Revolutionary Political Realism: Gramsci's Political Thought in Modern Prince

Re-reading original texts of Classic Thinkers is one of the necessities of transforming Iranian discourses of humanities. There are controversies in the approach over what distinguishes a `great book` from `lesser works` of a thinker. In a Straussian perspective, Great Books are held to be written by authors/philosophers of such sovereign critical self-knowledge and intellectual power that they can in no way be reduced to the general thought of their time. Academic as well as ex-academic circles of thought ought to go far beyond the commentaries and commentators to reach more contemplative confrontation with critical theory heritage achieving a critical reading of the very classic texts. Having this insights in mind, here the author tries to re-read Gramsci`s political realism based on Quaderni del Carcere, specially The Modern Prince. The relation between Gramsci`s The Modern Prince with two conflicting heritages of radical modernity has been reviewed: Machiavelli as Republican one, and Marx as Revolutionary one. Sorel and power of the myth and the violence as respected by Gramsci is other side of this seemingly contradictory radical heritage, as here called as Revolutionary Political Realism.