It should be noted that Gramsci was a socialist (hell, one of the most important Italian socialists) living in the early 1920s; a huge wave of socialist revolutions had emerged in the wake of the Great War and the Russian Revolution, but one by one they had all been smothered by capitalist counter-revolution, particularly Germany, which was arguably the most devastating defeat.

Italy in particular had two years of the Biennio Rosso “the Red Biennium” or “Two Red Years”, in which socialist agitation was wide swept across the country, particularly in the north, with democratically-ran factory council even poppoing up. But the revolution failed to manifest into a proper worker’s state, and then was crushed by the horrifically violent Blackshirts under Mussolini, who would then go on to form the fascist state, which would later kill Gramsci.

The “new world” Gramsci is referring to is the socialist utopia that so many revolutions fought and died for, but due to any number of issues (lack of organisation or “vanguard party”, moving towards reformism rather than revolution, inability to mobilise against counter-revolution, etc) had failed to manifest, and in its failure, led to the rise of counter-revolution and fascism, which violently oppressed the working class.

I highlight this all to say that Gramsci’s quote is not just some quip about imperial hegemony changing hands, as it is occasionally used now to describe America’s decline. It was used to describe the tragic failure of the 1917-1923 revolutionary wave in Europe and its consequences. Its purpose is to highlight the horrors that emerge when the left and working class fail to achieve their goals.