SOUTH-EAST EUROPEAN JOURNAL

OF POLITICAL SCIENCE

Ideologies and Patterns of Democracy

Vol. I No. 3
July, August, September
2013
South-East European Journal of Political Science, Vol. I, No. 3, 2013

Antonio Gramscis Concept of Ideology

Ioana CRISTEA (DRGULIN)

University of Bucharest

Abstract: The term and, later on, the concept of ideology have accompanied the
theoretical history of the last two centuries. In this brief analysis, the author aims to
highlight the key elements in Antonio Gramscis concept of ideology. The first part
of this contribution discusses some theoretical landmarks, such as the birth and the
basic elements of this concept as well as the main arguments against it coming from
the area of politics and its theorists. The second part of the contribution talks about
the crucial elements of Gramscis thoughts on the concept of ideology. The last part of
the paper is devoted the authors conclusions.

Keywords: ideology, the end of ideology, class, social phenomenon, structure,

super-structure.

1. THEORETICAL LANDMARKS

1.1. The birth of the concept of ideology

Over the last two centuries of intellectual activity, one of the most difficult
theoretical endeavours in the field of social sciences has been the attempt to find an
optimal definition for an abstract and yet very seducing concept, namely that of
ideology. This because, as Daniel andru wonders: Fundamentally, is ideology a
system of ideas and beliefs, or is it the expression of the manner in which social and
political practices are structured?1
Ever since the 23rd of May 1797, the moment when this term appeared for the
first time in an intellectual context, many, philosophers, historians, sociologists, etc. have
tried to impose a definition as comprehensive and as exact as possible. The difficulties
encountered by these authors resided in the fact that, although ideology has been a
word frequently used in the vocabulary of this field during the last two centuries, it has
experienced numerous re-significations from one period to the next and from one
theorist to another, entering into the social vocabulary along with the modernization
and the democratization of societies.2
The inventor of the term ideology is Antoine Louise Destutt de Tracy. The
word appears for the first time in his study titled Memoires sur la facult de penser,
published in Memoires de lInstitut National des Sciences et des Arts pour lAn IV de la
Rpublique. The authors goal was to overturn the old classifications in order to introduce
a new science of ideas. The purpose of this new science was to replace the old type of

1 Daniel ANDRU, Ideologia, in Eugen HUZUM (coord.), Concepte i teorii social politice, Editura Institutul
European, Iai, 2011, p. 163.
2 Idem, Reinventarea ideologiei, Editura Institutul European, Iai, 2009, p. 18.

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metaphysical knowledge with a new kind of knowledge, namely, scientific

knowledge.
Destutts thoughts were influenced by Claude Adrien Helvetius materialism. In
Helvetius view, ideas are essentially the result of the influences that the society in which
we live has on the individual. Peoples representations derive from the sensations that
the surrounding objects produce on their senses. Thus, ideology must conduct an
objective study of ideas and their origins.
In 1801, Destutt published the first volume of Elements didologie, where he
carried out a structural analysis of language, a psychological-moral analysis, and a study
devoted to economy. In this volume, ideology refers to a science of ideas grounded in
the empirical through the removal of any gap or uncertainty. For Destutt, existence
coincides with existence, or, more precisely, man lives as long as he experiences his own
existence. The goal is to reach the elements before knowledge through the
decomposition of psychological phenomena, with the aim of demonstrating that exact
sciences can be applied to the study of human thought. This is why ideology may be
considered an anti-metaphysical science. This position is assumed by taking over a critical
valence in relation to all the dogmas which claimed to prove truths in areas in which it
was not possible to use practical and empirical knowledge1. In the same vein, one of
Destutts contemporaries, Melchiorre Gioia, considered that ideology was a theory of
knowledge and passions.2

1.2. Critics of the concept of ideology

1.2.1. Practitioners

Ideology was criticized by both the practitioners and the theorists of politics. At
the level of political practice, this conception was criticized from the very beginning by
Napoleon Bonaparte, who believed that ideology, as abstract thought, proved to be
incapable in its pursuit of truth, lacking the capacity to act upon reality3. This is why
Napoleon deliberately changed the meaning of the term, claiming that ideologists were
nothing but doctrinaires. To be more precise, Napoleon believed that ideologists were
people who had little political sense and a limited contact with reality.
The ideological opposition against Napoleon was, on the one hand, enlightened by
the idea of individual and national freedom, and, on the other, by the idea of legitimacy.
And, according to the ideas of that time, legitimacy meant respect for order and
traditions. This is why Napoleon was not a mere adventurer who managed to extort, by
demagogic means, the good faith of peoples, but more than that, he was the expression
of a revolutionary mentality which pretended to modify the secular structures of each
country according to the rules of abstract reasoning4.
So, the reason why Napoleon felt the need to position himself against the
concept of ideology and against its supporters was political and had to do with the
opposition of the intellectuals of that time, who saw themselves as ideologists and
1Angelo DORSI, Guida alla storia del pensiero politico, La Nuova Italia Editrice, Firenze, 1995, pp. 125, 126.
2Melchiore GIOIA, Del merito e delle ricompense, Pirotta, Milano,1822-1823, p. 168.
3Karl MANHEIM, Ideologia e utopia, Il Mulino, Bologna, 1965, p. 73.
4Salvo MASTELONE, Storia ideologica dEuropa da Sieys a Marx (1789-1848), Sansoni editore, Firenze, 1984,
p. 132.
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opposed the political projects promoted by Napoleon in France. Another explanation,

which transcends the political element, pertains to the broader part that ideology may
play in society. Thus, the future first emperor of France, with his political wits, observed
what andru also states in his study Ideologia, namely, that:

[] as a central figure of the social imagery, ideology plays a fundamental role

not only in influencing social and political reality, but also in legitimating a
particular policy, in view of its integration.1

1.2.2. Theorists

At the theoretical level, criticism against ideology, as a mental process, closes with
the so called end of ideology. Specialists are of the opinion that the latter started with
I. Kants criticism of knowledge and Feuerbachs and K. Marxs opposition to classic
German philosophy and its failure to establish scientific metaphysics.2
In Kants mind, there is a clear relationship between reasoning, and, as a result,
philosophizing, and knowledge:

To think an object and to cognize an object are by no means the same

thing. In cognition there are two elements: firstly, the conception,
whereby an object is cogitated (the category); and, secondly, the
intuition, whereby the object is given. For supposing that to the conception a
corresponding intuition could not be given, it would still be a thought as
regards its form, but without any object, and no cognition of anything
would be possible by means of it, inasmuch as, so far as I knew,
there existed and could exist nothing to which my thought could
be applied. 3

Kant concludes that to think is clearly linked to an ideology, but it is not

compulsory for the latter to overlap with knowledge.
With Karl Marxs works the modern theory of ideology makes a qualitative leap
even if it starts from the premise described by Napoleon. Marx knew Destutts works
very well, as he carried out a thorough analysis of the economic doctrines presented by
the French thinker, but he also criticized ideology for having stolen historys empirical
elements, reducing it to a list of ideological products generated by human conscience4.
Besides Napoleons criticism, who saw ideology as an abstract construction
which lacked any contact with reality, Marx also puts forth the argument of
instrumentality, because it contributes to the concealment of social conflicts, being
nothing but an illusion. And this because all the philosophical, political, moral, and
religious theories are not autonomous, as they are established by people, and are due to
the realities they have to face throughout their lives. The only areas in which they are

1 Daniel ANDRU, Ideologia...cit., p. 163.

2 Umberto CERRONI, La cultura della democrazia, Mtis editrice, Chieti, 1991, p. 179.
3 Immanuel KANT, Critica raiunii pure , 3rd ed., translated by Nicolae Bagdasar and Elena Moisuc, Editura
IRI, Bucureti, 1998, p. 67.
4 Karl MARX, Il capitale, (a cura di D. Cantimori), vol. II., Editori Riunti, Roma, 1970, pp. 499-507.

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autonomous are those in which the relationships of production, the means of production
and their use are shared according to class principles1.
As a result of this definition, Marx defines ideology as false ideas that material
relationships inspire to material actors.
However, in spite of this criticism, neither Marx nor Engels denied the fact that
ideology also encompasses elements of truth2.
These authors define ideology as follows: the generation of ideas, representations,
conscience, which is firstly and directly intertwined with the material relationships of
people and the language of real life.
Peoples representations and thoughts and their mood changes seem to be here
an emanation of their own material behaviour. If in all the ideologies people and their
relationships 3seem to mix as in a camera obscura, this phenomenon stems from the
historical process of ones own life as that of the objects deriving from the immediate
physical process.
Another critic of ideology is Vilfredo Pareto who, due to his reticence in
accepting the term, replaced it with the concept of theory. If Marx linked the concept
to a historically determined society which uses it as an instrument of domination, Pareto
believed that man is an ideological animal and so ideology expresses some specific
psychological needs of human nature.4.
Pareto denies ideology its qualities of a science because the two act in distinct
fields: one uses facts while the other uses conscience. However, although ideologies are
non-scientific theories, they can be useful to societies because man is prone to be
influenced by sentimental arguments more than by rational ones. Another type of finality
would be its capacity to convince people to act.
When he analyses the period between the two world wars from an ideological
perspective, Karl Manheim distinguishes two levels of ideologies: particular and total.
The ideologies in the former category determine the opponents points of view while the
latter takes into account his entire view of the world, and thus there emerges a theoretical
level that analyses the relationships established between social-historical groups5.
Starting from here, Manheim individualizes the ideology-utopia conceptual
couple. By the term ideology the author attempts to state that, under particular
circumstances, the factors dwelling in the collective conscience of several groups conceal
the real situation of society. The concept of utopia sheds light on the existence of
groups which are in a situation in which their own view does not represent an objective
framework of that situation, being used only as a direction towards action6.
Gyorghy Lukacs distinguishes between true and false ideology, in the sense
that there are ideologies which interpret the historical process in its entirety and
ideologies which do not go beyond their own class view7.
Following the Marxist tradition, Louis Althusser believes that an ideology is a
system that possesses its own logic and its own rigour of representations (images, myths,
1 See Karl MARX, Friedrich ENGELS, Lideologia tedesca, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1994.
2 Angelo DORSI, Guida alla storia...cit., p. 129.
3 Karl MARX, Frederich ENGELS, Lideologia tedesca, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1877, p. 13.
4 Norberto BOBBIO, Lideologia in Pareto e in Marx, in Saggi sulla scienza politica in Italia, f.e. 1988, pp. 79-
107.
5 Karl MANHEIM, Ideologia e utopia...cit., p.61.
6 Ibidem, p. 41.
7 Gyorghy LUKACS, Storia e coscienza di classe, Sugar & Co, Milano, 1970, p. 83.

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ideas or concepts, accordingly), being endowed with a historical life and function in the
structure of a particular society; ideology as a system of representation is different from
science because its social practical function prevails over its theoretical function1.
At the same time, Althusser attempts to reject the Marxist ideology/science
antinomy, trying to advocate the idea of an ideology in general and not of a theory of
various ideologies. In order to support this theory, the author advances two theses:
a) ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their
own conditions of existence;
b) ideology has a material existence.
According to this definition, ideology is part of any social entirety and this is
why only an ideologized conception of the world could imagine a society with no
ideology and admit the utopian idea that, its disappearance could be replaced by science2.
Ideology is indispensable to a dominant class not only in order to maintain its
dominance over other social groups but also to become a dominant class. At the same
time, in the socialist society, ideology has a twofold purpose: to maintain the dominant
class and to transform individuals3.
Vladimir I. Lenin believes that ideologies are systems of ideas, theories that the
protagonists of class struggle use in their fight. Of course, they can be more or less true,
more or less false, but, above all, they are useful. Their usefulness does not necessarily
depend on truth4.
George Sorel shows that ideology, just as utopia, belongs to the category of
myths seen as a system of images or fantastic representations capable of leading or
stimulating the proletariat in its revolutionary political fight5.
Max Weber said that when a social phenomenon, regardless of its nature, needs
to be explained, it is necessary to look for and trace back the cases on which individual
behaviours are based. They believe that, in the case of failure of this type of logic,
irrational factors can be introduced.
Raymond Boudon tried to show that ideologies are a natural ingredient in social
life. At the same time, the protagonists have good reasons to adhere to false or doubtful
ideas, and any faith in ideology should not be regarded as a cause of passions or
fanaticism6.
Raymond Aron, who belongs to the category of non-Marxists, believed that
political ideologies always gather, in a more or less fortunate manner, fact judgements
and value judgements; they express a sure view of the world and a will to act.
For Edward Shils, ideology is a variant of the systems of positive normative faith
which thrive in any human society, depending on various views of the world.
Ideologies distinguish themselves by the explicit nature of their formulations. They are
narrower, more rigid, and reluctant to innovation, but they spread and they are accepted
with the help of strong emotional elements and command the full adhesion of those who
embrace them. At the same time, they share with the systems and movements of thought

1 Louise ALTHUSSER, Per Marx, Editori Riuniti, Roma, 1969, p. 207.

2 Idem, Sullideologia, Dadalo Libri, Bari, 1976, p. 50.
3 Idem, Marxismo e umanismo , in Critica marxist, VIII, 1970, pp. 197-216.
4 Cf. Raymond BOUDON, Lideologia. Origine dei prejudici, Piccola Biblioteca Einaudi, Torino, 1991, p. 25.
5 George SOREL, Considerazioni sulla violenza, prefazione di E. Santarelli con una introduzione di B. Croce alla
prima edizione, Laterza, Bari, 1930, p. 177.
6 Raymond BOUDON, Lideologia...cit., p. 18.

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(existentialism, pragmatism and Hegelian idealism) the trait that they are based on
explicit or systematic intellectual constructions. The difference between systems and
ideologies resides in the fact that ideologies command full and instant adhesion while the
systems of thought do not. To sum up, Shils identifies eight criteria which determine the
destruction of ideologies by other types of systems. They are:

1) the exclusive nature of formulations;

2) their will to differentiate themselves from other systems of belief, past or
present;
3) their will to regroup around a particular belief, positive or normative;
4) their rejection of innovation;
5) the passionate nature of their spreading;
6) the intolerant nature of their norms;
7) unreserved adhesion;
8) the association with institutions whose purpose is to strengthen and
materialize their own beliefs1.
In his turn, Ferruccio Rossi Landi tried to systematize the criticism against
ideology and he summed up eleven characterizations attributed to it:
1) mythology and folklore;
2) illusion and deceit
3) common sense;
4) lie, falsification, obscurantism
5) fraud or treachery
6) false thought, in general;
7) philosophy;
8) view of the world;
9) intuition of the world;
10) system of behaviour;
11) feeling.
Ferrucio arranged these characterizations around two great key conceptions: (1-
6) ideology as false thought, (8-11) ideology as a view of the world, the link between
these two being established by point (7), represented by the pair ideology-philosophy2.

2. ANTONIO GRAMSCIS CONCEPT OF IDEOLOGY

Antonio Gramsci is the most important Italian Marxist theorist from the inter-
war period. His theoretical reflections have had a major impact on the area of left wing
ideas since the end of World War II and up to now. The importance of Gramscis
theoretical contribution also resides in the fact that the impact of his ideas has not been
limited to the Italian academic area, because his theoretical approaches have reached all
the continents. This is why after World War II we can talk about a Gramscian School.
It is interesting to notice that the most important analyses grouped in Quaderni del Carcere

1 Edward SHILS, The concept and function of ideology, vol. VII, International Encyclopaedia of the Social
Sciences, 1986, pp. 66-76.
2 Ferruccio ROSSI, Ideologia, Mondadori, Milano, 1978, p. 16.

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(1929-1935), a work written while he was in prison, are also Gramscis most important
theories. This work was translated in almost all the countries of Europe, in the United
States of America, in Japan, and in Latin America, Brazil being a revealing example in
this respect.
The importance of Gramscis reflections does not reside only in their
geographical spreading1. The authors fundamental contribution to the area of Marxist
thought is that he emphasized [] how important it was to overcome a certain rigidity
within Marxism, to make it more active in relation to the new political demands,
advocating for the creation of a thought more adequate to a historical situation that had
changed entirely since the events that had taken place in Bolshevik Russia.2 This
element is very real in Gramscis works. The Sardinian author understood that the Italian
social-political realities in the early years of the 19th century were different from those of
tsarist Russia. The historical, social, and political conditions which had allowed the
development of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia were not similar to those of post-war
Italy. However, the two countries had some elements in common: for instance, the ratio
of rural population and big land owners, the opacity of Italian elites, similar to that of
Russian elites, with respect to the agrarian issue, the incipient stage of industrial
development in both countries, the insufficient development of class conscience within
the proletariat, the impact of World War I on their territories, their populations, etc.
However, there were major differences between the cultures and the civilizations of the
two countries. If we are to take into account only one aspect, that of territorial
unification and state unity, the differences were huge. In the Russian case, the state was
created between the 13th and the 18th century, after a process of territorial conquest,
according to feudal principles. In Italy, Il Risorgimento began, according to the specialists
general opinion, at the beginning of the 20th century3, owing to the impact that the ideas
of the French Revolution of 1789 had in Europe, and, also, in Italy. From here we can
clearly see that the constitutive processes that led to the emergence of the two states
were profoundly different, and this is why the ideas that animated them were also
different. The immediate consequence of these different realities is that the elites who
fought for the materialization of the two desiderata were also different. In Russia, there
was a feudal elite ruled by an authoritarian monarch, in Italy, there was a bourgeois,
liberal elite, which subordinated its actions to a constitutional monarch4. As a
consequence, the social and political relations established between the two societies were
entirely different.
According to Gramsci, the trap in which the Marxist theorists who supported
positivist-mechanistic theories got entangled was that they attempted to explain history
as a whole based on the principle of linear social development, in which historical
processes are governed by dialectical laws of development5. This materialist-mechanistic
view prevailed during the second International. This is why, with reference to Gramscis
approach to this way of seeing history and social evolution, several scholars noticed that

1 Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Gramsci, cultura i politica, Editura Politic, Bucureti, 1987, p. 8.
2 Ibidem, p. 10.
3 For more details, see Ioana CRISTEA (DRGULIN), coli de gndire n abordarea fenomenului
risorgimental, in Cultura medieean, II, Media, 2013, pp. 85-91.
4 For more details, see Ioana CRISTEA (DRGULIN), Antonio Gramsci i Risorgimento in Bibliotheca Historica,
Philosophica et Geographica, vol. XI, Collegium Mediense II, Comunicri tiinifice, nr. 11, 2012, pp. 128-133.
5 Ibidem, p. 36.

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in the Sardinian theorists mind: the evolution of society from the trend-related and dialectic
perspective of a field of possibilities which condition the role of the subjective factor, of
will based on some structural necessity. This is why necessity coincides with what is
only a posteriori determinable, because the result is also the product of the struggle of the
will. So, it is only a posteriori that one can establish whether political action (the historical
process) achieved its goal, because the situation was not mature enough (thesis), or
maybe due to subjective forces (antithesis) which were not sufficiently elaborated yet1.
In Gramscis mind, political thinking is a type of research that is deeply
grounded in the social practice of a time. Gramscis philosophical conception continues
in his political thoughts. Together they form an indestructible unit because the Sardinian
authors goal is to give answers regarding the relationship established between the
structure and the super-structure of a society, between objective determinism and the
role of social action2.
In his attempt to explain social phenomena and the course of history,
Gramsci undertook an analysis of the concept of ideology.
The author of the Quaderni questioned the issue of the origins and the meaning
of the concept of ideology. Ever since he started to use the term, its meaning and
signification became manifold in Gramscis mind, even though, in Tracys opinion, it was
only seen as the science of ideas. And this because analysis is a method recognised by
science, and, for this reason, the concepts signification was that of analysis of ideas,
that is, it aimed to search for the origins of ideas.

Ideology is an aspect of sensualism, that is, of 18th century French

materialism. It means science of ideas, because analysis was only a method
recognized and applied by science to the analysis of ideas, more precisely the
search for the origins of ideas.3

The term ideology was used by Gramsci ever since the early texts of his Quaderni
with the meaning of system of political ideas; on several occasions he used the
expression Mazzinian ideology (Q1, pp. 43, 44); when he referred to the Jacobins, he said
that they followed a particular ideology (Q1, pp. 48, 61); when he analysed the engaged
literature he mentioned that there were some works with a determining ideological-political
character, democratic in nature, with respect to the ideologies of 48 (Q3, pp. 78, 358); when he used
the political argument, he made use of expressions such as Masonic ideology, puritan ideology
(Q1, pp. 157, 138), Southern ideology (Q1, pp. 44, 46), patriotic ideology (Q2, pp. 107, 254),
etc.4.
The concept of ideology is both a connecting and a separating bridge between
Gramsci and Marx. The manifold meaning acquired by the concept in time is given, in
the first place, by the fact that, right from the start, he aimed to go beyond the limits
imposed by the old philosophy by using the scientific method5.

1 Ibidem, p. 38.
2 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci, un marxist contemporan, Editura Politic, Bucureti, 1982, p. 113.
3 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere, (a cura di Valentino Gerratana), vol. I, Quaderni 1-5 (1929-1932),
Einaudi, 2007, p.453.
4 For further details, see Guido LIGUORI, Pasquale VOZA (a cura di), Dizionario Gramsciano 1926-1937,
Carocci editore, Roma, 2009, pp. 402,403.
5 Gian Pietro CALABR, Antonio Gramsci. La transizione politica, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, Napoli,
1982, p. 32.
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In order to understand the peculiarities of Gramscis theoretical approaches an

observation needs to be made. Being imprisoned, Gramsci was unable to study the entire
Marxist bibliography. For instance, he did not read the German Ideology (authors K. Marx
and F. Engels, a.n.) which, although written in 1845-1846, was published much later in
Italy (1932). Moreover, he could not have access to Engels latest writings, in which the
German scholar saw ideology as false conscience.
The reference work that Gramsci studied in prison was A Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy (1859), edited by Marx and Engels. The Preface of this book
states:

Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic

foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense
superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to
distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of
production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science,
and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic in short, ideological
forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out.1

From here, Gramsci took over two elements in his analysis: the idea of ideological
forms and the study of mechanistic interpretations. Of course, as we have previously
shown, Gramsci studied mechanistic interpretations with the purpose of showing that
there can also be other types of approaches.
Gramscis option to accept the idea that there is no single ideology but several
ideological forms shows us that his attitude towards the concept of ideology was neutral. This
element of neutrality is particularly important because it distances the Sardinian theorist
from the negative connotations present <t13>in Marxist thought. This option is also due
to the fact that neither Marx nor Engels managed to give a punctual definition of the
concept of ideology, even though, as F. Gentile shows, they used the term ideology
quite much2.
This approach is not singular in Gramsci but is also present in the socialist and
Marxist intellectual circles at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the20th
century.
The second element taken over from the Preface was the relationship with
mechanistic interpretations. The Sardinian theorist considered that ideologies themselves
were not negative, but that not all ideologies were equal.
In Quaderni, Gramsci noticed that:

[] the mistake made when ideologies were analysed is due to the fact that
this name was given both to the superstructure needed by a particular structure
and to the arbitrary rigmaroles produced by certain people thus the
concept became extensive, that is, it modified and distorted the theoretical
analysis of the concept of ideology3. (This is why we cannot believe that the
superstructure is nothing but a mere reflection of the political structure.)

1 Karl MARX, Friedrich ENGELS, Opere alese n dou volume, 3rd ed., vol. 1, Editura Politic, Bucureti, 1966,
p. 314.
2 Francesco GENTILE, Morte e trasfigurazione della politica nellideologia, Nuova Antologia, n. 2107 , July
1976, pp. 3.
3 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 868.

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The claim (presented as an essential postulate of historical materialism) that

presenting and exposing any fluctuation of politics is ideology as an immediate
expression of structure must be fought against from a theoretical viewpoint, as
primitive infantilism.1

Starting from these presumptions, Gramsci advanced an original anti-

mechanistic and humanist interpretation of historical materialism.

[...]there was omitted that in a very common expression (historical

materialism a.n.) we must stress the first term: historical and not the second,
whose origin is metaphysical. The philosophy of praxis is absolute historicism,
thought rendered absolute, incorporated into the world and worldly, an
absolute humanism of history. It is in this direction that the core of the new
conception about the world should be explored.2

When he analysed the existence of some historical-natural premises for the

development of society, the Sardinian theorist had a viewpoint which was almost
identical to that presented by Marx and Engels in Ideology. For him, philosophy and the
history of philosophy are inseparable from mans actions, from his practical, historical
activity.3
However, in Gramscis mind, a class or a social group has from the start a first
level of existence, which is mostly economic, and its scope of action is limited to the
reproduction of its own interests, particular and corporative. In this stage, each group
member finds himself in a state of heightened individuality, being in a situation in which
he can achieve a corporative conscience of some common interests that could link him
to other members.
When the members of a social group manage to acquire the conscience of group
homogeneity and then are aware that their interests could also be of interest to other
social groups, being able to harmonize them with those of the majority, then there
emerges the phenomenon whereby the social group starts to have a political existence4.
We see, from these statements, that starting from Gramsci, the concept of
ideology receives a particularly different meaning, which is not present in the Marxist
doctrine.
Another element described by the Sardinian theorist resides in the relationship
established between ideologies. For Gramsci not all ideologies are equal. Ideology is the
common and necessary ground of conscience and knowledge, but the superiority of
Marxist ideology is given both by the awareness of its own character, which is eternal
and absolute, but also by the awareness of partisanship, given by the existence of a
historical moment and its belonging to a class5.
How can we explain this classification in Gramsci?
The answer is provided by Palmiro Togliatti. The historic leader of the Italian
Communist Party (ICP), when he talked about Gramsci several years after the latters
1 Ibidem, p. 871.
2 Idem, Opere alese, Editura Politic, Bucureti, 1969, pp. 125-126.
3 Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Gramsci, cultura i politica...cit., p. 35.
4 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., pp. 1583, 1584.
5 Guido LIGUORI, Pasquale VOZA (a cura di), Dizionario Gramsciano...cit., p. 400.
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death, characterized him as a theorist of politics, a practitioner of politics, that is, a

fighter1. So, Gramsci was an ideologist, meaning that he was a theorist but also a
politician, a political action man. While observing this reality, we cannot but see how
Napoleons characterisation of ideologists as doctrinaires, abstract thinkers, who want to
replace politicians, practitioners, by imposing ideas born in an intellectual laboratory, is
not valid in this case.
The symbolic passage from Gramsci the theorist to Gramsci the politician is
identifiable in Quaderno X, where Gramsci analyses the manner in which B. Croce refers
to political ideologies: Croces doctrine (a.n.) within the area of political ideologies
clearly stems from the philosophy of praxis: they are practical constructs, instruments
of political direction2. For the philosophy of praxis, ideologies are not absolutely
arbitrary, they represent real historical facts, whose real nature should be revealed, and
which should be fought against, for reasons of political struggle and not for moral
reasons. Revealing the nature of ideologies should allow us to become intellectually free
and governed by those who govern, in order to create a new ideology after having
destroyed another. This could be one of the reading keys that would make us understand
the passage from Gramsci the theorist to Gramsci the politician.
This is where the influence of N. Machiavelli on the Sardinian theorist is clearly
visible. It is significant that an important part of his theoretical reflections were grouped
under the name Note despre Machiavelli [Notes on Machiavelli]. As Florian shows:
Machiavellis works represent the system of reference for Gramscis political thought
because its axis is the idea of creating collective will, of stimulating and organising it in order to
materialize some determined goals of history3. Machiavellis endeavour was to introduce
scientific sense into the approach to the political phenomenon. For this reason, we see
how the Florentine thinker was one of Tracys predecessors, as well as a predecessor of
the term and then the concept of ideology.

[] the difference between how people live and how they should live is so
great that he who leaves aside what is for what should be will rather find out
how people become doomed than how they could prevail.4

Machiavelli does not advocate an action deprived of ethical criteria but the
existence of autonomy for the political in relation to these.5
Thus, ideology is not something arbitrary; it compulsorily operates within the
course of history. This is why the role of the philosophy of praxis is to fight and reveal
the nature of the domination tool. Starting from this statement, the ideology of praxis
has the role of revealing the true nature of ideologies, more precisely, it must prove that
any ideology is an instrument of domination and so it is a component part of the
domination tools that a class possesses and uses in order to maintain its domination over
another class. This is why ideology becomes the fundamental element which leads to a

1 Palmiro TOGLIATTI, Appunti preparatori della relazione al I convegno di studi gramsciani, Roma, gennaio 1958, p.
35.
2 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 1319.
3 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit., p. 113.
4 Niccolo MACHIAVELLI, Principele, Editura tiinific, Bucureti, 1960, p. 58.
5 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit. , p. 115.

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breach between the ruled and the rulers. The role of the philosopher of praxis reveals the
true structure of ideology, even if it is surrounded by the shroud of universality.
In Gramsci, the philosophy of praxis was conceived as a synthesis and an
overcoming, a conception based on the organic and dialectical unity of its three
components (philosophy, economy, and politics)1.

The philosophy of praxis is not confused with and is not reduced to any
philosophy; it is not original only insofar as it overcomes the preceding
philosophies but mainly because it opens an entirely new road, that is, it
renews from start to end the manner in which philosophy is conceived.2

The fight in which it gets engaged does not have a moral connotation, we are
dealing with a political struggle whose aim is to overcome the gap created between the
ruled and the rulers3.
This explains why the Sardinian theorist agreed with Marx when he referred to
the role of ideology. For Gramsci:

Ideologies are ridiculous when they are empty words and are used to create
confusion, to deceive and to enslave social energies that are potentially
antagonistic.4

And this because Gramsci,

[] as a revolutionary, as a man of action, cannot act outside ideologies and

practical schemes, which are potential historical entities in course of
forming.5

Marxist ideology is just as any other ideology but distinguishes itself from the
others by the fact that it does not deny contradictions, but, rather, it analyses them such
as they are. What it has in common with other ideologies is the fact that it bears some
usefulness for a particular social group and it does not claim to be something more.
Another element taken into account by Gramsci is the nature of ideologies. From
his point of view, we need to distinguish between: ideologies which are historically
organic and are necessary to a given structure, and arbitrary, rationalist, wanted
ideologies. And here he does not take into account only Marxism but also the so called
progressive ideologies.
From this moment on, Gramsci makes a connection between the concept of
hegemony6 and that of ideology. For him, ideology ensures the most intimate binding
matter of the civil society, and, so, of the state7. Thus, hegemony can be defined as the

1 Gheorghe Lencan STOICA, Gramsci, cultura i politica...cit., p. 36.

2 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 1436.
3 Gian Pietro CALABR, Antonio Gramsci. La transizione politica...cit., p. 34.
4 Antonio GRAMSCI, Astrattismo e intransigenza [11 May 1918], in Idem, Il nostro Marx 1918-1919 (a cura
di Sergio Caprioglio), Einaudi, Torino 1984, p. 17.
5 Ibidem.
6 Hegemony is the key concept around which Antonio Gramsci developed the theoretical construction that
explained the Risorgimento as a phenomenon, the disparities between the Italian North and South, and the
gaps that divided the civilisations of these two peninsular geographical areas.
7 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p. 1306.

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capacity to organize the ideological substratum of society into a historical block1. And
hegemony is imposed by a dominant class. This domination cannot be separated from the
issue of power.
The dominant class has its own ideological structure; more precisely, we are
talking about a type of:

[] material organisation whose aim is to maintain, defend and develop the

theoretical and ideological front. The most dynamic part is represented by
the press in general, by publishing houses (which, implicitly or explicitly, have
a program and support a particular trend), political newspapers, all kinds of
journals, scientific, literary, philological, general, periodical, and even parish
magazines.2

Ideology can be imposed by a class or by a social group through hegemony. Yet, in

order to understand this relationship, we need to analyse power relationships. When
Gramsci analysed the concept of hegemony, the Marxist literature encompassed two
dominant views. The first is visible in Marxs and Engels works.
The Manifesto of the Communist Party says that: political power is merely the
organised power of one class for oppressing another"3, in The Origin of the Family,
Private Property and the State, it emerges as the state of the most powerful,
economically dominant class, which, through the medium of the state, becomes also the
politically dominant class, and thus acquires new means of holding down and exploiting
the oppressed class4. And Engels, in the Preface to The Civil War in France, believed that
the state is nothing but a machine for the oppression of one class by another, and
indeed in the democratic republic no less than in the monarchy5.
The second view belongs to V.I. Lenin: [] the state is an organ of class
domination, an organ for the oppression of one class by another... the state is a special
organisation of force, an organisation of violence in order to repress a particular class6.
For Lenin, the states role is the same regardless of the historical age: The methods for
exerting violence have changed but the existence of the state has always meant, in any
society, the existence of a group of people who rule, command, dominate, and who, in
order to hold power, possess a system of physical constraint, a system for exerting
violence, with the weapons that correspond to the level of technology of that age.7 The
result envisaged by Lenin was the outburst of a violent revolution which would lead to
the recognition of the proletariats political domination, and of its dictatorship: Replacing
the bourgeois state with a proletarian one is impossible without a violent revolution
(which should lead to - a.n.) the recognition of the proletariats political domination, of
its dictatorship, that is, of a power which is not shared with anyone and which is
supported directly by the affirmed force of the masses.8

1 Michele FILIPPINI, Tra scienza e senso comune. Dellideologia in Gramsci, in Scienza & Politica, vol.
XXV, No. 47, 2012, pp. 99.
2 Ibidem, p. 332.
3 Karl MARX, Friedrich ENGELS, Opere, vol. 4, Editura Politic, Bucureti, 1958, p. 488.
4 Idem, Opere alese, vol. II , Editura P.M.R., Bucureti, 1952, p. 292.
5 Ibidem, vol. I, p. 498.
6 Vladimir I. LENIN, Opere, vol. 25, E.S.P.L.P., Bucureti, 1954, pp. 381, 396.
7 Ibidem, vol. 29, p. 462.
8 Ibidem, vol. 25, p. 354.

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By the manner in which they analyse the social relationships established within
the state, Marx and Engels are profoundly anti-democratic. They have a schematic,
mechanistic view of human nature, of its evolution, of the relationships between
individuals or between individuals and the state. Their theoretical conception, based on
the fact that the evolution of capitalism would inevitably lead to the outburst of class
struggle and the imposition of the proletariats dictatorship, proved to be false. And this
because in England, seen, at that time, as the most industrially advanced country in the
world, and whose capitalism was considered to be the most well structured, this historic
event has never happened. The victory of the proletarian movement took place in
tsarist Russia, the country where the bourgeoisie, the proletariat, and the liberal regime
were the least developed from the great European states. Moreover, we cannot talk
about a class struggle but rather of a coup dtat that the paramilitary Bolshevik troops,
armed by the German state, put into practice. This is why it is obvious that the reasoning
of the two German theorists was not confirmed in practice.
In Lenins case, things are much clearer. We are dealing with an anti-system
project, totalitarian in nature, which inspired the Marxist view of society, but whose
original sin was the place in which it materialised. Their claim of imposing the same
model within any kind of state, regardless of its development stage, in the Braudelian
sense, proved to be a failure.
Coming back to Gramsci, he took over the term hegemony from Lenin, but he
used it in the Quaderni in a manifold manner1. In his writings, we see how the term
hegemony develops into a concept. If, initially, the Sardinian theorist takes over the meaning
of the term hegemony in the sense used by Lenin, namely of that of the proletariats
dictatorship, when it would reach a position from which it could rule and dominate, in
Quaderni, this restrictive interpretation disappears. In the writings which analyse the
Risorgimento phenomenon, we see that Gramsci distances himself from Lenins view of
the concept of hegemony, because he removes the economic element. In fact, the
economically dominant class such as it is presented by Lenin no longer imposes its hegemony
by means of a system of physical constraint. In the Italian case, hegemony imposed itself by
the power of attraction that the dominant class (the Action Party) exerted over its
subordinated classes and mainly over the intellectuals.2
We see how Gramsci, in the Quaderni, is aware of the social complexity, given by
social stratification, and this is why, in order to build and to impose the hegemony of one
class it is necessary and compulsory to establish an alliance policy with other subordinate
classes directed against a dominant block. And for this to happen, ideology must be seen as
an organic historical philosophy, called upon to organise human masses, to allow
the creation of an awareness of their own position.3
And in order to achieve this awareness, a political-moral guide is needed, which
should not necessarily be irrational and which Gramsci calls organic ideology. It is different
from arbitrary ideology, which is not historically necessary4.

1 Ioana CRISTEA (DRGULIN), The Evolution of the Concept of Hegemony in Antonio Gramscis
Works, Cogito, Vol. V, No. 3, 2013.
2 For an ampler view on the evolution of the concept of hegemony, see Ioana CRISTEA (DRGULIN),
The Evolution of the Concept of Hegemony in Antonio Gramscis Workscit..
3 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., pp. 868-869.
4 Franco ROSITI, Ideologia, in Paolo FARNETI (a cura di), Il mondo contemporaneo. Politica e societ, I, La
Nuova Italia, Firenze 1979, p. 6.
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3. CONCLUSIONS

The theoretical approaches that various theorists have used in the analysis of the
concept of ideology over the years show that one important issue has always been the
attempt to demonstrate its scientific or non-scientific nature. This is a very important
issue because if, in itself, ideology is a science, then it could be covered by truth and thus it
would be legitimate; on the contrary, if it is triggered in the area of irrational theories,
then it loses its legitimacy.
Once this stage is overcome, almost all the authors notice that, by the clarity of
its own goals and by making explicit the methods used, ideology has an important role in
the activation of the masses and thus it manages to solve a fundamental issue in all
societies, namely, social immobility. From the moment they adhere to an ideology, the
masses play an active role in political life, producing profound transformations at the
level of society. The result of these mutations determines a new image of that
community and imposes, for a long or short amount of time, a new reality in the political
area. This is why the emergence of ideologies is fundamental, because they accompany
the development of the process of modernization and they influence it, allowing the
various social actors to express themselves.
The genesis of Gramscis thought happened in the difficult moments of World
War I and in the restless years that followed it. It was a period in which, for the first time
after 1789, there developed a crisis of the bourgeois regime and of the liberal
government type. It was a crisis announced by Marx and Engels in their works, but we
should notice that it did not develop due to the reasons invoked by the two theorists. On
this background, the Marxist ideas spread heavily in the peninsula. From an ideological
viewpoint, it was not only a crisis of the historical liberal right but also an identity crisis
of the democratic left, of socialism. The impact that the Bolshevik Revolution of
October 1917 had on the socialist movement, created, at the political level, a breach
which led to the development of the ICP, and, at the theoretical level, allowed Gramscis
development. At the same time, in Italy, the crisis of the bourgeois regime made the
petty bourgeoisie get closer to an authoritarian movement with totalitarian tendencies
such as Fascism. Gramsci analysed the crisis of the bourgeois state through the lens of
the Italian historical evolution from the moment when the Risorgimento phenomenon
began and up to the Fascists conquest of political power.
At the theoretical level, there is a great confrontation of ideas between two great
theorists: Croce and Gramsci. Positioned on different political sides, each of them
legitimized their ideological options through the analysis of the Risorgimento
phenomenon. This is why we can say that in his writings Gramsci uses Croces ideas to
create, in a mirror, an innovating theory that aimed to provide an answer to the main
themes of reflection of that time.
At the same time, Gramsci continued the core of ideas promoted by Machiavelli,
not only at the political level but also at the level of philosophical research, because the
Florentine thinker refused fatalism and the passive acceptance of historical faith.1

1 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit., p. 114.

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Gramscis contribution to the study of the term and the concept of ideology in
the 20thcentury is very important.
Michael Freeden, in his study titled Ideology, showed that Louis Althusser, Karl
Mannheim and Antonio Gramsci are the theorists who brought the most important
contributions to the analysis of the concept of ideology in the 20th century.1
Radu Florian, one of the most important scholars of Gramscis thought in
Romania, showed how [] in spite of the fact that Gramscis works do not have a
systematic nature, do not encompass didactic definitions and clarifications, and are not
easily accessible, they generated under the circumstances of their break off and
delimitation from dogmatism, a keen interest within contemporary Marxism.2
In order to explain the role, the terminological valences, and the nature of the
concept of ideology, Gramsci introduces into the Italian theoretical area the term hegemony,
which, later on, he transforms into a concept. Here, Gramsci brings a major contribution
to the theoretical level because, starting from the meanings provided by Marx, Engels
and Lenin to the term hegemony, he imposes in the literature the concept of hegemony. The
difference is major and original, because Gramsci uses a complex analysis, through the
use of concepts such as: structure, superstructure, power, supremacy, domination,
historical block, subordinate classes, dominant classes, the philosophy of praxis, social
group, etc.
For Gramsci, ideology is not a unitary moloch3, a pre-established, coherent
block of ideas and positions, which is built in order to be installed in the minds of the
subordinates by intellectuals, ideologists or party members. On the contrary, it represents
a complex form of the social world, which is made of different parts, of various
elements4.
Of course, as we have shown in this study, Gramsci delimits himself from the
negative meaning that Napoleon attributed to ideology, regarded as ideas which claim to
orient politics, issued by intellectuals who aimed to replace real politics by abstract
considerations.5 Gramsci recognises the existence and the importance of ideologies,
even if, in his mind, they are different and have unequal values.
For the Sardinian author, ideology must be used by a group or a social class in
its fight with the dominant or subordinate class. The argument in favour of its use is
political, not moral in nature.
As we have shown in the first part of this study, the impact of Gramscis ideas
was a major one worldwide. In the United States of America, the American conservatives
noticed the influence of Gramscian ideas at the level of north-American political elites:
At the beginning of the 20th century, an unknown communist, named Antonio
Gramsci, theorised that a long march towards institutions is necessary before socialism
and relativism become victorious. Up to that moment, a large part of the radical left still
believed that the conquest of power could happen only after they had been able to
convince a sufficient number of people from the proletariat to embrace this cause. But
Gramsci theorised that, by conquering key institutions and by using power, there could

1 Michael FREEDEN, Ideologia, Codice edizioni, Torino, 2008, p. 17.

2 Radu FLORIAN, Antonio Gramsci un marxist contemporan...cit, p. 11.
3 In Romanian, moloh, n. (scholarly) Symbol of cruelty, greed, rapacity; a person or community which
possesses these traits. From pr. n. Moloch, http://dexonline.ro/definitie/moloh (accessed on 18.08.2013).
4 Michele FILIPPINI, Tra scienza e senso comune. Dellideologia in Gramscicit., p. 94.
5 Raymond BOUDON, Lideologia. Origine dei prejudici...cit., p. 36.

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take place a process of change in cultural values, through the disintegration of traditional
morals, which could result in the defeat of the political and economic power of the
Western world. The key, according to Gramsci (Limbaugh says, a.n.), was to change the
manner in which society judged the same type of issues. At the beginning, Gramsci
wrote, faith in God needs to be overturned and weakened. Then, those who think that
there are some moral principles inspired by God need to be rejected; after this,
everything will happen according to the socialists, relativists, and materialists wishes.
Now, Gramsci is not, of course, a household name, not even among the smartest people
on earth, dear readers. But please trust me when I say that his name and theories are well
known and understood throughout leftist intellectual circles. Leftist think tanks worship
at Gramscis altar.1
Of course, as Michele Filippini also shows, Limbaugh attributes to Gramsci
ideas that he had never expressed2. Rather, we can talk about a quick and superficial
reading of Gramscis works, which led to the emergence of these interpreting errors. In
Rush mind, there was a culture war going on in North-American politics,3 which
resulted in the adoption of the famous affirmative actions. It is the act which allowed
women emancipation and offered the right of tutelage to minorities.
However, it is important to understand the origins of this aversion directed
against Gramsci, and why he is seen as the ideologist of those power groups which aim
to take hold of political power and change the face of American institutions through
their cultural conquest.
In 1989, a conservative think tank entitled Council for Inter-American Security
elaborated a document which presented the strategy that the US was to follow in Latin
America. It is interesting to notice that in the 80s, several intellectuals who gravitated
around this think tank had held first rank administrative functions in the Reagan
administration, passing from the civil society to the political one, and thus validating
Gramscis equation, according to which the State = civil society + political society. More
precisely, a political state4.
Starting from this equation it is visible how Gramsci delimited himself very
strictly from Lenins views on the state5. If for Lenin, the state is an organ of class
domination, whose role is to support one classs oppression by another class, through
the exercise and the imposition of force, in Gramscis mind, the state loses this classist
and non-democratic connotation. For the Sardinian theorist, power is conquered by the
imposition of hegemony. And this does not happen, as in Lenin, by means of a violent
revolution. The technique put forth by Gramsci consists in alliances with the subordinate
classes and in the creation of a power of attraction directed towards the intellectuals.
The conclusion brought by Gramscis way of envisaging the conquest of power is that
the Sardinian theorist has a democratic view of the game played within the political area.
Once more, he distances himself from Lenin, who wanted to impose hegemony, seen as
the proletariats dictatorship, through a movement of force, through a revolution.
1 Rush LIMBAUGH, See, I told you so, Pocket Books, New York, 1993, p. 87.
2 Michele FILIPPINI, Gramsci globale. Guida pratica alle interpretazioni di Gramsci nel mondo, Odoya, Bologna,
2011, p. 146.
3 Rush LIMBAUGH, See, I told you so...cit., p. 88.
4 Antonio GRAMSCI, Quaderni del Carcere...cit., p.764.
5 See note 64, where Lenin believed that [...] the state is an organ of class domination, an organ for the
oppression of a class by another... the state is a special organisation of force, an organisation of violence in
order to repress a particular class.
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Gramsci becomes a theorist who aims to conquer through legal and judicial methods.
This is why, when he analysed the Risorgimento phenomenon, he removed the
economic element from the attempt to impose the hegemony of the bourgeois, liberal
elite represented by the Action Party. If in Lenins case we can talk about the promotion
of an anti-system political movement, which aimed to impose its own hegemony by force,
in Gramscis case, the role of the awareness that should have been reached by the
proletariat was doubled by the effort to attract organic intellectuals. Thus, power is
conquered organically, we might say, by attracting important parts of the people. This is
where Gramscis democratic conception about the conquest of power is clearly visible. It
is interesting to notice that this democratic vision was less observed by left wing
theorists; this particularly important element needs to be revealed together with the
criticism formulated by the North-American conservative right.
When the Council for Inter-American Security analysed the evolution of Marxist
ideas in Latin America, its members discussed Gramsci and the contribution that the
Sardinian theorist brought to the understanding of the concept of culture and its
relationship with power: The key innovative Marxist theorist who recognised the
relationship of the values people hold to the creation of the statist regime was Antonio
Gramsci. Gramsci stated that culture, or a societys sum of values, has an importance
much greater than the economy. For Gramsci, it is difficult for the proletariat to attack a
democratic regime, but the same is not true in the case of intellectuals. [] Gramsci
inferred that, if Marxists were able to create the nations prevailing cultural values, then it
would be possible to give shape to and control such a regime [], a process which
would involve a strong influence on religion, schools, media, and universities. []
According to this pattern, the Marxist movements in Latin America were much more
active in intellectual and scientific environments than in the proletarian setting.1
We notice how Gramsci and his concepts are used to create reading keys,
necessary in order to understand the issues faced by the North-American hegemony. It is
also worth mentioning that there is no paragraph or idea which could affirm the non-
democratic nature of Gramscian conceptions. Moreover, he analyses a process wherein
the main element in the conquest of power is no longer fighting, the army, revolutionary
violence or the physical destruction of a class. According to Gramsci, culture becomes
the main weapon used to conquer institutions, which, in their turn, can maintain their
hegemony over the entire society.

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