Reading for Council Communism and Autonomism

[Comrade Jandar]

Where would be a good place to start for books about these two currents of marxism? I know some of the theorists of these tendencies; Paul Mattick, Anton Pannekoek, Antonio Negri, but I'm not sure where to start.

[The Douche]

Autonomism (I assume you mean autonomist marxism, which isn't the same as autonomism from northern europe), for me, was best defined by Negri in "Marx Beyond Marx", and "Books for Burning".

[Dr Doom]

i cant post links but theres a few good, short introductory texts on council communism in the left communist section of the website marxists.org

regarding autonomist marxism, i remember 'storming heaven: class composition and struggle in italian autonomist marxism' by Steve Wright being quite good. its available online too.

[bricolage]

this is pretty good for a history/critical summary: http://libcom.org/library/operaismo-autonomist-marxism-aufheben-11

although it has nothing to do with council communism which is a completely separate current.

[Sasha]

Not very theoretical but "the subversion of politics" is a very good overview of the history and praxis of the autonomist movement. (Free download @ http://www.eroseffect.com/books/subversion.html)
Negri is a main theorist of the Italian Marxist line.
Symiotexte published a very pretty overview of work that came out of operismo, la lotta continua and prima lina: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11312

[The Douche]

Really good suggestions in here, actually!

[Per Levy]

Anton Pannekoe - Wokers' Councils

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1947/workers-councils.htm

[Caj]

I don't know much about autonomism, but for council communism, I'd suggest Red and Black Publishing's Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils. It includes writings from Hermann Gorter, Anton Pannekoek, Otto Ruhl, and Sylvia Pankhurst.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

Workers' Councils and the Economics of a Self-Managed Society by Cornelius Castoriadis.

[ed miliband]

Not very theoretical but "the subversion of politics" is a very good overview of the history and praxis of the autonomist movement. (Free download @ http://www.eroseffect.com/books/subversion.html)
Negri is a main theorist of the Italian Marxist line.
Symiotexte published a very pretty overview of work that came out of operismo, la lotta continua and prima lina: http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=11312

'the subversion of politics' is good for history but i'd say it's problem is it's too theoretical - and katsiaficas' theory is shit. the final few chapters with him drawing on critical theory/frankfurt school stuff are pretty bad.

autonomia: post-political politics and the german issue both out on semiotext(e) are beautiful and full of interesting documents interviews and pictures

steve wright's 'storming heaven' is very good as is harry cleaver's 'reading capital politically' - an autonomist marxist reading of 'capital' with a very interesting intro that covers the history and theory of council communism and italian autonomism and various other tendencies of that sort of lineage

clr james' 'facing reality' is amazing and cited by both wright and cleaver as an early influence on italian autonomism - could be described as "councillist" rather than council communist per se

new out: http://www.haymarketbooks.org/pb/Ours-to-Master-and-to-Own

published by trots but covers council communism and italian autonomism (and lots of other stuff)


I don't know much about autonomism, but for council communism, I'd suggest Red and Black Publishing's Non-Leninist Marxism: Writings on the Workers Councils. It includes writings from Hermann Gorter, Anton Pannekoek, Otto Ruhl, and Sylvia Pankhurst.

this is kind of a cheapo book that only seems to have any existence on amazon but it's good - if only for the gorter section

poor on pannekoek tho

[Sasha]

'the subversion of politics' is good for history but i'd say it's problem is it's too theoretical - and katsiaficas' theory is shit. the final few chapters with him drawing on critical theory/frankfurt school stuff are pretty bad.

Oh absolutely, I forgot my standard disclaimer not to read the final chapter(s)...

A good (short) critical theory influenced book on the history of the dutch autonomen/squat movement is "cracking the movement" by bilwet: http://thing.desk.nl/bilwet/Cracking/contents.html

[Искра]

Workers' Councils and the Economics of a Self-Managed Society by Cornelius Castoriadis.
You could give a link: http://www.lust-for-life.org/Lust-For-Life/WorkersCouncilsAndEconomics/WorkersCouncilsAndEconomics.htm

But he was reactionary :)

[Enragé]

Workers' Autonomy by Bonanno i would think

[Sasha]

Workers' Autonomy by Bonanno i would think

Bonanno is solidly a insurrectionary anarchist though, one would have to go towards Tiqqun/the invisible commitee to see a attempt to come to a merger between autonomist marxism and insurectionary anarchism...

[Tavarisch_Mike]

But he was reactionary :)

How come?

[The Douche]

Workers' Autonomy by Bonanno i would think

There is, especially in the modern movement, a blurring between autonomist movements and insurrectionary anarchy. But I think Tiqqun/TIC would represent the combination of these theories into a sort of insurrectionary communism.

I'd also like to plug the new journal "SIC", which I'm reading right now, which falls within the broad spectrum of "communization theory".

http://sic.communisation.net/

[Sasha]

I'd also like to plug the new journal "SIC", which I'm reading right now, which falls within the broad spectrum of "communization theory".

http://sic.communisation.net/

Thanx, that looks very intresting, i'm going to push the radical bookstore here to stock it....

[Os Cangaceiros]

"Storming Heaven" was the book I was going to recommend, but Dr Doom beat me to it. It's kind of a long, boring slog (it was originally a Ph.D. thesis, if I remember correctly) but it's a very thorough explanation of how autonomism developed in Italy, and some of the luminaries of the movement like Panzieri, Tronti and Bologna.

[The Douche]

Thanx, that looks very intresting, i'm going to push the radical bookstore here to stock it....

Cool, its new, the first issue just came out. I'm not really far into it, but its very readable from what I've gone through so far.

[Sasha]

Not a book but if you can read german (or dont mind google translate) you should give the website of the german group interventionistische linken a shot: http://www.dazwischengehen.org/

IL is a coalition of several autonomist marxist groups including avanti and fels, the latter published once a very thought provoking critque of the campaing based praxis within the autonomist movement, sadly it seems only the dutch translation is still online: http://afa.home.xs4all.nl/fels/index.html

[svenne]

I posted a pretty lengthy intro reading list we used in a study group for the subject operaism (the italian current which Negri comes from) in the Operaism group here on Revleft. Also, the Libcom site has a big library full of these kinds of texts. But, since you've already gotten a lot of good tips already, it's not something you'll have time for this year :)

[Ravachol]

Thanx, that looks very intresting, i'm going to push the radical bookstore here to stock it....

Please do so so I can come pick it up :p I tried all radical leftist bookstores but none had it so I had to read it online. And I fucking hate reading long texts behind a computer screen.

Regarding Autonomism, in addition to the excellent recommendations in this thread, there's also Spanish (http://libcom.org/history/report-assembly-movement-miguel-amoros) autonomy (http://libcom.org/library/workers-autonomy-miguel-amoros), which was influenced by Italian autonomism but emerged in the context of the radical workers' movement under the Franco dictatorship and to which the ultra-leftist armed group Movimiento Iberico de Liberacion (MIL) was close. The article by Aramos is kinda pedantic at points but a good intro to a (seemingly) forgotten piece of history nonetheless.

As for Negri, his current positions are far from autonomism's 'high water mark' of '77 and an adequate critique of his post-Empire work is this insurrectionary piece (http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Crisso_and_Odoteo__Barbarians__the_disordered_insu rgence.html)

On Council Communism (and Left-Communism in general) during the German revolution, I'd recommend Gilles Dauve's work: http://libcom.org/library/communist-left-germany-1918-1921. On the positions of the Dutch-German and the Italian communist left the piece 'Bordige versus Pannekoek' (http://libcom.org/library/bordiga-versus-pannekoek)by Antagonism is a decent one.

[ed miliband]

Regarding Autonomism, in addition to the excellent recommendations in this thread, there's also Spanish (http://libcom.org/history/report-assembly-movement-miguel-amoros) autonomy (http://libcom.org/library/workers-autonomy-miguel-amoros), which was influenced by Italian autonomism but emerged in the context of the radical workers' movement under the Franco dictatorship and to which the ultra-leftist armed group Movimiento Iberico de Liberacion (MIL) was close. The article by Aramos is kinda pedantic at points but a good intro to a (seemingly) forgotten piece of history nonetheless.


i bought 'wildcat spain encounters democracy' in a local charity shop - really interesting

http://www.revoltagainstplenty.com/index.php/archive/16-archive-global/88-wildcat-spain-encounters-democracy.html