ABSTRACT
The full range of Gramscian revolutionary concepts — for example, ideological hegemony, social bloc, war of position, and democratic transformation — has been taken over by the Eurocommunist leaders, integrated into an essentially minimalist, social-democratic framework, and robbed of its meaning as a guide to revolutionary praxis. Although the label "Eurocommunism" goes back only as far as 1975, and the initial proclamations came only with the Berlinguer-CarrilloMarchais statement in March 1977, the theory underlying it has much earlier origins. The theoretical equation of Gramsci and Eurocommunism, as reflected in the work of Carrillo and others, is not limited to Italian Communist Party interpretations within the Italian context. Although any effort to pinpoint the theoretical and strategic origins of Eurocommunism is bound to be rather arbitrary, a good case can be made for the period beginning in the mid-1930s.
