Editor’s Introduction to the Third Edition (1984)

Editor’s Introduction to the Third Edition (1984)

Nearly twenty years have passed since I wrote the Introduction to the first edition of this book. The May 1968 days have come and gone as have also the Gurus from the other side of the Atlantic such as Reich and Marcuse. Murray Bookchin and Emma Goldman still have their followers while the Germaine Greers are apparently recanting in middle age. Malatesta fortunately has not become a cult figure but his ideas are being slowly recognized by a new generation of anarchists and libertarian socialists in many parts of the world.

This Freedom Press publication has made a modest contribution to a better understanding of Malatesta’s ideas in that there have been editions in Italian (Pistoia, 1968 and long out of print), in Dutch (Baarn, 1980—not a success), in Spanish (Barcelona, 1975—more than 6,000 have been sold and it is still in print), in French, as a series of pamphlets (Annecy, 1982).

The most notable effort to make Malatesta’s writings available has been made in Italy where the three-volume edition of Scritti (first published in 1934–36) was at last reprinted in 1975 by the Movimento Anarchico Italiano, and is an invaluable source work. The late Gino Cerrito contributed a short introduction to this edition while retaining the important original introductions to each of the volumes written by Malatesta’s closest friend and biographer Luigi Fabbri. Two volumes of Selections edited by Cerrito have also been published in Italian: Scritti Scelti (Rome, 1970) and Rivoluzione e Lotta Quotidiana (Revolution and Daily Struggle) (Milan, 1982). And a third volume of anti-militarist writings Scritti Anti-Militaristi (Milan, 1982). The Selected Writings have also appeared in a German edition (Berlin, 1977 and 1980).

The French group published two other volumes of selections: one of 400 pages with the title Anarchistes, socialistes et communistes the other of 128 pages Pour ou Contre les Elections (For or against voting). In all 800 pages of Malatesta’s writings in French—an achievement without parallel. In addition the French paperback publishers 10/18 issued (in 1979) a 400-page volume Articles Politiques selected, translated and introduced by Israel Renof.

In 1982 the fiftieth anniversary of Malatesta’s death was commemorated in Italy with special issues of anarchist journals, public meetings in Ancona, and a week-end Seminar organized by the Centro Studi Libertari “G. Pinelli” of Milan.

The growing awareness even among some academics that Malatesta was a considerable exponent of anarchist ideas as well as a man of action can be seen in the inclusion of extracts from his writings in recent anthologies, and such volumes as Professor Woodcock’s Anarchist Reader (1977). But more importantly Malatesta’s analysis of the political situation in the Western world and his realistic approach to the role that anarchists could play in changing that society are as valid today as ever they were.