Abstract

The aim of this article is to offer an analysis of the assertion contained in the first paragraph of Notebook 12, in which Gramsci states that “[…] all members of a political party should be regarded as intellectuals”. This statement, placed in the context of Gramsci’s democratic thinking in the spring of 1932, will then allow us to revisit the critique of elitist theory developed by the Italian philosopher in the Prison Notebooks, and subsequently to reread these analyses in the light of Gramsci’s first confrontation with Michels’ work in the autumn of 1917.