The images which passed quickly on the television screen regarding ‘the battle of Seghino’ (2) and the ‘defence of Venaus’ (3) showed young men and women, the old, children, municipal representatives and mayors, who faced down policemen. Then the barricades, the obstacles to impede access to the work sites, the permanent watch, day and night, in the cold; the workyard of Venaus after the ‘invasion’.
This appreciable role of the Valsusina population, strongly determined in their protest to oppose the TAV (High velocity train), was conducted by sectors of the antagonist extremism, as is demonstrated by the reported complaints of the disorders: they involved, to a very large extent, members of the Autonomia (Autonomy Movement) and the anarchic insurrectionalism (4) .
What did the antagonist militants see in the ‘no TAV’ struggle? Why so enthusiastic, and why did they participate so actively in the demonstrations, also giving such an effective contribution in the radicalization of the clashes? What persuasive arguments did the Valsusina mobilization offer to the ‘Movement’?
The characteristics of the ‘no TAV’ struggle which mostly attracted the attention of the radical antagonistic groups are three. First of all, the ‘subject’ of the ‘revolt’, that is to say ‘the people’: not the expression of a specific category, e.g. industrial workers or the precariousness of no-contract university workers, or pensioners, but a cross-section of the population, disregarding aspects of age, social class, or occupation.

This heterogeneously composed group of the ‘people’ is united and determined in the pursuit of its objective, which – and we are at the second point – is a limited and well defined objective, i.e. to impede the carrying out the TAV works, and not a general struggle against the capital, new technology, the model of global development etc...
How does this group of the ‘people’ move to achieve its objective? With a ‘spontaneous’ and ‘self-organized modality‘, which includes also illegal actions: the third characteristic of the ‘no TAV’ mobilization is that the people reacted by spontaneously gathering in the places where the first work yards were to be prepared, they congregated in assemblies and took decisions, ‘organizing themselves’ without using intermediaries, institutions or other, and did not hesitate before the possibility of committing offences (road blocks, causing damage or resistance to representatives of the law).


The ‘Movement’ and the ‘no TAV’:
towards a new social conflict?

The antagonist groups and exponents present in the area, already active, for some time, in this same kind of mobilization, inspired by the principles and practices of Autonomy, hostile to hierarchic structures, and centralized on the Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy, immediately understood the significance of the popular connotation and diversified nature of the protest.
Disillusioned over the negative evolution, from the aspect of the ‘revolutionary breakdown’ of the most recent ‘mass protest’ movements, such as the ‘no global’, which after the initial explosion was progressively absorbed into the ambit of the Social Forum, and the ‘no war’, which demonstrated inability in ‘radicalizing’ the ‘anti-militarist’ and ‘anti-imperialist’ campaign, these sectors saw in the compact mobilization of a population determined to ‘defend its territory’ from the ‘enemy’, a terrain favourable to the development of a state of conflict, which from local dimension would pass to a general, overall dimension and, from a ‘resistance’ character would transform into an ‘offensive’ one.
The elements of the ‘no TAV’ protest which are considered winning ones, are the refusal of the use of mediators or delegates, and the attitude of remaining in opposition to the authorities; a practice which, in itself, is antagonistic and which confers on that ‘non-political’ mobilization, an intrinsic ‘politicization’, insofar as it carries the message of non-recognition of ‘this’ system.
The fact that the ‘no TAV’ campaign put the programmed start of the railway project into crisis, by the pursuit of ‘resistance’, demonstrates to the antagonist groups, the real possibility of hindering the institutional decisional process.
The ‘no TAV’ becomes a symbol of a struggle which ‘pays’, insomuch as, it produces concrete effects, and expresses a political significance of opposition.
It is here that the assertive propulsive, and, in certain ways, ‘canalizing’ function’ of the protest performed by Social Centres and antagonist collectives that identify themselves with the ‘no TAV’ mobilization, fits in; they have rendered and propagandized it as an activity of ‘resistance’ – nostalgically likening it to that of the anti-fascists of the Second World War and judging it as an ‘historic’ event – with the objective of attributing class struggle connotations.
One can read in a book compiled by a Social Centre which is very much involved in the Valsusina mobilization: the popular committees particularly engaged in the ‘no TAV’ struggle are “effective organisms of the mass”, which have given life, with their work, to a counter-power of the mass” (5) .
For this reason, it is judged important, in these areas, to have the presence of such people, not necessarily to ‘press the accelerator’ of the protest or incite the use of violence, but to perform a ‘political’ task of perceiving the stimuli ‘from the bottom’ and bring them ahead to favour, in perspective, the raising of an ‘insurrectional’ climate.

Prospects

And so, the example of a struggle with no ideological connotations, ‘not politically trained’, not programmed, which defines itself in its progression, as fed by the conviction that “it is possible to stop it, and to stop it is up to us”, nourishes expectations of new revolutionary courses, those of mass insurrections.
How real are these prospects? Can a specific battle, which is circumscribed in a territory like Val di Susa, give the go-ahead to a revolutionary political struggle? Could a case like the one of the ‘Valley’ foreshadow a clash of national dimensions?
Even though, the present tendency of the radical antagonist front is to overcome, in the absence of strongly structured organizations, the ideological ‘fences’ and carry ahead the fight against the “system” on the basis of specific ‘campaigns’ and ‘passwords’, it does not seem, however, that courses of ‘appropriation’ of a contestation like ‘no TAV’ can overcome this instrumental aim.
The prerogatives of the ‘no TAV’ movement (large popular adhesion, which has also involved representatives of the local institutions) appear, what is more, rather difficult to export into other territories because they are specifically connected to the Valsusino context, a strongly united mountain area which, historically, has expressed a remarkable capacity of resistance, of ‘heroic’ connotations.
Consequently, also the ‘wishful’ dimension of attempts to attribute general contents and, above all, ’revolutionary’ contents to this struggle which comes ‘from the bottom’, emerges.
On the other hand, the risk cannot be overlooked that due to the influence of such sectors, in the area of strongly felt mobilizations of the population, a progressive legitimization of the radical struggle modality is being registered.