A-Infos (en) Britain, Anarchist Federation Organise #67 -Book review - Storming Heaven: Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism, by Steve Wright (London: Pluto Press, 2002)

This is the only full length English language introduction to the 
Italian Marxist tradition of Operaismo or what later came to be known as 
autonomism - and which is now undergoing something of a revival under 
the title of `autonomist Marxism' with Toni Negri being the mismatched 
poster-boy. Previously only available as a PhD thesis or in mangled 
electronic form it was published by Pluto Press in 2002 and has since 
helped to uncover the material background to the original texts which 
are now circulating around the internet or in samizdat form and to 
further open up the real significance (including the limitations) of the 
key concepts of the tradition for those without Italian or access to 
specialist libraries.
The book opens with a very dense and useful introduction to immediate 
post-war Italy, the political background, the historical groups, the 
capitalist offensive (placed within an international context) and then 
moves through a near chronological examination of `workerism' as it 
emerged out of the resistance by workers and intellectuals to the 
Italian Socialist Party and Communist Party of Italy embrace of 
capitalist development and `nation-building' at the level of both the 
enterprise and as an institutional project, then follows the key 
concepts as they grew out of the working classes own behaviour and the 
later refinements as conditions altered.

One of the strengths of the book is that Steve doesn't beat around the 
bush or attempt to deal with the Byzantine organisational networks that 
criss-crossed the various Italian territories in the 60s and 70s, beyond 
what is essential. He clearly outlines what he regards to be the 
traditions main theoretical breakthroughs and what he considers to be 
its central weaknesses without fuss or the need for intellectual 
showboating - often problem in this particular area.

Amongst these key ideas that are viewed as particularly valuable is the 
concept of class composition and the early emphasis of Quaderni Rossi 
and Classe Operaia on flesh-and-blood working class behaviours as 
uncovered through the original use of `workers inquiries' by Alquati - 
even here though the often mechanistic chain of technical composition of 
labour process = political composition of working class = political 
organisation that was built on this approach is criticised and the later 
recognition of the importance of cultural factors by Primo Maggio is 
offered as a useful modification forced on the workerists by the reality 
of the internal differentiation of the working class in the factories 
and outside.

Other key concepts that are welcomed are the (sometimes confused) 
recognition of the importance of reproduction to capital, of social 
issues outside of the factory, of the rediscovery of working class 
histories long sidelined by the official parties historical narratives 
and of the centrality of working class movement to the development of 
capital - the discovery of the working class perspective as opposed to 
the logic of capital - an especially clear discussion of Mario Tronti's 
early texts makes this often difficult overturning of traditional 
Marxist approaches very simple to grasp.

Steve is equally as strong on the shortcomings of autonomism, and chief 
amongst the sinners is Tony Negri who comes in for some sustained (and 
justified) criticism for his `tendency' to abstractly impose a few 
characteristics of a limited section of the working class across the 
whole of the social terrain and to then make great leaps from this 
starting point - he quotes Tronti's apt warning that "a discourse which 
grow upon itself carries the mortal danger of verifying itself always 
and only through the successive passages of its own formal logic" -which 
seems more than little prophetic given Negri's recent trajectory.

Other workerists are criticised for their overwhelming concentration on 
the immediate process of production beyond the point where it was 
sustainable and the over-reaction when this became apparent to them - 
the consequent ditching of the mass worker thesis and the embrace of the 
socialised worker to the detriment of those still in the factories being 
particularly short-sighted and damaging. In fact, this sort of wild 
flip-flopping in pursuit of quick political gains is consistently 
deplored throughout the book. As is the gradual degeneration of the 
leading groups of autonomia into `political micro-factions' - especially 
of the `organised' section of the area of autonomy - who aped the forms 
of the historic left and tried to force the rhythm of the movement via a 
slightly modified vanguardism with disastrous results.

One slight criticism that I have is that the 1977 events are not really 
entered into in any great detail - in terms of activity anyway. There 
is, though, a very interesting look at Sergio Bologna's famous essay The 
Tribe of Moles which covers the composition and experience of the 
movement during that period. A similar point could be made as regards 
the terrible state repression that autonomia faced in the late 70s.

This book is all the more useful as it doesn't come from someone who has 
followed Negri and others into the post-modern swamp, and who hasn't 
rejected the key breakthroughs that were made in the 60s and 70s but 
instead argues that they should be built upon whilst recognising the 
changed conditions in which we find ourselves today - that would be to 
stick to the original promises of the workerists - something which many 
of the most prominent names connected with the traditions were unable to 
do themselves.
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