GRAMSCI, ANTONIO

born Jan. 23, 1891, Ales, Sardinia died April 27, 1937, Rome intellectual and politician, a founder of the Italian Communist Party whose ideas still greatly influence Italian Communism. In 1911 Gramsci began a brilliant scholastic career at the University of Turin, where he came in contact with the Socialist Youth Federation and joined the Socialist Party (1914). During World War I (1914-18), he studied Marxist thought and became a leading theoretician. He formed a leftist group within the Socialist Party and founded the newspaper L'Ordine nuovo ("The New Order"; May 1919); his group participated energetically in a futile general strike in Turin (1920). Gramsci led a leftist walkout at the Socialist congress at Livorno (January 1921) to found the Italian Communist Party and then spent two years in the Soviet Union. Back in Italy, he became head of his party (April 1924) and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies. After his party was outlawed by the Fascists, Gramsci was arrested and imprisoned (1926). Released 11 years later because of poor health, he died in a Rome hospital. The letters he wrote from prison were published posthumously as Lettere dal carcere (1947).