Socialist strategists?

[butchersapron]

I wouldn't assume too much I'm aware of Wright's book (but haven't read it yet) but not much beyond that... I've a lot of catching upto do here.

For Italy, Wright's Storming Heaven : Class composition and struggle in Italian Autonomist Marxism really is the best starting point - brief overview and great review by Sergio Bologna, one of the old school who managed to keep his head whilst Negri and the others were losing theirs here. Robert Lumley's States of Emergency : Cultures of Revolt in Italy from 1968 to 1978 fills in a lot of the gaps in Wright's book. For collections of some of the original debates the stuff published by Red Notes is indispensible -
Working Class Autonomy and the Crisis: Italian Marxist texts of the theory and practice of a class movement: 1964 -79
Italy 1977-78: Living With an Earthquake

The foundational texts of this approach by Panzieri, Tronti etc are online at Class Against Class along wirth others in the tradition - Take Over the City from Lotta Continua, an importynat look back at the results in Defeat at Fiat and a critical piece direct from one of the tendencies within Autonomia Opearia. The Semiotext(e) book Italy: Autonomia has some great stuff as well.

The Negri collections Revolution Retrieved and Books for Buring: Between Civil war and Democracy in 1970s Italy are pretty essential too.

 

[articul8]

There's even an eyewitness account by Audrey Wise (then an MP) that wouild probably get her slung out of the current labour party for endorsing workers councils and Neighborhood cmmtteees as 'real democracy'.

Audrey used to be my MP (in Preston) - had a lot of time for her. Not like the twat that replaced her.

Cheers for all the pointers - I'm going to be busy over the next few weeks

 

[gorski]

Well gorski my little mysoginist...

We are going with the herd mentality, are we?!? You poor sod... But I have gathered as much so far, so never mind...

unless i've suddenly learnt Italian or Portuguese in a few days and then translated a mass of material i don't know what you're expecting.

I don't know what you were promising?!? That you will come back with a definitive set of answers and "guidance" in a few hours? "A little later today I will come back to it..." or some such Übermensch stuff...

I had already told the OP that i was trying to get my hands on material from Combate concerning the debates around the Porto rev. I'm assuming he's already familier with the Red Notes/ Steve Wright/ etc stuff around the Italian debates.

Christ, is that where all the wisdom for a single, monolitic, absolute truth and unflinching certainty comes from? Nice... But then again, I remember you trying to teach me everything I always wanted to know on Yugoslavia, from economy to film... You poor little Stalin!!! No wonder he is a great "strategist" for ya!!!

 

[gorski]

Btw, it would be cool to see where this resting giant of a revolutionary subject is having a nap and maybe even get a whiff of when s/he might awake and stretch one's mighty revolutionary muscle a bit... not to mention the cerebral origin of that action which is the alleged measure to all we see around us, from thought to social, political and economic action...

 

[Azrael]

You're denying that you've reatread from it ever being a plan! This almost sounds like concious plan doesn't it?

Yeah, and I've never disputed that for some people it was. I merely clarified that I didn't think every man (and woman) jack of them was in some silly conspiracy.

So, anything else?

 

[articul8]

From a first reading of the Bologna, bits that I'd like to know more about:

Operaisti thought of themselves as working for ‘class recomposition’.

What is meant by this? Sounds extremely significant.

The group of young philosophers at the University of Milan, students of Enzo Paci (Nanni Filippini, Giairo Daghini, Paolo Gambazzi, Guido Neri, Paolo Caruso) ... had close relations with Classe Operaia.

Wow I really, really rate what I've read of Paci's work in translation and have encouraged others to read him. Be very interested in this link.

Perhaps the exploration into the methods of history and the labour of the historian, that started with Primo Maggio and was recovered in the 1990’s by Altre Ragioni and then by LUMHI (Libera Università di Milano e del suo Hinterland–a project that was still born but might be destined to re-emerge in the new Italian political climate) is not yet concluded.

Altre Ragioni Again, the critique of positivist historicism sounds extremely interesting. Is much of the Primo Maggio stuff on history and memory translated?

 

[gorski]

Yeah, Paci was very active in Korcula, around Praxis, meeting with everybody who was somebody in Philosophy and rated highly, from what I heard - not read anything by him yet, though... Do tell, I might, as I am looking for work in Sweden, I might have some time on my hands...

 

[articul8]

Can you read Italian, Gorski? If so, a full bibliography can be found here:
http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/paci/biblio.html He wrote a lot for a journal called "aut aut".

The main thing in translation is a book called "The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning of Man" - which takes the perspective of the later Husserl and argues against the reification of knowledge in the natural sciences, gives a critique of positivism and instrumentalism not disimilar from Frankfurt School stuff.

There are also some translations of pieces here:
http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/paci/index.html

I have somewhere a translation of a piece he wrote on the phenomenlogy of dreams and dreaming - I used this for my PhD thesis.

If anyone has access to a JSTOR account I'd really like to read this intro to his work:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1511978

 

[butchersapron]

From a first reading of the Bologna, bits that I'd like to know more about:

What is meant by this? Sounds extremely significant.

Wow I really, really rate what I've read of Paci's work in translation and have encouraged others to read him. Be very interested in this link.

Altre Ragioni Again, the critique of positivist historicism sounds extremely interesting. Is much of the Primo Maggio stuff on history and memory translated?

Class Recomposition meant looking at the actual behaviours of the working class in the most advanced sectors of the economy and how they related to the rest of the w/c. The idea still being rooted in forms of mass vanguardism. These leading sectors faced a particular configuration of the labour process designed to decompose their power as workers i.e deskilling, speed up, breaking up communication between different sectors in the factory, introducing young/different elements into the workforce, migration etc

Class recompostion looks, through things like Workers Inquiries, at how they attempted to recompose that power through their own autonomous behaviour, not through the actions of their official representatives (i.e unions and parties) - this process was seen as spreading throughout the rest of the w/c based on the central leading role of those sectors. It often led to an overly mechanistic chain of technical composition of labour process = political composition of working class = political organisation in the wrong hands though.

Or, as Midnight Notes put it:

Essentially, it involves the overthrow of capitalist divisions, the creation of new unities between different sectors of the class, and an expansion of the boundaries of what the 'working class' comes to include.

Sadly there is just about nothing of Primo maggio's historic work translated yet. Some of us were talking about setting up a publishing collective to get this stuff out there recently. Echanges and Mouvement used to translate some of their shorter more journalistic stuff but they've stopped publishing in English now as well.

Other useful articles:

There and back again: mapping the pathways within autonomist Marxism by Steve Wright
Children of a Lesser Marxism?
Cattivi Maestri: Some Reflections on the Legacy of Guido Bianchini, Luciano Ferrari Bravo and Primo Moroni - Steve Wright

 

[butchersapron]

There's another Wirght article that finishes with a list of the 10 or 20 books that *need* to be translated and published in English pronto - i can't find it though. It's amazing that 40 years after Tronti published Operai e Capitale there's still no English version.

 

[articul8]

the most advanced sectors of the economy

"most advanced" ie. technically?

an overly mechanistic chain of technical composition of labour process = political composition of working class = political organisation in the wrong hands though.

yes, can see the dangers there.

Sadly there is just about nothing of Primo maggio's historic work translated yet. Some of us were talking about setting up a publishing collective to get this stuff out there recently. Echanges and Mouvement used to translate some of their shorter more journalistic stuff but they've stopped publishing in English now as well.

Is it empirical history, or also about historical method/philosophy of history? The latter sounds (and I may be getting the wrong end of the stick) like it has quite a bit in common with Walter Benjamin's work which has been getting loads of attention.

 

[articul8]

Incidentally, on the subject of translation, a new English biog of Togliatti has been published (might be useful for context against which this stuff reacts?):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Palmiro-Togliatti-Biography-Communist-Lives/dp/1845117263/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228399135&sr=1-1

 

[butchersapron]

"most advanced" ie. technically?

yes, can see the dangers there.

Is it empirical history, or also about historical method/philosophy of history? The latter sounds (and I may be getting the wrong end of the stick) like it has quite a bit in common with Walter Benjamin's work which has been getting loads of attention.

Techncilaly and in terms of influence, size, strategic role and so on.

Bologna's Class Composition and The Theory Of The Party At The Origins of The Workers' Councils Movement is the classic example of what they did and it's one of the best texts to come out of that approach. I really do recommed it as it applies the class composition approach perfectly (i.e with all its faults and strengths) and makes what they were trying to do very clear.

 

[butchersapron]

Incidentally, on the subject of translation, a new English biog of Togliatti has been published (might be useful for context against which this stuff reacts?):

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Palmiro-Togliatti-Biography-Communist-Lives/dp/1845117263/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228399135&sr=1-1

The early movement and theorists came out of the PCI and the left wing of the constantly splitting socialists and the union movemnts, and yes, there was a lot of angry reaction to the nation and state building perspectives of the PCI.

 

[gorski]

Can you read Italian, Gorski? If so, a full bibliography can be found here:
http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/paci/biblio.html He wrote a lot for a journal called "aut aut".

The main thing in translation is a book called "The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning of Man" - which takes the perspective of the later Husserl and argues against the reification of knowledge in the natural sciences, gives a critique of positivism and instrumentalism not similar from Frankfurt School stuff.

There are also some translations of pieces here:
http://www.yorku.ca/lbianchi/paci/index.html

I have somewhere a translation of a piece he wrote on the phenomenlogy of dreams and dreaming - I used this for my PhD thesis.

If anyone has access to a JSTOR account I'd really like to read this intro to his work:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/1511978

Sadly, not - but this [Italian] is something I would like to learn...

Luckily, I think I do have his stuff [the book you mention] in Serbo-Croat and some more in Praxis copies I have...

Thanx!!

 

[articul8]

With thanks to Perplexis

Enzo Paci (1911-1976) was born in the province of Ancona, completed his studies at Cuneo, and became a precocious reader of the neo-idealistic philosophers Benedetto Croce and Giovanni Gentile, and of the ethico-political writings of Piero Gobetti. Enrol- led in philosophy at the University of Pavia, he chose to transfer to Milan to take his degree with the prestigious professor Antonio Banfi.2 A major scholar of Husserl, with an autonomous perspective that nonetheless privileged the speculative character of the Logische Untersuchungen [Logical Investigations] and Ideen [Ideas], Paci elab- orated his own reflections on subjectivity, objectivity, and conscious- ness, especially beginning with Cartesian Meditations and Crisis, which brought him to a particularly harmonious attitude with Merleau-Ponty, on the one hand, and Sartre, on the other. Paci es- sentially interpreted phenomenology in exactly its relational sense, concentrating on the question of temporality, and situating it upon a horizon of the phenomenology of experience. Among his works after Esistenzialismo e storicismo [Existentialism and Historicism] of 1950 and II nulla e il problema dell'uomo [Nothingness and the Problem of Man] of 1954, the originality of the essential Tempo e relazione [Time and Relations] (1954, revised 1965) should be pointed out. To this we add Funzione delle scienze e significato dell'uomo [The Function of the Sciences and the Meaning of Man] (1963) and also for an in-depth study of Paci's character and works, see Amedeo Vigorelli, L'esistenzialismo positivo di Enzo Pacl, (1929-50)(Milan: Franco Angeli Editore, 1987) and Alfredo Civita, Bibliografia degli scritti di Enzo Paci (Florence: la Nuova Italia, 1983) and, particularly, aut aut, 214-215 (July-October, 1986), including a biographical and bibliographi- cal form. 4 See Anty Pansera, Storia e cronaca della Triennale(Milan: Longanesi, 1970). Relazioni e significati [Relations and Meanings] (1965) to conclude the course of his works with the perhaps neo-illuministic Idee per una enciclopedia fenomenologica

We cannot present an image of Paci without speaking of what doubtless was his most agile surveying instrument, of inter- connection and intervention in the world of cultural and creative activity: the journal aut aut [either...or]
Regarding his theoretical and cultural inter- ventions, we may refer to the heading that Paci himself tenaciously championed, "The Sense of the Words,"5 which concerned his presentations and critical remarks, always anticipatory and against the current, on positions and productions emerging from national and international culture. Let's allow Gillo Dorles, who was the sole editor of aut aui6 to draw up a long list of intellectuals and thinkers invited to participate that went "from Paul Ricoeur to Giuseppe Semerari, from Charles Morris to Adriano Buzzati-Traverso, from Luciano Anceschi to Ludovico Geymonat, from Ernesto Grassi to Ernesto de Martino" and then "Luigi Dallapiccola, Niccolo6 Casti- glioni and Luigi Rognoni" in music, "Herbert Read, Ernst Gombrich, and Max Bense" for art history, and many others. The sign of a deep scientific curiosity that rebels against "analytical, neo-positivist, scientific, and methodological tendencies" is manifested...

 

[articul8]

from the second Bologna piece

the merit (of the IWW) was that it attempted to organise the (American) proletariat in terms of its intrinsic characteristics.

Can "intrinsic characteristics" be ascribed to a class? I'll leave the question hanging for now...

What does "politics" mean in this piece? When and how does a class move from 1)just being a class to 2)being a political class and/or 3) an autonomous political class? How does the concept of a mass strike relate to the concept of an insurrection and how do both relate to the concept of "revolution"? Presumably it all relates to workers' class consciousness that their power can break through and transcend capitalist relations, rather than just suspend them?

What claim is being made regarding organisation beyond Rosa Luxemburg's position (if any)?

 

[butchersapron]

Well, he makes it clear that he means the characteristics of their work in the next line - i.e not homogenous, mobile and without job loyalty:

It was primarily an immigrant proletariat, and therefore a mixture of ethnic groups which could only be organised in a certain way. Secondly, it was a mobile proletariat, a fact which very much militated against identification with any particular job or skill, and which also militated against workers developing ties to individual factories (

which was absolutely true of the w/c who 'went west' at that time. Maybe the writing was a bit sloppy there, and that it might have been better to specify exactly who he meant.

Politics means formal party politics, representation, action etc

The questions 1-3 are largely meaningless in this tradition and part of the old orthodox left approaches it was striving to reach beyond. There is not really a schema like that given any central role.

edit: hang on - i think i've misread, you don't mean in relation to the IWW do you and American w/c? I thought that's what you was asking.

Again, the mass strike/insurrection question is relating it to arguments within the 2nd international that are just not relevant to the situation being discussed. That's to try and force new wine into old bottles.

You need to try and look at this stuff without all that old baggage. (I'm aware that sounds slightly dismissive, it's honestly not meant to be though - i just mean that you can't appreciate this stuff from an orthodox marxist perspective, because it simply doesn't fit. It takes a while reading it to be able to drop those perspectives though - and the best way IMO is to just plough on through the material till youy see rthe repition of themes and how they differ from mainstream 'revolutionary' thought and writing. - you'll get the gestalt shift at some point, for instance, this, did it for me:

We too have worked with a concept that puts capitalist development first, and workers second. This is a mistake. And now we have to turn the problem on its head, reverse the polarity, and start again from the beginning: and the beginning is the class struggle of the working class. At' the level of socially developed capital, capitalist development becomes subordinated to working class struggles; it follows behind them, and they set the pace to which the political mechanisms of capital's own reproduction must be tuned.

 

[articul8]

I guess it's always hard to think outside assumptions that have been drummed in...

try again - it's less about a certain stage in the develpment of capitalism producing the 'right' consciousness, and more about rejecting the rear-guard attempts of capitalism to mask the traces of workers ability to organise themselves. from that POV - the trad notions of "representation" are morbid symptoms of capitalism not harbingers of the future?

[edit] re IWW I wasn't just asking whether what he is saying is true of a particular historical section of the US working class, but whether you can say of any class anywhere at any time that it has *intrinsic* characteristics.

 

[butchersapron]

I know it puts me at risk of gorksi's wrath, but reply will have to wait till tommorrow a8

 

[butchersapron]

Just uploaded an important Negri text from 1968 (i.e whe he was still connected to the 'movements') not previouisly on line - again, one of the best texts and gives good example of how the best of this stuff proceeds:

Keynes and the Capitalist Theory of the State post-1929

 

[articul8]

cheers for this, fascinating stuff - I did find the approach much clearer - very rich analysis, am sure will repay re-reading. Seems more relevant than ever in some ways with Keynes back in vogue.

It really does come back to the fact that capital cannot tolerate history - it has to move mountains to repress radical futurity and the historical violence involved in the conditions of its own formation. Capitalism has to live in the perpetual present, where everything is held in place.

 

[gorski]

I know it puts me at risk of gorksi's wrath

Have you ever seen yourself deal with other people? Your utter dismissivness, your arrogance, your superiority complex, your little-Stalin act - your CONSTANT wrath in actu?!?

Hypocrite!!!! No one put you in the firing line but you, yourself, your nasty nature!!!

 

[revol68]

gorski you come across as one of the elitist lil fuckwits on this site, you're faux radicalism would simply be laughable if it was backed up by a snivelling liberal elitism that comes out everytime you get your ass handed to you in an argument.

You're just a typical middle class imposter who mistakes parroting poorly understood arguments as actual intelligence.

 

[revol68]

I mean I think Butchers can be a cock sometimes but he atleast properly grasped (or atleast tries to) what he talks about, most likely cos he actually has an active interest in it as someone with actual politics whilst you are just an uncommited liberal whose interest only stems as far as impressing niave middle class fuckwits.

 

[gorski]

And you're one of those empty-headed, posturing idiots with nothing to back their outrageous claims, extremely dismissive, aggressive, Stalinist in approach and I have no doubt practice. You guys have no idea just how idiotically elitist YOU are, in line with the Bolshevik spirit that you embody, proselytising the only possible truth, the knowledge of History, that only you and your party have - and no one else has a clue.

I fought the likes of you in the police state, that you possibly have no idea of - I stood up to yous when they had all the power and I had none, so why should I be silent now?

Listen up: your society would be a nightmare to anyone, including yourselves, if you fell out with the people, like you, who wanna decide what's in and what's out based on nothing but sneering all the time!!!

SHOW ME THE REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT!!!

Else, fook off!!!

 

[gorski]

I mean I think Butchers can be a cock sometimes but he atleast properly grasped (or atleast tries to) what he talks about, most likely cos he actually has an active interest in it as someone with actual politics whilst you are just an uncommited liberal whose interest only stems as far as impressing niave middle class fuckwits.

You really are properly idiotic, as your self-deluded idea of your superiority allows you to presume a helluva lot of things about me and you really have no clue what I do and what I did. You possibly only read about people like me, fighting for the rights of my political opponents in a totalitarian society.

So, you know what to do with your wild assumptions, Your Aggressive Presumptuous Idiocy!!!

[you really despise anyone, so can't even bother to learn to spell, I suppose]

 

[revol68]

a) butchers is not a bolshevik
b) you pull out the poor victim of ideoligical dogmatism card everytime you get your arse kicked in an argument and need to back peddle. It's embarrassing watching you actual surrender the position you put forward in favour of some vague rant about their being many truths and how by criticising you or calling you out on shit people are simply being totalitarian. Like I said a snivelling liberal with no backbone.
c) You really are a pompous twat, suggesting I could only read about people like you who so valiantly fight against totalitarianism and other liberal bogeymen. Why would you fight for your political opponents, if they were really your opoponents you'd be fighting against them.

 

[gorski]

1) Oh, yes he is, he just doesn't know it - the whole mindset and attitude is exactly the same!!!

2) Fuck off and show me your backbone!!! Besides, I was not a victim: I stood up for victims - and we won...

3) You really are as stoopid as they come: couldn't possibly think there are any other legitimate ways other than yours, which makes you not only stoopid but also a Bolshevik, if not in name, then in practice and feeling!!!

 

[gorski]

Oh, yes:

WHERE IS THE REVOLUTIONARY SUBJECT, YOU GIT?!?