[BEST OF] Antonio Gramsci: Hegemony, Organic Intellectuals, & Italian Fascism

Revolutionary Left Radio

Breht O'Shea

Communism, Politics, Liberalism, Society & Culture, Philosophy, News, History, Leftwing, Socialism, Marxism

4.8 • 3.4K Ratings

🗓️ 6 May 2025

⏱️ 108 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

ORIGINALLY RELEASED Feb 12, 2020

In this episode, Jon Greenaway and Brenden Leahy return to the show and join Breht to explore the life, thought, and revolutionary legacy of Antonio Gramsci—the Italian Marxist theorist who redefined how we understand power, ideology, and resistance. We break down Gramsci’s key concepts, including cultural hegemony, the role of organic intellectuals, and the importance of building counter-hegemonic institutions. We also examine his fierce opposition to Italian fascism, his imprisonment by Mussolini, and how his prison notebooks continue to offer critical insights for revolutionary struggle today. This is an accessible yet deep dive into one of the most original Marxist thinkers of the 20th century—essential listening for anyone serious about strategy, ideology, and the long war of position.

Find Jon's show (@HorrorVanguard) here: https://www.patreon.com/horrorvanguard

Check out Brenden's punk band No Thanks here: https://no-thanks.bandcamp.com/

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. On today's episode, we have John from
0:05.1	the Hora Vanguard and Brendan from Marxism and Mosh Pitts on to talk about the political
0:10.4	theorist and revolutionary Antonio Gramsci. Enjoy. Hey, everybody. I'm John, better known as the
0:18.0	lit quick guy. I'm a writer. I'm an academic and I'm also the co-host of a podcast on horror film and leftist politics called Horror Vanguard. I've been lucky enough to come on Brad's show a few times to talk about a whole range of topics. I'm sure we can, we might bring up that previous conversations that we've had. And
0:39.1	Brett's also come on Horror Vanguard to talk about class in American politics and horror.
0:44.5	Please do check out Horror Vanguard if you, if you like horror film, if you are interested in
0:49.8	radical theory and radical politics. And yeah, I'm really happy to be here to talk about maybe one of
0:55.6	the most important Marxist thinkers of the 20th century. Absolutely, glad to have you back. And we also
1:01.6	have in studio, Brendan, and between John and Brendan, they've probably both been on the show
1:06.6	dozens of times. I mean, I don't know, combined a lot of times they've been on the show. But,
1:10.5	Brendan, would you like to introduce yourself again? Hi, I'm Brendan. Some of you might
1:14.8	recognize me from this or that episode in the past. I also have a podcast spinoff of Rev Left Radio
1:21.3	called Marxism and Mosh pits. And then I do local activism, classic day job stuff, and then I'm in a punk band called No Thanks.
1:30.4	Hell yeah.
1:31.2	So, happy to have John and Brendan in the same room, kind of, for this episode.
1:36.0	And this is a long time coming.
1:37.9	I mean, we're, I think, three years in, yeah, it's February 2020.
1:40.9	So Revlev's been on the air for three years now this month.
1:44.3	And we have not gotten to a Gramsci episode yet.
1:47.5	So we will rectify that today.
1:50.1	We want to talk like the first part I'm really going to focus on Gramsci's life as a political figure and as a human being.
1:55.9	And then the second part, we'll talk more about his ideas and theory and contributions to Marxism.
	...

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