Читать книгу The Complete Works of Malatesta Vol. III - Errico Malatesta - Страница 24

Translated from “Cose sporche,”

L’Agitazione (Ancona) 1, no. 3 (March 28, 1897).

From Marsala we have received a newsletter signed by Antonino Azzaretti, inviting socialists and anarchists to cast their votes for Crispi’s well-known henchman Abele Damiani, and proclaiming him “a proud man of integrity, a long-time revolutionary, his soul tempered by struggles in which he has never bent the knee.”

For several years now Antonino Azzaretti has been describing himself as an anarchist and he has been the editor of the Marsala newspapers Il Proletario and Il Proletariato, which have much helped sow the bad seed of confusion and corruption in anarchist ranks.

He is the one who argued that the true anarchist should think only of himself; who said that the feature of the true anarchist should be incoherence; who preached individualism and disorganization; who opposed the workers’ Fasci in Sicily, and who, when Giolitti threatened to disband them, was elated and exclaimed: “That will teach peasants the damage that organization can do!”146

And at the same time, when a friend of ours remonstrated with him, he wrote: “I stand ready to steer this paper in whatever direction you choose, if you will commit to furnish the copy and the cash.”

And now—in a fitting end to such a career—behold him acting as agent for Crispi’s party, and all still in the name of socialism and anarchy and in the supposed “interests of the cause.”

We dislike personality issues and our purpose is to keep at all times to the level-headed terrain of discussion and propagation of ideas, but in certain circumstances, the personal attack becomes a duty.

At all costs, we must rid ourselves of these knaves who have infiltrated our ranks. No longer is it a matter here of tactics or principles; it is a matter of sincerity and personal integrity. There should be no one among us who has sold out or who is on the market for sale.

A party, any body of men, that fails to spew out such rottenness, in a simple reflex of revulsion, can have no claim to the respect and regard of the public, much less advocate for a new era of nobler social living.

146 The workers’ Fasci was a movement of peasants, miners, and industrial workers that arose in Sicily in 1893. It started with economic demands but escalated into a revolt, with strikes, attacks on city halls, destruction of custom-houses, and a refusal to pay taxes. The word “fasci” is the plural for “fascio” (bundle), a term that symbolized the strength of union and bore no relation but etymological with the later Fascist movement.