That’s where the idea of autonomia—of the intellectual autonomy of the working class—first emerged. The creation of this concept is now generally attributed to Antonio Negri. But in fact it originated in the interpretation of Gramsci that we developed in the early 1970s, in the Gruppo Gramsci co-founded by Madera, Passerini and myself. We saw our main contribution to the movement not as providing a substitute for the unions, or for the parties, but as students and intellectuals who were involved in helping the workers’ vanguards to develop their own autonomy—autonomia operaia—through an understanding of the broader processes, both national and global, in which their struggles were taking place. In Gramscian terms, this was conceived as the formation of organic intellectuals of the working class in struggle. To this end we formed the Colletivi Politici Operai (CPOS), which became known as the Area dell’Autonomia. As these collectives developed their own autonomous practice, the Gruppo Gramsci would cease to have a function and could disband. When it actually was disbanded in the fall of 1973, Negri came into the picture, and took the CPOS and the Area dell’Autonomia in an adventurous direction that was far from what was originally intended.