Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism - John M Cammett

 ANTONIO GRAMSCI 

AND THE ORIGINS OF ITALIAN COMMUNISM - 

JOHN M CAMMETT

There's nothing like a bit of Gramsci on your daily commute. It's where I do a lot of my reading: On the train to and thro from work as the world goes by outside. And therein lies the only difference between me and my fellow commuters: Where they all tend to be surfing social media on their iPhones, there's me with my nose stuck in a book about the origins of Italian Communism. It doesn't in any way make me a better (or worse) person of course just because I'm reading a book because it's each to one's own at the end of the day. It's horses for courses. Same song difference dance. Or as Elton John once put it: 'While the other kids are rocking round the clock, I'm hopping and bopping to the Crocodile Rock.'

But I digress.

Antonio Gramsci was born on the island of Sardinia in 1891 where his parents scratched a living in what was an economically backward area even by southern Italian standards. Poverty and crime were endemic and life was brutal, and it was from these origins that Gramsci developed a natural instinct of rebellion against the rich. After gaining entry into the University of Turin from a special scholarship fund for needy students his writing began in earnest, contributing to the weekly organ of the Turin section of the Socialist Party and then to the national socialist newspaper, Avanti.

Gramsci was a thinker, a contemplator whose analysis was always innovative, cutting and precise. Small wonder then that by 1921 at the age of thirty he was serving as a national leader of the Italian communist proletariat.

John M Cammett's book, Antonio Gramsci And The Origins Of Italian Communism swerves and weaves around and ploughs through the ins, outs and intricacies of the 57 Heinz baked bean versions, splits and factions of Italian Communism with exhaustive attention to detail. He eventually reaches the stage in Gramsci's life where following the attempted assassination of Mussolini, the Fascists pass the Exceptional Laws which orders the immediate dissolution of all opposition parties. After establishing a Special Tribunal for the defence of the State, mass arrests are carried out with Gramsci being one of the first to face the Tribunal. On the advice of the prosecutor, Gramsci is sentenced to twenty years of imprisonment on charges of treason with the prosecutor declaring "We must stop this brain from functioning."

Ironically, it's actually in prison that Gramsci gets to do some of his best thinking particularly in regard to the concept of cultural hegemony, all recorded in 2,848 pages of manuscript to be later published years after his death as The Prison Notebooks. If Gramsci was already considered to be an intellectual, these prison notebooks cemented his position as being one of the masters of twentieth-century political thought.

Gramsci's theory of cultural hegemony is the process by which predominance is obtained by consent rather than force of one class or group over other classes or groups. But how to explain this so it makes sense? How to explain a Universal Truth? 

As Cammett in his book puts it: "Hegemony is an order in which a certain way of life and thought is dominant, in which one concept of reality is diffused throughout society in all its institutional and private manifestations, informing with its spirit all taste, morality, customs, religious and political principles and all social relations.'

I'm loathe to quote Wikipedia at the best of times but as they put it: "Cultural hegemony is the dominance of a culturally diverse society by the ruling class who manipulate the culture of that society - the beliefs and explanations, perceptions, values and mores - so that the worldview of the ruling class becomes the accepted cultural norm. As the universal dominant ideology, the ruling class worldview misrepresents the social, political and economic status quo as natural, inevitable and perpetual social conditions that benefit every social class, rather than as artificial social constructs that benefit only the ruling class.' And then 'Hegemonic culture propagates its own values and norms so that they become the 'common sense' values of all and thus maintain the status quo.'

Hegemony, as Gramsci points out, however, is a two-way street and so just as bourgeoisie and conservative values are cast as common sense values held by all and of benefit to all - subsequently justifying and maintaining a world of massive and terrible inequality, values that are actually of benefit to the proletariat could easily replace them. This, however, needs to be done from below, from the lowest social classes though potentially in conjunction with other progressive social elements and some parts (and the accent is on 'some') of the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. 

The working class, as Gramsci puts it, must create its own Enlightenment.

The significance of cultural hegemony cannot be overstated and though it doesn't explain everything, it explains so much: The present day culture wars, the rise of Trump, how the news is depicted, advertising, the manipulation of algorithms, social media and memes, deference, stereotypes, lifestyles, the acceptance of the unacceptable, the normalization of the immoral, etc, etc, etc.

Cammett's book is probably not the best place to start when trying to understand Gramsci's ideas but as a way of understanding where Gramsci has come from and subsequently where his ideas have come from it serves its purpose. Above all, it serves as a testament to his life and presents the case that Antonio Gramsci is very much deserving of our respect.

John Serpico.