Gramsci’s concepts operate on Marxist terrain aimed at political practice

Evidence

Gramsci was not a “general theorist.” Indeed, he did not practice as an academic or scholarly theorist of any kind. From beginning to end, he was and remained a political intellectual and a socialist activist on the Italian political scene. His “theoretical” writing was developed out of this more organic engagement with his own society and times and was always intended to serve, not an abstract academic purpose, but the aim of “informing political practice.” It is therefore essential not to mistake the level of application at which Gramsci’s concepts operate. He saw himself as, principally, working within the broad parameters of historical materialism, as outlined by the tradition of Marxist scholarship defined by the work of Marx and Engels and, in the early decades of the twentieth century, by such figures as Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Labriola, Togliatti, etc. (I cite those names to indicate Gramsci’s frame of reference within Marxist thought, not his precise position in relation to those particular figures—to establish the latter is a more complicated issue). This means that his theoretical contribution has, always, to be read with the understanding that it is operating on, broadly, Marxist terrain. That is to say, Marxism provides the general limits within which Gramsci’s developments, refinements, revisions, advances, further thoughts, new concepts, and original formulations all operate. However, Gramsci was never a “Marxist” in either a doctrinal, orthodox, or “religious” sense. He understood that the general framework of Marx’s theory had to be constantly developed theoretically; applied to new historical conditions; related to developments in society which Marx and Engels could not possibly have foreseen; and expanded and refined by the addition of new concepts. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 75

Categorization

• XREF: Directly feeds the reader’s scaffolding goal — establishes ground rules for reading Gramsci’s concepts (hegemony, common sense) that the Islamophobia field inherits: practice-oriented, non-doctrinal Marxism.
• QUESTION: Hall explicitly flags that Gramsci’s exact relation to Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky etc. is ‘a more complicated issue’ — worth chasing later to locate hegemony properly in that lineage.