Abstract: "Economic base determines the superstructure" is a very important formula in historical materialism. The explanation of the economic determinism on how the former "determines" the latter is too simple and mechanical, which greatly distorts Marxism. So how to understand this "decisive role"? How to understand the interaction between the two? Gramsci enriched the concept of superstructure and proposed to take the civil society as the intermediary to make it an intermediate link in the mutual penetration between the economic foundation and the political superstructure. In the course of western Marxism, this idea has been deepened, dedicated to explaining the complexity of the superstructure and complicating the interaction between the economic base and the superstructure.