Croce’s post-Marxist secularism influenced Italian left intellectuals

Evidence

Croce had been a pupil of Labriola and for a short period, between 1895 and 1900, professed himself a Marxist. He soon defected, declaring Marxism to be useful only as a “simple canon of historical enquiry and research” and pronouncing, with characteristic arrogance, “the death of theoretical Marxism in Italy” coincidental with his own defection. Croce’s influence on the whole of Italian culture right up to the present time cannot be over-estimated. Despite his abandonment of Marxism many of his ideas continued to strike an echoing chord among young intellectuals of the left in the pre-fascist period: notably his secularism and his opposition to the previously dominant ideology of positivism. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 49

Categorization

• XREF: Croce’s claim that Marxism was only a ‘canon of historical enquiry’ recurs in later debates about Gramsci’s own status as a theorist — useful when the reader meets scholarship arguing Gramsci de-Marxifies Marxism. — connects to: Croce’s philosophy tried to reabsorb Marxism as a subordinate of traditional culture. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1641; Croce denied politics philosophical value while Gramsci made it central — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 52
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Croce’s philosophy tried to reabsorb Marxism as a subordinate of traditional culture. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 1641; Croce denied politics philosophical value while Gramsci made it central — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 52