Autonomia: Post-Political Politics

'Most of the writers who contributed to the issue were locked up at the time in Italian jails.... I was trying to draw the attention of the American Left, which still believed in Eurocommunism, to the fate of Autonomia. The survival of the last politically creative movement in the West was at stake, but no one in the United States seemed to realize that, or be willing to listen. Put together as events in Italy were unfolding, the Autonomia issue—which has no equivalent in Italy, or anywhere for that matter—arrived too late, but it remains an energizing account of a movement that disappeared without bearing a trace, but with a big future still ahead of it.'

—Sylvère Lotringer

Semiotext(e) is reissuing in book form its legendary magazine issue Autonomia: Post-Political Politics, originally published in New York in 1980. Edited by Sylvère Lotringer and Christian Marazzi with the direct participation of the main leaders and theorists of the Autonomist movement (including Antonio Negri, Mario Tronti, Franco Piperno, Oreste Scalzone, Paolo Virno, Sergio Bologna, and Franco Berardi), this volume is the only first-hand document and contemporaneous analysis that exists of the most innovative post-'68 radical movement in the West. The movement itself was broken when Autonomia members were falsely accused of (and prosecuted for) being the intellectual masterminds of the Red Brigades; but even after the end of Autonomia, this book remains a crucial testimony of the way this creative, futuristic, neo-anarchistic, post-ideological, and non-representative political movement of young workers and intellectuals anticipated issues that are now confronting us in the wake of Empire.

Contents:

In the Shadow of the Red Brigades by Sylvere Lotringer

1. INTRODUCTION
The Return of Politics by Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi

2. THE IMPOSSIBLE CLASS
Fiat Has Branded Me by Giampaolo Pansa
The Strategy of Refusal by Mario Tronti
The Tribe of Moles by Sergio Bologna
Domination and Sabotage by Toni Negri
Autoreduction Movements in Turin by Eddy Cherki and Michel Wieviorka
From Guaranteeism to Armed Politics by Oreste Scalzone
In the Beginning was Gramsci by Henri Weber
What the Communists Really Are by Censor
The State of Spectacle by Guy Debord
Lama Sabachtani?
Painted Politics by Maurizio Torealta
The Proliferation of Margins by Felix Guattari
Dreamers of a Successful Life by Paolo Virno
Hegel and the Wobblies by Eric Alliez
Let's do Justice to our Comrade P.38
Nonviolence in Bologna by Judith Malina
Radio Alice-Free Radio by Collective A and Traverso
The City in the Female Gender by Lia Magale

3. APRIL 7 ARRESTS
Anatomy of Autonomy by Bifo
April 7: Repression in Italy by CARI
Workerist Publications and Bios
Open Letter to Negri's Judges by Gilles Deleuze
The ANSA Story by Ferrucio Gambino and Seth Tilet
Negri's Interrogation
Memorial from Prison
The Naked Truth about Moro's Detention by Franco Piperno
Piperno's Counteroffensive
Violence of the State by I Volsci
The Sandstorm Method by Dario Fo

4. BEYOND TERRORISM
From Terrorism to Guerrilla Warfare by Franco Piperno
Living with Guerilla Warfare by Lucio Castellano
Why Italy? by Felix Guattari
On Armed Struggle by Paolo Virno
On the Recognition of Armed Struggle by Lanfranco Pace and Franco Piperno
Sorry, It's Exactly the Opposite by Massimo Cacciari
The Red Harvest by Leonardo Sciascia
Beyond Terrorism by Oreste Scalzone
I, Toni Negri by Eugene Scalfari
Unpublished Interview with Piperno
Popular Defense and Popular Assault by Paul Virilio
A Bridadist Speaks by Valerio Morucci
Dissenting Brigadists
Who is the Traitor? by Renato Curcio
J'Accuse by Toni Negri

5. FIVE
March 16, 1978: The Aldo Moro Kidnapping by B. Madaudo Melville