Leggiamo Tronti

Alex:

I really enjoyed this article particularly Tronti’s critique of representation. Very busy so some of these notes are sloppy and I mostly paraphrase rather than quote. This admittedly is not ideal so please, without fear for hurt feelings, do not hesitate to point out if something I’ve written is out of wack or needs clarification. I will try to go back an add some direct quotes if I get a chance.

Beginning with the end: Tronti is calling for an Italian 1905, meaning like the Russian 1905 when workers’ struggles at production prevented a political stabilization and led to innovation of organization (the soviets) thus, according to Tronti, paving the way for October 1917, which as Nate wrote, is Tronti’s symbol for revolution.

“the Soviets emerge in 1905. Without 1905 there is no October 1917. At the stage where we are , a general repetition is needed for each one of us and for all; we must withdraw from it profitable results in regards to a new organization; a point net will be fixed beyond which there can be indeed only the process of the workers revolution.”

Back to the beginning of the article: Tronti outlines his analysis of the crisis of contemporary Italian capitalism. This again centres on workers’ wage demands that have risen beyond what the post-war economic arrangement can tolerate throwing it into crisis.

Paragraph 1: Capitalists face a choice: either force a political readjustment, defeat workers on the political terrain by blocking wage demands through a reformist arrangement with the workers’ official representatives or allow the wage-productivity deal to continue breaking down and undergoe the inevitable economic adjustments that this entails.

The first choice terrifies the capitalist class since they fear the response of the working class (not its representatives); the second choice is feared by the individual capitalist because economic readjustment threatens his profits and ownership of his property. (bankruptcy, take-overs etc.)

Par. 2: At an advanced stage of capitalism, the possibility to control its development are considerable but the institutional forms that this control takes, the representatives of the working and capitalist classes (the state, party, unions) are uncertain, unstable, always “behind” the latest capitalist developments. “It is rare that capitalist dictatorship [on the economic terrain] knows political stabilization.”

Tronti here begins a critique of representation. My notes are a little sloppy but I wrote at the time that according to Tronti, the political terrain is the terrain of representation where the working class and capitalist class and the relations of power between are represented by the state, party and the union. The official representatives are often behind, have to play catch up to the actual developments in the relations of power on the economic terrain. As a result, political solutions often fail to deal with the real issues. It is in this sense that Tronti argues that the official representatives have yet to deal with the real reasons for the Italian crisis while this (workers’ wage demands) have long been obvious to workers and capitalists alike on the economic terrain. However, Tronti fears an eventual political solution and hopes workers can block it within production.

Par. 3: Tronti characterizes the relationship between workers and their official movements as “ambiguous” by which I believe he means that workers’ contemporary militancy is not matched by its representatives, that the official movements are “out of touch” for lack of a better term, with workers desires and experiences. In order to change this, mass struggle against the class enemy is needed. No factions within the party, no outside pressure from “minority” groups will succeed. Only the experience of class struggle will lead to innovations of organization ending the “ambiguity” that exists between the working class and its official movements.

Par. 5: Tronti writes that up to this point in the article he hasn’t said anything on organization because this is a practical matter, to be resolved through struggle. On the terrain of practice, the objective conditions present will always prove determinant on questions of organization. This part seems to put a damper on his previous statements on organization that seem much more proscriptive.

Same paragraph: The objective contemporary conditions are that (1) the capitalist class is not “wise” enough to include the Communist Party in its reformist political solution because (2) the CP retains its ties, even if weak, to the working class. I think Tronti means by this that the CP continues to authentically represent some aspects of workers’ desires and experiences.

Tronti goes on to say that however these ties are weak because the autonomous development of the working class has gone beyond or class composition has changed and the organizational forms of the CP are now outdated. A search for a political alternative, new forms of organization are needed and this practical search must be carried out by workers in the course of their struggles.

I read this as class composition is always changing, always going beyond old organizational forms so alternatives must always be developed and this begins and ends with workers and their struggles.

Par. 6: Tronti issues a warning. When searching for alternative organizations we must be careful not to fetishize the new, for danger of hanging on to them and becoming blind to ongoing changes. “This is the fate of minorities. The Bolshevik taste for majorities must be recovered in the simple sense of the term. Mass action or there is no action, as far as the workers are concerned.” An “avant-garde” that is not in tune with the mass movement is no different from an “arriere-garde.”

Tronti then advocates the restructuring of the official movement by the mass struggle of workers in the factory, both unionized and not (”organized and unorganized” maybe I’m wrong to translate it as unionized) who thus create the material power to restructure (renew?) the official movement from the outside. This is not a “boring from within” strategy but one of mass struggle outside the official movement that eventually, according to Tronti, drags the official movements along changing them to once again reflect accurately the workers positions.

As I read the above part I wondered why even bother to renew the official movements if mass struggle leads to new forms of organization or is this exactly what Tronti saying but retaining the old party/union names?

Par. 7: In order to bring about this renewal through mass struggle, Tronti advocates the blocking of a political solution to the contemporary Italian crisis within production, struggle that will lead to innovations of organization, raising the specter of a true political struggle, not one over government but of power, of the modification of the relations of power between classes. An Italian 1905.