We cannot understand the current period of comprehensive decomposition of the working class and a capitalist push, spanning decades and still far from finished, to erase the historic conquests of the prior period, defined by the October Revolution, without a severe criticism of the insufficiencies of those who attempted to go beyond the limits of that period. It was their failure to accomplish a leap forward which condemned us to the ongoing night of perpetual humiliation we still endure. As such we should have no support for those who make their influence over such a debacle into a claim for authority.
Rather we should carry out the closest and the coldest possible reading of the texts we inherit from them in order to understand and avoid the mistakes which constitute their legacy. Operaismo, the “area of autonomy”, the Little Red Book, the “Panthers” and the “armed struggle”, the NCM and the K groups, feminism and the “ultra left” these are not so much treasured heirlooms to be defended against reaction as the sad relics of the shipwreck of a generation. A shipwreck in whose wake we are still drowning.
Operaismo is one piece of flotsam from this wreck to which some continue to cling.
more...