THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK GADUATE SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY CENTER. Ph.D. Program in Political Science

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1 THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK GADUATE SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY CENTER Ph.D. Program in Political Science Student: David P. Palazzo, Dissertation Title: The social factory in postwar Italian radical thought from the rise of Operaismo to Autonomia. Sponsor: Professor Jack Jacobs Reader: Professor Marshall Berman Abstract This dissertation uses the concept social factory to interpret the historical trajectory of operaismo and its manifestation in Autonomia in postwar Italian radical thought. I gauge its usefulness as a revolutionary theory by examining its appropriation in the network of social struggles that take place from roughly 1957 to I argue that, as a metaphor, the social factory captures the collective imagination of anti-capitalist struggle, but stumbles on the question of workers centrality. The latter is dramatically demonstrated in reductive articulations that render social relations akin to the discipline of a Tayloriststyle factory model. This reading is bound up in the conceptualization of class composition and the theorization of social subjectivity. While useful as a critical theory, this reductive movement precludes the possibility of generating a new revolutionary praxis to transcend or overthrow capitalist relations. However, the autonomist movements demonstrate a non-reductive appreciation of the social factory that generates alternative struggles against what they perceive as capitalist despotism by refusing to become labor power. In this manner the autonomists constructively utilize the social factory as a metaphor that retains an open and fluid conception of social relations. 1

2 Introduction: Research Objective This dissertation examines Italian operaismo as a tendency within postwar Italian radical politics from its inception around Quaderni Rossi (Red Notebooks) to its manifestation in what I loosely call Autonomia. 1 Operaismo is the theoretical product of dissident syndicalists, socialists, and communists, who attempt to critically reconstruct postwar Italian Marxism, exploring its revolutionary potential under conditions of neocapitalism, i.e., consumer capitalism. A central component of this reconstruction is the social factory, a concept introduced by Mario Tronti and Raniero Panzieri to highlight Marx s insight that political-economy is fundamentally about social relations, extending this understanding beyond the factory into society. 2 This understanding provides the theoretical framework for Autonomia; the recognition, or perception, of capital s despotic inroads into people s daily lives establishes a theoretical critique of neo-capitalism. This dissertation critically reconstructs the development of operaismo 1 Moulier notes that translation of operaismo into it English workerism is misleading as it corresponds more closely to fabbrichismo (1989, 4, fn. 8). That is, the English translation offers an empirical conception of the worker, whereas operaismo retains its Marxist foundations by considering the movement of capital and how it forms a social subject. Quaderni Rossi was founded, in Milan, by Raniero Panzieri, Romano Alquati, Mario Tronti, and A. Asor Rosa. It lasted four years ( ) and is widely held as the beginning of the Italian new Left (Moroni and Balestrini 1988). It developed continuously and in different directions sociological in the project of workers inquiry, historiographic in the analysis of the IWW and revision of workers history, and neo-leninist in the rise of small extraparliamentary groups (political associations that rejected parliamentary activity and focused on student-worker-community struggles). The demise of the latter gives rise to what I call Autonomia. This is distinct from Cuninghame, who remarks that Autonomia refers to two interconnected but quite separate phenomena. He makes a distinction between Autonomia Operaia (Workers Autonomy) and a diffuse counter-cultural, social Autonomia. I am less concerned with this formal distinction, preferring to focus on the real connections that unite these folks (1995). It is my intention to excavate their real connections via the theoretical project of operaismo. It should be noted, though it is a basic truism of any historical reconstruction, that neither operaismo nor autonomia are homogenous movements; they are highly variegated and often rooted in the distinct needs that arise from local political and social struggles (ie, Borio 2002a; Bianchi 2007). 2 Both Raniero Panzieri and Mario Tronti have important, yet different, formulations of the social factory which stems from their rereading of Marx s Grundrisse and Capital II. Panzieri focused on the Fragment of Technology in the former (Marx 1973, ), while translating the latter into Italian. Tronti s interpretation concerns the circulation of capital derived from Capital II. The basic difference between the two interpretations regards how capital extends into society from the factory. 2

3 through its conceptualization of the social factory into Autonomia within twenty years (c ) of Italian radical politics. There is a general lacuna in studying the ideas and experience of operaismo. The existing discussion primarily consists of impressionistic and memorial-autobiographical works (i.e., Bobbio 1979, Scalzone 1988, Zandegiacomi 1975). In the English-speaking world, and this is largely due to a dearth of translated material but could also be a consequence of the attention given to Eurocommunism, little is known about operaismo, its central tenets, historic roots, and theoretical development. Some material circulated in the early 1970s in Telos, Radical America, and Zerowork/Midnight Notes (Hobsbawm 1977; Boggs 1980). The situation altered mildly after the April 7, 1979 arrests of Antonio Negri and thousands of other autonomists as the Conference of Socialist Economists and Red Notes produced some publications containing theoretical articles, worker interviews, and offered discussions of community, women s and student s struggles. Relatively little work has explained the conceptual and theoretical development of Italian operaismo. To date, no study has developed its manifestation in Autonomia, and there are few booklength treatments of operaismo (Wright 2002, Berardi 1988, Borio and Roggero 2002). However, there are some excellent treatments of the historical period available to an English-speaking audience, as well as some excellent introductory texts (Hardt and Virno 1996, Moulier 1989, Cleaver 2000, Lumley 1990, Ginsborg 1990, Cuninghame 2002, Brophy 2004, Wright 2004, Lotringer 2007). The last fifteen years witnessed a renewed interest in operaismo and, more specifically, in Autonomia. In the English-speaking world Antonio Negri s writings received the most recognition (1989; 2005; Murphy 2005). In Italy, the publishing house 3

4 Derrive Approdi and the journal Intermarx sparked this renewal (Borio 2002; Bianchi 2007). Two important factors account for this revival: the fall of the Soviet Union and collapse of existing socialism, and the rise of autonomous social movements that are marked by distinct anti-capitalist, anti-statist tendencies, and organizational forms inherited from 1970s Italian Autonomia and a broader anarchist, libertarian-left heritage (Cleaver 1994; Notes From Nowhere 2003; Day 2005; Katsiaficas 1997; Dyer- Witherford 1999; Graeber et al. 2007). Cuninghame, who wrote an important but still unpublished dissertation on Italian autonomous social movements, remarks: Autonomist Marxism may be one of the few Leftist ideologies not only to have survived the Fall of the Berlin Wall, but to have been strengthened and vindicated by the collapse of real socialism and the downfall of orthodox Marxism (1995; 2002). If recent tendencies can be described with any veracity as anti-capitalist and anti-statist, and if these movements are predominantly organized autonomously, then this merits a detailed study of the rise of Autonomia in Italy and its theoretical foundations in operaismo. To this end, Wright (2002) examines the utility of class composition, and, as such, constitutes the only available critical reconstruction of operaismo. 3 This dissertation reexamines postwar Italian radical political thought through the concept of the social factory, mapping its trajectory from its Panzierian and Trontian delineation into the theoretical construction of Autonomia. It contributes to an understanding of postwar Italian radical political thought and history by reconstructing the experiences of those who struggled to realize their hopes, needs, and aspirations by creating a world without bosses. 4 3 Wright s work focuses on the extraparliamentary group Potere Operaio, and thus is constitutes an important study of operaismo, but with limited consequences for the work proposed herein. 4 The anti-authoritarian tendency of this movement is expressed in such slogans as We are all delegates! and other democratic slogans that rejected rule by i padroni (the bosses). 4

5 Theoretical Framework and Substantive Focus This dissertation historically reconstructs the theoretical work of operaismo from its construction in the Quaderni Rossi group to its manifestation in Autonomia. The former emerges as a critique of postwar reconstruction and, in particular, the position of the historic left. 5 Raniero Panzieri and Mario Tronti 6 developed, through a series of articles in Quaderni Rossi, the theoretical tradition of operaismo. Two components of this tradition are notable: the conceptualization of class composition 7 and the development of the social factory as a critical analysis of the postwar order. The latter is situated in twenty years of Italian radicalism (c ) with particular focus on the hot autumn 5 The historic left consists of the traditional workers parties, the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and the Italian Communist Party (PCI), and the left trade union confederation, the General Confederation of Italian Labor (CGIL). They were the primary target of the extraparliamentary left, whose critique argued that the PSI, PCI and the trade unions had abandoned workers liberation and, at best, were bent on establishing a form of state capitalism. Quaderni Rossi became a central location for a left critique of the PCI and PSI. For example, in a letter to Quaderni Rossi from a group of PCI militants the latter accused the PCI leadership of wanting a Communist Party of soccer and television devoid of any discussion of capital (Lettere dei Quaderni Rossi 1965, 6). 6 Mario Tronti became a militant in the PCI during the 1950s and helped found Quaderni Rossi and Classe Operaio (Working Class). However, he reentered the PCI in 1967, believing that the working class could not generate revolutionary activity at that point in history. Tronti wrote the movements most influential book, Operai e capitale (Workers and Capital). Claudio Greppi describes the work as the bible of the extraparliamentary group Potere Operaio [Workers Power] (Borio 2002a, 8). Raniero Panzieri was cultural secretary and editor of Mondo Operaio, the PSI s newspaper. Following the victory of Nenni for leadership of the party, Panzieri was ousted from any formal party work. During this period, which he described in private letters as drab and dull (comparable, he noted, to the aesthetics of Turin), he sought out contacts for what became Quaderni Rossi. Panzieri died of a cerebral embolism at the age of 43 on October 9, Beginning in the late 1950s, Romano Alquati, sociologist and accidental Marxist, conducted investigations of working-class life in Turin s FIAT developing an understanding of working-class subjectivity referred to as class composition (Alquati 1975; Borio 2002a, 2). This project led to a redefinition of the working-class as a fluid body that is composed, decomposed and recomposed in specific historical periods in its relation with capital. Two subjectivities are identified during this period: the mass worker and the social worker (Negri 2007). Describing the mass worker, Guido Baldi notes: The "scientific organization" of mass production necessitates a malleable, highly interchangeable labor force, easily movable from one productive sector to another and easily adjustable to each new level of capital's organic composition (1972; Wright 2002, ). Class composition helped forge New Left historiography in journals such as Primo Maggio (see Pescarolo 1981). Also, Alquati s conricerca, or method of workers inquiry, inspired the authors of Futuro Anteriore (Borio 2002). The concept has received the most thorough treatment from Wright (2002) and Berardi (1998), who, respectively, regard class composition as the most novel and important and essential (2002, 4; 1998, 17-8). The central shortcoming of looking at the tradition through this concept, I argue, is that it fails to adequately address the theoretical issue of workers centrality. This is discussed below. 5

6 (c ), its most dynamic and experimental phase. The social factory is assessed according to its representation in the various worker, student, women, and community movements. The aim of this dissertation is to critically reconstruct the theoretical project of operaismo and demonstrate how, historically, it finds its mature expression in the genesis of Autonomia. Operaismo emerges out of the desire to critically confront the power arrangements of the postwar settlement. The parties of the historic left had failed to construct a vision for an effective oppositional politics. 8 This failure was amplified by the general success of the reconstruction period; reconstruction was a boon for the Italian economy, introducing consumer durables, improving the standard of living for a wide swath of society, and transforming the Italian economy into one of the richest industrial countries in the world (Ginsborg 2003, ; Lange 1985). 9 However, the so-called economic miracle was predicated on a rigid disciplining of the workforce combined with minimal wage growth; while the economy prospered, power dynamics favored those institutions and persons associated with capital. The founding core of Quaderni Rossi 8 Though initially part of the government in the power-sharing arrangement of June 1945, by 1946 the Popular Front was effectively pushed out of the government. Harper (1986) argues that the postwar settlement was largely an internal power struggle among Italians, with American intervention and the Cold War serving as secondary factors to pressing domestic needs for capital and natural resources. Leader of the PCI, Palmiro Togliatti ( ) announced in a public address that the PCI would favor national unity in the name of reconstruction. Under his Italian Way to Socialism the PCI advanced a democratic way to power, disavowing workers revolution (Amyot 1981). The effects of this line were made clear to working class militants when, on July 14, 1948, Togliatti was shot and hospitalized. Workers in the historic port of Genova declared a general strike and prepared to occupy factories. War [was] in the air, declared one worker (Ginsborg 1990, 119). However, the PCI declined to act. This signifies il tramonto (the sunset), and marks a period of decline between the parties of the historic left and their base. The consequences of this action would be dramatically illustrated during the 1950s, especially with the CGIL s loss of control over the workers internal committees in 1955 (Foa 1975, ). 9 Italy underwent a social transformation with the introduction of automated mass production of consumer durables. This mode of production would generate working class subjectivity that operaisti labeled the mass worker and would form the impetus for worker militancy during the 1960s into the hot autumn. Deindustrialization generated a new subjectivity that Negri theorized as the social worker (Negri 2007). 6

7 came together to articulate a radical critique of what they called neo-capitalism from a purportedly working-class perspective (Negri 2007, 36-7). 10 The political work of operaismo can be reduced to three concerns: a rereading of Marx, engaging in the sociological project of class composition and workers inquiry, and the construction of political associations autonomous from the historic left. Raniero Panzieri and Mario Tronti, in order to understand the demands of capital in postwar Italy, engaged in a return to Marx, offering new interpretations from the Grundrisse and Capital II. 11 In his seminal article, On Capitalist Use of Machines in Neocapitalism, Panzieri argued that technology was not neutral in its development, but was determined by the needs of capital, and thus not connected to progress. 12 That is, the capitalist use of technology formed an intricate element in furthering the subjugation of the working class, and it was designed that way; for Panzieri, technological rationality took on the form of capitalist despotism (1975, ). This analysis was extended in his Surplus Value and Planning, where Panzieri emphasized the cooperative nature of capitalism as the basis for extraction of surplus value, asserting that planning served to strengthen and extend [capital s] command over labour-power in the factory, extending into society (1994, 47). In this interpretation, the Italian bourgeoisie were able to impose their model of development in the postwar period through state-private sector planning. Panzieri 10 Raniero Panzieri ( ), Mario Tronti (1931--), and Romano Alquati (1935--) formed the intellectual core of Quaderni Rossi. The journal came to fruition with assistance from the Rodolfo Morandi Institute. The latter was established in honor of the PSI member Rodolfo Morandi who served as Industry Minister from and was a partisan in the northern Resistance. His understanding of socialism had a definitive influence on Panzieri (Mancini 1977). 11 The allusion, of course, is to Gramsci s Prison Notebooks. For a useful discussion of Gramsci s return to Marx see (Frosini 1998). Notably absent from operaismo is an interpretation of the young Marx. Tronti is particularly harsh in his discussion of the Marxist humanist interpretation. Both Tronti and Panzieri build on Lukacs when the latter writes: The internal organization of a factory contained in concentrated form the whole structure of capitalist society. Reification requires that society should learn to satisfy all its needs in terms of commodity exchange (1971, 90-1). 12 This analysis was derived largely from The Fragment on Technology in the Grundrisse. See also (Noble 1977). 7

8 establishes the cooperative nature of capitalism as a power mechanism designed to increase the power of capital vis-à-vis the proletariat through planning in society. Mario Tronti s analysis of neo-capitalism led him to a discussion of the circulation of capital, derived from Capital II. In Operai e capitale (Workers and Capital), Tronti locates the circulation of capital in moments of production, distribution, exchange, and consumption. Capital s circulation and extension into society culminates in a deepening of its penetration into social relations (Turchetto 2001, 4). 13 In short, capital subsumes society (Tronti 1966, 51). In this analysis, social relations are determined by the needs of capital; individuals are compelled by the conditioning effects of capital to direct their energies and life-activity to increase capital. This analysis gained importance with a new understanding of class composition, its disciplining effects, and how, or by what means, resistance could take place. 14 The image of society as intimately bound up in the circulation of capital provided a powerful explanation of capitalist domination for a generation of radical politics beginning with the renewal of worker militancy in through the demise of the 13 The fundamental importance of Operai e capitale is appreciated by Claudio Greppi when he remarks that it was the bible of the group Potere Operaio (Workers Power). See interview with Greppi, September 23, 2000, p8. (Borio 2002a). 14 Tronti s general argument asserted that if the general strike had been the preceding stages form of resistance, then in neocapitalism, individuals must refuse to be labor (1966, 237, 247). Tronti writes: This new form or antagonism must reach the level of working class science, bringing it to new ends and overcoming it completely in practical political acts. It is the form of struggle of refusal, the form of organization of the workers No : refusal of active collaboration with capitalist development (1966, 247). The refusal of labor is the rejection of capital s command in social relations, and in the socialization of laboring subjects. 15 Baselines for the renewal of worker militancy vary. The events around Piazza Statuto suffice as a conservative estimate that marks a rejection of the postwar labor-capital relations. The Piazza Statuto affair began as a strike at FIAT by the metal-mechanic workers during their contract renewal. The Italian Union of Labor (UIL), one of the three major union confederations, signed a separate contract with FIAT against the wishes of its rank-and-file. The workers spontaneously went from the factory gates to the UIL headquarters in Piazza Statuto to protest the union s actions. The affair resulted in the arrest of hundreds of workers, but signaled a new era of worker militancy (Moroni and Balestrini 1988, 131-5; Ginsborg 1990, 250-3; Barkan 1984, 56; Foa 1975, 130-2; Red Notes 1979, ). 8

9 extraparliamentary group Lotta Continua in The critical nexus of this period takes place in a wave of struggles during the hot autumn of 1969, which is characterized by student-worker-community struggles centered on the factory as the space of antagonistic struggle, and interacting with the broader community. During the hot autumn new political demands were made by the working class. Theoretically, Tronti s analysis of neocapitalism suggested that a strategy of refusal was the revolutionary tool under neo-capitalism. This theoretical interpretation gained a widespread audience, while the form of refusal varied in daily practice. 17 Community practices of resistance to capital took the form of autoriduzione, self-reduction of the cost of living (Ramirez 1975). This practice included rent strikes and occupations, paying less for bus fare, movie tickets, and basic foodstuffs. Worker radicalism effected the creation of new bodies of representation, the construction of political wages to meet their needs as a class, and the creation of educational opportunities. 18 Statement of the argument Through a reconstruction of the development and appropriation of the social factory, this dissertation seeks to demonstrate that the social factory signified: 1) the merit of offering 16 This period is marked by a plethora of extraparliamentary groups and other political associations, which form the historical trajectory of operaismo (see below, pp ). 17 In general workplaces experimented with new forms of workers democracy (i.e., base committees and factory councils) that were linked with sympathetic members of the community, including the student movement. The classic example of the latter is Pirelli in Milan. In 1968, after the signing of their contract, workers at Pirelli formed the first Unitary Base Committee (Comitati Unitario di Base) to establish new forms of organization, rejecting the authority of the union and the bosses. These committees had a precarious relationship to the factory councils, as they rejected as undemocratic the election of delegates preferring the slogan: We are all delegates! (Av. Op. 1972) 18 The Workers Statute of 1970 was a significant victory for the workers movement as it separated wages from production which allowed for political wages to undercut the productivist ethic of neocapitalism, fundamentally altering power relations in the workplace. In 1973 workers won the 150- hours program, an education policy that allowed workers to take 150 hours of classes, over three years, of their own choosing on company time (women workers, in particular, took advantage of this policy to organize women s courses, including exposure to broader feminist literature and the work of groups like Lotta Feminista [i.e., Dalla Costa and James 1972]). 9

10 a unifying theory for revolutionary action (Palano 1998); 2) operaismo s retention of a monistic theory, through the concept of class composition; 3) the social factory opens the theoretical spectrum for the divergent positions that take shape after The social factory emerges out of the Italian Marxist tradition of operaismo, taking on a much more nuanced and variegated role over a twenty-year period (c ). However, there are difficulties in treating what Moulier correctly labels operaismo s veritable conceptual bombardment and how this discourse is appropriated (1989, 5). Operaismo is laden with difficult concepts such as class composition, the refusal of work, social capital, social factory, fordism, post-fordism, operaismo or operaismi, mass worker, social worker, workers inquiry, worker centrality, et cetera, to such an extent that one might get lost in incessant debate over the actual meaning of these concepts. What is important is the recognition that these concepts are appropriated by various groups and given content that distinguishes their understanding from other groups (Hardt and Virno 1996). To gauge the meaning attributed to these concepts, I delineate how these concepts serve as political tools by individuals as well as groups. For example, one aspect of the social factory involved an appropriation of political language to mark a distinction from the discourse of the historic left parties. This involved the development of alternative cultural projects around the need to forge new mechanisms for communication and modes of effective political action (Zandegiacomi 1975, 28). Some alternative projects would retain the worst aspects inherited from the old left a continuation of what Viale calls the arrogance of theory : an intellectual power move to maintain a dominant position within one s spectrum of political activity (1978). 10

11 I assume that language is a faculty designed to express our individual existence and give some content or meaning to that existence with the intention that it is capable of being understood by others. Language is also used in particular contexts, modes, styles, et cetera that does not permit an analytic investigation of the social factory. That is, the nature of understanding, while it might merit an investigation of certain principles or axioms that underpin what constitutes the social factory, would be explaining something entirely different from what, perhaps, Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Antonio Negri, or Sergio Bologna would understand by such an examination. An analytic treatment of the concept would neglect to explain why and how people discussed and understood it, vitiating it of any real content; the meaning and understanding of words (unlike grammars, perhaps) are mediated by experience, thus allowing differentiation of usage. An attempt is made to study the idea of the social factory as it emerged out of a distinct theoretical and historical context. This study seeks to demonstrate the limits of operaismo in its adherence to a monistic theory (class composition) that proves divisive in ruptures between peoples experiences as students, women, and workers that cannot be reduced to a class analysis, or to the determinant effect of capital. The social factory, in its best moments, is useful as an interpretive mechanism to explain the anti-capitalist tendency of the period without insisting on a class-based reductionism. Research design and data collection plans This dissertation consists of theoretical and historical research. The former is constituted by pertinent texts, congresses and conventions, organizational platforms and documents, pamphlets, essays, editorials, personal testimonies, cartoons, and slogans that inform the development and articulation of operaismo and autonomia. The latter focuses on social 11

12 movements in the community, workplace, schools, and households (I include in this section the vast majority of extraparliamentary groups even though they traverse the categories in this section). The reasons for treating both theoretical and historical elements are many. It is sufficient to note that the genesis of operaismo as a distinct theoretical strand within Italian Marxism coincides with important historic events (see above). I will treat the theoretical research first, and then turn to the historical component. Theoretically, the research will be organized chronologically, according to its development, encapsulating both individual thinkers and their collective work in various groups. Borio et al organizes their work around operaismo according to the question of who participates and why; they want to produce an understanding of the subjectivity of revolt and also investigate how inquiry can facilitate action (2002, 40-43). By inquiry they are referring to Romano Alquati s project of workers inquiry with the distinction that the pertinent subject is no longer the worker but a revolutionary or antagonistic subject. In this manner they demarcate operaismo and its participants into generational categories: two operaismi are identified with 1968 serving as a breaking point; that is, Quaderni Rossi (Red Notebooks) and Classe Operaia (Working Class) (pre-68) are distinct from the later organizations. Given the different questions being asked, this dissertation intends to focus on the genealogical expression of the social factory, and not on who participates and why. The theoretical material that is chosen is a reflection of this, as well as the methodological position defended in the previous section. The texts discussed below are given primacy as they contain fundamental components of operaismo. Raniero Panzieri (1975; 1994) is a posthumous collection of articles and essays written by one a former culture minister in the Italian Socialist Party 12

13 and a founder of the group Quaderni Rossi. This collection offers two seminal pieces that signaled the impending rupture with the official parties understanding of socialism, development, technology, progress, capitalism and planning, translating Marx s Capital II, and introducing a reading of Marx s Grundrisse. This also includes important material on workers control of the late 1950s from the journal Mondo Operaio (Workers World). Mario Tronti (1966) is a collection of the most important early writings of operaismo. These writings are chosen because they constitute the core theoretical components of this dissertation. Tronti s theoretical contributions include the circulation of capital, the social factory, the relationship between money, labor and labor-power, the role of the party and so on (he was also a founding member of QR). Romano Alquati (1975) is a collection of writings from the 1960s which were previously published (with the exception of one entry) in either Quaderni Rossi or Classe Operaia. Alquati is important for his sociological method of joint research in conducting workers inquiry, and for his role in the conceptualization of class composition, that is, for his role in creating a flexible understanding of who constitutes the working class. Antonio Negri (2007) is an interview of his first-hand account of the development of operaismo, in particular the transition from the mass worker to the social worker. Negri was a founding member of QR and some of the main organizations that claimed their lineage to the ideas developed therein: Classe Operaia, Potere Operaio (Workers Power) and the Rome section of Organizzazione Proletaria (Organized Proletariat). This text offers an excellent description of the events leading up to the hot autumn of 1969, as well as the structural transformations that occur in its wake. Negri (1988) is also an important collection of essays on Keynes, capitalist crisis and social subjects. The discussion on 13

14 Keynes is an important contribution to the earlier work by Tronti and Panzieri regarding the planning capacity of the capitalist state. Also important in this regard are Negri s writings for the national Workers Power convention, which produced Worker s party against work, and his essay Crisis of the planner state, and The Strategy Factory: 33 Lessons on Lenin are significant for the relationship of the party, the revolutionary subject, and the state-form (1997; 2005). Other material relating to the development of operaismo includes pamphlets, personal testimonies, slogans and cartoons. This material is pertinent in exploring the nature of the relationship between theoretical speculation and revolutionary praxis. That is, it serves as a communicational and organizational function in connecting the theoretical speculation of operaismo with ongoing struggles in the factories, communities, et cetera. There exists a plethora of personal commentary surrounding the work of operaismo. Borio (2002a) is an invaluable source as it consists of over 60 interviews with those involved in both theoretical and organizational forms of autonomia and operaismo. There exists a host of other personal testimonies. These range from interviews readily available on the internet (Cuninghame 1999), introductions to various anthologies (Gobbi 1973; Zandegiacomi 1975), and book-length memorials (Scalzone 1988). Slogans, cartoons and pamphlets constitute an important component of the propaganda circulated by proponents of operaismo; it is important to note that operaismo is not limited to theoretical speculation, but is intimately connected to a project of revolutionary transformation. In this sense, its public communication and symbolic representation are pertinent. The Red Notes Archive and its publications (1976; 1978; 14

15 1979; 1981) demonstrate, in the limited space available, the richness of irony, paradox, and humor as weapons against the trappings of authoritarian social relations, and particularly against the bosses. Pamphlets, and a more comprehensive selection of cartoons and slogans, will be researched in the Red Notes Archive, the Fetrinelli Institute, the Gramsci Institute and the Calusca Bookstore in Milan (see below). Historic material constitutes readings from social struggles that focused on the status of the family, housing, the women s movement, and the student movement. I will mention some of the more important texts that will be treated, while noting that archival work in the above mentioned places will be conducted. I will first treat the workers movement with primary focus on the autonomous elements; that is, worker activity outside of the realm of the official labor movement and the unions, and from the political parties. Foa (1975) presents a view of the unions and workers struggles from the immediate postwar period to the end of the first cycle of dissent in Included in this selection are a host of documents separated into five periods with Foa s commentary introducing each section. Pizzorno (1978) is a sociological study on the cycle of struggles that took place from 1968 to This work includes material on workers representation (internal committees, councils, base committees, unions, and delegates), and their interaction with organizations based in the community (so-called extraparliamentary groups, union bureaucracy, and political parties). The last book that merits comment is Workers Vanguard (Av. Op. 1972), which offers documentation of the Comitati Unitari di Base (Base Committees), the more radical component of what Cuninghame (2002) called the autonomous workers movement. 19 The text offers 19 See above, p. 2, fn

16 commentary, documents from meetings and conventions, political statements, response to legislative advances, et cetera. Two books contain excellent testimonials that are of particular importance. Polo (1989) recounts eleven militant workers experience during the hot autumn of 1969, including discussions of power on the shopfloor, the emergence of collective resistance and the extension of workers democracy inside the factory. Revelli (1989) utilizes personal testimonies to discuss the emergence, activity and decline of worker militancy at FIAT. These two works merit discussion for their utilization of testimonials in tracing the workers movement during its most militant phase and charting the gains, and the partial retraction of said gains, during the crises of the 1970s. In this latter period, operaismo would find a wider audience with the emergence of extraparliamentary groups and the women s movement. Moroni and Balestrini (1988) offer an extensive discussion over 650 pages covering the youth, women s and workers movements along with the rise and demise of extraparliamentary groups; in short, this is the most extensive historical treatment of the post-war radical left that traverses the time frame discussed in this dissertation. Aguzzi (1976) is a discussion of the role of students in a class society, and treats the historical trajectory of this subject from 1968 to This book is included here for its empirical treatment of the period of the students movement and their self-described role as a young proletariat. Università: l ipotesi rivoluzionaria (University: revolutionary hypothesis) is a collection of formative documents of the students movement in Rome, Turin, Naples, Pisa, et cetera. Within these founding documents, especially the important Pisa thesis, there is an evident influence and appropriation of operaismo s theoretical configuration (1968; Cortese 16

17 1973). Fofi (1998) is an anthology of the journal Quaderni Piacentini, which was a central journal for the young left, and as such is an important documentation of the student movement before From the women s movement, the works of Alisa del Re and Mariarosa Dalla Costa merit discussion here. Dalla Costa (1972; Malos 1980) is a direct appropriation of the social factory and an attempt to articulate the role of housewives in social production and reproduction, and how this role serves the development of labor-power. Del Re (1996) is a meditation on the role of women through, and their intervention in, the temporal moments of social reproduction, and drawing connections between this reproduction to the market and production. Extraparliamentary groups proliferated during the students and workers movements of , presenting forms of organization appropriate to the class composition of the new left. Here I want to mention the few texts that contain founding documents, platforms, and such. I will not treat the various histories of such groups, though it is worth noting that Potere Operaio (Workers Struggle) and Lotta Continua (Continuous Struggle) remain the most studied groups (Bobbio 1979; Cazzullo 1998; Ferraris 1968; Castellano 1985; Sarno 1977; Violi 1977; Zandegiacomi 1975). Vettori (1973) presents the documents and history of several organizations including Avanguardia Operaio (Workers Vanguard), il Gruppo Gramsci (The Gramsci Group), il manifesto (the manifesto), et cetera. Degli Incerti (1976) organizes three groups workers vanguard, continuous struggle, and Partito di unità proletaria (Pdup, Party of Proletarian Unity) around seven pertinent themes: communism, the state, party, international situation, transition, feminism and daily life, and school. 17

18 Aside from these anthologies, there are a host of periodicals that I intend on utilizing in my research. The periodicals either directly represent a group or political organization, or provided a forum for extensive debate among operaists and for autonomists. These journals are: a/traverse (Through); aut aut (make a decision!); Autonomia (Autonomy); Class Operaia (Working Class); La Classe (Class); Mondo Operaio (Workers World); Potere Operaio (Workers Power); Primo Maggio (May First); Quaderni Piacentini (Journal from Piacenza) ; Quaderni Rossi (Red Notebooks); Rosso (Red); Senza Tregua (Without Truce); Il Manifesto (The Manifesto). The location and availability of the above mentioned texts varies considerably. Some of the material is readily accessible in the sense that 1) I have either purchased the texts or obtained copies of the material, or 2) the Mina Rees Library is able to secure texts through inter-library loan, or 3) I can utilize the large collection of material at the New York Public Library (mainly the Humanities branch, but also the Business branch), and 4) access to Columbia University s Butler and Lehman Libraries, both of which have large holdings of relevant material. Some texts are only available, within the United States, at the Library of Congress, but this does not represent a significant inconvenience. More difficult material to locate includes pamphlets/leaflets, journal and newspaper collections, and other documents relating to operaismo. Much of this material was destroyed as the Italian government went on the offensive after the Moro Affair, culminating in the arrests of April 7, However, the Feltrinelli Institute 20 and Libreria Calusca (Calusca Bookstore) in Milan, Italy have extensive collections of primary documents (access to both are on a permission basis). Another archival source is 20 In June 2007 I spent three weeks conducting archival research at the Fondazione Giangiacomo Feltrinelli (The Feltrinelli Institute), primarily on the early parts of operaismo in Quaderni Rossi and Classe Operaia. 18

19 the collection put together by Ed Emery at the London School of Economics; The Red Notes Archive is accessible with permission granted in advance (the requirements are minimal an official letter of introduction from the Graduate Center s Department of Political Science and my matching identification suffice). Thus, aside from some minor difficulties in locating and accessing material, I do not anticipate any other difficulties in conducting research. Tentative Chapter Outline The tentative chapter outline for this dissertation is: Introduction Ch. I: Quaderni Rossi and the origins of operaismo: understanding neo-capitalism, its social subject, and constructing a revolutionary strategy. Ch. II: The origins of Classe Operaia and a resurgent neo-leninism: intellectuals and the role of a workers party. Ch. III: Student and worker anti-authoritarianism in the hot autumn: worker democracy against capital Ch. IV: Dissolving the extraparliamentary left and the birth of autonomia: a decentralized revolution and a new social subject the social worker. Ch. V: Beyond the workplace: communities in the social factory: taking over the city to forge a new world. Ch. VI: Workers centrality and the role of workers in revolutionary thought and practice. Conclusion 19

20 Bibliograpy. (1966). Libro bianco sulle associazioni e i giornali studenteschi medi di Milano. Milano, Feltrinelli. *. (1968). Universita: l'ipotesi rivoluzionaria. Documenti delle lotte studentesche. Trento, Torino, Napoli, Pisa, Milano, Roma. Padova, Marsilio.. (1969). La questione del Manifesto: democrazia e unità nel PCI. Il testo integrale del dibattito al Comitato centrale e alla Commissione centrale di controllo del PCI del 15, 16, 17 ottobre 1969 sulla questione del Manifesto. Roma, Editori riuniti.. (1969). Studi gramsciani. Atti del Convegno tenuto a Roma nei giorni gennaio Roma, Editori riuniti.. (1970). Le lotte dei lavoratori studenti. A cura della Corrente proletaria dei lavoratori-studenti. Milano, Sapere.. (1971). Marxismo, revisionismo e Movimento studentesco. Sulla scissione del M.S. della Statale di Milano. Milano, Sapere.. (1971). Per una internazionale delle avanguardie rivoluzionarie. Convegno internazionale a cura di Potere operaio. Zurigo, novembre Firenze, Clusf.. (1972). Crisi del capitale e compiti dei comunisti. Tesi politiche elaborate dai gruppi Gramsci di: Milano, Pinerolo, Torino, (C.A.I.P.K. Marx), Varese. Milano, Sapere.. (1972). Il Marxismo italiano degli anni Sessanta e la formazione teorico-politica delle nuove generazioni. Roma, Editori riunití; [Roma], Istituto Gramsci.. (1973). Take over the city: community struggle in Italy. London, Rising Free.. (1976). Autonomia operaia. Roma, Savelli. Accornero, A. P. A. T. B. T. M. (1977). Movimento sindacale e società italiana. Milano, Feltrinelli economica. *Adagio, C. and R. U. S. Cerrato (1999). Il Lungo decennio : l'italia prima del 68. Verona, Cierre. Agazzi, E. (1979). Gramsci, un'eredità contrastata : la nuova sinistra rilegge Gramsci. Milano, Ottaviano. *Aguzzi, L. (1976). Scuola, studenti e lotta di classe : un bilancio critico del movimento degli studenti medi dal '68 ad oggi. Milan, Emme. Aguzzi, L. (1976). Un liceo, un luogo di lotta : storia esemplare del X Liceo scientifico di Milano Milano Emme. Albert, M. H. R. (1981). Marxism and socialist theory. Boston, South End Press. Alfieri, F. (1984). Frammenti... : di lotta armata e utopia rivoluzionaria. Milano, Controinformazione. Allum, P. (1973). Italy--Republic without government? New York, Norton. Allum, P. (1979). L'Italia tra crisi ed emergenza. Napoli, Guida. *Alquati, R. (1975). Sulla fiat e altri scritti. Milano, Feltrinelli. The asterisk indicates reference citation in the dissertation proposal. 20

21 Amendola, G. (1978). Antonio Gramsci nella vita culturale e politica italiana. Napoli, Guida. *Amyot, G. (1981). The Italian Communist Party: The Crisis of the Popular Front Strategy. London, Croom Helm. Avineri, S. (1968). The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. *Av. Op. (1972). I CUB: tre anni di lotte e di esperienze. Milano, Sapere. Balbo, L. C. G. (1973). La scuola del capitale. Classi sociali e scuola di massa. Padova, Marsilio. *Baldi, G. (1972). These on the Mass Worker and Social Capital Radical America 6, no. 3. Reprinted at *Balestrini, N. (1974). Vogliamo Tutto. Milano, Feltrinelli.. (1989). The Unseen. London and New York, Verso. *Barkan, Joan. (1984). Visions of Emancipation: The Italian Workers Movement Since New York, Praeger. Bassi, P. P. A. and a. joint (1978). I giovani e la crisi degli anni Settanta. Roma, Editori riuniti. *Berardi, F. (1998). La nefasta utopia di potere operaio: lavoro tecnica movimento nel laboratorio politico del sessantotto italiano. Roma, Derrive Approdi *Bianchi, S (2007). Gli autonomi: le teorie, le lotte, la storia. Roma, Derrive Approdi. Bianchini, G. (1990). Sul sindicato e altri scritti. Padova, Edizioni Quaderni del Progetto. *Bologna, S. et al (1974). Crisi e organizzazione operaia. Milano, Feltrinelli. *Bologna, Sergio (2005). Review of Storming Heaven. *Bobbio, L. (1979). Lotta continua : storia di una organizzazione rivoluzionaria. Roma, Savelli.. (1987). Cinque lezioni sul '68. [Torino, s.n. Bobbio, N. (1987). Which socialism? : Marxism, socialism, and democracy Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press. *Boggs, Carl. (1980). The Politics of Eurocommunism: socialism in transition. Boston: South End Press. *Borio, G. P. F. and G. Roggero (2002). Futuro anteriore : dai "Quaderni rossi" ai movimenti globali : ricchezze e limiti dell'operaismo italiano. Roma, DeriveApprodi. *. (2002a). CD-Rom Future Anteriore. Roma, Derrive Approdi. Broccoli, A. (1972). Antonio Gramsci e l'educazione come egemonia. Firenze, La nuova Italia. *Brophy, E. (2004). Italian Operaismo Face to Face: A Report on the Operaismo a Convegno Conference 1-2 June 2002 Rialto Occupato, Rome, Italy. Historical Materialism12, no. 1: Caesar, M. a. P. H., Ed. (1984). Writers and Society in Contemporary Italy. New York, St. Martin's Press. Camboni, G. S. D. and a. joint (1975). PCI e movimento degli studenti, : ceti medi e strategie delle riforme. Bari, De Donato. 21

22 Cammett, J. (1967). Antonio Gramsci and the Origins of Italian Communism. Stanford, Stanford University Press. *Castellano, L. (1980). La Storia e i documenti : da Potere operaio all'autonomia organizzata. [Roma], Savelli. *Cazzullo, A. (1998). I ragazzi che volevano fare la rivoluzione : , storia di Lotta continua. Milano, Mondadori. Cella, G. a. P. (1972). Divisione del lavoro e iniziativa operaia. Bari, De Donato. Cella, G. P. M. B. and P. Piva (1972). Un sindacato italiano negli anni sessanta; la FIMCISL dall'associazione alla classe. Bari, De Donato. *Cleaver, H. (1994). Kropotkin, Self-valorization and the crisis of Marxism Anarchist Studies, vol. 2. *. (2000). Reading Capital Politically. Edinburgh, AK Press : Leeds : Antithesus. *Cortese, L. (1973). Il Movimento studentesco : storia e documenti Milano, Bompiani. Crouch, C. and A. Pizzorno (1978). The Resurgence of class conflict in Western Europe since New York, Holmes & Meier Publishers. *Cuninghame, P.G. (1995). For an Analysis of Autonomia An Interview with Sergio Bologna. accessed August 10, *. (1999). The Future at Our Backs: Autonomia and Autonomous Social Movments in 1970s Italy. *. (2002). Autonomia: a movement of refusal: Social movements and social conflict in Italy in the 1970s. Ph.D. diss., Middlesex University. D'Agostini, F. (1974). La condizione operaia e i consigli di fabbrica. Roma, Editori riuniti. *Dalla Costa, M. and S. James (1972). Women and the Subversion of the Community. Bristol, Falling Wall Press. *Day, R. (2005). Gramsci is Dead: Anarchist Currents in the Newest Social Movements. London, Pluto Press. De Grand, A. (1989). The Italian Left In The Twentieth Century: A History of the Socialist and Communist Parties. Bloomington, Indiana University Press. *Degli Incerti, D. (1976). La Sinistra rivoluzionaria in Italia : documenti e interventi delle tre principali organizzazioni Avanguardia operaia, Lotta continua, PdUP. Roma, Savelli. *Del Re, A. (1996). Women and Welfare: Where is Jocasta? In Radical Thought in Italy, ed. Virno and Hardt, Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press. *Della Mea, L. (1972). Proletari senza communismo. Lotta di classe e Lotta continua. Verona, Bertani. *Dyer-Witherford, N. (1999). Cyber-Marx. Champagne, University of Illinois Press. Fachinelli, E., L. ed. Muraro Vaiani, et al. (1971). L'Erba voglio. Pratica non autoritaria nella scuola. Torino, G. Einaudi. Ferrajoli, L. Z. D. and a. joint (1978). Democrazia autoritaria e capitalismo maturo. Milano, Feltrinelli. 22