Abstract

This paper aims at outlining the main framework for a new reading of Gramsci's Prison Notebooks. In particular, 1) it focuses not merely on the external, but also on the internal relationship between Gramsci's own experience as a prisoner, and the «material form» that his thought takes in the Notebooks; and 2) it places emphasis on the intrinsic relation between the theoretical approach in Gramsci's Notebooks, and the political developments both in the USSR, and in the Italian Communist Party's strategy in view of the political struggle in Italy. Against this background, a new interpretation of the notes on Italian intellectuals is proposed, arguing that this piece was a strategic intervention addressed to the Italian Communist Party within the political context of the Comintern's strategy around 1929-1930.