Editing Errico Malatesta

{{Short description|Italian anarchist (1853–1932)}}
{{distinguish|Enrico Malatesta}}
{{EngvarB|date=July 2023}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2022}}
{{Infobox philosopher
| name               = Errico Malatesta
| image              = Malatesta 1891.png
| caption            = Malatesta, 1891
| birth_date         = {{birth date|1853|12|4|df=y}}
| birth_place        = [[Santa Maria Capua Vetere]], [[Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]]
| death_date         = {{death date and age|1932|7|22|1853|12|4|df=y}}
| death_place        = [[Rome]], [[Kingdom of Italy]]
| occupation         = {{hlist|Revolutionary|activist|writer}}
| school_tradition   = [[Anarcho-communism]]
| signature          = Errico Malatesta signature.svg
}}
'''Errico Malatesta''' (4 December 1853 – 22 July 1932) was an Italian [[anarchist]] propagandist, theorist 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]].

== Biography ==
=== Early years ===
Errico Malatesta was born on 4 December 1853<ref>{{cite ODNB|author-last=Gibbard |author-first=Paul |date=2005 |title=Malatesta, Errico |doi=10.1093/ref:odnb/58609 }}</ref><ref>{{cite encyclopedia |author-last1=Lotha |author-first1=Gloria |author-last2=Promeet |author-first2=Dutta |date=18 July 2020 |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Errico-Malatesta |title=Errico Malatesta |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica Online |access-date=15 September 2020 |archive-date=26 October 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201026194809/https://www.britannica.com/biography/Errico-Malatesta |url-status=live }}</ref> to a family of middle-class landowners in Santa Maria Maggiore, at the time part of the city of [[Capua]] (currently an autonomous municipality renamed [[Santa Maria Capua Vetere]], in the province of Caserta), at the time part of the [[Kingdom of the Two Sicilies]]. More distantly, his ancestors ruled [[Rimini]] as the [[House of Malatesta]]. The first of a long series of arrests came at age fourteen, when he was apprehended for writing an "insolent and threatening" letter to King [[Victor Emmanuel II]].<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Guérin |author-first=Daniel |author-link=Daniel Guérin |title=No Gods, No Masters |volume=1–4 |publisher=AK Press |year=2005 |isbn=9781904859253 |page=349 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=g4YncZ8MgRsC&pg=PA349 |access-date=18 March 2016 |archive-date=11 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111115535/http://books.google.com/books?id=g4YncZ8MgRsC&pg=PA349 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author-last=Benewick |author-first=Robert |chapter=Errico Malatesta 1853–1932 |title=The Routledge Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Political Thinkers |publisher=Psychology Press |year=1998 |isbn=9780415096232 |page=202 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-jnaCUyzjMQC&pg=PA202 |access-date=18 March 2016 |archive-date=11 January 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140111143037/http://books.google.com/books?id=-jnaCUyzjMQC&pg=PA202 |url-status=live}}</ref>

In April 1877, Malatesta, [[Carlo Cafiero]], [[Sergey Stepnyak-Kravchinsky]] and about thirty others started an [[Banda del Matese|insurrection in the province of Benevento]], taking the villages of [[Letino]] and [[Gallo Matese|Gallo]] without a struggle. The revolutionaries burnt tax registers and declared the end of the King's reign and were met with enthusiasm. After leaving Gallo, however, they were arrested by government troops and held for sixteen months before being acquitted. After [[Giovanni Passannante]]'s murder attempt on the king [[Umberto I]], the radicals were kept under constant surveillance by the police. Even though the anarchists claimed to have no connection to Passannante, Malatesta, being an advocate of social revolution, was included in this surveillance. After returning to [[Naples]], he was forced to leave Italy altogether in the fall of 1878 because of the intense surveillance, beginning his life in exile.<ref name=Joll174>{{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=174}}</ref>

=== Years of exile ===
[[File:Élisée Reclus, by Nadar, retouched.jpg|thumb|Prominent French anarchist [[Élisée Reclus]], a friend of Malatesta]]
He went to Egypt briefly, visiting some Italian friends but was soon expelled by the Italian Consul.<ref name=Joll174/> After working his passage on a French ship and being refused entry to Syria, Turkey and Italy, he landed in Marseille where he made his way to [[Geneva]], [[Switzerland]] – then something of an anarchist centre.<ref name=Joll174/> It was there that he befriended [[Élisée Reclus]] and [[Peter Kropotkin]], helping the latter to produce ''[[La Révolte]].'' The Swiss respite was brief, however, and after a few months he was expelled from Switzerland, travelling first to [[Romania]] before reaching Paris, where he worked briefly as a mechanic.<ref name=Joll175>{{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}}</ref>

In 1881, he set out for a new home in London. He would come and go from that city for the next 40 years.<ref name=Joll175/> There, Malatesta worked as a mechanic.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TEEiCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA51|title=The Knights Errant of Anarchy: London and the Italian Anarchist Diaspora (1880-1917)|isbn=9781846319693|last1=Paola|first1=Pietro Di|year=2013|publisher=Oxford University Press |access-date=23 January 2022|archive-date=23 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220123074157/https://books.google.com/books?id=TEEiCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA51|url-status=live}}</ref> Emilia Tronzio, Malatesta's mistress in the 1870s, was the step-sister of the internationalist [[Tito Zanardelli]].<ref>{{cite book |url=http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/2586/1/Italian_Anarchists_in_London_1870-1914.pdf |title=Italian Anarchists in London |page=54 |author-last=Dipaola |author-first=Pietro |date=April 2004 |access-date=28 August 2013 |chapter=The 1880s and the International Revolutionary Socialist Congress |archive-date=7 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907103041/http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/2586/1/Italian_Anarchists_in_London_1870-1914.pdf |url-status=live }}</ref>
With Malatesta's consent and support she married [[Giovanni Defendi]], who came to stay with Malatesta in London in 1881 after being released from jail.<ref>{{cite journal |ref={{harvid|Sur les traces de Malatesta 2010}} |url=http://acontretemps.org/spip.php?article282 |title=Sur les traces de Malatesta |language=fr |trans-title=In the footsteps of Malatesta |date=January 2010 |journal=A Contretemps |access-date=1 September 2013 |archive-date=24 December 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224111544/http://acontretemps.org/spip.php?article282 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Malatesta attended [[1881 London Social Revolutionary Congress|the July 1881 Anarchist Congress in London]]. Other delegates included [[Peter Kropotkin]], [[Francesco Saverio Merlino]], [[Marie Le Compte]], [[Louise Michel]] and [[Émile Gautier]]. While respecting "complete autonomy of local groups" the congress defined propaganda actions that all could follow and agreed that "[[propaganda by the deed]]" was the path to social revolution.<ref>{{cite journal |url=http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_2006_num_84_4_5056 |page=965 |author-last=Bantman |author-first=Constance |title=Internationalism without an International? Cross-Channel Anarchist Networks, 1880–1914 |journal=[[Revue belge de philologie et d'histoire]] |year=2006 |volume=84 |issue=84–4 |access-date=30 August 2013 |doi=10.3406/rbph.2006.5056 |archive-date=24 September 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150924214037/http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rbph_0035-0818_2006_num_84_4_5056 |url-status=live }}</ref>

With the outbreak of the [[Anglo-Egyptian War (1882)|Anglo-Egyptian War]] in 1882, Malatesta organised a small group to help fight against the British. In August, he and three other men departed for Egypt. They landed in [[Abu Qir]], then travelled towards Ramleh, [[Alexandria]]. After a difficult crossing of [[Lake Mariout]], they were surrounded and detained by British forces, without having undertaken any fighting. He secretly returned to Italy the following year.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/malatesta/lifeofmalatesta.html |title=Life of Malatesta |author-first=Luigi |author-last=Fabbri |author-link=Luigi Fabbri |date=1936 |website=Anarchy Archives |access-date=9 August 2013 |archive-date=29 December 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161229110412/http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/Anarchist_Archives/malatesta/lifeofmalatesta.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

In [[Florence]] he founded the weekly anarchist paper {{lang|fr|La Questione Sociale}} (''The Social Question'') in which his most popular [[pamphlet]], {{lang|it|Fra contadini}} (''Among Farmers''), first appeared. Malatesta went back to Naples in 1884—while waiting to serve a three-year prison term—to nurse the victims of a [[cholera]] epidemic. Once again, he fled Italy to escape imprisonment, this time heading for [[South America]]. He lived in [[Buenos Aires]] from 1885 until 1889, resuming publication of {{lang|fr|La Questione Sociale}} and spreading anarchist ideas among the Italian émigré community there.<ref name=Joll175/> He was involved in the founding of the first militant workers' union in Argentina and left an anarchist impression in the workers' movements there for years to come.<ref name=Joll175/>

Returning to Europe in 1889, Malatesta first published a newspaper called {{lang|it|L'Associazione}} in [[Nice]], remaining there until he was once again forced to flee to London.

=== 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> 

=== Escape and later life ===
He was able to escape from prison in May 1899 and he made his way home to London via [[Malta]] and [[Gibraltar]].<ref name="Joll176">{{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=176}}</ref> His escape occurred with the help of comrades around the world, including anarchists in [[Paterson, New Jersey]], London and Tunis, who helped arrange for him to leave the island on a ship of Greek sponge fishermen, who took him to [[Sousse]].<ref>{{cite journal|author-last=Carminati |author-first=Lucia |date=2017 |title=Alexandria, 1898: Nodes, Networks, and Scales in Nineteenth-Century Egypt and the Mediterranean |journal=Comparative Studies in Society and History |volume=59 |pages=127–153 |doi=10.1017/S0010417516000554 |s2cid=151859073}}</ref>

In subsequent years, Malatesta visited the United States, speaking there to anarchists in the Italian and Spanish immigrant communities.<ref name=Joll176/> Home again in London, he was closely watched by the police, who increasingly regarded anarchists as a threat following the July 1900 assassination of [[Umberto I of Italy|Umberto I]] by an Italian anarchist who had been living in Paterson, New Jersey.<ref name=Joll176/>

In 1902, the founding congress of the [[Unión Obrera Democrática Filipina]] - first national trade union federation in the Philippines - adopted Malatesta's book ''[[Between Peasants]]'' as being part of the political foundation of the movement.<ref name="gue">Guevarra, Dante G. ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=V3hVIawEXVUC&pg=PA17 History of the Philippine Labor Movement]''. Sta. Mesa, Manila: Institute of Labor & Industrial Relations, [[Polytechnic University of the Philippines]], 1991. pp. 17–18</ref>

=== Return to London ===
By 1910, he had opened an electrical workshop in London at 15 Duncan Terrace Islington and allowed the jewel thief George Gardenstein to use his premises. On 15 January 1910, he sold oxyacetylene cutting equipment for £5 (£500 at 2013 monetary values) to George Gardenstein so that he could break into the safe at H. S. Harris jewellers Houndsditch. Gardenstein led the gang that mounted the abortive Houndsditch robbery that is the precursor to the [[Siege of Sidney Street]]. Malatesta's cutting gear is on permanent display at the City of London Police museum at Wood Street police station.<ref>City of London Police museum.</ref>

While based in London, Malatesta made clandestine trips to France, Switzerland and Italy and went on a lecture tour of Spain with [[Fernando Tarrida del Mármol]]. During this time, he wrote several important pamphlets, including ''L'Anarchia''.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Malatesta |author-first=Errico |date=1974 |orig-date=1891 |url=http://robertgraham.wordpress.com/malatesta-anarchy-1891/ |title=Malatesta's Anarchy |translator-first=Vernon |translator-last=Richards |location=London |publisher=[[Freedom Press]] |isbn=9780904491111 |access-date=27 September 2012 |archive-date=23 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120923163745/http://robertgraham.wordpress.com/malatesta-anarchy-1891/ |url-status=live }}</ref> Malatesta then took part in the [[International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam]] (1907), where he debated in particular with [[Pierre Monatte]] on the relation between anarchism and [[syndicalism]] or [[trade union]]ism. The latter thought that syndicalism was revolutionary and would create the conditions of a social revolution, while Malatesta considered that syndicalism by itself was not sufficient.<ref name=Amsterdam>{{cite web|url=http://www.fondation-besnard.org/article.php3?id_article=225 |title=Extract of Malatesta's declaration |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070928002329/http://www.fondation-besnard.org/article.php3?id_article=225 |archive-date=28 September 2007 |language=fr}}</ref>

After the [[First World War]], Malatesta eventually returned to Italy for the final time. Two years after his return, in 1921, the Italian government imprisoned him again, although he was released two months before the fascists came to power. From 1924 until 1926, when [[Benito Mussolini]] silenced all independent press, Malatesta published the journal ''Pensiero e Volontà'', although he was harassed and the journal suffered from government censorship. He was to spend his remaining years leading a relatively quiet life, earning a living as an electrician. After years of suffering from a weak respiratory system and regular [[Bronchospasm|bronchial attacks]], he developed bronchial [[pneumonia]] from which he died after a few weeks, despite being given 1,500 litres of oxygen in his last five hours. He died on Friday 22 July 1932. He was an atheist.<ref>{{cite book|author-first=Misato |author-last=Toda |title=Errico Malatesta da Mazzini a Bakunin |language=it |trans-title=Errico Malatesta from Mazzini to Bakunin |publisher=Guida Editori |date=1988 |pages=75}}</ref>

== Political beliefs ==
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{{anarcho-communism sidebar|people}}
{{Communism in Italy|expanded=People}}
[[David Goodway]] writes that Malatesta held a "[[Mazzini]]-like role" and was "the leader of the [[Italian anarchist movement]] during its most important years. While other leaders of the [[International Workingmen's Association|International]] changed their opinions or abandoned politics, Malatesta remained firm in his original convictions for a half-century". In this sense, only Malatesta "remained devoted to [[anarchism]] by the end of the 1870s". Goodway argues that Malatesta was able to do so "by modifying his optimistic approach, substituting one of the more sophisticated versions of anarchism". Goodway writes that Malatesta developed "a two-pronged strategy" by the 1880s and early 1900s. Malatesta sought on one hand "to unify the anarchist and anti-parliamentary socialists into a new anarchist socialist party" as "anarchism was a minority movement within the Italian left", hence "Malatesta and his followers hoped to galvanize the elements of regional socialist group (the [[Fasci Siciliani]], the [[Italian Revolutionary Socialist Party|Revolutionary Socialist Party of Romagna]], and the [[Italian Socialist Party|Partito Operaio]]) into a new anti-parliamentary socialist party". On the other hand, Malatesta was "one of the first anarchists to stress a [[syndicalist]] strategy" and anarchists "had to prod the socialists into insurrections and remain a revolutionary conscience afterwards during socialist reconstruction". Goodway further writes that "Malatesta defined this type of [[anarchist communism]] as '[[anarchism without adjectives]]'", described by Goodway as "a concept which he had developed with a group of Spanish anarchist intellectuals in the process mediating between mutually hostile [[Collectivist anarchism|collectivists]] and communists". In stressing "tolerance within the [[libertarian socialism|libertarian]] movement", Malatesta hoped that "[[Marxist]] socialists would permit the anarchists liberty for their own movement in post-revolutionary society".<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Goodway |author-first=David |author-link=David Goodway |title=For Anarchism (RLE Anarchy) |date=26 June 2013 |location=Milton |publisher=[[Routledge]] |pages=39 |isbn=9781135037567}}</ref>

According to Davide Turcato, the label "[[anarchist socialism]]" came to characterize Malatesta's brand of anarchism as he "proclaimed the socialist character of anarchism and urged anarchists to regain contact with the working masses, especially through involvement in the labor movement". For Malatesta, "demanding the anarchists' admission to the [[International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London 1896|congress]] meant reasserting [[socialism]] and [[labor movement]] as central to anarchism; conversely, the Marxists' effort to exclude anarchists aimed at denying that they had a place among socialist and workers". According to Turcato, "Malatesta's struggle for admission to the congress was a statement of his new tactics". Turcato writes how "Malatesta recalled in the ''Labour Leader'' that in the old International both Marxists and [[Mikhail Bakunin|Bakuninists]] wished to make their program triumph. In the struggle between [[centralism]] and [[federalism]], [[class struggle]] and economic [[solidarity]] got neglected, and the International perished in the process. In contrast, anarchists were not presently demanding anyone to renounce their program. They only asked for divisions to be left out of the economic struggle, where they had no reason to exists ('Should')". In other words, "the issue was no longer hegemony, but the contrast between an exclusive view of socialism, for which one political idea was to be hegemonic, and an inclusive one, for which multiple political views were to coexist, united in the economic struggle. [...] The matter of the question had changed: the controversy was no longer with the anarchists, but about the anarchists".<ref>{{cite book|author-last=Turcato |author-first=Domenico |date=2012 |title=Making Sense of Anarchism: Errico Malatesta's Experiments with Revolution, 1889–1900 |location=New York |publisher=Springer |pages=137 |isbn=9781137271402|edition=illustrated }}</ref>

Anarchists who influenced Malatesta's political beliefs included [[Pierre-Joseph Proudhon]], [[Mikhail Bakunin]], [[Carlo Cafiero]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Pernicone|first=Nunzio|year=1993|title=Italian Anarchism, 1864–1892|publisher=[[Princeton University Press]]|isbn=0-691-05692-7|lccn=92-46661}}</ref> [[Peter Kropotkin]] and [[Élisée Reclus]]. In turn, Malatesta's works influenced Marxist philosopher [[Antonio Gramsci]] and [[Anarcha-feminism|anarcha-feminist]] activist [[Virginia Bolten]],<ref>{{cite book|last=Molyneux|first=Maxine|author-link=Maxine Molyneux|date=2001|chapter=‘No God, No Boss, No Husband!’ Anarchist Feminism in Nineteenth-Century Argentina|title=Women's Movements in International Perspective: Latin America and Beyond|publisher=[[Palgrave MacMillan]]|pages=13–37|isbn=978-0-333-78677-2|doi=10.1057/9780230286382_2|lccn=00-062707|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yg9HFrOG89kC&pg=PA24}}</ref> as well as the [[Argentine Regional Workers' Federation]]<ref>{{cite journal|title = The Uniqueness of Anarchism in Argentina|journal=Estudios Interdisciplinarios de América Latina y el Caribe|issn=0792-7061|last=Oved|first=Yaacov|author-link=Yaacov Oved|year= 1997|volume=8|issue=1|pages=63&ndash;76|doi=10.61490/eial.v8i1.1126 }}</ref> and wider [[Anarchism in Argentina|Argentine anarchist movement]].<ref>{{Citation|last =Colombo|first =Eduardo|year =1971|contribution =Anarchism in Argentina and Uruguay|editor-last =Apter|editor-first =David E.|editor-link =David E. Apter|editor2-last =Joll|editor2-first =James|editor2-link =James Joll|title =[[Anarchism Today]]|publication-place =Garden City, New York|publisher =Anchor Books|pages =211–244}}</ref>

=== On labour unions ===
Malatesta argued with [[Pierre Monatte]] at the [[International Anarchist Congress of Amsterdam|Amsterdam Conference of 1907]] against pure [[syndicalism]]. Malatesta thought that [[trade unions]] were [[reformist]] and could even be at times conservative. Along with [[Christiaan Cornelissen]], he cited as example [[labor unions in the United States]], where trade unions composed of skilled qualified workers sometimes opposed themselves to un-skilled workers in order to defend their relatively privileged position.<ref name=Amsterdam/> Malatesta warned that the syndicalists aims were in perpetuating syndicalism itself whereas anarchists must always have overthrowing capitalism and the state, the anarchist ideal of communist society as their end and consequently refrain from committing to any particular method of achieving it.<ref>{{cite book |author-last=Skirda |author-first=Alexandre |title=Facing the enemy: a history of anarchist organization from Proudhon to May 1968 |publisher=[[A. K. Press]] |year=2002 |isbn=1-902593-19-7 |page=89 }}</ref>

Malatesta's arguments against the doctrine of revolutionary unions known as [[anarcho-syndicalism]] were later developed in a series of articles, where he wrote that "I am against syndicalism, both as a doctrine and a practice, because it strikes me as a hybrid creature."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1926/03/syndic3.htm |title=Further Thoughts on Anarchism and the Labour Movement |author-first=Errico |author-last=Malatesta |date=March 1926 |access-date=8 February 2012 |archive-date=30 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130140227/http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1926/03/syndic3.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> Despite their drawbacks, he advocated activity in the trade unions, both because they were necessary for the organization and self-defense of workers under a capitalist state regime, and as a way of reaching broader masses. Anarchists should have discussion groups in unions, as in factories, barracks and schools, but "anarchists should not want the unions to be anarchist."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/04/syndic1.htm |title=Syndicalism and Anarchism |author-first=Errico |author-last=Malatesta |date=April–May 1925 |access-date=8 February 2012 |archive-date=30 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130143550/http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/04/syndic1.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

Malatesta thought that "[s]yndicalism ... is by nature reformist" like all unions.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/12/syndic2.htm |title=The Labor Movement and Anarchism |author-first=Errico |author-last=Malatesta |date=December 1925 |access-date=8 February 2012 |archive-date=30 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130150537/http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/12/syndic2.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> While anarchists should be active in the rank and file, he said "any anarchist who has agreed to become a permanent and salaried official of a trade union is lost to anarchism."<ref>Quoted in [https://www.scribd.com/doc/8344384/Guerin-Anarchism-From-Theory-to-Practice-1970 Anarchism: From theory to practice] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131224184818/http://www.scribd.com/doc/8344384/Guerin-Anarchism-From-Theory-to-Practice-1970 |date=24 December 2013 }} Daniel Guerin, Monthly Review Press, 1970</ref> While some anarchists wanted to split from conservative unions to form revolutionary syndicalist unions, Malatesta predicted they would either remain an "affinity group" with no influence, or go through the same process of bureaucratization as the unions they left.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/12/syndic2.htm |title=The Labor Movement and Anarchism |author-first=Errico |author-last=Malatesta |magazine=El Productor |date=December 1925 |access-date=8 February 2012 |archive-date=30 January 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120130150537/http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1925/12/syndic2.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

== Selected works ==
{{Main|Errico Malatesta bibliography}}
* ''[[Between Peasants|Between Peasants: A Dialogue on Anarchy]]'' (1884)
* ''[[Anarchy (essay)|Anarchy]]'' (1891)
* ''At the Cafe: Conversations on Anarchism'' (1922)

== See also ==

* [[Anarchism in Italy]]

== Footnotes ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

== Further reading ==
{{See also|Errico Malatesta bibliography}}
* {{Cite book |last=Bonanno |first=Alfredo M. |url=https://325.nostate.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/MALATESTA-BOOK.pdf |title=Errico Malatesta and Revolutionary Violence |publisher=Elephant Editions |year=2011 |location=London |translator-last=Weir |translator-first=Jean |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201112022230/https://325.nostate.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/MALATESTA-BOOK.pdf |archive-date=November 12, 2020}}
* Luigi Fabbri, ''[[Wikisource:Translation:Life of Malatesta|Life of Malatesta]]'', Adam Wight, trans. (1936)
* Vernon Richards (ed.), ''Errico Malatesta – His Life And Ideas.'' Freedom Press, 1965.
* Enrico Tuccinardi – Salvatore Mazzariello, ''Architettura di una chimera. Rivoluzione e complotti in una lettera dell'anarchico Malatesta reinterpretata alla luce di inediti documenti d'archivio'', Mantova, Universitas Studiorum, 2014. {{ISBN|978-88-97683-7-28}}
* Davide Turcato (Editor) – ''The Complete Works of Malatesta, Vol. III: A Long and Patient Work: The Anarchist Socialism of L’Agitazione, 1897–1898'', AK Press, 2017. {{ISBN|9781849351478}}

== External links ==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Wikisource author}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20081121120100/http://libcom.org./tags/errico-malatesta Libcom.org Malatesta Archive]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20030211020127/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/anarchists/malatesta.html Articles by and about Malatesta]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20040412203431/http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/MalatestaErrico.htm Errico Malatesta Page] at the Anarchist Encyclopedia
* [http://www.katesharpleylibrary.net/t76j8h Malatesta articles at the Kate Sharpley Library]
* {{Gutenberg author |id=40571| name=Errico Malatesta}}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=Errico Malatesta}}
* {{StandardEbooks|Standard Ebooks URL=https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/errico-malatesta}}
* {{Librivox author |id=3613}}
* [http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=18 Errico Malatesta] at RevoltLib
* [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/rad.html The Radical Pamphlet Collection] at the [[Library of Congress]] has materials written by Errico Malatesta.

=== Films ===
* ''[[Malatesta (film)|Malatesta]]'' (1970), directed by [[Peter Lilienthal]]; see also {{IMDb title|qid=Q1801996|title=Malatesta}}
* {{IMDb title|qid=Q3463988|title=San Michele aveva un gallo}}, 1972 film loosely based on Malatesta's life

{{anarchism}}
{{anarcho-communism}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malatesta, Errico}}
[[Category:1853 births]]
[[Category:1932 deaths]]
[[Category:19th-century atheists]]
[[Category:20th-century anarchists]]
[[Category:20th-century atheists]]
[[Category:Anarchist theorists]]
[[Category:Anarchists without adjectives]]
[[Category:Anarcho-communists]]
[[Category:Burials at Campo Verano]]
[[Category:Italian anarchists]]
[[Category:Italian anti-capitalists]]
[[Category:Italian anti-fascists]]
[[Category:Italian atheists]]
[[Category:Italian communists]]
[[Category:Italian socialists]]
[[Category:Members of the International Workingmen's Association]]
[[Category:People from Santa Maria Capua Vetere]]