Errico Malatesta

Errico Malatesta (December 14, 1853 – July 22, 1932) was an anarcho-communist with an unshakable belief, which he shared with his friend Peter Kropotkin, that the anarchist revolution would occur soon. He spent a large part of his life in exile from his homeland of Italy and altogether spent more than ten years in prison. He wrote and edited a number of radical newspapers and was a friend of Mikhail Bakunin.

Political beliefs

Malatesta was a principled anarchist ? he would always adhere to anarchist principles no matter what the situation. He always rejected party politics and political revolution, preferring social revolution; he was even suspicious of the use of revolutionary trade unions, as anarcho-syndicalists advocate.

Related Topics:
Trade union - Anarcho-syndicalist

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On violence

Malatesta was a committed revolutionary: he believed that the anarchist revolution was coming soon, and that violence would be a necessary part of it since the state rested ultimately on violent coercion. As he wrote in his article "The Revolutionary 'Haste'":

Related Topics:
Violence - State

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:It is our aspiration and our aim that everyone should become socially conscious and effective; but to achieve this end, it is necessary to provide all with the means of life and for development, and it is therefore necessary to destroy with violence, since one cannot do otherwise, the violence which denies these means to the workers. (Umanità Nova, number 125, September 6, 1921http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/malatesta/rev_haste.html)

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Malatesta, then, advocated violence as a necessary part of the emancipation of the working class.

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:See also: anarchism and violence.

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