Autonomia Operaia
Encyclopedia
Autonomia Operaia was an Italian
extra-parliamentary leftist movement particularly active from 1976 to 1978. It emerged in 1972 not as a party
but rather as a place of encounter among various extra-parliamentary and revolutionary
left-wing tendencies opposed to reformism
. It took an important role in the autonomist movement in the 1970s, aside earlier organisations such as Potere Operaio
, created after May 1968, and Lotta Continua
.
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, above all 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
Autonomia Operaia was divided between a Marxist Leninist tendency, known as Autonomia Operaia Organizzata (organized workers autonomy) and other more anarchist and libertarian tendencies known as autonomia difusa (diffuse autonomy) or autonomia sociale (social autonomy) and autonomia creativa (creative autonomy), mainly in Bologna during the 1977 Movement. There was also an armed tendency known as autonomia armata (armed autonomy).
People such as Oreste Scalzone
, Franco Piperno
, professor in Calabria University, Toni Negri in Padova or Franco Berardi
, aka Bifo, at Radio Alice
were the movement's most well-known figures. The movement became particularly active in March 1977, after the police in Bologna killed Francesco Lo Russo, a member of Lotta Continua. This event gave rise to 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.
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 (to raise the level of the conflict), in other words, to start using firearms.
, the Nuclei Armati Proletari (NAP) (a group active mainly in Naples prisons, where many autonomi members had been incarcerated), the Squadre Proletarie di Combattimento, the Proletari Armati per il Comunismo (PAC) , Azione Rivoluzionaria, the Unità Comuniste Combattenti and Prima Linea
, spread mainly throughout northern and central Italy. Also over 200 small, localised, armed groups were briefly active before suppression and/or amalgamation with the second generation of the much larger armed organizations, such as Red Brigades
or Prima Linea
(Front Line), between 1978 and 1982, a period in contemporary Italian history known as the "Years of Lead" (Anni di Piombo).
However, it is important to underline that Autonomia Operaia was not related to and certainly did not direct the Red Brigades, as was claimed by the prosecution at the April 7, 1979 trial of Antonio Negri
and other arrested intellectuals and activists involved in Autonomia Operaia and Potere Operaio
during the 1970s. This fact was recognized by the Italian legal system when all charges of membership and direction of the Red Brigades were dropped on appeal. Nevertheless, the myth still persists today, mainly due to some unscrupulous journalism, that Autonomia Operaia and the Red Brigades were one and the same organization. Overall, it would be better to think of Autonomia Operaia as a decentralized network or archipelago
of various types of very localized autonomist social movements and organizations, than one integrated social movement at the national level.
Following the increase and generalization of repression throughout the entire extra-parliamentary left during the early 1980s, when thousands of activists were imprisoned in carceri speciali (special prisons for terrorist and Mafia prisoners), most of the movement disbanded. At the beginning of the 1980s, a few of them entered Democrazia Proletaria, a far-left party which in the 70s and 80s ran for local, national and European elections, achieving however little success. Nevertheless, the movement began to revive in the second half of the 1980s, when occupied social centres (centri sociali ocupati) started to become widespread in the main Italian cities. However, the new Autonomia is profoundly different from the Autonomia Operaia of the 1970s, although there is some continuity in both movement structures, especially the free radio stations and some long-term squatted social centres, such as the CSO Leoncavallo in Milan, and intellectuals, such as Toni Negri and Oreste Scalzone
. They have recently returned from their flight in Paris and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s, along with some 200 other autonomists.
History of Italy as a Republic
After World War II and the overthrow of Mussolini's fascist regime, Italy's history was dominated by the Christian Democracy political party for 50 years, while the opposition was led by the Italian Communist Party ; this situation prevailed until the crisis of the Soviet Union and the...
extra-parliamentary leftist movement particularly active from 1976 to 1978. It emerged in 1972 not as a party
Political party
A political party is a political organization that typically seeks to influence government policy, usually by nominating their own candidates and trying to seat them in political office. Parties participate in electoral campaigns, educational outreach or protest actions...
but rather as a place of encounter among various extra-parliamentary and revolutionary
Revolutionary
A revolutionary is a person who either actively participates in, or advocates revolution. Also, when used as an adjective, the term revolutionary refers to something that has a major, sudden impact on society or on some aspect of human endeavor.-Definition:...
left-wing tendencies opposed to reformism
Reformism
Reformism is the belief that gradual democratic changes in a society can ultimately change a society's fundamental economic relations and political structures...
. It took an important role in the autonomist movement in the 1970s, aside earlier organisations such as Potere Operaio
Potere Operaio
Potere Operaio was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1968 and 1973. Among the group's leaders were Antonio Negri, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone and Valerio Morucci, who led its clandestine...
, created after May 1968, and Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua
Lotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
.
Beginning
The autonomist movement gathered itself around the free radioFree Radio
Free Radio is a television show, created by Lance Krall and Rory Rosegarten. The show originated on VH1, but has also played on Comedy Central, and Super Channel . It stars Lance Krall, prominent for his role on The Joe Schmo Show, and Anna Vocino, who also starred with Krall on The Lance Krall...
movement, such as Onda Rossa in Rome, Radio Alice
Radio Alice
Radio Alice was an Italian free radio broadcasting from Bologna at the end of the 1970s. It started transmitting on February 9, 1976 using an ex-military transmitter on a frequency of 100.6 MHz. The station was closed by the carabinieri on March 12, 1977. Radio Alice then re-opened again for two...
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, above all Rosso
Rosso
Rosso is the major city of south-western Mauritania and capital of Trarza region. It is situated on the Senegal River at the head of year-round navigation. The town is 204 km south of the capital Nouakchott...
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
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
(PCI) was present
Autonomia Operaia was divided between a Marxist Leninist tendency, known as Autonomia Operaia Organizzata (organized workers autonomy) and other more anarchist and libertarian tendencies known as autonomia difusa (diffuse autonomy) or autonomia sociale (social autonomy) and autonomia creativa (creative autonomy), mainly in Bologna during the 1977 Movement. There was also an armed tendency known as autonomia armata (armed autonomy).
People such as Oreste Scalzone
Oreste Scalzone
Oreste Scalzone is an Italian Marxist intellectual and one of the founders of the communist organization Potere Operaio....
, Franco Piperno
Franco Piperno
Franco Piperno is an Italian former communist militant. He is currently an associated professor of Condensed Matter Physics in the University of Calabria..-Biography:Piperno was born at Catanzaro....
, professor in Calabria University, Toni Negri in Padova or Franco Berardi
Franco Berardi
Franco "Bifo" Berardi is an Italian Marxist theorist and activist working in the autonomist tradition and mainly focusing on the role of the media and information technology in post-industrial capitalism...
, aka Bifo, at Radio Alice
Radio Alice
Radio Alice was an Italian free radio broadcasting from Bologna at the end of the 1970s. It started transmitting on February 9, 1976 using an ex-military transmitter on a frequency of 100.6 MHz. The station was closed by the carabinieri on March 12, 1977. Radio Alice then re-opened again for two...
were the movement's most well-known figures. The movement became particularly active in March 1977, after the police in Bologna killed Francesco Lo Russo, a member of Lotta Continua. This event gave rise to 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
Francesco Cossiga
Francesco Cossiga was an Italian politician, the 43rd Prime Minister and the eighth President of the Italian Republic. He was also a professor of constitutional law at the University of Sassari....
the carabinieri
Carabinieri
The Carabinieri is the national gendarmerie of Italy, policing both military and civilian populations, and is a branch of the armed forces.-Early history:...
surrounded Bologna's university area. This repression met with some international protest, in particular from French philosophers Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault
Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault , was a French philosopher, social theorist and historian of ideas...
, Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
, Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze
Gilles Deleuze , was a French philosopher who, from the early 1960s until his death, wrote influentially on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volumes of Capitalism and Schizophrenia: Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus , both co-written with Félix...
and Félix Guattari
Félix Guattari
Pierre-Félix Guattari was a French militant, an institutional psychotherapist, philosopher, and semiotician; he founded both schizoanalysis and ecosophy...
, who also denounced the Italian Communist Party
Italian Communist Party
The Italian Communist Party was a communist political party in Italy.The PCI was founded as Communist Party of Italy on 21 January 1921 in Livorno, by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party . Amadeo Bordiga and Antonio Gramsci led the split. Outlawed during the Fascist regime, the party played...
's (PCI) opposition to the University occupation. The PCI was supporting at this time Eurocommunism
Eurocommunism
Eurocommunism was a trend in the 1970s and 1980s within various Western European communist parties to develop a theory and practice of social transformation that was more relevant in a Western European democracy and less aligned to the influence or control of the Communist Party of the Soviet...
and the historic compromise
Historic Compromise
In Italian history, the Historic Compromise was an accommodation between the Christian Democrats and the Italian Communist Party in the 1970s, after the latter embraced eurocommunism under Enrico Berlinguer. The 1978 assassination of DC leader Aldo Moro put an end to the Compromesso storico...
with the Christian Democrats.
The clash between the PCI and Autonomia
On February 17, 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, that 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
Indiani Metropolitani
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".- Background :...
movement, found themselves in a minority. Some of the autonomi decided that the time had come to alzare il livello dello scontro (to raise the level of the conflict), in other words, to start using firearms.
Autonomia and armed struggle
Especially after the more effective prosecution, following the Moro Affair in early 1978, many autonomi went underground, reinforcing groups such as the Red BrigadesRed Brigades
The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
, the Nuclei Armati Proletari (NAP) (a group active mainly in Naples prisons, where many autonomi members had been incarcerated), the Squadre Proletarie di Combattimento, the Proletari Armati per il Comunismo (PAC) , Azione Rivoluzionaria, the Unità Comuniste Combattenti and Prima Linea
Prima Linea
Prima Linea was an Italian Marxist-Leninist terrorist group of the 1970s. It was formed in 1976 by members of hard-line factions within the far left, extra-parliamentary organization Lotta Continua, which disbanded that year, together with members of Potere Operaio and of other far left groups...
, spread mainly throughout northern and central Italy. Also over 200 small, localised, armed groups were briefly active before suppression and/or amalgamation with the second generation of the much larger armed organizations, such as Red Brigades
Red Brigades
The Red Brigades was a Marxist-Leninist terrorist organisation, based in Italy, which was responsible for numerous violent incidents, assassinations, and robberies during the so-called "Years of Lead"...
or Prima Linea
Prima Linea
Prima Linea was an Italian Marxist-Leninist terrorist group of the 1970s. It was formed in 1976 by members of hard-line factions within the far left, extra-parliamentary organization Lotta Continua, which disbanded that year, together with members of Potere Operaio and of other far left groups...
(Front Line), between 1978 and 1982, a period in contemporary Italian history known as the "Years of Lead" (Anni di Piombo).
However, it is important to underline that Autonomia Operaia was not related to and certainly did not direct the Red Brigades, as was claimed by the prosecution at the April 7, 1979 trial of Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri
Antonio Negri is an Italian Marxist sociologist and political philosopher.Negri is best-known for his co-authorship of Empire, and secondarily for his work on Spinoza. Born in Padua, he became a political philosophy professor in his hometown university...
and other arrested intellectuals and activists involved in Autonomia Operaia and Potere Operaio
Potere Operaio
Potere Operaio was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1968 and 1973. Among the group's leaders were Antonio Negri, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone and Valerio Morucci, who led its clandestine...
during the 1970s. This fact was recognized by the Italian legal system when all charges of membership and direction of the Red Brigades were dropped on appeal. Nevertheless, the myth still persists today, mainly due to some unscrupulous journalism, that Autonomia Operaia and the Red Brigades were one and the same organization. Overall, it would be better to think of Autonomia Operaia as a decentralized network or archipelago
Archipelago
An archipelago , sometimes called an island group, is a chain or cluster of islands. The word archipelago is derived from the Greek ἄρχι- – arkhi- and πέλαγος – pélagos through the Italian arcipelago...
of various types of very localized autonomist social movements and organizations, than one integrated social movement at the national level.
Following the increase and generalization of repression throughout the entire extra-parliamentary left during the early 1980s, when thousands of activists were imprisoned in carceri speciali (special prisons for terrorist and Mafia prisoners), most of the movement disbanded. At the beginning of the 1980s, a few of them entered Democrazia Proletaria, a far-left party which in the 70s and 80s ran for local, national and European elections, achieving however little success. Nevertheless, the movement began to revive in the second half of the 1980s, when occupied social centres (centri sociali ocupati) started to become widespread in the main Italian cities. However, the new Autonomia is profoundly different from the Autonomia Operaia of the 1970s, although there is some continuity in both movement structures, especially the free radio stations and some long-term squatted social centres, such as the CSO Leoncavallo in Milan, and intellectuals, such as Toni Negri and Oreste Scalzone
Oreste Scalzone
Oreste Scalzone is an Italian Marxist intellectual and one of the founders of the communist organization Potere Operaio....
. They have recently returned from their flight in Paris and elsewhere during the 1980s and 1990s, along with some 200 other autonomists.
See also
- AutonomismAutonomismAutonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. As an identifiable theoretical system it first emerged in Italy in the 1960s from workerist communism...
- Years of lead (Italy)
- Potere OperaioPotere OperaioPotere Operaio was a radical left-wing Italian political group, active between 1968 and 1973. Among the group's leaders were Antonio Negri, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone and Valerio Morucci, who led its clandestine...
- Lotta ContinuaLotta ContinuaLotta Continua was a far left extra-parliamentary organization in Italy. It was founded in autumn 1969 by a split in the student-worker movement of Turin, which had started militant activity at the universities and factories such as Fiat...
- Movement of 1977Movement of 1977The movement of 1977 was a spontaneous political movement that arose in Italy in 1977. It originated mostly from groups of extra-parliamentary left; as for form and substance, it was completely new compared to previous student movements, such as the protests of 1968...