ERRICO MALATESTA (1853-1932) is a principal figure of Italian and international anarchism. His sixty-year militancy, much of it spent in exile or in prison, spanned the foundation of the anarchist movement in 1872 to the eve of the Spanish Revolution. He has written “bestsellers” of anarchist literature, such as Between Peasants, Anarchy, and At the Café. However, his evolving anarchism–pragmatic, theoretically coherent, and as relevant today as it was a century ago–is best illustrated by the myriad of articles scattered in the anarchist press and collected for the first time in these Complete Works.
This volume focuses on the crucial years in Errico Malatesta’s life when he returned to Italy from his London exile to elaborate his ideas in the columns of L’Agitazione. Responding to what he saw as the unrealistic insurrectionism and isolation into which anarchism had fallen, Malatesta advocated “a long and patient work to prepare and organize the people,” through which anarchism would operate in broad daylight to entrench itself in the workers’ movement.