Antonio Gramsci was born in a poor family in Savolina in Italy. His early childhood was spent under utter destitution. Gramsci started working in an office after receiving some fundamental instruction, till in 1911 he gained a scholarship and entered the Turin University. He observed that a marked difference existence in the standard of living in rural and urban regions of Italy. He was interested by Marxian ideology while studying at the University and later on by Corce’s argument on the role of culture and thought in the evolution of history which provided him with the theoretical structure upon which Gramsci worked out his speculations and modifications of Marxian thoughts. In 1914-15 he entertained a series of lectures on Marx which drew his attention in the problem of relation between the base and the superstructure which is closely associated with Marx’s materialist interpretation of history which seeks to explain all historical events in terms of changes occurring in the mode of production.
The transitions from primitive communism to communism, from slavery to feudalism, from feudalism to capitalism and from capitalism to socialism and communism are all explained in terms of changes in the material conditions of society and in the lives of individuals. The mode of production consists of the forces or means of production (land, labour, capital, machine, tools and factories, etc.) and relations of productions: slave-master, serf-baron, proletariat-capitalist. The economic structure of each society which is constituted by relations of production is the real foundation of that society and constitutes the base on which emerges the legal, political and ideological superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness.
Marx had communicated the impression that no society can endure any thorough or dramatic change till required and adequate factors for such conversion are existent. One form of society cannot be taken place by another, except when it exhibited all forms of life which are inherent and implicit in its economic relationship. In the Critique of Political Economy, Marx had explicated: “no social order over perishes before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have developed: and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions for their existence have matured in the womb of old society. According to Marx, the economic procedure of society make up the base and the political system construct the super structure. The character of super structure is determined by the character of the economic base.
Gramsci modulated the Marxian stance. He spoke of a historic bloc. Gramsci outlined the historic bloc as a state when both objective and subjective conditions combine to bring about revolutionary circumstances. It is a position when the old order is disintegrating and there are also people equipped with will and historical insight to take advantage of this situation. The union of base and super structure, material conditions and ideologies, comprise the historic bloc.
To express it differently, even when the material conditions have culminated to initiate a revolution, its occurrence would be controlled by accurate intellectual analysis with a view to accomplish a rational manifestation of the contradiction of the structure.
In the prevalent Marxism, the super structure, in the entire realm of ideas and conceptions constituting of ethics, law, philosophy, art and the like is immediately accustomed by the economic order, by means of production and exchange. Material conditions determine men’s consciousness, Gramsci censured this view. Like Lukacs, he doubted that revolution and arrangements for it would entail thorough modifications in the consciousness of masses.
Dialectics in the physical world are distinct from dialectics in society. In physical nature, it is the violent and hostile reaction of physical forces but in society, it is a movement in which men help to bring about a result to act as a deliberate force in the dialectical process. Thus it is the point of time when sub-structure and super-structure interact on each other to produce a historic bloc.
Thus we find that both Lukacs and Gramsci share a lot of common experiences. Both emphasized the functional role of cultural and philosophical components in examining historical materialism of Marx. Both ascribed greater attention to consciousness than to crude material forces. Both discerned the connection between the base and the superstructure in a new perspective.