"Not whether we accomplish anarchism today, tomorrow, or within ten centuries, but that we walk towards anarchism today, tomorrow, and always." -Errico Malatesta
facts about malatesta:
Malatesta was a wealthy man who put his entire fortune at the disposal of the cause.
He won the militant support of broad sections of his countrymen whose demonstrations & strikes on his behalf saved him from death & imprisonment many times.
Leaving London in 1882 Malatesta went to Egypt where he fought with the Egyptians against British colonialists.
The following year he returned clandestinely to Italy. Settling in Florence he founded the weekly La Questione Sociale, the first serious anarchist newspaper to be published in Italy. It was in La Questione Sociale that Malatesta's most popular & widely read pamphlet Fra Contadini appeared in 1884.
That same year he was arrested & sentenced to 3 years imprisonment, & while waiting to serve his sentence he went to Naples & helped to nurse the victims of a cholera epidemic (as did many other anarchists & socialists).
In exile in Argentina & also the US, he published radical newspapers.
Malatesta took part in the Xeres insurrection in Spain, in the General Strike of 1895 in Belgium, & spent years of exile & imprisonment in England, France, & Switzerland.
In 1907 he attended the anarchist congress at Amsterdam & made speeches on anarchist organization that were to shape the anarchist movement.
1914 - A general strike begins when two demonstrators are killed by police in Ancona.
Known as "Red Week", troops in the area fraternize with protesters while Malatesta & his fellow anarchists attempt to organize a revolt against the government. Their plans are frustrated when the General Confederation of Labor (which controlled most of Italy's trade unions) calls off the strike. Malatesta returns to London.
During WWI a few anarchists — most prominently, Peter Kropotkin — issued a "Manifesto" in support of the Allies; most anarchists opposed choosing between oppressors, & Malatesta was a prominent opponent of Kropotkin & the few other signatories to the Manifeste des sieze (Manifesto of the 16).
November 1914 - In a letter called, "Anarchists have forgotten their principles", Malatesta wrote:
"...there will be no definite victory on either side. After a long war & an enormous loss of life & wealth, both sides being exhausted, some kind of peace will be patched up leaving all questions open, thus preparing for a new war more murderous than the present."
1919 - Malatesta returns to Italy, where he starts the first anarchist daily, Umanità Nova. It is a period of turmoil prior to Mussolini's ascent to power.
1920 - (October) He urges that workers strike & occupy their factories. Metalworkers in Milan & Turin do so. Other strikes follow, but the Socialist Party & the General Confederation of Labor undermine betray the workers & work to convince the workers to end the strike. Malatesta & 81 other anarchists are arrested.
1921 -(July) Malatesta goes on a hunger strike to protest the delay in being brought to trial. He is found not guilty & released, two months before the facists gain power.
1924-6 - Despite harrasment & censorship, Malatesta publishes the journal Pensiero e Volontà In 1926, Mussolini silences all independent press.
writings of malatesta:
“Organisation, which after all only means cooperation and solidarity in practice, is a natural condition, necessary to the running of society; and it is an unavoidable fact which involves everyone, whether in human society in general or in any grouping of people joined by a common aim.
As human beings cannot live in isolation, indeed could not really become human beings and satisfy their moral and material needs unless they were part of society and cooperated with their fellows, it is inevitable that those who lack the means, or a sufficiently developed awareness, to organise freely with those with whom they share common interests and sentiments, must submit to the organisations set up by others, who generally form the ruling class or group and whose aim is to exploit the labour of others to their own advantage. And the age-long oppression of the masses by a small number of the privileged has always been the outcome of the inability of the greater number of individuals to agree and to organise with other workers on production and enjoyment of rights and benefits and for defence against those who seek to exploit and oppress them.
Anarchism emerged as a response to this state of affairs, its basic principle being free organisation, set up and run according to the free agreement of its members without any kind of authority; that is, without anyone having the right to impose their will on others. And it is therefore obvious that anarchists should seek to apply to their personal and political lives this same principle upon which, they believe, the whole of human society should be based.”
-excerpt from a project of anarchist organisation 1927
“We are communist, because we believe that a way of social life based on brotherhood, with no oppressed nor oppressors, can be better accomplished through a freely established solidarity and a free cooperation in the interest of all, aiming at the fullest possible satisfaction of everyone's needs rather than the right to a higher or lower recompense.
We believe that the distribution of the natural means of production and the determination of the exchange value of things, both necessary in every system except communism, could be hardly be accomplished without struggle and injustice, which might eventually end up in the establishment of new forms of authority and governments. On the other hand, we readily admit the danger involved in trying to apply communism before its desire and awareness be deep-rooted, and to a larger extent than allowed by the objective conditions of production and social relations: a parasitic bureaucracy could arise, which would centralize everything in its hands and become the worst of governments.”
excert from individualism and anarchism Pensiero e Volontà, n. 15, August 1, 1924
“Everybody should take care of social defence, in the same way in which everybody promptly helps when public calamities occur.
To me a policeman is worse than a criminal, at least than a minor common criminal; a policeman is more dangerous and harmful to society. However, if people do not feel sufficiently protected by the public, no doubt they immediately call for the policeman. Therefore, the only way of preventing the policeman from existing is to make him useless by replacing him in those functions that constitute a real protection for the public.”
excert from further thoughts on the question of crime” Umanità Nova, n. 134, September 16, 1921
sources:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/malatesta/individ.html
http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/MalatestaErrico.htm
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/platform/malatesta_project.html
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/malatesta/crime.html