Gramsci: An Alternative Communism?

Abstract

This is an attempt to determine the character of Antonio Gramsci's Marxism by way of a critical analysis of Luciano Pellicani'sGramsci: An Alternative Communism? His interpretation is that, except for a peaceful revolutionary strategy, Gramsci is a typical Marxist-Leninist. This is criticized by pointing out that it is largely grounded on non-Gramscian texts, that its references to Gramsci are primarily to an intermediate phase of his development, and that its construal of the mature texts of thePrison Notebooks does violence to the contexts of the passages quoted. The criticism strongly points in the direction of either an original Gramscian communism or a Gramscian noncommunism.