Antonio Gramsci Biography

Antonio Gramsci was as an Italian communist politician and Marxist philosopher. He is best remembered for his theory on cultural hegemony through which he described how the sociologically-defined capitalist class ‘bourgeoisie’ used cultural organizations to maintain its power. Regarded as a key neo-Marxist, he was a leader of the Communist Party of Italy and wrote over 30 notebooks covering topics such as Italian history and nationalism, fascism, and the French Revolution, to name a few. Born in Ales, Sardinia, as one of the seven sons to a low-level official, Gramsci abandoned schooling and took several casual jobs after the arrest of his father. As a boy, he suffered a malformation of the spine that contributed to his stunted growth. In 1911, he started studying literature and linguistics at the University of Turin. During World War I, Gramsci joined the Socialist Party and became a leading theoretician. He encouraged the formation of factory councils and later formed the Communist Party of Italy which led to his arrest in 1926 by Benito Mussolini’s fascist regime. However, Gramsci was later released in 1934 because of his deteriorating health. A combination of arteriosclerosis, angina, pulmonary tuberculosis, gout and acute gastric disorders eventually led to his death in 1937, at the age of 46.