‘You Are Not Our Vanguard!’ A Study of the Italian Student Movement's Failure to Mobilize the Workers of FIAT in the 1960s

Abstract

Student activists in Europe turned to the working class in the late 1960s as both a source of inspiration and as allies in their struggle against the ‘establishment’. This study presents a closer look at the relationship between the student activists and the FIAT workers of Torino (Turin) during the late 1960s. Drawing upon documents produced by student and labor groups along with personal interviews, this study offers a micro-level picture of student–worker interactions. These qualitative sources are further balanced with national-level analyses offered by social scientists who have studied the Italian student and labor movements using quantitative data. By employing both macro and micro level approaches to a study of the social unrest of the Sessantotto (1968), we can more clearly understand why the revolutionary dream of a student–worker alliance failed to materialize. In Torino, a handful of workers joined the students’ struggle against the padroni (bosses) and participated in groups such as the League of Students and Workers. Some workers even attended student meetings; however, the majority of the workers viewed the student movement as a kind of ‘auxiliary’ in their battle for higher wages and better contracts. At the national level, the unions publicly praised the student movement while privately acting to steer their members away from student radicalism. The local press sought to divide the two groups by highlighting class differences and Italy's politicians generally followed their party's lead by condemning ‘extremist student Maoists’ and praising the ‘rational and orderly’ actions of the workers.