Autonomism
Autonomism is a European far-left political movement that emerged in Italy in the 1970s. It can be divided into two forms depending on the period: Autonomist Marxism (1970s-1990s) and Autonomist anarchism (2000s-present). The movement is committed to anti-capitalist, anti-state, horizontal, and anti-authoritarian struggle.
Born from the anti-authoritarian Marxist reflections of the 20th century and following an increasingly close alignment with anarchism, it took shape within the Italian autonomia of the 1970s. This movement brought together various thinkers, such as Toni Negri, and a primarily working-class population critical of traditional Italian communist structures, such as the Italian Communist Party. This initial form, organized around Italian workers and seeking to promote protest-based communist forms of anti-capitalist struggle, began to engage in a series of anti-authoritarian practices and concepts. Heavily repressed at the end of 1977, the Italian autonomia declined.
Over the following decade, autonomism spread to Germany and France, where its sociology evolved alongside the changing nature of capitalism in Europe. It began to influence a younger or more marginalized population that sought to act through direct action and established numerous squats and alternative experiments. Here again, the central aspect of these autonomist movements remained Marxist thought, developed and re-utilized within Maoist K-groups, among others. Some autonomists of this period engaged in terrorist actions targeting the state or capitalism, notably through groups such as Action Directe (AD) and the Red Army Faction (RAF). After a peak decade, both movements disappeared by the end of the 1980s, either re-integrated into their respective states following the legalization of squats or abandoned by more moderate elements critical of terrorist methods.
After a period of uncertainty during the 1990s, autonomism was reborn in conjunction with anarchism, particularly in France, where the two movements increasingly merged, a dynamic that had already begun in the 1970s. This new emergence of autonomism, referred to as autonomist anarchism, is distinguished by its abandonment of its Marxist and communist heritage and its increasing integration into the anarchist movement. This movement, sometimes called 'toto', participated in black bloc style tactics, ZADs, free parties, and squatting, while maintaining conflictual relations with the traditional institutions of the anarchist movement. Since the second half of the 2010s, it has been considered by several researchers to be an integral part of the anarchist movement.