This new workerists got an opportunity that most revolutionaries desire: the chance to test its politics within the a time period of industrial upsurge and you may personal ferment. In the event that unions titled a frequent that-time hit over rent within the July 1969, the staff-college student set up during the FIAT managed to escalate things of the getting in touch with a good demonstration away from factory’s fundamental doorways inside Corso Traiano. The new conflicts was to remain towards early times of one’s early morning, since professionals that have stones and you can molotov drinks have been pitted up against police truncheons and tear-gas. The official slogans of one’s unions against rent rises was basically entirely ignored in preference of the newest today well known workerist catchcry: Che cosa vogliamo? Tutto! (Precisely what do we require? Everything you!)
Towards the end of sixties a couple of new leading edge organizations got came up on the workerist interest: Lotta Continua (Continuous Endeavor), constructed from the latest worker-beginner assemblies in the Turin, and you may Potere Operaio (Workers’ Power), situated in Veneto. Each other was indeed dedicated to high-pressure resistance toward Communist Party’s reformism, nonetheless they had more conceptions out of what type of people the fresh new working-class necessary. Potere Operaio, formed of the idea of Antonio Negri, picked good caricatured sorts of “Leninism”, an effective centralised and you will disciplined innovative class, hence owed much more toward Stalinist community than the real list of one’s Bolsheviks. Adriano Sofri created Lotta Continua once the a system out-of “inner vanguards”, spurning specialized leaders and you can structures towards decision-making compliment of size assemblies. Both grabbed the requirements of your workerist analysis on upsurge of the Scorching Autumn, and you can each other obtained the fresh new commitment out of thousands, when you’re impacting plenty of more.
Workerism in crisis
Even after such very early successes, difficulties with this new method of your own workerists soon came up. Probably the most revolutionary fight out-of 1968–69 got largely bypassed the state relationship structures, however, from the 1970 many of the union management recognised the will to suit new temper. You start with the greater number of militant steel and you can chemicals unions and distribute outward, the state unions started to “experience the fresh tiger” out-of place of work militancy in order to carry it less than its manage.
It started to understand the newest grassroots office “delegate” formations which have been growing apparently spontaneously https://kissbrides.com/colombian-women/, and you will ratified all of them as a different sort of system of place of work democracy, considering warehouse councils
The brand new councils, and this pass on rapidly all over business, had been including delegates out of every shop or agencies from the place of work. Delegates was indeed decided in the a secret vote by the every staff, if trade union people or not, and you will were at the mercy of bear in mind any time. The brand new meetings of your factory council was basically available to all workers. Because of the 1975 there have been more than 32,000 councils with well over 250,000 delegates, an amazing booming from workplace democracy.
Sticking to its weapons, one another Lotta Continua and you can Potere Operaio boycotted the fresh councils, arguing which they had been nothing more than an effective conspiracy to reincorporate the working classification back again to capitalist thought. When you are there clearly was some knowledge to that particular, the stance implied declining so you can connect to the hundreds of thousands of workers who had been moving into struggle for the first time from this processes. Ironically, in addition, it caused it to be easier on union frontrunners so you’re able to reassert their control.
The fresh new workerists could winnings particular help when you look at the a period of unpleasant strive. However they at some point mistook new information from an innovative element of the course of these of your own working-class at large. The fresh unions and you will PCI, from losing service, were in reality broadening with the the new council way. Even with strengthening impressive companies away from thousands, the new workerist parties merely exerted definitive dictate from inside the relatively isolated strongholds – such FIAT Turin to possess LC, and you will Montedison inside Veneto getting PO. Because of the abstaining on the council way, it undermined the fresh strides they had produced into the functioning-classification unpleasant. In particular, its means made it impractical to issue the new hegemony of your own PCI across the bigger working-class.