Antonio Gramsci (22 January 1891 - 27 April 1937) was an Italian writer, politician, political philosopher, and linguist, He was a founding member and onetime leader of the Communist Party of Italy and was imprisoned by Benito Mussolini's Fascist regime, Gramsci was one of the most important Marxist thinkers in the 20th century, and his writings are heavily concerned with the analysis of culture and political leadership, he is notable as a highly original thinker within modern European thought, He is renowned for his concept of cultural hegemony as a means of maintaining the state in a capitalist society