Data di nascita: 4. Dicembre 1853
Data di morte: 22. Luglio 1932
Errico Gaetano Maria Pasquale Malatesta è stato un anarchico e scrittore italiano, tra i principali teorici del movimento anarchico.
Passò più di dieci anni della sua vita in carcere e buona parte in esilio all'estero. Collaborò ad un gran numero di testate rivoluzionarie ed è nota la sua amicizia con Michail Bakunin. Assieme a quest'ultimo e a Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, rappresenta uno dei pensatori più importanti della corrente libertaria, da alcuni ritenuto il più importante teorizzatore e rivoluzionario dell'anarchia.Fu fermamente convinto, così come l'amico Pëtr Kropotkin, dell'imminente avvento di una rivoluzione anarchica . Pochi mesi dopo iniziò infatti la Rivoluzione russa, che ebbe il supporto anche degli anarchici, ma terminò con la presa di potere da parte dei bolscevichi. Solamente dopo 19 anni arrivò una vera rivoluzione anarchica, la fallita Rivoluzione spagnola. Malatesta è riconosciuto come il massimo esponente del movimento libertario italiano e del libero pensiero.
— Errico Malatesta
L'Anarchia
— Errico Malatesta
da Scritti, Risveglio, 1934, vol. I
— Errico Malatesta
Organizzatori e antiorganizzatori
— Errico Malatesta
Né democratici né dittatoriali: anarchici
— Errico Malatesta
L'Anarchia
— Errico Malatesta
da Individuo, società, anarchia: la scelta del volontarismo etico, a cura di Nico Berti, e/o, 1998
— Errico Malatesta
Né democratici né dittatoriali: anarchici
— Errico Malatesta
Né democratici né dittatoriali: anarchici
— Errico Malatesta
1913; citato in L'espresso, 3 agosto 2006, p. 118
— Errico Malatesta
Né democratici né dittatoriali: anarchici
— Errico Malatesta
Organizzatori e antiorganizzatori
— Errico Malatesta
L'Anarchia
— Errico Malatesta
L'Anarchia
— Errico Malatesta
Note to the article 'Individualism and Anarchism' by Adams (1924), Context: I claimed that "individualist anarchism and communist anarchism are the same, or nearly so, in terms of moral motivations and ultimate goals".
I know that one could counter my claim with hundreds of texts and plenty of deeds of self-proclaimed individualist anarchists, which would demonstrate that individualist anarchist and communist anarchist are separated by something of a moral abyss.
However, I deny that that kind of individualists can be included among anarchists, despite their liking for calling themselves so.
If anarchy means non-government, non-domination, non-oppression by man over man, how can one call himself anarchist without lying to himself and the others, when he frankly claims that he would oppress the others for the satisfaction of his Ego, without any scruple or limit, other than that drawn by his own strength? He can be a rebel, because he is being oppressed and he fights to become an oppressor, as other nobler rebels fight to destroy any kind of oppression; but he sure cannot be anarchist. He is a would-be bourgeois, a would-be tyrant, who is unable to accomplish his dreams of dominion and wealth by his own strength and by legal means, and therefore he approaches anarchists to exploit their moral and material solidarity.
Therefore, I think the question is not about "communists" and "individualists", but rather about anarchists and non-anarchists. And we, or at least many of us, were quite wrong in discussing a certain kind of alleged "anarchist individualism" as if it really was one of the various tendencies of anarchism, instead of fighting it as one of the many disguises of authoritarianism.
— Errico Malatesta
Note to the article 'Individualism and Anarchism' by Adams (1924), Context: I claimed that "individualist anarchism and communist anarchism are the same, or nearly so, in terms of moral motivations and ultimate goals".
I know that one could counter my claim with hundreds of texts and plenty of deeds of self-proclaimed individualist anarchists, which would demonstrate that individualist anarchist and communist anarchist are separated by something of a moral abyss.
However, I deny that that kind of individualists can be included among anarchists, despite their liking for calling themselves so.
If anarchy means non-government, non-domination, non-oppression by man over man, how can one call himself anarchist without lying to himself and the others, when he frankly claims that he would oppress the others for the satisfaction of his Ego, without any scruple or limit, other than that drawn by his own strength? He can be a rebel, because he is being oppressed and he fights to become an oppressor, as other nobler rebels fight to destroy any kind of oppression; but he sure cannot be anarchist. He is a would-be bourgeois, a would-be tyrant, who is unable to accomplish his dreams of dominion and wealth by his own strength and by legal means, and therefore he approaches anarchists to exploit their moral and material solidarity.
Therefore, I think the question is not about "communists" and "individualists", but rather about anarchists and non-anarchists. And we, or at least many of us, were quite wrong in discussing a certain kind of alleged "anarchist individualism" as if it really was one of the various tendencies of anarchism, instead of fighting it as one of the many disguises of authoritarianism.
— Errico Malatesta
Neither Democrats, Nor Dictators: Anarchists (1926), Context: The "government of all the people", if we have to have government, can at best be only the government of the majority. And the democrats, whether socialists or not, are willing to agree. They add, it is true, that one must respect minority rights; but since it is the majority that decides what these rights are, as a result minorities only have the right to do what the majority wants and allows. The only limit to the will of the majority would be the resistance which the minorities know and can put up. This means that there would always be a social struggle, in which a part of the members, albeit the majority, has the right to impose its own will on the others, yoking the efforts of all to their own ends.
And here I would make an aside to show how, based on reasoning backed by the evidence of past and present events, it is not even true that where there is government, namely authority, that authority resides in the majority and how in reality every "democracy" has been, is and must be nothing short of an "oligarchy" – a government of the few, a dictatorship. But, for the purposes of this article, I prefer to err on the side of the democrats and assume that there can really be a true and sincere majority government.
Government means the right to make the law and to impose it on everyone by force: without a police force there is no government.
— Errico Malatesta
Neither Democrats, Nor Dictators: Anarchists (1926), Context: The "government of all the people", if we have to have government, can at best be only the government of the majority. And the democrats, whether socialists or not, are willing to agree. They add, it is true, that one must respect minority rights; but since it is the majority that decides what these rights are, as a result minorities only have the right to do what the majority wants and allows. The only limit to the will of the majority would be the resistance which the minorities know and can put up. This means that there would always be a social struggle, in which a part of the members, albeit the majority, has the right to impose its own will on the others, yoking the efforts of all to their own ends.
And here I would make an aside to show how, based on reasoning backed by the evidence of past and present events, it is not even true that where there is government, namely authority, that authority resides in the majority and how in reality every "democracy" has been, is and must be nothing short of an "oligarchy" – a government of the few, a dictatorship. But, for the purposes of this article, I prefer to err on the side of the democrats and assume that there can really be a true and sincere majority government.
Government means the right to make the law and to impose it on everyone by force: without a police force there is no government.
