chapter. As we shall see, a very important feature of that debate is the question of whether particular ideologies necessarily pertain to different social classes, or whether this imputation of the 'class-belonging' nature of political ideology is a mistake.

Gramsci, as is no doubt known to all readers, wrote most of what has come down to us as the body of his writings in the extraordinarily coercive circumstances of an Italian Fascist prison. The conditions under which he wrote, including his progressively poor health, obviously have a bearing on the nature of the texts we have, and a further important consideration is the fact that his works incorporate many strategies and detours related to the prison censor. These bald facts explain, to some extent anyway, the relatively fragmentary and 'open' nature of these crucial writings.

If we look first at one passage from the Prison Notebooks where Gramsci addresses directly the concept of ideology in the Marxist tradition, we find the following points made. Gramsci refers to the 'negative value judgement' that has (erroneously) become attached to the meaning of ideology in Marxist philosophy; here we should take note of Jorge Larrain's point that, first and foremost, Gramsci must be identified as taking a 'positive' rather than 'critical' stance on ideology. Gramsci suggests -- though not quite in these words -- that the weak understanding of ideology in Marxist thought can be blamed on those who have seen ideology as merely determined by an economic base and therefore '"pure" appearance, useless, rubbish etc.': in this regard he lines himself up with Korsch's critique of 'vulgar-Marxism'. Gramsci then stresses that 'historically organic ideologies' -- those that are 'necessary' -- have a psychological validity and they 'create the terrain on which men move, acquire consciousness of their position, struggle etc.': it is this attention to 'psychological validity' that has made Gramsci in some senses unique in the Marxist tradition.

In the same brief, but highly condensed, set of theses Gramsci suggests that 'organic' ideologies can be distinguished from the polemics of individual ideologues, and he distinguishes between ideology as the 'necessary superstructure of a particular structure' and ideology in the sense of these 'arbitrary elucubrations' of individuals. Gramsci refers to Marx's view that 'a popular conviction often has the same energy as a material force', and concludes the passage with the following formal statement:

The analysis of these propositions tends, I think, to reinforce the conception of historical bloc in which precisely material forces are the content

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