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

Cattivi Maestri: Some Reflections on the Legacy of Guido Bianchini, Luciano Ferrari Bravo and Primo Moroni - Steve Wright

Steve Wright's analysis of the ideas of three Marxists who, along with Antonio Negri, were accused of being the "evil masters" of red terrorism in 1960s and 1970s Italy.

Cattivi Maestri: Reflections on the Legacy of Guido Bianchini, Luciano Ferrari Bravo and Primo

Steve Wright

You were like one who, traveling by night,

Carries the torch behind - no help to him -

But he makes those who follow him the wiser.(1)

Reviewing the experience of Italy in the 1970s - Negri

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

Classe Operaia - The birth of Italian Workerism

A history of the origins of the radical Italian theoretical current known as 'Operaismo' (Workerism), which began with Mario Tronti's Journal Classe Operaia.

An extract from Steve Wright’s book 'Storming Heaven'

The Workerists and the unions in Italy's 'Hot Autumn'

A brief history of the Italian Workerists in the 'Hot Autumn' of 1969, when unions succeeded in recuperating radical working class demands - leaving the Workerists to pursue the doomed road of all-or-nothing armed struggle

Extract from Steve Wright’s book 'Storming Heaven'

'We Are All Delegates!'

Obituary: Goliardo Fiaschi, 1930-2000 - Stuart Christie

Obituary of Italian anarchist Goliardo Fiaschi by Stuart Christie from the Guardian newspaper.

By Stuart Christie
From the Guardian, Wednesday August 16, 2000

- Goliardo's biography by Antonio Tellez on libcom.org/history

1977: The Bologna uprising

Students and workers fight together on the streets of Bologna

A very brief outline of the seizure of Bologna by workers and students in 1977, and the run-up to it following the shooting of a demonstrator.

Autonomia!

Italy 1977 saw a spontaneous and creative outbreaks of rebellion demonstrating that the potential for revolution still exists in the working class of the industrialised west - no matter what the lefty cynics say.

1958-1990: Operation Gladio, Italy

The history of the secret neo-fascist army in Italy set up ostensibly to resist Soviet invasion, but in reality to be used in the event of the working class growing too strong once again.

Following the end of World War II, the Italian workers’ movement was rapidly gaining strength. In some towns the fascists had been kicked out by Resistance forces (as before the war, these were usually led by socialists and anarchists), and embryonic workers’ councils were governing.

1969-?: The Strategy of Tension in Italy

August 2 1980 Bologna Central Station attack

Information about the Italian state's "Strategy of Tension" policy in which it carried out terrorist attacks against its own people in order to blame the left and anarchists.

Faced with a huge growth of working class power, with strikes, occupations, self-reduction of prices and mass squatting the intelligence services began carrying out terrorist acts with the help of fascist groups. Anarchists and the left were blamed, and working class militants were arrested.

1971: Via Tibaldi occupation

A short history of an occupation of empty housing in Italy by workers who had inadequate accomodation. Their direct action and solidarity forced the council to house hundreds of people.

The occupation at Via Tibaldi was a great step forward for the tenants’ and homeless movement in Italy. A whole neighbourhood was involved in it : factories, schools, housing projects took part in the organising of the struggle. There was a victory at Via Tibaldi because everyone there was fully aware

1971: The Quarto Oggiaro occupation

A short history of a militant mass occupation of empty housing in Milan, Italy, 1971 which pressured the government to give in and provide the participating families with housing.

Quarto Oggiaro is a working class quarter of Milan in northern Italy. Many Italians had been forced to leave the poverty of the south to try to find work in the industrialised north, and there found pay low. Housing was scarce, and where it did exist much was wretchedly sub-standard.

1971: The people's clinic, Rome

The history of the residents in one of Rome's outlying ghettos who had inadequate health care provision. Seizing a government building, they and sympathetic health workers set up their own medical centre and ran it collectively.

In Italy in 1960s and 70s San Basilio, one of Rome’s outlying ghetto areas, a movement was developing of people fighting against their lousy, inhuman living conditions. There were 40,000 people trapped in this slum district. In the previous few months about 100 families had been on rent strike. This started as a spontaneous protest, and was becoming more organised.

In the Shell of the Old - Italy's Social Centres

Article from the 1990s containing information about Italy's movement of political squats called "social centres."

[b]Living In The Heart Of The Beast - Italy's Social Centres[/b]
Every May Day since 1986, Forte Prenestino in Rome has hosted the 'Festival of Non-Labour'.

Through music, videos, theatre, good food, and debate, its occupants celebrate not only the coming of Spring, but the ongoing efforts of people like themselves to challenge and overturn the rhythms of capital and the state.

Take over the city - Community struggle in Italy, 1973

Excellent article from Lotta Continua about different struggles of workers in their local areas. It covers self-reduction of prices, squatting and more.

Translated and edited by Ernest Dowson
Radical America, Vol.7 no.2, March-April 1973

Translator's Preface

The Limits of Negri's Class Analysis: Italian Autonomist Theory in the Seventies - Steve Wright

Steve Wright's critical analysis of Negri's ideas.

From Reconstruction 8 (Winter/Spring 1996)

Over the past decade, Toni Negri's association with Deleuze and Guattari has made his name well known to English-language readers of radical thought. But as STEVE WRIGHT shows, Negri's most distinctive ideas would first be debated within the Italian revolutionary movement of the seventies.

Marini, Giovanni, 1942-2001

A biography of Italian working class poet, writer and anarchist Giovanni Marini, caught up in Italy's Strategy of Tension and unjustly convicted of the murder of a fascist.

The late 1960s and the 1970s were strange and violent years in Italy.

Italy 60s-70s