1970s

1962-1973: Worker and student struggles in Italy

A history of the wave of strikes and occupations that gripped Italian factories and universities during the 1960s. Coming to a head with the Hot Autumn of 1969, independent forms of struggle used by workers represented a significant attempt to break from restrictive trade unions.

Rising from a period of centre-left coalition that had been marked by a constant failure to bring promised reforms to Italian society, the struggles of the 1960s acted as a pressure gauge for many sections of the Italian working class, one which was to reach its climax during the mass strikes of 1968-1970.

Italy 1977-8 - 'Living with an Earthquake' - Red Notes

Documents, personal accounts and analysis - from a time when a very high level of class struggle dominated Italian society. Despite their differences - the state, church, fascists, Communist Party and unions were all united in opposition to the the radical social movement.

Link to PDF of pamphlet.

Published by Red Notes, London, UK, late 1970s

1970: US national postal strike

A short account of the illegal nationwide postal strikes that spread across America in 1970. After two weeks, during which time the army was called out to break the strike, workers eventually won increases in pay and the right to negotiate on contracts with bosses.

Beginning on the morning of March 18, the strike had been precipitated by months of stalling by union leaders and government officials. With no rights to collective bargaining, and having not seen wages increase between 1967 and 1969, anger amongst postal workers had been simmering for years.

The Good and Bad Old Days - The Whinger

The following notes look at various developments in employment, unemployment, and industrial struggles, mainly in the UK, through the period of the sixties, and up to the mid-seventies.

These notes are not revolutionary, they don't even claim to be radical,... I_just nicked them and adapted them from an old seventies cyclopedia I found in a charity shop!. But they do tell a story, and they illustrate a big process of change at a critical turning point.

From; The Whinger - Irregular journal of hysterical madterialism; No. 6, Oct 2007.

Two Local Chapters in the Spectacle of Decomposition - Chris Shutes

Situationist-influenced reflections and critique on; the Jonestown cult massacre, conspiracy theory, black leftist ideology, San Francisco in the late 1970s, disco, the Harvey Milk murder and gay culture etc...

Published by Chris Shutes in Berkeley, CA, USA; May 1979.

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"Everything is said about the spectacle except what it always & fundamentally is: the colonization of the point of view of the individual by the point of view of the collectivity." Daniel Denevert

Two Local Chapters in the Spectacle of Decomposition

The working class in Iran: some background - class struggles from 1979-1989 - Mostafa Saber

Some excerpts from A Brief Look at the Situation of the Working Class in Iran, a short description of workers' history and conditions - and their struggles during and following the 1979 Revolution.

Of particular interest is the observation that "in practice the [workers'] councils, due to their complete accordance with workers' direct and immediate exercise of power, won an indisputable victory vis-a-vis the unions. The few attempts at creating unions remained irrelevant to the real workers' movement."

Poznan 1956 and Radom 1976

June-August 1976 Warsaw

A background report for Radio Free Europe written in 1981, detailing the workers uprisings in Poznan '56 and Radom '76.

BOX-FOLDER-REPORT: 46-4-214
TITLE: Polish Workers Commemorate their Past Struggles
BY: J. B. de Weydenthal
DATE: 1981-7-7
COUNTRY: Poland
ORIGINAL SUBJECT: RAD Background Report/192

--- Begin ---

RFE-RL

RADIO FREE EUROPE Research

RAD Background Report/192 (Poland)" 7 July 1981

Ending a war: Inventing a movement: Mayday 1971

After SDS committed political suicide, and after the Jackson and Kent State shootings, one of the largest mass direct actions in US history took place under the slogan "If the Government won't stop the war, we'll stop the Government."

Ending a war: Inventing a movement: Mayday 1971
Kauffman, L A

Strange Defeat: The Chilean Revolution, 1973 - Pointblank!

An article by Situationist group Pointblank! written in October 1973 about the coup in Chile which deposed elected left-wing leader Salvador Allende.

Instead of blaming the right and the CIA for the coup like most commentators on the left, Pointblank! point out the role that Allende and the parties of the left played in demobilising the powerful working class, undermining their strength and eventually signing their own death warrants by refusing to arm them

Like a Summer with a Thousand Julys …and Other Seasons…

Riot in St. Pauls, Bristol, 1980

An overview of the early 1980s strikes and riots in the UK.

This text has been reproduced without most of the original pictures and their captions due to space. Some captions which were thought to be useful additions to the main text have been included in boxes.
Like a Summer with a Thousand Julys …and Other Seasons…

INFANT SORROW

A disgrace before God: Striking black sanitation workers vs. black officialdom in 1977 Atlanta

Atlanta 1963: A high school student is arrested at a civil rights demonstration

This article is a case study of the betrayal of the African American working class by the Black political class brought to power by the Civil Rights and Black Power movements of the 1960's.

"A disgrace before God"

Ireland, nationalism and imperialism, the myths exploded, 1972-1992 - Subversion

Bloody Sunday

Written before the Good Friday Agreement at a time when the 'armed struggle' was still part of daily life in Northern Ireland this article, though inevitably somewhat dated, this remains a cogent analysis of the recent history of Ireland.

TWENTY YEARS ON A KNIFE EDGE

'... the fate of the province [Northern Ireland] is still, as it has been for so long, poised on a knife- edge between a slow climb back to some form of ordered existence, or a swift plunge into unimaginable anarchy and civil war.'

1977: The great Northampton General Hospital lie in

A short history of a successful example of creative direct action against healthcare rationing in a British hospital.

30 years ago: Rita Ward and the Great Northampton Hospital ‘lie-in”
We hear a lot these days about the ‘creeping privatisation’ of the NHS. We have a Labour government committed to turning our free National Health Service into just another business along the lines of the American model, which sees poor people refused medical treatment because they can’t afford it.

An Introduction to The Angry Brigade - Jean Weir

"Bighead Brigade"

An article about controversial UK anarchist guerrilla group, the Angry Brigade looking particularly at anarchist criticism of them at the time. While we disagree with much of the article we reproduce here for reference.

The eight libertarian militants on trial in the Old Bailey in 1972 who were chosen by the British State to be the `conspirators' of the Angry Brigade, found themselves facing not only the class enemy with all its instruments of repression, but also the obtusity and incomprehension -- when not condemnation -- of the organised left.

Lip and the self-managed counter-revolution, 1973 – Negation

Poster of the movie on the Lip factory

A critical article about workers' struggles at the Lip watch factory in France, where workers began self-managing the firm..

LIP AND THE SELF-MANAGED COUNTER-REVOLUTION

from Negation, No. 3 1973

Table of Contents
• Publication Notes
• Négation Introduction
• I. The Workers' Movement and its Decline
• 1. The Expropriation of the Expropriators
• 2. Dead Labor
• 3. Variable Capital and the Unions
• a. The CGT and Devalorization

1978-1979: Winter of Discontent

Strikers in the Winter of Discontent

A short history of the of the widespread strike movement that occurred during the winter of 1978-1979 in Britain. The 'Winter of Discontent' marked the largest stoppage of labour since the 1926 General Strike.

The factors that provoked the widespread stoppage of work by thousands of British workers in the winter of 1978-79 began with the Labour government of James Callaghan's attempt to enforce limits on pay rises to curb inflation. Inflation had reached a height of nearly 26.9% in August 1975.

Notes for a discussion on the regeneration of the American labor movement - Dolgoff, 1970s

Sam Dolgoff's notes, analysis and suggestions for re-building a fighting working class movement in the US in the 1970s. Extracted from a larger text, The American labour movement: a new beginning.

Reflections on the black Consciousness Movement and the South African Revolution - Selby Samela, Sam Thompson & Norman Abraham

A situationist-influenced text decribing how a protest by Soweto school students in 1976 spread and became a country-wide revolt - involving mass workers' strikes and violent confrontations that shook the foundations of white South Africa. Written as a collaboration between an American and two South Africans, the text also deals with the rise and fall of the Black Consciousness Movement.

Originally published in August 1979

Serantini, Franco, 1951-1972

Franco Serantini

A short biography of Italian anarchist Franco Serantini, who was murdered by police during an anti-fascist demonstration.

Francisco Serantini was born in Cagliari on Sardinia on 16th July 1951 and abandoned at birth. He was given both his names by an official of a literary bent or a priest or policeman who had seen in the paper recently mention of the Romagnol writer of the same name, an author of picturesque novels, one of which was I Bastardi.

Reviewing the experience of Italy in the 1970s - Negri

Strikers in 1969

Antonio Negri recalls the political experience of various aspects of the mass struggles of the 1970s in Italy, including the Strategy of Tension.

Between "historic compromise" and terrorism
Reviewing the experience of Italy in the 1970s

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