Anarchy (Anarchist Classics Series)

Errico Malatesta in 1891

Anarchy by

Errico Malatesta

Translation from the Italian Original A New

FREEDOM PRESS 1974

First published as L'ANARCHIA by the Biblioteca dell' Associazione London March 1891 Reprinted 1980 Reprinted 1984 This English translation copywright

©

Vernon Richards and Freedom Press 1974 Published by Freedom Press in Angel Alley 84b Whitechapel High St London E1 Printed in Great Britain by Aldgate Press London

The first English translation of l'Anarchia appeared

in serial

form

in

the

monthly

journal Freedom from Sept 1891 to June 1892 and was reprinted as a pamphlet by Freedom

Press

in 1892 and many times

thereafter. It was re-set with a biographical note in 1942 (7th Edition) and reprinted in the

same

year

and

in 1945. Re-set and

revised in 1949 (8th Edition) and reprinted in 1958.

Printed in Great Britain

Translator's Introduction In September 1889 Malatesta returned to Europe from South America whence he and other comrades had fled from Italy in 1884/5. According to the eminent anarchist historian Max Nettlau, his return to Europe was influenced both by the politically favourable news-the reawakening of socialism everywhere as demonstrated by the dockers' strike in London and the celebration of May Day -as well as by the fact that "he was in possession of the necessary means to make propaganda". So much so that immediately on his return he announced the pUblication in Nice (France) of a journal "I' Associazione" but after three issues Malatesta had to flee the country because of the machinations of one Terzaghi, a police spy, and by October 1889 he was for the second time in London. Malatesta spent some thirty-eight years of his life in exile, mostly in London. His first exile in London was from 1881-83. He returned to Italy and published La Questione Sociale (a file of which is preserved in that unique archive, the British Museum Periodicals department, but not in Italy). It appeared for eight months until he was once again obliged either at the end of 1884 or the beginning of 1885 to flee the country to avoid a three year prison sentence imposed in February 1884. That they were different times is illustrated by the fact that Malatesta and his friends having appealed against the sentences And were released and he continued to publish his periodical. in the autumn of that same year NettIau tells us that "Malatesta and other comrades went to Naples, where an outbreak of cholera had assumed alarming proportions, to help in the hospitals. Costa and other socialists did likewise. Two anarchists . . . died. Those who returned declared in a manifesto that the real basis of cholera was poverty and the only real solution was the social revolution" [In 1973 cholera in Naples makes the headlines. Basically are not Only in November the causes and the solution still the same?]

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4

ERRICO MALATESTA

was the appeal heard and remanded to January 1885 by which time all the: accused had left the country. Malatesta's third exile in Lo ndon was the longes t from 1899 to 1913. It followed a brief period of intense activity in Italy in 1897 when he published /' Agitazione, which ceased pu blication when he was sent'�nced to a term of political internment by the military authorities. The trial was of special significance, and I cannot do better than quote what I have already written elsewhere: -

One of the interesting aspects of this trial was that whereas in past trials most anarchists denied the charge of "criminal association" on the grounds that they were opposed to organisation, Malatesta and his friends not only declared that they were organised, but also demanded the right of anarchists to join a formal organisation. This gave rise to agitation throughout Italy for ,·the freedom to organise" promote d by the Anarchist Socialist Federation of Romagna, and supported energetically from the columns of l' Agilazione, which continued publication in spite of further arrests of those who had taken M alatesta s place (among them Fabbri. a young man of 20). By the timf: the trial took place, four months later, over 3,000 anarchists, ill the name of many groups and dubs had sign ed a public manifesto in which they declared their pol itical beliefs, and affirmed that they were members of a "party" and in complete agreement with the accused. More support came from all parts of the world. '

Malatesta rec eived a modest seven months sentence and sev,n of his comrades got six months but the s ti n g was in the tail for when they were due to be released all w