The American worker and the Forze Nuove: Turin and Detroit at the twilight of Fordism
Nicola Pizzolato on the commonalities between Detroit and Turin, Italy in the 1960s.
In a 1982 paper presented at MIT, Italian urbanist Paolo Ceccarelli characterized Detroit and Turin as “città fragili” – fragile cities. His assessment contrasted starkly with the way the two “motor cities” had been represented for most of the twentieth century, but it resonated with his contemporary audience.
Left wing extremists harass CCU strike leaders
Submitted by backspace on Dec 8 2013 17:38
A 1976 diplomatic telegram sent abroad by the Italian government informing of dangerous workerist intervention challenging the limits of an ineffective 4 hour token strike in Italian industry.
Sent 9th February 1976, originally classified for ‘Limited official use’ but since declassified and released as of 2006. Taken from the original text found in the Wikileaks public archive.
Learning to struggle: my story between workerism and feminism - Leopoldina Fortunati
An interesting account of an Italian Marxist feminist of her experiences and development in the autonomist and feminist movements in Italy in the 1970s.
Radical America #05.05: Italy 1969-1970
Issue of Radical America from September-October 1971, predominantly about the mass struggles in Italy in the previous two years.
Constituent articles:
- Introduction
- Italy new tactics & organization
- Two steel contracts
- Their time & ours (Schanoes, David)
- Black studies (James, C. L. R.(Cyril Lionel Robert))
The veritable report on the last chance to save capitalism in Italy - Censor
A brilliant hoax report by former Situationist International member Gianfranco Sanguinetti purporting to be by a cultured Italian aristocrat calling himself "Censor". It was sent to 520 of the most powerful people in Italy in 1975 and sounding like a conservative from another era Censor counselled his peers in response to the mass strikes sweeping the country, causing a scandal and laying bare the state manipulation of terrorist groups in the Strategy of Tension.
Below is the text version of the report with appendices, translated and compiled by Not Bored!. Attached in PDF format is the version of the report translated by Len Bracken.
Franca Rame’s rape: Fascists, carabinieri and ‘a higher wish’ - Girolamo De Michele
Submitted by StrugglesInItaly on Jun 7 2013 09:15
Article on Italian state and police involvement in the rape and torture of a radical activist by fascists, translated by Struggles in Italy. Trigger warning for discussion of sexual violence.
On the 9th of March 1973 Franca Rame was abducted by five men and forced to get in a van where she was tortured and raped. Famously, Franca managed to talk about this aggression in a monologue called ‘Lo Stupro’ (‘The Rape’), which she included in the show ‘Tutta casa, letto e chiesa’.
Let’s not talk about desires anymore
“Let’s not talk about desires anymore, let’s desire: we are desiring machines, machines of war.”
After the events of March 1977, Radio Alice became the symbol of the free radios. It was emitted from Bologna, one of the strongholds of the Italian Communist Party and the explicit showcase for the Historical Compromise [alliance between Christian Democrats and Italian Communist Party (PCI)].
Apocalypse and survival - Francesco Santini
A harrowing intellectual biography and review essay devoted to the life and works of Giorgio Cesarano, interwoven with an account of the Italian “radical current” of 1968-1978, when revolutionary expectations ran high but, for the few consistent revolutionaries caught between the terrorism of the state and the armed groups, the hostility of the Stalinist and crypto-Stalinist political formations, and a ruthless and sweeping repression, the results were often madness, prison, suicide and a wave of disillusionment that devastated the revolutionary milieu.
Apocalypse and survival: Reflections on Giorgio Cesarano's book, Critica dell’utopia capitale, and the experience of the radical communist current in Italy
By Francesco Santini (1994), Spanish translation by Carlos Lagos P. Original text in Italian at: http://www.autprol.org/public/news/apoeriv.htm
English translation from Spanish completed January 2013
Storming the West - Celluloid Liberation Front
Film theory on the spaghetti western films of the 1960s and 70s and how they were informed by the revolutionary conditions in the real world.
"I remember we used to wear the same dusters from The Wild Bunch or the one James Coburn wore in Duck, You Sucker!" —Francesco Piccioni (Red Brigades member)
External and internal militants: Workers autonomy in Porto Marghera seen from West Germany 1971-1974 - Karl-Heinz Roth
A text describing the relationship between the struggles and ideas of the workers of the Porto Marghera chemical plant in Italy, along with the group Potere Operaio which they were closely linked to, and the ex-student activists in West Germany who tried to learn from the Italian example and develop similar workers' initiatives in their own part of Europe.
Introduction
This text recently appeared in French in the recently published book Pouvoir ouvrier à Porto Marghera - Du Comité d’usine à l’Assemblée de territoire (Vénétie – 1960-80) [“Workers’ Power in Porto Marghera – from the Factory Committee to the Territorial Assembly (Venetia – 1960-80)”], Les nuits rouges, 2012.
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