Interpretations of Gramsci require his pre-1926 political context, not later criteria.

Evidence

This periodicity is of crucial importance in understanding the basic political coordinates of Gramsci’s writings in prison. These have an organic continuity with the political universe within which Gramsci had operated prior to his arrest; they manifest a radical disjuncture from the political universe which existed by the time that they were written. This is perhaps a major reason for the opacity and oblique character of some of the central political reflections in the Prison Notebooks, on the revolution in the West, on the party, on the State, etc. And it is certainly the major reason for the inappropriateness of many of the attempts that have been made to interpret Gramsci in terms of criteria which had no meaning in his political universe: popular frontism, Stalinism, etc. Any theorisation of Gramsci’s work must seek to set it firmly in its true historical context, and must seek to explain all, and not merely some, of its sometimes contradictory elements. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 172

Categorization

• XREF: Resonates with the reader’s Islamophobia toolkit need to situate theory in its historical moment; also connects to why critical-theory texts must not be read backward through later political battles.
• QUESTION: Which passages in the Prison Notebooks are the ‘opaque and oblique’ ones about revolution in the West, the party, and the State?