The Italian revolutionary movement is another important moment to study. From the early 1960s, to the hot autumn of 1969, to the ‘Autonomia‘ of the 1970s the struggle raged in Italy. This was part of the larger wave of working class revolt sweeping across Europe in Paris 1968, leading to the breakup of the Keynesian economic consensus.
For the Italian ‘Workerists‘ and later ‘Autonomia‘, this was a time of great experimentation and lively working class social movements. These movements rocked the foundations of Italian society. The theoretical and practical experiments provide a framework for some of the challenges we face, in a time of class recomposition and ruling class attack. The insights they provide are deeply valuable to all Libertarian Communists:
Reading List –
Robert Lumley – States of Emergency: Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978
Red Notes – Italy 1977-8: Living with an earthquake
Prole.info – Class Struggle in Italy: 1960s and 1970s
Sylvere Lotringer, Christian Marazzi – Autonomia: Post-political Politics
Emilio Mentasti – The Magneti Marelli Workers Committee – The Red Guard Tells Its Story
Steve Wright – Storming Heaven – Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism
Panzieri, Sohn-Rethel, Palloix, Bologna, Tronti- The Labour Process & Class Strategies
Antionio Negri – Books for Burning: Between Civil War and Democracy in 1970s Italy
Antonio Negri – Factory of Strategy: Thirty-Three Lessons on Lenin
Antonio Negri – Marx Beyond Marx: Lessons On The Grundrisse
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt – Empire
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt – Multitude
Antonio Negri and Michael Hardt – Commonwealth
Mariarosa Dalla Costa – Women and the Subversion of the Community: A Mariarosa Dalla Costa Reader
George Caffentzis – In Letters of Blood and Fire
Silvia Federici – Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction and Feminist Struggle
Midnight Notes Collective – Midnight Oil : Work, Energy, War, 1973-1992
Midnight Notes Collective – Promissory Notes
Noel Ignatiev – Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity
The Sojourner Truth Organization’s Pamphlets
Sojourner Truth Organization – Workplace Papers
Sojourner Truth Organization – Shop Leaflets
Big Flame – Workplace Commission – Organising To Win
Big Flame – Paul Thompson & Guy Lewis – The Revolution Unfinished? A Critique of Trotskyism
John Holloway – Change the world without taking power
John Holloway – Crack Capitalism
Harry Cleaver – Reading Capital Politically
Harry Cleaver – 33 Lessons on Capital : Reading Marx Politically
Franco ”Bifo” Berardi – The Soul at Work From Alienation to Autonomy
Franco “Bifo” Berardi – The Uprising: On Poetry and Finance
Werner Bonefeld and Sergio Tischler ed. – What is to be Done? Leninism, anti-Leninist Marxism and the Question of Revolution Today