That’s an interesting question and I’m not quite sure I know the answer. I think Tronti could be read as not calling for the specific organizational form of the party. This may be only because he does not spell out at all clearly what this “party” looks like. I also get this impression at times from the vague descriptions he does offer such as when Tronti talks about the factory being inside the party and vice versa (this is the kind of thing I want to look over again in this chapter) He is also clearly not calling for an electoral machine. However, this doesn’t mean that the organizational form of the party is excluded. Parties are not always electoral machines. But it could be that “party” is just Tronti’s name for the working class Organization that Tronti clearly thinks is needed. Again, not sure. It depends a lot on how one reads Tronti’s vague descriptions of the “workers’ party.” However, I think Tronti is clearly calling for a hierarchical organization given mainly that he grants monopoly over tactics to the “party” and its leaders. A generous reading of Tronti may interpret Tronti as saying that only an organized working class is able to be effective on the tactical terrain. I think this would be a very generous reading. Even if this is the case, I think the logic of Tronti’s argument, his separation of strategy and tactics, applied in practice leads to hierarchical forms of organization. Maybe Tronti calls for the Party or not, but either way I think hierarchy is the mode of operation for the “workers’ party.” So in the end, even if Tronti doesn’t call for the Party, his organization has a lot in common with it.

Thanks for this. Tronti doesn’t really seem to have an argument for why he’s not an anarcho-syndicalist, does he? He just seems to assert things about the Party and the need for it, and doesn’t even really give us a ton of details about what he means by ‘party’. The whole ‘only the party’ thing is really weird. Do you think that for Tronti it’s that the class needs a party (the specific organizational form of the party, whatever he means by that), or do you think it’s that the class needs a deliberate organizational form and ‘party’ is just Tronti’s name for that?

take care,
Nate