Gramsci read Machiavelli and Marx as twin theorists of militant action.

Evidence

In an earlier version of the passage here entitled “The Political Party”, Gramsci gave what he wrote the heading “Marx and Machiavelli”, and began: “This theme can be developed in a two-fold study: a study of the real relations between the two as theorists of militant politics, of action; and a book which would derive from Marxist doctrines an articulated system of contemporary politics of the ‘Prince’ type. The theme would be the political party, in its relations with the classes and the State: not the party as a sociological category, but the party which seeks to found the State.” — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 593

Categorization

• XREF: Establishes that the party is defined by seeking to found the State — the political-party as state-founding instrument, a concept carried into readings on how movements insert themselves into state power.