On Katsiaficas

European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonisation of Everyday

Not the least laudable aspect of this book is the fact that it begins an evaluation of a movement whose existence has gone virtually unacknowledged for thirty years. Indeed it is the first study with general aspirations to convey an impression of what lies at the core of autonomy. Undoubtedly the dearth of commentary is directly related to the fact that it has been primarily continental based, and secondly has been documented almost exclusively in european languages other than english. As a first silo in the reconsideration of rtecent history, and the strategic and tactical knowledged to be derived from it, this certainly a most welcome work.

Katsiaficas has spent much time in the autonomist nodes in northern europe himself, and is naturally at his most insightful and persuausin=ve when analysing events and contexts in those instances.

The definition of autonomy has long been a vexed question, principally because this type of typologisation is precisely what many autonomist activists evade deliberately. The refusal of categorisation also stems from a rejection of ideology, in the sense of attempts to evolve internally consistent metannarratives. This factor has been endlessly misunderstood by legiopns of militants from the traditional leftist cadre organisations, who create their own straw man version of autonomy which unsurprisingly they then disasssemble to display its ‘incoherence’, ‘internal contradiction’ and ‘petit bourgeois essence’!! I say this with some bitterness, the fruit of many futile discussions with such individuals over the years.

Another compelliong reason for the rejection of unified ideology comes from the nature of the organisation and the terrain of operation of autonomist groups. Central to the autonomist vision of politics is the affinity group. Affinity’ is based on friendship, trust and common experience and are as much a reality of periods of quiet as those of intendsive political activity. The election of this organisational form turns on its head the traditional concption of politics, which sees political organisations as spaces whwere strangers feeling a nptional commitment to an abstract idea can come together to act collectively to varying degrees. The affinity structure first demands the evolution of social liens, trust and friendship, and then asks what can be done collecively. Katsiaficas only touches upon these issues - which are crucial in describing the rupture both with the traditional /new left - and explains the organisational changes principally as the consequenvce of the feminist movement, and their introduction of the politics of th first person. In many ways the writer is at his most informative when identifying the importance and influence of feminist movements in the 1970s as layiong the basis for a socialised form of political struggle which would later be generalised throught the refractory population.

Presumably it is the fact that autonomy was synonymous in many minds with autonomia operia in 1970s Italy that has drawn Katsiaficas to dedicate a chapter to the subject, yet as the book unfolds its relevance becomes unclear. Indeed what seems missing from the book as a whole is a sensitivity to the clear regional distinctions which operated within groups calling themselves autonomist. Thus in the Bsque - particularly in Bilbao, Vittora and Gipukoa province - country autonomist seperatists combined strikes against spanish nationalist targets as well as carrying out attacks supporting decisions made in the town assemblies on social and industrial struggles. Meanwhile they also collaborated with armed autonomist elements in the seat factory in Barcelona.

In France autonomy has been a more theoretical tendency, heavily shaped by the influx of refugees from the Italian repression of 1977-80 (such as the group Tout!, those clustered around Oreste Scalzone and Antonio Negri, the autonomist current continues now in the form of CARGO and the review Multitudes), and often in conflict with frnch autonomie which had a more anarchist/situationist hue and was influenced also by the struggles in the Basque country (Action Directe’s first generation are an example of this trend, directly inspired by and in individual cases overllapping with the C.A.A.B).

Italy’s movement remains the most remarkable and the least documented. What distinguishes the Italian situation is the heterogeneous composition of the revolt. At least fourty nine different armed leftwing orgainsations existed in Italy’s 1970s and while these groups cannot be said to be representative of the movement politically, i believe it fair to argue that they are at least demonstrative sociologically. Participants wre drawn from all social classes, from all over the country, but contained a working class and unemplyed component which later autonomist movements interbnationally aspo but never attained.

Both in France and Italy the influence of the Situationist current is sriusly underestimated. Groupds such as Cangaceiros around Turin, a nd Les Fossoyeurs du Vieux Monde constituted a very difeerent interpretation of subversive practices to their counterparts who felt defeated and isolated in the insipid post ‘68 atmosphere. What distinguishes Italian and French autonomy from its Dutch/German variant is its attitude towards the working class. Most German radicals regard ordinary burgerinnen with disdain, treating them as the passive receptacles of reactionary ideas, viz. racism, sexism and homophobia. Few if any efforts are made to target workers in the fighting of political struggles. To a considerable degree this can be ubdertood as the increasing weight of the political culture advanced by the milieu aroun the urban guerilla movements of the 1970s and its incremental increase in significance on a movement which has seen severe numerical diminishment in the late 1980s and 1990s. (See interview with Klein in The German Issue (Semiotext(e)).

Katsiaficas treatment of the autonomous movement in the post reunification period is weaker than his e arlier analysis of the 1970s. Too much time is spent exploring the rise of the new right and in vague descriptions of the new political landscape. He also ignores the residuum of the east german opposition movement such as the demonstration of 100’ooo on the anniversary of Rosa Luxmbourg’s death in 1992, the hunger strike and march against Treuhand Anstalt led by the workers in Bischofferode and the movement of east berlin pensioners against nt rises in the period from 1991 until 1993. These were all significant events for the autonomous movent and crystallised teir impotence in negotiating what could hav been an important alliance with destructured eastern workers. Likewise, and a surprising oversight considering his otherwise excellent account of the developments in feminism, he ignores the struggles of east german women to retain abortion rights and their generally high level of politicisation in the post reunification period. Women in the GDR had significant gains in terms of education and social position , such as the high level of participation at upper levels of management instate owned firms and political apparatus. The PDS, which capitalised on such sentiments developed a relationship with the autonomen similar in nature to that which existed with the Greens/AL in the 1980s, and drew large numbers of squatters into their orbit, as memebrs, sympathisrs and workers on their politial projects such as Junge Welt. The notorious longevity of pro GDR sentiment which was always a tendency within the autonomes sscene. (See Adilkno on other retrogade aspects of scene culture).

The second half of the book repeats the disconnection mentioned earlier, by returning to the work of Toni Negri, an Italian autonomist thoerist who is almost entirely unread in contemporary radical germany. FELS, die Beute, farenheit have remedied this to some degree in the lat 90s, but Negri’s work has not been germane to radical activists since the 1980s. This is another example of the generation gap, which has repreatedly ruptured the German radical tradition since the war. Perhaps a result of the massacring of a whole generation of communists and anarchists, there exists within the movement an almost complete historical discontinuity to the extent that one might be tempted to categorise as a german particularis,; the ritual sluaghter of parents by their children.

Such is the divergence between the movements charcterised in Germany and Italy,autonomes szene and autonomia (a subsumption itself which glosses over the deep fissures), that ultimately I can only assume that they have been subsumed due to what is a lexical confusion bteween autonomist and ‘autonomous’ autonomen. The latter is identified by its technical militancy, its residual form of tradiional communist method and vocabulary, its cultural grammar; autonomists are those who endirse leninism without lenin and have tried to adapt their language to accomadate lexicall the new social subject. The latter by is distinguished by its styles, attitude and cultual codes combined with varying degrees of self organisation.

The two groups strictu sensu share some retrograde aspects aticular to their moral context. Tis is exemplified in their attitude to prisoners. In each instance, so called political prisoners are priveliged for support.