Editing Errico Malatesta (section)

=== Arrest in Italy ===
[[File:Malatesta.png|thumb|Malatesta around the 1890s]]
The late 1890s were a time of social turmoil in Italy, marked by bad harvests, rising prices, and [[peasant]] revolts.<ref name=Joll175/> [[Strike action|Strikes]] of workers were met by demands for repression and for a time it seemed as though government authority was hanging by a thread.<ref name=Joll175/> Malatesta found the situation irresistible and early in 1898 he returned to the port city of [[Ancona]] to take part in the blossoming anarchist movement among the dockworkers there.<ref name=Joll175/> Malatesta was soon identified as a leader during street fighting with police and arrested; he was therefore unable to participate further in the dramatic industrial and political actions of 1898 and 1899.<ref name=Joll175/>

From jail, Malatesta took a hard line against participation in elections on behalf of liberal and [[socialism|socialist]] politicians, contradicting [[Saverio Merlino]] and other anarchist leaders who argued in favor of electoral participation as an emergency measure during times of social turmoil.<ref name=Joll175/> Malatesta was convicted of "seditious association" and sentenced to a term of imprisonment on the island of [[Lampedusa]].<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Joll |author-first=James |author-link=James Joll |title=[[The Anarchists (book)|The Anarchists]] |location=Boston, MA |publisher=Little, Brown & Co. |date=1964 |pages=175–176}}</ref>