden that will persist for a long time manifests: for an adequate analysis of Gramsci's thought, it is necessary to read Gramsci's work without mediation, and for this reason, knowledge of other languages, such as French, English, but especially Italian, is mandatory. To testify to this, the "necessary discovery" of Gramsci invoked by Fischer reiterates the perplexities about Riechers' translation while inviting the reading of Italian and foreign contributions to the biography and analysis of the communist leader's work. According to Fischer, part of the responsibility that keeps Gramsci still unknown in Germany is attributable to the ideological closure of the DDR, which would certainly not find an ally in Gramsci against Stalinist ideological rigidity. The execration for the lack of any contribution to the study of Gramsci in the DDR is well expressed in Conrad's writing, which at first glance presents itself as a historiographical synthesis of contributions on Gramsci in the Democratic Republic. In reality, if one can agree with the publicist on the consequences of the heavy interference of mechanical materialism in the DDR, the character of Conrad's examination is polemical, which, in a crescendo of criticisms of the SED's cultural policy, comes to proclaim it as the continuation of the work of prosecutor Isgrò. Regarding the reception, or rather, the persistent silence on Gramsci in the DDR, an attempt will later be made to understand the reasons starting from writings and testimonies that appear only at the end of the following decade.

3. Gramsci in German (1970-1975)

The German Political Situation

Following the social upheavals and interventions demanded by the movements that swept the country from 1968, the entire German society began to show new needs; on the eve of the 1969 elections, the "grosse Koalition" proved to be an unsuitable solution, having been a "transitional experience, a phase of transition marking the definitive closure of the Adenauer era," and thus "could not respond to that vaguely innovative and reformist need that characterized the atmosphere and expectations of public opinion"[202]. The leading figure of the SPD, a political force already represented in the Federal Presidency by an important figure such as Gustav Heinemann, is Willy Brandt, a personality capable of understanding public unrest, which had worsened with the rift between the state and civil society during the conservatives' management. The electoral result allowed the SPD to govern jointly with the FDP liberals: the formation of the "kleine Koalition" was not the result of an impromptu solution, but was "an alternative gradually constructed"[203], drawing impetus for its formation from the experience gained during the "große Koalition." The first Brandt government gained a "historical significance, in a non-rhetorical sense. For the first time since 1930, during the chancellorship of Hermann Müller, on the eve of the Weimar Republic crisis, a social democratic representative returned to lead the government, coinciding happily with the presence of another social democratic representative in the federal presidency." Moreover, the cabinet formed by Brandt presented itself as "the most qualified government team the Federal Republic had ever had"[204]. The politics of these years had a strong dynamism on the foreign front; Brandt had already shown his tendency to open dialogue with the East by occupying the position of Foreign Minister during the grosse Koalition, but now he could relaunch and intensify the Ostpolitik. On October 28, 1969, in the government's programmatic declaration, the chancellor made explicit his intention to break away from the "Hallstein Doctrine" to recognize the existence of another German state: an essential starting point for the development of further relations. The years of Chancellor Brandt's government, interspersed with early elections in 1972 that largely rewarded his policy, were characterized internally by the intention to channel the social ferment of youth protest and extra-parliamentary opposition into institutional frameworks.

Meanwhile, the SPD continued its transformation into a popular party, registering its new interclass character with penetration towards the middle classes and completing internal transformations also from an organizational point of view.

At the moment when Ostpolitik was developing to its fullest, domestic policy was regulated according to strict intransigence: on October 14, 1970, in a resolution by the party's governing bodies, the limits of incompatibility between party membership or organizations too close to the DDR were defined. Furthermore, on January 28, 1972, the heads of government of the Länder, together with the chancellor, passed the Radikalenerlass in an attempt to limit the spread of viewpoints and behaviors inspired by the motivations of extra-parliamentary opposition, in an intimidating act useful to prevent the formation of critical minorities from the outset.

Antonio Gramsci, Marxism in Italy

The year following the formation of the "kleine Koalition," Christian Riechers' doctoral thesis was published, who just three years earlier had edited the Gramscian anthology Philosophie der Praxis. Riechers obtained his doctorate at the Freie Universität in Berlin, but his thesis is the result of his study experience in Italy: the title chosen for the publication already allows us to intuit the national character with which the thought of the communist leader is connoted:Antonio Gramsci. Marxismus in Italien[205].

In the anthology he edited, Riechers had prefaced a presentation and some brief introductions to the texts, where some of his interpretations of Gramscian themes could be deduced. In this essay, those judgments that could only be touched upon in the 1967 work are systematized and extensively elaborated. The premise from which Riechers starts in his analysis is that the roots of Gramscian thought are not to be sought in the internal debates of international Marxism that accompany the history of the labor movement and its struggles, but rather in the bourgeois debate around Marxism that animated Italian academic circles at the turn of the century.

With a very brief biography of Gramsci up to 1918, Riechers proposes a contextualization of the theoretical ferment within Italian socialism. Here, Riechers must be recognized for a merit that will be lacking in much Italian and international historiography: he has been able to reconstruct a broad-spectrum picture thanks to his personal determination not to evade the role of anarchists and the relationship between them and socialists at the end of the 19th century, not without a portrait of the eminent theoretical personalities in the panorama of studies on socialism. Among these, the figure of Labriola stands out for his intense theoretical activity, aimed at winning over young bourgeois intellectuals to socialism and particularly interested in the debate within the international socialist movement.

Riechers reconstructs the birth and use of the expression "Philosophy of Praxis", from Cieszkowski to Labriola, in the Gentilian sense: already a translator of the Theses on Feuerbach, it is specified that Gentile understands the philosophy of praxis mediated by subjectivist idealism.

The historical profile outlined by the author does not spare some harsh criticisms of bourgeois theorists, but the main target is the socialists; probably due to an excessive but inevitable synthesis, these evaluations are characterized by some simplifications.

Although it is particularly useful for German readers to have an overview of the Italian intellectual context at the time when Gramsci was formulating his theories, this characteristic is actually useful to Riechers to demonstrate the supremacy of the Italian dimension over any other component of Gramscian thought: the primacy of the bourgeois debate in Italy and the bourgeois analysis of Italian Marxism. According to the author, this thesis would be partly justified by Gramsci himself: "in Italien ist der Marxismus (mit Ausnahme von Antonio Labriola) mehr von der bürgerlichen Intellektuellen studiert worden, um ihn zu denaturieren und zum Gebrauch der bürgerlichen Politik einzurichten als von der Revolutionären"[206].

Riechers does not deny the importance of Marxism within the political action of reformists and revolutionaries; it is not "von den Sozialisten ins Dachstübchen verbannt, verliert aber als Komponente der bürgerlichen Nationalkultur zugleich an begrifflicher Schärfe "[207]. The character of Gramscian Marxism thus has its roots in the reception and criticism of Italian academic circles, and its conception is formed on the journals La Voce, Critica Sociale, and L’Unità.

Describing Gramsci's journalistic and political activity, the first frictions with Tasca are already considered. An important moment of this period concerns the article Neutralità attiva ed operante: Riechers precisely explains Gramsci's position concerning Mussolini's article, focusing on the strategic differences and different purposes within the spectrum of the Italian national environment. It is also specified that the objective was not to keep the class struggle sedated and to force the ruling class to take responsibility for the conflict. The author, based on Giuseppe Berti's research[208], recalls Gramsci's lack of collaboration with Mussolini's Popolo d’Italia, as well as the fact that Gramsci never held a position against the war.

Riechers clarifies how Gramsci certainly shared Amadeo Bordiga's opinion on the need for armed intervention by the proletariat in the crisis produced by the war[209], but preferred to retreat, comments the young sociologist, into the "Privatheit eines Club di vita morale"[210]. On this experience, the author states there are no differences between preaching the education of the nation by Gentile through La Voce and Gramsci's education of the working class: "der Unterschied liegt lediglich im gesellschftlichen Adressaten"[211].

Riechers also argues that Marxism penetrated Italy filtered through bourgeois reception, and Gramsci himself would recognize personalities like Enrico Corradini in this mediating role (in reality, Gramsci believes that the latter plundered Marx after vilifying him). Certainly, one can agree with a nationalist use (Corradini) of the logical content of Marxism, but that Marxism itself is influenced by Corradini, in a transformation of Marxism into idealism, seems far from reality.

Despite this, Riechers continues in a description of Gramscian Marxism as idealistic-subjectivist: it is compared to Mondolfo's conception, justified by the issue of class consciousness.

With the judgment "die Reduktion des historischen Materialismus auf den Idealismus ist bei Gramsci so vollkommen, dass ihm schliesslich nur noch die Funktion einer historischen Hilfswissenschaft zukommt"[212], it is no longer necessary to infer between the lines what is undoubtedly an analysis widely distorted by the young scholar's personal political ideas; judgments and manipulations repeatedly appear in the description of the early years of the PCI, where, unlike in Italian literature where it is absent, Bordiga's role is rightly recognized here, but any political action by Gramsci is deprecated as opposed to the Bordighist line[213].

The second part of the monograph is dedicated to a philosophical-political analysis of Gramscian thought, first in parallel with Korsch and Lukács with the dialectical interpretation of "absolute" historical materialism, in contrast to mechanistic, vulgar, and economistic materialism. In Gramscian conception, Marxism is part of the superstructure: it itself can become an ideology in the sense of false consciousness; Riechers supports this Gramscian analysis with the contribution of Lukács and further argues that the Sardinian and Korsch proceed in concert in the critique of Bukharin.

To add other elements to his reading, the author illustrates how the three classical sources of Marxism (Hegel, Ricardo, and the French Revolution) were replaced by Gramsci with Croce, Machiavelli, and Jacobinism, in an attempt to provide a qualitative translation of Italian culture into the philosophy of praxis.

Delving quickly into the theme of translatability, which remained obscure even in Italy for a long time[214], and with the help of some assumptions formulated by Mario Tronti[215], Riechers states that Marxian translatability in Lenin's reading adheres to the existing material conditions in a specific national context and has nothing to do with "ein Verfahren, dessen Gramsci sich 1924 für die Tatigkeit des ‘Ordine Nuovo’ 1919-1920 rühmt, ‘gewußt zu haben, die hauptsächlichen Postulate der Doktrin und der Taktik der Kommunistische Internationale in historische italienische Sprache zu übersetzen’"[216]. According to Riechers, this position is analogous to that supported by Mao Zedong regarding the relationship between Marxism and Chinese culture: a theoretical regression " die mit dem “Rückübersetzen” des Marxismus ins nationale ‘Kulturerbe’ verbunden ist" and "wird oft als “schöpferischer” Marxismus verklärt, wobei ‘schöpferisch’ dann für voluntaristisch steht "[217].

Gramsci considers Ricardo's work not for the theories of value and rent, as it was for Marx, but for an unspecified philosophical importance in suggesting a way of intuiting and thinking about life and history, so that the economist appears as one of the precursors of classical historicism. In this sense, according to Riechers, Gramsci literally connects to Croce's interpretation of Marx, and the continuous use of the term "immanence" in relation to Marxism is linked "an die Interpretation des Marxismus durch Gentile und Mondolfo"[218].

Riechers' analysis concludes by increasingly demonstrating the idealism that permeates Gramscian thought and the determining influences of three figures above all, those of Gentile, Mondolfo, and Croce, hypothesizing for the Sardinian a "wesentlich eurozentrisch" position[219] that connects to Bernstein, the "Theoretiker des ‘Stellungskriegs’ par exellence"[220].

In a red thread that attempts, step by step, citation after citation, to discredit first of all Gramsci's political action and then his reflections as far from Marxism and impregnated with idealism, Riechers' work, like the anthology he edited, leaves a serious mortgage on the German interpretation. Fortunately, from the outset, leftist literature will be ready, as Riechers himself requested, to demonstrate its interpretative "partielle oder totale Unwahrheit"[221].

To this proposal by Riechers, Gisela Bock responds with a substantial review, which appeared the following year in the Archiv für Sozialgeschichte[222]. The author highlights how there are different interpretations of Gramsci's work compared to the ideological reductions intended to affirm the continuity between Gramsci's work through Togliatti's Party to the PCI of the 1970s. With the exception of specific objections (Tronti, Asor Rosa), this line of continuity supports the interpretation according to which Gramsci and Labriola, disseminators of Marxism in Italy, became its most significant theorists also thanks to their original and adequate contributions. The Gramscian Notebooks, for example, fifteen years after the first publication, are considered a new tool for 20th-century socialist thought.

Gramsci succeeded in detaching his work from the Marxism of the Second International as well as from the teachings of Diamat, and his theories were used at the time for research of a political nature and on contemporary social relations. According to Bock, initially, Riechers follows this interpretative path when he describes Gramsci as a non-dogmatic thinker and a relevant theorist of the Marxist school, only later providing an interpretation of Gramscian writings born of a distorted correlation.

Gramsci's political and theoretical biography is contextualized by Riechers within the trajectory of Italian Marxism from the late 19th century to the beginning of the First World War; at this point, however, the young scholar confuses Labriola's reception of the Philosophy of Praxis with the interpretations of Gentile and Mondolfo. Labriola's reading is thus criticized for a subjectivist-idealist sense and transformed into "voluntarism of praxis”[223].

The German historian cannot help but notice some inconsistencies contained in the text and demonstrates this by quoting Riechers himself, according to whom "eine klare Stellungsnahme gegen den Krieg […] aus den […] Scriften Gramscis nicht herauszulesen [sei]"[224]; while, as a prominent exponent of the Turin culturalist current, the Sardinian, in opposition to Bordiga's line, contemplates a socialist cultural and educational revolution: the experience of the Club of Moral Life in 1917 would indeed demonstrate how he was on the margins of socialism and remained faithful to his Crocean-Vocian intellectual vocation.

Riechers considers Gramsci's relationship with Bordiga and the Bordighist political line to be of great weight in Gramsci's biography; the culminating moment would be the break that occurs due to the strategic divergence of the two leaders in relation to the United Front policy. During his stay in Moscow, Bock reports, the Sardinian decides to support the hegemony of the Soviet party in the Comintern and thus takes the reins of the PCd'I. In this light, the preparation of the Theses of Lyon appears as the product of a partial and personal manipulation by Gramsci. A precursor of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern already at the time of the Aventine, Gramsci would even anticipate the theoretical and political course of the PCI in the post-World War II period in a revisionist and nationalistic sense.

Gisela Bock reminds us that in the second part of Marxismus in Italien, the reconstruction of some basic Gramscian positions is alternately approached to Croce, Gentile, Mondolfo, Bogdanov, or even the Russian Narodniki.

In order to destroy that myth of Gramsci as the most profound and original Marxist of our movement, according to an expression by Togliatti, Riechers gives an implicit warning not to take his theories and analyses as a model uncritically.

The author believes that some parts of the essay explicitly show the aggressiveness of the analysis provided by the author. Riechers does not understand how Gramsci can use deliberately subjectivist interpretations in opposition to the economic theories and reformist policies of the PSI; Gramsci's theoretical strategy should instead be contextualized and explained through the historical events of the class struggle of the time.

Bock states that in reality, Gramsci does not distance himself much in the economic-social analysis of Marx, as Riechers insinuates, and this is quite clear even from the reading of the collection he himself curated a few years earlier. The critique of Riechers' work can be summarized in an expression that the feminist historian uses to describe the work done on the sources: “Zitatmontage”[225]. The work lacks a calm evaluation of Gramsci's position, who is in prison and abstracted from the social and political background of his time: the Notebooks are dedicated to providing a response to the political experience that the Sardinian lived in the real political struggle and his assessments of fascism.

Many of the defects in Riechers' work derive from that postulate that the young sociologist seems to always put in the foreground: the personal relationship between Gramsci and Bordiga; according to Bock, it would certainly have been more convenient to analyze Gramscian thought in the contemporary political situation rather than an individualizing and anecdotal profile.

The analysis of the Southern Question and the council experience, topics that the author addresses with Bordighist arguments, appears particularly inadequate.

Gisela Bock concludes her examination with an expression that well captures the construction on which the monograph rests: a "Polemik eines Bordighisten gegen Gramsci"[226].

Kurt Gerhard Fischer's opinion in Neue politische Literatur[227] denounces Riechers' work as a study dense with dogmatism, which can only interpret Gramscian anti-dogmatism negatively. Surprisingly, influences and comparisons with intellectuals such as Croce, Gentile, the anarchists, and Leninist doctrine are not admitted. Fischer notes, starting from this monograph, the lack of a systematic study on Gramsci that, without making him a saint, treats his political theory and communist praxis in use in Western Europe serenely and adequately.

A reaction to Riechers' work also comes from the DDR on the pages of the Marxist historiographical journal Zeitschrift für Geschichtswissenschaft[228]. Harald Neubert signs a very brief review that places a veto not only on the work but on the entire bourgeois "Gramsci-Renaissance," a phenomenon expressed according to different tendencies. The first is embodied by Riechers' monograph, characterized by the attempt to oppose Gramsci to Leninism and the PCI's political line. Neubert devotes a few more lines to the publication of the Lettere of 1972, where, in his opinion, another tendency of bourgeois historiography is emphasized: alienating Gramsci's work from its political context and describing him as an ancestor of revisionism.

The Philosophy of Praxis, Absolute Historicism[229]

The Althusserian interpretation of Gramsci is considered throughout the Western Marxist intellectual environment, despite the German translations of the French philosopher's works being delayed compared to the actual reception of the Althusserian message. In Italy, critical reactions are more or less calm[230], while in Germany, polemical contributions such as that of Alfred Schmid[231] soon emerge, dedicated to issues of Marxist theory of history, which include several chapters related to Gramsci's thought. Schmidt's work, devoted to Marxist historicism, primarily aims to return to an appropriate interpretation of Marx, detached from the anti-humanistic and fundamentally anti-historicist structuralist approaches like those of Althusser. In the reading of the French communist, history is dismissed in a rigid and contentless totalitarianism. This critical attitude develops throughout the volume, enriched by the indication of methodological and philosophical errors in which the Frenchman falls. Regarding Gramscian thought, while Schmidt feels compelled to deny any accusation, as from the Althusserian side, of "gauchisme" for Gramsci, he perceives an intrusive influence of Crocean and Gentilian actualism, although a critical attitude is recognized. However, it seems curious to find references between the positive and the enthusiastic for the care of the anthology, as well as for the study of the communist leader's thought by the young Riechers, as the latter bases his entire contribution to the study of Gramsci on a strong critique of the idealist roots from which Gramsci's work has not managed to free itself.

Schmidt's examination, aimed at retracing Marx's contributions to history and vulgar mechanistic approaches like Bukharin's, tends to limit the Gramscian vision to a historiography that does not renounce historical specificities and uniqueness for abstract sociological laws and resorts to a philological method that does not reduce Marxism to abstract sociology. Following this critical necessity, Schmidt dedicates a chapter to Gramscian criticism of Croce, noting the speculative nature of the ethical-political history of the Abruzzese philosopher, to which he contrasts a Gramsci who, like Lukács and Korsch, reconnects to Hegelian dialectics to counter vulgar materialism and thus allows the initiation of a new philosophical impulse to Marxist thought.

From Gramsci, Schmidt also borrows the interpretation of the relationship between historical materialism and the critique of political economy: in Ricardo, the source of the Marxist method of inquiry must indeed be sought, although the Sardinian does not delve too deeply into the analysis. In Gramscian absolute historicism, Schmidt sees a closeness to the critical theory developed by Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse around the same historical period. Not least are the accusations from structuralists against Gramscian thought, for being pervaded by naive historicism[232].

Only a year after Schmidt's critique, Althusser's contribution in Das Kapital lessen[233] is published in Germany, where the French philosopher dedicates a chapter to denying the interpretation of Marxism as historicism; while recognizing the historical merits of humanism and historicism born in reaction to the mechanistic and economistic tendencies of the Second International, in contemporary times, these instances have regained strength due to appropriation from the right. The themes of humanism and historicism were first adopted around the German left of Luxemburg and Mehring and later revived by some theorists like Korsch, Lukács, and Gramsci. Althusser indicates that the disapproval for such movements, which he defines as "gauchisant," had already been expressed by Lenin, although the revolutionary content in authors like Luxemburg and Gramsci must be recognized. In fact, in Pour Marx, Althusser had acknowledged Gramsci's originality, while here the Sardinian is assimilated to the Hegelian-Marxists[234].

Regarding our topic of analysis, the French philosopher invites the understanding of Gramsci's article *La Rivoluzione contro il Capitale*. The writing is paradoxical in its title, where Gramsci argues that the Bolsheviks operated in history not following *Capital* to the letter, according to that characteristic approach of the Second International that considered Marx's work a sacred text.

The sources of the "gauchist" form of Gramscian humanism and historicism are to be found in Labriola and Croce. In any case, Althusser recognizes Gramsci's denial of any metaphysical interpretation of Marxist philosophy, in order to bring it back to its practical role: in this relationship, historicism is reduced to the awareness of one's task and practical necessity, so much so that philosophy becomes concrete and real, history and politics. This point of view, according to the French philosopher, allows us to understand Gramsci's theory of intellectuals and ideology and thus the difference between an individual intellectual, who can produce more or less subjective and arbitrary ideologies, and the organic or collective intellectual (synthesized in the Party), which ensures hegemony to the ruling class by perpetuating its worldview (or organic ideology) in the daily life of all men. Only in this way is it possible to fully understand the interpretation of the modern Prince and trace the theoretical legacy of the PCI under new conditions.

The historicism characteristic of Marxism is but one of the aspects and effects of its theory: a theory of real history must pass into real history just as other worldviews have passed before. What is true for the great religions is even more so for Marxism, the only difference from other ideologies lies in the inclusion of practical sense in its theory[235].

Historicism, in its critical sense, condemns all "bookish" Marxisms that intend to make Marxism an individual philosophy without a grip on reality, equally harmful will be for those ideologues who, from the Renaissance tradition to Croce, intend to educate humanity from above, without entering political action or real history. The historicism affirmed by Gramsci thus stands in stark contrast to this aristocratism of theory and its thinkers, it is a direct appeal to praxis, to political action; in this sense, Althusser, however, doubts that this approach necessarily leads to an original interpretation of Marxism. The Frenchman believes that only in a practical sense can the new relationship between theory and praxis be developed, and this theme is already traceable in Marx: in historical materialism as a theory of the role of ideologies and scientific theories, as well as in the transformation of existing ideologies, as well as in dialectical materialism on the Marxist theory of the relationship between theory and praxis, usually defined as the "materialist theory of knowledge."

Gramsci's emphasis on historicism thus alludes to the resolutely materialist character of the Marxist conception.

Althusser thinks he has found an ambiguity in the Gramscian notion of historical materialism; the Sardinian uses this term at the same time to indicate both historical materialism and Marxist philosophy; in this way, the scientific theory of history (historical materialism) and Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism) are confused and united under the same term.

Furthermore, Gramsci places both religion and Marxism under the same category of worldview, without specifying the peculiar objective of Marxism to put an end to all "jenseits" (transcendence, the beyond) as science. Moreover, the theory of history and Marxism are not duly distinguished; in fact, according to Althusser, the former cannot have a scientific character and is not distinguished from other ideologies: philosophy is the history of philosophy (according to the Hegelian-Crocean teaching) and, ultimately, history.

According to the French philosopher, Gramsci describes science as a superstructure or a historical category comparable to a human relationship, while, excluding the youthful works, Marx never speaks of scientific knowledge as a superstructural element; it is true that a science arises from an ideology, but it detaches from that field to constitute itself as true science, through a rupture that allows it a new form of existence and temporality.

Althusser provides a framework of the concept of common sense in philosophy: it is a direct product of the activity and experience of the masses, of the praxis of political economy; from this point of view, Marxist philosophy would be reduced to historical methodology: a simple self-awareness by the historicity of history, thus arriving at Hegelian historicism radicalized by Croce[236].

Reactions to Riechers' Interpretation

Riechers' anthology and his interpretative key to Gramscian Marxism leave the German intellectual and academic world[237] with the need to shed light on the figure of the Sardinian and his thought, especially from a philosophical perspective. Responding to the representation given by the young sociologist, it is no less important to specify the cultural origins of the philosophy of praxis and its developments in Gramscian thought, clarifying its strongly critical nature towards idealism. While in Italian culture, through the Labriola-Gramsci-Togliatti line, the influences of Crocean historicism have been defined and understood through debate and extensive bibliography, in the German world, the only explanation of the influence of Croce's lesson is the one provided by Riechers in an altered version that attributes an idealist-subjectivist approach to Gramsci. It is therefore necessary to specify Croce's role in Gramsci's elaboration, especially concerning the historicist component, which has already received severe criticism from Althusser[238].

The particular attention paid to the philosophical character of Gramsci's work can also be read as a response to the needs of an era characterized by a "hunger for praxis": an aspiration that has involved German society in recent years, caught between the demands of the protest movement and a particularly restrictive internal political situation[239]. Not least, one must consider the first fruits of '68, starting with the Marxian revival, multiple currents of political thought have emerged from that experience. In the German university youth environments of that time, many suggestions remain, from the critique of the Frankfurt School's culture to a renewed interest in council communism, from the allure of Maoism to the consideration of authoritative Althusserian interpretations. In this regard, Elmar Altvater uses the effective expression "eine Theorie wird gefiltert" to explain the reception of Gramscian theories before the "eigentliche Gramsci-Rezeption"[240] which will begin shortly thereafter, in the second half of the 1970s. The scholar describes which dominant philosophical-political interpretations in the Federal Republic have acted as "filters" on the reading of Gramsci's thought; they serve as an interpretative background and also dictate the specificities of subsequent elaborations. The first "filter" consists of enthusiasm for the phenomena of struggle of the Italian radical left ("Lotta Continua," "Potere Operaio"), this thought is synthesized by theorists such as Tronti and Negri, particularly interested in the council communist Gramsci. The second "filter" is elaborated by the academic left during the "reconstruction of the critique of political economy," particularly studying Capital as a universal key to interpretation[241]; where Marx's answers end, formulas derived from the State are sought with the Staatsableitungsdebatte[242], which presents itself as a sort of theory of the world market in search of dominant political institutions and rules in modern capitalist democracies. The third factor is the broad reception of French structuralism, especially Althusser and later Poulantzas.

The influences of these "filters" will show themselves through heterogeneity in the contributions to come, some authors will also try to relate Gramsci to other Marxist philosophers (for example: Lukács, Kosík, exponents of the Frankfurt School). Despite these interpretative tendencies, the need to fully understand the philosophical roots and the system of thought underlying Gramsci's work remains strong, for this reason, the studies of the early 1970s, the result of research from the university environment, will seek precise gnoseological and epistemological answers.

The first publication of this kind is by a scholar of Andalusian origin, Juan Rodriguez-Lores, with study experiences in philosophy and theology both in Italy and Germany; his work, The Basic Structure of Marxism. Gramsci and the Philosophy of Praxis is focused on the fundamental philosophical aspects underlying Gramsci's theory of praxis[243].

The monograph is divided into six parts, two short chapters serve as a premise to frame Gramsci's position in the history of Marxism and specify the differences in the concept of the philosophy of praxis for the classics of Italian thought.

The author begins with a quote from a contribution by Karel Kosík about Gramsci and the philosophy of praxis[244]: here the question is posed whether the starting point of Marxism is to be found in matter or in praxis and whether Marx's theory is a philosophy or a critical theory of society. Gramsci, according to Rodriguez-Lores, has made a significant contribution to Marxism: the conception of social historical development; his originality has manifested itself in the "Wiederanerkennung des 'superstrukturellen' Moments als die einzige geschichtlich wirksame Existenzform des 'strukturellen' Inhalts der Geschichte in des 'blocco storico'"[245]. The dialectic of history is a law of internal production within the historical bloc, which is represented and described by the movement from the base to the superstructure and vice versa, this conception stands in stark contrast to cosmological interpretations that understand dialectics as a supernatural law with respect to the real history of the world. Indeed, idealism has attempted to save the subjective superstructural (as in the case of ethical-political history for Croce) through the return to the structural-historical content.

For the consciousness of the proletariat (a legacy of German idealism), the need to overcome its state of subalternity and give shape to a new society through a new universal culture and morality, which can lead to hegemony over society, manifests itself. The object of Gramsci's research so far has been ideology as the necessary engine of social movements.

The primary source for the study of Gramsci's thought by Rodriguez-Lores is the first volume of the thematic collection by Togliatti: Historical Materialism and the Philosophy of Benedetto Croce[246], which allows the author to return to Gramsci's original text. The Andalusian also initiates a more in-depth research within the Italian cultural sphere, starting, critically, from Tronti's intervention at the 1958 Conference, where Gramsci's Anti-Croce is a global moment of Marxism; from the same Conference, there are also references to Robert Paris's contribution on the 1923 crisis, where the interest in Croce is judged as Gramsci's limit, as well as Zanardo's opinion on the study in the GDR of Bukharin's Manual. The author, in reference to the Italian cultural sphere, reviews the ontological readings of the philosophy of praxis: Mondolfo, Gentile, and Croce to arrive then at Labriola. According to Mondolfo's vision, subject and object exist only in their reciprocal relation, whose truth/reality lies in praxis, and their opposition is nothing but the condition of their development process. Mondolfo preferred to rename historical materialism as voluntaristic idealism or teleology, so that the unilateral origin of Praxis in the subject would be more evident. For Gentile, alongside Marx's philosophy of history, there is a metaphysics, an intuition of the world, or a monist materialism. The second is in contradiction with the first, thus Marx's thought is an eclectic composition of opposing, contradictory elements. Since the concept of praxis is a product of idealism, it finds its meaning only in this sense. The philosophy of praxis is, like the philosophy of the pure act, the absolute autonomous subject in its process of concretization. Rodriguez-Lores finally deals with Croce's interpretation, where in reality there is no longer any Marxist philosophy: the Abruzzese philosopher agrees with Gentile that all reality is praxis, but praxis of thought. If one speaks of historical materialism as the philosophy of praxis, it is to address and resolve the problem of thought and being, or to overcome it. Marxism can exist only in its historiographical being (as a contribution to historiography and its philosophy of history), and is no longer a philosophy, a method of thinking, or a philosophy of praxis that already exists in its definitive form in idealism, but rather a canon of historical interpretation, of an empirical character, which leads to the knowledge of data not yet considered; its task is to indicate the search for new elements from the economic structure of society. Croce affirms that Marxists simply bring new data and new experiences to the historian or philologist. As for Labriola, the author argues that he has been underestimated for his "Metaphysik der schlechteren Art"[247], according to Croce's judgment. Labriola is remembered here for his decisive research on the autonomy of the philosophy of praxis and, with a specific analysis of philosophical passages, the author describes the arrival at an objectification of history and the explanation of the common methodological relationship between history and nature. Labriola's philosophy of praxis does not pose any secondary dualism between historical and dialectical materialism, it represents instead a "objektive und methodologische Einheitlichkeit in bezug auf die, von der 'Praxis' bereits als Einheit von Innerem und Äußerem hergestellte historische Realität"[248].

To the Anti-Croce set up and encouraged by Gramsci, another part of the essay is dedicated, in which the author recognizes the fundamental characteristics of Gramsci's philosophy of praxis. Not least, the foundation of Marx's thought is evoked, to be sought in Hegel's philosophy.

Rodriguez-Lores explains how Gramsci makes his own Labriola's thesis that founds the originality and autonomy of Marxist philosophy, independent of any other. Indeed, Labriola was the only one who attempted a scientific construction of it, but which, according to Gramsci, is still in a phase of discussion and elaboration. Entering into specifics, the author guides us in retracing that research, against idealism and materialism, which goes back to Marx to find the "Grundbestimmung der 'Praxis' und nach dem 'echten' Gedankengang"[249].

On the Philosophy of praxis in an anti-Hegelian sense, the author focuses attention in the fourth chapter, here the philosophical ground and the organic and unitary structure of Marxist theory are also expressed.

On the philosophical ground and in contrast to the two contemporary tendencies of Marxism (orthodoxy and the theory of revolutionary dialectics) that find validity in social development, Gramsci seeks to give historical materialism a universal value, that is, to render historical specificity in the category of the being of the reality of the world, following and developing the autonomy of the philosophy of praxis with respect to other philosophies achieved by Labriola.

Rodriguez-Lores considers it useful to start from the classic writings of Marxism taken into particular consideration by Gramsci, thus we find the preface to Critique of Political Economy by Marx, where Gramsci traces those foundations useful for explaining Marx's method and the principle of praxis and constitute the central core of Marxism: "die 'Menschen sich (des Konfliktes zwischen den materiellen Produktivkräften) auf dem ideologischen Gebiet' der rechtlichen, politischen, religiösen, künstlerischen und religiösen Formen bewußt werden", it is a passage that the Sardinian quotes several times and recognizes as men becoming conscious of the conflicts between material productive forces precisely in the ideological sphere[250]. Gramsci immediately poses the methodological question whether this thesis of Marx on praxis as the gnoseological principle of historical-social reality does not already contain within itself a principle of a general theory of knowledge. With this, he does not intend to change the central structure of Marxist theory of knowledge, on the contrary, he especially wants to connect the construction in its completeness, as thought by Marx, with the cognition of the world.

Reporting a passage from Anti-Dühring on the materiality of the unity of the world, Rodriguez-Lores guides us to the question of the autonomy of Marxism with respect to idealism and materialism against metaphysics and against the idealist version of the contemplation of nature. Here Gramsci develops a Marxist philosophy, which is a unitary gnoseological principle of different theories and which "als allgemeine 'Weltanschauung' zu einem 'tendenziellen' Monismus führt, dessen Grundkategorie die der 'Gegenwart' und der 'Geschichtlichkeit' ist -- mit seinen eigenen Worten gesagt: eine 'Philosophie der Tat', d.h. der 'Praxis', der 'Entwicklung' in der Gegenwart, ohne die ideologiesierte Zutat des ideologischen 'Fortschritts'"[251].

Italian idealism, reports the author, has destroyed the unity between philosophy and concrete history through the resumption of the pure act. This destruction is repeated in metaphysical materialism (in orthodoxy) when it transmits the idealist pure act and its absolute and abstract rationality in the object. Both approaches are therefore to be rejected, from a historical-cultural point of view they are reactionary and present themselves as absolute knowledge.

Gramsci poses a theory of the concrete historical unity between the subjective and the objective, in contrast to the philosophy of identity and absolute truth or reason; he reasons on a theory of political or cultural reality, based on the material recognition of the extra-logical existence of the subjective and the objective, elements that always present themselves in historical truth as a unity in continuous revision and re-elaboration.

According to Rodriguez-Lores, in the early writings, Gramsci shows a strong anti-positivism, there are also components of voluntarism and a tendency towards subjectivist idealism, which places him very close to the young Lukács; these characteristics allow the support of his thought to Italian idealism and the leftist Marxism characteristic of Western countries. The similarity between Gramsci and Lukács, according to Rodriguez-Lores, is anything but arbitrary and even less casual, one can find affinities regarding the critique of orthodox Marxism[252]; indeed, the victory of revolutionary praxis in a single country and the defeat of reformist socialism in every country where it is practiced, testifies to the falsity of any kind of objective evolutionism in history.

In the fifth chapter, Rodriguez-Lores addresses the theory of translation as the principle of the theory of knowledge of Marxist theory. The author deals precisely with reciprocal translatability with a reference to Gramsci's passage on Unity in the Constituent Elements of Marxism[253], but also analyzes the questions posed by Gramsci in Translatability of Scientific and Philosophical Languages[254]. Here the observation of the existence of a reciprocal translatability, whatever the particular national language, between fundamentally similar structures, with equivalent superstructures, is exposed, also posing the question of the difference of scientific languages. In this framework, the position of Marxism is particular, whose organic character of translatability is given by the philosophy of praxis, which allows an organic translation not only from a methodological point of view, "sondern sogar unentbehrlich für den Gestaltungsprozeß des Marxismus als konkrete Weltanschauung einer Epoche"[255].

The degree of development of revolutionary praxis depends on the degree of development of the consciousness of its historical subject, the proletariat. To illustrate the relationship between Marxism as ideology and the history of the workers' movement, Gramsci refers to Rosa Luxemburg's thesis taken from Stagnation and Progress in Marxism. According to Luxemburg, it is impossible "to address certain questions of the philosophy of praxis as they have not yet become actual for the course of general history or of a given social grouping"[256]. The Sardinian here partially deviates from the thesis of the German thinker who works within a theory of Revolution, while Gramsci is interested in overcoming the phase of atrophy of Marxism through critical translatability, when the most conscious social part is the bearer of a general philosophy.

The last chapter of Rodriguez-Lores' monograph addresses the theme of Engelsian interpretations, highlighting their meanings and responsibilities as a source for orthodox revisionism and leaving still a space for different interpretations of Engels' thought.

The work of the young Andalusian scholar is certainly a step forward compared to the studies produced so far by German Gramscian literature and probably the reading of the texts in the original language has allowed the author to come into direct contact with Gramsci's thought. His attempt to reach the foundations of Gramsci's philosophy compared to those who preceded him in defining the philosophy of praxis is of great utility for the German public and the approach to Lukács can give that same public some element of familiarity. It is worth noting Rodriguez-Lores' interest in what in the future will become popular as Gramsci's theory of translatability, certainly still far from being systematically developed, but of which the author, in the ontological setting of his work, has the merit of resuming and inserting into the analysis of Gramsci's thought.

In 1972, Fischer Verlag published the collection Letters from Prison, based on the Italian edition edited by Sergio Caprioglio and Elsa Fubini[257], the editing and translation is entrusted to a young scholar with study experiences in Italy, Gerhard Roth. The editor presents the edition first of all as a selection of documents that "für das Verständnis der Philosophie Gramscis wichtig sind, besonders diejenigen, die sich auf die Studien zur Geschichte und Funktion der Intellektuellen sowie auf das Verhältnis Gramscis zu seinem großen geistigen Gegenspieler Benedetto Croce beziehen"[258]. To be underlined is Roth's emphasis on the continuity between the prison reflections and the Letters, without neglecting, in his introduction, the human aspect of the Sardinian thinker, as well as the most relevant biographical and political information. The topicality of Gramscian themes, from the interest in the figure of Croce, whose activity is a powerful tool of the ruling class, to the role of intellectuals in national culture, are the themes highlighted by Bruno Frei in his review of the new edition edited by Roth: "diese Briefe sind nicht Archivstoff, sondern aktueller Gesprächstoff"[259].

In 1969, Roth obtained his doctorate with a thesis on Gramsci's philosophy of praxis, the result of his philosophy studies in Rome and published in 1972 with the subtitle: A New Interpretation of Marxism[260].

We are faced with the only essay of this kind, that is, the result of a doctoral thesis, which will be remembered at least for the entire decade by German Gramscian literature[261]. Unfortunately, the author will no longer deal with Gramsci to devote himself to neuroscience studies, but this work of his remains a relevant starting point not only for a critique of the previous literature (Riechers), but above all for his philosophical analysis of Gramsci's thought.

Gerhard Roth does not concentrate his examination on a single strand of Gramsci's philosophy, as in the case of Rodriguez-Lores with Historical Materialism and the Philosophy of Benedetto Croce[262], but extensively uses also the other volumes of the thematic edition. In this way, he can initiate a complete critique, based on precise references to the original Italian and also to the collection and essay by Riechers, works that at the time are the only systematic presentation of Gramsci's thought available to the German public. Already in 1969, from the columns of the «Frankfurter Allgemeine», the author had presented in a review of the anthology Philosophy of Praxis[263] his perplexities regarding Riechers' interpretation of Gramsci with incautious translations and daring annotations, counterproductive defects for non-expert readers, while with his work, Roth attempts to repair those shortcomings by presenting truly a Gramsci selbst -- und seine Deutung[264].

In this essay, it is intended to immediately give a general picture of Gramsci's Marxist approach: the philosophy of praxis is here outlined as an Enlightenment philosophy[265]: a theory of the individual, society, and morality, which overcomes the definition of the individual in favor of a set of social relations, as well as through the identification of the complex interactions of the objects of social relations and human revolutionary will. Gramsci proposes his own model of revolution that is explicated in an intellectual reform with the aim of creating a revolutionary critical consciousness capable of breaking ideological domination and becoming a critical instance in the realization of socialist society. Roth adds that only through such a reform can we be sure that behind political-social emancipation do not hide new forms of oppression, as during Stalinism.

The heart of the philosophy of praxis lies in that conception of Gramsci that sees Marxism as "absolute historicism," that is, in the identity of philosophy, history, and politics. Roth clarifies that the concept of historicism has often been misunderstood by assuming the metaphysical rooting of historicity adopted by Croce and precisely on this point is based the interpretation of Alfred Schmidt[266], uncritically relying on the incorrect translation proposed by Riechers. According to Roth, in no other way would the theorist of History and Structure have arrived at the judgment of a determining influence of neo-Hegelian actualism on Gramsci, even approaching the Gramscian conception to Heidegger's Being and Time[267].

A fundamental dimension for Gramscian historicism is politics, as philosophy is always political philosophy and history is expressed as the totality of attempts to overcome ideological and practical-political relations. According to Roth, it would therefore be wrong to render the philosophy of praxis a conception outside the dimension of the political; even the theory of knowledge would be incomprehensible if it were not looked at in its practical intention, that is, gathered in that political conception of intellectual and moral reform.

With the philosophy of praxis, Gramsci did not leave us a closed system or a work conceived in an orderly manner, even the fragmentary and provisional character of his work must be taken into account to understand the value of the different interpretations. Roth argues that Gramsci used pseudonyms to indicate Marx and Lenin to avoid censorship and this fact has certainly had a role also for the rest of the expressions included in the prison work, but the author wonders, relying on Gerratana's theses, if the same can be said for the expression "philosophy of praxis." Roth reports Tronti's opinion: the expression carries within itself another interpretation of Marxism, it is not the result of a codification, a judgment, this, confirmed by the fact that it is not Gramsci who coined the term, but derived from a particular philosophical tradition: the academic bourgeois Marxist reception, which goes from the turn of the century to the first decades of the 20th century of Italian history, represented by philosophers such as Labriola, Croce, Gentile, Mondolfo.

From this reference, Roth introduces Labriola's theory of knowledge, which starts from the Hegelian dialectic between subject and object and revolutionizes it in a unity between two elements: theory and praxis, but understood on materialistic bases. The fundamental idea of the revolution is that every act of thought is work and this work, like physical work, finds its roots and its matter in the objective social and historical conditions. «Der Gedanke und seine Derivate (wie etwa Wissenschaft) sind für Labriola „wahre und eigentliche Funktionen der Gesellschaft": „vom Leben zum Gedanken und nicht vom Gedanken zum Leben, das ist der Prozeß der Wirklichkeit"»[268]. The philosophy of praxis in this sense can approach a continuation of Engels' Anti-Dühring, which Labriola had introduced in Italy, at least according to Gentile's judgment in The Philosophy of Marx[269], who seeks to study in depth the philosophy of praxis in the young Marx. Translator of the Theses on Feuerbach, Gentile recognizes how for the philosopher of Trier the philosophy of praxis is the expression of the attempt contained in the Theses of a synthesis between Hegelian dialectics and Feuerbachian materialism. Marx agrees with Feuerbach that the principle of reality is not the idea, but the sensible object, but the latter, considering the sensible object in its nakedness, reduces the theory of knowledge to appearance.

For Gentile, the meaning of Marxism is thus explicit: having duly taken Hegel into account, from here the necessity of dialectics has been recognized and the attention transferred from "things" as inanimate objects, to the relationship between human being and sensible objects, which in themselves are in motion.

Both Labriola and Gentile consider the core of Marxism as the philosophy of praxis in the problem of knowledge and the dialectic between subject and object, leaving however unattended the decisive turn of Marx, contemplated in the Theses on Feuerbach, which consists of the political change of reality. Roth clarifies that the reduction of the philosophy of praxis to this simple dialectic with the emptying of the Theses from the practical-political component has been favored by a linguistic circumstance: in the Engelsian redaction, one does not speak indeed of praxis "revolutionär", but "umwälzend", translated in Italian as "praxis that overturns"[270]. In this case, Riechers, in his study, has rightly noted the relationship between this interpretation of the young Gentile with the formation, subsequently, of the General Theory of Spirit[271] and the so-called "actualism".

In his examination, Roth moves on to Mondolfo, who deals with the problem of knowledge and the dialectic between subject and object in his Historical Materialism in Friedrich Engels[272]. Mondolfo approaches Gentile's argumentation and adapts it: the concept of praxis is not reconcilable with the materialist interpretation of reality and seeks to prove how between historical materialism and materialism in the real sense the kinship is only terminological. According to Mondolfo, Marx's main concern is the basis of every philosophy, that is, knowledge, for Engels the foundation would instead be being and becoming in nature and society. Thus while Engels increasingly approaches materialism, Marx is led by epistemology towards the philosophy of praxis, which could hardly be said to be materialist. Mondolfo recognizes to Engels the independence of his early writings from Marx and indicates how he arrived before Marx himself to the philosophy of praxis (where knowing and doing are identified) thanks to the influence of Feuerbach and Carlyle, of the Hegelian left. At the time, Mondolfo refers to the period of The Holy Family, Marx had not yet freed himself from metaphysical materialism, a distancing that arrives only with the Theses on Feuerbach, but in that early writing there is a consciousness of the impossibility of the relationship between the bases of the philosophy of praxis with materialism, Marx indeed rejects French materialism that uses atomism mechanistically in the analysis of human societies. Only later, in In the Footsteps of Marx[273], Mondolfo will attempt to construct the philosophy of praxis as a critical and practical theory of history and society[274]. From the III Thesis on Feuerbach also comes Mondolfo's reflection on the difference between real and abstract voluntarism, the latter will be what the philosopher will later see incorporated by Leninist revolutionary theory.

Gramsci connects to this Marxist interpretation characteristic of the Italian tradition as regards the philosophy of praxis, but the Gramscian literature has been rather superficial on the subject, comments Roth, also for the fact that Gramsci himself has not left much study material on this tradition. The author notes however an exception in this picture: Tronti's contribution, Between Dialectical Materialism and Philosophy of Praxis[275] and Riechers' work. Gramsci affirms how Labriola distances himself from the two directions, the idealist as well as the orthodox one, thanks to his research work on the autonomy of the philosophy of praxis and from this point onwards the Sardinian proposes to continue the work of elaboration. Although on this specific materialistic interpretation of history Gramsci does not give contributions to the development of the theory, his conception differs from those interpretations of historical materialism, which, despite the efforts, do not manage to completely free themselves from determinism, starting from the Engelsian principle of the necessary correlation between base and superstructure.

Even less is found, within Gramsci's work, the presence of Mondolfo, the weight of his influence is clear in a paragraph of the Notebooks entitled Questions of Method[276] in which the position of critique of materialism that Mondolfo addresses to Engels is defined. Gramsci most likely approaches him to the idealist revisionism of Crocean and Gentilian stamp and in this sense with the work In the Footsteps of Marx, the criticisms to Lenin and to the October Revolution speak for themselves.

Roth claims a contrast of Gramsci with respect to Labriola, Mondolfo, and finally Gentile, whose actualism is not taken seriously into consideration by the Sardinian as a philosophy, while an explicit contrast that overshadows everything else is the one that runs through all the Notebooks: the red thread of the confrontation with Croce.

In a paragraph dedicated to The Philosophy of Praxis and Modern Culture[277] Gramsci outlines an ideological-historical scheme that explains the central role of the Theses on Feuerbach in the elaboration of the philosophy of praxis for Labriola, Gentile, and Mondolfo. Here are confronted popular materialism and the spiritualism of the ruling class: Hegel's contribution has been to bring a unity to the moments of spiritualism and materialism, but this synthesis is expressed as "a man walking on his head." Marx in turn attempts another synthesis of the elements he has before him (Hegelianism, Feuerbachism, French materialism) and this time the result is the man not upside down, who walks on his feet. Gramsci believes that the disintegration of Marxism began with the orthodox (Plekhanov, Engels, Bukharin) and the neo-idealism of Croce and Gentile as interpreters of Marxism in Italian culture.

Gramsci's work thus poses itself as a third attempt to arrive at a new critical overcoming of the two moments in a synthesis between materialism and spiritualism/idealism. Roth also reports Gramsci's judgment according to which «Marx in erster Linie Begründer einer Theorie der Geschichte und der Gesellschaft und Ökonomie war und seine philosophischen Anschauungen nicht in der gleichen Weise systematisch darlegte, sondern „in Form von Aphorismen und auf den konkreten Fall bezogenen praktischen Kriterien"»[278]. As for the critique of materialism and idealism, Roth underlines how Gramsci reproposes Labriola's theme of the independence and autonomy of Marxism, in contrast with those who intend to "improve" Marxism by marrying it with Kantianism or, according to the orthodoxy of the II International, in a mixture of Marxism and metaphysical materialism. These phenomena operate in search of the substance of Marxism in dependence on other currents, while, strictly speaking, orthodoxy would instead want the recognition of philosophical autonomy.

Differently from Engels, Plekhanov, Kautsky, and later Bukharin, Gramsci does not criticize the formation of Marxism in a general worldview, but his efforts are aimed at giving Marxism a foundation on a materialistic basis.

Regarding the «allgemein materialistischen Welt- und Geschichtsauffassung»[279] Roth recalls how Engels in Anti-Dühring indicates a system that embraces every field of knowledge under a unitary principle. This has been possible with an appropriation of Darwin's lesson, of which Marx himself recognizes the importance. Hegel's thought needed to be demystified to give the general principle of a Weltanschauung; based on this Marxist conviction, Engels claimed for himself and Marx to be the only ones who from idealism have been able to save conscious dialectics, bringing it to a materialist interpretation of nature and history. The only difference between the two would be that Marx applied it to the general forms of movement of society, while Engels extended it to nature. Like Mondolfo, Roth recalls, Gramsci tends to dissociate Marx from Engels (whose natural continuator appears to be Bukharin), questioning the role of the term and the interpretation of materialism for Marx. Gramsci is not as far from the Marxist conception of materialism as, for example, Riechers would like to make it appear, for the Sardinian Bukharin's vision becomes metaphysical as it looks at matter ahistorically, «die Marxsche dialektische Geschichtsauffassung ist hier reduziert auf eine „ökonomische Materialismusm"»[280], while Gramsci is interested in matter in its historical, economic, and practical form.

Another part of Roth's work that we are interested in highlighting is dedicated to Gramsci's theory of knowledge deepened by the analysis of the concepts of objectivity and reality in the philosophy of praxis. The author cites a consideration expressed by Gruppi: the "affirmation, that in the Russian Revolution there is more ideology than facts, appears an evident idealistic element. Referring to that period, years later, Gramsci will say that he was then tendentially Crocean"[281], this affirmation, according to Roth, is explanatory for a situation of analytical superficiality that has characterized Gramscian studies from an epistemological and ontological point of view[282]. The central point of this critique is the importance of investigations on the concepts of objectivity and reality that occupy a central place in the Notebooks and without the appropriate consideration of these elements, Gramsci's philosophy cannot be fully understood. In a note, Roth adds another observation: Riechers' work has found the central point of its critique precisely thanks to the lack of clear definitions of Gramsci's theory of knowledge.

The author traces a particular theoretical relevant for his discourse in the difference between Gramsci's epistemological position on the one hand and Engels and Lenin on the other in addressing the theme of the limits of knowledge with Kant's theory of the "thing in itself": the latter two harshly criticize the theory through the idea of knowledge of reality, Gramsci, without invoking an absolute limit to knowledge, equates the "thing in itself" with the objectivity of extra-human reality, subjecting the concept to a detailed critique.

As for the Althusserian critique, Roth seeks to investigate the reasons behind the erroneous interpretation of Gramsci's thought on the relationship of Gramscian historicism with reality and the erroneous equation between philosophy and ideology. According to Althusser «Bei Gramsci fällt hingegen der Marxismus aus dem Licht der Erkenntnis ins dunkle Reich des Glaubens und Wähnens zurück»[283]. In this direction, Roth goes back starting from Gramsci to the reduction of Hegelian historicism to absolute knowledge, passing through the conception of Croce's theory of religion.

Among the analytical developments declined by Roth, there are many points in common with Gruppi's analysis[284] and above all, we find many critical references with respect to the work conducted by Riechers, with the clarification of translation errors and points characterized by false interpretations.

The volume continues with the investigation of Gramsci's thought, in its political side, through the main themes emerging from the Notebooks: the relationship between the state and civil society, that between structure and superstructure as a historical bloc, and the role of intellectuals in the formation of hegemony.

A substantial part of the study is dedicated to the revolution in the aspects of war of movement and war of position, the latter is linked to the necessity of an intellectual and moral reform, with the formation of the new type of party in function of a new "regulated society" characterized by the absence of classes.

It is interesting to note how Roth takes care to retrace the birth and development of Gramsci's concepts, both philosophical and political, from their sources, for example, in the case of the analysis of the concept of revolution in the two Gramscian acceptations, the author elucidates also the theoretical references to Cuoco and Edgar Quinet.

Linked to Proudhon, Renan, and Sorel is instead the setting of the intellectual and moral reform, where Roth goes back to the idea that the French Revolution was not only a political fact; indeed, through the Enlightenment, a broad moral reform unfolded that involved the people, this reform is seen as the completion of the Lutheran revolution that started from Germany, whose peculiarity was precisely to interest the peasant masses through an explicit secular background that attempts to replace religion with a secular, national, and patriotic ideology. These popular religions are in contrast against the aristocratic-intellectual movements that start from Humanism and the Renaissance and remain limited to court circles or high "bourgeoisie" and do not become popular belief or general worldview.

The same kind of discourse also applies to Croce's philosophy: according to Gramsci's judgment, it has not become a popular vision, but has consciously closed itself in elitist circles, although initially, in the period before the First World War, Crocean idealism was welcomed by the enthusiastic Italian youth as "spiritual reform." Following this reasoning, Gramsci thinks that the philosophy of praxis must pose itself as a new worldview, in place of Christianity, permeating common sense.

In closing the volume, Roth clarifies the role, political use, and dissonances on the part of contemporary Marxism with respect to the philosophy of praxis, taking into consideration the "Italian way to socialism" of Togliatti.

Roth's work well synthesizes the need felt by German scholars to know in depth the theoretical roots of Gramsci's thought, starting from Italian historicism and the neo-idealist interpretations that characterized the beginning of the century. This kind of study on Gramsci cannot but meet with the interest in the philosophy of Marx and Engels and thus shows itself indispensable to precisely distinguish every source at the base of Gramscian categories, theoretical novelties that present themselves in all their originality. Not least, in Gramscian literature, there is a strong need for clarification with respect to the interpretations carried forward by Riechers since the anthology under his care. Another component that calls for greater attention to the ontological aspects of the Sardinian's work is the irradiation of the Althusserian interpretation that at the moment receives particular attention, but is still in its first phase of critique of Gramsci. The work carried out by Roth, although it cannot rely on certain bases in the field of German Gramscian literature, receives massive impulses from Italian bibliography. He largely bases himself on Italian results (conferences, collective works), but his particular reference goes to the study dedicated to Gramscian hegemony by Gruppi.

Despite the limitations of a pioneering work, written by a young scholar, and with some suggestions that recall the Enlightenment, Roth's work is the result of a theoretical effort and in-depth study of Italian culture decidedly worthy of the attention that in part will be recognized by subsequent studies[285].

A review of Roth's monograph arrives from the pages of the «Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie»[286] signed by Peter Palla, one of the protagonists of this beginning of the 1970s with the publication of his doctoral thesis.

With a nod to the anti-dogmatic and opening work of Peter Brückner[287], Palla wonders how Gramsci can still be almost unknown in Germany. In 1967, the anthology edited by Riechers appeared, followed by his volume Marxism in Italy where it emerges that Gramsci «Vertreter des subjektiven Idealismus sei und so zum bürgerlichen Ideologen der reformistischen Praxis der KPI werden konnte»[288], leaving Palla with a rhetorical question: why then translate Gramsci?

Of the same opinion as Riechers was Alfred Schmidt who warns about the extreme subjectivism of Gramsci's conception of reality, only to then define the Sardinian's work of great impulse. Palla, sarcastically, comments: «Ob dieses Märchen vom idealistischen Gramsci noch zu zerstören ist, wird jetzt die Veröffentlichung des Buches von Gerhard Roth zeigen»[289].

Alongside a useful classification of Gramsci's theoretical work in the historical development of Marxism, Roth composes his analysis on two sides: the description of Gramsci's approach to the theory of knowledge, where the Sardinian is recognized as a stubborn and decisive representative of historical materialism, and the concept of dialectics in contrast to idealistic or deterministic Marxist visions, overcoming the classical aporia between base and superstructure with the help of a historical force to be sought not so much in economic tendencies, but in political initiative.

From here arises the problem of hegemony and cultural revolution, the relations between workers and intellectuals, and the passage from war of movement to war of position.

After a nod to the difference between Togliatti and Gramsci, Palla argues that, as emerges from the volume, there is in Gramsci much more than a new interpretation of Marxism, as the title says, but a question centered on Marxist social science and the connection between the analysis of the relations of production with the materialist-historical analysis of these phenomena.

Very different from the other works resulting from doctoral theses (Rodiriguez-Lores, Roth), is that of Peter Palla on the philosophy of praxis in Italy[290] and in part directed to Gramsci's contribution. The author's biography already denotes its particularity: seminarian, he concludes his philosophical studies at the Jesuit School of Munich to then leave the Society of Jesus and enroll at the University of Cologne, where he completes a doctorate in Philosophy. Palla's cultural background is Italian and this familiarity is evident looking at the theoretical bases as at the points of interest of his thesis, particularly concentrated on the contemporary Italian debate. To present a general review of contemporary Italian Marxism, Palla avails himself of the contributions of Norberto Bobbio, specifically oriented to the description of leftist intellectual environments: the problems listed by Gramsci in the Notebooks should be the starting point for a critique of revolutionary theories, while «die italienische Marxisten haben Gramsci zum Urheber von fünf oder sechs Formeln gemacht, mit denen sie alles erklären»[291]. Although the study of Gramsci has led to a Marxist renaissance and the Sardinian's thought is studied by all tendencies of Italian Marxism, a serious mortgage on his thought derives from the fact that Togliatti has made him the unique inspiration for the politics of the PCI.

The objective expressed by Palla is to demonstrate how Gramsci's theory is detached from any form of opportunism and reformism. The Marxism theorized by the Sardinian by its nature cannot but disappoint those who are in search of a replacement for a worldview that has collapsed, or of dogmatic ideologies that lead to blind political actions. In his critique of Bukharin, it is clear for Gramsci that the definition of a philosophy is missing and it is precisely what the communist leader seeks in historical materialism and the philosophy of praxis manages to respond in an original and positive way to the philosophically determining questions: the determination of a philosophy, the confrontation with speculative philosophy; indeed, precisely the philosophy of praxis shows possible answers to the Marxist imperative to change the world. Gramsci «in Marx keine Lehrmeister eines abgeschlossenen System sieht, so muß aber gleichzeitig begriffen werden, wie sehr für Gramsci mit Marx eine radikal neue Kultur begonnen hat»[292]. From here the major theoretical problems are a reformulation of the philosophical theory and the total application of philosophy to concrete history.

Palla begins the analysis of Gramsci's philosophy by premising that Gramsci, after the youthful period, has operated a philosophical overcoming of Croce and in reference to the reduction of Marxism to idealism, according to Riechers' opinion on Gramsci, the author believes that retracing the philosophical path starting from Hegel up to Marx can be clear the critical development of Marxism.

Palla seeks to explain the origins and reasons of Gramsci's expression that indicates the philosophy of praxis as absolute historicism starting from the article Socialism and Culture of 1916[293], where Gramsci accentuates how man is the creator of his history, for this the development of freedom human cannot be considered a natural evolution. In this way, Gramsci's critique of ideological conformism develops. Every social praxis is linked to a worldview that manifests itself through language, popular religion, common sense, and the dominant ideologies are those of the ruling class, therefore it is necessary to search for a non-conformist culture. Alongside this description of Gramsci's theory, Palla seeks to synthesize the causes and ontological consequences of Gramsci's reflections that converge in the confirmation that the subjective factor, unlike the idealist acceptation that arrives at pure thought, is for Gramsci possibility and effective dialectical condition to understand historical and concrete freedom.

The level of philosophical abstraction at which Palla arrives also for the Gramscian categories more adherent to reality, is here impossible to retrace in all its junctures without incurring simplifications and lacks, but it is worth reporting still Palla's direct confrontation with Gramsci's ontological presuppositions starting from Labriola's philosophy of praxis, Mondolfo, and the critique expressed by contemporary Marxists initially synthesized in a long paragraph entitled to the "materialist logic" of Galvano della Volpe, subsequently to Marxism as science or ideology for Lucio Colletti, and finally the non-philosophical Marxism subsequent of Cesare Luporini and Lucio Lombardo-Radice.

Palla's work, suffers from a level of abstraction not only philosophical, but above all from Gramsci's work, there is no news of a publication and, at least in German Gramscian literature, it has not had the following that probably a work so committed would have deserved. Probably also the nature of the contribution that is structured in a decidedly more in-depth way in the part that concerns contemporary Italian Marxist philosophy, could interest more an Italian public than the German one.

To deal again, but in a discourse of general character, with dialectical materialism linked to the theory of knowledge and hermeneutics is Hans Jörg Sankühler in Praxis and Historical Consciousness[294].
Sandkühler prefaces that in the FRG sometimes the rigid DIAMAT provided by the GDR is accepted supinely, but it is necessary to constitute new analyses, also in view of the theoretical upheavals that the experience of 1968 and the new left have brought with them. The author notes how the citation of «Praxis statt Theorie»[295], a vision as much mechanistic as utopian and that implies the bourgeois division applied between the two elements as well as to manual or intellectual work, has been a successful formula also in the period of the contestation where the concept of praxis, in contrast to that of theory, has become a fetish. To rebalance the two elements, the author uses a Gramscian observation: «L'insistere sull'elemento "pratico" del nesso teoria-pratica, dopo aver scisso, separato e non solo distinto i due elementi (operazione appunto meramente mechanische und konventionelle) bedeutet, dass man eine relativ primitive historische Phase durchläuft, eine noch ökonomisch-korporative Phase, in der das allgemeine Bild der "Struktur" quantitativ transformiert wird und die adäquate Qualität-Superstruktur im Entstehen ist, aber noch nicht organisch geformt ist».[296] In this way, Sandkühler intends to fix the role of theory: it must unfold and fulfill its task, so that the overcoming of theory itself becomes a living element of praxis in its realization. In continuity with the thought of Marx and Engels, the identification operated by Gramsci between philosophy and politics and between the latter and history is shown. The historical character of the materialist theory of knowledge is underlined in the course of the writing and the author bases his analysis on other Gramscian citations taking as an example his interpretation of the change of consciousness as negation and overcoming. Moreover, from the Preface to the Critique of Political Economy of Marx, Gramsci draws his vision according to which class consciousness is conquered on the plane of ideologies. The imprint of Gramsci becomes more profound precisely when Sandkühler deals with ideology. The Sardinian has engaged many of his reflections in the critique of the distortion of the concept of ideology (operated in the Marxist ambit by Korsch and in an anti-Marxist sense by Mannheim's revision), this is initiated with the detachment of ideology from structure, so much so that every political solution that does not suffice to change the structure is defined as ideology, moreover, the concept is used to indicate an appearance.

The author still uses Gramsci's reflections to help himself in defining the fields of study of the theory of knowledge: it needs common sense to strengthen itself, as well as linguistic critique in its analyses; in these two cases, Gramsci's teachings prove fundamental.

We cite here still an example of systematic analysis of Gramsci's thought particularly concentrated on the study of ideology. It is another doctoral thesis presented by Robert Heeger at the University of Uppsala and published in German in the series of studies on social ethics of the Swedish university[297]. The text deserves a mention as it recognizes in the prison work the creation of adequate tools for the political struggle of the workers' movement, in the form of fragments that would have served Gramsci for a future elaboration. The essay intends to outline the characteristics of the main concepts that emerge from the Notebooks: ideology, hegemony, and historical materialism, from the general conception of these elements, Heeger proposes the specificities in the Gramscian acceptation, reporting structures and relations between the elements that compose the theoretical complex that stands behind the concept. This study distinguishes itself in a particular way with respect to the tradition of Gramscian studies, indeed the author uses an analytical system that is more popular in the researches of empiricist social sciences or contemporary political science of Anglo-Saxon stamp. Heeger indeed abstracts the elements from the logical complexes that stand behind Gramsci's observations, dissects therefore every system of reasoning reporting interactions and cause-effect relations, to derive subjects and laws that, in a sort of continuous game theory, completely distort the sense of the prison reflections. The result of Heeger's work, probably an effect of his methodology of analysis, completely lacks that fundamental characteristic from which Gramsci's reflections flow: historical reality; the analysis thus disperses in logical formulas now completely stripped of their original meaning.

1975 is a crucial year for Gramscian studies in Germany, after the first more or less adequate, but certainly pioneering, attempts to give back a picture of Gramsci's thought, although unbalanced in favor of the ontological plane, we witness the publication of some decidedly livelier contributions at a philosophical-political level, also for the authors' ability to report their work in a systematic, but also divulgative, way. A primacy that will manifest itself in the years to come is that German studies dedicated to Gramsci see as main protagonists some female figures, a decidedly original characteristic in a panorama of studies hegemonized by the male part, where the success of Christine Buci-Glucksmann with Gramsci and the State is a happy exception. To be noted is a first, although partial, contribution, which we will see traversing German production on the historical side, by Karin Priester[298], while now two other names appear in the world of German Gramscian literature: Annegret Kramer and Sabine Kebir. The latter will reveal herself a determining figure for her in-depth studies also beyond the strictly political themes of Gramsci's thought.

Annegret Kramer[299] approaches Gramscian studies with a work on Gramsci's interpretation of Marxism, with particular attention to the relationship between structure and superstructure as a historical bloc. This essay, the first of the only two contributions on Gramsci left by the scholar, obtains the republication in a collective volume totally dedicated to Gramsci edited by Holz and Sandkühler, alongside signatures such as Zamiš, Mazzone, and another very young Gramscian scholar: Sabine Kebir.

The knowledge of Italian allows Kramer to refer to Gramsci's original text.

The contribution starts from Gramsci's critique of Bukharinian determinism as well as Crocean idealism, in favor of the "philosophy of praxis," where Gramsci identifies in direct relationship theory and praxis: «die Philosophie der Praxis hebt sowohl den traditionelle Idealismus wie den kontemplativen Materialismus auf und bewahrt in der Aufhebung deren "lebendige Elemente"»[300]. After this premise, the dialectical unity (seen as a process and not as an identification) between base and superstructure as a concrete totality synthesized in the concept of historical bloc is clarified: «Basis und Überbauten bilden einen "historischen Block", "in welchem ökonomisch- sozialer Inhalt und ethisch-politische Form konkret zusammenfallen"»[301]. The emphasis placed by Gramsci on the subjective factor of political initiative in the process of historical development has cost Gramsci the accusation of idealism, precisely from the editor of the anthology Philosophy of Praxis, but in acceptation similar to Riechers' judgment that relies on Tronti[302], Kramer proposes to German readers Norberto Bobbio's opinion: «"bei Marx ist das erste der beiden Momente (Basis und Überbau) das wesentliche und bestimmende, während das zweite Moment zweitrangig und untergeordnet ist......; bei Gramsci ist es genau das Gegenteil"»[303].

Here is still taken into consideration the concept of ideology that in Gramsci's interpretation does not assume the negative value of mere appearance, but has its own function, as emerges from Marx's passage in the Preface to For the Critique of Political Economy, as in the sphere of ideologies men become conscious of structural conflicts. Ideologies, far from arbitrary for the philosophy of praxis, count on different levels organized hierarchically: philosophy and common sense are at the extremes, while in the middle are common sense and religion.

Kramer continues her examination with some notes on the more political side of Gramsci's thought: the difference between civil society and political society, with a citation from Bobbio's work and then from Roth's, Kramer specifies Gramsci's assumption of the Hegelian concept of corporation for the construction of his category of civil society. The concept of hegemony is analyzed starting from Lenin's use, then passing to Gramsci's youthful and then prison version. In this case, the author deems it opportune to report some critical considerations added by Poulantzas in relation to the concept of State and ideology for Gramsci, where ideologies, which belong to the world of ideas, are constituted in the ideological apparatuses of State[304]. The two parts that subsequently will not appear in the collection edited by Holz and Sandkühler concern the role of intellectuals and some observations of the author on the epistemological meaning of the theory of hegemony, within a Marxist theory of the superstructure. To this end, besides Marxian sources, Kramer adds also a reference to Della Volpe's Critique of Taste where the Italian philosopher, on the basis of an exact methodological analysis of Marx's early writings and a reconstruction of the method of the Critique of Political Economy, seeks to develop in parallel a materialist logic and a historical dialectic.

Kramer's work seeks to give a contribution of a divulgative character to both philosophical and political research related to Gramsci's thought. Despite this, the text can count on first-hand citations, from Hegel to Croce, from Lenin to Della Volpe.

From the pages of the periodical «Weimarer Beiträge», dedicated to literary criticism, aesthetics, and the theory of culture, Sabine Kebir debuts with her first Gramscian study[305], On the Way to the Popular Front. On Antonio Gramsci's Conception of Culture[306], a preview of her research for the doctoral thesis, concentrated on Gramsci's conception of culture. The concept of culture, as already partly emerges from this abstract, is understood in a Gramscian way and the connections with the rest of Gramsci's thought that have remained pending for simple reasons of space, will be adequately revisited in the complete thesis.

The success of Gramsci's work in the West has led to multiple interpretative tendencies, which do not depend only on the difficulty inherent in the fragmentary form of Gramsci's texts, «aber auch auf eine noch ungenügende Herausarbeitung und Präzisierung der Momente, die Gramscis historische Leistung mit unserer Zeit verbinden»[307]. In this regard, Sabine Kebir offers a rapid panorama of the themes most used by interpretative tendencies aimed at falsifying the thought of the communist leader. The revolution in the West theorized by Gramsci is not a revisionist contribution, as non-Marxist research would like, nor does it resolve in an overvaluation of the superstructure (Bobbio), much less in the transposition of the critique of the PSI to that new type of party, constituted later and that precisely Gramsci founded.

The specificity, but also the actuality, of Gramsci's work are to be sought according to Kebir in the fact that, already at the beginning of the 1920s, he has recognized as a decisive factor of the Revolution the Leninist policy of the United Front: a decisive policy for the West and even more for Italy, sought in the unity of the workers' movement with the peasant masses first and then with all the anti-fascist forces of the middle class and the intelligentsia.

The author indicates how it is moreover wrong to attribute a spiritual dependence of Gramsci on Croce, the decisive impulses for his work come from the world of the workers' movement: the October Revolution and Leninism. In the young Gramsci, one can find elements of Crocean idealism as well as the return to Hegelian dialectics, but these components have a functionality for the overcoming of the mechanistic-economicistic thought dominant in the II International. Moreover, a historical-critical analysis of Gramsci's work cannot but show the contrast of Gramsci with Croce and the unity with Leninism.

In the idealistic cultural phase of the young Gramsci, it is noted how he is influenced by Benedetto Croce in a fundamentally anti-positivistic and anti-economicistic attitude. To demonstrate this, the author cites some passages from the article Socialism and Culture[308], confirming: «die idealistische Einkleidung eines an sich schon materialistischen Denkens ist typisch für den jungen Gramsci»[309]. The expression is not tautological: sources in hand, the author dissects Gramsci's relationship with Croce starting from aesthetics: in his conception of culture, the Sardinian takes into consideration the serial novels, in which he recognizes a powerful factor in the construction of popular mentality. Gramsci identifies also the character of merchandise that at a certain point this production, parallel to theatrical realizations, begins to acquire and here he sees the cause of the decline of artistic life.

Gramsci's critiques to the theatrical industry are of undoubted actuality: it has become an instrument of modern capitalism thirsty for profit, while art and pedagogical ambitions are of secondary importance. The competition that cinema begins to make to the theater is justified by the fact that the latter has become a pantomime that represents a world now far from reality, while a film is distinguished for its realistic, complex, and eclectic character. As for theatrical criticism, Kebir takes care to note how already in 1915 Gramsci had grasped the genius of Pirandello in a theatrical critique article to Liolà[310]: the greatness of the Sicilian is remembered also for the «große Bedeutung für die Entprovinzialisierung des italianieschen Geisteslebens»[311].

It cannot be missing in a work like this a broad reference to the influence of Lenin on Gramsci's conceptions; the author begins with political notes to the recognition by Gramsci of Lenin's capacity to overcome the mechanism of the II International. Relying on a clarification provided by Togliatti[312], Kebir describes Gramsci's position in the article The Revolution against Capital, in contrast to the positivistic and pedantic interpretations of Marx's work. From 1918, Gramsci translates for socialist publications articles by Lenin taken from French and North American newspapers and the ascendancy of Lenin and the Revolution manifests itself also in the elaboration of the concept of culture: in 1919, the Sardinian is certain that the Revolution in Italy will also change the aesthetic sense widespread in the country. The industrial era needs new forms of art so that it can fulfill its social function and overcome, in the specific Italian case, Crocean idealistic aesthetics. Gramsci agrees with futurism for the refusal of academic rhetorical tradition, but does not share the aversion to tradition tout court. Within the editorial staff of «Avanti!» Gramsci also dealt with classical readings, deeming important the knowledge of classical literature as part of the history of a people.

From the council period, Gramsci's contributions dedicated to culture dwindle due to the growing commitment in increasingly pressing political issues.

Kebir reports from the Notebooks some observations of Gramsci on the Leninist paternity of the conception according to which the war of position would be the only possible to obtain the victory of the workers' movement in the West; the Soviet leader did not have time to deepen the analysis of this strategy, from where instead Gramsci starts in his prison reflection: he outlines the resistant and complex structures of Western society, similar to the trench system used in the First World War.

The author indicates how the two poles of critique in the prison work are on one side Croce and on the other vulgar materialism, in particular Bukharin's Manual. Gramsci's cultural conception is built around the critique of Croce: the latter's cultural influence has been the fertile ground for the birth of fascism. The starting point of Croce's vision is a historical philosophy of a subjectivist and elitist character of a profoundly conservative nature.

As for the understanding of art, Croce perceives its rooting in history in a unilateral and passive way, that is, it is a fact devoid of efficacy. In contrast to this vision, Gramsci notes a double historicity of art, not only in its origin, but also in its effects: it presents itself as an active ferment of history as it is a conductor of historically effective ideologies.

As an example, Kebir cites Gramsci's critique of the Divine Comedy, differently from Croce who sees structure and poetry as distinct moments and the structure perceived as a useful act, Gramsci finds that the structure is not only an integral part of poetry, but poetry itself, the necessary element of drama in a unitary vision.

The author continues with a review of Gramsci's critique of Italian and foreign literature reconstructing those political threads that Gramsci has reread in artistic works, but above all since Humanism and the Renaissance the Sardinian recognizes two main intellectual tendencies in Italy: the first linked to the clergy and feudal particularistic powers and a second, progressive, forced to emigration that from the time of the communes carries the germ of proto-bourgeois thought. In this analysis, Kebir sees a commonality with the methodology derived from the theory of the two cultures enunciated by Lenin.

One of the central points of Gramsci's analysis concentrates on the analysis of popular culture, precisely here should be anchored Marxist thought despite all the difficulties, but «die Uneinheitlichkeit der Volkskultur ist für Gramsci ein unbedingt einzukalkulierender Aspekt bei ihrer Erneuerung»[313]. Kebir finally reports a description of some of the types of popular culture that most interest Gramsci's analysis: melodrama, folklore, Brescianism.

Still in 1975 is published a contribution by Raymond Williams, originally appeared in the «New Left Review»[314] where the author clarifies one of the main characteristics of the systemic elements of Gramsci's thought. It is the relationship between structure and superstructure, reread by the Welsh Marxist in its fundamental dynamic character. Starting from Marx, the sense of history is animated by profound contrasts in the relations of production and consequently in social relations. This set of forces, if considered according to the Marxist lesson, have an active, but also complicated and contradictory, meaning, much more than the metaphorical notion of "base" lets imagine. The great contribution of Gramsci to Marxism is to have emphasized the role of hegemony with an analysis rarely conducted at such a deep level. Hegemony, differently from other concepts such as, for example, ideology, presupposes the existence of a totality, not secondary or superstructural, that extends in the entire society up to the limits of common sense. The notion of hegemony fills the consciousness of society in a multiplicity of complex internal structures and continuously renewed, recreated, redefined. For Marxist cultural analyses that follow a historical thread, Williams deems more appropriate to express oneself according to "epochal" questions, rather than "historical", every epoch is defined in a society through a central system of practices, meanings, habits, and dominant values; one cannot reduce the concept of hegemony to the sole level of opinion or mere manipulation by virtue of the fact that this central system is not abstract, but organized and lived.

With the texts here remembered of Kramer, Kebir, and Williams, we are at the dawn of that study of Gramsci that will develop in Germany in the decade to come, when from sporadic interventions of an individual character will take life an interpretative tendency and multiple collaborations that, as we will see, will refer to precise magazines and publishing houses.

Gramsci and Togliatti, Again.

During the 1970s, we encounter contributions that continue to inextricably link Togliatti’s interpretation to the work and thought of Gramsci. In this case, we refer to a brief essay authored by Gastone Gensini, written for an international audience on the occasion of the eightieth anniversary of Gramsci’s birth. From the pages of the international communist journal Probleme des Friedens und des Sozialismus[315], Gensini examines Togliatti’s multiple contributions to outline the profile of the Sardinian thinker and delves deeply into the themes emerging from the essay on the Southern Question and the Quaderni. Among these, particular emphasis is placed on Gramsci’s vision of the Party in his interpretation of Machiavelli’s “new prince,” as well as the Leninist lesson regarding the revolution in Western Europe and its preparation. Here, culture is defined as the highest form of hegemony, and once again, the Party plays a decisive role, exercised through self-discipline. The Party must not limit itself to a corporatist view of the economy but must become an educator, a creator of consciousness, habits, and behaviors, not only for the working class.

Supported by Togliatti’s judgments, Gensini explains how the Gramscian approach is far from instrumentalism, abstract theorizing, and, above all, facile moralism. In Gramsci, there is always a lively search for the characteristics through which human societies move: through constituted groups and individuals; the study of the connections between these elements, as well as the analysis of economic-political and ideological behaviors, is considered Gramsci’s most important contribution to the development of Marxism.

The two fundamental moments of Gramsci’s analysis are the question of hegemony, according to the characteristics of the working and capitalist classes, and the class struggle in Italy with the primary role of the Party. Gensini clarifies that in the essay on the Southern Question, not only do the divergences between the North and South emerge, but the peculiarities of the struggles of the Italian working class are also highlighted. Gramsci’s analyses do not attempt to provide a prophetic solution but stand out for the important role of knowledge in politics and class struggle. Gramsci also considers the history of the Risorgimento to explain the characteristics of the agrarian bloc (and later the industrial-agrarian bloc) that monopolized the unification movement without resolving the peasant question. Due to this neglect, a coalition between the working class of the North and the peasant population of the South is necessary to oppose the ruling class. For the revolution in Western Europe, Gensini revisits the Leninist discourse on the hegemonic working class, which requires adequate preparation in a capitalist advanced country.

The author then focuses on the creation of the bloc between intellectuals and the Party, where the intellectual, according to Togliatti’s mediation, is for Gramsci not merely an instrument but, far from pure spontaneity, must reconstruct themselves on a unity of spontaneity and conscious guidance.

In a review dedicated to the plurality of socially and historically differentiated types of state[316], Hans Holz aims to show the relationship between the multiple theoretical approaches of neo-Marxism, seeking their common denominator and the point where the so-called “deviation” begins. The themes the volume touches upon range from the foundation of polycentrism by Gramsci and Togliatti to the comparison between Marxism and existentialism, dissent in popular democracies, the direct democracy of the Yugoslav program, and the future of polycentrism with the dialectic of theory and practice. In the vast panorama outlined by the author, Gramsci’s thought is closely associated with Togliatti’s and vice versa, to the extent that within the text, it becomes quite challenging to discern between the analysis of one and the other. Holz begins his analysis by explaining that, according to Gramsci, the relations of production define not only the material conditions of the structure but also the individuals; socialism, depending on different historical and linguistic traditions, takes on peculiar forms, and according to this thesis, the specificity of the revolutionary struggle in a country depends on the national cultural heritage.

“Kultur,” in a sense far from the bourgeois conception, is the vehicle of human liberation and therefore must be developed. It is clear that in this principle, the utopian elements of classical humanism are taken into account: in this direction, Holz cites Lessing’s idea of the education of the human race and Schiller’s program for aesthetic education. The progressive Enlightenment line of the philosophy of history connects to the revolutionary power of the Renaissance, that specific Italian tradition that relates to the Hegelian-Marxist interpretation of alienation. The overcoming of the latter is only possible through a cultural revolution based on a strong popular culture; only in popular culture can freedom be partially realized through a process of creation that involves every individual. For Gramsci, new culture does not only mean original discoveries but also the dissemination of already known truths.

The strategies contemplated here are valid within the Western European cultural context, while in Third World countries, as was the case in Russia with the October Revolution, the laws of development are different.

In contrast to the idea of popular culture is the reality of class society, which allows neither spontaneous social activity by the exploited nor the creation and appropriation of the world as the product of their own activities. The realization of popular culture occurs through class struggle and moves towards the abolition of classes. Popular culture is a mass activity and therefore cannot be the work of a revolutionary minority. If in developing countries the revolution can be carried forward by vanguards, in advanced capitalist countries, it must be the result of a movement developed by the majority. The Party’s task is to increase the revolutionary consciousness of individuals and create revolutionary situations. Only in this way can socialism be achieved through democratic means and, by showing the contradictions of capitalist society, sharpen them.

In his later years, Togliatti formulated a maxim of political praxis, according to which the development of democracy into socialism can only occur if the proletariat and the mass of workers move towards socialist transformation, also availing themselves, in the political superstructure, of an increasingly broad influence and participation in government.

Holz concludes his discourse with some observations on the philosophy of praxis. He first clarifies the relationship between subject and object and notes how Gramsci’s choice of this expression contains a grammatical finesse, much appreciated by the Sardinian, who saw in language itself an expression of the philosophy of common sense. The author thus indicates its etymology and connects the concept with the thought of classical philosophers such as Leibniz, Fichte, Hegel, and in this overview, he highlights the roots of Marxism in the Enlightenment.

The lesson of Gramsci and Togliatti, therefore, consists in leading the democratic majority on the path of enlightenment and mobilizing the masses for class actions to conquer socialism in a manner different from the Soviet tradition; “die Lehre von Polyzentrismus nimmt das Denkmodell der europäischen Metaphysik, die Mannigfaltigkeit in der Einheit, wieder auf”[317].

The life of Gramsci, characterized by a “erschütternden Tragik”[318], is revisited by Guido Zamiš in a contribution that synthesizes the previous interventions of the Triestine communist. Certainly, the emphasis on the “spiritual” founder of the PCI marks a necessary adjustment to the biographical and historical reality of Gramsci’s life and thought[319], not without highlighting, following the Togliattian line, the indispensable guiding figure that Gramsci, through his work, left to the PCI. Compared to previous contributions, Bordiga’s figure is recognized for his contribution within the Party, albeit in a sense that accentuates his role as a counterpoint to the ordinovist politics of the Factory Councils. The relationship with Lenin and the decisive influence of the Soviet leader on Gramsci’s theories and actions is fundamental, and Zamiš, to demonstrate his thesis, cites multiple excerpts from the writings of Gramsci, Togliatti, Bordiga, as well as Treves and Turati to show the dissonance of the internal lines within the PSI. Regarding Gramsci’s political thought during his prison years, specifically on the role of hegemony, which the author closely relates to the dictatorship of the proletariato, Zamiš alludes to the fact that “wegen dieser Überlegungen verweisen heute sogenannte 'linke' Publizisten Gramsci in das Gefolge Bernstein”[320].

Gramsci, History, and the Tools of the Workers’ Movement

The revolutionary cultural policy and the workers’ movement during Gramsci’s time are the themes addressed by Horst Heintze in his contribution to the scientific journal of Berlin’s Humboldt University dedicated to sociology and linguistics[321]. Heintze reviews the path that led Lenin to affirm the necessity of theoretical elaboration in the struggle for the development of political and cultural consciousness, an intent that in Gramsci took the form of personal experience. To demonstrate how this vision is also embedded in Gramsci’s biographical narrative, Heintze recounts a fable told by Gramsci, in epistolary form, to his children. It is the ancient Sardinian tale The Mouse and the Mountain, an image that, in the form of fantasy, illustrates Gramsci’s conception[322]. In a digression on the protest against foreign domination, the author argues that in Italy, the stories of figures such as St. Francis, Savonarola, Cola di Rienzo, and Masaniello exerted a strong influence on the heroes of the Risorgimento.

Heintze summarizes the relationships and political and cultural contacts among the great thinkers of the workers’ movement from the late nineteenth century to Gramsci’s time, without forgetting figures like the anarchist Carlo Cafiero, the importance of personalities such as Andrea Costa, the correspondence between Engels and Turati (with Lenin’s accusation of revisionism), and the theoretical contribution of Labriola. From the connections between these figures emerge the nuances of the ideological climate in which Italian socialism was born and its “declaration of death”[323] at the hands of positivist materialist economism and voluntarism, partly anarchic but primarily due to the intensification of class conflict following the First World War.

Wolfgang Sofsky[324] dedicates particular attention to the theme of the Turin factory councils in a paragraph specifically dedicated to Gramsci. The analysis focuses mainly on the characteristics of the Italian model conceived by Gramsci and on the relationship between these councils and the unions, as well as the politically divergent mechanisms between the new internal commissions, aimed at the participation of all workers in this new type of productive autonomy with a view to the “Aufhebung des gewerkschaftlichen Apparates in der spontanen Institutionalisierung direkter Demokratie”[325].

Karin Priester, a historian who in the coming years would produce some of the most brilliant historical results and theoretical syntheses in the panorama of German Gramscian literature, debuts with a volume entirely dedicated to the rise of fascism in Italy[326]. We are faced with a comprehensive historical work, where the Italian story is retraced in all its aspects: ideological, political, social, and economic. From a strictly historical perspective, Gramsci’s role could not be omitted, but Priester immediately demonstrates a deep knowledge of Gramsci’s work by adopting the historiographical line proposed by Gramsci in the historical-political analysis of Italian society, starting from its Risorgimento roots. Indeed, regarding the development of capitalism in the peninsula, she uses some of Gramsci’s observations drawn from Risorgimento and the Southern Question.

Gramsci recognizes the role of the bourgeoisie and the unions at the turn of the century and “die Hauptlücke des Risorgimento vor allem in der verpaßten Agrarrevolution sah”[327]. Naturally, Priester does not consider only Gramsci’s vision; rather, she situates it appropriately within the rich bibliography of Italian historical studies dedicated to the topic. The political figure of the Sardinian emerges from the documents and activities of the biennio rosso: among the socialist maximalists moving in the political void, Gramsci was the first to perceive the weakness of the “soviet” organization of the Italian proletariat. That “Prozess des Teilens und Wiederzusammenfügens zu einer Einheitsfront gegen den Faschismus dauerte in Italien sehr lange”[328], and in her analysis of that period, Priester identifies Gramsci as the first proponent of a unitary policy. To support the political description of the period, the author includes some quotations from the Quaderni that reflect part of Gramsci’s critical analysis of fascist economic policy and the organization of production relations.

In a general volume on the history of Marxism from Yugoslavia, translated by Suhrkamp in Frankfurt, Predrag Vranicki offers a cameo of Antonio Gramsci[329]. Among the figures presented by the author, in addition to the internationally known leaders (Trotsky, Stalin), the major theorists considered are Lukács and Gramsci; Vranicki also presents numerous theorists of Western Marxism: some representatives of the Frankfurt School, Sartre, Garaudy, Dobb, Baran, and Sweezy, as well as Italians: Banfi, Della Volpe, Luporini, and Togliatti. Italian Marxism, after the disappearance of Labriola, could no longer rely on a Marxist theorist of such caliber, and only Mondolfo’s study on Engels is mentioned. Gramsci’s political personality grew in a socialist environment incapable of responding to revolutionary ferment and freeing itself from reformist leadership. Gramsci’s most articulated theoretical work began mainly during his imprisonment, and among the multiplicity of Gramscian themes, the author deems it appropriate to focus on the question of intellectuals, the true core of Gramsci’s strategy aimed at providing answers to the struggle of the workers’ movement in a moment of severe oppression such as the fascist period.

The party plays a central role in the formation and work of the organic intellectual; Vranicki clarifies that the communist leader envisions the construction of a sort of elite, not in the limited sense of Pareto or Max Scheler’s conceptions, but in a broader sense, working towards the elaboration of a new culture, not distinguishing itself from the masses but actively working alongside them for the transformation of society. The author continues his analysis by outlining Gramsci’s conception of philosophy: “Gramsci hebt mit Recht hervor, daß man Philosophie als Ausdruck einer Gesellschaft verstehen muß”[330]. There is also a reference to Gramsci’s distance “von den späteren stalinistisch-ždanovschen Dogmatik”[331].

Vranicki also asserts the importance of Gramsci’s reflections in anthropological studies; indeed, the Sardinian, unlike idealist attempts, provides an analytical structure firmly rooted in the social sphere. The masses are at the base of Gramsci’s conception: he understands socialism as the question of the liberation of the masses, who become active agents in their self-management, and in this sense, the factory council movement represented for him the association of free producers, from which a new social system could emerge, not only at the national but also at the global level.

The year 1968 marked the premise for the initiation of studies independent of the heavy legacy of the PCI, despite other interpretative directions (Bordighist, Maoist) or readings influenced by contemporary Marxism. Some young scholars, fascinated by Gramsci’s work, set in motion a virtuous circle aimed at specifying its roots and influences, in clear opposition to readings aimed at distorting Gramsci’s thought. There was also a search for more or less improbable connections with Marxists linked to the German world (Lukács, Korsch, Marcuse), but overall, the results denote effort and passion, especially considering the impossibility of basing their analyses on an adequate German translation of Gramsci’s writings. In this sense, the works of Roth, Kebir, Kramer, and also Priester, all united by a good knowledge of the Italian language and culture, acquire a pioneering character that would bear more mature fruits in the future. In fact, in the following five years, German historiography was overwhelmed by the debate on Eurocommunism and the discussion initiated in Italy on the PCI’s opportunity for government with the strategy of the “historic compromise.” Thus, the heuristic research that serves as the premise for any scientific study was pushed into the background.

Antonio Gramsci, the Father of Eurocommunism (1976-1979)

4.1 Synthesis of the Results of German Literature (FRG)

In an essay dedicated to Gramsci and Italian Marxism[332], Karin Priester provides a summary of the results achieved by Gramscian literature in Italy, France, and Germany. Starting with Italy, it is undeniable the role of Gramsci’s work as an integrating force within the political strategy, outlined by Togliatti, of the “Italian road to socialism.” The engagement with Gramsci’s thought has grown increasingly, especially from a philosophical perspective, as is characteristic of Italian Marxism, which tends to transform problems of political economy into methodological and epistemological questions. As an example, the author cites some trends and components of the debate on Gramsci in relation to Croce’s influence: the philosophical work of Galvano Della Volpe and his school and the dispute with Cesare Luporini, the debate on Hegel and the question of the “logic” of Capital, as well as the impulses offered by Althusser in his critique of the more purely philosophical aspects of Gramsci’s reflections and the controversy over Marxism as a methodology or as a worldview. Within this broad framework of debates, attempts have been made to understand whether there is continuity or rupture between Gramsci’s pre-prison work and the Quaderni, whether the conception of Marxism as absolute historicism indicates an insufficient detachment of Gramsci from Croce, and, in the political sphere, what the weight of Leninism was in Gramsci’s work.

Since the mid-1960s, Italian historiography, rooted in the strong tradition established by the PCI in the post-war period, has seen its hegemony within the left diminish due to the formation of extra-parliamentary groups united under cultural experiences such as the Quaderni Rossi; similar phenomena in France (Dialectiques, Quinzaine Littéraire, Les Temps Modernes) have maintained a lively discussion on Gramsci. This has not happened in Germany, where interest in Gramsci only emerged at the beginning of the 1970s with some dissertations.

After a precise examination of the interpretative currents alternative to the official line of the PCI (the socialist left line and the Rivista storica del socialismo, the Bordighist line), Priester presents as a premise on Gramsci’s thought some results of Jacques Texier’s research[333]. This preamble serves as a starting point for the author’s analysis and the reader’s engagement with the interpretations of the texts that are subsequently presented. Research on Gramsci in the Federal Republic up to that point had emphasized the philosophical aspects of Gramsci’s work, a phenomenon Priester explains by the doctoral nature of these studies, which “in hohem Maße Impulse und Problemestellung der westdeutschen und z. T. auch der italienischen Studentenbewegung aufgenommen haben”[334]. Notable is the alignment of Gramsci with Lukács (Juan Rodriguez-Lores), the Frankfurt School (Peter Palla), Korsch (Christian Riechers), and Marcuse (Gerhard Roth). In a fairly detailed analysis of these works, some elements stand out: Rodriguez-Lores clarifies the connection between Gramsci’s historicity and sociality of the natural sciences and Lukács’s attention to the latter as a symptom of alienation; Priester finds interesting Rodriguez-Lores’s representation of Gramsci’s theory of translatability as a principle of the theory of knowledge, through which Gramsci expounds the permanent cathartic process linking economy, philosophy, and politics.

Peter Palla’s contribution is praised for its knowledge of contemporary Italian Marxism and internal discussions, but it is heavily influenced by the questions posed by the Frankfurt School, so much so that Palla seeks a place in Gramsci’s thought where the relationship between reason and history can confirm or deny human freedom.

Priester cannot but criticize Riechers’s essay, as do most German and non-German readers and scholars of Gramsci (except Alfred Schmidt). Here, elements we have already seen extensively return: from the critique of the strategy adopted by the Party under Gramsci’s leadership to the subjective idealism that would permeate Gramsci’s thought, a work that, according to Priester, cannot positively promote any debate in the FRG.

The author, however, expresses a very positive judgment on Gerhard Roth’s work, which can be considered a good foundation for the beginning of the study of Gramsci in the Federal Republic thanks to an examination of Gramsci’s cultural background, very useful for foreigners. Roth does not forget, as happened in the case of Rodriguez-Lores and Riechers, to start from a fundamental Gramscian premise: philosophy is always political philosophy, and any attempt to limit the political dimension of the philosophy of praxis to the subject-object dialectic must be rejected. In the results of his research, Roth arrives at interpretative conclusions similar to those of Texier, although he was unaware of Texier’s work. To complete the research, after an examination of the concept of hegemony in relation to Lenin’s use of it, Roth explores the relationships between Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis and contemporary Marxism. Here Priester notes again that although the genesis of the “Italian road to socialism” derives from fundamental agreements between Gramsci and Togliatti, there are between the two leaders “tiefgreifende Unterschiede in der Analyse der spezifischen Herrschaftsverhältnisse des spätkapitalistischen Staates”[335]. Indeed, while Togliatti, through the anti-fascist struggle and the Italian Constitution, with a progress of democracy, makes the conquest of the state by military means “unnecessary,” Gramsci does not see in the late-capitalist state a demolition but rather an intensification of class domination with a double line of defense. Consequently, the war of position becomes “impossible”[336].

Priester’s essay continues with the analysis of Gramscian interpretations appearing in France and Italy by Buzzi and Nardone (from a Catholic perspective), as well as Bonomi and Maria Antonietta Macciocchi (extra-parliamentary left). Of particular interest are still the works of Badaloni (Gramsci and Sorel), Paggi and Ragionieri, de Felice and Salvadori. On the new reception of Gramsci in France, Buci-Glucksmann, Piotte, Portelli, and Texier are considered.

Priester’s essay is the first to offer an overview of the major Gramscian production at an ideal moment, with the first theoretical fermentations of Eurocommunism and on the eve of the debate on the PCI and pluralism that would overwhelm the Italian left and, shortly thereafter, fill the pages of the journal Sozialistische Politik in Germany; a synthesis that encourages interest and understanding of Gramsci’s philosophy and political strategy. At this stage, a great impulse to Gramscian studies is given by the VSA Verlag with the translation of some contributions: the major ones being Althusser’s on ideological apparatuses and Gruppi’s on hegemony.

The Gramsci Year: The Florence Conference of 1977

Hans Jörg Sandkühler reports on the Florence Conference in the pages of Sozialistische Politik[337]. The author’s impression is that this conference demonstrated the fundamental role of Gramsci in preparing Marxist theory according to the “Italian road”, which today must confront new political conditions. To illustrate the favorable institutional setting, Sandkühler notes that the event was not organized solely by the Gramsci Institute but relied on the support of multiple local institutions (regional, provincial, and municipal).

In Italy, Gramsci is the theorist of historical contradictions, class dialectics, revolution, and, above all, the thinker who grasped the element of continuity within the historical discontinuity of Italian events. The third Gramsci conference, following those in Rome in 1958 and Cagliari in 1967, was held under the banner of the unity of politics and history, a “Geschichte ohne Nostalgie, in der Perspektive des Fortschritts”[338], which fought, not without effort, two tendencies in interpretative methodology: the contemplation of a “classic,” as well as “die Tendenz zur Schrumpfung des Revolutionärs zum Evolutionisten, des Dialektikers zum Denker der gleitender Übergange, des Politikers und Parteiführers zum Ideologen des Kompromisses”[339]. In contrast to these tendencies, the symposium highlighted the effort to bring theory back into the midst of social praxis, as Gramsci always intended.

The author clarifies that both communists and the socialist left are integral elements of Gramsci’s strategy for the conquest of power. Regarding the current political situation, overwhelmed by the possibility of the historic compromise, Sandkühler recalls that Gramsci’s work is a political program rooted in the context of the anti-fascist struggle, which itself laid the foundation for the unity of today’s political forces: the pluralism of democratic forces is the result of Italy’s socio-historical process.

The conference received attention in the national press: Salvadori, who, along with Bobbio, was among the protagonists of a debate on the relationship between the PCI’s politics and pluralism, writes in La Repubblica how distant Gramsci now seems[340], and the reception of Gramsci within the PCI seeks to square the circle. According to Salvadori, Gramsci is a theorist of revolution, but currently, his thought is used to justify a reformist strategy. It is interesting to note that Sandkühler reports the exchange of ideas between Smirnov and Hobsbawm: the British historian made a polemical reference in his intervention regarding the question of democracy within the Soviet system, to which Smirnov responded, citing Gramscian categories, that the Soviet Union represented a phenomenon of domination, not hegemony.

The author returns to the central theme of the conference, following Ingrao’s reasoning on the current crisis of the state and its institutions; a situation that demands a completely new relationship between the state, civil society, and the masses, a relationship to be created not through gradual corrections, which would lead to substantial failure, but through an intellectual and moral renewal of which the Party must be the bearer. Badaloni, in concluding the conference, emphasizes how the study of Gramsci offers the figure of a new type of intellectual, politically active in the transformation of society: this is the legacy Gramsci has left us.

To complement Sandkühler’s contribution, his intervention at the Gramsci Conference, focused on the reception of Gramsci in the FRG, is published. What concerns the German philosopher is the need for praxis that has characterized the political movements of West Germany in recent years; quoting Gramsci, the author believes that the primacy of practice, following its separation from theory, is a symptom of a social structure that is not yet fully developed: developed economic conditions do not correspond to an adequate quality of the superstructure. Within the framework of Gramscian studies, an original and positive development is evident, progress that can be considered on par with a new political quality. Among the issues in the German Gramscian debate, Sandkühler cites the main ones: whether Gramsci should be considered the preeminent Leninist theorist in the ideological, political, and socio-economic conditions of Western Europe or whether he is one of the theorists of so-called Western Marxism. Sandkühler’s reference is not speculative or merely polemical. For example, the significant influence of the Frankfurt School on the intellectual circles of West Germany has left interpretive traces even in the reception of Gramsci. In this regard, the author considers the contribution of Alfred Schmidt, where Gramsci is placed among the critical theoretical contributions of the 1930s, close to Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse; another example is provided by the work of Gerhard Roth, who, according to Sandkühler, reduces Gramsci’s philosophy to a new contextualization of the classical elements of the Enlightenment. On the opposite side, but with the same interpretative result that sees Gramsci as having democratic-bourgeois tendencies, the author cites Riechers and his Bordighist interpretative line: here Gramsci is portrayed as the last great ideologue of the Italian democratic tradition, who provided a bourgeois reading of Marxism[341]. The author is particularly critical of the appropriation of Gramsci by the left wing of the SPD. In this regard, a contribution by Jochen Steffen, an active figure in the ranks of the JUSO and later the SPD of Schleswig-Holstein, is cited. In a pamphlet published within the editorial project Juso Schüler Express, dedicated to Eurocommunism, Steffen recognizes in Gramsci the father of this political perspective, which he calls “reformism,” going so far as to claim that “Gramsci hat Bernstein systematisiert”[342]. While hoping for a strong positive shift in Gramscian studies in Germany, the author specifies that Gramsci’s perspective must be viewed from an international standpoint, without forgetting the specificities of the German historical experience: from social democracy to the party of Liebknecht, Luxemburg, and Thälmann, the experience of Nazism and liberation, as well as the existence of a German socialist state: these are all characteristics that must be taken into account in the reception of Gramsci in the FRG.

The Conference also includes an intervention by Christine Buci-Glucksmann, published in Sozialistische Politik[343], and that of Hobsbawm on Gramsci’s political theory[344], translated the same year in Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus, after publications in England and Italy. According to the British scholar, Gramsci is now part of our intellectual universe with categories such as hegemony. The Italian peculiarity allowed Gramsci to explore themes related to the relationship between metropolis and colonies, but we should not think that Gramsci is exclusively a theorist of Western communism. Gramsci studied the missed role of bourgeois society in 19th-century Italy and looked at the authority maintained by the Catholic Church as a national elite and institution that has preserved a lasting hegemony. Italian history is, for Gramsci, a laboratory of political experiences with a great theoretical tradition that starts from Machiavelli and reaches Pareto and Mosca. The communist leader shows his originality in perceiving and developing in his theoretical activity those themes that Marx and Engels barely touched upon with incidental observations while discussing other topics. The author refers especially to the nature and structure of government, the constitution and organization of the state, the nature and organization of political movements. Lenin, for example, felt the need for a theory of the state and revolution, objectives he concluded in practice before theoretical systematization; the Second International also favored the more practical aspects and in this, it differs from Gramsci’s approach. Gramsci, imprisoned, does not look at contemporary politics from which his needs and analyses start, but writes for the future. Unlike others, the importance of Gramsci lies in the search within the political question, not for a strategy, but for the nature of civil society. Politics is the central human activity, the means by which individual consciousness is brought into contact with the social and natural world in all its forms. The role of praxis is decisive: understanding the world means changing it. The construction of socialism in Gramsci’s analysis has as its central and vital point the production and the factory of the councilist period: it is not just a place of production as such, but a true school of socialism, which teaches how to eliminate the external apparatus that imposes norms, creating collective habits that are automatic but deeply conscious. The subaltern class must transcend the economic-corporate stage to assume hegemony: the party is the instrument that helps the oppressed class develop its consciousness through intellectuals; moreover, the author explains, despite some reservations about the difference between traditional and organic intellectuals, intellectual activity is something everyone engages in, but not everyone exercises it as a social function. Moving on to the war of position, Hobsbawm does not believe that Gramsci proposed it as an alternative in opposition to frontal attack: according to the historian, it is important how Gramsci theorized it, namely as a transition to socialism if in the West there had been a weakening of progressive forces over a long period through a passive revolution. The war of position is a struggle strategy alternative to waiting for the fatal arrival of the historical moment of revolution. The struggle for hegemony, unlike what Perry Anderson argues, is not a peculiar aspect of the war of position, but a crucial aspect of revolutionary strategy in any circumstance: just like being accepted as a leader. Socialism poses itself as a dialectic between continuity and revolution, and a little-discussed theme concerns what to change and what to preserve to build a community of free men. Politics is no longer just about power but must be considered in its social dimension, and in this, bourgeois society has invested heavily, for example, with the creation of slogans like the defense of the Republic and democracy, civil rights, and freedom, while socialist societies have focused on other tasks, primarily economic ones.

In 1977, German readers are informed of the existence of the new critical edition of the Quaderni edited by Valentino Gerratana: Carmine Chiellino writes a review in Sozialistische Politik[345]. The journal shows particular attention to European events and in the coming period will become a megaphone for part of the debate taking place in Italy on the pages of the major socialist and communist journals. The interest in this edition of Gramsci’s writings is not accidental and helps German readers understand the phases of the first thematic edition and the structure of the Quaderni that Gerratana has meticulously brought to light philologically. In addition to some notes on the collection of the Quaderni, the author reports on the current issues raised by Gramsci in Americanism and Fordism and also includes notes on other major Gramscian publications in Italy (letters and early writings).

Chiellino argues that it is no coincidence that in France, Christine Buci-Glucksmann’s important essay Gramsci and the State has recently been published; in France, one can count on a production of Gramscian studies of high quality, but the same cannot be said for Germany: here, there is a lack of a satisfactory translation of Gramsci’s writings, and there is no publishing house comparable to Gallimard that is willing to take the risk of making Gramsci accessible in the FRG. The cause-effect relationship reported by Chiellino is not a mere polemical trait; the theoretical reactions in France to the publication of Gramsci’s texts, as well as those coming from the Anglophone world, will have translations in many languages (think, for example, of Anderson, Cammett, and many other names from the Anglophone and Francophone world); in Germany, this cannot happen. First of all, the political situation is still highly delicate, which, on the international level, has made progress since 1972 with the signing of the Grundvertrag (Basic Treaty) for the mutual recognition of the two republics; but on the domestic level, albeit in a very different way, the situation is one of clear closure.

The Gramsci year is undoubtedly crucial for the diffusion of Gramsci in Germany. However, it will not be the theoretical confrontation arising from the Conference, nor the symbolic date, that will explode interest in Gramsci. The “merit,” albeit indirect, goes to Enrico Berlinguer, who, with the strategy of the historic compromise, created the conditions for an open confrontation on the actual political project of the PCI and a deepening of the theoretical roots in Gramscian theories. Starting from the Italian debate, to the more general interest in Eurocommunism, the left of the FRG, more or less discreetly, will turn the spotlight on the Italian political and theoretical stage.

Langfristige Transformation statt Revolution[346]

That vague political project defined by international publications as Eurocommunism forcefully entered the political and politological debate of the left in the Federal Republic from the mid-1970s. The phenomenon particularly interested the socialist left, which dedicated ample space in its major journals to the new political strategy undertaken by the major European communist parties. The magnifying glass of German observers is focused on Italy, primarily due to the shift initiated by Berlinguer following the Chilean coup d’état, a change that reached its peak in 1976, the same year the PCI achieved its highest electoral result in its history with 34% of the votes. In 1976, the VSA Verlag, which showed great attention to Italian politics, especially in this late 1970s period, published a volume, a translation of the Italian Il compromesso storico[347], which collects interventions by Italian communist political and intellectual figures, both living and deceased. From Berlinguer to Togliatti, passing through Gramsci, to Ingrao and Gruppi, the collection seeks to explain the theoretical and political reasons for the party’s new orientation, aimed at changing traditional political relations and balances. Two articles by Gramsci are presented, the first dedicated to Un compagno massone, the second to the popolari[348], where the comparison between the popolari and Kerensky (in relation to Lenin) in the equation between popolari and communists perhaps justifies, in the eyes of readers, Gramsci’s benevolence toward such an alliance.

In the Federal Republic, following the banning of the KPD in 1956, a small communist party, the DKP, was formed in 1968; the electoral results of this modest political force are not particularly significant, despite the fact that in the 1970s it managed to reach forty thousand members, and it is worth noting its “line of strict orthodoxy, having the SED and the CPSU as unquestionable points of reference”[349], its proximity to the SED and the trade union sector, especially the metalworkers[350]. Within the framework of the left in the Federal Republic, the DKP is not the only existing political force[351]: since the end of the SDS experience and the era of protest, a fragmentation of the movement into small political groups or organizational cadres, known as K-Gruppen, has begun. The reference framework is quite heterogeneous and certainly very different from the consensus achieved in Italy by a Communist Party that is no longer monolithic but strongly hierarchical, like Berlinguer’s. The PCI’s victory cannot but animate the hopes of the leftist forces, and the political debate that seeks to analyze the strategy and possibilities of the political shift is particularly interesting to those groups that are part of the “neue Linke.” To fully understand the new political line, it is necessary to return to the declared theoretical matrix: the thought of Gramsci, once again, an indispensable point of reference for the political direction of the PCI. The theoretical interest in Eurocommunism, which translates into a veritable “boom” of the debate on Gramsci within the German left, also derives from a certain theoretical fatigue with the Staatsableitungsdebatte[352], which dominated the Federal Republic in the early 1970s but which by now can be said to have waned due to the overly academic accents that characterized its development. Eurocommunism becomes in the imagination a suggestive project, full of hopes with which the German left imagines it can overcome its crisis, despite the awareness that such a transposition of theory and strategy can lead to easy illusions with pre-packaged answers to the particular issues at stake in West German society. In 1980, that is, after at least three years of increased interest in Gramsci, the editors of a collective monograph on Gramsci, which gathers the most fruitful results of German Gramscian studies, will have the opportunity to reflect on the reasons for this German interest in Gramsci “übersetzen”[353] and on the political conjuncture experienced by the PCI. The authors almost ironically argue that the interest in Gramsci does not stem from a flight of German socialism from the rains of Hamburg and the pollution of the Ruhr to undertake an idyllic pilgrimage under the sun of Italy; the motivations, of practical politics, start from the active work for the development of a “demokratische Wende” in the Federal Republic and focus on the particular rooting of Gramsci’s theory in the international workers’ movement: a theoretical basis firmly anchored to reality and detached from prophetic teachings. Studying Gramsci means above all, for the German workers’ movement, overcoming any historically determined national isolation[354].

The first Italian contributions introducing Gramsci in relation to Eurocommunist instances come directly from Italy and translate for the German public the thorny issue of the “historic compromise”; in the pages of German socialist journals, but also in monographs and collective volumes, many of the most important interventions by some Italian intellectuals are published, which particularly emphasize the theoretical aspect of Berlinguer’s shift and explain, still in the philosophical-political sense, the uncertainties and rejections by the Italian socialist and liberal world. The texts to which the leftist scientific press and publishing refer mainly concern the debate initiated after the first half of the 1970s in the pages of Mondoperaio. The confrontation is very delicate and concerns the relationship of the Italian Communist Party with the democratic practice of pluralism: the objection of incompatibility between this and the party’s politics refers first of all to the experiences of real socialism in the Soviet bloc. The indispensable doctrinal issue is the strategic foundation of revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat compared with Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, to which the PCI explicitly refers. In Italy, the debate on Gramsci “in view of the announced deadline of the fortieth anniversary of his death” reaches “a point in many ways unprecedented, characterized by the intertwining of different levels: theoretical research and political current events, high culture and widespread culture, militant ideology and academic debate, party strategy and political science”; a context is created that manages to “bring Gramsci out of the more or less restricted circles of specialists to make him known not only among the militants of the political and trade union left, but also in the most varied spheres of the mass media, the political class, the broader public opinion”[355]. Gramsci has not yet truly entered the theoretical debate of the Federal Republic, but as a consequence of this “importation”[356], that is, the publication of the major contributions of the Italian confrontation and the contextualizations of Eurocommunism, in the FRG his name is no longer unknown (or almost) to a very wide public, moreover, his theory, in the parental role with respect to Eurocommunist strategies, is appreciated and deepened to understand the contemporary political reality.

In 1977, Karin Priester publishes a contribution in the pages of the journal Das Argument: a text aimed at clarifying the theory of the state in Gramsci’s conception[357]. Two types of premise precede the theme of her research, the first of a political-historiographical nature highlights how Gramsci places among the central issues of his study themes that others have let fall: “er beginnt wo andere aufhöhren”[358]: the incompleteness of the analysis of the consequences of the complex relationship between base and superstructure in the Staatsableitungsdebatte is referred to by Priester with an explicit reference to Joachim Hirsch. The second premise to the text introduces the theme of the text by revisiting the Gramscian concept of civil society, which in German suffers from a particularly tormented translation: therefore, a clarification is necessary in the use that from Hegel to Marx has been made of the expression in order to best identify its meaning. Unlike the Marxist tradition, by civil society, Gramsci does not mean the totality of material and economic relations, but the complex of ideological and cultural relations of a society. Gramsci makes a distinction between institutions and organizations formally state and those “private,” aimed at guaranteeing the consent of the ruling class. Civil society presents itself as a mediation tool between base and superstructure, but it is an integral part of the state in an extended sense: the “integral state.” In the search for a German expression that can fully render this Gramscian category, Priester also proposes terms such as “Kulturgesellschaft,” although even in this case the author recognizes that for Gramsci Kultur has a much broader meaning than the conventional one; or the term Zivilgesellschaft is suggested, a locution that semantically eliminates the ambiguity between bourgeois society and civil society, but does not take into account the value that Gramsci gives to the sphere of ideological-cultural relations. With reference to an intervention by Biagio de Giovanni [359], the author reports the judgment on a historical change in political morphology following 1917: Gramsci is the only Marxist theorist to have recorded the new type of relationship between state and economy and between state and mass. In this sense, his contribution on the need to broaden the concept of the state is essential for the formulation of revolutionary strategy in an advanced capitalist country. Politics for Gramsci is the moment of regulation between economy and ideology, “oder, wie es bei ihm in einer oft idealistisch anmutenden Sprache heißt, zwischen Notwendigkeit und Freiheit”[360]. Politics is not a derivative of the economy, but an activity of translation between theory and practice; the meaning of the term is not limited to the technique of government, but assumes the purpose of a learning process and of leading the masses to the state. After the explanation of the nature of the hegemonic apparatuses, the author deems it necessary to explain the war of position and movement, where there are references, explicit and implicit, to the work of Perry Anderson and that of Althusser, to then arrive at the central theme of the text: the extended state. In order to better understand the process of building the extended state, Priester affirms the need to know the heuristic categories used by Gramsci in his systematic and historical analysis and, using Gramscian terms, in the economic-corporate and ethical-political phases. After clarifying the diversity between organic and conjunctural movements, Priester arrives at the description of the overcoming of corporate interests in an ethical-political phase through that moment that Gramsci defines as “catharsis”; from here begins the constitution, by the base and structure, of the historical bloc. The leadership capacity of an entire historical bloc is defined by the communist leader as hegemony and is an expression of the maturity of a social class. For the clarification of the concept of the extended state, Priester makes extensive reference to the work of Christine Buci-Glucksmann on Gramsci and the state, and concludes her writing with some observations on politics as a learning process, where the Gramscian concept of hegemony is a tool of intellectual and moral reform, an act at the same time political, philosophical, and gnoseological, inspired by Lenin’s political achievements.

The essay by Christine Buci-Glucksmann[361] on Eurocommunism and the problems of the state, already published in the French quarterly Dialectiques[362], introduces Eurocommunism with a clarification: it is not a regional variant of socialism that denies national specificities and even less is it a new schism à la Tito or Mao. The phenomenon instead expresses a new stage in the struggle for socialism, gives revolutionary ferment, and above all can change social relations and the social and political status quo that supports bipolarism. In the elaboration of Eurocommunism converge the different national paths to socialism that have allowed the affirmation of political and ideological pluralism in a democratic social and political context. The author believes that the dichotomy historicism-theoreticism must be overcome, but above all that infantile and outdated alternative, institutionalized by Stalinism, between “revision” and “orthodoxy.” With a quote from Berlinguer, Buci-Glucksmann argues: the frontiers of the struggle for socialism no longer coincide with the frontiers of the socialist countries. Althusser’s student re-proposes the question of the development of the transition from representative democracy to grassroots democracy by dissolving the problem of the opposition between these two forms: they are not antithetical, but complementary, in such a way it is clear that the false dilemma, typical of the European and French socialist tradition, which imposes a choice between Stalinism or bourgeois democracy and Stalinism or social democracy, is no longer posed. In this sense, Ingrao and some Italian research have shown that grassroots democracy can actively contribute to a new elaboration of political will. Relying on an article by Vacca, the author also indicates the path for the unification of the cultural moment with that within the factories, the social and economic united with the political, going beyond the schemes of the Second and Third International. In relation to the Gramscian conception of the extended state, the French philosopher demonstrates how, outside an instrumental conception of the state, it becomes all the stronger as its ruling class weakens, thus allowing the formation of a dictatorship without hegemony. Moreover, to the extent that popular initiative is blocked, political substance is emptied of content and political leadership itself becomes an aspect of domination. The author argues that the “Gramsci question” has arrived in the pages of scientific journals and in the Italian political debate after some important interventions by liberal and socialist intellectuals on the nature of the PCI’s politics. Among these, the author cites those of Salvadori, Bobbio, and Colletti, who, albeit with different argumentative angles, require a response on the relationship between the PCI and Gramsci’s theory, with the implicit assumption that Gramscian theory, a development of the Leninist tradition, cannot coincide with the expression of democracy. Buci-Glucksmann does not accept this approach and shows how the Gramscian concept of hegemony does not limit itself to completing that of the dictatorship of the proletariat, but qualifies it; Gramsci has identified hegemony and democracy, where it is understood both the relationship between the leading group and the led groups in the party and the exercise of state power, indeed, the author continues, there is a clear identification of a movement from the bottom up that favors that molecular passage from led to leading groups. Instead, in the defensive phase of the passive revolution of the leading group, there is a group of privileged people who try to perpetuate their privileges.

The article by Althusser’s student revisits and organizes some of the key points of the Eurocommunist question: hegemony, which serves as the fulcrum for theoretical attention to Gramsci, is a theme encouraged and spurred by the original Italian debate that starts from the communist proposal of the historic compromise. Parallel to hegemony emerges the concept of the integral state to which Priester particularly refers, in a definitive historiographical intent: to show the theoretical limits to which the Staatsableitungsdebatte in the Federal Republic has been constrained. More than a decade later, Elmar Altvater will argue that one of the limits to the reception of Gramsci in the FRG was precisely the tendency towards the “reconstruction of the critique of political economy,” which from the late 1960s dominated the theoretical efforts of the leftist academic intelligentsia: a debate later forgotten, despite the excellent scientific contributions it had reached, but characterized by a theoretical horizon confined to the formal face of the state, neglecting its institutions, the regulation of democratic societies or, again, the stabilizing mechanisms for forms of consciousness, “also auf die Themen, die mit Gramscis Theorie hätten erschlossen werden können”[363]. Indeed, shortly thereafter, with the Berufsverbot, the fragility of democracy in the Federal Republic would be shown, and that authoritarian turn would be undertaken to which certainly the theory of the “deduction of the state” could not give an answer. Gramsci in this sense, parallel to the diffusion of the Althusserian issues of Ideological State Apparatuses, could provide food for thought, but above all a strategy of struggle.

The Italian Discussion on the PCI and Pluralism

For the VSA Verlag, the collection Il marxismo e lo Stato[364] is translated into German: a volume containing the major contributions published the previous year in Italy, it represents the incipit given by Norberto Bobbio on the theme of pluralism, anticipating “not a few of the themes that would animate the debate of the Italian left in 1977, profoundly marking the ‘Gramsci year’”[365]. Among the authors are intellectual personalities from communism, liberalism, and socialism: from Bobbio to Ingrao, from Guiducci to Salvadori, up to political figures of lesser theoretical stature like Giuliano Amato and Bettino Craxi.

In his preface to the volume[366], Federico Coen immediately presents the core of the issue: Gramscian hegemony in its relationship with the economy and political pluralism. The heart of the matter is understanding the role of the PCI’s strategy in relation to Gramsci’s thought and the revolutionary tradition; “in welchem Verhältnis stehen die Hegemonie als politische Richtung, die auf dem Konsensus gegründet ist, und die Diktatur des Proletariats?” Massimo Salvadori[367], for his part, has attempted to untie this knot by defining them as two alternative political visions. The contribution of the historian from Ivrea establishes some important points, which remain among the objects of the most lively theoretical confrontation with interventions from the communist side. Salvadori recognizes in Gramsci’s theory a “tactical variant of the Bolshevik strategy”[368], where democracy assumes the role of a period for gathering forces in view of the revolution. The PCI’s politics, according to this reading, would be much closer to social democratic Marxism than to the Leninist or Gramscian conception.

The journal SoPo, a protagonist of the first efforts to understand the role of Gramscian theory within Eurocommunist strategy, dedicates the entire September 1977 issue to the theme of “domination and hegemony,” with a caricature of Gramsci dominating the title[369]; within the issue, two interventions aim to contribute to the understanding of Gramsci’s political theory, especially in the context of the contemporary political framework. The authors are Christine Buci-Glucksmann, who in 1975 published Gramsci et l'État in France[370], and Alessandro Mazzone, presented in the preface[371] as the curator of that Suhrkamp project, unfortunately unsuccessful, which contemplated a three-volume collection of Gramsci’s writings. This brief introductory text presents the most important Gramscian categories: from the historical bloc to hegemony, the difference between political society and civil society, to finally arrive at the category that will receive the most attention in this period: the “integral state,” an increasingly important component for identifying the traits of politics in the Eurocommunist perspective. The Gramscian categories are described, revisiting the discourse developed by Mazzone, as tools of “vertical” mediation between the two “horizontal” complexes of structure and superstructure. The concepts briefly mentioned here are linked, with explicit references, to the political and economic events in the FRG and the politics of the SPD.

In his Anmerkungen zu einem Dialektiker[372], Alessandro Mazzone rereads Gramsci’s work, searching for points of continuity between his thought and the politics of the era introduced by the PCI; to this end, the author revisits Gramsci’s analysis of Italian historical development up to that crossroads, expressed in theoretical terms, between the war of movement and position, toward the struggle for hegemony between trenches and casemates. The author barely touches on the theme of Gramscian translatability, discussing the reciprocity between forms of civilization, but delves into the path that leads Gramsci from the failure of the councilist experience to his prison reflections on the reorganization of bourgeois hegemony after the October Revolution. At this point, Mazzone describes the concept of the historical bloc with Gramsci’s own words: “the necessary reciprocity between structure and superstructures (reciprocity which is precisely the real dialectical process)”[373]. Mazzone revisits the Leninist concept of hegemony to highlight the corporate character of the alliance between different social groups (proletariat and peasants). Gramsci refers to Lenin’s real critique of Marxism, thinks of a Modern Prince as a tool for the conquest of hegemony, but, Mazzone emphasizes, first and foremost, the working class must become a part of the historical situation and its contradictions, enter the dialectical process of politics.

Following Mazzone’s contribution, we find the German translation of the intervention prepared by Christine Buci-Glucksmann for the Florence Conference of 1977[374]. The French philosopher grapples with the problem of the working class’s rise to power. In describing the dialectic of transition-revolution, Gramsci focuses on the Italian case in the historical forms of the Risorgimento and fascist economic policy, but goes beyond these historical processes by broadening the concept to a greater theoretical scope and elevating it to a methodology. In Gramsci’s study, the morphology of advanced capitalism and the obstacles posed by the state in the case of a frontal attack are discovered. The changed economic framework of the 1930s implies new relations of the state with the economy and with hegemonic apparatuses: this explains how Gramsci takes Lenin’s concept of hegemony and reworks it with new functions and a broader purpose. Gramsci not only distinguishes between the war of movement and the war of position, the latter can be the work of the ruling class or the subaltern classes (defined as “asymmetric”) struggling for hegemony and the political leadership of society. This distinction shows that there is not a single meaning of hegemony. Buci-Glucksmann argues that the distinction between East and West in the superstructures and their effects on the revolutionary process is already outlined in the united front strategy advocated by Lenin, and this is the starting point of all Gramscian reflection on the war of position. The author also explains that the set of power structures in the West should not be understood in their purely superstructural character, at the risk of causing the transformation process to fail in bureaucratization or an economistic restructuring of the productive forces, destined to paralyze the action and autonomy of the working class. Gramsci invites us to abandon the instrumental and narrow conception of the state and power, that is, as government and coercive apparatus, to arrive at the broader nature of domination combined with hegemony. Hegemony has a dual use: in a state sense and in an anti-state sense; an antinomy that is not resolved in favor of one of the two terms, but indicates a contradictory tension in relation to whom this strategy is addressed.

We will not revisit here the entire debate and the results reached by the seminar on Hegemony, State, and Party in Gramsci[375], but it is useful to recall, for the references encountered in German literature, some of the key points that emerge from the contributions translated by the VSA the following year[376]. Leonardo Paggi highlights how Gramsci’s conception of democracy is decidedly enriched compared to an interpretation focused on pluralism, typical of the bourgeois conception and the banner of liberal-socialist arguments. From the same assumption, Valentino Gerratana seeks to clarify that the concept of hegemony is expressed in Gramsci in multiple ways and forms “depending on the social forces that exercise such hegemony”[377]; in the case of the proletarian struggle, systems of delegation are not hoped for, but, through the active force of the party, the transformation of the principle of hegemony and its institutions is necessary. Biagio De Giovanni shows attention to the massification of politics, in this framework the activity of the PCI has been fundamental for the encounter between the masses and the state. Pietro Ingrao argues that what is the responsibility and experience of the PCI in the last forty years (the tragic experience of Stalinism) cannot be attributed to Gramsci, and the then president of the Chamber of Deputies states: “therefore in our strategy there are novelties, which we bear on our shoulders, and which we cannot place on Gramsci’s shoulders”[378]. The seminar shows different judgments on the politics of the historic compromise, the reference to Gramsci comes mainly from those intellectuals and politicians who read the Italian political situation as a “clash of hegemonies and theses to elaborate tools and hypotheses of transition, thus with a strong assumption of the main Gramscian categories”[379].

German readers are offered a large number of important references to the ongoing debate in Italy, stemming from the needs and explicit requests to clarify, by the PCI to the other political forces, its position within the democratic institutions. The core of the issue remains Gramscian hegemony, the relationship with the dictatorship of the proletariat, and the strategy that the PCI intends to implement. The result of this very articulated confrontation, albeit partial, arrives in Germany with Claudia Mancina’s preface[380] to the volume dedicated by Gruppi to the Gramscian concept of hegemony. The text presents itself as a review of the results reached by the Italian debate on pluralism, hosted mainly by the journal Mondoperaio, where the concept of hegemony, according to the Gramscian lesson, has received particular attention. The question posed by social-liberal intellectuals on the contradictory relationship between pluralism and the communist conception of society and the state carries with it the legitimate question of whether hegemony is in contradiction with the essence of pluralism. The PCI is thus asked to clarify its positions to understand, quoting Bobbio, whether “the Prince can stand in a Republic.” The text follows the path of the broad confrontation, also criticizing the PCI’s explanatory line. The essay most taken into consideration is that of Salvadori[381], where Mancina can counter the theoretical knots in the controversy over hegemony and pluralism. Salvadori believes that the current interpretation given by the PCI to Gramsci unfolds in a process of continuity with the Leninist line, although there is recognition of a “rotation” that allows Gramsci to exit Leninism. Mancina recognizes that in Gramsci the concept of pluralism is not found, but this is to be attributed to the context in which the Sardinian was living; certainly, emerging from fascism, the workers’ movement would have initiated a progressive revolutionary process. The author attributes to Salvadori the inability to understand that change that involves Gramsci starting from the objective references of his reflection; one cannot reread the prison work without taking into account Labriola, Croce, Sorel, and above all Marx. Moreover, Salvadori’s analysis lacks other coordinates (political and philological reflection) that would favor an adequate study: a periodization that shows the diversity of historical-political moments in the formation of the Sardinian’s thought. The same discourse would apply to the concept of hegemony that Salvadori backdates and fixes in the conception of 1920, for this reason in his eyes hegemony is nothing more than a correction of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the addition of the element of consent to force. Mancina further emphasizes that hegemony is not a simple enrichment of the state, but permeates all of civil society and opens many other fields to political struggle: the hegemonic apparatuses.

Five years after the Italian publication, the VSA publishes the translation of Il concetto di egemonia in Gramsci by Luciano Gruppi; the volume[382] is the collection of some lectures that Gruppi held at the Gramsci Institute in Rome in the autumn of 1970. With the theoretical path that passes from Marx to Lenin, Gramsci derives from the two theorists his concept of hegemony: a term that in Leninist language equates to the dictatorship of the proletariat (which Lenin put into practice). From the different uses of the concept by Lenin, Gruppi reports the composition of the same concept according to Gramsci: both in opposition to domination and in the coexistence of leadership and domination. The key to understanding the meaning and use of the notion lies in the use that Gramsci makes of a complementary concept: ideology. From the analysis of the Southern Question, Gruppi reports Gramsci’s reflections on Crocean reactionary hegemony: it leads southern intellectuals toward the European context, but at the same time distances them from the needs of the rural world from which they come. In the analysis of the worldview of the subaltern classes, one perceives the conception imposed on them by the ruling classes, through tools aimed at shaping consciousness: school, catechism, military service, local newspapers, radio, and cinema. In folklore, however, one can still find that element of spontaneity still present in the subaltern classes: only starting from this elementary consciousness can the masses be guided to a critical consciousness. The elaboration of a new conception must start from common sense, which must be criticized, purified, unified, and elevated to a critical worldview. A class remains hegemonic, leading, and dominant as long as it manages to keep together a group of heterogeneous forces and prevents the contrast between them from exploding. Marx achieved results in the study of the bases of hegemony: the contradictions between the relations of production and the development of the productive forces, that is, in the economic structure. In Gramsci, this analysis turns to the superstructure, to the totality of the social process. Gruppi dedicates a part of his study to Gramsci’s ontological theory to relate it to the theory of knowledge formulated by Lenin as “reflection.” Here emerges Gramsci’s effort in opposition to vulgar materialism and the role of history and humanism in his conception of the philosophy of praxis. The examination that Gruppi makes of Gramsci’s historicism and his critiques of Crocean historicism is situated in a current of Italian studies aimed at reaffirming historicism[383], but it is worth highlighting here that the Italian scholar provides German readers with a valid tool to deepen the questions and ontological analyses proposed at the beginning of the 1970s by the publication of some doctoral theses like those of Palla and Roth[384], but above all the research of the latter, which has had an incomparable resonance compared to other works of the same kind.

Zauberwort «Eurokommunismus»

“The Magic Word ‘Eurocommunism,’ the Examination of the Simultaneous Political Successes of Leftist Parties in Other Western European Countries, and the Increased Reception of Approaches, Especially from the Italian and French Marxist Discussions, Thus Became of Central Importance for Many Leftists in the FRG in Solving Their Own Political Crisis”[385].

Thus begins the editorial of the AWA that opens the volume published by Argument on Eurocommunism. Many hopes were ignited, almost as if it were truly a magic word that could realign the situation of disintegration of the socialist movement in the Federal Republic. The AWA and many other groups, institutes, and organizations strive to understand and disseminate the Eurocommunist strategy; the AWA, in particular, is seeking, through its interest in this new politics, the possibility of opening an original discussion and cultural renewal; but what drives this involvement of the movement is above all the effect of the SPD’s blind politics in the face of the struggles of the workers’ movement in the economic sphere, a terrain on which even the DKP and the SEW show little interest.

Despite the diversity of national contexts and the political events of European communist parties, the collection of essays aims to provide a picture of the development of the theory underlying this political orientation, because the left in the Federal Republic has been stripped of its socialist intelligentsia by the Bad Godesberg social democracy.

From the Staatsableitungsdebatte to the Theory of Parties in the Spirit of Gramsci[386] is the title of Michael Jäger’s intervention, which, following a long examination of the relationship between the “deduction of the state” and Marxian theory, proceeds with the analysis of the concept of the historical bloc and the state for Gramsci as an integration of the theories of Marx and Lenin. A questionable starting point in Jäger’s work is the interpretation provided by Riechers, so Gramsci, reread through Riechers’ translation, takes on subjectivist connotations for the author. This, in Jäger’s opinion, would also be demonstrated by the role of the Party as a guide for political forces: Gramsci indeed overlooks some of the objective conditions in the conception of the state and bases his reasoning on the willingness of individuals of a class to be dominated by the state. In this sense, Jäger compares the state to a god that dominates individuals. The other side of the coin, Jäger continues, is that the willingness to be dominated by the state also implies the willingness and ability to dominate. The party, which plays the fundamental role in political leadership, is not merely an apparatus within the state sphere; it is the embodiment of all individuals in society, an image equated to that of class. Just as society can be broken down into classes, the same can happen to parties: “es gibt in diesem Sinne keine ‘Parteilosen’”[387]. To demonstrate that parties are proof of the identity between base and superstructure, Jäger argues that the individuals who constitute a party are simultaneously economic and political subjects. Parties are not the nomenclature of a class, but rather the nomenclature of alliances between classes[388], as they represent a social class under certain conditions, and the latter develops with the approval and help of allied classes, if not even opposing classes.

“It may already have become clear that the party being discussed is an abstraction. Gramsci emphasizes this very clearly”[389] is Jäger’s peremptory conclusion.

Following the contributions made in 1977[390], which were very close to the theme, Karin Priester publishes in the same collection an essay on the meaning of the extended state for Gramsci[391]. The author revisits her own assertion that Gramsci begins his theoretical discourse precisely at the point where the left in West Germany decided to cease its theoretical reflection[392]. Priester refers in particular to the usefulness of the analyses of what Gramsci calls political society; the comparison with the Staatsableitungsdebatte is implicit: through the lens of the critique of political economy, the relationship between economy and state is judged as a relationship of “derivation.” Priester does not deny the recognition of the dialectical character of this relationship but criticizes the lack of in-depth analysis of its concrete form. In this context, the character of mystification and false consciousness that would invest the workers’ movement in the interpretation of real production relations has been emphasized. These interpretative solutions are deductive and axiomatic and consider politics only as a reflection of what has happened in the economic structure.

In contrast to this view stands Gramsci, restoring primacy to politics as the engine of the dialectic between structure and superstructure. Gramsci’s concept of the integral state is not a theory of the state in general but applies to the bourgeois state, whose analysis in the history of Marxism has long been limited to a reduction to an economic problem. Economism of this kind is, for Gramsci as well as for Lenin, the first enemy of the workers’ movement. Gramsci initiates a reworking of Lenin’s work, indicating the need for a theoretical foundation for the achievements of Leninist politics; in this sense, Gramsci intends to deal with the concrete translation of Leninist praxis in the context of relations in Western society. With the concept of the “historical bloc,” Gramsci sees in the relationship between structure and superstructure a non-mechanical condition, but rather the result of a historical process; the task of Marxist political theory is to judge the level of development of a historical bloc. In the case where the ruling class advances society within the historical bloc, in a progressive (innovative) historical function, the superstructure presents itself as a rational reflection of the structure. Only in this case does the ruling class also exercise hegemony, intellectual and moral leadership, over its allies. When it loses the function of accelerating society as a whole, a discrepancy between base and superstructure begins, accompanied by the progressive loss of hegemony. The workers’ movement should enter this gap, force the split of the subalterns, and elevate them from a perception of economic-corporate interests to the ethical-political level.

Gramsci also asked how it was possible that capitalist society, always in crisis, could mobilize resources to avoid collapse. The nature of these resources particularly interests the Sardinian, as they are an integral part of his theory of revolution in the West. In this context, the theory of hegemony indicates to Gramsci that the origin of such resources is to be found in civil society.

To explain the transition to hegemony, intellectual and moral capacity, and the role of leadership of the main class in a coalition, Gramsci must leave the structural sphere and move to the superstructure. The formation of hegemony requires overcoming a particularistic and corporate consciousness (deducible from the relations of material life) and the development of a universal political consciousness; in this sense, the protection of the material reproduction of the ruling class, the material situation, must be translated into a superstructural problem: the defense of the political and ideological domination of this class within society as a whole. The heart of the matter lies in the exact analysis of the transition from the economic-corporate phase (also egoistic-passional) to the political-universalistic phase, from the structure (economy) to the superstructure (state). This transition, defined by Gramsci as “catharsis,” is a qualitatively new dimension among the tools of knowledge in the analysis of the relations between a specific economic class and the totality of society and toward the state.

The author states that Gramsci is not, as often falsely and simplistically considered, a pure philosopher of the superstructure: his real interest is directed at the nexus of transmission between structure and superstructure, that is, how the structure can insert itself into the superstructure under different historical conditions. The theoretical-political problem related to the birth of hegemony is also a problem akin to the theory of knowledge, so Gramsci dedicates himself to the analysis of the internal decomposition of the superstructure under the theoretical aspects of social organization. Gramsci divides the different moments of superstructural activity into the dichotomies: force-consent, domination-leadership, dictatorship-hegemony; only when these elements are in a balanced relationship do they guarantee the supremacy of the ruling class. The condition of balance is in continuous movement, so consent, even when defined as “spontaneous,” must always be created to guarantee hegemony. The task of creating consent is carried out by the organic intellectuals of the ruling class, elements functioning as a link between structure and superstructure and cemented as ideologists of the “historical bloc.”

Priester addresses the formal division advanced by Gramsci between civil society and political society as components of the integral state: civil society lies between the economy and the state in the strictest sense; it encompasses everything that can be influenced in the consciousness of the masses and is mediated by private institutions (school, party, media, unions, etc.) where consent is formed.

To detect a tendency toward the statization of civil society[393], the methodological division between political society and civil society has great significance: they designate two aspects of the supremacy of the ruling class. Priester warns that only if the purely methodological character of this difference is respected and not matured as an organic difference can potential theoretical errors be dispelled; the theoretical-political value of this difference can be recognized “as it enables the solution of the strategic and tactical problems raised by the upheaval of the hegemonic system of the ruling class”[394]. Priester concludes that it is important to highlight this point to counter distorted interpretations, whether they are social democratic or radical in tendency.

The author points out that it would be wrong to superficially interpret Gramsci’s theory of hegemony as if the center of power in late-capitalist societies had completely shifted to civil society; in this way, the meaning of the state in its coercive aspect would be denied. Such a strategy would target only one of the aspects of the integral state, with strategic conclusions that, as also emphasized by Anderson[395], do not take into account the function of ideological indoctrination but focus more on the role of the structure in creating false consciousness. In this panorama of analysis, the author indicates a further deepening in Gramsci’s reflections on Americanism and Fordism.

In the Althusserian interpretation of the ideological state apparatuses, the analytical differences between the state apparatus and civil society are excluded; moreover, the question of the private or public character of civil society institutions is dismissed as irrelevant. Priester, who has dedicated a substantial essay to the study of the rise of Italian fascism[396], notes that if all ideological-political manifestations of the superstructure were defined as “state apparatus,” it would be impossible to differentiate bourgeois democracies from fascism.

After a detailed critique of the Althusserian interpretation, the author explains that with the concept of the integral state, Gramsci can dismantle the liberal view of a division between state and civil society, as this division is also provoked by the state through political decisions, which have a legal foundation, aimed at not intervening in the economic sphere.

It cannot be denied that Gramsci, through a semantically different use of the concept of state and hegemony—and Anderson rightly speaks of a permanent slippage of meaning—has favored many misunderstandings, equivocations, and partial interpretations. Thus, the state is sometimes seen as the opposite pole to civil society, which encompasses political society (the state in the strict sense), and at other times as equivalent to civil society. Consequently, hegemony is not resolved only in leadership but is leadership and domination together, consent and coercion in a sphere that is not only ethical-political but also economic. The author considers it important to highlight this last point, as it makes it understandable that the realization of cultural hegemony for Gramsci is dependent on changes in the economic base, which first and foremost provides the material conditions of the historical bloc within which hegemony operates.

Priester disagrees with Anderson on the negative critical judgment toward Gramsci’s attempts to elaborate his theory; the author specifies that even if the prison writings contain sketched and not immediately clear texts, they have an internal coherence that cannot be defined as contradictory. Gramsci does not intend to analyze the bourgeois state in itself but the process undergone by a class to become the state. The different definitions of the state and the types of hegemony correspond to the successive stages in this process. Moreover, the apparent contradiction and the continuous semantic extension of the concepts are one of the consequences of the attempt to conceptually render the dialectical process continuously modified by real history.

In Gramsci’s theory, the party plays a role of great importance, the first expression of the arrival to power for a social class that aspires to become the state. The state, by adapting the population to the development of productive forces through a new way of thinking and living, subsumes the private institutions of bourgeois society. This is not a statization, because the integral state integrates the state in the strict sense and civil society in a balance of forces. The integration of the two spheres is not an authoritarian act of nationalization but an organic process, where the concept “organic,” recurrent in Gramsci, describes the dialectic of Form and Content.

The goal of the state, in the socialist sense, is the “regulated society,” or rather, the society that regulates itself. In this way, Gramsci specifies the Marx-Engels formula of the withering away of the state; it, as political society, must fulfill fewer and fewer repressive tasks and functions, as consent is founded and guaranteed by civil society through hegemony and socialist democracy.

Among all the institutions of civil society, Gramsci attributes great importance to schools, churches, unions, and publishing; but the true “schools of state life” are first and foremost the parties. The Communist Party is the collective intellectual that in the state cadres creates a new civilization and leads consent as the foundation of hegemony. In no way must it coincide with the state sphere, nor subordinate itself to it, nor appropriate its purposes. It is clear that Gramsci also postulates for the socialist state an autonomy of the party, whose task cannot be confused with the state or become a subordinate organ of it. All these reflections are valid only for the strategy of the war of position, which operates on different basic characteristics from the rapid war of movement, as the example of the Revolution in Russia has shown us.

In contradiction with this reading, Althusser perceived, and thus criticized, a fusion of the Party into the State.

A different path to socialism in Western countries presupposes another form of organization of socialist society itself: although little emphasized, Gramsci showed a growing dissent for the politics of the Comintern in the 1930s; this also led him to partial opposition with the party leadership. This dissent had already been outlined since 1926 on the occasion of the condemnation of Trotskyism by the Stalinist group.

In her conclusions, Priester shows how in Western democracies the strength and stability of civil society must serve as a strategic place for the working class in its struggle. It is a force that is not based on the repressive tools of political society, so the strategy excludes a short-term frontal attack for the destruction of the state apparatus (Gramsci’s war of movement). The workers’ movement must become aware of the change in the conditions of struggle and strike the adversary precisely where it is strongest: in its ability to connect the intermediate strata consensually in a “historical bloc,” as well as in its ability to retain potential antagonistic forces in philosophical subalternity and political impotence. The last point touched by Priester opens with common sense, a deeply contradictory conglomerate consisting of historically unassimilable collective experiences, fragments of the worldview of the ruling class imposed on the subaltern classes, but also residues of old cultural currents and traditions. In this cultural and strategic framework, the role of organic intellectuals is indispensable, who, through the construction of a historical-critical consciousness of the working class, initiate the conquest of hegemonic power.

Gramsci’s theoretical reflections are to be connected with the politics of the Third International; they are understandable only with the overcoming of the slogan of the extreme left “class against class” and with a detailed formulation of the strategy of the popular front. However, the conception of the historical bloc goes beyond all this. A historical bloc is not a pact limited in time to an objective, which can be abandoned depending on the political conjuncture; it is not a system of alliance to be stipulated or abandoned depending on the times, whether of crisis or favor. A historical bloc is the unity of structure and superstructure between the ruling class and intermediate strata; it is a historical necessity: only in this way can the ruling class legitimize itself as the national class par excellence. It raises society as a whole to a higher economic and cultural level and with this creates a new “culture.”

Priester’s critique of the Althusserian interpretation serves as a counterbalance for German Gramscian literature to a truly capillary reception of the French philosopher in the FRG since the late 1960s. Priester’s critical approach is based on a detailed study of Gramsci’s work, which at the end of the 1970s sees her as a protagonist in defining Gramsci’s conception of the state, in the sense of the integral state with attention to civil society, in a panorama of the German left that may still suffer from the remnants of the debate on the “deduction of the state” and awaits the translation of that systematic deepening found in Christine Buci-Glucksmann’s monograph on Gramsci and the State.

Collected in the same volume as Priester’s contribution, Detlev Albers presents an analysis of Otto Bauer’s thought[397], focusing in particular on integral socialism. In the conclusion of his contribution, we find a cameo on Gramsci and his political activity, then arriving at a comparison, in broad terms, between the contributions of the two Marxist theorists. Despite the different biographical circumstances, both are leaders of two significant parties in Western Europe, pragmatic politicians, and productive Marxist theorists. Their work takes place in the same period between the two wars; they experience the October Revolution and fascism in the West, of which they become victims. In the comparison between the two theorists, Albers argues that Gramsci, in search of the causes of the blockage of the workers’ movement in the West, expanded the scope of his reflections beyond Lenin’s lesson. An attitude of closure, on the other hand, is that of Bauer toward the October Revolution, although he never denied its historical significance. Albers sees a theoretical proximity between Bauer and Gramsci respectively in the concepts of ideological hegemonic power and the elements of Gramsci’s concept of hegemony. At the beginning of the 1980s, the author will develop this proximity by dedicating a monograph to it.

Unlike the contributions seen so far on Eurocommunism, which have expressed, if not appreciation, very measured criticism, the same cannot be said of Ernest Mandel’s work, which with his Kritik des Eurokommunismus[398] explains the reasons why it is not possible to refer to Gramsci as the ancestor of this new political strategy. The author cites multiple examples of communist leaders who have referred to Gramsci in this sense, but it would be an imposture since the Sardinian has always been faithful to the socialist revolution, which implies the destruction of the bourgeois state apparatus; the concept of hegemony is indeed the preparatory step preceding the actual revolutionary crisis. Gramsci is revisited through a downsizing of his role as a theorist in the construction of that new path to socialism inaugurated by Togliatti and is revisited by Mandel in all the most important concepts of his work (from hegemony to the war of position to the party) in an anti-Eurocommunist sense. Gramsci’s opposition between the war of movement and the war of position is traced back here to the direct influence of the First World War in Kautsky’s polemic against Rosa Luxemburg: the war of position would be inevitable not because of the strength acquired by the proletariat, “wie Kautsky und Berlinguer es  tun,  letzter auf offenkundig demagogische Art und Weise”[399], but because of still unfavorable power relations, when the problem of the conquest of power is not yet posed: it is precisely on this point that the difference between the theorists of Eurocommunism and Gramsci’s thought manifests itself, which intends, according to the Sardinian’s own definition: “der Staat, das ist Diktatur plus Hegemonie”[400].

In the text, Mandel sporadically alludes to Gramsci in opposition to some thinkers like Bruno Trentin, an exponent of the Eurocommunist left, who carelessly brings Gramsci closer to the Austro-Marxist Adler through councilist theories, or in defense of revolutionary Marxists. Moreover, we find the reproach to Poulantzas for having renounced the Gramscian teaching of the Ordine Nuovo period, that is, the observations on the sociological and structural links between the nature of the proletariat and that of proletarian power.

The theme of the state, the theoretical authority of Althusser, and Italian politics belong to that compound of elements that generates German interest in another debate that took place in the pages of an Italian periodical. In 1979, the publishing house Ästhetik und Kommunikation publishes, edited by Elmar Altvater and Otto Kallscheuer, a volume already published in Italy under the title Discutere lo Stato[401]. The work is a collection of interventions that appeared in Il Manifesto following a provocative expression pronounced by Althusser at the Congress on the theme of power and opposition held for the Venice Biennale of 1977. Althusser’s expression: “«endlich die Krise des Marxismus ist ausgebrochen!» and «endlich ist die Krise des Marxismus ans Tageslicht gekommen! Endlich kann in der Krise und aus ihr etwas Neues, Lebendiges befreit werden!”[402], opens a lively debate among the intellectuals gravitating around the periodical, also soliciting external stimuli. Altvater and Kallscheuer introduce this broad confrontation by comparing the nature of the Italian and German Marxist traditions. If in Germany Marxist thought has been relegated to extra-parliamentary opposition, in Italy Marxism has been able to count on a political force like the PCI, well within the democratic and pluralistic system like the PCI; this thanks to the “Italian road to socialism” theorized by Togliatti and rooted in Gramsci’s thought; the political force and democratic culture have not, however, prevented the party from maintaining the anti-capitalist perspective. Moreover, the theoretical development of Marxism at the beginning of the 1970s in the FRG was dominated by the Staatsableitungsdebatte, which can be schematically summarized in the study of the relationship between economy and politics. Italian Marxists, on the other hand, have developed the investigation of the relations between civil society and the state in the wake of Gramsci’s reflections.

The volume, in addition to the references explicitly stated in the texts, is permeated with key concepts of Gramscian thought. Not surprisingly, at the end of the volume, there is a glossary of the central concepts used in the Italian debate, where Gramscian categories dominate, and even the entry historic compromise is subsumed by that of the historical bloc with reference to Berlinguer.

The “magic word Eurocommunism” fully expresses the expectations of the new German left regarding the contemporary strategy of European communist parties; the phenomenon shifts from a more practical political interest to a stimulus for theoretical reflection: the collections and syntheses of the Italian debate open a dispute over the Gramscian paternity of the contemporary political strategy. It becomes a necessity to explain Gramsci’s theory, especially his vision of the relationship between state and civil society, a theory still unknown but which shows its relevance for the democratic political context of the Federal Republic. In the Staatsableitungsdebatte, the new left did not find the appropriate tools for the analysis of contemporary political and civil society, but to this, already from the initial hints, first mediated by Althusser and then analyzed by young German scholars, Antonio Gramsci seems to be able to provide some answers.

Ideology and Culture

Seven years after its first publication in French, the VSA translates Althusser’s essay on the ideological state apparatuses[403]. “The resilience of the French bourgeoisie in May 1968 leads Althusser to confront the problem of the State theoretically; in this way, he returns to the research of Gramsci”[404]. The text is already well-known among many German intellectuals who have long been interested in the distinction between political society and civil society, the expanded conception of the State, and the hegemonic apparatuses. These two new interpretations, clearly provided by Althusser, surpass the view of the State as a mere repressive apparatus and emphasize that maintaining hegemony requires apparatuses dedicated to this task. According to Leonardo Paggi, in this text, the French philosopher modifies his interpretative categories by assimilating Gramscian concepts, though he impoverishes them: he reduces Gramscian thought “to a theoretical framework that fails to resolve and articulate the opposition between ideology and theory into a series of more concrete determinations”. Paggi believes that this reduction of the “multidimensionality of civil society to ideology” implies the loss of meaning of the Party’s existence, that is, “the main incarnation of those aspects of the modern State that are not reducible to its repressive function”[405].

Guido Liguori has pointed out that Althusser’s vision contradicts Gramsci’s, as the apparatuses the French philosopher deals with function to perpetuate the dominant ideology, leaving no internal space for class struggle. Thus, hegemony, in the Gramscian sense, which sees a class as leading before dominating, decays[406].

Despite the reservations of his critics, Althusser’s work leaves questions and suggestions in the post-protest movement environment that gain increasing consideration with the advancement of the Eurocommunist proposal. The need to shed light on Gramsci’s work, on ideological and hegemonic apparatuses, the themes of civil society, and the integral State, permeates both the purely theoretical and the more pragmatic political spheres, reflecting the interest in the debate on the political practice of the PCI in the face of the historic compromise proposal and the growing interest in the real possibilities of implementing the Eurocommunist strategy. In this context, two further fundamental components of Gramscian thought, closely linked to the complex conception of hegemony, attract attention: the concept of ideology, which in German culture has a well-rooted philosophical-political tradition, and that of culture. The vastness of analysis in the peculiar Gramscian sense has yet to fully penetrate German Gramscian literature; only in the following decade, thanks mainly to the work of Sabine Kebir, will the results of a study that looks beyond the most direct political aspect and cultural direction emerge.

The doctoral thesis in philosophy, completed by Rafael de la Vega at the University of Gießen in 1973, is published in 1977[407] as the first volume of a series of studies on social history and the labor movement edited by a group of intellectuals linked to the University of Marburg: Abendroth, Deppe, and also Sandkühler, to mention the most important figures in the reflection on Gramsci. The author refers to the latter in the preface when he describes his work as research on historical-social praxis, equating Marxism as philosophy and philosophy as political praxis, and concludes with a quote from Gramsci: “everything is political, even philosophy, or philosophies, and the only ‘philosophy’ is history in action, that is, life itself”[408].

Gramsci is compared to Lukács and Korsch: they are the three major theoretical representatives of Western Marxism, sometimes described as the refounders of a Marxism with liberal traits. The communist leader’s position is highlighted in relation to the idealist reception in Italy: a student and later critic of Croce, Gramsci’s Marxism retains multiple Hegelian and crypto-idealist elements.

In the analysis of the relationship between Marxism and Hegelianism, an unresolved issue, de la Vega relies on Gramsci, who recognized that since Hegel, there has been a valorization of the role of intellectuals within the State. With a barely hinted reference, de la Vega juxtaposes Lukács’ critique of the aporias in idealist dialectics with Gramsci’s interest in overcoming this theoretical problem and adds the Sardinian’s critical judgment of the idealist conception (mediated by Croce and Gentile): Gramsci believes that bourgeois neo-Hegelianism represents a step backward, a reactionary reform.

A monograph by Gerd Würzberg, published in 1978[409], intends to address the cultural aspects of Gramsci’s political thought. The author starts from the premise that in modern capitalist society, the cultural issue must be addressed: the relevance of cultural and ideological superstructures is attributable to the determining power of the dialectic between base and superstructure. For the analysis of this phenomenon and the processes of concentration and centralization, Gramscian theory can be very useful.

Gramsci observes the phenomenon of the crystallization of dominant culture in subaltern culture, and for the development of a new culture, an intellectual and moral reform is necessary; to achieve a new system of cultural and political hegemony and the constitution of a new historical bloc, the role of intellectuals is important. The analysis refers to specific cultural phenomena and processes of advanced capitalism, which can only be confronted with a different type of struggle strategy: the war of position, a long and complex process, to extinguish the structure of bourgeois hegemony and ideological consensus within civil society. The war of position for Gramsci means the revaluation of the cultural front and proposes a confrontation extended to all levels and components of existing culture and ideology.

Gramsci attempts to describe the social situation in which he lived and proposes political responses to it. In the Lyons Theses, parallels between Italian society and pre-revolutionary Russian society are not lacking; for the description of the Italian situation, Gramsci also uses the Leninist concept of the “weak link in the chain,” referring to a country where the capitalist social fabric shows less resistance. This perception will no longer be used in the prison writings, where the cultural and political differences between the two countries become increasingly clear and strong. Gramsci confirms that Lenin had already recognized the necessity of a war of position in the West, and in the line of thought of the united front, the primacy of national revolutionary issues over internationalist ones is evident[410].

Citing a passage by Gerhard Roth[411], Würzberg argues that Gramsci has redefined the content and relationship between the two concepts of State and society in a completely new way compared to the Marxist tradition; the State is understood as political society or the State as a set of government, parliament, police, army, that is, the coercive elements, organs for direct domination or order. This vision, according to Würzberg, has some resonance with the formulations of Marx, Engels, and Lenin in the treatment of organized violence.

According to Gramsci, civil society and political society coincide in the integral State: the duality emphasized by Gramsci does not, however, correspond to the division of the superstructure into two different planes that Althusser’s interpretation has indicated in the study of Marx[412].

Gramsci, who in his writings on the war of position uses many expressions borrowed from military language, also intervenes in the analysis of the ideological-cultural sphere: the organisms of civil society within Western countries are exemplified in their function by the military image of the trench.

Regarding the concept of hegemony, it is specified that it looks to the objective of conquering civil society before political society; although the Sardinian claims to adhere to the Leninist lesson, the author specifies that Lenin did not use this concept; at most, in Lenin, its use had a tactical sense to express the leading role of the proletariat in the alliance with other social forces.

In this regard, Würzberg recalls, and denies, the kinship suggested by Roth between this conception of hegemony and that used by Stalin[413]. The commonality of the concept of hegemony with Lenin is resumed according to the results of Gruppi’s research: the two concepts would coincide in substance. Würzberg, however, argues that the difference is not formal in relation to two different moments concerning the conquest of power, as the diversity is especially evident from the substantial point of view: in Gramsci, hegemony projects into the cultural dimension of the proletariat’s domination, while for Lenin, the cultural transformation should occur only after the economic transformation. The direction, that is, the cultural profile of post-revolutionary hegemony, is only the continuation of the struggle to reach the leadership of civil society: “in Gramsci’s concept, the conquest of State power is not the beginning of the cultural leadership role, but both are two expressions of the revolutionary process, where cultural leadership determines the political and economic one”[414]. Lenin revalues the ideological factor in the socialist revolution as decisive for overcoming the economic determinism of the Second International and also for the development of a proletarian party within the framework of socialist consciousness; for Gramsci, instead, intellectual and moral reform is a goal. Würzberg reports Hugues Portelli’s judgment[415]: for Lenin, hegemony is political, understandable especially in an environment like Russia where civil society was very weak; differently, the terrain of struggle against the ruling class is precisely indicated by Gramsci: it is civil society.

The author also explicitly states that Gramsci dealt with the theoretical deficit left by Marxism regarding the development of the theory of the State, and after him, the only one to address it was Althusser.

In the description between the war of position and the war of movement, Würzberg notes that Tsarist Russia did not have “trenches” that could resist the frontal attack of the Revolution. In advanced capitalist countries, civil society functions as a defense, like a trench; therefore, the choice between the war of position and the war of movement does not depend on the particular political conjuncture, but on the structure of the terrain of struggle.

In a comment on this part dedicated to the struggle strategy outlined by Gramsci, Würzberg refers to a current issue: whether the PCI can claim to refer to the Sardinian’s work. Analyzing the party’s political strategy, the author notes that if for Gramsci the defensive system of Western society makes a “frontal clash” “impossible,” according to Togliatti, given the potentially socialist elements of the Italian parliament, the assault on the Winter Palace is in fact “unnecessary”[416].

Gramsci, understood as a “theorist of superstructures”[417], has not added specificity compared to the definition given by Marxist theory, which must still be understood historically as the set of social relations in which men operate under objective conditions that can only be studied when the development process of that phase is concluded. Würzberg means that for Gramsci, the structural base is the past.

The postulate according to which every fluctuation of politics and ideology is an immediate expression of the base reveals itself as theoretical infantilism and as such must be fought, and in this regard, Gramsci introduces the concept of the historical bloc. The latter is defined as an organic union between base and superstructure, where the movements of the superstructure unfold within the limits set by the structure.

The critique of economic mechanism, of Bukharin, and of Croce represents the opposition to all those theories that want a unilateral representation in the relationship between base and superstructure.

Würzberg searches in the classics of Marxism for the idea of the autonomy of the superstructure to support Gramscian theory. In the development of this work, the divergence from Engels becomes very clear: Gramsci never spoke of a priority of the structure as Engels did, on the contrary, economic conditions become the framework in which social relations develop. Revisiting Bobbio’s analysis on Gramscian civil society[418], Würzberg reproposes the interpretation according to which the ethical-political moment dominates the economic one; to corroborate this thesis, Würzberg returns to Roth’s work to confirm the decisive power of political initiative. This reading is in contrast to what the author defines as the orthodox interpretation of the primacy of the economic moment according to the Engelsian formula, represented by the works of Gruppi and Texier.

According to the author, who shares this opinion with Portelli, it is wrong to seek a priority between the superstructural moment and the economic one, Gramsci arrives at the concept of the historical bloc precisely to overcome the problem of the primacy of one instance over another; in the historical bloc, material forces represent the content and ideologies the form.

The search for superstructural processes in the form of economic relations is necessary to scientifically ground political action, and with this theory, Gramsci plays a primary role within Marxism, as Althusser has noted.

Würzberg introduces the cultural dimension of the struggle for hegemony by specifying that the function of leadership in the intellectual and moral sphere is necessary for changing power relations, the realization of a unity in this sense is the expression of overcoming particular interests through that process defined by Gramsci as “catharsis.” To achieve such an objective, extraordinary pedagogical activity by intellectuals through the organism of the political party and the conscious part of the subaltern class is necessary. The author finds the roots of the Gramscian expression and concept of “intellectual and moral reform” in the work of Sorel, Proudhon, and Renan.

In Gramsci, culture is not extrapolated from the historical-political process, but there is a union between it and politics; in his early writings, Gramsci bases this union on three main points: the critique of the idealistic interpretation, the high value of the cultural appropriation of socialist politics through the working class, the denial of the instrumentalisms of culture through organization and action. From the article Socialism and Culture, Würzberg takes up the conception of the conquest of a higher consciousness where Gramsci translates the process of knowledge into a social and historical movement: behind the postulate of “know thyself” there is in reality the process of homogenization and awareness of a class, therefore the education of the proletariat becomes both the result and the premise at the same time. Würzberg retraces Gramsci’s Ordine Nuovo years to complete the historical framework and the political vision on which his concept of culture is based; the foundation of the Club of Moral Life as well as the harsh polemic with Tasca and the cultural premises behind the “editorial coup” are cited.

In the pre-prison period and precisely in the Southern Question, Würzberg reads a vision of intellectuals still “allied” in the Leninist sense, according to the vision of the Third Internationalist united front, where intellectuals are seen as the cement for a system of alliances, therefore the author finds a break with the prison reflections. The overcoming of the Leninist position that indicates hegemony as a subsequent step to the conquest of power and the placement of this cultural reform in the economic process, as indicated in the Prison Notebooks, according to Würzberg would exclude any interpretation in a culturalist sense.

Moreover, the author specifies that the criterion of distinction on the type of intellectual, according to Gramsci, is not explicit in the individual; indeed, every reality has its own intellectual moment. This difference is only explicit in the social function interpreted by the intellectual.

Inspired by an intervention by Gianni Scalia at the 1959 Conference Gramsci and the Future City[419], Würzberg opens the last part of his work to what the Italian literary critic had already called the “sociology of literature” of Gramsci. A fierce critique by Croce of Gramscian literary criticism intends the Sardinian as engaged in the foundation of a political force, where such a task, according to the Abruzzese philosopher, has nothing to do with the search for truth, where passions must be calmed, so much so that it cannot be said that Gramsci in this sense has given a new and original thought[420]. Precisely the Marxist premises would undermine the possibility of knowing, because aimed at the practical interest of a social class: it would not be a matter of understanding the world, but of changing it. Despite this negative judgment by Croce, the discussion on Gramsci and literary criticism has not stopped, even recognizing, as Sapegno has done, that Gramsci was not a literary critic in the traditional sense. The author thus reproposes Scalia’s reading of Gramsci’s work as a sociology of literature, characterized by many points of observation of the artistic product: from the socio-cultural profile, the historical-descriptive one, and a consideration that can be defined as “statistical,” including the circulation of publications, their distribution, and, more generally, the organization of the book market.

Regarding the search for the beauty of a creation, the author takes up Gramsci’s reflection on the reasons that lead the latter to popularity or, otherwise, why it does not interest the people: among the causes is the lack of unity in the cultural life of the nation. According to Gramsci, the popularity of a work concerns the communicability expressed in it and the connection established between reader, work, and author as a measure of social determination. Gramsci’s work has always emphasized the importance of the intellectual in his function as a writer, also in relation to the conception of national-popular; Gramsci subjects writers to meticulous criticism because their production has effects on the national life of Italian bourgeois society. Both criteria signaled by Scalia in the definition of “sociology of literature” have not only been theorized by Gramsci: he used them in his empirical research, despite the impossibility of arriving at a statistical research of distribution and reception conditions. While Scalia has declared that Gramsci has “eine ‘autenthische Soziologie der Literatur und des Lesens’ begründet”[421], Nikša Stipčević summarizes his interpretation: this Gramscian imperative has shaken the centuries-old academic tradition of Italian culture. This instance of Gramscian criticism is a fissure in the domain of Crocean hermetic criticism, but above all, it is a principle that bursts from literary and aesthetic criticism into the socio-political sphere and places the literature-society relationship at the center of considerations. In support of the thesis of the foundation by Gramsci of this new science, Würzberg cites the postulates of Lucien Goldmann[422]: every sociology of spiritual life goes from the influence on social reality to literary creation, and authentic spiritual values cannot be alienated from economic and social life, but on the contrary, they bring their influence.

The author also reports a reflection by Wolfgang Fritz Haug on the theme of the expansion of the field of analysis from literature to the socio-political dimension, the philosopher from Esslingen argues that this type of analysis cannot have a follow-up if a dualistic-mechanistic relationship between the social, political, and literary is presupposed. It would indeed be progress if literature (German studies, as far as Haug’s object of analysis is concerned) dealt with the political sphere, but an error if literature dealt with politics as if it were something entirely different from itself.

The last paragraph of Würzberg’s work is dedicated to Gramsci’s critique of Pirandello, where the author takes up Stipčević’s reflections and rereads the conception of national-popular literature as the political-literary concretization of the conception of culture and intellectuals.

After mentioning the analysis conducted by Riechers in his Marxism in Italy, Würzberg resumes the thread of Gramscian positions by criticizing the work of Sabine Kebir as belonging to those types of interpretations that, unlike the Riechersian one which accuses the entire work of Gramsci of culturalism, sees this defect only in the early phase of Gramsci, while the mature Gramsci would overcome this deviation[423]. As a signal of an interpretative tendency that, not wanting to enter into the historical explanation, limits itself to the presentation of a dogmatic Gramsci, the author reports an expression used by Kebir: “die idealistische Einkleidung eines an sich (?) schon materialistischen Denkens ist typisch für den jungen Gramsci”[424]. In Würzberg’s work, there are approaches between Kautsky and Bogdanov and the philosophy of the communist leader, although with the recognition that Gramsci did not direct his thought against the development of the Soviets in Russia. It is noteworthy, as Sabine Kebir has rightly done in some respects, that in Würzberg’s interpretation, at times focused on the question of the function of the propagandist intellectual, there is a will to anticipate the times and find in Gramsci a harsh critique directed at Zhdanovism[425].

A clarification on Gramsci’s conception of aesthetics is provided by Rocco Musolino, whose monograph on Marxism and Aesthetics in Italy appears for the VEB of Dresden fifteen years after the first Italian edition[426]. To this editorial delay corresponds also a certain delay on themes that in Italy have already been matured for some time. It is the Gramscian reading of De Sanctisian literary criticism, freed from the bias of the tendentious Crocean interpretation. Although this critique of Croce is tight, Musolino recalls that Gramsci’s encounter with De Sanctis, rediscovered and later conquered, was initially mediated precisely by Croce.

Issues such as the critique of the Hegelian split between content and form are resolved by De Sanctis with a fusion of content into the form of art. Gramsci takes many cues from the De Sanctisian lesson, but also benefits from a Kantian theoretical cue according to which the work of art has a prehistory, antecedents, that influence the work itself and its form. Gramsci also recognizes the validity of the Crocean dialectic of the distinct, but for methodological needs. Emerging from Musolino’s writing is the role that Gramsci assigns to the intellectual, whose engagement is a fact, conscious or not.

Germán Pérez Fernández del Castillo, a young Mexican researcher at UNAM, earned his doctorate at Goethe University in Frankfurt. A member of his thesis committee was Joachim Hirsch, a scholar well-known in German Marxism for his role in the Staatsableitungsdebatte (State Derivation Debate). The thesis was published in 1979 by Haag und Herchen[427] and is divided into three chapters primarily dedicated to philosophy in the strict sense, with a final section delving into the philosophical analysis of Gramsci’s political-economic conception. The philosophical synthesis allows Pérez to investigate the clash that occurred at the beginning of the decade between Althusser’s influence in the reading of Gramsci and Schmidt’s critical response, concluding that Gramsci’s work provides an incomplete ontological solution:

“Gramsci certainly gives us an incomplete solution. He provides clues with which we can build a theory of the subject. Gramsci rejects the concept of ‘essence,’ as he understands man as a process, more precisely, as a process of his actions”[428].

Pérez engages with Gramsci’s ontology: humanist individualism had its origins in the transition from transcendental to immanent thought, a phenomenon that had significant effects even in the journey from the Middle Ages to the cultural reform (Renaissance). In contemporary times, however, it is marked by a negative and reactionary meaning. All philosophies have viewed man as a static being, a conception derived from nature, a utopian vision that carries with it the concept of God. French materialism, for example, does nothing more than a simple reduction: man is seen as a category, returning to biology, a similar mechanism also occurs in idealism. In this sense, the author also criticizes the theoretical approach of Riechers’ analysis, which starts from the theoretical premises of classical materialism according to a vision of static matter.

Regarding the theory of objective reality, Pérez distinguishes three different levels of reality in Gramsci’s work: rebellious reality, unknown but knowable; human reality, homogeneous and coherent, manifested through theory in its most advanced form, defined by the author as objectivity I; finally, an incoherent and mythologized manifestation of reality, as perceived in common sense, which Pérez calls objectivity II. According to Gramsci, a theoretical discovery, whether in the social or natural realm, when it remains unknown to the masses, is a purely objective act; it should become common sense to enter history, reality, otherwise it remains doctrine. The originality of a theory does not consist in individual discoveries, but also and above all in disseminating truths already found. Pérez emphasizes how in Engels and Lenin there is no creative act in the conception of reflection or illusion: reflection in itself cannot change its direction.

Gramsci is adamant in indicating the necessity of creating a collective will starting from common sense: it must be able to implement and make effective every principle of its theory, for this purpose the rationality underlying objectivity I is needed, to become a conscious, homogeneous, and efficient common sense that fights.

In the chapter dedicated to the problem of determinism, Pérez recognizes how the theory of reflection has had far-reaching consequences in the history of Marxism, it has “favored a deterministic school that goes from Bucharin’s mechanism to Althusser’s structuralism”[429].

The author also analyzes the different levels of Gramscian theory: the first historiographical-philological (erudition, logic, statistics); the second formed by criteria that, although not closed models, in their totality can be said to be of the theory of knowledge, here are concepts such as totality, rationality, normality, which constitute the bulk of Gramsci’s work; the third type consists of “scientific” criteria, which, although not developed, are used for his arguments (these are concepts like objective class interest, regulated market).

Pérez shows that Gramsci does not reject the concept of system, but describes it as such only when it achieves coherence; it is irrelevant whether it is closed or defined, what is essential is that it arrives at the understanding of issues and encompasses the possibility of expressing itself in praxis (rationality).

In contrast to the Althusserian idea that sees Gramscian Marxism suffering from a historicist simplification, reducing it to pure empiricism, only capable of philologically analyzing individual cases, Pérez clarifies how Gramsci speaks of science and the theory of knowledge. Gramsci criticizes Croce because from Marxism he has drawn simply a method of historical research. Croce’s “revisionist” theses are, for Gramsci, empiricist and reduce Marxism to a new form of economism. The fact that the philosophy of praxis uses precise elements as tools does not mean that ideas cannot be drawn from them to build a philosophical theory. As long as logic, principles, and theory are founded and placed in historical reality, their meaning has primacy in praxis. The sciences, in their multiplicity, although autonomous and independent from a historical point of view, belong to a homogeneous and indivisible reality. Unlike Crocean historicism, Gramsci’s presents itself as truly absolute. The author adds that, even when dealing with these themes, Gramsci manages never to lose sight of the main problem, namely how to change the circumstances and conditions to overcome the political division between rulers and ruled.

Pérez reconstructs “Gramscis Entgegnung”[430] to the determinism of Bucharin and Althusser: the latter is not interested in the analysis of ideologies in the capitalist production system, but rather in the construction of a general theory of ideologies. The French philosopher, with Marx, maintains that ideologies have no history, but at a substantial level, this statement means the opposite. The philosopher from Trier believes that the true history of ideologies lies in the material relations of production; Althusser, on the contrary, believes that the structure and function of ideologies do not change throughout history. While the French philosopher seeks to build a scientific theory of ideologies, Marx and Gramsci are interested in the historiographical examination of modes of production.

The metaphor used by Marx, according to which the anatomy of a society is found in its economy, according to Gramsci is written in a polemical sense, therefore it does not constitute a gnoseological act. The birth of contempt for the concept of ideology is due to an overvaluation of the superstructural component, hence Pérez revisits the history of the concept of ideology through Gramsci’s reflections, which he intends to address and resolve its ambiguity.

The author reports the meaning for Gramsci of “rational” within a system: a methodological premise for social analysis that allows serious empirical verification. The concept is borrowed from Hegel, despite its reactionary connotation, and encompasses two meanings: the first, reactionary, implies that what is rational is also true, as an expression of the unity of the idea with itself; the second, closer to Gramsci’s understanding, observes how Hegel derives the category of reason from the idea and not from reality, the German philosopher’s intention was to legitimize the Prussian State with this. Although in this second connotation a speculative sense of “reason” remains, in the history of philosophy it presents itself as the result of history itself.

In his work, Pérez also takes up the idea of “possibility,” a notion that in Gramsci has great importance. The Sardinian relies on Marx’s statement that a social mode of production declines only when it has exhausted all its possibilities of development, and when society poses problems that cannot find their solution within that mode of production. From here, Gramsci continues, it can be said that the structure poses problems that can be interpreted differently and lead to different solutions. The relationship between subjectivity and reality, mediated by possibility, makes the reduction of being to structure impossible, but does not imply an unalterable being.

Gramsci does not neglect the economic structure and does not reduce history to economics: in capitalist production systems, there are elements that are seen as reflections (Lenin), effects (Bucharin), or pure illusions (Althusser), but which in reality have a decisive meaning in the reproduction or not of the production system. These elements were taken up thirty years later by Althusser, who called them ideological state apparatuses and were defined by Gramsci as civil society.

The Gramsci Debate in "Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus"

In July 1979, an issue of Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus dedicates particular attention to Italy, but above all, under the title Gramsci-Debatte[431], almost as a rubric, three interventions by German scholars dedicated to ideology, culture, and the role of the State in Gramsci’s thought are presented.

The first intervention is by the Sozialistische Studiengruppen[432]. It is largely dedicated to explaining the new political conditions in the severe crisis of advanced capitalism. Eurocommunism intends to give its own political response to the economic and social framework that has emerged; Gramsci, who according to Hobsbawm “ist Teil unseres intellektuellen Universums geworden”[433], is now commonly defined as the “"Urvater" eurokommunistischer Positionen”[434], as the originality of his theses lies in having understood that the relative stability of advanced capitalism is explained by a new role and conformation of the superstructure of bourgeois society. This places Gramsci in opposition to the dominant line in the international communist and socialist movement, which sees the monopoly as the fundamental production relation as the main factor of stability. For Gramsci, it is clear that with these new conditions, the 1917 revolution cannot be taken as a model, and in this sense, Lenin had already emphasized that a possible transposition of the Russian revolution to the relations of Western Europe would have been politically wrong.

Following a suggestion by Paggi made at the seminar at Frattocchie a few years earlier and published in 1977 by VSA[435], regarding the complex relationship of Gramsci with the Party and its history, as well as with the methods of political struggle, the authors undertake a historical and theoretical analysis of Gramsci’s path in relation to the Second and Third International, focusing on the need to take into account ideological instances due to the change observed by Gramsci in the superstructural architecture of bourgeois society. Ideology and common sense, treated at the end of the contribution, are revisited in a rapid description of the Gramscian interpretation to then subject it to an integrative critique that relocates Gramsci’s verbal consciousness[436] to the analysis of the causes inherent in the actual relations of production that determine the common sense of the wage earner. The authors’ critique of the common sense theorized by Gramsci also takes into account the effects of the Taylorization of work and workers’ leisure time, causing in the Sardinian a vision of common sense in a chaotic representation, but it has its order of causes and effects to be sought in structural conflicts.

The essay by Karin Priester[437], although along the same lines as the previous interventions by the scholar from Gleiwitz, stands out for the inclusion, within the theory of the integral State, of the analysis of the concept and function of intellectuals in Gramsci’s thought. The author foresees two dangers that the German reception of Gramsci is facing, the first concerns the reception of Gramsci as the importation of a theoretical article according to the interpretations carried out in countries such as Italy, France, and Great Britain, which live in a political context different from that of West Germany. The second danger is the isolation of Gramscian theory, finding in the Sardinian the formula of “precursor” and instrumentalizing his thought depending on the object we are dealing with. Certainly, according to Priester, Gramsci was a “precursor,” but he did not limit himself to this, as demonstrated by the fact that his work continues to provide continuous impulses useful for addressing contemporary problems.

Gramsci’s language, which, it should be remembered, is in stark contrast to Croce, the representative of Hegelian neo-idealism, sometimes shows idealistic connotations, and the author gives the example of expressions such as catharsis, ethico-political history, philosophy of immanence, dialectic of necessity and freedom; these are terms that certainly sound foreign and sometimes even trigger prejudices.

After this premise, the author, who uses Gerratana’s new edition for her study, observes that in the first thematic edition of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks, one of the volumes was dedicated to Intellectuals and the Organization of Culture, demonstrating the interest Gramsci devoted to the study of the intellectual in the role of builder of political domination, in the life of the State, and in the creation of consensus and hegemony, a necessary form in the historical bloc. The communist leader was the first in the attempt to conceive the role of intellectuals in the constitution of a socialist theory of the State. Every class, according to him, has its own part of organic and allied intellectuals, in contrast to a historically different role of the traditional intellectual. Already in his essay on the Southern Question, Gramsci speaks of two important personalities in the process of structural change of the productive bases of Italian society, the reference is to Croce and Gobetti, both exponents of liberalism. Priester provides a description of Croce as a great intellectual and of Gobetti with the “Liberal Revolution,” a young intellectual with whom Gramsci collaborated and whose importance he recognizes.

To introduce the definition of the intellectual as an organizer of culture, Priester refers to two letters addressed by Gramsci to Tanja[438]: the first announces the preparation of a writing on the question of intellectuals, and the second defines the importance of this research within the conception of hegemony.

Priester notes how from Hoernle to Zetkin, up to Max Adler, for the goal of change in social stratifications, there is always a common point: the possibility of alliance with intellectuals. Gramsci is not only engaged in a sociological study of intellectuals, but looks at the functionality of the intellectual question within the framework of that total dimension of the integral State.

In the relationship between intellectuals and the masses, Priester clarifies that for Gramsci, every hegemonic relationship has a pedagogical function; this vision has led to criticisms and misunderstandings in the Italian context: the author proposes to the German public the interpretation of Asor Rosa[439], the highest example in this sense, who believes that Gramsci fails to emancipate himself from a Jacobin vision of the intellectual. As for Lukács, intellectuals according to Gramsci would be bearers of a doctrine for the working class, a doctrine that, however, is brought from the outside. Intellectuals, according to Asor Rosa here ideologists and mediators of consensus, correspond to the historical model of the bourgeois intellectual, which Gramsci absolutizes and transposes to the workers’ movement; the Gramscian toolkit is therefore valid only with this type of progressive and humanistic bourgeois intellectual, so as to consider that “his unilaterally positive evaluation of the Jacobin-radical intellectual is ultimately an act of ideological sublimation”[440]. The contemporary intellectual finds himself objectively in different conditions compared to Gramsci’s time, both for institutional structures and for state technocratic ones. Therefore, a political-technical intellectual, devoid of a humanistic-historical formation, would be inconceivable for Gramscian theory.

Gramsci is aware of the anti-intellectualism that runs through the history of the workers’ movement, historically more rooted in anarcho-syndicalist and workerist tendencies, reinforced by Sorelian distrust of intellectuals. The justification of this distrust is found by tracing the history of the Italian Socialist Party, which before the First World War presented itself as a refuge for those intellectuals, petty bourgeois and radicals with positivist and Enlightenment overtones. Gramsci understands the reasons of the anarcho-syndicalists on this plane, the creation of a new type of intellectual is necessary, to avoid undifferentiated anti-intellectualism.

Already in his early writings, Gramsci expresses himself critically towards the Jacobin type of intellectual, citing the example of Salvemini, but in general, it can be said that he is in stark contrast with that cultural messianism typical of the bourgeois Enlightenment tradition and dear to French liberalism, as the use of abstracting from the concrete form of political and economic life implies placing oneself as absolute outside space and time and thus falling into a utopia.

At first glance, it would seem an unattainable goal for the working class, which has few intellectuals, to achieve hegemony before the conquest of power. In reality, the phase of the struggle for hegemony is full of contradictions: intellectuals linked to the ruling class detach themselves from that historical bloc of which they were part, thus allowing the development of a new type of intellectual of the working class who “does not approach the working class from the outside, messianically and rhetorically, but is either organically grown within it or is organizationally linked to it through shared political experiences”[441]. Priester clarifies: “this new intellectual, as a specialist and politician, can only operate on the basis and within the framework of a political organization,” “this organization for Gramsci is above all the political party”[442]. The author, who shows particular familiarity with Italian literary criticism, especially regarding the critical contributions to Gramsci’s work, with this intervention of hers poses a sort of counterpoint to the previous contribution written by the SOST group, as the importance of the political in relation to the economy highlighted by Gramsci’s work is brought to light.

In the same interpretative vein, that is, regarding the cultural-political primacy in Gramsci’s thought, Gerd Würzberg also moves, reproposing some of the reflections already published in Kultur und Politik[443]. Particular attention is paid to the historical and theoretical reconstruction of the accusation of “culturalism” by the Bordighist wing to the Turin group led by Gramsci. The internal polemic that arose between Gramsci and Tasca regarding the cultural conception within the editorial staff of L’Ordine Nuovo is also clarified.

Within the Ideologie-Theorie project, a collective monograph titled Theorien über Ideologie[444] is published, for the special volumes series of the journal Das Argument. Among the essays proposed for the analysis of the concept of ideology, the contribution by Wieland Elfferding and Eckhard Volker serves as an introduction to some Gramscian categories. Starting from the concept of ideology, described with copious Gramscian quotes taken from the collection edited by Riechers, the authors explain that the meaning Gramsci attributes to ideology is not unique, but presents itself in heterogeneous forms, a circumstance aggravated by the self-censorship to which Gramsci must resort to escape fascist censorship. Gramsci’s analysis starts from the observation that, despite the great crises involving advanced capitalist countries, revolutionary forces encounter the resistance of the State. Civil society contributes to the resistance of the ruling class through ideological apparatuses that produce spontaneous consent to the system of domination. In the description of hegemony, the anti-economicist character of the concept is specified, and the explanation of the superstructural and cultural elements that refer to the concept of ideology is opened.

The authors explain that Gramsci pays particular attention to ideology not as a developed theoretical system, but as a form of spontaneous and popular philosophy: common sense, which unites different degrees of human knowledge, from archaic prejudices to the most developed scientific theories. The experiences of individuals are not really integrated into common sense, it is in fact a heterogeneous set of specific ideologies in a non-organic whole. With less heterogeneous ideological principles, it is instead possible to develop an active political capacity, fighting that moral and political passivity due to the different elements that make up common sense: the reference is to the historical bloc that represents the necessary and vital connection of base and superstructure.

A class can free itself from external domination and from the philosophy that actually belongs to the ruling class only when it has developed its own worldview, this is also possible with a new division of labor. The role of intellectuals in the transformation of class consciousness is important in this process. Gramsci maintains that all men are philosophers, an “Jedermannsphilosophie”[445], built on the capacity for action orientation and common sense. The concepts of action and the conception of the politics of the masses must be shaped in a new perspective, as the construction of a developed social competence; indeed, in every work, even the most mechanical, qualification and intellectual creation are necessary. To determine the work of intellectuals, not simple tools, but functionaries of the superstructure, according to Gramsci, it is not the particularity of the substance of their work, but the task of giving homogeneity and consciousness of their function to the class of which they are part in the economic, social, and political sphere. This objective is not achievable by intellectuals individually, they must refer to an organization: the modern Prince. With this expression, Gramsci means the political party: a complex element of society, the organism that allows the concretization of the collective will.

The party is not only apt to issue decisions of the collective will, but it is the active consciousness of historical necessity; the party is always of class and, although the bourgeoisie does not have one in its name, it uses the existing ones for its own interests. Unlike Lenin, who sees intellectuals as a class in itself that connects to the party, Gramsci sees intellectuals as already part of the class and working for the hegemony of their class. Following, in the essay by Elfferding and Volker, is the analysis of the relationship between hegemony and the State, where the system of trenches defending the state apparatus in modern capitalist countries of the West is explained, with a clarification on the differentiation between political society and civil society.

Ideology and culture, two key elements for the Gramscian conception of hegemony, are gradually defined thanks to contributions of different approaches and weight, the results of the first deepening of Gramscian theory, beyond its political aspects, must however still affirm themselves, as will be seen considering the 1980s.

4.7 The Decline of an Interpretative Tradition

In November 1977, the journal Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus addressed the current situation of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) in relation to Italy’s economic and political context with a provocative issue titled KPI als Stütze des Kapitalismus (The PCI as a Pillar of Capitalism). As a preface to these analyses, in the section dedicated to Marxist theory, Karin Priester contributed an article outlining the fundamental aspects of the “Italian road to socialism”[446]. Additionally, the journal translated an essay by Eric Hobsbawm from Marxism Today of the same year, focusing on Gramsci’s political theory. To provide a complete picture of the contemporary situation, an editorial piece was also published, offering a theoretical integration on the historic compromise.

According to the German scholar, the historical roots of the PCI trace back to the 1940s. Between 1943 and 1948, the party’s politics took its definitive shape, but the theoretical premise of the party’s characteristics must be sought in the Liberation struggle, the elements of dogmatism and sectarianism, and the theoretical work of Antonio Gramsci. Priester reconstructs the party’s history through its most significant political moments (the Salerno Turn, the VIII Congress of the Party), as well as the decisive concepts in its theoretical line (the role in the anti-fascist struggle, the Salerno Turn and the overcoming of isolation, progressive democracy). Interwoven with these moments, though not always in continuity with the party’s strategy, Priester presents some Gramscian concepts relevant to the theme (the Lyons Theses, the alliance between workers and peasants, the historical bloc, hegemony). The theoretical fractures introduced by Togliatti become evident in the comparison between Gramsci and the party’s politics: the loss of the dual character of the concept of supremacy, composed of leadership and domination, consent and force, in favor of an emphasis on cultural aspects and social consensus. Referring to an intervention by Alessandro Natta, Priester argues that the break with Gramsci’s theory also extends to the concept of the “new type of party”: Togliatti’s realization is a revision of Gramsci’s conception of the party, and thus Gramsci can no longer be entirely elevated to the role of the father of the Italian road to socialism[447]. Here, the difference between the two founders of the PCI becomes clear: Gramsci’s integral and totalizing vision sees the party as the hegemonic guide of the working class, within a system of alliances, a new historical bloc, which enjoys consensus and organizes itself into an anti-capitalist force. In Togliatti, the moment of ordinary politics dominates over the theoretical-political moment in a trajectory tending toward pragmatism, up to a “theory-less politics.” “This tendency toward theorylessness, however, fosters a worldview relativism, whose consistent expression is the demand for a ‘pluralistic’ vision of political reality”[448]. Priester’s critique does not stop at the “primacy of politics” but continues with an analysis of the concept of structural reforms, where the German historian foresees a trajectory of the PCI toward the form of a catch-all party of a social-democratic type. The incessant references to Gramsci, the Leninist line, and the international workers’ movement in this context seem to Priester like ritualistic propaganda formulas[449].

The Gramsci year became an opportunity for Dietz Verlag in Berlin (GDR) to publish a collection of writings by Palmiro Togliatti. Among the selected texts appears, for the first time in Germany, Togliatti’s speech dedicated to Leninism in the thought and action of Antonio Gramsci[450], an intervention prepared by Togliatti for the 1958 conference, whose incipit has become popular and widely used in Italian and international Gramscian literature: Gramsci “was a theorist of politics, but above all, he was a practical politician, a fighter”[451]. All of Gramsci’s work should be considered starting from the consideration of real activity. Many of Gramsci’s notes contained in Passato e presente are comments on contemporary politics, and a vast part of Gramsci’s reflections are dedicated to the party, its organization, and leadership. Togliatti seeks to philologically retrace Gramsci’s knowledge of Lenin’s work, whose influences range from Leninist conclusions on imperialism to the theoretical foundations of Gramsci’s conception of intellectuals. The 1977 contribution presents itself as a valuable historical document of that general, yet strong, interpretation outlined and impressed by Togliatti on the subsequent reading of Gramsci’s work[452].

The polemic initiated by the debate on the PCI and pluralism continues. From the international bulletin of the Italian Communist Party, the German translation Die Italienischen Kommunisten also presents the Gramscian paternity of the party’s politics[453] through an article by Paolo Bufalini, followed by a chronology of Gramsci’s biography[454]. The author explicitly refers to the debate in Mondoperaio to explain how the confrontation is as arduous as it is laden with preconceptions and instrumentalizations, and thus he deems it necessary to affirm that Gramsci, in substance, was the true founder of the Italian Communist Party, the party of Gramsci and Togliatti, which has engaged in the construction of hegemony and the historical bloc and, according to the Sardinian’s lesson, for a transformation of society in a fully democratic and socialist sense.

Bufalini explains the qualitative leaps made by Togliatti in the politics of the “new party” with the strategic cornerstone of progressive democracy. Moreover, with the Programmatic Declaration expressed by Togliatti in 1956 at the VIII Congress of the PCI and the publication of the Yalta Memorandum by Longo, a new phase has opened, and Longo has described the coming socialist state as a secular, non-confessional, and non-ideological state. The party as such cannot prefigure the socialist society, as it is only a part of society and the state, where its leading function is expressed, and toward a European choice that is not Eurocommunism opposed to Eurosocialism. Bufalini borrows from Togliatti’s intervention on Leninism in the Thought and Action of Antonio Gramsci a passage where the importance of the economic structure in Gramsci’s thought is emphasized, conceived not as that hidden force from which all development of conditions and situations should mechanically spring, but as a sphere where material and human forces act, upon which an effect is exercised by the superstructure; thus, in his study, Gramsci knew he could not disregard the superstructural moment.

On the occasion of the fortieth anniversary of Gramsci’s death, between June 9 and 10, 1977, a conference on Gramsci was held at the Academy of Social Sciences under the Central Committee of the SED. The results of the meeting were collected the following year by Dietz in a volume titled Antonio Gramsci - Revolutionary and Internationalist[455]. The interventions, in order of publication, are by Harald Neubert, Renzo Martinelli, Georgi Filatov, Franco Andreucci, Guido Zamiš, and Siegfried Beier. Harald Neubert dedicates his contribution to retracing the political biography of the Sardinian, with particular interest in the PCI; Gramsci was, according to the description Neubert takes from Togliatti, a man of the party. To the Italian communists and their struggle, as well as to Berlinguer’s politics, the author refers, recalling the Leninist united front to which Gramsci had adhered.

Renzo Martinelli, who, together with Franco Andreucci, presents an Italian note to the conference, deals with the conception of internationalism according to Gramsci’s elaboration: after some premises on the inherent difficulty in the fragmentary nature of the prison notebooks, Martinelli cites Gramsci’s articles dedicated to the October Revolution, The Revolution Against Capital and Our Marx, expounding their content to show how already in his youth Gramsci displayed an anti-dogmatic and original reading of Marx’s work, while his consideration for the Revolution led him to the formation of the Communist Party. Of great importance was his stay in Moscow and his participation in the IV Congress of the International: here Gramsci had the opportunity to listen to Lenin’s speech, where the necessity of studying national particularities was emphasized. The Prison Notebooks are dedicated to the political and social analyses of Italian reality, but they manage to fuse together in an original manner the national and international moments, and in this regard, Gramsci’s critical vision of the cosmopolitanism of Italian intellectuals is cited.

Franco Andreucci addresses the concept of hegemony in Gramsci’s thought, without straying too far from Lenin’s teaching, from which Gramsci drew to elaborate his analyses with the concepts of the war of position and hegemony.

Guido Zamiš, the figure who has most distinguished himself in the dissemination of Gramsci’s figure in Germany, albeit in a particularly orthodox sense, is the scholar who can provide the most information on the reception of Gramsci in the GDR. His intervention, titled Gramsci’s Relations with the German Workers’ Movement, prefaces that these are not direct relations with other representatives of the German Communist Party; Gramsci had the opportunity to make an intermediate stop in Berlin during his trip to Moscow, but his interest in German culture is testified by the references to Goethe in his letters and the concept of für ewig, which acquires a very strong methodological importance in the Prison Notebooks, derives from a notion of Goethe[456]. Gramsci asks his sister-in-law for Goethe’s Faust, which he had with him in Ustica, and after a few months, he requests again a Langenscheidt dictionary, a grammar, and Goethe’s Conversations with Eckermann. Zamiš recalls that Gramsci’s interest in the German language (as well as in Russian) was a consequence of his conviction of the importance of these two languages.

Germany represented for the eminent representatives of the international workers’ movement the country where the fiercest battle between the revolutionary proletariat and the imperialist forces was expected. In the biennio rosso, Gramsci, from the columns of L’Ordine Nuovo, showed attention to the battles of the German workers’ movement, as he thought that the German experience of the Councils could Europeanize the Soviet system. Following a review of the political positions taken by Gramsci and the Italian Communist Party in the mid-1920s, Gramsci’s critiques of Bernstein and his critical interpretation of Luxemburg’s work, Zamiš observes that Gramsci has been known in the GDR, despite claims to the contrary, since 1952, on the occasion of the fifteenth anniversary of his death, with the publication of articles in Neues Deutschland. Zamiš’s emphasis in listing all the publications concerning Gramsci in the GDR leaves some perplexity even about his personal conviction regarding the efforts in the Democratic Republic for the dissemination of the Sardinian’s work. Among the works cited are Sabine Kebir’s doctoral thesis and a mention of an edition of Gramsci’s works in preparation in the publishing houses of the GDR, in collaboration with the Gramsci Institute in Rome.

Siegfried Beier’s text focuses on the falsifications given by the interpretations of Gramsci in the FRG, taking as an example the work of Riechers and extending the critiques of his method and distorted reading to all studies on Gramsci produced in the Federal Republic; such a vision, misleading and indeed falsified, has certainly been encouraged by the most evident instrumentalizations of Gramsci’s thought in favor of a reading that indicates a regret of the Sardinian for the Livorno split[457].

The conference organized by the SED unfortunately gives the idea of an insurmountable orthodoxy and so cautious as not to even use the studies reached by Italian communist intellectuals. In Andreucci’s text, there is no trace of Gruppi’s monograph, while the perplexities aroused by Zamiš’s enthusiasm for the work done in the GDR on Gramsci are heightened by Beier’s generalized critique of the entire production of Gramscian studies that appeared in the FRG. One can no longer speak of perplexity, but of censorship with coercive effects if one considers the events involving two Eastern philosophers positively influenced by Gramsci, such as Karel Kosík and Rudolf Bahro. The former, Czech, has a certain influence on the German cultural sphere, the latter pays with eight years in prison and expulsion for the betrayal of real socialism: his volume, Die Alternative, published in the FRG in 1977, presents in the form of a harsh and relentless critique the reality of socialism in the GDR and denounces the domination of an elite of party bureaucrats, with whom the author had collaborated in the ranks of the SED since 1954. A new despotism is outlined, organized on an original form of exploitation of the working class. Bahro’s thought is inspired by his deeply communist convictions: the references to Gramsci in Die Alternative[458] seek a return to Marx and the understanding of what at the moment we do not see because it is outside our most practical historical horizon, Bahro starts from Gramsci also to explain that idealization of the worker[459], a social reality that he knew well during the years in which he prepared his book, which often suffers the analysis of Marxist intellectuals.

Michael Grabek, in his intervention at the Gramsci in the World conference in 1989, will express himself in a lapidary and unequivocal manner on the editorial events of Gramsci’s work in the GDR: “for decades, shortsightedness and obtuseness wasted the opportunity to publish a broader edition of Gramsci’s writings, and thus the list of rejected or hindered editorial projects becomes much longer than that of the works realized,” and he continues: “the debt towards Gramsci’s classical heritage seems to have reached the limit of solvency. All that remains is to hope that this debt will at least be extinguished internationally on the practical-theoretical level. Currently, in fact, in the GDR, a paradoxical situation is found: the critical communist Gramsci is treated in party schools mostly as a persona non grata and is instead read in churches”[460].

In 1979, in the FRG, the translation of Umberto Cerroni’s Gramsci-Lexikon[461] was published, an original work that proposes one hundred and thirty-two entries from the Gramscian vocabulary reinterpreted according to the author’s suggestions. Most of the entries contain a quote from Gramsci’s work and can thus be helpful even for the German reader who has no direct knowledge of Gramsci’s writings. Cerroni expresses appreciations, opinions, and political and methodological questions posed first of all to himself during the reading of the cited Gramscian passages. Not without merits of theoretical precision, the author also confesses some emotional traces, but he sets himself an objective, starting from the traditional “Leninism of Gramsci,” without silencing what is new and critical in the Sardinian’s thought. The awareness of a debate always rather focused on Gramsci’s political action leads Cerroni to traverse that theoretical background indispensable for the activity and concrete political proposals. The Gramscian categories are presented here as entries, but they are not to be understood as isolated single concepts, rather they have a unifying theoretical core. In Gramsci, moreover, one does not find a completed study of the State, but multiple theoretical insights converging toward a complex and sufficiently organic analysis of a State, the Italian one; the author emphasizes that even in the Italian specificity, Gramsci’s investigation manages to reconstruct the reasons for the political failure of the workers’ movement and the fascist drift.

The complexity of the Gramscian interpretation within the German communist forces is evident from the official position that Karl-Heinz Braun presents from the pages of the theoretical organ of the DKP, Marxistische Blätter, with an article titled The Political Theory of Antonio Gramsci[462], where a journey through some of the major Gramscian categories, starting from the “heart”[463] of the work, that is, the relationship between base and superstructure, corresponds to a synthetic overview of the major contributions that have appeared up to that moment in Germany and the different interpretations. Following some critiques of the attempts to interpret the thought of the communist leader in a revisionist or idealist sense, Braun argues that there are in Gramsci some contradictions in the process of assimilation of Leninism: “originally idealist moments, but they are in no way determining for Gramsci’s overall work”[464]. Braun’s brief article allows us to understand the official position of the DKP toward Gramsci, which is dedicating many publications to the Sardinian, in order to confirm and emphasize Gramsci’s belonging to the alignment of Marxist-Leninist thinkers[465].

4.8 Synthesis of the Gramsci Year and Interest from the SPD

From the journal SoPo, Christian Butterwegge[466] provides a contribution to clarify some aspects of Gramsci’s thought, as “particularly evident deficits in the Gramsci reception within the framework of the state-theoretical discussion in the FRG and West Berlin”[467] have emerged. The main point of Butterwegge’s clarification is the relationship between dictatorship and hegemony, to be completed with the problematic advanced by Althusser on the ideological state apparatuses, a tool used as a key concept for Marxist discussions. In Gramsci, the State is a component of the hegemonic system, the extension of the concept of the State is an enrichment for Marxist theory. Looking at the State as a mere repressive organ, one loses sight of those mechanisms that create resource mobilization. The author takes up Althusser’s reading of the ideological state apparatuses, institutions useful for consent (the school, the church, the unions), which, although of a private nature, are part of an integral state and have the function of maintaining the hegemony of the ruling class. For his analysis, which the author links to the capitalist state in Lenin’s theory of imperialism, Gramsci decomposes the State into civil society and political society, indicating that it is not a monolith, but in its dialectical contradictoriness, it is to be understood as a factor of both repression and integration.

With a quote from Balibar, Butterwegge clarifies that Gramsci’s idea is not to oppose a vision of the State limited to consent, but, precisely because of his experience under fascist repression, the Sardinian wants us to understand that class domination is not exercised only through force, but also passes through consent. Therefore, the author argues, Roth’s interpretation, which sees Gramsci’s conception of the State in opposition to that of Marx and Lenin, is erroneous. Dictatorship and hegemony are for Gramsci complementary, not antagonistic elements. In this sense, Butterwegge takes up some passages from Gruppi, Salvadori, and Carrillo, noting in the latter a reversal of the relationship between hegemony and the dictatorship of the proletariat useful for his strategy.

The author concludes this part of the essay with some observations on the deficit of Gramsci reception by the Social Democrats.

Butterwegge raises the question of the SPD’s participation in the discussion on Gramsci, which in this particular historical moment would also mean an interest in the Eurocommunist strategy. Precisely an exponent, albeit a minor figure, of the SPD writes for a small editorial series dedicated to young socialists a pamphlet on Eurocommunism. It is Jochen Steffen, Eurokommunismus[468], where Gramsci is understood here as the father of Eurocommunism, but it is to be noted how the author sees in Gramsci a great component of reformism: “Gramsci has systematized Bernstein.”

Another SPD publication, still dedicated to young socialists, is by Alfred Georg Frei[469] with the title Antonio Gramsci. Theorist of the Transition to Socialism. The author observes how communist parties, led by the Italian one, find themselves at this moment devoid of a theory to replace the Marxist-Leninist line of the Soviet Communist Party, for this reason, attention is focused on Gramscian theory. Hegemony, war of position, these are the Gramscian categories on which Frei concentrates his attention, to explain the reasons for this renewed interest in politics. The author reports, from the seminar on Hegemony, State, and Party in Gramsci, the PCI’s objective: “a hegemony of the working class under the conditions of pluralism”[470]. However, it seems to Frei that the PCI is actually moving away from Gramsci’s lesson: the historic compromise is in fact a vehicle for the aspiration of workers’ co-participation in the leadership of the country, in a vision that strips the State of its ideological character. In the conclusions, Frei recognizes that Gramsci’s contribution does not lie in the “systematization of Bernstein” and very little is found of Leninist theory, rather Gramsci presents us with an alternative to Lenin’s revolutionary strategy, adapted to advanced capitalist societies, for this reason, Gramsci must enter the political discussions of the European left.

Gisela Wenzel, in her intervention at the Gramsci conference of 1989, spoke of a “fairly broad reception” of Gramscian theory in the left wing of the SPD, “attentive above all to Gramsci’s emphasis on the principle of consent”[471], but looking closely, on the eve of the 1980s, the results of re-elaboration and dissemination are quite marginal.

4.9 From the Religious World: Catholic and Protestant Readings in Comparison

In the “plurality of voices, interpretative positions, and themes”[472] that Guido Liguori has recalled regarding publications on the topic of Gramsci, religion, and Catholics, in the German world, another key to reading the Sardinian’s work is provided by the reformed Christian world.

Already in 1976, Henry Mottu[473], a pastor and theologian of the Reformed Church of Geneva, considered the reflections contained in Gramsci’s work to reconnect with that work of recovering popular religiosity, the healthy core of Protestant religion, which Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Lutheran theologian and victim of Nazism, had hoped for. Mottu starts from Gramsci’s vision of popular religion, an element that must also be taken up for Protestant religion to be contrasted with a vague universalistic aspiration. Gramsci’s analysis of different types of cultures (folklore, religion, common sense, philosophy) does not contemplate an idea of evolution: indeed, there are no value judgments, but the simple observation that we are all philosophers and the thesis that, without contact with the philosophy of the “simple,” one does not possess those indispensable elements for the constitution of a new intellectual and moral bloc that makes everyone, and not just intellectual circles, participate in intellectual progress. Gramsci’s opinion of Protestantism is quite severe, but it serves Mottu to open the discussion toward that reform hoped for by Bonhoeffer: Lutheranism has progressively transformed into a rationalist and intellectualist religious organization reserved for the most educated strata of society. An intellectual religion that has broken contacts with the masses.

Adolf Hampel deals with Eurocommunism and the foundations of its critique of religion[474] in a contribution to the symposium dedicated to the sixty-fifth birthday of Ewald Link, titled Theology and Human Image, organized by the religious studies departments of the universities of Frankfurt and Gießen in collaboration with the regional evangelical church and the local Catholic diocese.

Without using the Prague formula “socialism with a human face,” which would have sounded like a provocation to Moscow, Berlinguer, Carrillo, and Marchais want to show that Eurocommunism is not to be opposed to democracy, but rather a development of it. In this direction, Lenin’s theories and actions are not helpful: “the monumental image of Marx remains unchallenged, but before Lenin’s bald head, the head adorned with a bushy mane of Antonio Gramsci gradually rolls”[475]. Gramsci’s Renaissance is not merely significant as an editorial fact, but its influence is felt in politics, especially if we look at the formula of the historic compromise, which directly refers to Gramsci and has been carried forward for years by the PCI.

Hampel explains that for Gramsci, the relationship between politics and religion is not just an academic issue but an object of daily political confrontation. Moreover, in Gramsci’s strategy for the alliance between workers and peasants, particular attention to the religious question of the peasant world is necessary, as while workers in metropolitan areas have emancipated themselves from the influence of the Church, the peasant masses are still strongly influenced by it. This is, in Gramsci’s thought, the key to Italy’s political future.

Hampel dedicates space to the description of Gramsci’s critique of mannered anticlericalism and draws from the Prison Notebooks and early writings some passages that clarify Gramsci’s non-prejudicial position toward religion. For his analysis, Hampel relies on the studies of Portelli, Nardone, Ormea, Orfei, and Riechers. The author concludes with two quotes, the first from Luciano Gruppi, who believes there is no common humanism between the Christian and Marxist interpretations, and the second from a letter from Berlinguer to Bishop Bettazzi, in which he assures the will to aspire to a secularized and democratic state, which is neither theist, nor atheist, nor antitheist.

In a volume dedicated to popular religion, Bernd Hein takes up its conception in Gramsci. The collective monograph presents many contributions written by Catholics, Jesuits, and laypeople who refer to Latin American liberation theology and studies related to the Latin American religious reality also from a socio-psychological and anthropological perspective. In this framework of studies, the insertion of Gramsci’s analyses on popular religion phenomena can provide significant contributions.

The communist leader is presented as an anti-dogmatic Marxist, critical of Bukharin. While Marx engaged in the study of the structure, the object of analysis for Gramsci is the superstructure. Hein recalls the major publications on Gramsci that have appeared in German: the works of Roth, Kramer, and Gruppi, and arrives at the opinion that Gramsci’s vision of the State differs from traditional Marxist analyses in that it conceives the State not only as a coercive apparatus but emphasizes the component of consent that the ideologically dominant class needs.

The red thread of Gramsci’s work unfolds on the necessity of change from the old bourgeois hegemony to a new hegemony under the leadership of the working class. His analysis of religion is also characterized by this political-practical interest: the subordinate class has in common its own worldview, and an enlightenment work, as for other hegemonic apparatuses, must be carried out on religion and the Church. According to his secular definition of religion, Hein reports, it is a unity of belief, worldview, and norms of behavior; it is an effective reality that influences the structure. In Catholic Italy, religion and the Church are hegemonic links for dominants and subordinates, intellectuals and “simple,” united in the same historical bloc. Religion and common sense cannot build a spiritual order because they are not coherent internally, nor reducible to a unity, to a whole.

Citing Arnaldo Nesti, who published a few years earlier Gramsci et la religion populaire[476], Hein specifies that Gramsci studied above all the Roman Catholic form of religion in Italy of his time. The Catholic Church no longer has a religious monopoly but continues to control vast areas of civil society. Gramsci argues that within Catholicism, there are two religions: the official, organized, and homogeneous one, and that of the simple, characterized by incoherence and shades between superstition and magic. The Church uses two languages and two theologies: one for the simple, synthesized in the catechism, and another for intellectuals. But the divisions do not stop here; in reality, many religious subdivisions are expressed, among these: the peasant one, the urban one of the workers, that of women.

The merit of Gramsci is to have looked at the religious life of the simple populations that theologians and Marxists disqualified by simplifying them into irrationality. Important are Gramsci’s notes on folklore, where the Sardinian’s analysis best expresses the lack of any intellectual arrogance. He indeed considers every person an intellectual, continues the author, who, referring to Henry Mottu’s contribution, reports the characteristics of popular religion according to Gramsci. Among these emerge the material rootedness of superstitious forms of expression, the link of popular religion with common sense, mysticism, from anti-intellectualism to political conservatism and resignation. This is a set of attributes that are found in Gramsci’s work, despite its fragmentariness, sometimes contradictory, which has led within the PCI itself to give different interpretations. The author concludes his contribution with a question posed by Alfonso di Nola, namely whether in these phenomena and in their humanity there is not an insoluble characteristic of the need for life and existential insecurity that no sociological research can capture in the cages of numbers and statistics.

The Gramscian Biography

The year 1977 saw the publication of the XI volume edited by Jacques Droz on the History of Socialism, which deals with the Italian political movement[477]. Gramsci is included among the prominent figures of the extreme socialist left, gathered around Bordiga’s Soviet and L’Ordine Nuovo, whose members are predominantly of humanist formation and to whom Crocean and Gentilian idealism are not unknown. The succession of party congresses sees Gramsci’s figure grow theoretically and politically, especially based on the councilist experience matured during the Turin Biennio Rosso. From the split and formation of the PCd’I to the Matteotti murder, until the conviction and death. In a few pages, Gramsci’s figure is outlined following the succession of historical events.

A cameo of Gramsci, provided by Jörg Anders in the journal Die Neue Gesellschaft[478], exalts his Sardinian origin, as well as that of Togliatti and Berlinguer, the latter differing for belonging to a high-extraction family. Sardinia and the Sardinian language represent in Gramsci’s biography in Turin and in prison a moment of elective communication with interlocutors who come from the same island. In his contribution, Anders intends to give an idea of who Gramsci was, to understand the reason that pushes the PCI to emphasize the need for his theory of the union between workers and peasants. Following some biographical notes, Anders concludes with an approximate list of the problems afflicting Sardinia and confirms that the party needs Gramsci’s theory.

The major Gramscian work has not yet been translated, and one can only refer to analyses tendentially characterized by a “lack of elaboration and study of the historical context in which Gramsci’s theory was born. It is in 1979 that the Rothbuch Verlag partially fills this gap with the translation of Giuseppe Fiori’s biography”[479], which to this day cannot yet be considered a surpassed work[480].

A Critical Recognition

Much more faithful to the work than the Italian choice of The Ambiguities of Gramsci, the German title: Antonio Gramsci. Eine kritische Würdigung[481], which appeared in 1979, demonstrates the British philosopher’s appreciation for the communist leader’s work. The previous year, German readers were able to appreciate the monograph that Anderson dedicated to the birth and theoretical developments of Western Marxism, Über dem westlichen Marxismus[482]. In the volume, we find a presentation of the Prison Notebooks as the most important work of the century in the field of Western Marxism, despite a decidedly complex and enigmatic structure largely due to the prison conditions the Sardinian had to face. In the contextualization of Gramsci’s reception, there is sometimes a comparison, other times only a temporal approach with other representatives of Western Marxism, such as the Frankfurt School, Benjamin, and many others. Gramsci’s work is centered on the study of superstructures, among which emerges the analysis of the intellectual class and ideological mediation for the alliance between different classes. According to Anderson, Gramsci was the only theorist to search for the reasons for the historical impasse that generated Western Marxism, and he did so through the analysis of consent structures and a vast work of comparative European history. It is interesting to note that, in the history of Western Marxism, the only organic intellectual that Anderson recognizes, in the Gramscian sense, is another collaborator of New Left Review, Raymond Williams.

The essay dedicated to Gramsci’s antinomies is not only a tribute, as it contains many critical references, starting from the birth of the concept of hegemony and its use in the Prison Notebooks, up to questioning Gramsci’s revolutionary impulse with a flat assimilation of the war of position theorized in prison to Kautsky’s strategy of attrition. In Italy, this essay has been refuted by a philological work of great depth elaborated by Gianni Francioni, who considered preliminary to any type of research the logical and systematic recomposition of the order and structure of Gramsci’s discourse[483]. Among the many clarifications and critiques to which Francioni’s work subjects the so-called “antinomies” of Gramsci, serious is Anderson’s error of treating the notion of the State as if it had the same meaning in many different texts, arriving at treating the integral State and the State (in the sense of political society) as synonyms. To be fair, Francioni accentuates his appreciation for the work done by Anderson in reconstructing the genesis of the concept of hegemony in use in the debates of Russian social democracy between 1890 and 1917, only to reduce to inconsistency its use in the following period, while Christine Buci-Glucksmann will demonstrate a certain familiarity in the use of the concept also in the period of the Communist International and, with a certain weight, in the battle against Trotskyism.

***

Following the international political and media debate on Eurocommunism, Gramsci receives, also in the FRG, the attention he deserves. In this panorama, Italian politics awakens the attention of the new German left, the theoretical debate on the PCI and pluralism contains specific theoretical nodes that start from Gramsci’s elaboration. The “neue Linke” sees in these phenomena “the question of possible strategies aimed at a socialist transformation of Western societies”[484], therefore the theoretically most prepared figures and especially those who know Italian, to be able to read Gramsci, confront Gramscian texts and the studies carried forward by Italian intellectuals. The contributions of Karin Priester have a fundamental role in this sense for two reasons: in Germany, the publication of Christine Buci-Glucksmann’s Gramsci and the State is delayed, precisely in a period that needs a new confrontation with the key institution of bourgeois society. Faced with this lack, Priester begins a presentation and deepening of the concept of the extended State, a necessary work to disseminate a new approach to institutions, also based on Althusserian suggestions now matured in the German context. The second role that Priester has is that of managing to break that barrier on the study of the State that for years had been hegemonized by the debate on the “deduction of the State,” to manage to respond to the needs of the new German left with the Gramscian vision.

Here we must also highlight the role of one publishing house above all: the VSA carries out in these years an almost feverish work for the publication of all the discussions concerning the international communist debate. Its efforts are also dedicated to the dissemination of Gramscian theory, also through the journal linked to the same publishing house, Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus: a contribution to the reception of Gramsci not only didactic but of deepening and re-elaboration. In this same sense, we must also remember the publications of the special issues of the journal Argument, which often contain analytical contributions concerning Gramscian theories and, albeit to a lesser extent, also the work carried out in the journal Sozialistische Politik.

The interest of the religious world in Gramsci, which is not only of a polemical or instrumental nature, as one might expect, is also testified by Gisela Wenzel, who recounts her encounter with Gramsci: “personally, I remember hearing his name for the first time in the ‘Dialogue between Christians and Marxists.’ The protagonists of these discussions organized by the Paulus-Gesellschaft were the German theologian Metz and the Italian communist Lombardo Radice. Gramsci’s name emerged as that of a communist who, already in the 1920s, had committed himself to realizing an alliance with left-wing Catholics”[485].

A very different situation occurs in the GDR, where, according to Michael Grabek, Gramsci, persona non grata, is not read in party schools but in churches[486]; the landscape that emerges from research on the contributions developed in the German Democratic Republic still at the end of the 1970s is desolate. Only from the middle of the following decade will we see results that are not only interesting but innovative.

5. Shedding Light on Gramsci (1980-1984)

In the Federal Republic, between 1981 and 1982, amidst the long-standing nuclear issues affecting Central Europe, peace marches on Bonn took place, the result not of “propagandistic operations, instrumentalized by parties or unions, but [as] a sort of popular plebiscite against the danger of involvement in a new arms race”[487]. Support for the Schmidt government was crumbling, amid opposition from the unions and various conflicts with the FDP, especially on the terrain of economic policy, which would lead the liberals to the Wende of 1982-1983, that is, to the reversal of alliances, in a new government experience in favor of the conservative forces of the CDU-CSU. In Germany, despite the crisis into which German social democracy has fallen, or perhaps precisely for this reason and in conjunction with the development of the Green[488] and peace movements, different responses to the contemporary political situation are being sought. The “hard core” of Marxists, formed by political or politicized groups, publishing houses, and journals in a heterogeneous conglomerate, has been able to spread the name of Gramsci with the Eurocommunist project and, riding that wave of interest in the “theorist of superstructures,” uses Gramscian categories and terms as if they were now common language, sometimes forgetting that Gramsci is not yet readable in German. A very different perspective from the one that Guido Liguori, in his Gramsci conteso, examined during the period from 1978 to 1986 and titled with the expression Ten Years “Lights Out”: “Gramsci was no longer a language, metaphor, ‘hegemonic’ terrain, at least in Italy”[489]. To give an impulse to the translation of Gramsci, with commendable efforts but still partial results, the scholars of the GDR will take care of it, who, after the Conference for the 40th Anniversary of Gramsci’s death organized by the SED, benefit from the Party’s approval to accelerate the publication of Gramsci’s writings. Thus, some Gramscian publications are finally observed in the Democratic Republic, while in the Federal Republic, numerous introductions to Gramsci of different tendencies and a systematic confrontation with other Marxist thinkers of stature, such as Otto Bauer and Louis Althusser, are counted. The influences of the latter have previously been beneficial for the dissemination of Gramsci’s thought and the consequent theoretical debate; now it is a matter of specifying its nature and any interpretative misunderstandings.

“Translating” Gramsci

The 1980s open in the Federal Republic with a substantial collection of German Gramscian studies. The editors, Hans Heinz Holz and Hans Jörg Sandkühler, explain the necessity of “translating” Gramsci in Germany[490]. They do not only refer to the scholars’ need for a translation of the Sardinian’s writings, but precisely by using the term translation in the Gramscian sense, it is hoped that in the FRG a process of connection with Gramscian thought in an international sense will begin, leading to a democratic turn in the country. Gramsci’s work has the great merit of connecting the reality and cases of Italy with the history of the struggles of the international proletariat. Gramsci’s political philosophy lives as a philosophical politics, and this probably accounts for misleading interpretations. Much of the second essay, still at the opening of the collection, is dedicated to the debate sparked by the Sardinian’s work in Germany[491]; in reality, it is a review of the different interpretations from angles: liberal, social democratic, socialist, and communist. This review, which strides through the readings of Gramsci from 1967 to the end of the 1970s, is a precise description of the major contributions, or the most original in a negative and rarely positive sense, on Gramsci. Among the critical targets stand out the works of Riechers and, as a rationalist counterpart, that of Roth. Much space, compared to the real interest shown by the SPD for Gramsci, is left to the reformist interpretations of Jochen Steffen and those of Georg Frei. Also, Gramsci and the State by Christine Buci-Glucksmann and her contributions related to the transition to socialism are criticized for an approach that closes Gramsci in a dead end, tortuously following the traces of Eurocommunism. A positive example, however, is the work carried out by Karin Priester, and one can only agree - the author argues - on the clarity and precision of her analyses of Gramsci’s integral State and the themes related to it.

The goal, hinted at the beginning of the volume by the editors, is now sought through a history of the relationship between Gramsci and the PCI and the approach of his figure and historical context to the experience of Thälmann.

Can the discussion on Gramsci lead to a democratic turn in Germany? To this question, the authors respond affirmatively, but with some premises: as Gruppi has recognized, the theme of hegemony in Gramsci has been placed at the center of attention, and “this fact cannot be seen independently of our politics and our cultural work”[492], and the relationship between hegemony and pluralism, which are intimately connected, poses, still according to Gruppi, a crucial question: there can be no pluralism until the domination of the monopolistic logic of capital is overcome. Connecting to the necessity, expressed by Giuseppe Vacca[493], of the supremacy of the proletarian class as the basis for a new political and social bloc and a new State, a class defined by Claudia Mancina as a “general class”[494], Holz and Sandkühler recognize how “the Gramsci discussion in the FRG is still largely theorist and far from politics, because the scientific intelligentsia, which leads it and is undoubtedly obliged to lead it, does not recognize this general class”[495].

The Gramscian essays collected in the volume are of various kinds and mostly already published in journals. Among these, we recall the Togliattian interpretation of Gramsci’s Leninism[496] (precisely with an essay by Hans Heinz Holz[497] on the relationship between Gramsci and Togliatti the volume closes), the Gramsci “spiritual founder” of the Communist Party by Zamiš[498], Neubert’s intervention at the Conference for the 40th Anniversary of Gramsci’s death[499], and the notes on dialectics and hegemony by Mazzone[500]. We also find the essays by Annegret Kramer on Gramsci’s Marxist interpretation[501] and the essay by Sabine Kebir dedicated to Gramsci’s cultural conception[502].

To complete the collection, there is still an unpublished essay by Thomas Metscher, who, with the treatment of Gramsci’s historicism and humanism as concrete subjectivity, hopes for systematic efforts for the elaboration of a theory of culture and, consequently, of ideology in the FRG, in the broadest sense of the two terms to which Gramsci refers in his reflections[503]. Dealing with Gramsci’s historicism and humanism, Metscher cannot but critically confront Althusser’s “Marxism is not a historicism” and connect the Gramscian conception of Marxism as an “absolute humanism of history”[504] with the concepts of culture and ideology. Framing the processes of cultural construction, Metscher arrives at the idea of civil society as a “core area” (crucial space) for the consciousness of the masses and the conquest of hegemony.

The overall message that comes from this collection of texts, largely already published in the 1970s, is the hope for further studies on Gramsci, but above all, as the editors declared at the opening, the will to translate, both in the common sense and in the specifically Gramscian sense, the thought of the Sardinian into German and in Germany.

Gramsci and the State

The 1970s marked the beginning of in-depth studies on Gramsci's political theory, with significant contributions from outside Italy. The works of Christine Buci-Glucksmann and Nicos Poulantzas are exemplary in this regard, providing German scholars with a conceptual foundation and useful insights for fully understanding or sometimes clarifying Gramsci's political thought. Indeed, these two students of Althusser, initially Poulantzas and later Buci-Glucksmann, left a tangible and original mark on the international Gramscian debate. Poulantzas's works were translated into German in the 1970s, with Politische Macht und gesellschaftliche Klassen[505] published in 1974 by Fischer and Staatstheori[506]e in 1978 by VSA. Guido Liguori has pointed out that Poulantzas's interpretation of Gramsci remained tied to the early Althusser, criticizing Gramsci for privileging the concept of hegemony, emphasizing consent over coercio[507]. Following Lenin and his functionalist formation, it was inconceivable to impose a dominant ideology before seizing political power[508]. Another element, highlighted by Peter Thomas, is that the Greek philosopher's engagement with Gramsci cannot be defined by a simple label of affiliation or repudiation[509]. The scholar from Brisbane noted that Poulantzas acknowledges his debt to Gramsci, and indeed, his analyses of the capitalist state and popular organizational norms would be unimaginable without the premises of the integral state and Gramscian hegemony.

Fifty years after Gramsci's reflections on fascism, Poulantzas developed new forms of authoritarianism, symptomatic of a crisis of legitimacy in the party system of the capitalist state. Central to the distinction made by the Sardinian thinker is the concept of a war of position outside state institutions and over a long period, while for the Greek philosopher, there is no "outside the state," and the long process of conquering power consists of spreading, developing, reinforcing, coordinating, and guiding the diffuse centers of resistance that the masses possess through state networks, turning them into centers of power in the strategically central terrain of the state.

The other student of Althusser, who brought Gramscian studies on the state to unprecedented development, is Christine Buci-Glucksmann, whose Gramsci et l'État[510] established certain reference points for Gramscian reflections as early as 1975. In Germany, the volume was published more than five years later[511]. This delay is significant given the interest of German literature in the debate on Eurocommunism and the Gramscian conception, a gap that Karin Priester partly filled with some interventions in the late 1970s. Buci-Glucksmann's volume "re-reads the categories of the Prison Notebooks to free them from any idealistic mortgage"[512]: in Gramsci, the concept of hegemony is found in the hegemonic apparatuses, which, unlike Althusser's ISAs, are not univocal but traversed by multiple contradictions. Sharing with Poulantzas a Leninist orthodoxy, a general characteristic of the Althusserian school, Buci-Glucksmann recognizes in Gramsci a continuator of the Bolshevik revolutionary's work. The most important step in Buci-Glucksmann's work is the definition of the state in Gramsci: devoid of any instrumental character; moreover, the expansion of the state in the Sardinian's conception is achieved through the incorporation of hegemony and its apparatus, making it a terrain of struggle for the war of position of the hegemonic classes.

Karin Priester, as mentioned, is strongly linked to this type of interpretation, heavily Leninist and specifically dedicated to the state. Her essays in some left-wing journals serve as a megaphone for the theory of the Gramscian state during a period when the need to fully understand the strategy outlined by Gramsci and constantly invoked by the PCI, from progressive democracy to the historic compromise and Eurocommunism, was evident and pressing.

In the 1970s, Karin Priester had already presented, in various forms and aspects, both historical and theoretical, Antonio Gramsci's theory of the state; the specific studies dedicated to the Sardinian thinker are subsumed in a dissertation published shortly afterward by Campus[513], which, unlike the contributions analyzed so far, looks especially at the relationship between the PCI and the state, also considering new internal trends within the Party. Among these, the positions of some intellectuals such as Galvano Della Volpe, Umberto Cerroni, and Giuseppe Vacca are examined. Their thought, in Priester's opinion, is an expression of a precise party praxis, sometimes reflected, other times anticipated.

Gramsci, "Selbstbild der Partei"[514], is the revolutionary who guarantees a connection with Leninism and the international workers' movement, the theorist who managed to link national particularities to other conditions of struggle in the advanced capitalist West; Gramsci is a great intellectual, anti-fascist, martyr hero, in short, the personification of the party in the myth of origins.

In this way, a picture of the PCI's identity is presented, but not completely, warns the author; to it must be added Togliatti's role in leading the party, as well as the theoretical contribution of Della Volpe, the intellectual who founded that process of theoretical superimposition "über Gramsci hinaus"[515]: a surpassing of the Sardinian's thought that also means "über Lenin und die Denkmodelle der III Internationale hinaus"[516]. Priester, however, asks whether this surpassing of Gramsci is not in reality a return "hinter Gramsci zurück"[517].

Gramsci's principles about the state and the theory of hegemony, formulated fragmentarily by him, have undergone historicization and a new interpretation; it is a reinterpretation of a complex of concepts: from the tendency to see in hegemony only the theory of consent, to the historicization of his theory of the party. With this system, the Gramscian terrain has been left, without ceasing to refer to him. Della Volpe's contribution, Priester opines, is the theoretical expression of this tendency; more clearly than in others, there is a break with Gramsci and Leninism and at the same time a turn to other issues such as the relationship between socialism and, on the one hand, liberalism, and on the other, bourgeois democracy. Despite an affinity of Della Volpe with Togliatti, this theory stands on the margins of communism, but it is not a kind of social democratization, the author reassures; indeed, the confrontation with Gramsci is very profound precisely in the area where the state finds its central role.

Priester's thesis, explicitly stated, is that since the 1950s, or more precisely since the VIII Party Congress in 1956, with references to the principle of the party's political activity with the Lyon Theses of 1926, the PCI has sought to develop a new revolutionary model in advanced capitalist countries. The party's fundamental positions imply three fundamental theoretical conceptions of Marxism: the first sees it as historicism, the second as positive science, while the third views Marxism as critical sociology.

Gramsci, who sees Marxism as absolute historicism, has an integral worldview and seeks to overcome the dualism between natural and social sciences through the historicity of all being, and to resolve the dualism between theory and praxis. This conception is inseparable from the strategy of the struggle for the conquest of the state, and also from the vision of the integral party as the collective intellectual.

Della Volpe confronts one of the fundamental questions: how to build Marxism beyond metaphysics and positivism as an experimental science? This leads him to define Marxism as anti-Hegelianism.

In Italian and French communism, there are neo-Kantian currents. One of the reasons for this theoretical formulation, close to the political one, lies in the development of USSR policy after 1956 and the repercussions that the violent developments had on European communist parties. Priester compares the approaches of Gramsci and Della Volpe and concludes that, if it can be said that Gramsci's activity is dedicated to the struggle for hegemony and the state, Della Volpe struggles for law. Della Volpe seeks the theoretical foundation of socialist legality in an act of conservation, not rejection, of the liberal legacy within the theory of the state. The transition to socialism is thus realized starting from post-bourgeois legal positions. For Priester, this need is directly connected with the problem of post-Stalinism, as well as the Togliattian concept of progressive democracy, for which the Constitution occupies a central place in the already achieved legal positions.

In the part specifically dedicated to Gramsci, the author presents a portrait of him as a theorist of the superstructure, who focuses his research on translating the critique of political economy into the language of political theory. Priester recalls that Gramsci is very distant from the positions of some Marxist theorists of the Togliatti era, who link the conditions of the transition to socialism in Italy and the West with democracy and structural reforms, on the path to a post-bourgeois society. Gramsci's work is written not at the time of the Constituent Assembly, but during the revolutionary struggle, in a context that lies between a revolution that did not follow Marx's Capital to the letter and a deterministic socialism resigned to the fatal arrival of the Revolution to justify its passivity; Gramsci, in this context, while starting from the national reality, transcends its boundaries with his theory.

The author also looks at the language used by Gramsci, not too Marxist, but which carries with it the premise of its own autonomy and the dynamics of politics in the broadest sense, as understood by Gramsci. Despite this, Priester continues, "keinem anderen Marxisten hat sich Gramsci in seine reifen Jahren so verbunden gefühlt wie Lenin, denn er war in den Augen Gramscis der erste Marxist nach langer Zeit links – oder rechtsrevisionistischer Verkürzungen marxistische Theorie, der die Frage nach der Revolution auf der Ebene stellt, die auch für Gramsci zentral wird: auf der Ebene des Staates"[518]. Only through an independent and autonomous worldview can one overcome, as Marx did, the liberal theories of the state, as well as the revisionist and anarchist ones, which deny the class question inherent in the state. The hegemonic power theorized by Gramsci is the result of a process of formation and self-formation; it gives the subalterns the opportunity to free themselves from the dominant system; to this end, it is necessary to overcome the naturalistic-ontological, uncritical, and ahistorical common sense that pervades the masses.

It is interesting for the German reader to find also a small hint of a comparison between Gramsci and Korsch; Priester finds a common goal: the reconstitution of an equilibrium against Kautskyism and Bernstein's followers, at the center of which is the concept of praxis. For this comparison, Priester also takes up some of the elements highlighted by Paggi in Antonio Gramsci e il moderno principe: compared to German theorists, and in particular to Korsch, the Ordine Nuovo group experienced a precise stage of development of the productive process, indicative of a new phase of political struggle. For Korsch, the councils represent instead an expression of the industrial autonomy to come, a guarantee against pure statization, while socialization was envisioned, on the contrary, as a unity of politics and economics.

In this first part of the monograph, Priester further explores some aspects of Gramsci's theory of the state, from the roots of the revolution in the West according to the paradigm of the French Revolution, to issues not primarily related to the state, such as the expression of the relationship between technique and ideology in Americanism and Fordism. There are also paths between themes that Priester has already had the opportunity to publish in individual essays: hegemony, the historical bloc, the function of intellectuals and their relationship with the masses, the concept of the national-popular, and the party as the collective intellectual.

Two years after the publication of her dissertation, and one could also say well beyond the decline of Eurocommunism, Karin Priester renews her interest in the strategic and theoretical tendencies of the PCI, already expressed in the 1970s with the description of the strategy defined as the "Italian road to socialism"[519]. In her essay, which formulates the question: Hat der Eurokommunismus eine Zukunft?[520], two fundamental issues emerge that pass from Gramsci's theory to Togliatti's interpretation and as a legacy to the PCI: the Vatican question and the Southern question. Gramsci's consideration of the Catholic masses aims to bring them out of that state of subalternity they occupy within the bourgeois historical bloc; it is necessary to set aside ideological-philosophical divergences and unite in their common social needs. Only the permanent presence of the party in the working masses, Togliatti will insist, can guarantee the development of a dialectic between spontaneity and conscious guidance.

Therefore, in the opinion of the German historian, the Italian road to socialism would be characterized by two fundamental elements: overcoming isolation and anchoring to the masses.

The capillary presence of a party must show itself in institutions and civil society, as Gramsci taught, and indeed, in the Liberation movement, the PCI was a leading political force, expressing a democratic and anti-fascist renewal of politics.

In relation to state intervention, this time in the economy, we recall the publication of a substantial historical and socio-economic essay on the central phase of Italian fascism[521], the work of Traute Rafalski, who seeks motives of continuity between Italian society of the time and the contemporary one. The work refers to an exhaustive Italian historical bibliography. Among the references to Gramsci, we find first of all a reading of the crisis of the period under examination as an organic crisis, according to the Gramscian concept that describes a period of crisis that is not limited to the economy but becomes totalizing: a period of transition from the collapse of the hegemonic form of traditional domination, without a new system of hegemony yet established in its place. In this framework, the question of economic production arises, according to the model that the United States seeks to import into Europe. Italy, in this sense, is less fertile ground than other European countries, following Gramsci's interpretation, Rafalski describes the introduction of corporatism in fascist Italy as backwardness and anticipation together, whose compromise character favors the coexistence between the old society and the new methods of production, so much so that corporatism appears as a tool for social control and at the same time an impulse for productive force[522].

Introductions to Gramsci

In 1981, Joachim Bischoff, drawing on the analytical experience on Gramsci already initiated by the study group of which he is a part, SOST, publishes an introductory volume on Gramsci[523]. The previous year, the same author had already dedicated an entire chapter of his Kulturindustrie und Ideologie[524] to Gramsci's thought, an interlude in the treatment of the concept of ideology in the traditional sense, for which the author, nevertheless intending to give it a critical characterization, starts from the definition given by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in Soziologische Exkurse, where ideology is connoted negatively as false consciousness belonging to developed urban market economies[525]. In his critique, Bischoff considers Adorno and Horkheimer's theory valid only in some aspects, now largely surpassed by the contemporary phase in which class domination appears as totalizing in all spheres. The chapter on Gramsci, followed by a long part aimed at clarifying the theory of Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses, is very synthetic. The starting point of Gramsci's reflections is clarified: the principles expounded by Marx in the Critique of Political Economy, and in a language rooted in structural and economic analyses, the author attempts to explain the relationship between structure and superstructure for the communist leader. To this end, he uses some prison reflections on the development of France in the 19th century as an example. Some of the observations on hegemony and intellectuals that Bischoff develops in his monograph on Gramsci are already outlined here, and a critique of the contradictoriness that characterizes the work of PIT[526] as well as that of Michael Jäger is presented, as they failed to systematize the Gramscian vision of the relationship between structure and superstructure. Linked to a general critique of PIT is the essay signed by SOST, Gramsci und die Intellektuellen[527], which is actually an abstract of the third chapter of Bischoff's introduction to Gramsci. The author illustrates in some notes his theoretical dissent regarding some points of the treatment of the same theme by PIT in Marxistische Theorie des Ideologischen[528], where Gramsci would be used in radical opposition to economism.

As Ulrich Schreiber will say in his review of Einführung Gramsci[529], the title is "misleading"[530]: Bischoff faces a lack of Gramscian texts in German and therefore decides to structure his monograph as a parallel commentary to a small collection of Gramscian passages. The volume begins following a chronological criterion, retracing the history of the PCd'I starting from the reasons for the split, but also considering its consequences. Already in the preface to the first chapter, the author, following a Togliattian quote, had specified that the weakening of the Italian workers' movement in the face of fascism was partly due to the split; the Gramscian leadership emerges in the historical path of the party, whose objectives are summarized in the Lyon Theses. From here, Bischoff continues his examination with an implicit parallel, referring to the period of the First International, when the workers' movement divided into sectarianism sought unification. Bischoff also specifies the reasons for the exclusion of the anarchists, starting from the same reasoning of Marx and Engels, as the forms of organization of the anarchists do not favor autonomy and conscious development against any type of mystification and irrationalism.

The problem of sectarianism is not foreign to the PCI: Bischoff exemplifies it historically with the case of Tasca, and believes these tendencies should be analyzed from three points of view that correspond to three areas of Gramsci's reflections: the trade union question, the alliance with other classes, and the explanation of fascism.

The first question, that is, the trade union one, in the historical event that sees Gramsci as the protagonist, is defined by the author as an area of social democratic domination to which the Sardinian opposes the councilist strategy; the council system is linked to a type of practical political administration different from the previous one, which is based on work and no longer on residence. In the author's opinion, some limitations are found in Gramsci's analysis: Gramsci neglects themes such as competition between different groups of workers or the existence of corporatist orientations in them.

As for the alliance with other realities of workers, Bischoff accompanies his text with some data that help his sociological analysis of the Italian reality of the time: workers are only a part of Italian workers, and for this reason, an alliance with the peasants of the South is necessary.

Fascism is seen by Gramsci, the author reports, mainly as an emanation of the urban petty bourgeoisie, and indeed, in the Lyon Theses, the imperialist component in fascist politics is also seriously considered.

Bischoff moves on to the writing on the Southern Question, whose central thesis is the struggle against the ideological influence of school, press, and other elements that transmit bourgeois culture. The major Gramscian themes outlined in this writing are then developed and shaped in the Prison Notebooks and therefore taken up in broad terms by the author in the continuation of the volume.

Bischoff's analysis initially manages to maintain a common thread by linking chronologically to the political biography and the historical context experienced by Gramsci, but later begins to suffer not so much from a revisitation from an economistic point of view, a usual characteristic of SOST's research, but from a sociological attitude probably not adequate for the organization and systematic treatment of such a broad field as the themes developed in the Prison Notebooks.

In his review of this volume, Schreiber argues that it serves as an internal analysis for the use of SOST; indeed, Bischoff's examination is very focused on the aspects of economism, but it manages to lose sight of some of the most relevant issues posed by Gramsci in historical economism: here the long duration is not distinguished from the fluctuating trend, economic development is reduced to the succession of technical changes. But it is especially in Bischoff's reduction of intellectuals to the middle class that Schreiber expresses his disappointment.

Bischoff's work, and to a large extent that of SOST, is firmly articulated on the plane of social and production relations, but by limiting itself to this angle, it fails to reach that systematic analysis to which other groups or individuals, such as PIT, manage to arrive. The Gramscian categories, narrowed and portrayed in the only structural rooting, although Marxistically anchored, fail to connect. One can only agree with Schreiber when he warns of an eclecticism and the lack of a somewhat homogeneous representation of Gramsci's work.

In 1982, three authors give body to a monograph dedicated to Gramsci[531]. The volume starts from one of Gramsci's fundamental objectives: according to the Sardinian, every materialism is mysticism, so he intends to elaborate a vision that explains the development of the world starting from consciousness in opposition to mechanistic conceptions of nature. Following an analysis of the premises of Crocean philosophy, Klaus Winter moves on to examine Gramsci's philosophy by breaking down his philosophical construction into particular aspects in a sort of path aimed at discovering its weaknesses, but above all, connections and separations from the idealist conception of Croce.

Winter starts from the premise that by describing Gramsci's philosophy as subjective idealism, one addresses what Gramsci has in common with many other philosophers. Some interpreters of Gramsci, and here the author recalls the works of Roth, Palla, and Priester[532], define this as a "particularity" of Gramsci's philosophy against the accusations of idealism, identifying under the concept of idealism particular forms that Gramsci's philosophy does not accept. Palla and Priester have followed the path indicated by Roth in the defense of the communist leader's thought: Riechers had accused Gramsci of subjective idealism, received in a particular form, that of Berkeley, but, the author argues, no philosopher would go further in subjective idealism as he would inevitably fall into solipsism. Gramsci is aware of the danger of this type of approach and believes he has overcome the problem by arguing that "the theory of superstructures is nothing but the philosophical and historical solution of subjective idealism"[533]. The elements that help Gramsci escape solipsism are the consciousness of all humanity and creative thought, as human will.

The author also argues that Gramsci's use of absolute historicism is not an external correction of subjective idealism, but a necessary element for overcoming solipsism. Gramsci arrives at an immanent conception of reality, frees himself from the speculative aroma and moves towards pure history, historicity, and also absolute humanism. The objective is not achievable by single individuals, but by humanity as a whole, which makes will the foundation of its philosophy. Gramsci explains this vision of will through the figure of universal history itself. Winter observes how Croce gave his philosophy the same motivation and calls his conception of history humanism. Croce developed this vision not in contrast with materialism, but against positivism, for example that of Taine, whose historical method according to the Abruzzese philosopher is limited to collecting facts and giving them a causal link, thus arriving at a mechanistic interpretation of historical work.

Gramsci, like Croce, identifies human will with universal history; for Gramsci, the productive forces are matter and the movement of these forces follows the will of humanity. The author notes that Marx had compared the activity of individuals with the objective movement of nature, while the study of social movement for Gramsci is a process that cannot be grasped through the natural sciences, because there is will, which is the engine of history.

Winter thus arrives at the relativism of Gramsci's theory: the Sardinian in fact uses historicity as an argument against materialism and the capacity for development of the natural sciences against the recognition of objective reality. The author believes that Gramsci posed the question incorrectly: he uses the terms "objectively true" and "definitive" to express identical concepts, making a mistake. According to the author, even in this case, a thought based on subjective idealism appears: reality is fully identical to the idea that each one has in himself; "the historicity of science excludes the recognition of objective reality only thanks to an additional presupposition: the identity of thought and being, one of the pillars of subjective idealism"[534].

The identity between history and philosophy is not only a central thesis in Croce's conception, but also in Gramsci's, so Winter goes through all those that he defines as "numerous and profound agreements"[535]. Indeed, both consider materialism a form of metaphysics and dualism; for the same reasons, they are opponents of objective idealism and reject subjective idealism, which sees consciousness in the individual as the origin, to which they instead oppose the consciousness of all humanity. Both look at reality as history, but reject an unconscious development of nature and identify human will with the historical process in its totality. Their conception of pure humanism or pure historicity leads them to the identity of history and philosophy.

Following these numerous agreements, Winter believes he has demonstrated how Gramsci's philosophy of praxis is based on Croce's philosophy of immanence: "Croce's idealism is not the object of his criticism. In key points of the methodology of his criticism, Gramsci has expressly affirmed that it is not about subjecting (to criticism) the foundations of Croce's philosophy"[536].

In the author's opinion, the main point of the critique of Croce would be found in the speculative character that Gramsci attributes to Croceanism, thus assigning himself the task of translating the speculative philosophy of immanence into historical language. Gramsci re-reads the "universal spirit" as a historical product, but his is not a materialist critique, but has a subjective-idealist reason. Gramsci in fact does not criticize Croce's identity between philosophy and history, he considers it only incomplete; therefore, to the identity of history and philosophy, he adds that between philosophy and politics, with a reference to the XI Thesis on Feuerbach. The consideration that history is always contemporary history has been the central argument in Croce's thought, and the introduction by Gramsci of politics does not harm Crocean subjective idealism. Indeed, politics interprets the past and makes it contemporary: the identity between philosophy and history, in Gramsci's reflections, thus becomes an element of historical materialism.

On the interpretation of dialectics is the title of the chapter that Karuscheit dedicates to Gramsci's critique of Bukharin. The author first asks from what point of observation Gramsci places himself, and adds: "in the total 41 pages of his notes on Bukharin, printed in Philosophy of Praxis, he (Gramsci) maintains silence on the real center of the mechanistic-materialist theory of his opponent"[537]. Gramsci argues that the Manual lacks any research on dialectics. The definitions of dialectics given by Gramsci are defined at least as "tautologies"[538]. Sabine Kebir, like other interpreters of Gramsci's philosophy, defines the Sardinian's dialectical conception in a simplistic way. The author highlights that theorists like Lukács or progenitors of critical theory like Horkheimer, Adorno, and Marcuse, or still Alfred Schmidt, Oskar Negt, the Yugoslav "Praxis School," and others use the term "dialectics" a lot, but few concretely explain its essence, not intending, however, a unity of opposites. The particularity of Gramsci in this case is to be evaluated in the accentuation of the relationship between base and superstructure. The main reason for Gramsci's misunderstanding of dialectics lies in Croce's identification of the general and the particular. Dialectics thus exists in the real historical process and this also explains Gramsci's silence on Bukharin's research on the general laws of dialectics. Gramsci refuses to enter the level of generality, on which Bukharin necessarily moves; for the Sardinian, it is an idealist construction at the origin of the Manual's mechanism.

With reason, Alfred Schmidt has highlighted Gramsci's idealism and the relationship with Korsch and Lukács, but that Gramsci has taken up Hegelian dialectics, according to Karuscheit, remains only a rumor. On the contrast between man and nature, Gramsci stops, remains inert in the face of that dilemma as old as the history of philosophy. If indeed one does not intend to see the world in a dualist sense, but monist, one must inevitably unite being and consciousness, and this can only be done beyond dialectics. Gramsci's solution is no longer an identity of opposites, but an identity equal to itself, "with the boredom proper to all tautologies"[539].

A first generalized critique by Karuscheit of Gramscian interpretations is then exemplified with the works of Kramer, Kebir, Mazzone, and Cerroni, which are not to be considered exceptions, but a "sad rule"[540]. In summary: "how much ignorance of dialectics must one exhibit to express oneself on Gramsci?"[541].

The second part of the volume contains some chapters that contain approximate comparisons with the Marxist theories of Lukács and the Frankfurt School; to these are prefaced didactic theoretical profiles on the major bourgeois philosophies, from neo-Kantianism to empirio-criticism. Following this, a large part of the volume is concerned with providing a perspective for reading the interpretations of Gramsci's philosophy and political thought[542].

The volume closes with the 1933 report of Athos Lisa to the Comintern.

Very different in theoretical and critical approach is the volume presented in 1982 by Argument, the result of Ulrich Schreiber's dissertation[543]. It stands out as a work that can help in the first steps towards the knowledge of the communist leader's political theory. The author in fact starts from an insertion of Gramsci's theory among those that he defines, according to the subdivision proposed by Wolf-Dieter Narr[544], as historical-dialectical theories, which differ from normative-ontological ones (among the representatives Arnold Bergsträsser, Wilhelm Hennis, Dieter Oberndörfner) and empirical-deductive ones (Karl Popper, Paul Lazarsfeld) for the accentuation of historical conditioning on natural and social phenomena. After a synthetic Gramscian biography, Schreiber reviews the uses of the concept of hegemony in different Gramscian writings, where, for the "prehistory" of the Gramscian concept, he refers to the results of the research of Gruppi and Anderson.

The author takes up the concept of hegemony in the presentation of the integral state as a unity of dictatorship and hegemony aimed at overcoming those contradictions between the institutional and organizational division between civil society and the state; it is also specified that Gramsci also gave a methodological reason for this distinction.

Schreiber reports some references to the Gramscian concept of hegemony: the first is used in an essay by Elga Koppel on the development of the PCI as a mass party[545], where hegemony is an alternative tool to the dictatorship of the proletariat for the transition to socialism. This interpretation coincides with that given by Roth[546], who sees Gramsci's theory of the state in strong opposition to the orthodox Marxist lesson. The author instead finds in the interpretation of Sophie Alf, expressed in the introduction to Hobsbawm's interview with Napolitano on the road to the historic compromise[547], a concept of hegemony that contemplates two moments, the cultural, moral, and ideological one and the one pertaining to domination.

The political party, theorized by Gramsci in an organic sense, far from being a nomenclature or passive expression of a class, is characterized by a relative autonomy, so Schreiber poses the question of whether such a conception can still be fruitful for the popular parties of Western Europe.

After expounding Gramsci's notes dedicated to the critique of economism as the starting point for his political theory, Schreiber describes the economic-corporate phase and the ethical-political one, that is, hegemonic, where, through the distancing from the previous worldview and the construction of a critical common sense, the intellectual and moral reform desired by Proudhon and Renan takes place; it follows an integral revolution of ideas and hearts and for Gramsci this condition constitutes the premise for the construction of a collective will.

The author still dedicates some observations to the concepts of passive revolution, the transition from war of position to war of movement, and still the relationship between spontaneity and conscious guidance, or discipline; in this part, we also find that final phase of the transition to socialism as a regulated society, that is, the workers' state: the author still observes that the state does not disappear immediately, as Roth understood in his work, but necessarily extends until the end of its cycle.

A year after the publication of Schreiber's monograph, the Argument Verlag again deals with Gramsci with an important publication for the theoretical direction of the publishing house and the journal. It is a volume signed by Hermes Coassin-Spiegel entitled to the critique of the Althusserian reception of Gramsci's philosophy[548]; in reality, the monograph, divided into several parts, is dedicated to the multiple aspects that make up the theoretical context and source for the conceptions of both Gramsci and Althusser. The author also adds a concluding part with a digression on Dilthey's historicism and the common aspects to the vision of the French philosopher. The first part of the text, entirely dedicated to Gramsci, intends to retrace the gnoseological questions of the Sardinian's philosophy to fully understand the development of his thought, without neglecting references and influences of the prison work through a path of philosophical clarifications in which Coassin-Spiegel guides the reader step by step.

The starting point of the study is the definition of the philosophy of praxis first through the negative critique of vulgar materialism and then of idealism: a task that Gramsci had set himself to free Marxism from these two opposite interpretative tendencies. In the first case, Gramsci takes as an object of analysis the Manual that Bukharin has defined as sociology, intending the science of the discovery of objective laws in human society. Taking a step back, the author explains that for Gramsci, objectivity can only be grasped with a human conditioning; the Sardinian thinker does not in fact consider it possible to observe the individual outside society. This has two implications: the vision of man as becoming and as contradiction. Becoming is here understood as a process of active relationships that man develops through work and technique, the relationship with nature contemplates a range of possibilities that does not imply a precise and defined reality; despite its banality, the commonplace that wants man as a set of social relationships for Gramsci is a satisfactory answer.

The relationships between men are in perpetual movement within a historical bloc formed by individual and subjective elements, as well as in large numbers objective and material, in which men operate according to active relationships: in this framework, becoming can be interpreted as history. The definition of the subject of becoming becomes a contradiction, although it has within itself the possibility of becoming a non-contradictory unit, as social relationships always lead to a contradiction. The author clarifies that it is not a question of an antagonistic opposition, as in sport, which adheres to the rules of the game: every antithesis, Gramsci argues, necessarily relates in a frontal and radical way to the thesis, up to complete destruction.

Unlike the idealists, Gramsci does not think of a unity of man in the spirit as a premise; this for Gramsci could be a possibility, a normative ideal, with Kantian reminiscences. The idealist taste of the Gramscian texts that Coassin-Spiegel also reports in his interpretative path has led Christian Riechers, the author reminds us, to think of an evident eschatological speculation. However, Riechers missed that Gramsci postulates a unitary spirit in contrast to the omnipotent spirit of religions and the idealist one, free only in the human sphere and not in the natural one.

On the theme of objectivity as a battle for a universal subjectivity, the author specifies, with some targeted analyses, that knowledge for Gramsci is not to be understood in the sense proposed by Bukharin, that is, as discovery or as prediction, but is "acting": in this framework, Coassin-Spiegel begins to introduce one of the red threads of his research, that is, the comparison with the experimental sciences.

For Gramsci, knowledge is a perception of all men, which is reached with equal technical verification presuppositions. The substantial difference of the Gramscian vision from that of Croce is shown, and the author refers to Eugenio Garin, who at the Gramscian Studies Conference of 1958 argued that Gramsci did not deny the permanent value within some of the Crocean themes, although he fought and rejected them; but at the same time, Coassin-Spiegel resumes, without the destruction of the concept of contradiction, there would be no foundations for Crocean idealism.

After an examination of Crocean philosophy, the author reports Gramsci's recognition of the philosopher from Pescasseroli and specifies that a weakness of the Gramscian philosophical system has led to seeing much more than a recognition, but a filiation, a relationship of substantial continuity between Gramsci's thought and Croceanism, in an idealistic conception of reality. The author declares that close to a clear recognition of the non-dialectical character of Croceanism, which implies the incompatibility with Marxism, in Gramsci there are traces of an interpretation of Croce's philosophy that seem to go in the opposite direction. Coassin-Spiegel explains that it is, however, only a dark point in its verbal character, not substantial. The points that may have given rise to interpretative misunderstandings are probably Gramsci's assertions on the healthy essence of the heart of Crocean philosophy, which goes back to the philosophy of Hegel and Marx, although having killed its dialectic, or the metaphor of the retranslation operated by Croce of historical materialism into speculative language, where some traces of Marxist theory remain. Coassin-Spiegel recalls, however, how Gramsci openly hoped for an Anti-Croce on the example of Engels' Anti-Dühring and in this the Sardinian's objective in "settling accounts" with Croce is substantiated.

Moving on to the central theme of the volume, that is, the Althusserian critique of Gramsci, Coassin-Spiegel argues that in the interpretation of Gramsci, the French philosopher has been the victim of a great misunderstanding: looking at Gramsci's historical materialism, Althusser sees the use, under a single term, of a double meaning: that of the theory of history and that of dialectical materialism, two distinct disciplines. In this way, Gramsci's meaning would mix Marxist theory with the relativity implicit in a historical vision. With the acceptance of a conditioning to Marxist theory, Gramsci would confuse the object of knowledge with the real one: in this way, the first term is influenced by the qualities of the real term. Gramsci would not understand, Althusser argues, that the knowledge of history is no more historical than "the knowledge of sugar is sugared." The mixture between theory and history in contemporary historicism becomes a renunciation of knowledge, in favor of the relativity of the historical flow. The fall of science into history precipitates the theory and science of history into real history.

Althusser argues that Gramsci's historicism is not a unique peculiarity, indeed the same phenomenon is observed in Marx and Hegel; while for the latter two, truth and historical reality, logic and real order become identical in a privileged present such as to allow in the present to arrive at absolute knowledge, in Gramsci the relationship is different. The communist leader, opines the French philosopher, could not resist rethinking the relationship between real history and philosophy as a relationship of expressive unity; he in fact sees the relationship between Marxist theory and real history as a model of direct expressive relationship. This expressive unity that connects history and science indicates an a priori identity between speculative and real genesis. The form of absolute historicism can be observed as a limit form, until it culminates and annihilates itself in the negation of absolute knowledge. The total reduction of knowledge to real history, resumed by Coassin-Spiegel with the image of a fluctuating objectivity, implies that knowledge is reduced to the level of ideology and Gramsci's knowledge is interpreted by Althusser precisely as an ideology.

For Althusser, there is an identification of ontology and gnoseology with the vision of reality and empiricist knowledge. Empiricism, according to the French philosopher, has as a postulate the division of the totality into two spheres of objectivity and subjectivity and contemplates a conception of cognitive activity as abstraction. There is a role of subjective intervention also in the empirical process of knowledge, so much so that knowledge itself becomes a real part of the object to be known; therefore, the difference between subject and object becomes an imposture.

In Gramsci's meaning - "it is also necessary, and indeed indispensable, to fix and remember that reality in movement and the concept of reality, if logically they can be distinguished, historically must be conceived as an inseparable unity"[549] - Althusser sees an empiricist-speculative thesis proper to all historicism: the identity of the concept and the real (historical) object.

To refute Althusser's opinion, according to which there would be in Gramsci the tendency to think the relationship between real history and philosophy as a relationship of expressive unity, Coassin-Spiegel specifies that the Sardinian in fact considers impossible a reduction of the subject in the dimension of objectivity. The fusion of history and philosophy for Gramsci does not mean the construction of a totality in which, as Althusser thinks, the theory drowns in real history, or, expressed in Gramscian terms, the superstructure is dissolved in the structure. Such a reduction would be for Gramsci a "primitive infantilism."

The comparisons and parallels with other exponents of international Marxism are not over and still the Argument publishing house in Berlin, which with the journal and its special issues is giving much attention to Gramsci's theory, presents a monograph by Detlev Albers on the relationship between the thought of the Sardinian and that of Otto Bauer. Protagonist of the 1968 demonstrations and a social democrat since 1966, Albers in 1980 precisely from the pages of "Argument" harshly replies[550] to an intervention by Bruno Frei concerning Otto Bauer and Eurocommunism[551]: Albers' vision is sharply opposed to that judgment that would want Bauer's thought in opposition to the political strategy baptized by Berlinguer and, indeed, consequently, intends to contrast that formula that in conclusion sounds: "Gramsci is the opposite of Otto Bauer"[552]. A short time later, in 1983, Argument gives Albers the opportunity to publish his study intended to operate a systematic comparison between the theories of Otto Bauer and Antonio Gramsci[553]. The fundamental thesis that leads him to support the proximity of the two Marxist theorists is the need, felt by both, for a renewal of Marxism in the face of the unresolved problem of revolution in the West. Both understand the importance of ideological and cultural hegemony, live in that same period, and yet differently, the October Revolution and find themselves facing fascism. Historical events lead them to rethink the meaning of Marxist theory for political praxis.

Albers points out how both are uncomfortable for the prominent exponents of this or that political tendency and with this comparison the author wants to demonstrate how both arrive, starting from a point of view of integral Marxism, at elements useful for a strategy of the European left. Regarding the scope and limits of this comparison, the author cites as pioneers in the treatment of this theme Marramao, Lombardo-Radice, and Bruno Frei, and specifies that, although his is a work of history of political thought, from it one can equally receive impulses for the present.

The starting point that unites the reflections of Bauer and Gramsci lies in the central terrain of their research: the revolution in the West. Bauer is ten years older than Gramsci, who at the theoretical level, however, lives a more mature phase as fascism is for him a brutal reality already at the beginning of the 1920s; for this reason, the communist leader channels his thoughts into a united front as the only possible response to fascism, a solution that Gramsci will not be able to live but that will be realized in the Resistance. A chronological asymmetry presents itself in 1926: while Gramsci is arrested, Bauer is living his greatest personal political success: the approval of the Linz program by the Austrian Social Democratic Party (SDAP) and until 1934 he is engaged in the fight against the reactionary counteroffensive in legality and in the conditions of a democratic republic.

The theory of the war of position places Gramsci in opposition to Lenin, Trotsky, Bordiga, Luxemburg, while Bauer's clarifications on the state place him in contrast with Kelsen, Renner, and Adler.

The author then intends to show how the point from which Bauer starts in the development of his political thought coincides with the conclusion reached by Gramsci. If for Bauer the October Revolution represents a significant socialist experiment, however, he considers it unfeasible in the Central European and Western European context: indeed, the fundamental principles of the Linz program contain, in addition to references against right-wing social democratic reformism, a sharp opposition to the Bolshevik political method.

For Gramsci, the October Revolution is a process in whose results he can identify not only Russia but also the Ordine Nuovo project, an embryonic form of a future soviet state.

Moving from the war of position to the vision of the role of intellectuals, Albers is keen to specify how important this point was also for Bauer, so much so that he argued "not to break heads, but to win them"[554]; just like Gramsci, Bauer also has an enlarged vision of the intellectual, interested in intellectual and technical personnel, which in his opinion has the function of ensuring the perpetuation of the domination of capital. Although there is not much theoretical material dedicated to the Party, in Bauer a clear idea emerges on the need for social democracy to become a mass party and at the same time he considers it necessary to guarantee political unity despite the internal tendencies of the party.

Marxism, for Bauer as well as for Gramsci, has lost its obviousness as the ideology of the workers' movement: the former argues for a crisis of Marxism and the latter also responds with a definition of the new tasks of authentic Marxism; the author dwells, in the case of Gramsci, on the critique of economism and Bukharin's vulgar materialism, while presenting the divergences within social democracy for Bauer. For the renewal of Marxism also in the young Bauer there is a push towards historicity and an enlargement of the horizons of Marxist knowledge, but his most important contribution are the reflections on the revolution in the West, or rather: the slow revolution. In the Linz program, we find the concretization of a conception of the economic transition, the theorem of moments of equilibrium in particular situations at the height of the class struggle and above all the idea, the guiding thread, of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the strategy of the democratic road to socialism for advanced capitalist countries.

Between the First and Second World War, Bauer's thought often flowed into that task that he considered primary: to overcome the social democratic thesis and the communist antithesis in view of a new and higher synthesis that unites them.

For Bauer, the transition to socialism is possible in democratic conditions with an intermediate phase, in a temporally and spatially determined horizon, both at the national and international level: a slow revolution. Although both criticize the conceptions of vulgar materialism, Bauer is much less harsh towards the economistic ideological baggage. What unites the two Marxist politicians is the search for a new terrain on which to renew Marxism: in the case of Gramsci, it is reached through the enlargement of the state, with an activity that includes both the coercive apparatus and the one aimed at the creation or maintenance of consent. Bauer intends the transition to socialism through a long series of revolutionary processes, which are reached through a long chain of transformations of state and social forms.

Albers' attempt to place the political theory of the two leaders of the workers' movement on the same level has an immediate political interest. An exponent of the left of German social democracy, Albers is interested in involving his party in the epochal changes of the European communist parties. To this end, an alignment between the theories of the father of Eurocommunism and one of the most authoritative exponents of Central European social democracy can be of great help for a change in the real politics of contemporary social democracy, in full crisis after the great electoral success of the conservative forces.

Unlike VSA, which since the 1970s has been particularly active in the publication of everything concerning Eurocommunism, the PCI, and the interpretative lines linked to the European communist parties, and therefore has also dealt with Gramsci, the efforts of Argument concern well-defined study projects and do not follow circumscribed or delimited political lines, allowing connections and publications of different interpretations. Argument in these years is committed to the dissemination and placing of Gramsci as a theoretical reference point through a constant use of his reflections and categories that are gradually spreading in German scientific literature; this perseverance is increasingly explicit in the contributions that appear in each issue of the journal with a constancy that blames the journal: "Argument seems determined, in the study of a newly discovered vocabulary, to go to the limit of the readability of its issues (and special issues!!)"[555].

The Argument Projects

Within the framework of a broad project, the Projekt Ideologie-Theorie (PIT), which saw the publication by Argument, as special issues of the journal, of a series of volumes dedicated to various aspects of ideology, Jan Rehmann addresses, in this first volume dedicated to the theme of fascism and ideology, specifically the theories on fascism and the use of ideology by fascism according to Marxist analyses[556]. The author aims to explain the different approaches of Marxist philosophers and politicians to fascism, in an attempt not to resolve but to better clarify two different interpretations of the predominant characteristics in the relationship between fascism and ideology: the first is defined as Agententheorie (Agent Theory) and the second as Verselbständigung (Autonomization)[557]. Following a rigorous critique of the interpretations of Reinhard Opitz and Kühnl, Rehmann opens a chapter on the effects and internal struggle within fascism by intellectuals such as Zetkin, Bloch, Togliatti, and Gramsci.

If Zetkin emphasized the impact of fascist terror on Italian society, followed by ideological and political struggle, Bloch initiates a research based on the category of the non-contemporaneity of the subjective and the objective to understand class antagonisms: in the present, elements of the past are found that correspond to an uneven, non-contemporaneous development of society: this contradiction becomes a tool for division and struggle of antagonisms in capitalist society. Togliatti argues, in his Moscow lectures, the PCI's mistake in having deserted the ideological battlefield during fascism, and this teaches us to take into account the structure of the apparatuses of domination also in the analysis of fascism. Gramsci's contribution arrives "deutlicher und 'theoretischer'"[558]: his research on the ideological is not concentrated on false consciousness or as an expression of the economic reality of class, he dedicates himself to the analysis of the process of socialization in state institutions and associations. Rehmann hints at the internal division of the state superstructure into political society and civil society and recalls Gramsci's analysis of the hegemonic weakness of the Italian state on the eve of fascism, finding in the fascist process the absorption into the state of all activities typical of civil society.

Between March and April 1981, the Instituto de Investigaciones Sociales of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico organized an international seminar in Oaxaca on new social processes and contemporary political theory. An anthology of the interventions presented is published by Argument in a special issue of the journal. From the preface of one of the editors, Wolfgang Fritz Haug, emerges the clear message that Marxism is so lively that it can renew itself, especially in the face of the birth of new social movements; in the new social panorama, different forces, actors, and structures must be related and adequate theoretical tools provided to new issues.

Chantal Mouffe[559] opens by asking whether Gramsci's reflections are truly a point of arrival for contemporary Marxism: Gramsci's thesis on the hegemonic character of the working class is, according to her, unsustainable; not because the proletariat has lost this privilege with the development of capitalism, a privilege justified at the level of a philosophy of history where a class has a mission to accomplish, but because this leitmotif has resulted in a reduction of issues to an economistic character.

Mouffe continues with a critique that dismantles the premises from which many Marxist theories start and formulates some doubts about the real composition of the workers' movement that should refer to socialism in the contemporary era. The author also highlights an error in equating social relations with relations of production, while the rest of the relations is addressed as the fruit of ideologies, aimed at justifying the conditions of reproduction and existence of the relations of production. We must ask: what interests are we talking about and which working class? Mouffe shows how with the specialization of industrial labor, the figure of the professional worker is disappearing, a passage that Marx defined as the loss of control over the labor process and, on individual labor, as a passage from a "formelle Subsumption" to a "reelle Subsumption"[560]. Only in the 1960s did Marxists begin to take an interest in this kind of themes, such as Marcuse with Der eindimensionale Mensch[561], but it is also a responsibility to attribute to Marx this widespread blindness, as he carried forward a conception that implied the neutrality of the productive forces.

Christine Buci-Glucksmann intervenes with an essay on the forms of politics and conceptions of power[562]. Where the imperialistic counterattack of contemporary world politics emerges through the government of liberal-conservative forces, the author argues that we must intervene with the new social movements to build a new conception of the political sphere and of politics itself, which, Buci-Glucksmann proposes, "ich mit Gramsci eine erweiterte Konzeption der Politik und der Demokratie nennen möchte"[563]. To the rooted right-wing anti-statism, populist and corporatist, which expresses itself in a false liberality, and to bourgeois anti-Keynesianism, which increasingly endangers democracy and representativeness, it is therefore necessary to confront with a "Wiederaufnahme des bei Marx und Gramsci vorhandenen Problems der società civile und der Politik"[564].

Also Stuart Hall[565], whose intervention is published even though it was not presented at the seminar, resorts to Gramsci to describe the crisis of political representation, citing a passage in which the Sardinian describes that process of sudden detachment from traditional ideologies as the moment when the old is dead, but the new cannot yet be born. The current crisis of democracy makes Hall think also of another Gramscian passage according to which even without "Caesar," there can be Caesarian solutions. Hall's attention then turns to the sensitive growth of the right and their reorganization. The Jamaican intellectual notes how every modern crisis is linked to a crisis of authority, to a ruling class that has lost its consensus and no longer leads, but dominates, exercising violence. This means that the masses are far from traditional ideology and the restoration of order is only possible through further regulations that leverage a populistic campaign of "law and order." Connected to the theme of the change of traditional ideology, there is, according to Hall, the problem of the construction of a new type of common sense, impossible to instill suddenly as knowledge in everyday life, but possible only on the condition that an existing reality is acknowledged and renewed, making it critical.

The study of ideology by Argument continues in 1984 with another special issue of the journal entitled Die Camera Obscura der Ideologie; here another intervention by Hall[566] pays particular attention to the developments of the concept of ideology in contemporary Marxism in a path of detachment from non-economistic but equally deterministic visions. Gramsci has reminded, hints Hall, that with the ideological form and on the ideological terrain, the masses can acquire awareness and consciousness: only with an ideological battle can a new system of thought replace that of the ruling class. The war of position thus presents itself as a process of deconstruction and reconstruction of a common sense, the spontaneous form of popular thought. Often, adds Hall, it is precisely on the plane of common sense that ideological struggles take place.

From Literary Sociology to Cinema

Already in 1978, Gerd Würzberg had introduced German readers to a new discipline to which Gramsci could make a fundamental contribution. Two years later, Jürgen Link and Ursula Heer publish a manual on the sociology of literature aimed at proposing a didactic alternative different from the classical tradition of literary studies imposed by academic or ministerial tendencies in the regulation of university study of Literature[567].

In a rich panorama of contributions on the relationship between literature, masses, and individuals, we also find that of Antonio Gramsci; in a chapter dedicated to social institutions and communication, the principles of materialist theory in the theoretical recognition of the Ideological State Apparatuses accomplished by Althusser are immediately taken into consideration. Gramsci's theory serves here as an integration, recognizing the difference between organic institutions, that is, functional to a particular class or social group, and hegemonic ones that allow the integration of society as a whole. The term organic, conceptually close to that of corporative, was found by Gramsci in Lenin's What Is to Be Done?. Behind Gramsci's vision of the economic-corporate phase lies Lenin's vision defined as economic-syndicalist: it follows that the union is the organic institution par excellence of the proletariat. All these institutions play a fundamental role also in literature.

Following this hint, a central chapter of the volume deals in depth with the concept of the historical bloc with a sociological approach. The authors provide a depiction of the concept of the historical bloc according to multiple dimensions, derived from two different accents with which Gramsci describes the concept of the historical bloc. The first is figuratively illustrated as a vertical division that concerns the multiple layers formed by social classes; while the second has its subdivisions represented horizontally and concerns different sections of social practices: economic, political, cultural.

The historical bloc in the first sense is defined as "sozial-historischer Block" (social-historical bloc), in the second as "formierend-historischer Block" (organized historical bloc)[568]. The hegemonic class or social group ensures its hegemony through the constitution and stability of a historical bloc of the second type (formierend-historischer Block), that is, through the attempt to functionally harmonize the totality of practices and social spheres. This harmonization is conscious only in a small part of the spheres. At this point, Link and Heer find a connection with Talcott Parsons' theory of deviance.

The cornerstone of the "formierend-historischer Block" is the state, in the sense of the repressive state apparatus, to which, according to constitutionalist theories, the monopoly of force is granted. According to Gramsci, equally indispensable are the structures designated by civil society in institutions carrying social ideology. The social part of a "formierend-historischer Block," which corresponds to a "sozialhistorischer Block," can also be defined as a historically and socially specific culture. In a concrete historical situation, for the ruling class, there are often different alternatives to the construction of a social-historical bloc: hegemonic unity can be built through the inclusion or exclusion of different classes or strata, privileging some groups. These alternatives are discussed and decided within the framework of political praxis. Within the hegemonic (political) class, class fractions can develop, sometimes corresponding to parties, which have different representations regarding the concrete structure of the social-historical bloc. One of these fractions must then conquer hegemony within the class to exercise hegemony also in the overall social-historical bloc.

This brief illustration of the relations of hegemony within the two schemes, the first with layers of social classes and the second based on the sphere of social activity, is followed by a collection of some passages from Gramsci's Prison Notebooks useful for understanding the analysis from the source. The texts refer to Riechers' collection, although the use of the Prison Notebooks in Italian in the thematic edition is evident from the bibliography to the volume.

A further use of Gramscian categories serves the authors to explain the role of intellectuals, clarifying the difference affirmed by Gramsci between organic and traditional intellectuals, and a connection is also found between Gramsci's theory and Mannheim's thesis on the possibility of some intellectual strata becoming "Freischweben"[569].

In German, a volume of Marxist film criticism is published, the work of Guido Aristarco with a preface by Lukács; differently from what Ferdinando Rocco[570] had done about ten years earlier, Aristarco manages to effectively use Gramscian criticism even towards a phenomenon then in its infancy as mass culture, such as that of cinema[571]. Rocco in 1954 had limited himself to a search for explicit references to cinema in Gramsci's writings, finding sporadic hints of interest more on the influence on the public and the meaning of custom. Aristarco's work is completely different: he indeed takes from Gramsci's critiques of literature some models that can also serve as a method for film criticism. Important are the reflections on the distinction between form and content written in polemic with Bukharin also for the critique of the tenth Muse, as well as, in reference to the critique of Giacomo Debenedetti, Aristarco welcomes the invitation of a return to De Sanctis in the sense indicated by Gramsci. The author, in tracing his critique of contemporary and popular cinema in relation to Marxist criticism, is aided by many notes from the Prison Notebooks. He does not limit himself to those dedicated to literary criticism and aesthetics, but often grasps the connection of some philosophical observations, comparing them with other Marxist thinkers such as Marx, Lenin, and Lukács.

Gramsci and German Catholics

Sporadic references to Gramsci are also found in left-wing Catholic contexts. Fritz J. Raddatz, for example, refers to some Italian theoretical syntheses (Gramsci-Debatte, Gruppi's monograph on Gramscian hegemony, and Cerroni's Gramscian lexicon) and German ones (the contributions of Riechers and Kramer) to present a cameo of Gramsci also from a theoretical point of view[572], as an inspirer of that political line of independence from Moscow carried forward by Togliatti's PCI. The harsh theoretical confrontation with Croce's interpretation of Marxism is emphasized, despite the master Labriola. Raddatz validates Riechers' thesis regarding Gramsci's idealism, arguing that in the prison writings, Gramsci often returns to Croce and, although often critical, "bleibt spürbar ein idealistischer Grundzug in seiner Argumentation"[573]. This, following the title of the paragraph, should characterize Gramsci as anti-Stalinist: "Utopie als Anti-stalinismus"[574]. The biographical events of Gramsci, intertwined with political ones, to which the author adds some interludes of political theory, finally remind the author of the fate of Carl von Ossietzky. Raddatz concludes his writing with excerpts from the 1926 letter addressed by Gramsci to Togliatti for the Central Committee of the Soviet party. The author, in his bibliography of texts on Gramsci, recalls a publication just released in the FRG: it is Gramscis Asche, by Pier Paolo Pasolini, a translation of Le ceneri di Gramsci, translated into German only in 1980[575].

Differently from Raddatz and from other previous contributions also of Catholic stamp[576], the reference to Gramsci is instead placed in a very negative way by Johannes Hampel[577] in a publication of the Bavarian Catholic bishops dedicated to the construction of Europe. The "provocation" of Eurocommunism by the Italian, Spanish, and French communist parties is the pretext with which the author can offer an excursus of the theoretical errors of Marxism. In the Italian framework, Gramsci inspired the idea of the historic compromise. In Gramsci's thought, for the alliance of workers and peasants, the latter had to be freed from the domination of the Church: the solution of the religious question is for Gramsci the key to the future of Italy. The communist leader was the first Italian socialist to deal with such intensity with the religious phenomenon, and his project of alliance between the proletariat and peasant masses should not be read as a capitulation of religion. The brief text, without forgetting a list of Soviet crimes, ends with harsh criticisms of the PCI and its political strategy, as well as of Gramsci, who veiled with the name of "hegemony of the working class," what in reality remains "dictatorship of the proletariat"[578].

The Translation of Gramsci in the GDR

Sabine Kebir, who had already published an abstract of her thesis in the pages of Weimarer Beiträge in 1975[579], was able to publish the full version of her work in 1979 with Akademie Verlag in Berlin (GDR). With the publication license granted by the authorities of the German Democratic Republic the following year, the essay also appeared in the Federal Republic with Damnitz in Munich[580].

It is worth recalling that for the 40th anniversary of Gramsci's death, the Academy for Social Sciences at the Central Committee of the SED and the Institute for the International Workers' Movement organized a conference on Gramsci[581]. This event, which in itself did not bring original interpretations, nevertheless opened up the discussion on Gramsci and allowed scholars from the GDR to engage with his work more comfortably. Gramsci was no longer seen as a heretic figure used in the imperialist West but was institutionally recognized as a revolutionary and internationalist. In this context, Sabine Kebir was in some ways a precursor, and her contributions, which became increasingly prolific in the 1980s, facilitated an openness to Gramscian themes.

The work, as the title suggests, is dedicated to Gramsci's conception of culture and the anti-fascist alliance policy made possible through the growing hegemony of the proletariat. Gramsci's thought is linked to the reconstruction of the dialectical core of the Marxist lesson in opposition to the positions of vulgar materialism of the Second International. In this way, the author argues, Gramsci enters the discussions of the Third International, whose goal is the achievement of a Leninist policy both at the theoretical and organizational levels.

Kebir's work, due to its delayed publication, could engage with much of the German and international interpretations that had developed up to the mid-1970s. Indeed, a section of the work, placed at the end, revisits some of the interpretative lines followed by Gramscian studies. From the beginning of the 1970s, according to the author, there was an increased interest in Gramsci's critical notes on vulgar materialism; however, this has led to interpretations that are sometimes partial and at other times erroneous. The example of Riechers is symbolic for the idealist reading of Gramsci's work, but Althusser also moves in this direction, the author continues. Indeed, the French philosopher reproached Gramsci for not having recognized the theoretical shift, a real break, experienced by Marx in the transition from his early to his mature period: Gramsci would still be hostage to a theory that operates at a Hegelian level. In the same vein, Kebir notes, one can also read the notes of Lucien Sève. Although it is clear to Kebir that Gramsci does not have a materialist approach to the human being, he is still defined as too little historical-dialectical. Another incorrect interpretation is that provided by Iring Fetscher in support of the primacy of culture in the revolutionary process. Similar opinions, the author exemplifies, have been expressed in the contributions of Bobbio, Tamburrano, and Kosík.

The analysis presented in the early 1970s by Gerhard Roth[582], although it has the merit of having freed the reading of Gramsci from the mortgage of Riechers' work, according to the author, has reduced Gramsci's merit to an intellectual and moral reform, and for him too, Gramsci remains a revolutionary of the superstructures.

Kebir observes that in these altered elaborations, Gramsci's critique of Croce has usually been ignored, despite the first Italian thematic edition of Gramsci's writings dedicating an entire volume to it. In Croce, the author explains, Gramsci sees the elimination of any regularity in history and the hypertrophy of the subjective moment as the primary and driving force of history.

Gramsci's work, according to Kebir, as already appears from the title and on this point the scholar will insist in future studies, aims at a broad alliance of anti-fascist and anti-capitalist forces, and his figure as a party man serves as a theoretical guide for the Italian proletariat. His thought has sometimes been judged not "within" Marxism but "close" to it: this is due to the lack of a proper contextualization of his work. Marxist terminology, another factor of distorted understanding, was changed in the editing of the Prison Notebooks to circumvent the problem of censorship, so an almost necessary retranslation into the language Gramsci used in the pre-prison period would be required. The criticisms from the left directed at Gramsci, by exponents of the PCI or the French Communist Party, have preferred to leave the Sardinian's work in a vague decontextualization to doubt its continuity with Marxist-Leninist thought. On the interpretative line opened by Togliatti, the studies of Spriano, Gruppi, Badaloni, Grigoreva, Texier, and Buci-Glucksmann have instead distinguished themselves.

Kebir prefaces her discussion on Gramsci's conception of culture with a register of those key Gramscian concepts that are certainly unknown to the reader but could be useful for understanding the development of his theory. The author starts from the dialectic between the national and the international, moves on to the Risorgimento, then to Taylorized man, and again to the overcoming of common sense through a scientific worldview. Regarding the explanation of the concept of Taylorized man, Kebir argues that Gramsci left behind that anthropologically abstract conception of man used by Croce to move towards a historically determined vision: every man is in a work system that operates on an assembly line; the rhythm of that type of production also involves the work of the middle class, whether it is office or administrative work. The Taylorized man even appears in crime novels, protagonist and reader at the same time, a type of man now general.

Until the 1930s, a certain skepticism towards the rationalization of labor prevailed in much of the European workers' movement, Kebir explains. Gramsci recognizes in the assembly line an objective that unites the state of production development and the necessary form of labor in that precise era. The intensification of production is for Gramsci one of the most important objectives among the processes of the time, under which the struggle between the two main social forces was fought: the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, a vision that corresponds to that of Lenin, who considered Taylorism a tool of exploitation by the bourgeoisie but advocated its rapid introduction into socialist production under the control and use of the workers' movement. Kebir also recalls with Gramsci's words how "the futurist enthusiasm for industrialization remained superficial and in many cases turned, during the First World War, into militarist and chauvinist positions, into the celebration of modern war"[583].

Already in 1916, Gramsci expressed himself positively towards the intensification of production, in contrast with an Italy still largely based on rents; while in prison, his analyses seek to understand the reasons for the late and non-radical Taylorization in Europe. In Gramsci's analyses, we also find references to a Taylorism that is imposed not only in the factory but also in the life of the worker, a man who, according to Taylor, would be a dressed gorilla, who can be a victim of bourgeois cultural manipulation but can also aspire, according to Gramsci, to class emancipation.

In the direction of class emancipation go Gramsci's observations on common sense, whose overcoming is possible through a scientific worldview. Common sense is an incoherent philosophy of the broad masses, formed by progressive as well as regressive, religious, and secular elements. To understand its nature and characteristics, many of Gramsci's researches, already outlined in his youth, move towards the analysis of popular literature.

The task that Gramsci sets himself is, according to Kebir, comparable to that of Lenin: the scientific concretization of Marxism in a specific country: this is an idea that also dates back to Labriola when he declared that Marxism would have different colors. It is precisely to Labriola that Gramsci refers, affirming the possibility of taking from other philosophies what could be of theoretical interest for historical materialism.

Despite his predominantly Crocean formation, from which also derives an initial reading and interpretation of Marx, Gramsci overcomes this phase thanks to the thought of Lenin, of whom he was also a translator and propagator, and the success of the October Revolution. Togliatti specified that Gramsci's article The Revolution Against Capital is the article of a revolutionary against a positivist interpretation of Marx's Capital. This implies that in Gramsci we also find Lenin's imperialist theory: in the era of imperialism, the revolution is conceived not only in capitalist countries but also in countries considered weak links in the imperialist chain. The Ordine Nuovo movement and the council experience show the opportunity to overcome reformist politics and, as Christine Buci-Glucksmann has emphasized, it is the detailed assimilation of Lenin's imperialist theory. Like Lenin, Gramsci sees in imperialism not only a new economic stage of capitalism but also a new political phase.

The concept of civil society in Gramsci, as Bobbio has argued, is not the one intended by Marx; the communist leader has indeed filled it with a different meaning. Labriola, dealing with the superstructure, had already understood a necessary distinction between art, religion, and the like, from other superstructural factors, such as those of a legal order.

Although Gramsci did not know Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, where Lenin argues for the existence of objective reality independent of human consciousness, his thought was very close to it. In this regard, Kebir cites the example that Gramsci writes about the existence of electricity, a historically active force as an element of production when dominated by man, but which by its nature would not influence history by itself.

Lenin had directed a critique to Bukharin's Economics of the Transition Period for reasons similar to those that Gramsci uses in his critique of the Manual, which, in addition to making dialectics impracticable, divides Marxism into two: into a sociology and a systemic philosophy. In 1915, Lenin highlights the dialectic between subjective and objective factors: not in all revolutionary situations can the revolution occur, but only when objective changes are added to the subjective one, that is, the ability of the revolutionary class to reach the masses. Among the reactions to Bukharin's baroque theories, Gramsci also writes notes on Lukács, whom Gramsci notes falls into idealism.

Kebir continues her examination with Gramsci's critique of Croce and then arrives at the necessity of the anti-fascist alliance and the national-popular culture, in close connection with the war of position, and sees the genesis of this theory in the Lyon Theses of 1926. In this part, Kebir considers the essay on the Southern Question and strongly highlights the two main problems identified by Gramsci in the Italian case: the Southern Question and the Vatican Question.

In the second part of the text, we find some themes already treated in the abstract for Weimarer Beiträge; the author also hints at Gramsci's relationship with the Futurists, a theme that will be deepened with its historical context in a 1989 essay, where the participation of Futurism in the creation of consent for the fascist regime is also considered[584].

Among the categories that Kebir highlights emerge Brescianism and the analysis of serial novels as tools of reaction, and other themes of a literary and popular nature, interpretative tools for Gramscian philosophy and which will become, for the scholar, here guilty according to Zamiš of some philological inaccuracies[585], one of the red threads of her research.

The need to read Gramsci is an implicit but peremptory request. To respond to this, in 1980, Reclam in Leipzig published a pocket anthology of Gramsci's writings[586]. The editor is Guido Zamiš, "Grahlshüter stalinistischen Monolithismus"[587], who accompanies the selection of texts with his own postface. The predominant themes concern politics, history, and culture, and the angle that the editor has preferred to give to the anthology highlights Gramsci's role as a "man of the party. The problem of the party, the problem of forming a revolutionary organization of the working class capable of framing and leading the struggle of the entire proletariat and the working masses for their liberation, this problem was at the center of all the activity of the entire life and thought of Antonio Gramsci"[588]. The selection of texts had to bend, explains Zamiš, to the needs of a pocket edition, and there is great regret for not being able to give space to Gramsci's complex and complete critique of Croce.

In the postface, the editor informs the reader about the biographical and historical context of Gramsci's texts. Zamiš does not delve into the depth of Gramscian categories but makes some hints; among these, the concept of hegemony is reported as an explicit reference to Lenin. Certainly, some clarifications that the editor makes hinting at Gramsci's critique of Trotsky's theory or on Gramsci's biography are noteworthy, for example, regarding the episode of the 1926 letter to the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party: Gramsci was not aware of the gravity of Trotsky and Zinoviev's behavior and was simply concerned about a possible split.

Harald Neubert[589], in a favorable review of the collection, recalls the help provided by Elsa Fubini for the compilation of the critical apparatus and the fact that the Roderberg publishing house in Frankfurt obtained the publication license of the volume for the FRG. Neubert rejoices at this publication, which can set a limit to the instrumentalizations by Western readings (the reference is to Franz Marek, who attempted to contrast Gramsci's legacy with Lenin and the policy of the Comintern). Zamiš's selection, which covers a wide spectrum of the themes treated by Gramsci, can provide an answer to some fundamental historical questions: the failed revolution in the West, the essence of fascism, the alliance policy of the workers' movement.

Harald Neubert in 1982 proposes a comparison of Lenin and Gramsci's political observations on the hegemony of the working class and the struggle of communists in capitalist countries[590], where Gramsci is inserted within an analysis of Leninist theory, the theory of hegemony that has roots already in the work of Marx and Engels; Lenin already in 1911 argued for the necessity of the workers' movement to be at the forefront, in a conscious and hegemonic position, in the struggle of the entire people for democratic overthrow. What distinguishes Gramsci's thought is not, as Riechers argued, a correction of the Leninist idea; on the contrary, Gramsci has taken up Lenin's concept and developed it in concrete use, with the particularity of sometimes using it in the sense of hegemony and domination together.

Still in the interpretative vein that sees Gramsci's work in substantial continuity with that of Lenin, in an essay dedicated to ideology and law in the socialist system[591], Uwe-Jens Heuer considers Gramsci's work by analyzing some of Lenin's reflections on the superstructural theme, that is, at the moment when ideological issues become of greater weight with the needs of social existence inside and outside production. Linked to Lenin's vision, the author proposes the conceptual distinction that Gramsci develops in the conditions of Western Europe. Heuer reports, referring to Sabine Kebir's work, that Gramsci postulated the necessity, even before the revolution, of a more aggressive struggle also on the terrain of civil society, that is, against the ideological bastions of the ruling class, in order to overthrow both domination and spiritual and moral guidance.

The path opened by Zamiš with the translation of some political writings of the communist leader continues in 1983, but in the FRG, for VSA in Hamburg, with the translation, by Sabine Kebir, of Marxism and Literature[592], an anthology published in Italy in 1975 edited by Giuliano Manacorda for Editori Riuniti[593]. In addition to a brief introductory note by the translator, which aims to link the Sardinian's political biography with some aspects of his literary criticism and cultural conception, we find the translation of the original preface to Manacorda's text reported as a postface. Here, as a premise to a critical reading and clarifications on some passages of the fragments of the prison work, the organic character of Gramsci's reflections is accentuated, which do not stop at a specific field but have an interest in multiple areas of knowledge. Klaus Jochem, in his positive review of the volume appearing in Argument[594], recognizes that the conception of national-popular literature developed by Gramsci "already outlines the framework of a progressive literary criticism"[595].

To inaugurate a new strand of Gramscian studies, which in Italy has come to life thanks to the commitment of Franco Lo Piparo[596], Klaus Bochmann, who is editing a Gramscian anthology for upcoming publication, intervenes on Gramsci's linguistic vision[597]. This essay serves as a presentation of Gramsci's role in linguistic studies in a highly specialized journal; indeed, the author notes, only recently have contributions to the study of the linguistic side of Gramsci's work increased. Bochmann specifies that Gramsci's work is among the first to deal with linguistics starting from the methodological presuppositions of historical and dialectical materialism. The Sardinian recognizes three tendencies of linguistics: the neogrammarians, of positivist stamp, Crocean linguistics, idealist, and areal linguistics or neolinguistics, represented by the studies of Matteo Bartoli, the young Gramsci's teacher at the University of Turin. Gramsci's linguistic reflections, Bochmann explains, see as a fundamental principle the unity of thought and expression: from here the Sardinian moves in an all-encompassing set of conceptions and concepts that identify with culture and philosophy, the worldview. Indeed, the Sardinian, unlike the Crocean vision linked to language as the expression of an individualist artistic intuition, finds the rational fulcrum in a historical perspective closely linked to art and language. Gramsci's reflections, to which Bartoli's teaching has contributed, in some respects, Bochmann argues, coincide in substance with Marx's statements in The German Ideology, although Gramsci, long in prison, could not know this text, published in its first edition in Moscow in 1932.

The emphasis placed by Gramsci on the unity of language and thought is at the same time a reaction to the Crocean as well as the neogrammarian approach. Gramsci uses the metaphor of parthenogenesis to describe the blind influence of phonetic rules, which do not recognize other factors of influence outside their own physical mechanisms. The novelty of Bartoli was, Gramsci recalls, to have made linguistics, understood as a natural science, a historical science; the professor of Glottology sought its roots in space and time, in contrast to a physiological communicative apparatus; linguistic concepts come to life from historical and geographical phenomena such as the description of the relationship between different areas of linguistic influence, and Bartoli owes the constitution of these concepts to the work of Graziadio Isaia Ascoli.

The innovation that brings Gramsci beyond linguistics consists in having taken the concept of prestige as a factor of influence in linguistic changes and having introduced it into Marxist thought with an integration of the concept of hegemony, thus making it a tool of historical-materialist interpretation of the history of linguistics. Hegemony, in the Gramscian sense, as the ideological-cultural guidance of the popular masses through the assumption of political and economic domination, includes the imposition of a language, or rather a sociolect, of the hegemonic class in what is public, through its intellectuals.

Faced with the sociologism of the Meillet school, the concept of hegemony, socio-economically founded, is an instrumental element in the relationship between the social structure and the sociolinguistic differences of a country or a community.

Compared to the essay conceived for the linguistics journal of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, the introductory note by Klaus Bochmann, to the collection of Gramsci's writings edited by him, Notizen zur Sprache und Kultur[598], has a less specialized intent and is more attentive to the multiple political elements of Gramsci's linguistic conception. Bochmann opens with a famous quote that, according to the Sardinian's testimony, he should have been for his professor of glottology at the University of Turin: "the archangel destined to definitively profligate the 'neogrammarians'"[599].

Hinting at Bartoli's critique of the neogrammarians, Bochmann explains that Gramsci's battle, according to his teacher's lesson, not only reflects the struggle against the dominance of positivism in the social sciences at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries but also represents a parallel for the battle against the exposition of Marxism in a fatalistic-economistic key according to the reading of the Second International and the Italian Socialist Party. The editor uses this same interpretative key, aimed at linking linguistics to political action, to refer to the criticisms written by Gramsci in 1918 against the policy of the Socialist Party represented by Claudio Treves: the leader would have reduced Marx's teaching to an external scheme. Target of a similar accusation, but in the linguistic field, would also be Croce, in whom the author recognizes a figure that had a determining influence in Gramsci's youth in the anti-dogmatic aspects and for his philosophical immanentism: architect of what the Sardinian in mature age defines as an attempt at moral and intellectual reform. Bochmann reminds the reader that at the time Croce had a catalytic function and if in the early articles Gramsci defines linguistics still following some Crocean traces, in the drafting of the Prison Notebooks he will completely free himself from them. Palmiro Togliatti, in an article dedicated to Gramsci, Leader of the Working Class, confirms this close link that exists between Marxism and linguistic studies in the Sardinian's thought. In this regard, Bochmann recalls the Ordine Nuovo period, when Gramsci's goal was to translate, transpose, Lenin's theory of the state into Italy.

The author also reports news of Gramsci's battles against the illusion of realizing forms of expression artificially "by decree": at the basis of language and its oral and written use there must be a social need; on the same principles rests Gramsci's opposition to linguistic projects such as Esperanto, a language that does not communicate and does not express any real culture, a symptom, Gramsci synthesizes with a metaphor, of neolalism. Linked to the imposition of expressive forms is also Gramsci's critique of the linguistic policy advanced by Manzoni, who intended to introduce Florentine as the national language by decree.

During the Ordine Nuovo period, Gobetti leaves his testimony on the council movement and its organizers in a letter to Prezzolini, in which he explains that the editorial staff of L'Ordine Nuovo is made up of literati and technicians, who have set aside abstractionism by freeing themselves from "grammatical" and linguistic training to go with the workers into the factories.

On the political side, Bochmann again reminds readers that the Comintern's analyses of Italian fascism are largely due to Antonio Gramsci.

After a brief review of the themes treated in the Prison Notebooks, the author highlights the philosophical and theoretical, cultural and sociological contribution that Gramsci left for the development of Marxism, drawing inspiration and connecting to specific aspects of Lenin's theory of imperialism. This, the author specifies, despite a language of the Prison Notebooks, sometimes responsible for distorted interpretations, actually due to the prison censorship regime.

Recalling what was already written in the contribution for the linguistics journal of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR, introducing the concept of hegemony, Bochmann delves further into the political field and clarifies the difference of this concept from that of domination and its kinship with Lenin's strategy of the two tactics.

In substantial continuity with the interpretative line that strengthens the relationship between Lenin and Gramsci, Bochmann's contribution, philologically supported by Lo Piparo's study, will find deepening and the enucleation of original interpretations in the second half of the 1980s.

Annegret Kramer, already known in the FRG for the 1975 study[600] that, following the path opened by Gerhard Roth, stood in contrast to the Riechersian interpretation, in 1984 publishes in Beiträge zur Geschichte der Arbeiterbewegung[601] a contribution on the relationship between the workers' movement and the intelligentsia. The task of the communists is to ensure international peace and democratic and social progress, for this reason today it is necessary to revise the relationship of communion within the working class, to which the intelligentsia also belongs. Gramsci is one of the thinkers who has made a fundamental contribution to the Marxist-Leninist conception in Italy and to the international workers' movement regarding revolutionary theory, as well as the development of culture. Rodney Arismendi[602] has stated that Gramsci is probably the greatest Marxist theorist of our time regarding the role of the intelligentsia and the question of the organization of culture.

Kramer analyzes Gramsci's conception of the intellectual and his relationship with the class of belonging; the communist leader asks whether one can speak in general of intellectuals who belong to a certain class or rather are part of a group in itself. The Gramscian answer arrives, in the complex analysis of the real historical process, at the formation of two groups: organic intellectuals and traditional ones. The two categories are used by Gramsci in a complex way, however, a closeness to the class of the conceptual ideologist of the bourgeoisie theorized by Marx and Engels is found; moreover, the two concepts are in stark contrast to those conceptions of the intelligentsia typically bourgeois and reformist that postulate objectivity, autonomy, and the lack of interests of the intellectuals themselves and of their political and ideological products. One of the examples of this conception, contemporary to Kramer, is Die Intelligenz als neue Klasse, by A. W. Gouldner, published in 1980. To stimulate reflections on the liberal sense, the author brings a reference in a note to the famous Crocean review of the Prison Letters, where Gramsci was defined as "one of us." The author emphasizes that Gramsci rejects the overestimation of the role of intellectuals in the creation of ideology and is particularly attentive in the analysis of the gnoseological roots of idealism as well as its effects for individual intellectual consciousness.

Gramsci: Strategic Lesson or the Construction of a New Marxism? (1985-1989)

The Father of the Cultural Revolution

From the pages of Criticón, a "conservative" periodical[603], which serves as a megaphone for the tendencies of the new European right led by Alain de Benoist's nouvelle droite[604], in an issue dedicated to the cultural revolution, an article by Günter K. Platzdasch bestows upon Gramsci the title of Vater der Kulturrevolution[605]. It should be noted that the text heavily suffers from a continuous mockery of the politics of the contemporary German new left and the theoretical reflections stemming from the student movement. The text cites two key Gramscian concepts: the war of position and the organic intellectual; the treatment is not in-depth, but the fact that the author avoids exaggerations in ridicule shows a recognition of some authority in Gramsci's theory, conveyed by that superficial interpretation of Gramscian hegemony made by Alain de Benoist, who for years has been developing a vague strategic method based on culture "in the broadest sense – as a ramp for revolutionary changes"[606]. Gramsci's theory has also been implemented by Mao, and the biography of the Sardinian, cited in its "complex"[607] relationship with fascism, undergoes a reversal: Gramsci is a prominent figure of the Communist Party, who in his heart was close to and attracted by fascism.

Platzdasch's intervention, dedicated by the author to Carl Schmitt, unsurprisingly appears in Criticón, a far-right journal founded in 1970 by Caspar Schrenk-Notzing and Armin Mohler, the latter a strong supporter of Alain de Benoist's theories[608], as well as the editor and translator of the Frenchman's works in Germany. In 1983, in a volume edited by Iring Fetscher, Marieluise Christadler presents the cultural action for the construction of the theoretical corpus to conquer cultural hegemony, with explicit reference to Gramsci, as "Kulturkampf à la Gramsci"[609]: a call that from De Benoist's G.R.E.C.E. (Groupement de recherche et d'études pour la civilisation européenne) is radiating even into the new right in the FRG, so much so that just the previous year another prominent exponent of the new German right and president of the Thule Seminar, Pierre Krebs, in his Die europäische Wiedergeburt[610], explains to the adepts who Antonio Gramsci is and his theory is reduced to securing widespread cultural power; the concept of metapolitics is also introduced here, "approximately the revolutionary war at the level of intuition, thought, culture"[611], one of the slogans of the 1980s among the new European rights to indicate the conservative revolution, a political and cultural path in the new strategy of conquest of power, in opposition to that Marxist intelligentsia that has "taken possession of the cultural leadership positions in the laboratories of thought"[612]. The Thule Seminar, defined as the think tank of the new German right[613], was founded by Krebs in 1980 and already in its name recalls reminiscences of the Masonic lodge founded in Munich in 1917, which generated those who would later become the intellectual cadres of the Nazi secret police, the party itself, and the circle closest to Hitler. With De Benoist, Krebs shares an elitist propensity for the metapolitical battle; he too, aware of Gramsci's lesson, rejects a mass politics and intends to build a form of revolutionary metapolitics for the new German right.

To define more clearly the concept of metapolitics, Junges Forum, a far-right journal that in 1984 is concerned with spreading the thought of the new French right, little known in Germany and often confused "for something similar to 'Neonazis'" or with Le Pen's Front National. For this purpose, a contribution by Jacques Marlaud[614], director of the South African journal Ideas for a Cultural Revolution, appears, demonstrating the intercontinental contacts that these small realities manage to weave. Marlaud introduces the term metapolitics in the sense of support for politics, not a substitute, used for the first time by the new French right at the beginning of the 1970s. The concept itself, even if not the term, is developed by Antonio Gramsci in the 1930s. In his theory, political power appears dependent on other forms of power. Marlaud, in this sense, also refers to the Nietzschean "Umwertung aller Werte"[615]. Gramsci, already from the foundation of the PCI, leaned towards a strategy of cultural action, in the prison notes emerges the concept of culture in the broadest sense, as morality, customs, ideas, traditions, and even common sense. Society rests firmly on this cultural foundation, and one of the essential tasks is to express and transform the values it produces. Marlaud recalls the impossibility for socialism to come to power with a putsch in a Western society, so Gramsci thinks of a cultural war, an offensive that must start from a new type of intellectuals, where everything has a political value: art, science, economics, sports, religion. The effect of metapolitical action has been explained by De Benoist with the results of the French left, helped by television broadcasts with a significant influence. Gramsci's theory, Marlaud continues, differs profoundly from classical Marxism and the reduction of civil society to a simple infrastructure of the economy. The reason why the PCI in Italy, despite this strategy, has not managed to impose itself is due to the fact that, as De Benoist explains, in reality Marxism and liberalism pursue the same egalitarian values, even if with different means. This is not the right strategy for Marxism as it does not find at this level a true opponent to fight in liberalism: the struggle should indeed take place at a higher level. As a final observation on Gramscian theory, which follows some examples of figures such as "Erwecker der Völker"[616] and precedes the agenda of appointments and objectives of the G.R.E.C.E., it is worth noting the vision that the new right has of the organic intellectual: a parasitic intellectual in liberal society, who finds a homeland in the working class but has forgotten his task as an educator. Among the notes, there is a reference to Hans-Dietrich Sander as the first contribution in German on Gramsci seen from the right[617].

"The old right is dead. It has well deserved it," so begins Alain De Benoist in Kulturrevolution von Rechts[618], a volume that collects eight texts by the founder of the G.R.E.C.E., a further publication that follows the two volumes of Aus rechter Sicht[619], reviewed for Das Argument in 1985 by David Bosshart and Heinz Kleger[620], where it emerges that in the face of a new theoretical determination of the right, reference is made to Gramsci for the strategy of occupying cultural power before the conquest of political power, an indispensable condition in advanced societies, for which a long-term ideological work in civil society is invoked. This strategy is defined as metapolitical, or, in Althusser's words, theoretical practice, a task favored by the political incapacity of the left. In the same issue of the journal, we find an intervention by Alex Demirović[621] regarding the proceedings of the XVI national congress of the G.R.E.C.E. entitled Pour un "Gramscisme de droite", published in 1982[622]. Demirović observes that the Gramscian conception of Marxism contemplates a teaching in the political art valid even for the opponents and this seems to be the case for what is happening in the new French and German right. The author cites Platzdasch's article in Criticón that instrumentalizes Gramsci against the left; the aspect of Gramscian analysis received by the right, always highlighted, is hegemony. At the Paris event organized by the G.R.E.C.E., whose name is already a program, Demirović argues, Mohler also participated with an intervention on German identity and the third way; the values that the study group wants to strengthen are those of people and culture, in the effort to destroy egalitarianism and the promises of individualistic happiness advanced by Christianity, liberalism, and Marxism. A cultural revolution of values is therefore necessary, Gramscianism is useful to dismantle the set of elements of the old right that derived from leftist discourses. Gramsci affirms the meaning of cultural power and it is of primary importance to establish, for the new right, a system of values, while the application in politics is seen as secondary. The reference to leftist theorists and especially to Gramsci serves the new right to "intellectually attract and define the field of culture according to Marxist analysis, through the absorption of many concepts, so as to self-determine and create a new 'civilization' – as they call it"[623]. In the journal Widersprüche[624], an article by Hans-Gerd Jaschke on right-wing Gramscianism in France appears. The fundamental lesson of Gramsci for De Benoist is that the ideological majority is worth more than the parliamentary one: the latter, without the former, is destined to ruin. Jaschke argues that without looking at the old right it is impossible to understand the new; for almost twenty years, the French nouvelle Droite has begun a process of separation from its roots, refining and reinterpreting the traditional theoretical characteristics (anti-Semitism, xenophobia) and the strategy proposed by Gramsci has not been without success for this movement in the struggle against liberalism and democracy. Differently from the Gramsci bearer of a new strategy, we find the entire old tradition of the theoretical right: Spengler, Carl Schmitt, Ernst Jünger, and leading figures such as Gobineau, Sorel, Pareto, Evola.

Gramsci, Marxism, and Idealism

In 1985, Horst Müller publishes an essay on the philosophy and science of social praxis entitled Praxis und Hoffnung[625], two terms that the author intends to unite and that refer respectively to Marx and Ernst Bloch. In this substantial review of the tendencies of Marxism from Marx to the 1980s, Western Marxism finds ample space. In this framework, Müller presents the figures of Lukács, Korsch, and Antonio Gramsci, representatives of that intellectual revolt to the process of theoretical construction, which from the Moscow center radiates in Western Europe. The three Marxists live in the same historical period as intellectual exponents of the party and respond to the dominant dogmatism, albeit in different ways. Korsch has opened a line of rupture against the development of Stalinism: comparing himself with Lukács, he believes he has many concordances with the Hungarian philosopher; Gramsci is also interested in Lukács, he would like to deal with him and wonders if Lukács' vision, according to which one can speak of dialectics only in reference to the history of men, is or is not a statement that implies a dualism between humanity and nature. Gramsci's prison writings are testimony to a Marxism at the center of which is praxis. Togliatti has made it the party line, but, for example, even the dissident group of Il Manifesto refers to the Sardinian thinker. Gramsci started from the philosophical independence of the philosophy of praxis affirmed by Labriola, Müller continues, borrowing from Karin Priester the use of some observations by Texier: the philosophy of praxis, characterized by a reality constituted through human praxis, is Gramsci's fundamental contribution.

Within a dictionary of Politics published by Piper, Otto Kallscheuer writes the entry "hegemony"[626], where the meaning in the Gramscian sense dominates, linking the legacy of the concept, in open contrast with objectivistic and economistic interpretations, to the contemporary representatives of Eurocommunism. Gramsci, similarly to Weber, has recognized the state's legitimacy of the coercive monopoly, to which he adds the particularity of the cultural dimension. Differently from the Leninist interpretation, which sees the bourgeois state as essentially an instrument in the hands of the economically dominant bourgeois class, Gramsci arrives at the concept of the extended state, divided into government apparatuses and private apparatuses: civil society, understood in the Hegelian and not Marxian sense. Differently from Althusser, Gramsci's civil society is not formed by state ideological apparatuses, it has the objective of creating a social character conforming in relationships and forms of life. Kallscheuer highlights the points of contact of Gramsci with the cultural materialism of Edward Palmer Thompson, from which he borrows the aforementioned definition of the objectives of civil society. Some indications by Kallscheuer bring Gramsci's theory closer to the analysis of the symbolic codes of social classes by Pierre Bourdieu and still to the normative structure of the public space in Habermas and Negt. Gramscian reflections evoke indeed a theoretical area much broader than the theory of ideologies.

In a didactic work on Marxism and the theory of knowledge in Western Europe, the result of his doctoral thesis, Kallscheuer[627] resumes in the historical inventory of Marxist political philosophy the role of Gramsci, detaching him from the definition of Western Marxism. A decade after his death, Gramsci is taken up by Togliatti to identify the line of the "new party". With the publication of the Quaderni, Togliatti begins his cultural offensive, on the one hand against Croce's religion of freedom and on the other, however unofficially, against Stalinist Diamat. The Sardinian represents best that critical line of the workers' movement towards the unfinished Risorgimento, his historicism is the synthesis of the development of progressive Italian culture in the post-war period, no less important is his thought aimed at the aggregation of intellectuals. Gramsci's thought revolves, according to Kallscheuer, around a central theme: the construction of a collective identity of producers through the hegemonic strategy. Gramsci's Marxism develops from two different sources: the example of Lenin and the Russian revolution on the one hand, the critique of the positivist consciousness of the positive sciences, in which converged from different starting points, Crocean and Gentilian neo-idealism, as well as Bergson and Sorel. It is clear why in Gramsci, faced with the idealistic moment of the reduction of knowledge to consciousness, and faced with the pragmatist element of the identification of theory and praxis, the reflections of the theory of knowledge are fully present, but clearly remain in the background. There are idealistic accents in Gramsci's youthful writings, from which the Sardinian elaborates a model of culture in which knowledge still appears ideally centered on creative consciousness.

Müller's work and that of Kallscheuer are not true manuals, but in a certain way they approach them. Especially the second succeeds in drawing up a mapping, in the true sense of the word as it is a graph, of the descent from idealism and the Marxist tradition of some of the greatest exponents of Italian Marxism, up to the contemporary era, tracing theoretical and philosophical kinships and filiations. In this framework, but also in the European and German one, especially Gramsci is among the major exponents or on par with Lukács and Korsch.

Completed already in 1986, only in 1989 Joachim Ranke publishes his Marxismus und Historismus bei Antonio Gramsci[628], a monumental work in two volumes: to the in-depth philosophical analysis of the first volume is accompanied by the philological acribia of the second, dedicated to notes and critical apparatus. Gramsci, revolutionary and "Wissenschaftler", represents a heterodox Marxism with his philosophy of praxis "in the conception of society and history, as in political theory and ethics: but precisely these peculiarities make the theory more apt to express the revolutionary aspect of Marxism"[629]. Gramscian historicism meets Lenin and Bolshevism through the element of praxis, to which it also provides, through the theory of hegemony, a theoretical basis in opposition to the mechanism and determinism of the Leninist theory of knowledge. In the historical bloc, through a process of assimilation of ideology in the masses, this becomes a material force. The Gramscian concept of hegemony is also much broader than that of Lenin, enriched with elements taken from Sorel and Croce. According to Michele Maggi, who has dedicated a paragraph of his recent work to Ranke's work, the latter fears, resuming Nicola Matteucci's discourse, that although Gramscian hegemony is not assimilable to the dictatorship of the proletariat in itself, its practical result, due to the "state institutionalization of cultural processes" converges in a "dictatorship of bureaucracy without hegemony"[630]. In this sense, Ranke's objections also consider the eventuality of the lack of consent: no delegitimization is foreseen, on the contrary, there is a forcing to intensify the education to consent. Ranke emphasizes the primacy of the cultural front over the political one, so that a transformation of consciousness is necessary before the conquest of state power, so much so that the distance between Lenin and Gramsci is not only due to a different strategic terrain, but to a different "peculiar form mentis of Gramsci, congruent with the idealistic formation of the Turin study years"[631]. The Gramscian historicist component accepts the Crocean reduction of Marxism and the determining element of history is not in the objective conditions, but in the dimension of the "subjective factor" thus proposing an integral revolutionary ideology (unlike Leninism); however, antinomies inherent in the historicism of Gramsci's thought are produced, which Ranke calls "wertontologisch". Gramsci, through the monism of the regulated society, would thus place himself "in the neo-Hegelian perspective, with the same characteristics of 'totalitarianism' and effective 'statolatry' of Gentile"[632], an objection resumed by Ranke similarly for the Modern Prince. Approached, but divergent, first to Sorel and then more decisively to Gentile, according to Ranke, Gramsci is however in substantial continuity with Croce.

Stuart Hall, an Invitation to Think in a Gramscian Way

In 1987, a contribution by Stuart Hall focused on the phenomenon of Thatcherism appears in the journal kulturRRevolution[633]. The origin of this new conservatism and the historical conjuncture that contemporary Britain is living. His analysis is guided by the example of Gramsci, in fact, the author invites the reader not to use the Sardinian's work, but rather to think in a Gramscian way. With this, Hall means the ability to distinguish the differences, changes, historical specificities that we have before us, recognizing the multiple forces that converge to create a new historical terrain. The reference to contemporary politics also leads him to specify the concept of organic ideology thought by the communist leader: it is a historically effective ideology, which is articulated in different subjects, identities, projects, and aspirations. Organic ideology, however, does not reflect interests as such, but the political ability to organize these interests into a coherent unity.

Published by Argument, an anthology of writings by the Jamaican scholar proposes an essay on Gramsci's contribution to the renewal of Marxism and research on studies related to ethnicity and racism[634]. Initially written for a UNESCO study conference, dedicated to the analysis of the racist phenomenon, the text contains a long preface that attempts to synthesize the fundamental aspects of Antonio Gramsci's general theory, to which the author refers, specifically in the last part of the text. A complex analytical framework emerges, as expressed in the Quaderni, where Hall dwells, point by point, on some Gramscian approaches that evaluate in a decidedly more problematic way the question of class according to a specific cultural quality of class formations in a given society. Important was Gramsci's contribution with the Southern Question, which starting from his original Sardinian experience has been able to elaborate a more general theoretical framework, which gives the author the opportunity to rethink the mechanisms of differentiated incorporation, for which some regions remain less developed sectors (north-south Italy relationship, metropolis-colonies), phenomena often perceived through appearances of an ethnic or racist character. Gramsci manages to problematize the Marxist conception of class through a theory of unity, which the author derives from his categories of hegemony and historical bloc, in which the hegemonic moment is a process of unification, a strategic alliance of different sectors and in no way reducible to a presupposed identity. Gramsci, theorist of politics, does not stop at economic reductionism, because he knows he is analyzing structurally very complex formations, not simple and transparent; he knows the autonomy of politics in its forms, times, trajectories. The same can be said for his conception of the state, which in the analysis of racial and ethnic struggles has seen the conception of a repressive and coercive apparatus dominate: through the distinction between political society and civil society: a very flexible theoretical tool, Hall specifies. Gramsci invites us to pay decidedly greater attention to the institutions and processes of civil society. Furthermore, the author continues, Gramsci's cultural vision and his notion of national-popular identify the crucial terrain of popular hegemony in common sense; his example of popular Catholicism allows us to understand the strategic importance of this formation as an alternative to the development of a progressive and secular national popular culture.

Gramsci in the Electoral Campaign

The 1980s were a period of great difficulty for the German Social Democrats: between 1983 and 1987 the electoral results were very disappointing. Having arrived in opposition, a rethinking is necessary, but above all a rejuvenation, and in this direction in March 1987 Brandt's favorite pupil, Oskar Lafontaine, will be chosen as vice president. The anxiety of renewal of the party is fully interpreted by its theorist, Peter Glotz, a prominent exponent of German social democracy, who has been part of Schmidt's Cabinets from 1974 to 1980, as undersecretary of education; with this spirit Glotz intervenes at the Antonio Gramsci – Rosa Luxemburg Congress at the Italian-German Cultural Festival in Hamburg, held between August 16 and September 25, 1985. His contribution concerns Die Bedeutung Gramscis für eine neue Strategie der europäischen Linken[635], where Glotz seeks in Gramsci the starting point for a new strategy of the German left and also finds a cue for possible alliances that go beyond the party and the working class. The SPD leader draws attention to Gramsci's attempt to get in touch with D'Annunzio after the Fiume enterprise and the interlocution that the Sardinian thinker sought with the left wing of the Popular Party. The fundamental discovery of Gramsci, civil society, trenches and casemates of the state, identifies the main factors that influence common sense; it is precisely on popular culture that many of his analyses take place, so much so that Glotz imagines that today Gramsci would have dealt with phenomena such as punk. Glotz goes as far as the contemporary economic analysis, when the frequent economic crises have not led to a shift to the left of the masses, indeed the effective offensive of the right has opened the way for it in many Western countries. The author believes that the concept of interest must be revised and synthesizes his arguments in a motto that says that we are all in the same boat, a fact that can only be faced with a choice that goes beyond immediate interests. Capitalist development has not brought the transition to socialism as Marx believed; indeed, the theory of impoverishment, as Bernstein argued, was based on an underestimation of the bourgeoisie's ability to organize itself. The social democratic leader thinks that the only possible political solution is an alliance of international socialist forces, which can only be achieved by exponentially increasing interest and communication between the countries concerned, indeed while capitalism advances with multinationals or companies that have headquarters, sales, interests all over the world, socialism, which is expressed for example in the League of European Social Democratic Parties or the European Trade Union Confederation, are not true organizations, but tools for the direction of actions. Glotz does not forget the media giants and it seems interesting to note that among Murdoch, Kirch, and Maxwell, also appears that of Berlusconi: fearing the risk of a partial and legalized expropriation of public opinion, the German politician wonders what the move of the European left will be in that case.

In Kampagne in Deutschland[636], a title that echoes Goethe's Kampagne in Frankreich, referring to his electoral battle, Glotz draws inspiration on the one hand from Rathenau, on the other from Gramsci: common sense becomes the scene where the battle for hegemony takes place. Glotz presents the Sardinian thinker as polemical against the comrades who had divided into socialists and communists and were strongly anti-clerical. The author repeats Gramscian biographical episodes to show how important the alliance with different forces was for the Sardinian. Gramsci sinned of idealism, as he misinterpreted the relationship between base and superstructure; he discovered civil society as a command position between state domination and the economic sphere and the Gramscian revolution is social and cultural and in this sense the social democratic leader, who also refers to the concept of "functional democracy" by Otto Bauer, sends a clear message to the intellectuals, recalling the importance of that organizational center that is the Gramscian modern prince.

The reactions are not long in coming. Those who lived the 1960s and 1970s as Marxists in the Federal Republic and now find themselves reading the electoral propaganda of a leader of that same party that not long ago approved the Berufsverbot, cannot remain silent. If Glotz's text has only some polemical accents, despite aiming at the alliance wherever a door opens, the reactions to the appropriation of Gramsci to be included in an electoral poster show how this was not acceptable.

In the pages of kultuRRevolution, Rolf Parr[637] uses veiled arguments of irony to react to the articles that Glotz has published in the last two years in the country's newspapers, appropriating without respite Gramsci's theory, using Gramscian terms in a different and very distant way from the original meaning, so much so that in the same issue of the journal a group of authors dedicates some pages to a general explanation of the theory of hegemony[638]. The text does not forget the Sardinian's interest in the phenomenon of the division of labor and starts from concrete phenomena to explain the concept of hegemony and its effects. Of particular interest are some observations on the "Interdiskurs" and the collective symbolism that serve as cement for the historical bloc, what Glotz is trying to do is to gain some votes from the movements through the recognition of those Gramscian discursive elements that he has integrated into his discourse. The text is also aided by a graph that allows the visualization of some Gramscian categories in their social effects.

Giorgio Baratta has also had the opportunity to "liberate Gramsci"[639], from the interpretation given by Glotz at the Antonio Gramsci – Rosa Luxemburg Congress in Hamburg, specifying the political-ideological character of the social democratic leader's contribution. Gramsci's thought is emptied of its philosophical nature, and the Italian scholar wonders why the SPD decides to refer to Gramsci precisely when the PCI's attention to the Sardinian thinker has waned. In Baratta's opinion, in the Federal Republic we are witnessing a "Gramsci fashion" and his contribution to Marxism is reread accentuating the prophetic role of intellectuals and culture, forgetting that Gramsci, in addition to recognizing the importance of these elements and figures, also warns of the danger of intellectual self-affirmation and the consequent narcissism.

Gramsci and Brecht

On the occasion of the Brecht 85 conference, Sabine Kebir and Michael Grabek provided two contributions aimed at outlining the proximity of approaches and visions between Brecht and Gramsci.
Sabine Kebir presents a trajectory that unfolds through some of the most important analytical and philosophical correspondences between the two, starting from the critique of vulgar materialism, to dialectics, the politics of alliances, and finally aesthetics[640].
In the writings of the poet and the communist leader, there are "surprising correspondences"[641], fundamental thoughts at the highest level of Marxism. This similarity is not accidental: it is based on a series of insights acquired during the same historical era, during the defeat of the Italian and German proletariats in the face of fascism. These are critical positions even within the workers' movement; both Brecht and Gramsci, unlike Korsch for example, want to intervene in every learning process so that Marxism is constantly renewed within the workers' movement.
Kebir explains how both engaged in a rigorous critique of the vulgar materialism of the Second International. Brecht, like Gramsci, understands well the era of transformation that has begun and warns of the danger of "strabismus" that can arise from looking to the past, when the revolutionary goal was not so distant.
Kebir does not forget that Gramsci is primarily a political man and Brecht an artist, but they demonstrate in their respective fields a coherence of thought that makes them comparable. Both are aware of the revolutionary charge of the politicization of culture, and with this conviction they move in contrast to the dictates of the Second International, attracted by the dialectical actuality of Lenin and his Revolution.
Gramsci is critical of the mechanistic materialism of Bukharin, as well as of Crocean idealism: a dual-front opposition that moves in the direction of preserving integral historical-dialectical materialism. Brecht had the same thought when he wrote: "a halfway complete knowledge of Marxism today costs... twenty to twenty-five thousand gold marks, and that’s without the harassment. Below that you get nothing correct, at best a second-rate Marxism without Hegel or one where Ricardo is missing"[642]. Like Gramsci, Brecht does not agree with the identification of the processes of natural development with those of society, and this conception is explained in Me-ti[643]. The historical goal of Marxism, the inclusion of the popular masses in the historical process, could not be achieved in this way, for Gramsci, but these positions are understandable in the initial phases of the class struggle or following defeat. Brecht sees in vulgar materialism, in the era of defeat, a lifeline for simple people.
One of the fundamental laws that both find in nature and society is dialectics, not a philosophical principle, but a reality permanently to be reconstructed. In his Arbeitsjournal, Brecht writes: "it is high time that dialectics is derived from reality, instead of deriving it from the history of the spirit and selecting only examples from reality to confirm its laws"[644]. Gramsci defends this same position against Croce, Bukharin, and Lukács. An abstract definition of dialectics excludes, according to Gramsci, any possibility of formulating the contradictions of historical processes; indeed, for him, dialectical Marxism is the theory of contradictions.
Regarding culture, Gramsci described 19th-century Italian culture as French provincialism, without the importation of the achievements of the French Revolution. Gramsci notes that at the superstructural level, future structures can be anticipated, and in this way, Brecht also expresses himself.
The significance that Brecht and Gramsci give to the historical activity of superstructures leads to a similar theory about the role of intellectuals. Brecht's "Tui"[645] are called traditional intellectuals by Gramsci, tied to a bookish tradition, while the engaged intellectual historically linked to the rising class is the organic intellectual. In this sense, it is necessary for Brecht that intellectuals close to the proletariat behave as producers, who are asked not to supply the production apparatus without at the same time changing it, according to possibilities, in a socialist sense.
The aesthetic conception of Gramsci and Brecht lies in the horizon of cultural politics. Gramsci is close to the Brechtian principle of functionalism in art; moreover, Gramsci is particularly interested in mass culture—and Kebir emphasizes among these crime novels—but with the conviction that new literature must start from popular culture; on the same topic, Kin-je also gives his opinion: "to attack bad art and demand better or to vilify the taste of the people, what good does that do? Instead, one should ask: Why does the people need drugs?"[646]. Gramsci's demand to continue popular art forms, polemically or in any other way, corresponds to Brecht's effort to profane the theater. Much of Brecht's aesthetic innovations are provocative in relation to traditional and popular receptions.
Gramsci opposes those populist forms of art typical of fascism with his concept of national-popular, which has nothing to do with the romantic conception of the 19th century. Me-ti warns of the danger inherent in the uncritical use of the term "volkstümlich"[647], because it comes from above and has something condescending.

To this Brechtian warning, Michael Grabek refers in his intervention[648]: a relationship, that between intellectuals and the people, which must be determined by the people. Grabek, who examines the question of the relationship between intellectuals and the people according to the two communists, starts from a suggestive analogy between the two, exemplified by two quotes, the first from Brecht: "He thought in other heads and in his head others thought. That is the right thinking"[649], the second from Gramsci, where his will to be in a dialogical and dialectical relationship with the interlocutor is emphasized. Brecht, like Gramsci, was among the few who criticized intellectuals in depth. Both are immersed in the European reality of the 1920s and 1930s, the contradictions of their era require a new historicism, in which the social revolution is recognized as the radical antithesis to the crisis of bourgeois thought production.
Walter Benjamin, in his Gespräche mit Brecht[650], writes of a conversation with the poet at the Svedborg hospital in 1934, a conversation that revolved around an article by Benjamin on the author as a producer: the writer of the high bourgeoisie, in which Brecht is also counted, who earns his living with his production should be in solidarity with the proletariat as a producer. In the same year, Gramsci reflects on the moral and intellectual interests of the writer and wonders why economic activity does not concern itself with work as a form of individual or collective production. The life of peasants takes up a lot of space in literature, but not as work and effort, but as a folkloric, picturesque representation of customs and feelings.

Gramsci emphasizes the importance of the specificity of material production, the writer and the proletarian do not meet in production, but in the way of exchanging their activities in a combination, which can be of division or cooperation, and communication that favors or hinders material processes or ideal production.
Gramsci, like Brecht, would have shared that imperative of "you must produce!", everyone must produce, but it is precisely here that the question of different modes of production and their relationships begins.

Sabine Kebir's Path: Common Sense and Mass Culture

Kebir is the first scholar who seeks to give, almost systematically in her contributions, some historiographical information on the Gramscian reception, which from a focus in the German context also spans internationally[651]. It should be noted how the scholar, now long in Algeria, laments[652] that if in the Soviet Union studies on Gramsci have not been lacking even in relation to the figures of Lenin and Stalin, the GDR has not followed this example. The problem indeed seems not to arise in the Soviet Union: "if Gramsci actually worked out the beginnings of a theory of the Western European revolution, his analysis—which is also my thesis—contains no substantial critical points against the CPSU"[653]. At most, it could give rise to an indirect critique of the sectarianism characteristic of the history of the German Communist Party. Gramsci's true adversary is Italian capitalism risen to fascism, and his greatest legacy is the anti-fascist and anti-capitalist politics of alliances.
The author proposes an interesting relationship between Gramsci's analysis of civil society and Max Weber's Protestant Ethic. If in Russia for Gramsci there was still a weak, gelatinous state, where civil society was not yet developed, in the analysis of advanced capitalist Western society, Gramsci's reflections can complement each other with those of Weber. The Sardinian looks at Italian society imbued with Catholicism, considering Protestantism as a harbinger and vehicle of industrial development of society. Work as an obligation before God has strengthened anti-feudal and anti-Catholic thrusts even in the manufacturing proletariat; without its relationship with industrialization, Protestantism would not have had many attractions. As proof of this, Kebir cites Jansenism in France, which remains elitist. Gramsci's reflections, on the other hand, can refer to Catholic and Orthodox environments, which have not exercised a precise ideological function for industry. In non-Catholic countries, the result is that the modern producer is led against religion and secularly ferried into civil society. Gramsci perceived a limit situation in the relationship between northern and southern Italy and certainly had the opportunity to know the first part of Weber's work, also provoking the question of whether in Italy a reform in the manner of the Protestant Reformation should still be guided.
Kebir then seeks to relate the flexibility of the concept of civil society with the consequences in the relationships between the "three worlds," that is, the relationship of new means of communication and a Western culture that can be substantially judged as leisure culture, a new figure of women, with respect to the needs of the Third World, even in its worst effects such as the reproduction of neo-colonialism in new forms of dependence.

Preceded by a long passage taken from the Prison Notebooks, on methodological notions related to the concept of culture, Sabine Kebir presents a critical contribution on populism starting from the fragments of the communist leader[654]. Gramsci's merit, already in the mid-1920s, was to have understood that a war of movement was not possible in Western Europe: the terrain of struggle for a war of position towards hegemony is common sense, the place where the subaltern vision is linked to the stabilizing ideology of the system aimed at reinforcing the status of the ruling class. Gramsci does not hypostatize the superstructure, although some have suspected him of it. Even the right in the First Post-War period recognized the importance of this influence on common sense, indeed, integral parts of fascism were some elements of popular culture (mass demonstrations, sports for workers, choral societies, etc.) that operated in a reactionary spirit. The right had appropriated that revolutionary spirit very popular at the time and turned it around for its own interest. Mussolini in this sense was much more populist than Hitler. These interventions of the right in common sense, Gramsci defines with a pejorative concept: "populism of princisbecco" or also with the adjectives "popolaresco" or "populistico." For Gramsci, populism is not a purely fascist phenomenon, indeed, absolutely late-bourgeois, the Sardinian argues, referring to a thesis by Alberto Consigli on French novels of peasants and workers, where it is described how the political advancement of the proletariat and its ideology pushed part of the French intelligentsia to greater attention towards the people, leading to a renewal of bourgeois thought that did not intend to lose its hegemony over the subjected classes. Gramsci even wonders if this is not a mandatory passage for the indirect education of the people.
In contrast to these phenomena, Gramsci formulates the concept of national-popular, with which he distinguishes the political-cultural popular manifestations that are linked to social progress. A concept that has nothing to do with the romantic conception of the 19th century, but is an invitation to the development by intellectuals of progressive popular cultural elements, with the expressed goal of reconciling common sense with high culture. This harmonization cannot happen suddenly, with the conquest of the State, but needs a historical era to develop, which is both prior and subsequent to the constitution of the state.
Common sense, a chaotic aggregate of disparate conceptions, does not mean, Kebir explains citing Gramsci, that it does not contain truths, but it has unclear, contradictory, multiple concepts ranging from elements of the caveman to the principles of the most modern and elaborate science. The left must seek to work on changes in common sense, it must build a new philosophy, a new culture. This for Gramsci does not mean making original discoveries, but critically elaborating what has already been discovered. The author reports a significant historical example for Gramsci: the Church in its history has always had to fight so that the distance between common sense and the systematic philosophies of the ruling classes was not bridged.
Gramsci left us notes for empirical research on common sense that can help as a methodological foundation. In this regard, with a leap into contemporaneity, Kebir notes that it is not enough to criticize the Bild-Zeitung or television series like Schwarzwaldklinik, as the left regularly does today, but it is necessary to open a field of research on these phenomena, expressions of the needs of silent majorities.

The same year, Kebir publishes an essay in Weimarer Beiträge[655]. There is not only an assonance of themes with respect to previous contributions, even in relation to the dissertation presented ten years earlier, but the text enjoys a systematization and synthesis of suggestions and particular elements that we have so far encountered in the multiplicity of her texts. The pivotal points around which the writing revolves are common sense, culture, and hegemony in Gramsci, and precisely the first term in this first half of the decade has received particular attention from the Leipzig scholar.

Recalling some contributions already appeared previously, especially the essay published in a collective monograph dedicated to populism[656], Sabine Kebir conducts a more in-depth analysis of the fascist phenomenon in its populist aspect[657], recalling Gramsci's criticisms of the regime hidden in reflections on different historical situations, but in which the author sees strong assonances: these are, for example, Gramsci's criticisms of Crispi's colonial policy and his political discourse declined in the language of the left. Gramsci analyzes the post-war situation and the conditions that gave rise to fascism: the revolutionary impulse that flourished during the biennio rosso remains chaotic and arbitrary, without guidance, while the Socialist Party is incapable of organizing this disorder to take advantage of a potential hegemony. To this is added the situation in which the men returning from the war find themselves without a job and especially deprived of the authority they had in the military sphere. In this historical framework, the figure of Gabriele D'Annunzio also emerges, a popular figure in Italy at the time, who manages to embody the illusions of war veterans, morally and socially vagabonds, with episodes such as the enterprise of Fiume (here is also cited the useless antechamber that Gramsci will make to meet D'Annunzio in Gardone). D'Annunzio's motivations are those that prepare fascism, joining with the enormous apoliticism of the Italian people and the lack of a tradition of mass parties to guide popular passions. Still emerging, from the panorama that Kebir reconstructs through Gramsci's reflections, are the great responsibilities of the Giolitti government, which not only let the Fasci arm themselves but also provided tools from state arsenals.
Gramsci, who defines fascism as a qualitatively new form of bourgeois domination, and emphasizes the danger of the loss of civil liberties, remains unheard in the PCI led by Bordiga.
Gramsci's literary analyses also contemplate aspects of fascist culture: from war literature to serial novels. Kebir recalls some of the fundamental motifs highlighted in other previous writings, such as the Futurist movement, in competition with the Novecento group. Marinetti, an academic of Italy since 1929, until his death remained active in the propaganda apparatus of fascism, Kebir recalls, and his movement, despite all its efforts, could not become the state art, as Mussolini had understood that Futurist extremism would not gain the support of the masses for fascism.

A small note probably goes against the grain of Klaus Bochmann's contribution, who in 1984, in the preface to Notizen zur Sprache und Kultur, states that much of Gramsci's analyses were harbingers of the strategy of the united anti-fascist front by the Comintern[658]. On this point, Kebir has an opposite view: "Gramsci's analyses of fascism remained at that time without significant effects. They were neither recognized nor elaborated in the Comintern, of whose Executive Committee he had been a member between 1922 and 1924, for example to evaluate a better line of action for the German left against Nazism"[659].

In 1988, the anthology edited by Guido Zamiš, Gedanken zur Kultur[660], was published by Reclam in Leipzig, with a publication license to Röderberg in Cologne. The work may interest those in the Democratic Republic who have not yet managed to obtain a copy of the volume Marxismus und Kultur[661], the translation of Marxismo e letteratura published in 1975 by Giuliano Manacorda. One cannot but agree with Sabine Kebir, when in her review of the volume edited by Zamiš[662] she laments the lack of recognition of the organic system of Gramsci's thought, conceived indeed rather as a collection of thoughts and not as a cultural conception.
Already in 1980, Kebir clarifies, Zu Politik, Geschichte und Kultur[663] was published, where a "chemically purified Gramsci"[664] was presented, always in agreement with the Comintern, and it is concretely difficult to distinguish where Gramsci might detach himself from orthodoxy starting from the florilegium proposed here.
Sabine Kebir has highlighted the attempt by the editor to hide Gramsci's rigorous critique of Bukharin, indeed, while we find ample space for the critique of Crocean idealism, we cannot say the same for the critique not so much of economism, but of the vulgar materialism of Bukharin's Manual. Moreover, Kebir notes, although Gramsci was the first Marxist to deal with mass culture, this has not been emphasized at all in the work.
Some lexical choices, such as the translation of common sense with "Gemeinempfinden" (which corresponds to the Aristotelian "sensus communis") is a gross error for the Gramscian concept that should indicate, to which one should prefer the translation of "Alltagsverstand" (everyday understanding, "common sense"), although chosen by a "left radical"[665] such as Christian Riechers.
An example of the orthodoxy to which Kebir refers, although it does not fall among her criticisms, is quite poorly concealed in the anti-feminism expressed by Zamiš in the afterword to the text. The author describes the passage where Gramsci refers to Gioberti to indicate the participation of women in the political life of the country, but Zamiš immediately brakes: "Gramsci sees the participation of women in the political struggle not from the point of view of feminism, not as a movement of its own with a particular program, but as part of the overall historical upheaval of which we are witnesses and participants"[666]. An equally rigid position is found in the complicated regulation of sexuality that according to Zamiš Gramsci would advocate.

Despite the effort to disseminate Gramsci's writings, Sabine Kebir's negative criticism does not seem polemical to us. However, it should be noted that in this review there are some allusions to an authoritarian and overbearing relationship by Zamiš towards pupils even more prepared than him.

Sabine Kebir's studies, starting with the anti-fascist popular front and Gramsci's conception of culture, have taken the direction of studies of mass culture, its manipulation by fascist populism, and move towards the present, in an attempt to follow that trajectory traced by Gramsci already at the beginning of his journalistic career and deepened in the Prison Notebooks.

The Path of Wolfgang Fritz Haug: Gramsci, Brecht, and Plural Marxism

On the theme of working-class culture, Haug writes a contribution aimed at fully understanding the differences between culture and ideology. In doing so, he encounters Brecht's Me-ti, which the philosopher from Esslingen relates to Marx's thought. Brecht's lesson emerges, according to which everything cultural must be rigorously distinguished from the economic, to avoid falling into a general concept of culture that would subsume all human phenomena. Haug revisits the conceptions of culture provided by several German intellectuals, from Max Weber and Kaspar Maase to Dietrich Mühlberg. The latter advocates for the division of production even in the cultural sphere, resulting in a circle of workers specialized in cultural production, effectively equating culture with ideology. Haug explains that even in the SED program, such a definition is not found; rather, it advocates and fosters conditions to open possibilities for people to give a rich and meaningful form to their lives. Therefore, state or party measures should, according to the SED program, focus on the conditions in which culture is created, not on culture itself. At this point, Haug draws a parallel between the formulation of the SED program and Gramsci's vision of cultural hegemony. These are observations that Gramsci addresses to intellectuals, in a language not immediately translatable into German, so Haug explains Gramsci's vision of the organic intellectual and how the intellectual should not produce values detached from the understanding of the masses or the working class. If the values of the latter were artificially produced by intellectuals, this would be arrogant and would prevent the masses from emancipating themselves by taking part in the cultural process.

Giorgio Baratta has had the opportunity to describe Haug's Pluraler Marxismus[667]: as a work that has also led to some strong and sometimes irreconcilable polemics within West German communism, and which stands in contrast to contemporary visions aimed at addressing the crisis of Marxism "by openly recognizing the existence of various 'Marxisms' and proclaiming the need for a 'return to Marx'"[668]. According to Baratta, Haug proposes a different dialectic of universality and specificity, a path that avoids the negative poles of dogmatic idealist unity and bourgeois pluralism, but observes the transformation of capital production, which he defines as "electronic-automatic," also characterized by a geographical decentralization of the areas of conflict between productive forces and relations of production. From the transformations in the mode of production of capital through the unity of structure and superstructure, Baratta argues, Haug directly draws on Gramsci, borrowing the "necessity of translating" the dynamics "of classes and class interests from the economic sphere to the political sphere in a broad sense" (civil society and the state)[669]. In this way, Baratta notes, in its approach, the work recalls Gramsci's Americanism and Fordism. For his analyses, Haug connects to the studies of Joachim Hirsch, but his Gramscianism fits into that current of studies widespread in the FRG aimed at accentuating Gramsci's anti-economism.

Approaching the text more closely, we notice that the formula "plural Marxism," as Haug specifies, refers to a Marxism "that has learned to re-establish its unity in plurality over and over again, will be more capable of action in dealing with different social forces and questions, and the recognition of worldwide polycentrism will not pose any particular difficulty for it"[670]. Therefore, the formula used in the title of the essay should be read dialectically: the contradiction between the plural and the singular of Marxism describes a task, stands for unity and multiplicity. The expression also stands for a corrective, self-critical formula of speaking of Marxisms in the plural and, Haug points out, the concept of Western Marxism should also be questioned, as a Eurocentric phenomenon.
In the text, some of the Gramscian themes that the scholar from Esslingen will have the opportunity to fully develop in the following decade are already outlined, namely the analogies between Brecht's philosophy and that of Gramsci; from the relationship between spontaneous, popular philosophy and that of specialists to the philosophical and political importance of language, all this with the common goal of the two communists: the intellectual progress of the masses.
Since the mid-1980s, Sabine Kebir and Michael Grabek have begun to deal with the analogies between the two communist intellectuals[671], but Haug's contribution does not resolve into a synthesis of what has already been argued, for example, at the Brecht 85 conference in the Democratic Republic. On the contrary, here the theme is expanded, and from the thought of Brecht and Gramsci, a worldview, a philosophy so akin seems to emerge that one rather seeks their divergences.
The occasion for this comparison is a substantial chapter of the volume, entirely devoted to the contribution of the communist poet to Marxism, understood as a philosophical and analytical contribution of the highest level. Starting from the conception of the role of intellectuals, Haug presents the unorganized Brechtian intellectual, who can be compared to the Gramscian guide of the workers, in both there is a break with economism. For Brecht, ideological instances are not explainable as mere appearances, but must be reconstructed in their relative autonomy; Gramsci is interested in the function played by ideological facts in the construction and dissolution of ideological blocs.
Conquering the minds of the masses is important for a social movement, and the work of thought is also the work of language.
Haug describes the strength of Brecht's language, which with a "plebeian" work, immediately understandable and with simple wordplay, manages to launch harsh attacks against the ruling class. Brecht's simple language, which is also the language of the simple, leads Haug to rethink Gramsci's prison reflections: "his conception of philosophy almost literally coincides with that of Brecht"[672]. Haug refers to popular philosophy or the spontaneous philosophy of the common man: everyone in everyday life is a philosopher. After some citations to demonstrate this proximity, Haug reports the everyday elements in which the philosophy of the common man is contained, what Brecht defines as street philosophy. In Haug's opinion, with Gramsci, it is also possible to understand more deeply Brecht's concept of language simplification: the Sardinian thinker has studied the "secret" of the Catholic Church, which, with an incredible strength of resistance, has managed to face the developments of industrial society, the contradictions of capitalism, the development of science, and the social struggle. The secret of this strength Gramsci discovered in the organization of cohesion between intellectuals and the "simple in spirit." Brecht's simple language, that is, his work of elaboration from within the language of the simple, touches the heart of the analogous task of the workers' movement: every Marxist intellectual closed in a jargon of specialists involuntarily works towards the dissolution of the socialist perspective of the political and cultural bloc, as well as its own weakening. Finally, and here the author takes up Gramsci's reflections, one of the most important tasks for the organic intellectual of the workers' movement is to make himself understood by the masses: "in recent German history, there are few from whom one can learn so much as from Brecht to carry out this task"[673].
Brecht has criticized part of that old ideology repainted in red that has remained attached to socialism, he has condemned that intellectual discourse of the historical mission of the working class, just as he has cleansed Marxism of other formulas typical of rigid determinism. More hidden than ostentatious, we find in Brecht's work a reworking of the practical conception of Marxist philosophy derived from Marx and Lenin. "Perhaps one day it will be understood that Brecht has raised the question of philosophy in Marxism better than all official philosophies together with their opposite, the critical theories"[674]. That of Brecht is to be considered in this sense an anti-philosophy, as long as philosophical ideology remains its object. While the official Marxists think of filling old forms with content, Brecht leaves them. For this, Brecht needed dialectics, the große Methode, saved by the German poet from the new metaphysics that reigned in Marxist manuals. Brecht, a natural dialectical talent according to Hanns Eisler[675], in his critique of the Tui has rejected the simple passage of the intellectual from service to the market and the ruling class, to service to socialist power. According to Brecht, in fact, even in the new revolutionary situation, the old returns, which is usually not its best part. The danger, Brecht writes in Me-ti, usually lasts longer than the escape, the question of resistance sooner or later becomes a problem of tenacity.
With these references to Brecht's critical insights in Me-ti, Haug concludes a chapter of his work in which one can already glimpse the enthusiasm and raw material for a work of assimilation and maturation of Brecht's contribution to Marxism, in his opinion just begun. Ten years later, in 1996, the scholar from Esslingen will publish a monograph dedicated to Philosophieren mit Brecht und Gramsci[676].

To the question "what is economism," Haug responds critically: one should rather ask in what direction our criticisms go when we contest economism. Anti-economism is a fundamental part of the thought of Lenin and Gramsci; in notes dating back to the end of 1930, Gramsci dedicates himself to the critique of economism starting from the hegemony theorized by Lenin. In this context, the first fragment of his critique of Bukharin is conceived, moreover, in the politics of the Third International, there is an economistic error, which does not take into account the superstructure. The most important fronts opened by Lenin in his struggle against economism were syndicalism, spontaneism, and reformism, the same ones traceable in the work of the Sardinian.
Gramsci noted that economism finds its sources both in bourgeois and proletarian sources, for example, the liberalist formula according to which the State should not enter into socio-economic issues is in reality an economic policy, not an economic fact: even in the free market, there is a type of state regulation introduced through laws and imposed with coercion. Gramsci denominates this paradox of the ideology of the spontaneity of the market with the example of the free market. Syndicalism and left-wing radicalism can accompany economistic theories, thus fixing the subalternity of the working masses.
Haug notes how for Gramsci economism also poses a set of problems linked to a deterministic and mechanistic historical conception, in a type of materialistic fatalism. This ideology is defined by the Sardinian as the opium of the workers' movement in precise phases of weakness. The critique of economism can set as a positive goal a new relationship between intellectuals and the people,

Haug takes into consideration the figure of Gramsci, with implicit reference to his thought also in other parts of his work, we recall here, especially for subsequent developments, Haug's allusion to the figure of José Carlos Mariátegui, named in comparison with Mao and Gramsci, but who will still be taken into consideration in 2009 for his proximity to Gramscian theories[677].

In October 1986 in Hamburg, the conference Kultur und Politik bei José Carlos Mariátegui und Antonio Gramsci was held, Wolfgang Fritz Haug explains, in a report of the meeting[678], how the lack of a systematic translation of the Peruvian Marxist emerged. The organizer of the meeting, Ulrich Schreiber, managed to involve scholars of Mariátegui and Gramsci from more than ten countries, opening discussions on editorial, interpretative, and theoretical issues on the political aspects of the work of the two Marxists placed in comparison. The interventions were partly introductory, but there were also in-depth analyses, for example, on the religious question by the two theorists and on the indigenous question, the relationship with populism on the one hand and with the politics of the Communist International on the other. Not least, the role of the national aspect in the revolutionary strategy and the significance of the cultural question. The pluralist character of the cultural and theoretical politics in the journalistic activity of the Peruvian emerged.
The study of Mariátegui in Europe has just begun, it will be necessary to curb instrumental interpretative attempts, as happened with the reformist readings of Gramsci's work, Haug recalls, transformed into a sort of Croce, as Giorgio Baratta has indicated for the appropriation of Gramsci by Peter Glotz, otherwise, one might encounter a culturalist Mariátegui with Amerindian romantic traits.

In his Die Faschisierung des bürgerlichen Subjekts[679], Haug highlights how in the Prison Notebooks Gramsci sought the changes and reforms in the set of modes of production and life during Taylorist rationalization[680]. Already in the first notebook of 1929-1930, the Sardinian hints at the interest of American industrialists in the sexual relations of their employees and without mincing words, he states that the puritan mentality veils an evident necessity: to regulate sexual activity so that production is intensive. In notebook 22 of 1934, this thought returns and is integrated with observations on the interest of industrialists in the families of employees and federal law prohibitionism. Although the appearance is that of puritanism, Gramsci warns not to be deceived: this is in truth the production of a new type of man, as required by the rationalization of production. These observations, collected under the theme of Americanism and Fordism, deal with the issues that emerge in the transition from the individualism of the old economy to the programmatic economy, under the pressure of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. The goal is to manipulate and rationalize the subaltern forces but also some sectors of the dominant forces.
Haug observes how in recent studies by Joachim Hirsch[681], under the term "Fordism," a fusion of Taylorized production with rational work, a model of consumption, different from the Gramscian conception, which Franco de Felice has defined as "an analytical tool for less rationalized and less developed societies," but in a long-term phase.
What interests Gramsci about this phenomenon is above all the statalization of some moral functions, and his analysis of prohibitionism is exemplary: alcohol and sex loom as a morbidity where repetitive work becomes an obsession. A traditionalist ideology thus becomes a vehicle for capitalist modernization.

In a writing on Gramscian cultural politics, with a dedication to Carl-Henrik Hermansson[682], a scholar of Peter Weiss's work, Wolfgang Fritz Haug reports a passage from the third volume of Pluraler Marxismus, in the process of publication; it is the question of Gramscian cultural politics, which the scholar, as he has already accustomed his readers, wants to unravel with philological acribia. To do this, in the translation of Gramsci, it is always necessary to accompany the more or less literal translation of the expression with the explanation of the concept, sometimes also of the concepts that determine the different overall vision. Thus also happens for the complex translation of the Gramscian category of civil society[683], which in German assumes a different meaning compared to the Romance and Slavic languages. To explain its characteristics as a superstructural element, the author also uses the contribution that Norberto Bobbio had presented at the Cagliari conference of 1967[684]; from this derives a substantial difference with respect to Marx, which is clarified in the use of the English terms civil society and bourgeois society; the latter included by Marx in the structure, while for Gramsci it belongs to the superstructure, an aspect that Kallscheuer traces back to the Gramscian "hunger for idealism"[685].

Haug notes how the concept of civil society is linked to that of culture and the question of hegemony; the latter, in the meaning we know today from the Prison Notebooks, had a complex gestation, and the author refers to Claudia Mancina's contribution that appeared as an introduction to Gruppi's monograph on Gramscian hegemony[686]. Here Haug cites Frank Deppe, who identifies the question of hegemony with that of power[687].
In the Second International, the question of cultural hegemony has a tradition, for example, Rosa Luxemburg in 1903 explains the theoretical stagnation in Marxism with the structural impossibility of the socialist workers' movement to precede its political domination with intellectual domination, in order to oppose bourgeois culture with its own new science and art; peremptory, Luxemburg explains that within this society and as long as the economic foundations exist, there can be no other culture than bourgeois[688]. Luxemburg awaited a final change through the concurrence of economic development and the spontaneity of the masses. With his critique of economism, Lenin clashed with this conception, but Gramsci also considers fatal the confusion between the hegemonic question and that of power.
For a politician like Peter Glotz, the author continues, the question of hegemony can also be reduced to achieving influence in the electoral perspective. This narrowing of weight in a pragmatic sense of the question, Habermas places it alongside the model of the "third arena": at the top is the political arena, below multiple groups and collective actors that oppose or ally in the struggle for access to the means of production and communication, while in the third arena, it is not fought for money or power, but for definitions. It is precisely about communication flows, hardly available, that determine the form of political culture and with the help of definitions of reality to compete in what Gramsci has called cultural hegemony[689]. One moves away from Gramsci's vision if, on the one hand, the break with the dominant ideology and the work of creating a new culture is neglected, and on the other, the turn in opposition to economism. In a note, Haug explains how Habermas has placated these oppositions but has not grasped the direction in which Gramscian cultural hegemony goes.
The struggle for a new culture is also expressed in a new way of living, it is the struggle for a new civilization, and Haug observes how often they appear in Gramsci as synonyms. The hegemonic question is also liberation, an emancipation of all through class domination, intrinsically linked to the question of civilization for a new way of living that begins with the elevation of the subalterns, it is in no way about appropriating the dominant culture, but about rejecting that cultural hegemony. Moreover, Haug continues, for Gramsci, cultural creation is not to be confused with artistic creation.
Haug chooses with great care the German terms with which to translate Gramscian concepts, for this reason, for cultural politics, he prefers "Politik des Kulturellen" to "Kulturpolitik," which would indicate a policy subsidized by the State.
To bring about the change desired by Gramsci, the masses can only emancipate themselves with knowledge and understanding, while intellectuals must feel the popular element.
If for Brecht intellectuals are as dangerous as a crumbled cigar in the soup, for Gramsci the problem arises when they do not feel as the population. In the absence of this relationship between intellectuals and the masses, contact is reduced to bureaucracy and formality, and intellectuals become a caste or a clergy. Without the respective knowledge and sensitivity, it is not possible to realize any culture of social liberation, only on the axis intellectuals-people is the life of the whole realized: this represents the social force with which to build the historical bloc.
When Gramsci speaks of the popular, Haug explains, he does not mean anything that has to do with the popular or what is meant with the transfiguration of subcultures.
Haug's thought arrives at contemporary society: without the construction of an alternative culture, one cannot reach self-determination, one remains subaltern, or, in the society of two-thirds, consumers.

Haug's path, unlike that of Sabine Kebir, will continue in the following decades to yield increasingly imposing results for the study and dissemination of Gramsci, first in the German area and then, with ever greater authority, also at the international level.

Gramsci Conferences

From a report written for the journal Das Argument, we learn of a Vienna conference that aimed to outline the figures of two closely related intellectuals[690]: Gramsci, for reason and progress, and Pasolini, for passion, both of whom made distinct contributions to leftist thought. Among the speakers were W. F. Haug, who presented on Gramsci’s cultural politics, Detlev Albers on cultural hegemony for the contemporary left, and Italian scholars such as Franco Lo Piparo, who emphasized the linguistic roots of Gramsci’s thought, and Gianni Scalia, who addressed the complex and contradictory relationship of admiration and resistance that Pasolini had toward Gramsci. Fritz Peter Kirsch from Vienna connected the young Pasolini, a Friulian poet from a linguistic minority, with his work as an author and director in relation to the Roman subproletariat and the Third World. Tullio Seppilli from Perugia highlighted Gramsci’s reflections on folklore and their influence on the anthropological work of Ernesto de Martino.

For the fiftieth anniversary of Gramsci’s death, the conference Antonio Gramsci – Sprache, Literatur, Kultur took place in Leipzig from May 7 to 8, 1987, organized by Klaus Bochmann for the linguistics department of the Karl-Marx Universität, in collaboration with the sociolinguistics group from Rouen led by Jean-Baptiste Marcellesi. The contributions of the research group on “Sociolinguistics of Romance Languages,” directed by Bochmann at the University of Leipzig, were published in the Quaderni der Karl-Marx Universität under the title Leipziger romanistische Beiträge[691], while the contributions of scholars not affiliated with the Karl-Marx Universität appeared in Beiträge zur romanischen Philologie[692].

Bochmann’s intervention[693] highlights how Gramsci remained faithful to philological studies even after 1918, despite his significant political engagement. According to Bochmann, the linguistic and philological component holds a highly positive connotation in Marxist studies and political analyses. For Gramsci, linguistic studies, from his youth and in the authoritative words of Gobetti and later Togliatti, represented an initial overcoming of the legacy of his homeland in a journey toward modernity, thus also expressing the overcoming of linguistic barriers. From the awareness of the importance of his Sardinian origins, Gramsci’s studies took on the character of examining and transcending linguistic barriers. Bochmann introduces the philosophical-historical context in which contemporary epistemology operates, with Dilthey and Croce’s studies being privileged in Germany and Italy. After a mention of Bartoli’s neolinguistics, the author describes how Gramsci’s overcoming of mechanistic and dogmatic versions of Marxism was due to his theoretical deepening of the dialectic between objective and subjective factors, as well as between base and superstructure, in history and practical political reality. Bochmann asserts that Gramsci’s greatest merit was contributing to the development of Marxism. This work emerged from the confluence of his methodological consciousness, as understood in Bartoli’s linguistics, with his appreciation and study of Lenin’s work, accompanied by the indispensable political experience he gained from 1915 to 1926. Bochmann specifically references Lo Piparo’s pioneering study, which delves into the themes of linguistics in Gramsci.

According to Bochmann, Gramsci far surpassed his teacher Bartoli, especially by tracing the origins of some categories developed in the Quaderni. The author refers to the technical concepts of “centers of irradiation” and “prestige-hegemony”[694]. Furthermore, Gramsci is considered a true innovator in two areas: the first lies in his dialectical understanding of the social determination of languages in history and the present; the second comes with his interpretation of the interaction between the theory and science of language and linguistic-social practice, or rather, language policy[695]. In the theory of the social determination of language, understood as a linguistic system and as a sociolinguistic “diasystem,” Gramsci unites the two traditions of Italian linguistics, and to some extent European linguistics: the idealist tradition represented by Hegel, Humboldt, Manzoni, and Croce, and the social deterministic tradition represented by Cattaneo, Ascoli, and Bartoli.

In Carlo Cattaneo’s review of Biondelli’s Atlante linguistico d’Europa from 1841, we already find the essential elements of neolinguistics: the principle of language mixing and the concept of political and cultural supremacy or hegemony, as well as an idea of linguistics that incorporates Lenin’s conception. A substrate theory as an explanation for Italian dialectal differences and the migration of words in relation to open areas and isolated zones. From Cattaneo and Ascoli, Gramsci borrows an argument later used in his critique of Manzoni: the spread of a language occurs through social necessity and not through arbitrary acts of language policy. Gramsci’s observations are due to the fact that Manzoni advocates for the arbitrary classification of signs and indications (a case that Gramsci classifies as Esperanto). Intellectuals would be the chosen creators and disseminators of the national language, arbitrarily selected from existing possibilities according to an aesthetic and historical-cultural principle. Manzoni finds in the Tuscan literary language, belonging to a small elite (7-8% of Italians), a valid candidate to rise as the national language. Despite Croce’s opposition, who interprets language as an ongoing creation, he shares with Manzoni the vision of the role of intellectuals as creators of history.

At first glance, Gramsci seems tied to the line that could be defined along the Cattaneo-Ascoli-Bartoli axis, as he believed that only an actual necessity for the use of Italian could lead to the replacement of dialects with the national language. In this regard, Bochmann cites two passages from Gramsci’s early articles[696], in which the author notes some contradictions between social determinism and Croce’s idea of language as primarily an aesthetic expression. In Quaderno 29, in the fragment dedicated to the “Foci of Irradiation of Linguistic Innovations” in tradition and of a national linguistic conformism in the great national masses[697], within the concept of linguistics lies another meaning, as the centers of irradiation contemplated are the institutions of civil society (schools, newspapers, literature, theater, cinema, radio) where the struggle for hegemony by organic intellectuals begins. Bochmann argues that with this interpretation of linguistic irradiation, Gramsci is no longer a Bartolian. In a process of distancing from Bartoli, Gramsci comes closer to Marx’s view, where language is indicated as the true consciousness, the organic component of spiritual life and not just a reflection. Gramsci thus asserts that culture, worldview, and language are combined in hegemony with the conscious action of organic intellectuals.

Thus, the circle of Gramsci’s political and philosophical vision is closed. Just as he replaced mechanical determinism in sociology and political practice with a dialectical relationship between socioeconomic bases and the hegemonic force of conscious historical action, he did the same in linguistics, and this is one of Gramsci’s greatest contributions.

The other contribution that constitutes part of his originality is the fact that in his interpretation of Marxism, Gramsci includes the philosophy of praxis, integrated as a type of linguistics of praxis, with experiences of cultural and language policy. A theoretical linguistics, devoid of practical sense and without the use of concrete relationships and tasks, would have been pure metaphysics for him. Concreteness distinguishes his analytical method. What Gramsci wrote about Labriola’s Marxism also applies to his linguistics and philosophy of language: “in reality, Labriola, by asserting that the philosophy of Marxism is contained within Marxism itself, is the only one who sought to give a scientific basis to historical materialism”[698].

Therefore, anyone wishing to understand Gramsci’s linguistic conception should investigate his complete works, not just the writings explicitly dedicated to linguistics. The richness of reflections dedicated to language policy ranges from language education in the family (the value of the mother tongue and dialect) and in school (the value of Latin), the culture of discourse and the care of language, to the idea of the language that must be used by the party in journalism and propaganda. Here, Gramsci speaks as a practitioner of the subject, having had ten years of experience as a journalist and oral propagandist. Socialism can extend its hegemony only through clear and transparent language, and in this sense, the linguistic education of the masses and party cadres is necessary, eliminating empty rhetoric and flattery. This is Gramsci’s further legacy: the interpretation of linguistics outside academic canons, yet theoretically reinforced.

Among Gramsci’s contemporaries who understood the political significance and enormous potential of linguistics, Bochmann cites Bakhtin, Voloshinov, and the Vygotsky School. In the 1920s, it seemed time to advance interpretations of linguistics through historical-dialectical-materialistic methods, but the linguistics that dealt with Marxism later took misguided paths without yielding satisfactory results.

The research group led by Bochmann opens up observations on multiple aspects related to linguistics and politics in Gramsci’s writings. For example, Gerlinde Ebert revisits Gramsci’s early journalistic articles on Italian language and colonial policy. The articles refer to the language used by figures like Giuseppe Bevione, who later became a fascist official, in writings from La Stampa and other publications that glorified the Libyan enterprise. Attention is also given to the literary production on the theme by Enrico Corradini, Gabriele D’Annunzio, and Giovanni Pascoli. The intentions of the Italian colonial government to impose an Italian language that in practice was still a mixture of dialects are also reported, along with the total disinterest of Italians in learning Arabic, followed by two interventions: first in 1914 with the creation of two Arabic schools for Italian residents, and in 1938, 27 years after the occupation, some Arabic lessons in Italy to foster Italian colonial interest. It is shown how Libyans were interested in learning Italian to communicate with Italians in order to learn technological mechanisms and medical knowledge, thus demonstrating, in the Gramscian quote (in Italian) that concludes the intervention: “thus it appears that in the modern world, a cultural and spiritual imperialism is utopian: only political power, based on economic expansion, can be the basis for cultural expansion”[699].

Other contributions come from Jürgen Erfurt, who addresses issues of language policy in the Sardinian’s reflections, moving from a Crocean view of language as a form of art and beauty to a well-defined historical-materialistic view, where language is to be analyzed not as art itself but as material useful for art, a social product, and cultural expression of a particular people. While fascism oppresses linguistic minorities and dialects to ensure understanding of the Duce’s speeches and regime propaganda, Gramsci advocates for the protection of dialects: children should be educated by their parents to speak in the form that the parents dominate most, while at school, the communicative abilities first expressed in dialect can be developed in correct Italian.

Antje Wetzel addresses Gramsci’s view of rhetoric, where the author, starting from the premise that language is the most important medium between the individual and social consciousness, highlights the importance of controlling communicative processes to become part of creative social processes. Gramsci emphasizes the role of the party as an organized collective intellectual that must elevate the cultural level of its members; Gramsci, defined as one of the greatest theorists of consensus, indicates the way to achieve practical contributions in the ideological struggle.

Gramsci and the European context of traditional intellectuals in the 1930s is the theme of Stefan Wirth’s contribution, with significant attention given to the activity of Romain Rolland. Additionally, Gramsci’s theories on intellectuals are compared to other thinkers like Ernst Bloch.

Among the German contributions outside the University of Leipzig, Sabine Kebir’s stands out, seemingly summarizing a decade of her research. The connection she aims to highlight between Gramsci’s interest in popular culture and the political project of an antifascist front looking toward an alliance with Catholic peasant masses becomes increasingly clear. It is noteworthy that there is finally an explicit and unequivocal comparison between the production of the Frankfurt School and Gramsci’s work. Kebir, like Wolfgang Fritz Haug[700], notes that the classical theorists of Marxism did not develop a theory of modern mass culture. Therefore, citing a 1915 article on serial novels, Kebir states: “with his 1915 article, Gramsci anticipated by thirty years the Dialectic of Enlightenment by Horkheimer and Adorno in recognizing the dialectical relationship between need satisfaction and the commercial character of mass culture, without seeing it as a fatal vicious circle”[701].

Some contributions from the University of Rouen were disappointing, as Utz Maas notes in his report on the Leipzig conference, though he acknowledges the high level of Bochmann’s contribution and the resistance of party orthodoxy to an academic analysis of Gramsci’s work. Maas, as a preface to his brief summary, provides a synthesis of the impression of contemporary German Gramscian studies. He observes how “the kaleidoscopically colorful spectrum of notes”[702] drawn from Gramsci’s early journalistic activity, letters, or prison writings leads to a very broad interpretative spectrum: from the new right to social democracy to the PCI.

Similarly, in the report of the conference organized by the Hamburger Stiftung für Sozialgeschichte on April 29-30, 1989[703], Peter Jehle begins by noting that Gramsci, like his predecessors, is claimed by multiple, even opposing, Marxist tendencies. The question of the “real Gramsci” was posed at the Hamburg conference, where the tone was set by exponents of the workerist tradition, opponents of the PCI. With the description of the roots of workerism, starting from Panzieri, Tronti, and Quaderni rossi[704], Jehle explains the concentration of interventions on the councilist theme and Fordist analyses, starting with Cesare Bermani, who, with his personal experience, dedicated much time to disseminating Gramsci “in the workshops” and at the conference defined his work as critical toward Togliatti’s historiographical Stalinism in portraying Gramsci.

Sergio Bologna and Giorgio Baratta addressed Gramsci’s Fordist conception, with Bologna’s thesis looking at the introduction of Taylorist work organization in FIAT’s production in the second half of the 1920s as the first episode giving rise to a generation of mass workers. Baratta presumes that Gramsci anticipated this development.

Andrea Catone intervened on Taylorism in the Soviet Union, while Joseph Buttigieg presented the reception of Gramsci in the American New Left, which is particularly interested in Gramsci despite living in complete political isolation.

A Point of Arrival, or Rather, a Point of Departure

In the preface, Thomas Weber introduces the volume, a collection of contributions from the Congress held in Hamburg between September 1 and 8, 1985, titled Antonio Gramsci – Rosa Luxemburg, «the connection was surprising, the names seemed like fire and water»[705]. Weber explains the potential perplexities toward a “Luxemburg-Gramsci line”: Luxemburg has long been criticized for economism and spontaneism, and Gramsci himself provides grounds for these criticisms; the theories of hegemony and the war of position in civil society, as well as Luxemburg’s theory of mass spontaneous action, seem anachronistic. Moreover, the theories of Marxist renewal proposed by Gramsci at the time were judged as reformist and idealist. Gramsci, who theorized a new form of philosophy starting from below and, following the fate of the classics, has been subjected to academicism and philologism, as happened at the last conference dedicated to him by the Institute of Philosophy of the Freie Universität Berlin (June 24-26, 1988)[706]. The theoretical importance of Rosa Luxemburg within Marxism appears even less current than her example of femininity (love for nature, a sentimental figure where love reigns above all). In a completely different direction, however, is the work of Frigga Haug, who finds the political relevance of Luxemburg in a Marxist-feminist reading, not just a politics of women, but in the conception of a revolutionary Realpolitik.

The collection of contributions from the Congress here raises questions such as, in broad terms, whether the theories of Luxemburg and Gramsci can be fruitful for a Marxism capable of assuming hegemony; how social movements can be organized without blocking their dynamics in party forms; whether a relationship between intellectuals and the people is possible; how cultural politics can resist the disastrous effects of cultural imperialism in the Third World. Other issues that emerge among the contributions are whether the construction of a national identity must necessarily lead to nationalism or whether Marxism in the postmodern era still possesses hegemonic force in the realm of theory. To these problems, Weber concludes, the concepts of Gramsci and Luxemburg cannot be easily adapted.

The volume takes its title from a note in Peter Weiss’s writings: Wolfgang Fritz Haug explains the meaning of this interpretative line[707], suggested by the German writer and playwright. Excluding the early period in which Gramsci was affected by the assassination of Luxemburg and Liebknecht, in the Quaderni the socialist revolutionary is subjected to radical criticism due to her «rigid economistic determinism»[708]. Haug seeks to understand how the thought of these two theorists together can form a line, and thus considers it appropriate to start from the context in which Weiss’s formula arises: the writer is taking notes to organize a novel and begins with the necessity of forming a Marxist party, even a small one. These are the notes for the third part of Ästhetik des Widerstands, and Haug finds that the line with which Weiss connected them is due to the strongly felt need for a renewal of Marxism, traceable in Gramsci’s theorization of the war of position in advanced capitalist societies[709] and in Luxemburg’s spirit symbolized by her famous phrase: «Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently»[710].

Frank Deppe, author in 1987 of Niccolò Machiavelli. Zur Kritik der reinen Politik[711], provides a contribution on the relevance of Gramsci and Luxemburg’s thought[712]. His reasoning starts from the observation that when considering a political “line,” one must also show its divergences, and thus it is useful to start from the different historical contexts. Rosa Luxemburg, in her relationship with the left wing of German social democracy, expresses herself against reformism and centrism and the independence of the KPD, while Gramsci is at the head of the PCI’s leadership group and took the helm of the Party with the support of the Comintern. The differences between Luxemburg and Lenin are well-known and consist of divergences on organizational issues, such as the agrarian question and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Deppe’s main concern is not to confuse in a “line” an arbitrary political and theoretical mixture, although convergences in coalitions, unions, and common fronts are possible and desirable. In Deppe’s view, Rosa Luxemburg and Antonio Gramsci are both influenced by specific national experiences and represent currents of Marxist thought in opposition to the line of the Second International, aiming at a renewal and development of Marxism that flourishes alongside the crisis of Marxism. Gramsci, the theorist of the war of position, is to be contrasted with Luxemburg, the theorist par excellence of the war of movement; the periods of reception differ, with Luxemburg being rediscovered in the period from 1968 to the early 1970s by the movement of intellectuals and workers, especially among intellectuals who overestimated her conception of spontaneity; in Italy, Gramsci began to be studied very early, from 1948, and his great influence abroad began in the mid-1970s, after that movementist phase, and is closely linked to the Eurocommunist conception. Deppe recalls that Perry Anderson, in the category of Western Marxism, included names from Lukács to Korsch and the representatives of the Frankfurt School, although they had lost any dynamic contact with the working class. In the crisis of Marxism, Luxemburg’s attempt at renewal through the double movement of returning to Marx and opening to new problems of the workers’ movement, in a hard work of orthodoxy and anti-dogmatism, is the red thread that characterizes the work of the German theorist. The living theory of action, as Engels once characterized Marxism, is renewed. Deppe revisits Lukács’s essay dedicated to Rosa Luxemburg als Marxist, where her criticisms of vulgar empiricism as well as the opportunist method emerge; the critique of the sharp division between economic and political struggle, which become autonomous in the organizational fetishism of trade unions or in a social-democratic political “parliamentarization.”

The priority of Luxemburg’s theory, Deppe explains, relying on Eduard März[713], lies in the recognition that the process of capitalist development, even contemporary, depends on the existence and conditions of development of those defined as “underdeveloped” countries. In her analyses, Luxemburg takes into account the significance of capital exports and military expenditures (as spheres of capital investment) as well as the role of political violence, much more so than most modern theorists of economic development. Luxemburg’s economism is never paired with political fatalism. In the Quaderni, there are not many references to Gramsci, but even in the scarcity of references, Deppe finds in a Gramscian passage the motives of their agreement as well as their differences: Gramsci historicizes the relationship of Marxist theory and practice, as Luxemburg does, which Gramsci later develops with a severe critique of Bukharin; on the question of the party, Gramsci is much closer to Lenin than to the German revolutionary, just as he distances himself in the vision of the war of position. Today, the two Marxist theorists, Deppe laments, are being reduced to certain traits: Luxemburg as a humanist, biologist, lover, opponent of socialism, while Gramsci is reduced by Glotz to the question of cultural hegemony as a preliminary stage for political power.

Vitantonio Gioia’s contribution[714] to the conference breaks a long silence only partially interrupted by sporadic and very general contributions[715] or not specifically dedicated to Gramsci’s economic thought. Thus, it falls to an Italian economist to break the ice on a theme to which Gramsci made an important contribution. Gioia starts from Luxemburg’s work, Akkumulation des Kapitals, which surprises for its naivety but above all for its accuracy and relevance. It should be noted, writes Gioia, that the most important exponents of the Second International, Kautsky, Hilferding, Luxemburg, and Bernstein, share a methodological homogeneity in their analysis of the development of monopoly capitalism, regardless of their interpretation of Marx’s thought and the subsequent developments of political theories. Gramsci’s entire analysis can be evaluated as a reaction to Luxemburg, who compromises the cultural expansion of Marxism. The premise of the Quaderni is that without the ideological-cultural element, constitutive of hegemony, no socialist transformation can exist. Gramsci’s analysis focuses on monopoly capitalism and confronts the Marxist currents that have developed the knowledge of Marx and expressions external to Marxism but incomprehensible without Marx. In reality, the analysis of monopoly capitalism is not a detailed analysis, but it is not difficult to grasp in the overall work of the Sardinian a complete idea. Gioia asserts that the criticisms that judge economic themes marginal in Gramsci’s work and accuse him of idealism are to be rejected. Gioia recalls the objective limits of capitalism in the theory of Engels and Luxemburg: the fundamental thesis of Anti-Dühring is the necessary and automatic transition to socialism, an inevitable development of monopoly capitalism that arises from the fact, according to Engels, that this economic organism is no longer able to develop the productive forces, so much so that technological revolutions or political and institutional novelties that characterize it have little weight. In Luxemburg, «the theme of the “objective limits” of capitalism is the pivot around which her entire thought revolves», so that socialism is «an “objective necessity” in the course of the material development of society»[716]. Luxemburg interprets the phenomena of the development of capitalism in the monopolistic phase through some key readings: the construction of a world market under the domination of capital, the growing pauperization of increasingly large parts of humanity, the intensification of the imperialist struggle for the conquest of still available spheres. It is evident from Gramsci’s critique of economism that for him the transition to socialism in an advanced capitalist society is inconceivable without the construction of ideological and cultural hegemony; Gramsci’s entire analysis can be read in opposition to Luxemburg’s theory, as it compromises the cultural expansion of Marxism and its cognitive and practical possibilities. The capitalist economy, in Gramsci’s view, is characterized by a dynamic equilibrium in which elements in motion stabilize at extraordinary speed, forming imbalances and conflicts between different sectors of production. The dynamism of this system is increasingly compulsive the more developed the economic system is. The economic crisis is an expression of this movement in search of equilibrium, of a new relationship between different interests within the world of companies and labor. It is no coincidence, according to Gramsci, that economic crises, such as that of 1929, present the clearest and deepest imbalances in the early stages and the harshest conflicts occur where innovative processes clearly contrast progressive, high-capital industry with stagnant, labor-intensive industry. The moment of crisis, according to Schumpeter, who directly refers to Marx, also has a revitalizing effect on capitalism, as it regenerates where old equilibria have been destroyed. For Gramsci, the moment of capitalist crisis only accelerates the class struggle, building new command groups and new rules of social life. These elements do not by themselves allow for an exit from capitalism, as it is up to the workers’ movement to work for a political project that sets different goals than bourgeois society.

Sabine Kebir proposes an essay on the updating of Gramsci starting from popular culture[717]; by its nature, Marxism should have posed the question of mass culture from the beginning, but it did so differently than Gramsci. Marx, Mehring, Lenin, up to Lukács, continued in a conception that mass culture should develop by perceiving the heritage of all progressive human culture to be reread from a socialist perspective. No one managed to foresee the influences of modern industrial culture and its conservative effects. Marx left a biting critique of a popular novel, the story of Paris by Eugène Sue, but this is not a theory of popular literature. The writings of Marx and Engels or Lenin on cultural and literary problems are a contrast to masterpieces or particularly problematic products of international culture. Lenin understood that the appropriation by the working class of the progressive cultural heritage of world culture would be a difficult task, so he thought of an immediate solution: popular literature, but not superficial, for workers. This perspective had effects on the cultural politics of socialist countries, seeking a normative aesthetic canon that determined socialist realism. Gramsci, on the contrary, hopes for a critical vision of what already exists. Already during the First World War, Gramsci intensely experienced the cinema and immediately understood its future significance: from the world of industry, Gramsci learned the serial character of artistic products for the popular masses. Kebir reworks here some observations she has already presented in the past on Gramsci’s analysis of serial novels and the Taylorized man. To complete the picture, the difference between the Protestant and Catholic character in work ethics is also considered here. Kebir also reports some reflections on the relevance and cultural imperialism in the civil society of the Third World, starting from Gramsci’s analysis of pre-revolutionary Russia, in the absence of a developed civil society, Kebir observes how, unlike the era in which Gramsci lived, there is no longer a place in the world not reached by radio and television. This phenomenon is particularly problematic in the Third World, as it involves the dissemination of an image of a Western society absolutely dedicated to leisure culture. Gramsci’s analyses, also in this case, the author observes, can still be useful to consider and study phenomena such as serials, soap operas, and TV series, a sort of contemporary serial novels. The author describes the way in which these programs arrive, starting from production and scenography, villas furnished in the American style, strictly shot indoors to reduce the budget, and bringing to the audience simplified and unproblematic family stories, citing as an example two famous serials at the time, Dallas and Flamingo Road. These broadcasts are often exported worldwide and, when politically useful, even for free. The strategy in response to the problem of influence on socialist countries and the Third World, Kebir seeks in Gramsci, finding an invitation to defend through the political courage to free the informational and cultural politics of the country that resides in its own intellectual potential. The influence of Americanism in the world and the experience of the GDR are shown in her writing. Finally, Kebir wonders whether industrialism is absolutely necessary for the whole world and at what pace it should unfold in a romantic and Eurocentric manner.

Alex Demirović intervenes with an essay on the hegemonic strategy of truth, the historicity of Gramsci’s Marxism[718]. Demirović has already authored an essay dedicated to discursive processes in the formation of social will and political tendencies[719]; there, Gramsci was revisited following Althusser’s contribution and in contrast to Habermas’s theories of communication. After a synthesis of Gramscian theory centered on the concepts of hegemony and historical bloc in relation to intellectuals, Demirović, relying on the studies of Poulantzas, Laclau, Mouffe, and Pêcheux, notes how Gramsci did not perceive the real gravity and breadth of that phenomenon of compromise between the prosperity of the State and Fordism, a contingency that leads the complex of the spheres of life of the subaltern classes to become a component and point of support for the reproduction of capital.

In his intervention for the Hamburg Congress, the author starts from the observation that in the Second Thesis on Feuerbach, Marx argues that if thought can arrive at an objective truth, it cannot resolve itself in a theoretical response, but rather a practical one. Marx is a continuator of that Hegelian reflection that wants truth to be supratemporal, but historical development is immanent. In relation to praxis, truth is not relativized historically, its practical and objective meaning is irreversible and thus historical, therefore constituting an indispensable and inescapable materiality of broader social praxis. Marx was aware that a theory of knowledge alone would not suffice, to which he himself was working. The author also cites Horkheimer, who argues that truth alone is powerless, and indeed in this sense Marx thought of the idea that it must become material power. There is no totalizing reference point, but there are two positions in the theory of knowledge: truth devoid of power, which can criticize domination and favor emancipation, or as a form of power whose mere use produces pressures on the subaltern classes. Gramsci, with his reflections, can integrate these two positions: truth in the form of cognitive argumentation is a very strong means of power, for Gramsci the theory of knowledge of Marxism is indeed a problem of social hegemony. Unlike the Marxist model, there are many conceptions that argue that the superstructure is not determined by the base or is its reflection, even Gramsci at a certain point will define it as a primitive infantilism, but it is good to look at the rational core. Gramsci’s thesis consists in the fact that men become conscious of themselves on the superstructural terrain, that is, of ideologies; the superstructural ensemble is the reflection of the complex of production relations and rationally mirrors the contradictions present in the structure. With the concept of the historical bloc, Gramsci seeks to determine a historical constellation of actors: a social formation is objective insofar as, in a radically historical sense, it is the inescapable reference point of the activity of those actors. The formula of truth as a tactic, as well as for the Second Thesis on Feuerbach enunciated by Marx, can also be interpreted as a definition of the state of truth itself; a constitutive component of the political and democratic knowledge apparatuses, it belongs to the complex network of civil society with its principles of the public, freedom of expression, and science. Truth and science are the results of the struggles between the bourgeoisie and social movements since the beginning of the 19th century, which rationalized the domination of the bourgeoisie and forced it to compromise in the definition of objectivity. Science and truth are part of the superstructure and organize the trust of the subaltern classes in the leadership capacity of the ruling class, reproducing an ever broader domination. Foucault’s objection that Marxism in an indirect form aims at power falls into the void: Gramsci does not contest that the philosophy of praxis fights social power with the means of truth. It is not, however, about power in the absolute, but power within a defined political terrain, that of science as a key position for bourgeois hegemony. The constant strategy of the philosophy of praxis lies in the historical necessity of being true and excluding and overcoming truth as a social mechanism. Demirović considers Lyotard’s thesis, according to which science and truth are in crisis and have lost their hegemonic meaning. Thus, Marxism, which has always sought the emancipation of the subaltern classes through a politics of truth, would also be in crisis. Lyotard sees a positive development in the plurality of language games, everyone can play their own game, no one can claim to play them all. This plurality leads by itself to the legitimation of social relations. Gramsci also rejects a concept of the totality of society and recognizes a plurality of historical tendencies of development: since the philosophy of praxis is a worldview, it is thus also plural. Demirović describes how, starting from Gramsci, Lyotard’s theses are questioned and how, in the face of postmodernism, which describes the professional continuity of the intellectual in a passive manner, the Sardinian thinker, accepting the plurality of tendencies of social development, follows the goal of a regulated society in which all individuals decide on resources and the direction of development, not delegating it to particular groups left to their own autism.

Two interventions by foreign scholars, Anne Showstack Sassoon and Orietta Caponi de Hernandez, describe Gramsci’s thought respectively regarding the masses and specialized knowledge and the new party as a collective intellectual. Showstack Sassoon[720] describes the central role of the intellectual as an expert or organizer at the center of politics recorded by Gramsci, both in capitalist society and in fascism, the latter especially having established a particularly representative and organic relationship with the intellectual class. The Bolshevik project fundamentally differs from previous examples, as it is a new society with politically active masses and the relationship between masses and intellectuals is of a democratic type. The Bolsheviks’ interest in this type of issue was immediate, the problem presented itself concretely in the need to protect economic reconstruction, the new political system, and the new culture from invasions or counter-revolutions, thus building consensus and literacy. Gramsci is convinced of the intrinsic difficulty in the Soviet Union of arriving at a democratic relationship between the masses and political power. To make such a relationship and the new role of intellectuals possible, the changes inherent in capitalist development can be the key, as in the long term the significance of the masses increases and they organize themselves in politics, highlighting the relevance of the socialist project. Gramsci also refers to artisan workers when thinking about the concept of the intellectual. The difference between the man on the street and the specialist must be mediated by a network of intellectuals that links the figures at the top to those at the base. The individual, in the modern mass, counts only if organized, not only if represented by a delegate, but by multiple groups. The decline of the liberal state is shown in the relationship between individuals and the state, represented according to a network of mediated relationships, not least by state institutions. Fascism recognized this crisis and sought to insert the system of corporations into the socio-economic fabric as an attempt to reorganize political connections, trying to take into account the changes in capitalist society, while maintaining the structure of capitalist economic relations. Gramsci’s critique is directed at Gentile’s reforms and their anti-democratic effects, while at the same time expressing indications for the Soviet state. Specialization and the formation of specialists, the difference between intellectual work and technical work, and the division of labor do not lead to a crystallization into groups, but in Italy, there is instead a return to subdivision, which instead of being overcome is even fixed in legal terms. If intellectuals intend to maintain influence, they must become organizers of cultural organisms and activities, in a modern manner. The historical role of great intellectuals such as Croce and Fortunato becomes anachronistic, and in modern society, they are assimilated into the capitalist project, thus becoming organic intellectuals of capitalism.

The special issue of the journal Das Argument, published in 1989, is the meeting of some of the internal tendencies of German Marxism that will be protagonists of Gramscian studies in the decades to come. Twenty years after that attempt at synthesis, following Peter Weiss’s invitation, we cannot but notice the limits inherent in that first attempt at the German Marxism’s participation in a tendency toward plural Marxism.

Conclusions

The work carried out by the group of scholars associated with the journal Das Argument over the coming decades will prove to be the cornerstone of Gramscian research in Germany, strengthened by frequent international stimuli. This thesis has focused on that period of gestation during which Gramsci’s name timidly appeared, after a long silence, in German philosophical, political, and historical literature. It has also highlighted the qualitatively different nature of studies based exclusively on Riechers’s anthology compared to those, decidedly more in-depth and opening up new problems and discussions, based on the Italian edition of the Quaderni, initially with the thematic edition and later with Valentino Gerratana’s critical edition. The moment of transition from gestation to birth was the preparation for the publication of Gramsci’s Gefängnishefte[721], culminating in 1989 with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the printing, in 1991, of the first volume[722]. This publication, which with the final critical apparatus volume spanned more than a decade, marked a significant milestone. The theoretical background proposed through Peter Weiss’s note on the “Luxemburg-Gramsci line,” recalled by Haug, did not end with the 1980s; rather, it was the premise for the work that German Marxists had ahead of them. As Weiss suggested in his brief note, a renewed Marxism was needed. This adjective, at the end of the 1980s, described the necessity of Gramsci, responding reflexively to the immediate political needs of those who were studying the Sardinian thinker at the time. The Luxemburg-Gramsci line encompasses two approaches that merge: on the one hand, a strong focus on economics, which has been particularly important in German Marxist studies and calls for a rereading of Capital; on the other, the Gramscian aspect that manages to connect with so many fields, from economics and society to language analysis, common sense, the philosophy of everyday life, and intellectuals—suggestively translated for Germans as encompassing all those philosophical and political insights mediated by Brecht’s poetics and literature.

After the publication of Gramsci’s works by Argument, international recognition followed, though perhaps somewhat more limited in Italy. It is to this course of events that, however modestly, this thesis aims to draw renewed attention. The Italian “Gramscian” interest, especially following the results of Die Linke in the latest political elections, should look to the peculiarities of German Marxism and the amalgamation of its core theories, an analytical spectrum that has shown itself more capable of addressing the social, economic, and cultural changes of the last twenty years. In this sense, I believe that the “Gramscianization” of part of German Marxism has been of great help in developing the methodological and theoretical tools that the German left possesses today.

This, in my opinion, cannot be said for Italian Marxism, still held hostage by the heavy tradition of the PCI and an academicism that is sometimes excruciating. The difficult situation of Marxism in the Federal Republic of Germany, compounded by the persistent lack, at least until 1991, of a translation of Gramsci’s writings, has given rise to an original situation in Europe compared to other realities, such as France or England, whose developments German Gramscian scholars have followed and critically internalized.

As we have seen, the historiographical lines followed by Gramscian literature in German begin to possess their own autonomy from the transposition of the Togliattian interpretative line (which, moreover, was the only one existing after the period of political, economic, and social reconstruction following the immediate post-war era, during which a deafening silence on Gramsci persisted) only around the movements of the 1968 protests, overcoming an initial but widespread anti-Gramscianism imported with the workerist line.

The young Riechers, despite the (justified) criticism he received, long remained “the” translator of Gramsci, offering his translation of an anthology of Gramsci’s writings accompanied by the publication of his dissertation on Gramsci’s thought. The 1970s did not begin under the best auspices. In addition to paving the way for independent studies on Gramsci, Riechers left a heavy mortgage on the interpretation of the Sardinian thinker’s thought.

Little will come of the isolated, specialized, and individual objections, the result of the efforts of some other young scholars who, independently of one another, wrote dissertations to dismantle the idealistic-subjectivist interpretation that Riechers gave of Gramsci. Among these, the work of Gerhard Roth will have some follow-up, though he too was often criticized for ultimately reducing Gramsci’s work to an invitation to an intellectual and moral revolution reducible simply to Enlightenment dictates. After the mid-1970s, two new approaches to understanding Gramsci’s work emerged: on the one hand, the Eurocommunist politics launched by Berlinguer, followed first by Carrillo and later by the PCF, aroused particular interest in the Federal Republic, intertwined with the broad resonance that the debate on the PCI and pluralism received in the BRD. In the dissemination of these themes, the VSA publishing house played a decisive role, publishing all kinds of collections, testimonies, and analyses on Eurocommunist politics and the debate initiated in Italy between socialist and communist forces, thus playing a decidedly active role in spreading the thought of the father of Eurocommunism: Antonio Gramsci.

The second approach took shape with specific studies on politics and culture in Gramsci’s thought. In two different contexts, Karin Priester and Annegret Kramer in the BRD, and Sabine Kebir in the GDR: three women were the protagonists of a new analytical approach carried out individually and autonomously, despite the limitations Kebir faced in the GDR[723], focused on Gramscian themes ranging from the study of the integral state, not without some reference to the essay Gramsci and the State by Althusser’s student Christine Buci-Glucksmann, to Gramsci’s approach to literary criticism. Karin Priester and Sabine Kebir are two scholars who will give significant impetus to subsequent literature.

In the 1980s, Karin Priester deepened her specialization in Italian political history and the history of political culture with more organic studies, also touching on the theoretical direction of the PCI with a philosophical-political profile of some of the most authoritative communist intellectuals of the time. Sabine Kebir continued to focus on Gramsci’s interest in popular culture, his critique of fascist populism, and the politics of alliances theorized by Gramsci with other anti-fascist forces. Kebir traces a line connecting these analyses with Gramsci’s hope and prediction of the Resistance struggle that would take place in the country long after his death.

From the 1980s, Gramsci’s presence increased in the pages of Das Argument, a journal that hosted very heterogeneous interventions and readings, also organized in special issues prepared for specific subjects and themes (think of the Projekt Ideologie Theorie), or in view of meetings at the Volksuni, a project that spread to some cities in the BRD. In 1984, the strong tension that had been building between Haug’s journal and the DKP culminated in a polemical publication by Holz and Schleifstein[724].

Parallel to the work of Das Argument, during the 1980s other readings of Gramsci emerged, small areas of study that would later converge into Das Argument thanks to the reunification of the country[725]. These included activities like those carried out by Klaus Bochmann, who, influenced by Lo Piparo’s work, developed research on Gramscian linguistics, published a Gramscian anthology in 1984, and, with the help of a study group, organized an international conference at the University of Leipzig two years before the fall of the Wall.

The aforementioned Sabine Kebir, around the same time as Haug, opened a line of interest on the commonalities between Gramsci and Brecht at the Brecht 85 conference in the GDR.

At the same time, the first appropriation of Gramsci by a politician was recorded: Peter Glotz explicitly referenced Gramsci’s theories for the electoral campaign of the German social democracy in deep crisis, triggering some vigorous reactions of disapproval from the scientific community that had so far been interested in Gramsci. Gramsci, until then the patrimony of Marxism born and raised in communist movements and environments, could hardly be used by a social democrat, despite some previous attempts to theoretically bring the Sardinian closer to Otto Bauer, but also to Korsch.

Certainly, the most striking instrumentalization was that imported from France by the new German right, which, through the vademecum of metapolitics, boasted of openings wide enough to include even Gramsci, while the use of Gramscian hegemony was essentially reduced to a project of cultural domination.

Among the interpretations not traceable to traditional German Marxist environments, Otto Kallscheuer’s theoretical profile of the Sardinian thinker also emerged.

In the 1980s, a tendency of Gramscian studies began to take shape, which, through the participation of scholars with different political paths, converged in the conference “Die Linie Luxemburg-Gramsci,” preparing a theoretical and practical ground for collaboration in the translation of Gramsci’s works into German.

Only from 1991, and still partially until 2002, could a systematic and philological study of Gramsci’s work begin, with sources in hand for those who did not have a good knowledge of Italian, a reading hitherto marred by Riechers’s translation and small anthologies, sometimes guilty of a partial cut.

The attention of German scholars to Gramsci was largely diverted due to the lack of this translation, and it is also worth considering the influence of the Frankfurt School, which in some ways has attracted or concentrated attention on itself even on strong themes of Gramsci’s work.

The Althusserian influence on the reading of Gramsci, often evoked as a “filter”[726], should be considered more as an impulse to critique his own interpretation, as it has given rise to interests and insights into Gramscian historicism or the integral state, a critical reading that has permeated German studies.

If not immediately, in the long term, the propulsive character of 1968 manifests itself, even though at the time no study groups dedicated to Gramsci had emerged. Many of the scholars who were formed during that period or shortly after are examples of an expression that, from being individual, will become organized, providing study material and fueling a growing interest in Gramsci.

The essays in journals have proven to be of great importance for the development of interest and insights, though they have rarely converged into monographs. The example of journals like Beiträge zum wissenschaftlichen Sozialismus, Sozialistische Politik, and later Das Argument goes in this direction. The doctoral theses written and published at the beginning of the 1970s did not have follow-ups, probably also due to the very specialized nature of the gnoseological studies or, in some cases, a failed attempt to get to the heart of Gramscian historicism.

The special volumes of Argument, such as Pluraler Marxismus, a significant publication by Haug, are the result of work that has continued for many years, with broader study projects, interventions on the occasion of publications in journals, or lectures at the Volksuni.

This characteristic of fragmentation of Gramscian studies, which in the chronological span under examination was overcome only by the substantial and voluminous work of Joachim Ranke published in 1989, has had consequences that were not favorable for an organic elaboration of the Sardinian thinker’s thought and has prepared widespread expectations for the complete translation of Gramsci.

The work carried out so far still requires multiple insights, systematizations, and clarifications, and certainly a continuation, but it would nevertheless like to serve as an invitation to interest in German literature on Gramsci.

Appendix I
Critical Apparatus, Biographical and Historical Notes

Biographies

Abendroth, Wolfgang (Elberfeld, now Wuppertal, 02.05.1906 - Frankfurt, 15.09.1985)
Graduated in law in 1930 in Frankfurt, he practiced as a judicial auditor for three years, having been politically active for over a decade in the KPD and later in the KP-Opposition, Rote Hilfe, and Neu Beginnen. With the rise of Nazism, he had to abandon his legal career and was imprisoned from 1937 to 1941 on charges of high treason, where he met Lisa Hörmeyer, who connected him with the Sozialistische Schülerbund (SBB) and the Freien Sozialistischen Jugend. In 1943, he was drafted and stationed on the Greek island of Lemnos, where he worked with ELAS, the local resistance, until deserting. In 1944, he was captured as a British prisoner of war and taken to Egypt, where he began political training for the future of post-Nazi Germany.
Returning to Germany in 1946, he completed his exams to become a doctor of law in the Soviet occupation zone and the following year became a senior justice advisor and lecturer at the law faculty of Martin Luther University in Halle-Wittenberg, later in Leipzig and Jena. Increasingly at odds with Soviet policy, he moved to Bremen, while still declaring his socialist convictions. Hired at the Hochschule für Sozialwissenschaften in Wilhelmshaven as a professor of public law and politics, he became a member of the Constitutional Court of Bremen and later Hesse. From 1957 to 1972, the year of his retirement, he taught Political Science at the University of Marburg. A member of the SPD after the war, he was expelled in 1961 for refusing to cut ties with student movements. During the 1960s, he was known for the Forsthoff-Abendroth-Kontroverse, opposing his colleague’s opinion on the unconstitutionality of the welfare state according to the 1949 Grundgesetz.
He conducted historical and sociological research on German society during the Nazi period and post-war era, focusing on constitutional, labor, and trade union aspects, all with a strong political connotation. Among his students, Frank Deppe is particularly noteworthy.

Antkowiak, Alfred (Cologne, 09.08.1925 - East Berlin, 06.09.1976)
Studied social sciences and Romance languages at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, becoming a writer and translator. Among his translation activities, he edited the works of Erich Maria Remarque; politically, he was a member of the SED.

Bochmann, Klaus (1939)
Professor of Romance languages at the University of Leipzig, where he teaches French, Italian, Romanian, and comparative linguistics. His research focuses on sociolinguistics and language policies regarding majorities and minorities in Romance languages. His publications include studies on national and regional languages in France, Italy, and Spain (1989) and Romanian language policy from the French Revolution to the present (1993). He was also the editor and co-translator of the German edition of the Quaderni.

Bock, Gisela (Karlsruhe, 08.02.1942)
A lecturer at the Freie Universität Berlin since 1970, she has dedicated herself to gender history and was a leader in the feminist movement in the 1970s. After works on Campanella and the American labor movement, she became popular with a study on sterilization during Nazism, observing how sexism and racism were inseparable.

Bunke, Horst (1925-1988)
He focused on studies of the national library system and German bookstores.

Hans Conrad
Pseudonym used by Hans Hürlimann, a Swiss who directed the periodical Die Front between the 1920s and 1930s.

Fetscher, Iring (Marbach am Neckar, 04.03.1922)
Raised in Dresden, he volunteered with the Wehrmacht at eighteen, serving in Holland, Belgium, and finally Russia. Released by British authorities, he began studying medicine before switching to philosophy, German studies, Romance languages, and history. An assistant at the universities of Tübingen and Stuttgart between 1949 and 1959, in 1963 he was called to the University of Frankfurt to occupy the chair of Political Science and Philosophy. In the following years, he was a visiting professor in Israel, Australia, the USA, and the Netherlands, retiring in 1988.
A student of Adorno, his research strengths include studies on Rousseau, Hegel, and Marx, particularly the directions of European Marxism. Fetscher gained international popularity with a quirky publication: Who Woke Sleeping Beauty? The Fairy Tale Mix-Up, aimed at interpreting the meaning of some Grimm brothers' fairy tales.

Frei, Bruno (pseudonym of Benedikt Freistadt; Preßburg, Austro-Hungarian Empire, now Bratislava, Slovakia, 11.06.1897 - Klosterneuburg, Austria, 21.05.1988)
A direct descendant of Heinrich Heine, he was a journalist for the left-wing Viennese daily Der Abend from 1917. In 1922, he graduated in Philosophy in Vienna and, after joining the SPÖ in 1925, moved to Berlin initially as a correspondent for Der Abend. In the German capital, he founded Berlin am Morgen, which featured many left-wing authors. After the Reichstag fire, he fled to Prague, where he published Gegen-Angriff in response to Goebbels’ Angriff. Forced into exile in Mexico, he founded the paper Freies Deutschland, returning to Vienna only in 1947, where he began intense journalistic activity with Ernst Fischer, publishing Österreichische Tageblatt. In the late 1950s, he was a correspondent in China for Volkstimme. A master of political journalism, among his students was Ernst Wimmer, the ideological leader of the Austrian Communist Party.

Germanetto, Giovanni (Turin, 18.01.1885 - Moscow, 07.10.1959)
A barber by profession, he joined the trade union movement in 1903 and entered the PSI in 1906. Opposed to World War I, he published pacifist articles in provincial periodicals. At the Livorno Congress of 1921, he supported the split and the formation of the PCI. In October 1922, he participated in the IV Congress of the Comintern in Moscow. A PCI functionary, he was arrested with thirty other members in 1923 and returned to Moscow the following year. In 1925, back in Italy, he edited the trade union pages of the communist organ L’Unità. In 1926, he was arrested again and sentenced to five years in prison, escaping through France and returning to the Soviet Union, where he was appointed to the Executive Committee and Secretariat during the IV and V Congresses of the Profintern. With these roles, he visited Germany, Austria, and France multiple times, later becoming a full member of the PCI Central Committee. He remained in exile in the Soviet Union until the end of World War II, working for many Soviet periodicals. In 1946, he returned to Cuneo, where he took local leadership of the Party, and from 1948, he assumed a prominent role in the Party’s central office in Rome. Very ill, he was transferred to the Soviet Union for treatment, but his death in 1959 was inevitable.

Haug, Frigga (née Langenberger; Mülheim an der Ruhr, 28.11.1937)
Founder of the collective memory work method, she was a professor of Sociology at the University of Hamburg for Economics and Politics until 2001. She is co-editor and editor of the journal Das Argument, editor of the HKWM, and the Forum for Critical Psychology. In 1979, she founded the Volks-Uni of Berlin with her husband W. F. Haug.
Her research focuses on themes related to socialization and women’s politics, work and automation, learning, and sociological methods. In the 1970s, she used the collective memory work method within Marxist-feminist working groups. In 1995, she published a detective novel, Jedem nach seiner Leistung. At the founding of the Die Linke party, Frigga explained the reasons for her participation.

Haug, Wolfgang Fritz (Esslingen am Neckar, 23.03.1936)
Professor of Philosophy at the Freie Universität Berlin from 1979 to 2001, where he also studied Romance languages and religious studies, earning his doctorate in 1966 with a thesis on Jean-Paul Sartre and the construction of the absurd. A key focus of his research was Marxism, and in this context, he coined the term “commodity aesthetics”; his Critique of Commodity Aesthetics has been translated into numerous languages. In 1959, he was among the founders of the journal Das Argument, a successor to the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung (1933-1941), the latter hosted at the Institute for Social Research founded by Max Horkheimer. In this sense, Haug maintains a direct line with the Frankfurt School. He has been a visiting professor at the universities of Marburg, Zurich, Paris X, Roskilde, and Puebla. Since 1994, he has been the editor of the Historisch-kritisches Wörterbuch des Marxismus, published by the Berlin Institute for Critical Theory (InkriT). With his wife Frigga, a sociologist, he was among the first members of the Die Linke party in 2007.

Heeger, Robert (1938)
Taught at Uppsala University and later held the chair of Aesthetics at Utrecht University until retirement. Since 1999, he has been on the board of ELSA, a Swedish government research program on ethics and the legal and social aspects of genome research. His publications also include specific studies on veterinary ethics.

Heintze, Horst (Naumburg an der Saale, 29.06.1923)
A Germanist philologist, he was active at the Department of French Studies at Humboldt University in Berlin, editing many works, from Rabelais to Dante, also studying the historical period in depth. He organized the international symposium, the proceedings of which were edited by Heintze, dedicated to Lorenzo de’ Medici on the 500th anniversary of his death.

Hinterhäuser, Hans (Alzenau, 1919)
Studied German and Romance philology in Munich, Würzburg, and Heidelberg, where he graduated in 1949. A lecturer in German language and literature in Venice and Madrid, he became a professor in Bonn in 1960, also teaching in Kiel and Vienna, retiring in 1989. His career includes numerous publications on the national literatures of the Romance area (especially Hispanic and Italian studies) and translations (poetry, prose, and essays).

Holz, Hans Heinz (Frankfurt, 26.02.1927)
Arrested and imprisoned for several months as a member of the anti-Nazi resistance as a teenager, he worked as a journalist for several newspapers during his philosophy studies. He earned his doctorate under Ernst Bloch and became editor of Deutsche Woche and, from 1960, a freelancer in Switzerland and a study director for Hessian radio and television.
Professor of Philosophy in Marburg from 1971 to 1978 and then in Groningen, the Netherlands, until retirement. His publications focus on the history and systematics of dialectics, art theory, and sociological and political problems. He is president of the International Society for Dialectical Philosophy, a member of the Leibniz Society and the World Academy of Letters. In 1997, he received an honorary degree from the University of Urbino, is editor of the journal Topos. Internationale Beiträge zur dialektischen Theorie, and since 1994, a member of the German Communist Party, contributing to the drafting of its program.
His research has focused particularly on the attempt to reintroduce ontology into Marxist philosophical discourse.

Hösle, Johannes (Erolzheim, Biberach an der Riß, 1929)
Raised in a Catholic village in southern Germany, he graduated in Comparative Literature in Tübingen in 1954. From 1965, he was a lecturer in Milan, where he also directed the local Goethe-Institut library. In 1967, he completed his habilitation in Romance philology and became a full professor in Regensburg the following year. From the 1960s, starting with monographs on Cesare Pavese, he increasingly focused on Italian literature, becoming a specialist in Italian theater from the Renaissance to the Counter-Reformation.

Kebir, Sabine (née Kortum; Leipzig, 08.05.1949)
Daughter of a professor of French intellectual history and a French teacher, she studied from 1967 to 1972 at Humboldt University in Berlin, where she has lived since 1955. Graduating in Italian, French, and Russian, she became a collaborator at the Zentralinstitut für Literaturgeschichte der Akademie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. Married to the director and writer Saddek Kebir, she lived in Algiers until 1989, when she moved to West Berlin. Specializing in Algerian culture, she and her husband wrote children’s books inspired by Kabyle folk tales.

König, Helmut (1923)
Editor at Deutsche Welle in Cologne, where he completed his studies up to his doctorate.

Mandel, Ernest (Frankfurt am Main, 5.04.1923 – Brussels, 20.07.1995)
A Marxist economist and leader of the Fourth International, he taught at the Vrije Universiteit in Brussels from the 1970s until retirement. An expert on the economic and social contradictions of late capitalism, he won the Alfred Marshall Prize at the University of Cambridge. Banned from the BRD for his political activities, he was forced to give up teaching at the Institute of Economics at the Freie Universität in Berlin.

Opitz, Heinrich (Hindenburg, 26.06.1929)
In 1945, he was among the auxiliary armed forces and a prisoner of war of the US forces. From 1948 to 1952, he was a functionary of the Freie Deutsche Jugend and a teacher. Between the 1950s and 1960s, he studied at the Parteihochschule Karl Marx, the highest level of education institution established by the SED, where he became an assistant and earned his doctorate. In 1970, he obtained the chair of Dialectical Materialism, remaining director of the Department of Philosophy until 1990 and, from 1978, a member of the editorial board of Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie.

Otto, Karl A. (Bielefeld, 1934)
A journalist, he studied pedagogy in Bielefeld. From 1962 to 1969, he was a member of the Vereinigung Unabhängiger Sozialisten (VUS) and editor-in-chief of the organization’s organ, Sozialistische Hefte. He joined the SPD in 1973. From 1982 to 1999, he was a professor of Sociology at the University of Bielefeld and, from 1994, also taught at the State University of St. Petersburg. His research themes include social movements and the didactics of political education.

Palla, Peter (Bressanone, 21.04.1940)
Graduated from the Classical Lyceum in Bressanone, he was a seminarian until 1960, when he entered the Society of Jesus. After completing his philosophical studies at the Jesuit school in Munich, he left the order in 1965 and enrolled in Sociology, Psychology, and Philosophy at the University of Cologne.

Priester, Karin (Gleiwitz, 1941)
Studied Romance languages, history, philosophy, and political science at the universities of Cologne, Aix-en-Provence, Berlin, and Florence. Since 1980, she has been a lecturer in political sociology at the University of Münster.

Riechers, Christian (Einbeck, 02.04.1936 – Hanover, 14.08.1993)
He began his studies at the University of Marburg, then Göttingen, and the Freie Universität in Berlin. Initially interested in art history, he expanded his specialization to include Sociology, Philosophy, and Contemporary History. In Berlin, he attended Otto Stammer’s courses, deepening his analysis of Italian fascism and reactionary ideologies. Initially close to the SPD, after the Bad Godesberg Congress, he joined the SDS and became involved in the Argument-Club. Outside the university, his mentors were Michael Mauke and Willy Huhn, a council communist and left-wing theorist, from whom he learned the history of the radical wings of the international labor movement.
After his studies, Riechers settled in Bologna, where he worked at the local Goethe-Institut and then as a lecturer at the University of Bologna and the Scuola Normale in Pisa. The Italian period was particularly fruitful: here, the German translation of the Gramscian anthology Philosophie der Praxis was published, while in 1969, he earned his doctorate at the Freie Universität in Berlin with a monograph on Gramsci, supervised by Professor H. J. Lieber.
In Italy, he came into contact with Amadeo Bordiga, with whom he remained connected for life without ever becoming a member of a Bordighist group.
In 1971, he moved to the University of Hanover, and from 1973 until his premature death, he dedicated himself entirely to the “Projekt Arbeiterbewegung.”

Rodriguez-Lores, Juan (Jerez, Spain, 1943)
Studied philosophy and theology in Rome and sociology, philosophy, and Romance languages in Bochum, earning a doctorate on Gramsci’s philosophy of praxis. He was a collaborator on the Historisches Wörterbuch der Philosophie.

Roth, Gerhard (Marburg, 15.08.1942)
A scholarship holder of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes in Münster and Rome, he studied music, German studies, and philosophy, earning his doctorate in 1969. Subsequently, he studied biology in Berkeley and graduated in zoology in Münster. Since 1976, he has taught physiology at the University of Bremen, and since 1989, he has been director of the local Institute of Neuroscience. Since 2003, he has been president of the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. His research focuses on the question of free will and the brain’s construction of reality, and his work has been accused of biological determinism.

Sandkühler, Hans Jörg (Freiburg, 1940)
Graduated in 1967 in Münster under Joachim Ritter with a thesis in political philosophy on Schelling, he worked as an assistant at the University of Giessen for Odo Marquard until 1970, earning his doctorate in philosophy with a study on the theory of knowledge in hermeneutics. Professor at the Zentrum für Philosophie und Grundlage der Wissenschaft, he left Giessen in 1974 for the University of Bremen, where he held the chair of Philosophy. Since 2003, he has been director of the German department for the UNESCO Chair of Philosophy for Cultures and Human Rights at the University of Bremen, a position he maintained even after retirement in 2005.

Schmidt, Alfred (Berlin, 19.05.1931)
Studied history, classical philology, and English at Goethe University in Frankfurt. A student of Horkheimer and Adorno, he earned his doctorate in 1960 with the thesis The Concept of Nature in Marx. From 1972, he was a professor of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Frankfurt, succeeding Habermas in Horkheimer’s chair. He retired in 1999. His research specialization is the Critical Theory of the Frankfurt School, but his works span the history of materialism, philosophy of religion, and Freemasonry, with particular focus on theorists like Feuerbach and Schopenhauer.

Sofsky, Wolfgang (Kaiserslautern, 1952)
A student of sociology, philosophy, and political science, he earned his doctorate in 1981 at the University of Göttingen with the thesis Theoretical Studies on the Methods and Structures of Social Experience and Interaction. Until 2000, he taught at the same university, while also engaging in intense journalistic activity for periodicals such as Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Frankfurter Allgemeine, and Die Welt. For his habilitation thesis: The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp, he received the Geschwister Scholl Prize. His thought is strongly influenced by Elias Canetti.

Steiniger, Peter Alfons (Berlin, 04.12.1904 - Berlin, 27.05.1980)
Trained in law, in 1933 he was dismissed from his position in the court due to his Jewish origins, and his main activity became writing. In 1946, he joined the SED, received the chair of Public Law at Humboldt University, and collaborated on the drafting of the GDR Constitution. Between 1950 and 1970, he held the chair of International Law at Humboldt. From 1954, he was a co-founder and, until 1980, president of the Liga für die Vereinten Nationen of the GDR.

Weiss, Peter Ulrich (Neubabelsberg, Berlin, 08.11.1916 - Stockholm, 10.05.1982)
Originally from a Jewish family that converted to Christianity, he fled to England in 1935 in the face of Nazism, where he came into contact with Hermann Hesse. The family moved to Sweden, where Weiss remained until his death. Initially a painter, then a graphic artist, avant-garde playwright, and director following in Brecht’s footsteps, with Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (1975-1981), a trilogy in the form of a novel-essay, he reflected on the relationship between art and culture.

Zamiš, Guido (Dalmatia, 20.11.1899 - Berlin, 17.04.1985)
A Triestine communist in exile, he belonged to the Roten Garde. In Vienna, the Austrian Communist Party made him available to Gramsci. His journalistic activity began in 1929 as a correspondent from Vienna for Inprekorr and later for Roten Fahne. In 1934, he went to Zurich, where he worked for Basler Rundschau, then in Paris at the telegraph agency Agence France-Monde. From the end of 1942, he was a soldier among the resistance organizations in Montpellier. From 1950, he was in the GDR.