"In this grand picture, the decisive factor was the impetus given in Italy by the founder of our party, Antonio Gramsci, one of the most original thinkers of our time, the greatest Italian of our era, for the indelible mark he left with his thought and action. With Gramsci, Marxism, freed from the parasitic distortions of positivist fatalism and vulgar materialism, regains its full value as a conception of the world and an integral vision of history. It is once again the guide for action and thought in all fields, not only in purely political research, but also in the critique of a decrepit idealistic culture incapable of helping us understand the world of yesterday and today, in the construction of a new culture and in the struggle for the renewal of society. (chap. XIV, p. 142)"