Story of a Communist: A Memoir

Storia di un comunista #1

by Antonio Negri, Ed Emery (Translator), Girolamo De Michele (Editor)

The philosopher Antonio Negri is one of the preeminent thinkers of our his writings on class, socialism, and empire have had an enormous influence on contemporary political theory. His political activism and outspoken advocacy for the downtrodden have also placed him at the centre of some of the most dramatic developments in recent Italian history. Story of a Communist ―the first volume of Negri’s three-part autobiography―gives a fascinating account of his intellectual development and of the price he has paid for living out his ideals.

Negri paints a vivid portrait of the ferment in which some of his most important arguments and ideas took shape, and he provides crucial context for an understanding of the operaismo movement and of the influence that it continues to exert. Story of a Communist is also a profoundly personal work, it is a compelling and often moving narrative of a childhood overshadowed by Fascism, of the author’s involvement with Left-wing politics in the post-war period, and, finally, of his arrest in 1979 for alleged involvement in terrorist activities. This is a powerful record of an extraordinary life, and of the historical forces that have shaped it.

720 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2013

About the author

Antonio Negri was an Italian political philosopher known as one of the most prominent theorists of autonomism, as well as for his co-authorship of Empire with Michael Hardt and his work on the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Born in Padua, Italy, Negri became a professor of political philosophy at the University of Padua, where he taught state and constitutional theory. Negri founded the Potere Operaio (Worker Power) group in 1969 and was a leading member of Autonomia Operaia, and published hugely influential books urging "revolutionary consciousness."
Negri was accused in the late 1970s of various charges including being the mastermind of the left-wing urban guerrilla organization Red Brigades (Brigate Rosse or BR), which was involved in the May 1978 kidnapping and murder of former Italian prime minister Aldo Moro. On 7 April 1979, he Negri was arrested and charged with a long list of crimes including the Moro murder. Most charges were dropped quickly, but in 1984 he was still sentenced (in absentia) to 30 years in prison. He was given an additional four years on the charge of being "morally responsible" for the violence of political activists in the 1960s and 1970s. The question of Negri's complicity with left-wing extremism is a controversial subject. He was indicted on a number of charges, including "association and insurrection against the state" (a charge which was later dropped), and sentenced for involvement in two murders.
Negri fled to France where, protected by the Mitterrand doctrine, he taught at the Paris VIII (Vincennes) and the Collège international de philosophie, along with Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, and Gilles Deleuze. In 1997, after a plea-bargain that reduced his prison time from 30 to 13 years, he returned to Italy to serve the end of his sentence. Many of his most influential books were published while he was behind bars. He hence lived in Venice and Paris with his partner, the French philosopher Judith Revel. He was the father of film director Anna Negri.
Like Deleuze, Negri's preoccupation with Spinoza is well known in contemporary philosophy. Along with Althusser and Deleuze, he has been one of the central figures of a French-inspired neo-Spinozism in continental philosophy of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, that was the second remarkable Spinoza revival in history, after a well-known rediscovery of Spinoza by German thinkers (especially the German Romantics and Idealists) in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Reviews

[Pepe Del Amo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Después de haber las casi 600 páginas a letra pequeña, solo puedo decir que es uno de los mejores libros que he leído últimamente. Un auténtico golpe para todas las simplificaciones sobre su pensamiento, tan habituales por parte de la charlatanería. No es sólo la primera parte de su historia, la de un intelectual comunista, sino la historia de la Italia revolucionaria de finales de 50 hasta el gran proceso de represión del compromesso storico. Absolutamente genial ❤❤

[Ararat Gocmen · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s probably not best to take this book as a fully credible account of the extremes of Italian politics during the 1960s and 1970s, but it’s nevertheless a fascinating account from the perspective of one of its main protagonists.

[Lorenzo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Prima parte dell'autobiografia di Toni Negri, interessante anche per il quadro sul contesto del Paese e della sinistra nel periodo considerato.