Gramsci Cultural Thought Research

Gramsci’s thoughts on culture came into being against the backdrop of the OctoberRevolution led by Lenin. His thoughts on culture comes from the practices of analyzingthe problems encountering Italian Communist Party. Inherited the Italian traditionalculture, Gramsci’s thoughts on culture is a kind of recognition of Marxism culture.Gramsci defined culture as a product of cultivating one’s soul and compromising toone’s personality. Culture is a process to elevating one’s conscious awareness to a higherlevel through which people will be fully aware of their own value, rights andresponsibilities. The maturing of Gramsci’s thoughts on culture goes through two mainphases: the first phase is before Gramsci was jailed then his thoughts on culture turnedfrom the initially confined national culture originated from Sardinia to socialist thoughts;the second phase is when he was in prison, and his thoughts on culture was furtherrefined from the socialist thoughts to revolutionary and innovative ones. Gramsci’sthoughts on culture can be basically divided into two kinds: aesthetic appreciationculture and political culture. Gramsci’s thoughts on aesthetic appreciation cultureemphasizes that literature should pay attention to people’s feelings; Gramsci’s thoughtson political culture advocates that proletariat should seize the cultural leadership, andintellectuals should make the popular culture as the mainstream of culture by means ofliterature and education to win people’s recognition of proletariat culture. In a sense,making a study of Gramsci’s thoughts on culture playing an important role inimplementing the spirit of the6thPlenary Session of the17thCPC Central Committee, inbuilding the proletariat ruling party in the peaceful period and in improving rulingparty’s for the people awareness during the cultural construction. And Gramsci’sthoughts on culture is also of great significance for adapting Marxism to thecircumstances in China, for keeping it develops with the time and for its popularization.