Errico Malatesta

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Malatesta's age photo

Errico Malatesta (born December 4, 1853 in Capua / Caserta province , † July 22, 1932 in Rome ) was an Italian anarchist . He was close to the theory of collectivist anarchism according to Bakunin and is considered one of the most important activists of the anarchist movement at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century in Italy and across Europe.

Life

Malatesta became involved in politics at an early age, although he was the son of wealthy parents. In 1867, at the age of 14, he was arrested for the first time for writing to King Victor Emmanuel II complaining of injustices by the local authorities.

Malatesta had initially studied medicine , but made the decision early on to devote his life entirely to the social revolution . In 1871, Malatesta was kicked out of the university for participating in a demonstration. He joined the Italian section of the International . In the same year Friedrich Engels was appointed secretary of the Italian International. In 1872 Malatesta met Michail Bakunin on the occasion of the Anti-Authoritarian International in Saint-Imier, Switzerland .

In 1877 Malatesta, together with Andrea Costa and Carlo Cafiero, led an armed uprising in two villages in Campania . They carried out an arson attack on the tax office and declared the end of the monarchy. The villagers welcomed the action but refused to participate. With the arrival of troops, the uprising quickly collapsed. Because of this action, Malatesta was forced to leave the country. At the end of 1878 he first went to Egypt . Then he went to Geneva , where he met Peter Kropotkin and Elisée Reclus . A few months later he was expelled from Switzerland. He traveled on to Romania and from there to Paris .

In 1881 he came to London, where he stayed more often in the following years. In 1883 he went back to Italy. In a leaflet he propagated communist anarchism here and was sentenced to three years in prison in Florence for his writings. He was released on bail and fled to Argentina in 1884 , where he helped build the labor movement .

In 1889 Malatesta returned to London and published the text Anarchy .

In 1892 and 1893 he witnessed the mass strike in Belgium and recognized the limited effect of this form of protest. Back in London he organized the Congress of the Second International . In 1897 Malatesta tried to return to Italy in secret, but was arrested at the beginning of the following year for his revolutionary activities in Ancona and then interned on the island of Lampedusa .

In May 1899 he managed to escape to Malta . He traveled to the USA via London , where he met with Italian and Spanish anarchist groups in New Jersey . Malatesta was shot in the leg during a discussion in this circle.

In 1900 Malatesta returned to London. After the assassination attempt on King Umberto I of Italy by the Italian anarchist Gaetano Bresci on July 29, 1900, he was under surveillance by the British police.

In 1907 he took part in an anarchist conference in Amsterdam with Emma Goldman and Rudolf Rocker , in which he presented his views on the organization and possible forms of action.

In 1909 he and Rudolf Rocker were imprisoned for three months on charges of insult. Attempts to deport Malatesta to Italy were dropped after sympathizers organized demonstrations for Malatesta.

In 1913, Malatesta voluntarily returned to Italy to take part in planned demonstrations against the state and church in Ancona. In 1914 he took part in the organization of a nationwide general strike. Two demonstrators were killed by police at a demonstration in Ancona, and the riot that followed became known as the Red Weeks . Parts of the troops that were used against the demonstrators fraternized with them and serious riots broke out.

After Malatesta returned to London for a short time, he went to Italy again in 1919 and founded the first anarchist daily Umanità Nova .

In October 1920 Malatesta called strikes and called on workers to occupy factories. This led to occupations and protests in Milan and Turin . Some cities followed, but the Socialist Party and trade unions convinced the workers to end the strike. Malatesta and 81 other anarchists were imprisoned.

In July 1921, Malatesta went on hunger strike to protest the delay in his trial. He was ultimately found not guilty and released from prison two months before the Italian fascists came to power.

Despite the censorship and attacks by the fascists, Malatesta published the anarchist bimonthly magazine Pensiero e Volontà between 1924 and 1926 , until Mussolini silenced the independent press in 1926.

In Pensiero e Volontà Malatesta published some of his most important essays on the program and strategy of the anarchist movement. From late 1926 until his death in 1932, Malatesta lived in Rome, where he worked as an electrician. The police under the fascist dictatorship of Mussolini monitored him, but because of his old age he remained largely unmolested.

Meaning and views

Malatesta was one of the most internationally known anarchists of his time. Since he was searched, monitored, arrested, deported or imprisoned by the police in most of Europe , he was almost a legendary figure. In doing so, he distanced himself from the individual terror of the anarchist movement, which was widespread in Italy, and instead called for more effective collective forms of struggle. Malatesta did not reject violence as a political means and as a response to the violence of the rulers.

The syndicalism was Malatesta skeptical and critical. He was concerned about the absolutism of the syndicalist methods of struggle and warned against the conservatism of a syndicalist bureaucracy. In Malatesta's view, the general strike was no substitute for the real revolution . The lesson he learned from the labor disputes in Belgium and Italy was that a strike must lead to general insurrection or collapse quickly.

Malatesta also rejected the fixation on the working class . On the one hand, one could not speak of complete interests homogeneity and corresponding readiness for revolution in this case ; on the other hand, anarchism is not only concerned with the emancipation of a single class, but with the complete liberation of the whole of humanity from its economic, political and moral slavery.

Malatesta was resolutely opposed to the compromise with parliamentarianism . Here he differed from many of his former companions who sooner or later joined the socialist party or at least worked with it.

Malatesta magazines

Works

  • Anarchy . 3rd edition, repr. Of the 2nd EMS-Kopp-Verlag, Meppen / Ems 1977, DNB  946720606 (first edition: Brussels 1909).
  • Collected Writings. Theory and practice of anarchism, anarchism and communism, on the morality of revolutionaries, factory occupations and armed uprisings, daytime battles. (2 volumes). Edited and translated by Elke Wehr . Verlag Bernd Kramer, Berlin
  • Among farm workers. A dialogue. Ems-Kopp-Verlag, Meppen 1980.
  • Unwritten autobiography. Memories (1853-1932). Edited by Piero Brunello and Pietro Di Paola. Edition Nautilus, Hamburg 2009, ISBN 978-3-89401-594-7 .
  • Anarchist Interventions. Selected Writings (1892–1931). Edited by Philippe Kellermann. Unrast, Münster 2014, ISBN 978-3-89771-921-7 .

literature

  • Giampietro Domenico Berti: Errico Malatesta e il movimento anarchico italiano e internazionale 1872–1932. Milan 2003, ISBN 88-464-4934-7 .
  • Christian Koller: Errico Malatesta. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland . August 14, 2008 , accessed December 14, 2019 .
  • Max Nettlau : Errico Malatesta. The life of an anarchist. Berlin 1922.
  • Vernon Richards: Errico Malatesta: His Life and Ideas. London 1965.

Movie

In 1970 the German director Peter Lilienthal made the film Malatesta about Errico Malatesta's time in exile in London. Eddie Constantine took on the role of Errico Malatesta .

Web links

Commons : Errico Malatesta  - collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Malatesta, Errico
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian anarchist and co-founder of the anarchist movement in Italy
DATE OF BIRTH December 14, 1853
PLACE OF BIRTH Capua , Caserta Province
DATE OF DEATH July 22, 1932
Place of death Rome