Italian Working Class Strikes Of 1968-1970

Rising from a period of center-left coalition that had been marked by a constant failure to bring promised reforms to Italian society, the struggles of the 1960s acted as a pressure gauge for many sections of the Italian working class, one which was to reach its climax during the mass strikes of 1968-1970. Workers had voted en masse in the 1958 elections to bring the moderate left parties to power, and, feeling the failure to achieve reform and often left abandoned by the trade unions, workers were compelled to launch their own struggles to alleviate their situation, independent of parties and unions. Aided by the radicalising effect of an interlapping of the university and factory, a level of militancy unparalleled in Italy for decades emerged.

Required only to provide 52 hours of teaching a year, levels of absenteeism were extremely high, and more often than not students were left to teach themselves. Exams were mostly oral, which provided for an extremely subjective and uncontrollable evaluation system. While students who failed exams were not required to leave the university, drop-out rates soared and by 1968 had reached over 50%. Hardest hit by the nature of the universities were students from working class backgrounds whose families could not afford to pay fees. Often having to work two jobs to keep themselves in education, many 'worker-students' found it impossible to attend regular lectures, and made up the great majority of those dropping

Finding particular resonance in their own experiences with the struggle of the French workers against their trade union bureaucracy, the May events had a radicalising effect on the workforce of many northern factories. Whilst the strikes and occupations in France confirmed to many Italian workers that struggle was most effective when directly controlled by those involved, large sections of the student movement drew conclusions from France that formed a complete antithesis to this logic.

Blaming a lack of effective political leadership, the focus for much of the student movement shifted from the directly democratic structures of the earlier occupation movement to an emphasis on the importance of centralised revolutionary groups. While still chastising the French Communist Party, and hence, its sister organisation the PCI, because of its 'failures' during the May events, a great deal of the newly formed student groups were to emulate many of the party's internal trappings whilst maintaining to be more authentically