Errico Malatesta was an Italian anarchist propagandist and revolutionary socialist. He edited several radical newspapers and spent much of his life exiled and imprisoned, having been jailed and expelled from Italy, Britain, France, and Switzerland. Originally a supporter of insurrectionary propaganda by deed, Malatesta later advocated for syndicalism. His exiles included five years in Europe and 12 years in Argentina. Malatesta participated in actions including an 1895 Spanish revolt and a Belgian general strike. He toured the United States, giving lectures and founding the influential anarchist journal La Questione Sociale. After World War I, he returned to Italy where his Umanità Nova had some popularity before its closure under the rise of Mussolini.
Anarchism and violence have been linked together by events in anarchist history such as violent revolution, terrorism, and assassination attempts. Leading late 19th century anarchists espoused propaganda by deed, or attentáts, and was associated with a number of incidents of political violence. Anarchist thought, however, is quite diverse on the question of violence. Where some anarchists have opposed coercive means on the basis of coherence, others have supported acts of violent revolution as a path toward anarchy. Anarcho-pacifism is a school of thought within anarchism which rejects all violence.
Alfredo Maria Bonanno was an Italian anarchist, recognized as a prominent theorist and proponent of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism. A long-time anarchist, he was imprisoned multiple times. Bonanno was an editor of Anarchismo Editions, among many other publications, only some of which have been translated into English. He was involved in the anarchist movement for over four decades. Bonanno died on 6 December 2023, at the age of 86.
Camillo Berneri was an Italian professor of philosophy, anarchist militant, propagandist and theorist. He was assassinated during the Spanish Civil War, presumably on the orders from Stalin's USSR.
Anarchism as a social movement in Cuba held great influence with the working classes during the 19th and early 20th century. The movement was particularly strong following the abolition of slavery in 1886, until it was repressed first in 1925 by President Gerardo Machado, and more thoroughly by Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government following the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s. Cuban anarchism mainly took the form of anarcho-collectivism based on the works of Mikhail Bakunin and, later, anarcho-syndicalism. The Latin American labor movement, and by extension the Cuban labor movement, was at first more influenced by anarchism than Marxism.
Umanità Nova is an Italian anarchist newspaper founded in 1920.
Italian anarchism as a movement began primarily from the influence of Mikhail Bakunin, Giuseppe Fanelli, Carlo Cafiero, and Errico Malatesta. Rooted in collectivist anarchism and social or socialist anarchism, it expanded to include illegalist individualist anarchism, mutualism, anarcho-syndicalism, and especially anarcho-communism. In fact, anarcho-communism first fully formed into its modern strain within the Italian section of the First International. Italian anarchism and Italian anarchists participated in the biennio rosso and survived Italian Fascism, with Italian anarchists significantly contributing to the Italian Resistance Movement. Platformism and insurrectionary anarchism were particularly common in Italian anarchism and continue to influence the movement today. The synthesist Italian Anarchist Federation appeared after the war, and autonomismo and operaismo especially influenced Italian anarchism in the second half of the 20th century.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to anarchism:
The Informal Anarchist Federation is an insurrectionary anarchist organization. It has been described by Italian intelligence sources as a "horizontal" structure of various anarchist groups, united in their beliefs in revolutionary armed action. Groups and individuals comprising the FAI act both as separate organizations and also under the FAI, and are known to format group campaigns. The FAI notably shares similar aims and ideals with Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei, the two often working in solidarity with each other, the SPF being known to announce solidarity with FAI in their communiques. The group has its roots in Italy, but, since 2012, has begun executing attacks in various countries across the world.
Fédération Anarchiste is an anarchist federation in France, Belgium and Switzerland. It is a member of the International of Anarchist Federations since the latter's establishment in 1968.
Emilio Covelli (1846–1915) was an Italian anarchist and socialist who together with Carlo Cafiero was one of the most important figures in the early socialist movement in Italy, a member of the International Workingmen's Association, or "First International". He lived in exile in Paris for a while, returning to Italy for reasons of health, and dying in the psychiatric hospital in Nocera Inferiore.
The Italian Anarchist Communist Union, or Italian Anarchist Union, was an Italian political organization founded in Florence in 1919. It played an important role during the unrest of the Red Biennium, before it was suppressed by the fascist regime in 1926.
Anarchism in Egypt refers both to the historical Egyptian anarchist movement which emerged in the 1860s and lasted until the 1940s, and to the anarchist movement as it has re-emerged in the early 2000s. Anarchism was first introduced to Egypt by Italian immigrant workers and political exiles in the 1860s. The Italian community in Egypt was one of numerous such communities of expatriate workers whose presence in Egypt dated to the modernisation programme of Muhammad Ali, Wāli of Egypt from 1805 to 1849, as part of which the immigration of foreigners with useful skills was encouraged. This process was accelerated under Ali's successors, in particular with the construction of the Suez Canal in the 1850s.
Lorenzo Parodi was an Italian trade unionist, communist revolutionary and politician, founder in 1965 of Lotta Comunista with Arrigo Cervetto.
Pio Turroni was an Italian anarchist and editor of many anarchist publications. He fought for the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War as a member of the Confederal Militias.
The Banda del Matese was a group of Italian republicans affiliated with the Italian First International who plotted an insurgent rebellion in the Matese mountains in 1877. The group of 26 men included later anarchist leaders, veterans of Garibaldi, and Russian revolutionary Stepniak. Inspired by the 1875 rediscovery of Carlo Pisacane's writings, the group planned a rebellion through propaganda by deed in which they would occupy buildings, upset rail travel and communication, and encourage property redistribution as a means of showing their group's dedication to sociopolitical change. They surrendered to the military after six days. The group was acquitted in 1878 and their means of propaganda was effective, but their campaign had proven the new limitations of guerrilla tactics in light of technical advances.
Ugo Mazzucchelli was an Italian anarchist, anti-fascist and wartime partisan leader. He is best remembered as the commander of the Lucetti Battalion which became known as a tough opponent for the German and Fascist forces, when Italy became a critical battleground between 1943 and 1945, following the arrest of Mussolini.
Paolo Lega (1868–1896), also known as Marat, was an Italian anarchist who attempted to assassinate the prime minister, Francesco Crispi.
Gino Bibbi was an Italian engineer, political activist, anarchist, militant antifascist who participated in the Spanish Revolution of 1936 as a republican fighter pilot. Earlier, he had placed his engineering skills at the service of the causes for which he fought. He supplied the SIPE grenade-bomb which his cousin Gino Lucetti threw at Mussolini's car in Rome on 11 September 1926. The bomb exploded only after bouncing off the roof of the car containing its intended target: Mussolini was undamaged. Bibbi was arrested, but later escaped and fled abroad.
The anarchist brigades of the Italian Resistance were active during the Second World War, especially in central and northern Italy.
