New York Archives of Autonomist Marxism

This short booklet is a bit of a mystery. Grimshaw (1992), in The C.L.R. James Reader, simply lists it as “From DuBois to Fanon, (text of a talk), Michigan, 1970, 4 pp.” The “additional copies from” groups listed on the front include the Black Liberation Front International (B.L.FI.), a Pan-Africanist student group based at Michigan State University (some descriptive info can be found on p. 8, here). B.L.F.I. founders included the important activist and theorist Kimathi Mohammed; Michael Hudson (author of the 1972 book Super Imperalism: The Origins and Fundamentals of U.S. World Dominance); Sam Riddle; Kenyan historian and activist, Maina Kinyatti; Mike Tripp; and Kamuyu Kang’ethe. (Useful context and history on the group, including their intersection with James, can be found in Joy Karenga’s article here, Don Coleman’s dissertation here, and Matthew Quest’s dissertation here). Also listed are the Pan African Institute for Self Reliance, and Friends of Facing Reality Publishing (F.F.R.P.).

The booklet uses “DuBois” rather than “Du Bois” and looks at the trajectory between the two intellectuals and activists. James discusses DuBois, Nkrumah, Padmore, and Fanon in typical sweeping prose.

This booklet is uncommon but not rare. At the time of writing there is one copy in the trade (for $75) and is held at at least four institutions. Our copy has some staining and dog ears but it is in good condition otherwise. We could not locate it online so have scanned a copy to Libcom, here.

Facing Reality: The New Society…Where to Look for It. How to Bring it Closer. A Statement for Our Time is the preeminent document of the Correspondence and Facing Reality groups. The book was written by C.L.R James, Grace Lee, and Cornelius Castoriadis, each using pen names at the time. Initially begun as pamphlet on the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 (Ward 2016, pp. 239-242), the authors expanded its drastically and ended up penning a groundbreaking global analysis of struggle against and beyond bureaucracy and capitalism. It was published by the Correspondence group in 1958 and was the first book project they took on.

Andre Gorz was an important thinker in the French New Left and radical ecology.

This example of the Facing Reality pamphlet was gifted from C.L.R. James to Gorz. It carries a stamp on the cover noting James’s authorship and a small inscription from James to Gorz inside. The address on the inside front page has a sticker laid-over it with the Facing Reality address in Detroit. James has crossed over ‘J.R. Johnson’ and placed his name in pen. A beautiful and unique copy.

Emergency was a relatively short lived journal out of the UK in the 1980s. The editorial collective (listed in the image below) included, amongst others, John Merrington, an important figure in bridging Italian autonomist thought and politics with sympathetic theorists and activists in the UK and U.S (see P. Linebaugh’s 1997 obituary here, H. Cleaver’s mention of Merrington here, and Merrington’s role in the publication of Negri’s Revolution Retrieved here). Merrington was also a corresponding editor for Zerowork 1 and part of the editorial collective for Zerowork 2. Ed Emery (Red Notes) is generally credited with the translation of the article, but no credit for publication is given in this specific printing.

“Do You Remember Revolution?” was originally published in Il Manifesto in 1983. The context of the piece includes the Italian “state of emergency” that facilitated the mass state repression of the extra-parliamentary left in the late 1970s and early 1980s, changes in class composition as a result of struggles of preceding years, the historic compromise, the rise of the Red Brigades (and the increasing isolation of clandestine armed struggle groups), and the international media witch-hunt against Toni Negri and other militants. The piece is signed by prisoners held at Rebibbia, including: Lucio Castellano, Arrigo Cavallina, Gustino Cortiana, Mario Delmaviva, Luciano Ferrari-Bravo, Chicco Funaro, Toni Negri, Paolo Pozzi, Franco Tommei, Emilio Vesce and Paolo Virno.

“Do You Remember Revolution?” is historically quite important as document written by political prisoners (including key figures in the autonomist movement and tradition), as an analysis of state repression in context of changing class composition, and as an oft-cited article that circulated in the autonomist milieus in Europe and the U.S. during the 1980s and 1990s. Negri’s thinking plays a central role here. Within its short paragraphs we see the change from the “mass worker” to the “social worker” and the shift from classic workerist struggles to the demands for an income separate from work and the space to live life on self-determined terms. The piece is a very powerful and clear example of an analysis of class composition and movement dynamics.

The Emergency introduction to “Do You Remember Revolution?” emphasizes that it is forward-looking and part of debates within the Italian radical left: “It is part of the attempt to find, or recover, the political space for the new movements that emerged outside established politics in the seventies, a space that was closed off by the military confrontation between the ‘practice of the terrorist organisations amid generalised state repression.”

The first English appearance of “Do You Remember Revolution?” is often credited to Negri’s Revolution Retrieved, published by Red Notes in 1988 (translations by Ed Emery with notes from Merrington). The Emergency publication of predates Revolution Retrieved by roughly five years. The piece was also reprinted for academic audiences in Hardt & Virno’s 1996 book Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics.

The journal is surprisingly scarce, especially given that it was distributed by Pluto Press (a much smaller outfit for sure in the early 1980s). Issues show up in the trade once in a while but not often, and we could locate few institutional holdings at the time of writing. (Importantly, MayDay Rooms holds a copy).

For those interested in the introduction by the Emergency collective and its appearance in the journal, we have scanned a copy and posted it to Libcom – here.

Given the importance of Correspondence – the group and the publishing project – it is curious that much of their material is not readily available on the internet. The Correspondence Publishing Committee marks the move of C.L.R. James, Raya Dunayevskaya, Grace Lee, Martin Glaberman and other key figures of autonomist Marxism away from dissident Trostkyism into a fundamentally new political effort. Rosengarten (2008) notes:

“In July 1947, James, Dunayevskaya, and others withdrew from the [Workers Party] and in September rejoined the SWP, whose membership and influence were growing at a remarkable rate at the time. This affiliation lasted for only four years: in 1951 [James] and other like-minded JFT comrades broke definitively with Trotskyism and sought to translate the ideas of the [Johnson Forest Tendency] into a program of political action committed to a renewal of revolutionary socialism. The group took the seemingly anodyne name of the Correspondence Publishing Committee. The name was inspired by Committees of Correspondence formed between 1774 and 1776 that became “the most radical political force of the [American] revolution”… The remnant of the JFT that continued to function as a more or less cohesive group after 1951` and up to 1970 was also known for the publications it produced under the name Facing Reality, which was the title of an influential book of 1958” (p. 25).

In his remarkable biography, In Love and Struggle: The Revolutionary Lives and James & Grace Lee Boggs (2016), Ward includes an enlightening chapter that explores Correspondence in depth (“Building Correspondence,” pp. 156-197). Ward begins his chapter by discussing how the newspaper Correspondence became indistinguishable from the group Correspondence:

“The group in effect became the Correspondence Publishing Committee. The group’s “chairman,” Raya Dunayevskaya, said as much in a speech to the Detroit membership just two weeks after the convention when she described the paper not just as a project of the organization or a stage in its life, “but as the organization itself. We breathe the paper all over the place now as our way of life, and all else follows.” Correspondence was to be the center of their activity and the full expression of their politics” (p. 156).

Ward identifies three “closely linked ideas [that] formed the ideological foundation of Correspondence: affirming the role of the working class as the agent of revolutionary change; rejecting the concept of the vanguard party and instead celebrating the self-activity and spontaneous mobilization of the working class; and standing in full opposition to all forms of bureaucratic control” (p. 158).

The Correspondence Booklet is the kind of text that could serve as a theoretical and historical introduction to autonomist Marxism for unfamiliar readers. In its 64 pages of pieces published in the newspaper, the pamphlet includes pieces that explore state-capitalism, unions as barriers to worker control, bureaucracy, popular culture, self-activity, anti-racism, white chauvinism, sexism, housework and various other themes. (Selma James, in early contributions of her career, writes about women’s experiences in here as ‘Marie Brent’).

This pamphlet is rare. At the time of writing we are unable to locate an institutionally-held copy in OCLC, though it’s likely held in at least a couple of collections (e.g. the Martin & Jessie Glaberman Papers at Wayne State). There is a single copy available in the trade at the time of writing (for $150). We have scanned the pamphlet and posted it to Libcom, here, for interested readers.