Antonio Gramsci: perspectives of the Chilean society. Notes for discussion

Abstract

The author analyzes the vicissitudes of the theoretical ideas and policies of Antonio Gramsci in Chile in various historical moments of his time: while he was alive, after his death and how we view him today. Some glimpses of the works of Gramsci arrived in Chile before and after the Second World War. An entire generation of Chilean intellectuals welcomed Gramsci’s antifacist writings. A new wave of literature on Gramsci came in after the Salvador Allende’s coup d’état. At the moment of defeat and the people’s need for new perspectives, Gramsci’s works became intensively read by intellectuals in Chilean universities and by groups resisting the dictatorial regime. The crisis of 1981 and 1982 radicalized Chile, and it provided new grounds for Gramsci’s writings and thought for both the left and right of Chile.