A-Infos (en) Sicilia Libertaria 2-24: THE MALATESTA OF TURCATO (ca, de, it, pt, tr) [machine translation]

With the anarchist method. Errico Malatesta's experiments with 
revolution (1889-1900), published by Odradek in 2023 (which translates 
Making Sense of Anarchism from 2012), Davide Turcato gives us a work of 
great historiographical value for the mastery with which he handles a 
topic who he knows well, for being the editor of Malatesta's complete 
works, and for the ability with which he manages to avoid the pitfalls 
of mannered biographism. ---- Thus, unlike some current exegetes of the 
Campanian anarchist, he avoids falling into "inference", that is, the 
claim to trace the thought and action of a substantial part of the 
anarchists of his era to Malatesta alone ; or in the risk of attributing 
to it the "representativeness" of a movement that in Italy has always 
been very complex, fragmented, changeable, contentious, sometimes 
hybrid. The distance from the Italian academic environment helps him, 
but at the same time penalizes him. In the book we find on the one hand 
the opening to new perspectives of interdisciplinary research and 
analysis, with the introduction of courageous and sometimes daring 
contaminations with contemporary philosophy, psychology, sociology and 
anthropology, unprecedented in the Italian historiographical panorama 
(yes see for example the comparison of Malatesta's thought with Popper's 
falsificationism and with game theory); on the other hand, however, a 
certain scarcity of archival and bibliographic documentation (this can 
be seen in particular regarding the period of the Capolago congress and 
in the pages dedicated to the Fasci dei Lavoratori) and the use of 
concepts, foreign to anarchism, such as those of leader and party boss.

Venial sins if compared to the author's superb refutation of the 
stereotype that anarchism is immutable and detached from reality: on the 
contrary, he demonstrates that it has continuously evolved based on the 
lessons of experience, so much so that it makes anarchists, Malatesta 
first and foremost, original political positions, characterized by 
flexibility and pragmatism, which clearly contrast with the reproach, 
addressed to them on several occasions by Nico Berti, of ideological 
rigidity and political inability. Among other things, the overcoming of 
the ideological conflict between communists and anarchist collectivists 
can be traced back to Malatesta's flexibility and mediation upon his 
return from South America in 1889, described in detail by Turcato. While 
his advocacy of voluntarism as opposed to the quiet life propagated by 
positivism, determinism and scientism can also be attributed to a high 
idea of militant politics. What is missing, however, and would have been 
extremely useful, is an in-depth study of the concept of will, central 
to Malatesta, for example by researching its origins and comparing it 
with similar concepts of a philosophical or sociological nature.

Another central concept in Malatesta, also eminently political, is that 
of revolutionary gradualism. It was fully developed in the 1920s, but 
Turcato grasped its roots, which were uncertain and contradictory 
(Malatesta relegated it to the post-revolutionary phase), already at the 
end of the 19th century. It will evolve in tandem with the 
insurrectional idea, of which Turcato reconstructs the Malatesta path 
that took place between second thoughts and turns, addressing the 
various critical reasons, including the tendency of violent means to 
overcome and condition the ends. However, the comparison between the 
position that Malatesta weaves together on this issue, and in general on 
the organizational question in general, with the non-organizing currents 
of the anarchist movement is weak in the book. To bring this into focus, 
it might be useful to rely on the excellent biography of Galleani, a 
leading exponent of anti-organisation anarchism, written by Antonio 
Senta (Luigi Galleani, the most dangerous anarchist in America, Nova 
Delphi 2018): a synchronous reading of the Turcato's book with that of 
Senta will perhaps allow us to highlight the real relationships between 
the two main tendencies of Italian anarchism, not always conflictual - 
as they are usually portrayed - but often characterized by mutual 
respect and solidarity.

In one of his essays from 2007, reprinted in Italian in 2021 by the 
magazine "Acronia", which mistakenly considered it a "precious 
methodological point of reference", Turcato attributed it almost 
exclusively to the contribution of anarchist emigration abroad (which he 
calls transnational), and its relational networks, the karst 
re-emergence of anarchism, in different periods, in Italian society (and 
in history books). This exaggerated vision of a decisive contribution 
provided by emigrants and exiles to the internal anarchist movement was 
corrected by the author in the book we are dealing with. He no longer 
assigns emigrant anarchists an overdetermined or substitutive role for 
anarchists who remained at home, persecuted, imprisoned, sent to forced 
residence, etc. yet always vital and active in their territories. At 
most he entrusts militants abroad with the task of supporting their 
comrades at home in various ways, financially, with newspapers and 
correspondence, with theoretical writings, etc. helping to preserve but 
not fully ensure the continuity of movement in time and space.

In reality, the continuity/discontinuity dichotomy in the anarchist 
movement is linked to the studies, lacking in many respects, on Italian 
anarchism within the country, beyond and perhaps more than outside it, 
and on the great differences not only ideological and organizational, 
but territorial (regional and local), among Italian anarchisms. Which 
does not mean denying the importance and sometimes substantial 
contribution of human and material resources from abroad. But it is also 
true that fundamental concepts of Malatesta thought, such as 
"voluntarism" (better to say "voluntism") and "revolutionary 
gradualism", are indigenous elaborations and have only weak evidence 
outside Italy.

And the transnational network itself, repeatedly evoked by Turcato, 
appears rather evanescent due to its informal character. Paradoxically, 
it was informality that constituted Malatesta's main polemical target 
when he worked to create a first formal organization within the Italian 
anarchist movement, more cohesive, articulated and structured than in 
the past. It would be interesting to investigate how he saw or 
considered himself within that organization.

Christmas Musarra

https://www.sicilialibertaria.it/
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