One of our goals with this site is to draw out some of the international connections in either influence or direct interaction (or both) between the Movement of ’77 and movements and theories from outside of Italy. The impact and interpretation of situationist thought into Italy during the 1970s is particularly interesting, and we look forward to writing more, through the lens of ephemera, on that matter.
The instant example is the co-publication by Edizioni Puzz and Edizioni Buco of Raoul Vaneigem’s “Terrorismo o rivoluzione: An Introduction to Ernest Coeurderoy,” published in French in 1972 (here is an English translation).
This edition, according to a fairly comprehensive rundown of Puzz publications in the Nautilus collection Puzz & Co. 1971-’78…1991, was printed in 800 copies, which was relatively small compared to the typical 2000 print run of the Puzz press. As Duccio Dogheria notes in his wonderful book on Italian pirate editions of the 1970s, Max Capa – the leading figure of Puzz – had used Vaneigem quotes in various comics.
For those unfamiliar, Max Capa (a pseudonym, his legal name was Nino Armando Ceretti) is considered by many to be the father of Italian underground comics, and his work formed an important aesthetic piece of Italy’s long 1970s. In a 2017 interview, Capa noted “With Puzz we came close to the radical theses of the communists, situationists and anarchists. This encounter greatly influenced our drawings and comics.” In situationist spirit, he continued “They were underground comics but also had a level of social and political content. They were often accompanied by theoretical texts and short subversive essays. Radical criticism and everyday life were merged in the comics.”
Il Buco was a paper and publisher (Edizioni Buco) out of Putignano in southern Italy, which played an important role in the political underground press of the period. (Some information is available here).
Because of constrictive legal requirements that required government registration, this was published as a supplement to Notizie Radicale (many underground and radical publications were produced as “supplements” of registered journals, which allowed their legal publication).
This edition of Terrorismo o rivoluzione is, according to Dogheria, the second Italian edition. The first being the “official” publication by Arcana in 1973.
This edition of Terrorismo o rivoluzione is rare. We have encountered it just one time in the trade in recent years and OCLC lists a single holding in Amsterdam, at the Institute of Social History. Thankfully, a good copy has been scanned online here, via the incredible collection of Puzz materials provided via the Primo Moroni Archive in Milan.
New York Archives of Autonomist Marxism 