The political philosopher and university lecturer was one of the leading theoreticians and organisers behind Autonomia Operaia (Workers’ Autonomy), an heir to the radical leftist groups that emerged from the student and workers’ movement in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The movement played an important role in Italy’s so-called ‘Years of Lead’, the period of social turmoil and leftist and rightist political violence that ran from the late 1960s to the 1980s.
Born in Padua in 1933, Negri took his first political steps in the local section of the Socialist Party before launching the Independent Socialist Movement and then joining the radical leftist group Potere Operaio (Workers’ Power).
He founded Workers’ Autonomy in 1973 and was its leader and main theoretician until its dissolution in 1979.
In 1983 Negri was elected to parliament with the Radical Party with over 13,000 votes, but in September of that year he took exile in France to escape the April 7 trials of Workers’ Autonomy militants for alleged terrorism.
Negri returned to Italy voluntarily in July 1997 to serve his final sentence of 12 years.
In 1999 he was granted semi-freedom and in 2003 total freedom.
ANSA
