Autonomism
For other meanings of autonomism, see autonomism (disambiguation) pageAutonomism refers to a set of
left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the
socialist movement. Autonomism (
autonomia) emerged in
Italy in the 1960s from
workerist (
operaismo)
communism. Later, post-
Marxist and
anarchist tendencies became significant after influence from the
Situationists, the failure of the Italian revolutionary era 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 autonomist group. It influenced the German and Dutch
Autonomen, the worldwide
Social Center movement, and today is influential in Italy, France, the United States and some other English-speaking countries. Those who describe themselves as autonomists now vary from workerist Marxists to
post-structuralists and (some) anarchists.
The term
Autonome is derived from the
Greek "auto-
nomos" referring to someone or something which lives by her own rule.
Autonomy, in this sense, is not
independence. While independence refers to an
autarcic kind of life, separated from the
community, autonomy refers to life in society but by one own's rule.
Aristotle thus considered that only beasts or gods could be independent and live apart from the
polis ("community"), while
Kant defined the
Enlightenment by autonomy of thought and the famous
"Sapere aude" ("dare to know").
Autonomist Marxism appeared in Italy in the early 1960s, around the review
Quaderni Rossi and
Classe Operaia, founded by
Antonio Negri and
Mario Tronti. In
1969, this
operaismo movement split into two different groups,
Lotta Continua, led by
Adriano Sofri (
Pasolini also contributed to it) and
Potere Operaio, directed by
Toni Negri,
Franco Piperno,
Oreste Scalzone, and
Valerio Morucci.
Autonomia Operaia was then created in
1972. In
Bologna,
Radio Alice was one of the
free radio involved in the autonomist movement. In the context of the
strategy of tension (
strategia della tensione), which aimed at destabilizing the country through a campaign of "
false flags" terrorist attacks in order to promote an authoritative government and impede the
historic compromise (
compromesso storico) between the
Christian Democracy (DC) and the
Communist Party (PCI), the autonomist movement engaged itself in various
direct actions operations, including
propaganda by the deed (refusing to pay
public transport, electricity, gas, rent, food - a practice called "autoreduction" of prices -,
riots and sometimes
bank robberies).
Following the
December 12,
1969 Piazza Fontana bombing, 4 000 left-wing members were detained by the police, which accused
Giuseppe Pinelli, an anarchist, of having carried out the bombing. It would be only in the 1980s, with the
neo-fascist terrorist
Vincenzo Vinciguerra's confessions to magistrate
Felice Casson, that it was proven that the massacre had been carried out by
Ordine Nuovo, supported by
Gladio, in an attempt to push the state into declaring a
state of emergency. Giuseppe Pinelli was held and interrogated for three days, longer than Italian law specified that people could be held without seeing a judge. On
December 15, he died after allegedly being pushed by the window. Luigi Calabresi, one of the police officers who had interrogated him, was put under investigation in 1971 for murder but charges were dropped because of lack of evidence. The next year, Calabresi was killed by two shots from a revolver outside his home.
On
March 11,
1977, riots in which the autonomists participated took place in Bologna following the killing of a young man by the police.
Gladio,
NATO's "
stay-behind" secret paramilitary organization, as well as the
Italian secret services and the outlawed
Propaganda Due masonic lodge (aka "P2") were later found to be directly involved in the strategy of tension, which culminated with the
1978 murder of prime minister
Aldo Moro, who was also the leader of the Christian Democracy and engaged in the historic compromise. Starting from
1979, the state launched a heavy repression campaign against the movement, claiming it protected the
Red Brigades, which had kidnapped and assassinated Aldo Moro in obscure circumstances (the Italian state surprisingly refused to negotiate with the terrorists, and the secret services' role wasn't clear). 12 000 far-left activists were detained, while 300
exiled themselves in
France and 200 others in
South America, on a total of 600 people who escaped away
[ On the Autonomist movement ]. In
1988, former
Lotta continua member Adriano Sofri was arrested with Ovidio Bompressi and Giorgio Pietrostefani for the murder of Luigi Calabresi, the police officer who had allegedly assassinated Giuseppe Pinelli after the 1969 Piazza Fontana bombing. The charges against them were based on testimony provided, sixteen years later, by a
pentito (an ex-militant who accused himself of having carried out the murder of Calabresi, under order from Adriano Sofri, and collaborated with the magistrates). Claiming his innocence, Sofri was finally sentenced 22 years after a long series of trials, in 2000, giving rise to a book from historian
Carlo Ginzburg,
The Judge and the Historian: Marginal Notes on a Late Twentieth-Century Miscarriage of Justice.
In contrast with other forms of Marxism, autonomist marxism emphasised the ability of the
working class to force changes to the organisation of the
capitalist system independent of the
state,
trade unions or
political parties. Autonomist Marxism is a "bottom up" theory: it draws attention to activities that autonomists see as everyday working class resistance to capitalism, for example
absenteeism, slow working, and socialisation in the workplace. The US
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) are popularly taken as a prototypical "autonomist" labor union.
Like other Marxists, they see
class struggle as of central importance, but unlike most Marxists, they have a broad definition of the working class that includes the waged (
white collar and
blue collar), and the unwaged (beneficiaries, homemakers and so on). The movement drew a line between the waged blue- and white-collar, protected by trade unions and the
Welfare state, and other unwaged people, including
unemployed people,
students and
immigrants, deprived from any form of political organization. Autonomists were less concerned with party political organisation than other types of Marxist thought; instead it focuses on self-organised working class action and the development of its theoretical tools in accord with actual working class struggles. Early theorists were
Mario Tronti,
Antonio Negri,
Sergio Bologna,
Paolo Virno and others in
Italy in the 1970s. These thinkers theorized a "immaterial" and "social labour", a notion which extended the marxist concept of labour to the whole of society. As such, they explained how one modern society's wealth was produced by unaccountable collective work, of which only a little part of it was redistributed to the workers under the form of
wages. For example, the
operaismo movement insisted on the importance of
feminism and un-payed female labour, which regroups not only domestic labour but also affective aspects leading to new forms of social organization.
In France, the marxist group
Socialisme ou Barbarie, led by philosopher
Cornelius Castoriadis, may be said one of the first autonomist groups, as well as being important in the
council communist tradition.
Socialisme ou Barbarie ("Socialism or Barbary") harshly criticized
stalinism and the
USSR, which it considered a form of state capitalism and not at all of
state socialism as it pretended to be. Philosopher
Jean-François Lyotard, famous for his work on
post-modernism, was also part of this movement. However, the Italian influence of the
operaismo movement was more directly felt in the creation of the review
Matériaux pour l'intervention (1972-1973) by
Yann Moulier-Boutang, a French economist close to Toni Negri. This would lead in turn to the creation of the
Camarades group (1974-78) by Yann Moulier-Boutang. Along with others, Moulier-Boutang would join the
Centre International pour des Nouveaux Espaces de Liberté (CINEL), founded three years before by
Félix Guattari, and would give refugee to Italian activists accused of terrorism, of whom at least 300 escaped to France.
The French autonome mouvement then organized itself in the AGPA (
Assemblée Parisienne des Groupes Autonomes, "Parisian Assembly of the Autonome Groups"; 1977-78). Many tendencies were present in it, including the
Camarades group led by Yann Moulier-Boutang, members of the
Organisation communiste libertaire (OCL - an anarchist-communist group), some people referring themselves to the "Desiring Autonomy" of
Bob Nadoulek, but also squatters and street-wise people (including the
groupe Marge). French autonomes supported the
Rote Armee Fraktion ("Red Army Faction" - RAF)
political prisoners, a cause also defended by
Jean-Paul Sartre.
The militant group
Action Directe appeared in 1979 and carried on several
direct actions. The murder of
Renault's CEO
Georges Besse was blamed on them, although they denied it. It was later alleged that this murder had in fact been carried on by the
Iranian intelligence services (George Besse had been CEO of nuclear company
Eurodif, involved in
Iran's nuclear program).
Action Directe was dissolved in 1987.
In the 1980s, the autonomist movement almost disappeared from Italy because of
state repression, and was stronger in Germany than in France. It remained mostly present in Parisians squatts and in some
riots (for example in
1980 near the
Jussieu campus in Paris, or in
1982 in the
Ardennes department during
anti-nuclear demonstrations, etc.)
In the 1990s, the French autonomist movement was present in struggles led by
unemployed people, such as
l'Assemblée générale des chômeurs de Jussieu ("General Assembly of Jussieu's unemployed people"). It was also involved in the
alter-globalization movement.
From
July 19 to
July 28,
2002, a
No Border camp was made in
Strasbourg to protest against anti-
immigration policies, in particular inside the
Schengen European space.
In
2003, conflict opposed autonomists to the
French Socialist Party (PS) during a demonstration that had taken place in the frame of the
European Social Forum in
Saint-Denis (Paris). End of December, hundreds of unemployed people helped themselves in the
Bon Marché supermarket in order to be able to celebrate Christmas (an action called
"autoréduction" in French, meaning "autoreduction" of prices).
French riot police (CRS) physically opposed themselves to the unemployed people inside the shop.
In Germany,
Autonomen was used during the late 1970s to depict the most radical part of the political left and supported anarchist and
anarcho-communist ideas. These individuals participated in practically all actions of the social movements at the time, especially in demonstrations against
nuclear energy plants (Brokdorf 1981, Wackersdorf 1986) and in actions against the construction of airport runways (Frankfurt 1976-1986). The defense of
squats against the police such as in
Hamburg's
Hafenstraße was also a major "task" for the "autonome" movement. The Dutch anarchist
Autonomen movement from the 1960s also concentrated on squatting.
Tactics of the "Autonome" were usually militant, including the construction of barricades or throwing stones or
molotov cocktails at the police. During their most powerful times in the early 1980s, on at least one occasion the police had to take flight.
Because of their outfit (heavy black clothing, ski masks, helmets), the "Autonome" were dubbed
der schwarze Block by the German media, and in these tactics were similar to modern
black blocs. In 1989, laws regarding demonstrations in Germany were changed, prohibiting the use of so-called "passive weaponry" such as helmets or padding and covering your face.
Today, the "autonome" scene in Germany is greatly reduced and concentrates mainly on
anti-fascist actions. There are more militant and bigger groups still in operation, such as in
Switzerland or
Italy.
Due to the inspiration provided by the Autonomist Marxist and
Autonomen movements for some of the revolutionary left, some English-language leftist groups with a fundamentally anarchist bent describe themselves as
Autonomists. The Italian
operaismo movement also influenced Marxist academics such as
Harry Cleaver,
John Holloway, Steve Wright, and
Nick Dyer-Witheford.
*
L'Autonomie. Le mouvement autonome en France et en Italie, éditions Spartacus 1978
*
Autonomes, Jan Bucquoy and Jacques Santi, ANSALDI 1985
*
Action Directe. Du terrorisme français à l'euroterrorisme, Alain Hamon and Jean-Charles Marchand, SEUIL 1986
*
Paroles Directes. Légitimité, révolte et révolution : autour d'Action Directe, Loïc Debray, Jean-Pierre Duteuil, Philippe Godard,
Henri Lefebvre, Catherine Régulier, Anne Sveva, Jacques Wajnsztejn, ACRATIE 1990
*
Un Traître chez les totos, Guy Dardel, ACTES SUD 1999 (novel)
*
Bac + 2 + crime : l'affaire Florence Rey, Frédéric Couderc, CASTELLS 1998
*
Italie 77. Le « Mouvement », les intellectuels, Fabrizio Calvi, SEUIL 1977
*
Una sparastoria tranquilla. Per una storia orale del'77, ODRADEK 1997
*
Die Autonomen, Thomas Schultze et Almut Gross, KONKRET LITERATUR 1997
*
Autonome in Bewegung, AG Grauwacke aus den ersten 23 Jahren, ASSOCIATION A 2003
Autonomist Marxism thinkers
*
Antonio Negri*
Sergio Bologna*
Mario Tronti*
Paolo Virno*
Silvia FedericiMultitudes magazine
Other movements or organizations
*
Black blocs (
alter-globalization groups)
*
Os Cangaceiros (a French group)
*
Red & Anarchist Action Network*
Council CommunistDisobbedienti*
Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) (US trade-union)
*
Libertarian Marxism*
Luxembourgism*
Radio Alice (Italian radio involved in the autonomist movement)
Tute Bianche (pacifist Italian group)
Socialisme ou Barbarie, a French group led by philosopher
Cornelius Castoriadis*
United Socialist Party (Italy)*
Ya Basta*
Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) (famous Mexican guerrilla)
Italian 1960-80 context
*
History of Italy as a Republic*
strategy of tension*
Operation GladioOthers
*
direct action*
precarity*
propaganda of the deedArchives
*
Recycling Marx: Autonomism and The Rejection of Orthodoxy*
Libertarian Communist Library Mario Tronti Archive*
Libertarian Communist Library Sergio Bolognia Archive*
Libertarian Communist Library Nick Dyer-Witheford Archive*
Libertarian Communist Library Antonio Negri Archive*
Libertarian Communist Library Raniero Panzieri Archive*
Libertarian Communist Library Harry Cleaver ArchiveOthers
*
A critique of autonomism, published by a Trotskyist group*
Aut-op-sy - Autonomist forum and texts*
Texas Archives of Autonomist Marxism*
Libertarian Communist Library, which includes many Autonomist-Marxism texts*
The Anomalist E-Journal*
Nadir*
Wildcat*
No Border*
www.autonome.org
