In his view if the
> proletariat was to seize political power and create a new social order
> it would likewise require its own organic intellectuals. And Gramsci
> saw the creation and nurturing of such a stratum a primary objective
> of the workers movement. Gramsci defined the term intellectual very
> widely so as to encompass not just mere talkers or scribblers but
> to include all those who have "organizational function in the wide
> sense. . ."
Gramsci: "All [people] are intellectuals, but not all [people] function as intellectuals."
Gramsci saw the working class as already possessing intellectuals (this is in his essay on intellectuals - a direct reference will have to wait until I've got enough money to buy the Gramsci CD-ROM), in so far as there is a layer of workers whose perform 'mental labour', i.e. organising production, etc. Gramsci, however, saw these intellectuals as working under the intellectual hegemony [1] of the bourgeoisie.
>
> Therefore, it seems apparent that for Gramsci it was not sufficient
> that intellectuals like Marx or Kautsky or Lenin bring a socialist
> consciousness to the working class. Such a consciousness could
> not be expected to take root within the working class without
> the development or organic intellectuals within the working class.
>
Yes - Gramsci often referred to this as replacing 'common sense' with 'good sense'. Intellectual function, for Gramsci, was inherent in all of us because we all make choices - we all have a 'schema' for making those choices. This I think is what Gramsci meant by 'sense' - and he saw the primary task that of replacing the 'common sense', inherited from the intellectual hegemony of bourgeois society, with 'good sense', which grew out of the development of an intellectual program of the working class 'for itself' (i.e. doing things that make sense from a working class p.o.v. - of course, what precisely makes sense from a working class p.o.v. is not necessarily obvious, which is why you need 'organic intellectuals' in the first place).
Peter [1] There's an interesting essay in the International Gramsci Society Newsletter #9 which mentions how Gramsci's concept of hegemony grew from concerns being batted about in the study of language in the early years of the century. -- Peter van Heusden : pvanheus at hgmp.mrc.ac.uk : PGP key available 'The demand to give up illusions about the existing state of affairs is the demand to give up a state of affairs which needs illusions.' - Karl Marx