Le tensioni dell’egemonia: Los usos de Gramsci di Juan Carlos Portantiero

The focus of this contribution is the book by Juan Carlos Portantiero Los usos de Gramsci (1981), which collects essays written and published between 1975 and 1981. Los usos de Gramsci is contextualized in relation to the historical-political moment (the coup d’etat in Chile and then in Argentina), the cultural climate (the national and international Marxist debate) and the trajectory of the author. The central thesis is that this book represents a momentary equilibrium between the earlier Leninist approach and the later approach, linked to liberal-democratic and socialist thought. In the 1981 book, Gramsci’s original reading is happily combined with an extraordinary ability to innovate Marxism theoretically in the field of the theory of the State and in overcoming determinism.