A-Infos (en) Rebel Worker Book Reviews: On Italian Autonomism & Class War - Storming Heaven – “Class Composition and Struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism” by Steve Wright

In the wake of the crushing of the workers’ uprising and workers’ councils in 
Hungary during 1956 by the Red Army, an acceleration occurred in the 
de-Stalinisation process through out much of the international communist party 
movement. Associated with this trend was a ferment characterised by intense 
internal debates and discussion concerning the Stalinist legacy and the 
crystallisation of strong social democratic currents favouring collaboration 
with the capitalist set up opposed by revolutionary currents favouring a return 
to orthodox Leninism and workers control and pursuit of the class struggle. A 
major battle ground in the Communist world involving this clash was in the 
Italian Communist Party (PCI) and the allied Italian Socialist Party (PSI) from 
the late 1950’s to the late 1970’s, is focused upon in this book under review. 
It looks particularly at the emergence and activity of eventually an archipelago 
of groupings known as the “Operaismo” or “Workerists” composed initially of 
dissident PSI and PCI intellectuals – students, academics and party 
functionaries, associated such journals as “Quaderni Rossi”, “Classe Operaia”, 
“Potere Operaio” and “Primo Maggio”. This movement later on during major 
upsurges in the class struggle during the 1960’s and 1970’s spread to workplaces 
in various sectors such as the Italian Petro Chemical Industry at Porto 
Marghera. These groupings clashed strongly with the mainstream tendencies in the 
PCI and PSI favouring the “ PCI’s Historic Compromise” and participation in the 
Italian Government to help with the management of the capitalist set up.

The author shows that the early “Workerists” favoured “workers control”, 
encouraged an aggressive approach toward the class struggle amongst workers and 
provided analyses of contemporary capitalism and the working class and reportage 
of workers experiences to facilitate this orientation. One of the most important 
aspects of their work was the conducting of “Workers’ Inquiries” involving 
research projects based on interviewing workers at such major manufacturing 
firms as FIAT and Olivetti concerning their experiences of the labour process 
and their behaviour. Another crucial dimension of the “Workerists” activity was 
the rediscovery of the lost syndicalist and councilist traditions of the 
workers’ movement with the publication of analyses and discussion of the IWW 
(Industrial Workers of the World) in the USA which favoured the building of 
revolutionary industrial unions and the workers, soldiers and sailors council 
movement in Germany following the end of WWI.

Unfortunately, perhaps due to the hold of the Leninist/Stalinist legacy even 
within the extreme anti-parliamentary left, the “Workerists” did not pursue the 
project of establishing a syndicalist union movement in Italy during the late 
1960’s and early 1970’s when due to the massive upsurge in workers’ struggles, 
conditions were most favourable. Consequently, with the decline in the class 
struggle in the mid 70’s accompanied by mass lay offs, culminating in the 
massive uprooting of militant workers movement at FIAT in the early 1980’s, and 
a wave of fascist violence and state repression directed against the 
extra-parliamentary left, the author shows that the “Workerist” groupings 
seeking to force the rhythm of the anti-capitalist movement increasingly took on 
authoritarian vanguard style Leninist features and embarked on armed struggle 
against the forces of the State. Culminating in the complete demise of the 
movement by the early 1980’s.

In conclusion, the author does useful work in discussing the origin and activity 
of the “Workerists”, but could do with a more adequate discussion of the impact 
of the Stalinist legacy on its failure to develop a syndicalist trajectory, 
which in many ways had potentialities in this direction and final demise. 
Certainly in such countries as in Australia today, the Stalinist legacy in the 
shape of the “activist unwisdom” associated with elitist posturing and related 
shady and underhanded behaviour of stacking and general orchestration of 
meetings, psychological manipulation, etc and anti-intellectual orientation is 
very widespread within the anti-globalist movement, and the general 
anti-capitalist milieux.

Mark McGuire
From RW Vol.26 No.1 (195) April-May 2007


Bash The Rich by Ian Bone, Tangent Books

The legacy of mass Stalinism in the shape of the Communist parties for many 
decades in the 20^th Century and the subsequent hatching of Trotskyist/Maoist 
groupings has established hegemony within the anti-capitalist milieux in much of 
the Anglo-European World for the building of vanguardist leftist sects. 
Groupings which are fundamentally existential – existing and growing for their 
own sake to maintain micro bureaucracies and expanded egos of party gurus. They 
are characterised by elitist orientations with often ridiculous pretensions to 
resolve every issue under the sun and associated correct positions and the 
pursuit of endless opportunistic campaigns. These groupings often manifest 
extreme Stalinist tendencies involving the resort to all manner of devious 
tricks to manipulate campaigns and their members.

Converging with this legacy was the upsurge in the late 1960’s of students, 
sectors of the lower middle class and some sectors with high levels of autonomy 
in their jobs, with little experience of the class struggle into the 
anti-capitalist milieux and a decline in militant worker involvement. The influx 
of these layers is associated with the interconnected expansion of tertiary 
education, the welfare state and union bureaucracies since the 1960’s and the 
successes of the global employer offensive since the late 1970’s. These marginal 
layers due to their objective lack of involvement in the class struggle, often 
develop a defused focus on the various misdeeds of capitalism and being 
attracted to the divisive and irrational bourgeois ideology of “identity 
politics” with all its absurd notions of “monolithic” imaginary communities of 
oppressed “women”, “queers”, “blacks”, “indigenous”, etc and a worship of the 
autonomous organising of these groups.

The Stalinist legacy merges seamlessly with this reactionary divisive bourgeois 
ideology producing all manner of bizarre antics within the leftist milieux, 
particularly navel gazing political correctness displays and a pseudo religious 
climate within such groups and at various public meetings/centres.

To varying degrees, the largest groupings in the anarchist/syndicalist milieux 
in Britain since the 1960’s have been severely affected by this leftist 
influence, particularly the DAM/SF (Direct Action Movement/Solidarity 
Federation), ACF/AF (Anarchist Communist Federation/Anarchist Federation), Class 
War Federation and the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). In the case of the 
DAM/SF, it has involved in redefining anarcho-syndicalism into a sect building 
formula. Involving a “Globalist” conception focusing on all manner of issues, 
outside the job. Certainly, with the formation of a mass syndicalist union 
movement, it would cooperate with other groupings in the community on various 
campaigns eg residents groups to wage rent strikes, but contemporary British 
syndicalism is very far from that situation. Whilst, a certain layer in it, view 
its very few, small and fragile industrial networks as the “buildings blocks” of 
mass syndicalist unionism, which indicates an extreme pretension. In the case of 
the ACF/AF, it confuses participation in the formalist structures and rituals 
and opportunistic “organising” of the IWW with the serious organising which 
could establish genuine mass syndicalism. The IWW has particularly displayed an 
“existential syndicalist orientation” with its “strategically senseless 
“organising” amongst Scottish “parliamentary workers” including members of 
parliament, achieving its largest “shop” organisation.

The book under review focuses on the memoirs of Ian Bone, founder of the Class 
War paper who was deeply entangled in this exotic fringe of the British Left 
subculure. Initially, the author sketches his working class origins as the child 
of domestic servants. This working class connection brought the author some 
contact with reality of the “Workers’ Councils”which was influential in the 
Solidarity milieux. It of course fails to take into account the need to build 
the coordinated on the job organisation in the here and now, for workers to 
fight the bosses. Support for “Workers’ Councils” became an important feature of 
the Class War groups ideology.

However, due to his chance encounter with some members of the urban guerrilla 
“Angry Brigade”, the author made a “U-Turn” from serious syndicalist style 
activity into the wilds of the left subculture. The most important manifestation 
of this turn was his launching together with others of “Class War”. This group 
and subsequent federation has been noted for its support and claims for 
organising various spectacular stunts and riotous outbreaks against the 
capitalist set up. It has also sought and attained considerable media attention 
through this activity and the lurid rhetoric “eat the rich”, “kill the cops” of 
its paper. This notoriety and the 15,000 to 20,000 claimed circulation of the 
paper has not led to any led to any mass anarchist/syndicalist upsurge amongst 
workers, as Bone hoped. However, congeries of class war style sects and youth 
subcultures have appeared, some of these sects having strong Stalinist tendencies.

The book particularly focuses on Class War’s involvement in the British Miners’ 
Strike of 1984-85. The authors recalls how Class War’s often extreme attacks on 
the capitalist set and support for the miners encouraged the spontaneous 
emergence of Class War groups throughout the country which helped with picketing 
and other activity for miners. Whilst the author emphasised the importance of 
inspiring and organising riots in the urban areas to divert the police and 
assist the miners action. However, the author fails to take into account the 
importance of solidarity action by workers in other strategic sectors, which was 
not forth coming and decisively contributed to the defeat of the miners. Any 
discussion of strategic organising to assist this solidarity action was absent 
in Class War. Its second conference discussed on p188-191, shows ample evidence 
of its left sub cultural “corroboree” feature and an extreme absence of a 
scientific climate, with its degeneration into a discussion of politically 
correct “sexual lifestyles”. Shades of Maoist practices, which the author 
appears to recognise, but was unable to tackle.

The book concludes with the authors recollections of various riotous stunts 
Class War organised such as the 1985 Bash The Rich demos, the Henley Regatta 
action and the disruption of CND and Labour Party conferences amongst other 
actions. With the subsequent, better organisation of police intervention, 
increased repressive legislation and the massive growth of CCTV’s, the scope for 
this activity has been severely limited in Britain particularly in recent years.

In conclusion, the book under review certainly sketches the activism of someone 
quite lost in one of the extreme corners of the left sub cultural labyrinth. A 
victim of historical legacies and sociological factors, he is unable to fully 
grasp. Being a dynamic phenomena, the capitalist set up in Britain has taken 
advantage of the various revolts and stunts, Class War and the author initiated 
and encouraged or laid claim, to organise the development of a strong state with 
constantly increasing repressive laws, massive surveillance and plans for an new 
ID Card, super charged by the current “Terrorism” hysteria. This capitalist 
“fight back” will create difficult terrain for “outside the job” organisation 
which the milieux around the various anarchist and syndicalist groups could 
supply if their different “chapels” were dissolved, to assist workers on-the-job 
self organisation and direct action in strategic sectors such as the critical 
transport industries which is vital to the emergence of genuine mass syndicalist 
unionism in Britain and globally.

Mark McGuire
From RW Vol.26 No.2 July-Aug. 2007

From Rebel Worker Paper of the Anarcho-Syndicalist Network PO Box 92 Broadway 
2007 NSW Australia www.rebelworker.org
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