Antonio Gramsci: the roots of Italian communism

Abstract

Antonio Gramsci’s theory of hegemony, based on the importance ofconsensus, is the antecedent of the recognition of the democracy bythe Italian Communist Party (terrain that would be fully acquired by itssuccessors, Togliatti and Berlinguer). Gramsci takes the word and theconcept from the debates at the top of international communism and–adapting it to his theory of the “revolution in the West” – changes andinnovates it profoundly in the Prison Notebooks, making it an idea thatis today widespread and used throughout the world. Palmiro Togliatti,who returned to Italy in 1944, became a protagonist in the writing ofthe post-war democratic Constitution and theorized on the “nationalways” to socialism and polycentrism; Enrico Berlinguer theorized onthe universal value of democracy and the acceptance of many liberalprinciples for the construction of an idea of “communism in freedom”.