A Letter to Giulio Einaudi

Introduction and translation by Andrew Anastasi

Mario Tronti, one of postwar Italy’s greatest theorists of capitalism and the workers’ movement, died on 7 August at the age of 92. Over the course of his long life, Tronti wrote many texts, held key posts in the Italian Communist Party and served as a senator of the Italian Republic. Yet he remains best known for his first book, Workers and Capital, a collection of essays published in 1966, the full English translation of which, by David Broder, appeared in 2019. Trained as a philosopher, Tronti wrote revolutionary theory for those at the barricades, and his early works inspired generations in Italy and around the world.

In January 1966 he wrote to his prospective publisher, Giulio Einaudi, to revise the table of contents for what would become Workers and Capital. In the letter, published by Opera Viva in 2016 and translated into English here for the first time, Tronti suggests that the book, the centerpiece of which would remain his new essay, ‘Marx, Labour-Power, Working Class’, also include a series of earlier, exploratory texts. Tronti’s conception of Marxism sought verification not from a community of scholars but in the practical growth of the working class as a force antagonistic to capitalist society. With its grand metaphors, commentary on the asynchronies of political time and boundless revolutionary ambition, the letter encapsulates Tronti’s project.

Rome, 16 January 1966

To Dr Giulio Einaudi

Dear Sir,

During the wait for a response to my manuscript, new ideas have naturally ripened. It is possible that they may actually resolve some publication challenges. Today’s proposal could be the following: to publish, as a volume in your ‘Essays’ series, the text currently under consideration alongside other things of mine that have already appeared elsewhere. More precisely I would suggest the following theses: ‘Factory and Society’ (from 1962); ‘The Plan of Capital’ (from 1963); four articles that appeared in Classe Operaia and which together make up a theoretical essay on a level with the others (‘Lenin in England’, ‘Old Tactics – New Strategy’, ‘1905 in Italy’ and ‘Class and Party’, all from 1964); and lastly the present text (from 1965).

The chronological order is as important as the logical development of the entire discourse. In fact, one could argue that they are one and the same. I thought that to present this research all together could perhaps ground it more deeply and at the same time rid it of those elements of political sensationalism that any right-thinking person is quick to recognise in an isolated text. Everything should be presented as ongoing research, though caught at a decisive moment of transition. What indeed will be its natural continuation? At this point our dialogue with the classics has reached the furthest limits of dry land; Marx, Lenin and the workers’ past experiences all needed to be traversed in a new way, and there was no way around them; but now the open sea awaits us, beyond which, if we are not mistaken, there must be new continents. I believe that only once we have landed on these new shores, only then will the sense of direction be fully understood – the true compass provided by the journey itself, which sought out only certain things in the ancient lands of our forefathers. I know that here there is a problem which often rears its head to offer its own rationale. Why not say everything afterwards? Why not wait to speak until the research is at least partially complete? And then bring down from the heights of these conclusions a far greater strength of conviction?

The answer I find is, once again, outside the realm of ‘science’. Speaking right away, starting to say, giving a glimpse of what later will be – this is necessary to find strength, to accumulate experiences, to reap the first fruits on the terrain no longer only of ideas. In the short term it serves to impose the presence of new things, which only in this way can then play their part in the long timescales to which they belong. The alternative to this is professional recognition of the seriousness of one’s studies. The choice is far too easy. Recent experiences have taught me, rather, to choose with care the most appropriate venues for this ‘starting to say’, in order to free it from its minority status. Within which those who above all fear it want to confine it. This is not the least of my reasons for sending you the manuscript and the additional proposal that I am making here. I apologise for the political motives I am putting forward and for the ‘biblical’ language with which I express them. Kind regards,

Mario Tronti
Via Ostiense, 56
Rome