Autonomia Operaia (Italian: Workers' Autonomy) was an Italian leftist movement particularly active from 1973 to 1979. It played an important role in the autonomist movement in the 1970s, alongside earlier organisations such as Potere Operaio , which was created after May 1968, and Lotta Continua .
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The autonomist movement gathered itself around the free radio movement, such as Onda Rossa in Rome, Radio Alice in Bologna, Controradio in Firenze, Radio Sherwood in Padova, and other local radios, giving it a diffusion in the whole country. It also published several newspapers and magazines which were circulated nationally, including Rosso in Milan, I Volsci in Rome, Autonomia in Padua and A/traverso in Bologna. It was a decentralized, localist network or "area" of movements, particularly strong in Rome, Milan, Padua and Bologna, but at its height in 1977 was also often present in small towns and villages where not even the Italian Communist Party (PCI) was present [1]
There was also an armed tendency known as autonomia armata (armed autonomy). [2]
People such as Oreste Scalzone, Franco Piperno, professor in Calabria University, Antonio Negri in Padova or Franco Berardi, aka Bifo, at Radio Alice were the movement's most well-known figures. [3] The movement became particularly active in March 1977, after the police in Bologna killed Francesco Lo Russo, a member of Lotta Continua. This event sparked a series of demonstrations in various parts of Italy. Bologna University and Rome La Sapienza University were occupied by students. On orders from Interior Minister Francesco Cossiga the carabinieri surrounded Bologna's university area. This repression met with some international protest, in particular from French philosophers Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, who also denounced the Italian Communist Party's (PCI) opposition to the University occupation. The PCI was supporting at this time Eurocommunism and the historic compromise with the Christian Democrats.
On 17 February 1977 Luciano Lama, secretary-general of the CGIL, the trade union closest to the PCI, gave a speech inside the occupied La Sapienza University. During the speech, the autonomi and the CGIL's security organization had a violent clash. This resulted in Lama being chased away. This confrontation prompted the expulsion of the students by the police.
The clash between the PCI and Autonomia reinforced the more radical current within Autonomia. The creative current, which included extravagant components, such as the Indiani Metropolitani movement, found themselves in a minority. Some of the autonomi decided that the time had come to alzare il livello dello scontro (escalate of the conflict), in other words, to start using firearms.
Antonio "Toni" Negri is an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of Empire and his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university. Negri founded the Potere Operaio group in 1969 and was a leading member of Autonomia Operaia, and has published hugely influential books urging "revolutionary consciousness".
Workerism is a political theory that emphasizes the importance of or glorifies the working class. Workerism, or operaismo, was of particular significance in Italian left-wing politics.
Potere Operaio was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1967 and 1973. It should not be confused with "Potere Operaio Pisano" which was one of the components of a competing revolutionary group, Lotta Continua. Among the group's leaders were Antonio ('Toni') Negri, Nanni Balestrini, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone and Valerio Morucci, who led its clandestine armed wing. It was part of the "workerist" movement (operaismo), leading to the later development of the Autonomist movement.
Autonomism, also known as Autonomist Marxism, is an anti-capitalist social movement and Marxist-based theoretical current that first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerism. Later, post-Marxist and anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the Situationists, the failure of Italian far-left movements in the 1970s, and the emergence of a number of important theorists including Antonio Negri, who had contributed to the 1969 founding of Potere Operaio as well as Mario Tronti, Paolo Virno and Franco "Bifo" Berardi.
The Proletarian Unity Party was a far-left political party in Italy.
The 1968 Italian general election was held in Italy on 19 May 1968. The Christian Democracy (DC) remained stable around 38% of the votes. They were marked by a victory of the Communist Party (PCI) passing from 25% of 1963 to c. 30% at the Senate, where it presented jointly with the new Italian Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity (PSIUP), which included members of Socialist Party (PSI) which disagreed the latter's alliance with DC. PSIUP gained c. 4.5% at the Chamber. The Socialist Party and the Democratic Socialist Party (PSDI) presented together as the Unified PSI–PSDI, but gained c. 15%, far less than the sum of what the two parties had obtained separately in 1963.
The Primavalle fire was a political arson-attack that occurred in Rome in 1973. It resulted in the death of two people.
In Italy, the phrase Years of Lead refers to a period of social turmoil, political violence and upheaval that lasted from the late 1960s until the late 1980s, marked by a wave of both far-left and far-right incidents of political terrorism and violent clashes.
Indiani Metropolitani were a small faction active in the Italian far-left protest movement during 1976 and 1977, in the so-called "Years of Lead". A similar approach was called Stadtindianer in Germany, during the German Autumn.
The movement of 1977 was a spontaneous political movement that arose in Italy in 1977. It grew primarily out of the extra-parliamentary left; in form and substance, it was completely unlike previous student movements such as the protests of 1968. In fact, it was characterized by vocal opposition to the party system, unions, and even political movements.
Mario Tronti was an Italian philosopher and politician, considered one of the founders of the theory of operaismo in the 1960s.
Oreste Scalzone is an Italian Marxist intellectual and one of the founders of the communist organization Potere Operaio.
Franco Piperno is a former communist militant from Italy. He is an associate professor of Condensed Matter Physics in the University of Calabria.
Franco "Bifo" Berardi is an Italian Marxist philosopher, theorist and activist in the autonomist tradition, whose work mainly focuses on the role of the media and information technology within post-industrial capitalism. Berardi has written over two dozen published books, as well as a number of essays and speeches.
Lotta Continua was a far-left militant organization in Italy, during the historical period of social turmoil and political violence in the country known as the "Years of Lead". Its leaders Adriano Sofri and Giorgio Pietrostefani ordered the assassination of police officer Luigi Calabresi in 1972. Militant Cesare Battisti later joined other organizations and repaired in France after being convicted for four homicides. Some other militants later joined the more famous Red Brigades. After the disbandment of the organization, various former militants became influential Italian politicians, journalists or writers.
The Red Brigades was a Marxist–Leninist armed organization, which was operating as a far-left guerilla and terrorist group based in Italy. It was responsible for numerous violent incidents during Italy's Years of Lead, including the kidnapping and murder of Aldo Moro in 1978. A former prime minister of Italy through the Organic centre-left, the murder of Aldo Moro was widely condemned, as was their murder of left-wing trade unionist Guido Rossa in January 1979. Sandro Pertini, the then left-wing president of Italy, said at Rossa's funeral: "It is not the President of the Republic speaking, but comrade Pertini. I knew [the real] red brigades: they fought with me against the fascists, not against democrats. For shame!"
I Volsci was an Italian Autonomist monthly journal published in Rome. It first appeared in January 1978.
Luciano Lama was an Italian trade unionist and politician, General Secretary of Italian General Confederation of Labour from 1970 to 1986.
Giorgiana Masi was an Italian student and activist who was killed during a protest in Rome on May 12, 1977. The circumstances of her death are unclear.
Paolo Spriano was an Italian historian of the Italian labor and communist movement.
