Year: April 1937

Place: A clinic in Rome

Antonio Gramsci, engaged in writing his Prison Notebooks, awaits death in a hospital, following the terrible years of confinement in Mussolini's prison. Gramsci dies on 27 April 1937, unsung and virtually unnoticed, leaving behind, however, a precious gift for twentieth-century Marxism, namely, his Prison Notebooks. Many years later, this voluminous work finally comes to the knowledge of the outside world and is acclaimed as a fundamental contribution to Marxism's glorious heritage.

Year: February 1937

Place: Moscow's Lubyanka prison

Nikolai Bukharin, once considered the “darling of the Party” by Lenin, a key figure in the Bolshevik revolution and regarded as a leading theoretician, awaits trial. He is accused of having betrayed the revolution, joined the bandwagon of capitalism and counterrevolution and is branded as a “Right deviationist.” He has been arrested following the charges levelled against him at the fateful plenary session of the Central Committee of the CPSU during 27 February–5 March 1937. After one year Bukharin is sentenced to death by the highest authorities of the USSR and he faces the firing squad on 15 March 1938.

These are not new facts. Completely new, however, is the fact—unknown till very recently—that Bukharin during this one year of prison life, like Gramsci, was engaged in writing what has now come to be known as his Prison Manuscripts, comprising several volumes dealing with problems of philosophy, politics and culture, an unfinished autobiographical novel, a book of 187 poems and a short manuscript the contents of which are not yet known.