Английская Википедия:Carlo Cafiero
Шаблон:Short description Шаблон:Use dmy dates Шаблон:Infobox person Шаблон:Anarchist communism sidebar Carlo Cafiero was an Italian anarchist that led the Italian section of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA). An early leader of the Marxist and anarchist communist movements in Italy, he was a key influence in the development of both currents.
Born into a noble family in Apulia, he came to dislike the institutions of the Catholic Church and the monarchy, which drew him towards republicanism and revolutionary socialism. After moving to London, he fell under the influence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, for whom he acted as an agent after returning to Italy. In Naples, he became a leader of the local internationalist movement, which consisted largely of anarchists. This caused friction between him and Engels, who saw anarchism as a threat to Marxism.
As Marx and Engels consolidated control over the IWA, Cafiero gravitated closer to anarchism, culminated with his meeting with Mikhail Bakunin. He then presided over the affiliation of the IWA's Italian section with Bakunin's Anti-Authoritarian International and its reorganization along anarchist lines. As a central figure in the Italian anarchist movement, Cafiero plotted the 1874 Bologna insurrection and led the 1877 Benevento insurrection, for which he was imprisoned. Cafiero then turned his attentions to writing. He penned a summary of Das Kapital, Volume I, a theoretical synthesis of anarchist communism and a series of articles about social revolution.
A committed insurrectionary anarchist, Cafiero clashed with the reformist Andrea Costa over their respective tactical outlooks. But following a period of extreme intransigence, isolation and mental decline, Cafiero himself moved towards social democracy and endorsed Costa's candidacy in the 1882 Italian general election. In the months after the election, Cafiero succombed to his mental illness and was committed to a mental asylum. After a long battle with his condition, he died in an asylum from gastrointestinal tuberculosis.
Cafiero left a large legacy as an influential figure in the formation of the Italian anarchist and socialist movements. His figure was a source of inspiration for future generations of Italian activists and artists, and his works are still being studied into the 21st century.
Early life and activism
Carlo Cafiero was born in Barletta on 1 September 1846,Шаблон:Sfn into a family of Apulian landowners.Шаблон:Sfnm From an early age, he developed a fascination with religion.Шаблон:Sfn His family sent him to a seminary in Molfetta to train as a priest,Шаблон:Sfnm but he instead came to hate the Catholic Church for its repressive practices.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero also disliked farming and his native region, and at the age of 18,Шаблон:Sfn he left to study law at the University of Naples. After graduating, he began a career as a diplomat in the Italian capital of Florence.Шаблон:Sfnm But he quickly grew bored with the job and quit, in order to pursue his intellectual interests in Islamic and Oriental studies.Шаблон:Sfnm
He joined the radical circle led by Telemaco Signorini, whose criticisms of the nascent Kingdom of Italy laid the foundations for Cafiero's turn towards revolutionary socialism.Шаблон:Sfn In 1870, he left Italy for Paris, where he witnessed the end of the Second French Empire.Шаблон:Sfnm The events of the Paris Commune inspired him to become a revolutionary.Шаблон:Sfnm He then moved to London,Шаблон:Sfnm where he joined other Italian republican exiles.Шаблон:Sfn
In the English capital, he attended lectures by the secularist Charles Bradlaugh and the meetings of industrial workers, where a speech by English trade unionist George Odger first convinced him of socialism.Шаблон:Sfn He soon joined the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) and quickly fell under the influence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.Шаблон:Sfnm As there was not yet any established Marxists in Italy, where left-wing politics were largely influenced by Mikhail Bakunin and Giuseppe Mazzini,Шаблон:Sfnm Marx and Engels dispatched Cafiero back to his home country.Шаблон:Sfnm In May 1871, Cafiero returned to Florence,Шаблон:Sfnm where he established ties between the IWA and local workers' groups.Шаблон:Sfn He then moved onto Naples, where he dedicated himself to his work as an agent for the Marxist General Council.Шаблон:Sfnm
Internationalist agent
Marxist activities
Cafiero was introduced to the Neapolitan internationalists with a letter from Engels to Carlo Gambuzzi. As he was an agent of the general council, he was initially distrusted by the IWA's local section, which was largely made up of followers of Mikhail Bakunin. But his commitment to their activism quickly brought him into the leadership of the Neapolitan section, and he became fast friends with Errico Malatesta and Шаблон:Ill.Шаблон:Sfn Malatesta and Cafiero would be each other's closest friend and collaborator until the latter's death.Шаблон:Sfnm By mid-1871, the internationalists were already facing heavy repression from the government of Giovanni Lanza. Together with Gambuzzi, Malatesta and Palladino, Cafiero managed to reorganise the Neapolitan section, despite attempts by the government to dissolve it. Cafiero was arrested on charges of subversion, but he was never tried and was let off with a fine a few days later.Шаблон:Sfn He discovered that his arrest had only strengthened public support for the IWA; the local section quickly reconstituted and the city became a center for the internationalist movement.Шаблон:Sfn The affair also enhanced his own reputation and he soon became the leading figure of the IWA in Italy.Шаблон:Sfn
In Cafiero's first letters to Engels, he described at length the extent of the poverty and oppression throughout Southern Italy and predicted that it made social revolution in the region inevitable.Шаблон:Sfnm He focused much of his criticism of other revolutionary currents on Mazzini's nationalist and anti-socialist ideology;Шаблон:Sfnm this worried Engels, who saw a greater danger in Bakunin's anarchism.Шаблон:Sfnm Cafiero responded that he didn't see Bakunin's followers as a sectarian threat to the Marxists and thought the two factions shared a lot in common,Шаблон:Sfnm hoping that he could bridge the divide between them.Шаблон:Sfnm
Although Engels thought well of Cafiero, he also described him as a "natural mediator, and as such he is naturally weak". Engels began to distrust him and predicted that he may soon switch allegiances to Bakunin's faction.Шаблон:Sfn Engels insisted that Cafiero cut ties with the Neapolitan anarchists, as he considered Bakunin's faction to be actively harmful to the unity of the IWA. When Cafiero wrote back to Engels, he initially didn't respond to the complaints regarding the Bakuninists. He instead reported the Italian state's repression against the left-wing, explaining that the material conditions of the Southern peasantry had provided fertile ground for the IWA's organisers and for the possibility of a social revolution. In later letters to Engels, Cafiero defended Bakunin from the charges against him and reported the great popularity he had with Neapolitan workers.Шаблон:Sfn Further letters sent by Cafiero were met with silence from Engels.Шаблон:Sfn Having failed to heal the divide between the two factions, he was forced to choose between one or the other.Шаблон:Sfn
Conversion to anarchism
Cafiero began to drift away from Marxism and towards Bakunin's conception of anarchism,Шаблон:Sfnm the latter of which he considered more relevant to the material conditions of Southern Italy.Шаблон:Sfnm When Mazzini called a workers' congress in Rome for November 1871, Cafiero translated and distributed a pamphlet by Bakunin that denounced Mazzini, claiming his true intentions were to organise a reactionary coup d'état that would establish a dictatorship in Italy.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero disrupted the congress by distributing the pamphlet to its delegates; the congress itself was ultimately unsuccessful in reviving Mazzinianism and Mazzini himself died months later.Шаблон:Sfn When Engels praised him for this, Cafiero credited Bakunin as the author of the whole affair.Шаблон:Sfn That same month, the General Council adopted a resolution that called for the formation of a political party; the Italian section of the IWA rejected this proposal as "selling out" workers for political gain. Despite assurances from Engels to the contrary, Cafiero, who valued abstentionism, believed that this resolution had caused irreparable damage to the General Council's reputation among Italian workers.Шаблон:Sfn The dispute between the Italian section and the General Council was exacerbated further when Engels published an attack against Bakunin in Шаблон:Ill, which Cafiero fiercely criticised. When the Sonvilier Circular was issued in response, Cafiero took a neutral stance in the brewing factional conflict. As the split grew progressively worse, he stopped corresponding with Engels and decided to visit Bakunin.Шаблон:Sfn
Together with the Neapolitan anarchist Giuseppe Fanelli, in May 1872, Cafiero travelled to Switzerland. In Locarno, he finally met Bakunin,Шаблон:Sfnm whose charismatic personality and revolutionary past immediately made an impression on Cafiero.Шаблон:Sfn After a month with Bakunin in Switzerland, Cafiero returned to Italy as a convinced anarchist.Шаблон:Sfnm He wrote one final letter to Engels, informing him of his meeting with Bakunin and criticising his former mentor's Communist Manifesto for its "reactionary absurdity" and authoritarian character.Шаблон:Sfnm Cafiero wrote that he rejected the General Council's attempts to centralise control over the IWA and transform it into a political party, as he now upheld the anti-authoritarian principle of autonomy.Шаблон:Sfn He ended the letter by declaring that "Italy will welcome with joy the death of the General Council."Шаблон:Sfn To this letter, Engels finally responded, accusing Cafiero of betraying his trust by disclosing their correspondence to Bakunin's Jura Federation. This time, it was Cafiero that didn't respond.Шаблон:Sfn Without Cafiero, the General Council's only remaining Italian ally was the "moderate" and "unenergetic" Enrico Bignami.Шаблон:Sfn
In order to strengthen the Italian position against the General Council, Cafiero resolved the unify the different sections of the IWA in Italy into a single national federation. Following Cafiero's lead, the Fascio Operaio convened a conference in Rimini, setting it for August 1872.Шаблон:Sfn Together with Giuseppe Fanelli and Tito Zanardelli, Cafiero attended as a delegate from the Naples section;Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero himself was elected as the conference's president.Шаблон:Sfnm With Cafiero at the helm, the conference was predominated by anarchists.Шаблон:Sfnm They voted to cut ties with the Marxist General Council,Шаблон:Sfnm in defiance of Bakunin's warning against open secession.Шаблон:Sfn The instead proposed the formation of a separate international organisation for anti-authoritarian socialists,Шаблон:Sfnm which would later become the Anarchist St. Imier International.Шаблон:Sfn
Although Marxists would later claim that Bakunin was responsible for the split of the Italian section, anarchists held "the headstrong Cafiero" responsible. Historians such as E. H. Carr and George Woodcock concluded that the Italian secession resulted in the weakening of the anarchist voting bloc at the Hague Congress and motivated Marx's denunciations of Bakunin.Шаблон:Sfn At the Hague Congress, which Cafiero attended as an observer, he rejected appeals by anarchist delegates such as James Guillaume to maintain good relations with the Marxists.Шаблон:Sfnm Marx and Engels themselves used the Congress to consolidate control and expel the anarchists from the IWA. Engels went as far as to declare that "an Italian federation of the IWA does not exist."Шаблон:Sfn The Marxist-led IWA collapsed not long after, as many of its largest sections defected to the anarchists.Шаблон:Sfnm The anarchists themselves convened the St. Imier Congress, which reconstituted the IWA as the Anti-Authoritarian International. Cafiero attended the congress, together with Costa, Fanelli, Malatesta and Nabruzzi.Шаблон:Sfn These Italian delegates went on to form the leadership of the nascent Italian anarchist movement.Шаблон:Sfn Together they oversaw the rapid growth of the Italian Federation and its development along anarchist lines. The government was frightened by its growth and began arresting its leading members, including Cafiero, and shutting down numerous sections throughout Emilia-Romagna.Шаблон:Sfn In March 1873, members that managed to escape arrest held a secret congress in Bologna,Шаблон:Sfn where they adopted the anarchist ideology and federalist structure upheld by the Anti-Authoritarian International and rejected the "dictatorship" of the General Council.Шаблон:Sfnm With evidence provided by Cafiero, the congress also exposed the police spy Carlo Terzaghi and expelled him from the Federation.Шаблон:Sfn
Insurrectionary leadership
1874 insurrection
On 9 May 1873, Cafiero, Costa and Malatesta were released from pre-trial detention, due to a lack of evidence against them. Cafiero travelled back to his home town of Barletta and sold off his properties there.Шаблон:Sfn He then became the main financial sponsor of the international anarchist movement, paying the expenses of delegates to anarchist congresses.Шаблон:Sfnm He also bought a villa in Locarno - La Baronata - for Bakunin to use as his headquarters.Шаблон:Sfnm Together these expenses drained him of most of his fortune.Шаблон:Sfnm Following the outbreak of the Petroleum Revolution in Spain, Malatesta and Bakunin sought funds from Cafiero to travel there.Шаблон:Sfn But Malatesta was arrested en route and Cafiero refused Bakunin's request, as he considered the risk of death too great for the anarchist leader. By the time Cafiero himself arrived in Locarno, the Spanish revolution had been suppressed and Bakunin was convinced to remain in Switzerland.Шаблон:Sfn By the autumn of 1873, as an economic crisis was caused widespread discontent to break out in Italy, Bakunin and Cafiero instead began planning for an insurrection to be carried out there.Шаблон:Sfnm
In December 1873, Cafiero and Costa established the Comitato Italiano per la Rivoluzione Sociale (CIRS), an organisation consisting largely of younger Italian anarchists that dedicated themselves to preparing for an imminent insurrection.Шаблон:Sfn The Italian authorities quickly discovered the CIRS and, fearing their planned insurrection, began arresting members of the International throughout Italy, forcing the Italian sections underground and strengthening the anarchists' commitment to their insurrectionary strategy.Шаблон:Sfn Internationalists met in Lugano on 18 March 1874 to discuss the planned insurrection. Despite Cafiero's request for support, non-Italian delegates refused to endorse the plot, as they favoured the tactic of the general strike and believed that socialism was not yet widespread enough in Italy for an insurrection to be successful. As a result, the CIRS ultimately decided to delay its call to arms.Шаблон:Sfn Together with Cafiero,Шаблон:Sfn Costa and Malatesta used the subsequent months to refine their plan of action,Шаблон:Sfnm while they continued to build their insurrectionary network throughout the country.Шаблон:Sfn They also distanced themselves from the Mazzininian republicans and Garibaldian socialists, bringing the insurrectionary movement entirely under anarchist influence.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero used his money to fund the purchase of weapons,Шаблон:Sfnm which he sent to Costa in southern Italy in the care of Bakunin's associate Mikhail Sazhin,Шаблон:Sfn securing the distribution of over 250 firearms to the insurrectionists.Шаблон:Sfn
While preparation for the uprising was underway, Cafiero began a relationship with the Russian revolutionary Olimpia Kutuzova.Шаблон:Sfn In April 1874, he travelled to the Russian Empire to marry her, so that she could be provided with an Italian citiznship and passage to western Europe.Шаблон:Sfnm In July 1874, Cafiero liquidated the remainder of his estate in Barletta, in order to pay for the upkeep of La Baronata and the passage of Bakunin's family from Siberia to Switzerland. During her journey, Bakunin's wife Antonia was told by Carlo Gambuzzi that Bakunin had exploited Cafiero for his money. When probed about this, Bakunin asked Cafiero to deny it as a rumour, but he instead told his mentor that he had indeed felt exploited, as he was now left financially destitute.Шаблон:Sfn Moreover, his dedication to supporting Bakunin had distracted him from the planning for the imminent anarchist insurrection, which he contributed little to, despite ostensibly being the operation's leader.Шаблон:Sfn
By August 1874, the Italian authorities uncovered the plot and arrested many of the prospective insurrection's leaders, including Costa.Шаблон:Sfnm The raids forced the hand of the insurrectionists, with Bakunin and his followers resolving to improvise a new plan for the insurrection. On 7 August, hundreds of insurgents assembled in Emilia-Romagna and constructed barricades in Bologna, while a call to arms written by Cafiero was pasted on walls throughout the country, to little effect.Шаблон:Sfn But the plan failed and the insurgents - many of whom were unarmed - either dispersed or were arrested after coming face to face with the Carabinieri.Шаблон:Sfn Dismayed with the failure, Bakunin fled the country in disguise.Шаблон:Sfnm Other uprisings throughout Italy were either suppressed or failed to materialise.Шаблон:Sfn In Puglia, Malatesta's small insurrectionary band was quickly disbanded; he attempted to escape but was also arrested.Шаблон:Sfn The fallout from the abortive insurrection severely damaged the Italian anarchist movement,Шаблон:Sfnm as well as Cafiero's already-strained relationship with Bakunin, the latter of whom died two years later.Шаблон:Sfn
Move underground and reorganisation
With the Italian anarchist movement facing heightened repression, the Italian Federation - officially dissolved by the government - moved underground and became a clandestine organisation,Шаблон:Sfnm directed by Cafiero and his followers within the CIRS. Cafiero attempted to organise another armed uprising in early 1875, but as the Federation's membership was thoroughly demoralised by the previous failed insurrection, it failed to materialise.Шаблон:Sfn For the subsequent year, the Italian anarchist movement was effectively dormant, with no major actions being undertaken.Шаблон:Sfn During this period of inactivity, Cafiero and Bakunin managed to reconcile, with the help of Malatesta.Шаблон:Sfn After a stint attempting to farm crops in La Baronata, in October 1875, Cafiero said farewell to Bakunin for the last time and left for Milan, while his wife returned to Russia.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero found that he preferred small manual jobs to his other avenues of employment,Шаблон:Sfn and supported himself by working at a factory that made photographs for headstones.Шаблон:Sfn
At this time, Cafiero began writing for the Italian socialist newspaper La Plebe.Шаблон:Sfnm but he struggled with the demands of journalism,Шаблон:Sfn as well as his disagreements with the newspaper's reformist editorial line.Шаблон:Sfn In November 1875, Cafiero published the article "The Times Are Not Yet Ripe", in which he elaborated his thoughts on what made someone a "real revolutionary". He criticised "revolutionary pose[rs]" that complained about the status quo while also passively accepting it, people he denounced as only ever talking about revolution without ever believing the time was right for one. Cafiero believed that there was no better time to push for a social revolution than the present moment.Шаблон:Sfn In January 1876, Cafiero wrapped up his work at La Plebe and left Milan for Rome, where he reunited with Malatesta, with whom he reestablished the local section of the Italian Federation.Шаблон:Sfn Following the rise to power of Agostino Depretis's Historical Left, Cafiero and Malatesta began planning to officially reconstitute the Italian Federation and resume public activities.Шаблон:Sfn But the new left-wing government ended up continuing the previous government's campaign of repression against the anarchists, which forced Cafiero to leave Rome for Naples.Шаблон:Sfn Nevertheless, the Italian anarchist movement experienced a resurgence during 1876, with Andrea Costa overseeing the public reconstitution of the Italian Federation in Emilia-Romagna.Шаблон:Sfn
In Naples, the movement struggled to reconstitute itself without the leadership of Malatesta and Cafiero, who were preoccupied with other tasks. The leadership of the Neapolitan movement thus passed to the intellectual Emilio Covelli.Шаблон:Sfn After Bakunin's death, Covelli became Cafiero's closest collaborator; the two were formed schoolmates, who had together attended both seminary and university.Шаблон:Sfn Previously a convinced Marxist, after Covelli reunited with Cafiero, he joined his anarchist association in Naples. Although the pair rejected the authoritarianism of Marxism, they continued to uphold its criticism of capitalism, synthesising Marxist theory and anarchist practice in a way that appealed to Italian workers.Шаблон:Sfn Covelli and Cafiero both challenged the conflict between Marxism and anarchism, often taking elements from both.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero also attempted to remedy the issues that had led to the failure of the Bologna insurrection by developing a new revolutionary ideology, which eventually grew into the synthesis of anarchist communism. As his aim, Cafiero posited a society without authority or private property, which he proposed would be achieved through propaganda of the deed.Шаблон:Sfn
Together with Malatesta, on 21 October 1876, Covelli and Cafiero attended the Italian Federation's third congress in the small Tuscan village of Шаблон:Ill.Шаблон:Sfn Hiding in a forest near the village, in order to avoid the Carabinieri, the delegates reaffirmed their anarchist principles and commitment to revolution, as well as their opposition to electoralism or collaboration with republicans. The delegates also broke from Bakunin's theory of collectivist anarchism and instead adopted Cafiero's new platform of anarchist communism, which proposed resources be distributed "from each according to their ability, to each according to their needs". Finally, Cafiero was elected to head a new correspondence commission in Naples and delegated to attend the Anti-Authoritarian International's Bern Congress, together with Errico Malatesta.Шаблон:Sfn The Bern Congress, which took place the following week, demonstrated that the anarchists were now alone within the International, which had been abandoned by other non-Marxist socialists and left effectively as a rump organisation.Шаблон:Sfn As the Congress closed, Malatesta and Cafiero issued an announcement on the new position of the Italian Federation, which now fully upheld anarchist communismШаблон:Sfn and propaganda of the deed.Шаблон:Sfnm
1877 insurrection
By the winter of 1876, Cafiero and Malatesta were plotting another anarchist insurrection,Шаблон:Sfnm together with Emilio Covelli and Pietro Cesare Ceccarelli.Шаблон:Sfn They planned the insurrection to be carried out in the Matese mountains,Шаблон:Sfnm where violent anti-establishment sentiment had previously culminated in the Post-Unification Italian Brigandage.Шаблон:Sfnm Cafiero and Malatesta remained in Switzerland to raise money, aiming to buy weapons for the uprising. They were unable to sell the dilapidated Baronata, nor did they successfully gain employment as construction workers. They then concocted a scheme to acquire the inheritance of a sympathetic Russian socialite by arranging a marriage between her and the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin, but James Guillaume dissuaded him from going along with their plan. With only scant amounts of money from donations and the sale of Cafiero's last property in Barletta, they began putting their plan into motion.Шаблон:Sfn
In December 1876, they returned to Naples, where they established an insurrectionary general staff together with other Italian anarchists. Andrea Costa refused to join them, fearing the time was not right for an insurrection, but promised he would launch his own uprising in Emilia-Romagna if the southern insurrection was successful.Шаблон:Sfn Throughout the first months of 1877, Cafiero and Malatesta travelled around the country recruiting volunteers; about one hundred signed up to join the insurrection.Шаблон:Sfn Before the insurrection was even underway, their circle had been infiltrated by an informant and the government was aware of their plans.Шаблон:Sfnm Cafiero and Malatesta's movements were tracked by the police, but Interior Minister Giovanni Nicotera held off from arresting them immediately, as he wanted to entrap the insurrectionists after they had taken up arms. By April 1877, the anarchists began to suspect that the authorities knew their plans and decided to accelerate the planned uprising, which commenced a month earlier than they had planned.Шаблон:Sfn
On 3 April, Cafiero and Malatesta went to San Lupo, where they had set their rendezvous point, and offloaded boxes full of rifles and ammunition. They waited for other insurrectionists to arrive, but many were arrested en route. On the night of 5 April, the insurgents in San Lupo caught a small group of carabinieri surveilling them and opened fire, killing one and injuring two others. The insurgents then quickly packed up their rifles and equipment, before heading out into the mountains and carry out their "experiment in propaganda of the insurrectionary deed".Шаблон:Sfn The small insurgent group - known as the Banda del Matese - consisted of about 24 young anarchist workers from northern Italy, led by Cafiero and Malatesta.Шаблон:Sfnm The band was inexperienced, poorly equipped and short on members.Шаблон:Sfnm With the exception of the southerners Cafiero and Malatesta, most of them were even entirely unable to understand the local Neapolitan language. They also faced freezing winter weather, which further exacerbated their difficulties provisioning themselves and engaging with the local population. Meanwhile, Шаблон:Ill deployed a 12,000-strong counterinsurgency force to the mountains, quickly capturing San Lupo and cutting off the insurgent supply lines.Шаблон:Sfn This forced the insurgents northwest into Terra di Lavoro, where they managed to escape the Italian state's cavalry. There they purchased food and local guides.Шаблон:Sfn
By 8 April, the insurgent band arrived in the small village of Letino.Шаблон:Sfn They then gathered and burned the towns land deeds and tax records,Шаблон:Sfnm before redistributing the town hall's weapons and money to the population. In order to ensure the authorities wouldn't blame the local people for the damages, Cafiero, Malatesta and Ceccarelli made sure to leave written documentation that anarchists had occupied Letino "in the name of social revolution".Шаблон:Sfn Beneath a large red and black flag, Cafiero then gave a long revolutionary speech in the Neapolitan language.Шаблон:Sfn He proclaimed the overthrow of the Kingdom of Italy and the establishment of a communist republic, as well as the abolition of taxes and conscription.Шаблон:Sfn He ended his speech by calling on the town's people to redistribute the local land amongst themselves and to defend their gains from the state: "The rifles and the axes we have given you, the knives you have. If you wish, do something, and if not, go fuck yourselves." He was followed by the local priest, who reinterpreted his words as a new gospel and blessed Cafiero's band as apostles of the Christian God.Шаблон:Sfn
With their work done, they quickly continued on their way to the neighbouring town of Gallo.Шаблон:Sfnm There they encountered another sympathetic local priest, who reassured the peasants not to fear anything and declared the event would be little more than a "change of government and burning of papers." As before, they declared a social revolution, burned all the official documents and redistributed the town hall's weapons and money to the population, before quickly leaving for the next town along.Шаблон:Sfnm Upon leaving they found that, although the local peasantry was sympathetic to their cause, they remained suspicious of the revolutionary outsiders and wary of participating in the insurrection.Шаблон:Sfn The band then went across the mountains towards Molise, but when they found Venafro occupied by government soldiers, they retreated back towards Letino. They marched for two days through heavy rain and without food, finding every town likewise occupied by soldiers. They attempted to scale the mountains into unoccupied territory, but the worsening weather prevented all attempts to move forward and they decided to seek shelter near Letino, where they were surrounded by the bersaglieri.Шаблон:Sfn They discovered that they had been given up by the local peasants and that their weapons had been rendered inoperable by the rain.Шаблон:Sfnm On 12 April,Шаблон:Sfn the entire band was arrested without issue.Шаблон:Sfnm The Banda del Matese had ultimately failed to provoke the nationwide uprising they had hoped for.Шаблон:Sfn
Cafiero and his band were held for 16 months in pre-trial detention. They were ultimately charged with conspiracy to overthrow the government and the killing of a carabinieri, for which their prosecutors sought the death penalty.Шаблон:Sfnm But following the death of Victor Emmanuel II in 1878, a political amnesty was proclaimed by his successor Umberto I.Шаблон:Sfnm This meant that the lives of Cafiero and Malatesta would be spared, if they could prove to a jury that their shootout with the carabinieri in San Lupo had been politically motivated.Шаблон:Sfn On 14 August 1878, their trial began in the Naples Corte d'Assise, which was surrounded by a sympathetic crowd.Шаблон:Sfn One of their defense lawyers was a young Francesco Saverio Merlino, who in the wake of the trial would become the country's foremost legal defender of anarchists.Шаблон:Sfn When accused by the prosecution of having killed the carabinier due to their "blood lust", Cafiero and Malatesta declared that their goal had been to incite a social revolution and rejected their characterisation as "common criminals and murderers".Шаблон:Sfn The defendants all refused to respond to the accusations and instead used the trial to elaborate their political program, with Cafiero giving the first public defense of anarchist communism in an Italian court.Шаблон:Sfn The defense succeeded in using the trial as a vehicle for political propaganda, with Merlino's closing arguments denouncing the authoritarianism of the Italian state. On 25 August, the jury found the defendants not guilty, after only an hour of deliberations.Шаблон:Sfn When Cafiero and his co-defendants were released, they were greeted by a large crowd of celebrating supporters.Шаблон:Sfnm
Later years and decline
Following his release, in September 1878, Cafiero fled once again into exile in Lugano, as he feared the Italian authorities would find a pretext to imprison him.Шаблон:Sfn In his place, leadership of the southern Italian anarchists was taken up by Merlino, Palladino and Ceccarelli, who continued to uphold Cafiero's insurrectionary platform, although without the resources or organisation to launch another uprising.Шаблон:Sfn Without Cafiero or Malatesta, the Italian anarchist movement entered a sustained period of decline, as its members became disillusioned, isolated or inactive, while intransigent sectarian conflicts began to manifest over ideological and tactical differences.Шаблон:Sfn
In June 1879, Cafiero published his summary of Karl Marx's Das Kapital, Volume I, which he had read during his time in prison.Шаблон:Sfnm His study received high praise from Marx himself,Шаблон:Sfnm who advised Cafiero to further elaborate on how the material conditions for social revolution are created by the exploitation of labour.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero attempted to do so in the form of a Socratic dialogue, but his manuscripts were confiscated by Swiss police.Шаблон:Sfn Instead, he worked further on his anarchist communist synthesis of Bakuninism and Marxism.Шаблон:Sfnm
Rivalry with Costa
In the wake of Cafiero's second failed insurrection, he was disowned by sections of the international socialist movement, particularly by French and German social democrats, who denounced Cafiero and Malatesta as "criminals" and "provocateurs".Шаблон:Sfn The insurrection also caused a schism within the Italian anarchist movement, which divided into supporters and opponents of insurrectionary anarchism, the latter of which came to be led by Andrea Costa.Шаблон:Sfnm Costa had already been losing his interest in revolutionary socialism since the failure of the 1874 insurrection, while Cafiero himself had only intensified his calls for an immediate armed uprising.Шаблон:Sfn By the time that the 1877 insurrection was suppressed, he was beginning to drift towards legalitarian means.Шаблон:Sfnm In July 1879, Costa published an open letter in La Plebe, in which he outlined the failures of insurrectionary anarchism and called for the creation of a revolutionary socialist political party, which would have collectivist anarchism as its ultimate goal.Шаблон:Sfn His "maximalist socialism" presented a middle ground between Cafiero's social anarchism and Enrico Bignami's social democracy, advocating for short term reforms as a means to build towards social revolution.Шаблон:Sfn
Although Costa's letter won over many anarchist leaders, Malatesta noticed the implicit direction of Costa's proposals and commissioned Cafiero to write a response on behalf of the Italian Federation.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero also recognised the problems that faced the anarchist movement, but instead called for them to reorganise based on their same original principles. Cafiero warned that Costa's political party would inevitably turn towards authoritarianism and exclusivism, in order to safely remain within the political system. He also disregarded Costa's proposal for peaceful propaganda and education, arguing that it was only through direct action and propaganda of the deed that workers and peasants could be convinced to join the revolutionary cause.Шаблон:Sfn Instead of a political party or another public organization like the International, which he believed could respectively be coopted or infiltrated, Cafiero proposed that anarchists establish a "secret party" that could devote itself to direct action while guarding itself from infiltration.Шаблон:Sfn Building on the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin and Carlo Pisacane, Cafiero's conspiratorial proposal set the groundwork for the development of an anti-organisational tendency in Italian anarchism. It also preceded a complete polarisation within the anarchist movement, as Costa's legalistic and moderate proposals for a political party were unable to reconcile with Cafiero's illegalist and extreme proposals for conspiratorial direct action.Шаблон:Sfn
By 1880, Costa had abandoned any pretence of anarchism entirely, which caused a dramatic break between him and Cafiero.Шаблон:Sfnm Cafiero, who still advocated for a violent revolution, was deeply angered by Costa's reformist turn.Шаблон:Sfn In letters to other Italian anarchists, Cafiero denounced parliamentarism as "the plague of our revolutionary party" and attacked Costa's calls for "minor and practical programs", which he felt presented a danger to socialism.Шаблон:Sfn In a letter to Francesco Pezzi, sent in November 1880, Cafiero speculated that the anarchist movement could benefit from the "loss of innocence" caused by Costa's split.Шаблон:Sfn In December 1880, Cafiero's anarchist faction managed to dominate the Italian Federation's Chiasso Congress, which officially adopted anarchist communism and took a firm oppositional stance against reformism and electoralism.Шаблон:Sfn This would prove a pyrrhic victory, as it would end up being the last Italian congress of the International and result in a strengthening of the legalitarian faction, which quickly established its own organisations.Шаблон:Sfn
That same month, Cafiero published the article "Action", in which he declared that Costa's cooperation with "bourgeois political institutions" amounted to a renunciation of socialism and an acceptance of capitalism. Cafiero rejected proposals for electing socialist parliamentary representatives, which he claimed represented little more than "to participate in [our own] oppression".Шаблон:Sfn Instead, he called for anarchists to take immediate and violent direct action against the system, which to him meant killing capitalists and their collaborators. Cafiero framed such attacks as "revolutionary gymnastics", which would prepare the masses for revolution.Шаблон:Sfn By the spring of 1881, many more within the anarchist movement were publishing public attacks against Costa, especially as he continued to insist that he was still a revolutionary.Шаблон:Sfn Over time, Cafiero's own attacks against Costa became more personal and violent, denouncing him by name as an "apostate" and a "traitor" to the revolutionary cause.Шаблон:Sfnm In an open letter he published on 21 July 1881, Cafiero even called for Costa to be assassinated.Шаблон:Sfnm This only served to outrage and consolidate Costa's support base in Emilia-Romagna, where he founded the Italian Revolutionary Socialist Party (PSRI) three days later.Шаблон:Sfn
Declining health and death
By this time, Cafiero's mental and physical health had begun to rapidly decline; he suffered a nervous breakdown in the summer of 1881.Шаблон:Sfnm He had already been suffering from paranoia for years, but sustained harassment by the police, despair over his revolutionary failures and his personal conflict with Costa drove him further into a deep desire for isolation.Шаблон:Sfn At this time, Peter Kropotkin was preparing to hold a Congress in London, where he planned to reorganise the Anti-Authoritarian International into a dual organisation, consisting of both a large public organisation and central secret group dedicated to direct action.Шаблон:Sfn While Malatesta agreed with the proposal, albeit modified to include an "international revolutionary league", Cafiero himself expressed disdain for the idea.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero wanted the central purpose of the London Congress to be deciding how they would organise violence. He was dissatisfied with Kropotkin's proposed conspiratorial group, which he believed would lead nowhere as it lacked sufficient funding. Instead Cafiero expressed his desire to disappear into a small and isolated revolutionary cell, while he awaited the "Last Judgment".Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero refused to attend the London Congress, despite the apparent sympathy of many of the delegates towards his conspiratorial and terroristic methods.Шаблон:Sfn The London Congress of July 1881 would end up establishing a new International Working People's Association (IWPA), which upheld his insurrectionary anarchism.Шаблон:Sfn
In September 1881, Cafiero was expelled from Switzerland and found himself in London.Шаблон:Sfnm There he attempted to reunite with Marx, but he too was suffering from his own declining health.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero's mental illness only got worse during his stay in London, where he only confided in Malatesta due to his paranoia that all his other friends were spying on him.Шаблон:Sfnm Aside from his paranoia, Cafiero also alienated his friends at times when he was lucid, especially when he began to express a sudden ideological shift.Шаблон:Sfn The expansion of suffrage in Italy in February 1882 had finally made electoralism a realistic strategy for the legalitarian socialists, spurring Andrea Costa to intensify his campaign to elect socialist candidates to the Italian parliament.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero was contacted by Bignami, who hoped to solicit his support for the upcoming election. Persuaded by the recent electoral gains of the German Social-Democratic Party, Cafiero decided to move back to Italy, settling in Milan in March and returning to his work at La Plebe.Шаблон:Sfn The following month, Cafiero made an announcement that shocked his anarchist comrades: their most ardent apologist of permanent revolution now expressed support for electoralism. He proclaimed that he had "submitted" to the will of Costa's party, declaring that "it is much better to take a single step with all the comrades on the real path of life than to remain isolated and to cover hundreds of leagues in the abstract". His friend Francesco Pezzi concluded that such a massive ideological leap could only mean that "Cafiero has gone crazy".Шаблон:Sfn Malatesta himself concurred that "[even] if his brain is sick, his heart is pure." Italian historian Nunzio Pernicone disputed that Cafiero's conversion to electoral socialism was entirely as a result of his mental decline, but concluded that the two could not be completely dissasociated.Шаблон:Sfn
Although he was quickly welcomed into the electoral camp by the legalitarian socialists, on 5 April, Cafiero was arrested under suspicion of inciting class conflict. His attempts to clarify his new-found support for electoralism confused the police, who still regarded him as a "dangerous anarchist". While the authorities decided what to do with him, on 2 May, he suffered another nervous breakdown.Шаблон:Sfn He attempted to commit suicide,Шаблон:Sfnm which finally brought the news of his mental decline into the public light. Much of the Italian public blamed the government for causing his mental illness and a campaign was swiftly launched to secure his release from prison, forcing the authorities to offer him a choice of house arrest in Barletta or expulsion back to Switzerland. Cafiero chose exile, and on 20 June, the police abandoned him over the border in Chiasso. There Cafiero again unsuccessfully attempted suicide, before being rescued by his old friend Emilio Bellerio, who took him into his house in Locarno.Шаблон:Sfn His mental health experienced some recovery over the subsequent summer months and he expressed a feeling of contentment in spite of his condition. When the anticipated 1882 Italian general election finally arrived, Cafiero was nominated as a protest candidate but refused to accept the nomination.Шаблон:Sfn In the end, Andrea Costa was successfully elected to the Chamber of Deputies, becoming Italy's first ever socialist representative.Шаблон:Sfnm The oath of allegiance required for deputies to take their seats presented a personal and political problem to Costa, who had consistently affirmed his commitment to never swear loyalty to the monarchy, even if it meant not taking his seat.Шаблон:Sfn Costa wrote to Cafiero in order to solicit support for such a move, to which Cafiero responded affirmatively: "Go to Parliament, frankly take your oath, and serve the common cause."Шаблон:Sfn
Over the subsequent months, Cafiero's mental health deteriorated again into complete insanity.Шаблон:Sfnm On 6 February 1883, Cafiero abruptly left Locarno and returned to Italy.Шаблон:Sfn Two days later, he was discovered wandering nude through the fields of Fiesole, where doctors found him convulsing in a pool of freezing water.Шаблон:Sfnm Cafiero was subsequently committed to a mental asylum in Florence,Шаблон:Sfn where he remained for four years, despite campaigns for his release.Шаблон:Sfn His wife Olimpia Kutuzova returned to the country in order to help him,Шаблон:Sfnm getting him transferred to an asylum in Imola, where his physical health improved somewhat.Шаблон:Sfn On 16 November 1887, Cafiero was released into Kutuzova's care, but his condition remained unstable.Шаблон:Sfnm Together they moved to Cafiero's family home in Barletta, where the familiar environment helped him regain a level of lucidity.Шаблон:Sfnm But his mental health ultimately didn't improve, and in 1891, he was committed to the asylum in Nocera Inferiore, where he died of gastrointestinal tuberculosis on 17 July 1892.Шаблон:Sfnm His last words were "the principle is affirmed".Шаблон:Sfn In his epitaph to Cafiero, Emilio Covelli pondered: "Do you know why Cafiero is crazy? Because not knowing how to bend, he had to break."Шаблон:Sfn
Legacy
Cafiero's legacy was left by his organisation of the Italian anarchist movement, his ideological development of anarchist communism and insurrectionary anarchism, and his summaries of Marx's critique of political economy.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero's summary of Das Kapital received numerous editions after his death: a second edition was published in 1913, with a preface by Luigi Fabbri; a third edition was published in 1920; and following the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, a fourth edition was published by the Marxist publisher Шаблон:Ill, which omitted any reference to Cafiero's anarchism. A first edition copy was proudly preserved by Alessandro Mussolini, the father of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini.Шаблон:Sfn During the 1960s, while the Italian student Gian Carlo Maffei was browsing the Swiss Federal Archives, he discovered a manuscript of Cafiero's that had been unpublished since it was seized by police in 1881. From 1970 to 1972, four of Cafiero's essays on the subject of revolution were finally published by Maffei and Шаблон:Ill.Шаблон:Sfn The final unpublished essay revealed that Cafiero, along with his concerns about capitalism, was worried about the dangers presented by the rise of authoritarian socialism.Шаблон:Sfn
Cafiero was venerated by Italian anarchists and socialists of his time,Шаблон:Sfn and in the wake of his death, he was made into a martyr for anarchist communism.Шаблон:Sfn Anarchist groups in Italy and America were named after him, while anarchist parents named their children "Cafiero", and artists dedicated several works to him.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero appeared as a character in Riccardo Bacchelli's 1927 novel Шаблон:Ill,Шаблон:Sfnm which was about the Italian anarchist circle around Mikhail Bakunin. While Bacchelli depicted most of the anarchists as "delusional and ineffectual fanatics", Cafiero was portrayed relatively positively as a noble and generous man.Шаблон:Sfn Cafiero was also an inspiration for the main character in Paolo and Vittorio Taviani's 1972 film St. Michael Had a Rooster, which depicts the tension between revolutionary and scientific socialism during the insurrections of the 1870s.Шаблон:Sfn
Primary sources on Cafiero's life have been written by James Guillaume (who also penned the introduction to the 1910 edition of Cafiero's Summary of Capital) and Max Nettlau, in their respective histories of the IWA.Шаблон:Sfn Later histories of the Italian anarchist movement, written by Pier Carlo Masini, Enzo Santarelli, T.R. Ravindranathan and Nunzio Pernicone, situated Cafiero firmly within the anarchist tradition. On the other hand, Marxist historian Richard Drake depicted Cafiero as a "dissident forerunner" of Italian Marxism.Шаблон:Sfn His eventual endorsement of electoralism has also been taken by some historians as an example of classical anarchism's defeat by social democracy.Шаблон:Sfn Overall, Cafiero's ideological trajectory has challenged the dichotomy between Marxism and anarchism as opposing factions.Шаблон:Sfn
Selected works
- Шаблон:Cite bookШаблон:Sfnm
- Шаблон:Cite webШаблон:Sfnm
- Шаблон:Cite webШаблон:Sfnm
- Шаблон:Cite bookШаблон:Sfn
- Шаблон:Cite bookШаблон:Sfn
- Шаблон:Cite bookШаблон:Sfn
References
Bibliography
Further reading
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite book
- Шаблон:Cite encyclopedia
- Шаблон:Cite book
External links
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