At The Café

Chapter 17 : Seventeen
LUIGI [a socialist]: Since everyone here has stated their opinion, allow me to state mine? These are just some of my own ideas, and I don't want to expose myself to the combined intolerance of the bourgeoisie and the anarchists. GIORGIO: I am amazed that you speak like that. Since we are both workers we can, and must, consider ourselves friends and comrades, but you seem to believe that anarchists are the enemies of socialists. On the contrary, we are their friends, their collaborators. Even if many notable socialists have attempted and still attempt to oppose socialism to anarchism, the truth is that, if socialism means a society or the aspiration for a society in which humans live in fellowship, in which the well being of all is a condition for the well being of each, in which no one is a slave or exploited and each person has the means to develop to the maximum extent possible and to enjoy in peace all the benefits of civilization and of... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 16 : Sixteen
PIPPO [War cripple]: I've had enough! Please allow me to tell you that I am amazed, I would almost say indignant that, even though you possess the most diverse opinions, you seem to agree in ignoring the essential question, that of the fatherland, that of securing the greatness and the glory of our Italy. Prospero, Cesare, Vincenzo, and everyone present, other than Giorgio and Luigi (a young socialist), uproariously protest their love for Italy and Ambrogio says on everyone's behalf: In these discussions we have not talked of Italy, as we have not talked of our mothers. It wasn't necessary to talk about what was already understood, of what is superior to any opinion, to any discussion. Please Pippo do not doubt our patriotism, not even that of Giorgio. GIORGIO: But, no; my patriotism can certainly be doubted, because I am not a patriot. PIPPO: I already guessed that: you are one of those that shouts down with Italy... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 15 : Fifteen
GINO [Worker]: I have heard that you discuss social questions in the evenings and I have come to ask, with the permission of these gentlemen, a question of my friend Giorgio. Tell me, is it true that you anarchists want to remove the police force. GIORGIO: Certainly. What! Don't you agree? Since when have you become a friend of police and carabinieri? GINO: I am not their friend, and you know it. But I'm also not the friend of murderers and thieves and I would like my goods and my life to be guarded and guarded well. GIORGIO : And who guards you from the guardians?... Do you think that men become thieves and murderers without a reason? Do you think that the best way to provide for one's own security is by offering up one's neck to a gang of people who, with the excuse of defending us, oppress us and practice extortion, and do a thousand times more damage than all the thieves and all the murderers? Wouldn't it be bet... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 14 : Fourteen
CESARE: Let's resume our usual conversation. Apparently, the thing that most immediately interests you is the insurrection; and I admit that, however difficult it seems, it could be staged and won, sooner or later. In essence governments rely on soldiers; and the conscripted soldiers, who are forced reluctantly into the army barracks, are an unreliable weapon. Faced with a general uprising of the people, the soldiers who are themselves of the people, won't hold on for long; and as soon as the charm and the fear of discipline is broken, they will either disband or join the people. I admit therefore that by spreading a lot of propaganda among the workers and the soldiers, or among the youth who tomorrow will be soldiers, you put yourselves in a position to take advantage of a favorable situation - economic crises, unsuccessful war, general strike, famine etc. etc. - to bring down the government. But then? You will tell me: the people themselves will d... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Chapter 13 : Thirteen
VINCENZO [Young Republican]: Permit me to enter into your conversation so that I can ask a few questions and make a few observations?... Our friend Giorgio talks of anarchism, but says that anarchism must come freely, without imposition, through the will of the people. And he also says that to give a free outlet to the people's will there is a need to demolish by insurrection the monarchic and militarist regime which today suffocates and falsifies this will. This is what the republicans want, at least the revolutionary republicans, in other words those who truly want to make the republic. Why then don't you declare yourself a republican? In a republic the people are sovereign, and if one does what the people want, and they want anarchism there will be anarchism. GIORGIO: Truly I believe I have always spoken of the will of humanity and not the will of the people, and if I said the lalter it was a form of words, an inexact use of language,... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Eleven
AMBROGIO: The other day you concluded that everything depends on the will. You were saying that if people want to be free, if they want to do what needs to be done to live in a society of equals, everything will be fine: or if not so much the worse for them. This would be all right if they all want the same thing; but if some want to live in anarchy and others prefer the guardianship of a government, if some are prepared to take into consideration the needs of the community and others want to enjoy the benefits derived from social life, but do not want to adapt themselves to the necessities involved, and want to do what they like without taking into account the damage it could do to others, what happens if there is no government that determ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Three
CESARE: So tonight you will explain how we can live out government? GIORGIO: I will do my best. But, first of all we must give some consideration to how things are in society as it is and whether it is really necessary to change its composition. Looking at the society in which we live, the first phenomena that strike us are the poverty that afflicts the masses, the uncertainty of tomorrow which, more or less, weighs on everybody, the relentless struggle of everybody fighting everybody in order to conquer hunger… AMBROGIO: But, my dear sir, you could go on talking for some time about these social evils; unfortunately, there are plenty of examples available. But, this does not serve any purpose, and it doesn't demonstrate that we would... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Malatesta began writing the series of dialogues that make up At the Café: Conversations on Anarchism in March 1897, while he was in hiding in Ancona and busy with the production of the periodical L'Agitazione. Luigi Fabbri, in his account of this period, written to introduce the 1922 edition of the full set of dialogues (Bologna, Edizioni di Volontà), edited by Malatesta (Reprint, Torino, Sargraf, 1961), gives us a beguiling picture of Malatesta, clean-shaven as a disguise, coming and going about the city, pipe in mouth, smiling impudently at his friends, who, for the sake of his safety, wished him elsewhere. The idea of the dialogues was suggested to him by the fact that he often frequented a café that was not usually ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Eight
AMBROGIO: You know! The more I think about your free communism the more I am persuaded that you are… a true original. GIORGIO: And why is that? AMBROGIO: Because you always talk about work, enjoyment, accords, agreements, but you never talk of social authority, of government. Who will regulate social life? What will be the government? How will it be constituted? Who will elect it? By what means will it ensure that laws are respected and offenders punished? How will the various powers be constituted, legislative, executive or judicial? GIORGIO: We don't know what to do with all these powers of yours. We don't want a government. Are you still not aware that I am an anarchist? AMBROGIO: Well, I've told you that you are an original. I co... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Five
GIORGIO: Well then, my dear magistrate, if I am not mistaken, we were talking about the right to property. AMBROGIO: Indeed. I am really curious to hear how you would defend, in the name of justice and morals, your proposals for despoliation and robbery. A society in which no-one is secure in their possessions would no longer be a society, but a horde of wild beasts ready to devour each other. GIORGIO: Doesn't it seem to you that this is precisely the case with today's society? You are accusing us of despoliation and robbery; but on the contrary, isn't it the proprietors who continually despoil the workers and rob them of the fruits of their labor? AMBROGIO: Proprietors use their goods in ways they believe for the best, and they have the ri... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)