Re: AUT: why gramsci

[vacirca@xxxxxxxxx (robert brown)]

>Dear Bob, I did not studied those problems but as far as I can reconstruct
>the 60's I agree with Steve. I think that there was no continuity but a
>*dislocation* from past experiences. Also what was realised as "movimento
>consiliare nei quartieri" became soon something quite new (prendiamoci la
>vita, prendiamoci la citta').
> Of course we all were influenced by what Gramsci represented, but the ones
>who used him as a theoretical-political tool (against leftist politics) was
>mainly the intellectual left of PCI and PSI (comunist and socialist
>parties).
>Sorry for the italian, maybe Steve can explain better
>ciao laura
>
>>>Dear Bob,
>>>
>>>it seems to be stretching it to interpret the Hot Autumn of 1969 and its
>>>aftermath as the return of the Ordine Nuovo experience.
>>>
>>>The central break between the two, as far as I can see, lies in the
>>>practical questioning of the organisation and nature of work which emerged
>>>with such vehemence in the Italy of the late 60s and 70s. This was summed
>>>nicely by one worker who told Potere Operaio in 1973 that unlike in the
>>>20s, this time FIAT was most definitely not being occupied for a "work-in".
>>>
>>>Now I wouldn't be surprised of the worker mentioned above was a member of
>>>Potop and the question a bit of stage managing. But I also don't doubt that
>>>such sentiments, consistent with the workerists' theorising of "the refusal
>>>of work" during the sixties, were widespread within a whole range of layers
>>>of the Italian working class at the time.
>>>
>>>I think we will search long and hard yet never find anything approaching
>>>"the refusal of work" (a central tenet of autonomist thought/practice,
>>>after all) in Gramsci. Quite the opposite, as Rutigliano once argued in
>>>_Telos_ 31 (sorry, I don't have the exact reference details here). Then
>>>again, as I'm sure Mauro will attest, there is little if any connection
>>>between autonomist thought/practice and the tradition associated with
>>>Bordiga. In any case, I'm interested to hear a more detailed argument on
>>>this, from you and others.
>>>
>>>A section of my PhD looks at how the workerists of the early sixties
>>>developed their critique of Ordine Nuovo - I will post it when I have
>>>cleaned up the scanned version (perhaps before the next millenium).
>>>
>>>BTW, Dave Graham has scanned the Potere Operaio article in question, which
>>>once appeared in a Red Notes pamphlet I have long since lost - maybe one
>>>day it can go in the list archive.
>>>
>>>Steve
>>>

        Dear laura and steve,

        You are probably right about  how 60's autonomia intellectuals
viewed Gramsci's theories and Ordine Nuovo in relation to their own
struggles. But i am raising another question here (perhaps raised by Primo
Maggio in '79?); aren't the historical and theoretical roots of the 60's
and 70's  struggle for working  class autonomy in Italy to be found in the
struggles of Ordine Nuovo and Gramsci 's attempts in the Prison Notes to
build a theory of working class hegemony  from  that historical experience?
          Whether autonomia recognized this  connection or denied it i
believe that the working class in 1920, 1945 and 1969 faced a similar
problem of having  to fight for class autonomy , for hegemony over their
own struggles; in the first instance they had to fight a reformist PSI
leadership, in the second and third a stalinist one. It is the critical
problem of middle class intellectual  penetration, and bureacratic
distortion, of oppressed peoples' struggles. It is the problem of the
oppressed class creating its own leaders, its own intellectuals, its own
new culture.  Now the cultural content of Ordine Nuovo  and Gramsci's
Prison notes cultural revolutionary project is not the same as autonomia's,
granted.(and this is a good point) But the overall historical problem is
the same: how do oppressed people win  genuine intellectual, political and
cultural autonomy; and what role should revolutionary intellectuals from
outside the class play in this struggle.
         i've been studying gramsci and  Italian working class
revolutionary struggles to learn both what went right and what went wrong
in Italy. Gramsci tried to draw important historical and theoretical
lessons from  his defeat by fascism for the communist movement.  i think
the stalinists and left intellectuals in general have, for class reasons,
misinterpreted his conclusions and turned his ideas on working class
autonomy on their head. A large part of what i want to do with my Gramsci
for beginners webpage is turn Gramsci right side up again, so that we can
build on his insights and also move beyond his limitations and mistakes
toward a new model of socialist cultural revolution. There is a whole
analysis of fascism that is implicit in the quaderni that has been largely
ignored( at least by the Left outside Italy) which i'm trying to study.
Again i don't consider Gramsci the last word on Fascism or working class
autonomy, but rather an important starting point. And lastly, i want
Gramsci to be accessible to ordinary working people and any new discussion
of him grounded in todays working class cultural, intellectual and
political struggles.

        In my next post i will take up the questions that Gerry Levy raised
about Gramsci's relationship to Stalinism and the bolshevization of the
PCD'I.  comradely regards. bob

ps: laura, non ti deve scusarti per avermi scritto in italiano. Parlo
italiano molto bene; sono italo-americano, seconda generazione. mio nonno
era vincenzo vacirca, vecchio massimalista nella direzione del PSI nel
'19-22, dopo '45 nel PSDI con Romita e Saragat. (uggh)










"A fool can ask more questions than a wise man can answer"  Long live the
fool.




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