WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE ITALY - news journal UPDATE - (en) Italy, Umanita Nova #24-25 - Posters of the FAI 1945-2025 (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The FAI posters on display in Carrara - Opening Sunday, October 5 at 11

a.m., ex Paretra space, Via Beccheria 5 ---- This exhibition, dedicated
to the posters of the National Congresses of the Federazione Anarchica
Italiana (FAI), seeks to highlight the 80 years of a political
organization that remains fully active, having carefully preserved its
founding principles. ---- Of course, the posters shown - a sample
selection of subjective sources and self-representations - do not
capture the entirety of the "propaganda" carried out throughout the
FAI's long history. Yet they offer an effective overall picture of the
militant work of a federalist and libertarian organization that entrusts
its congress assemblies with the definition of its political strategy.

The Federazione Anarchica Italiana was founded at the Congress of
September 1945 in Carrara, after uncompromising opposition to fascism
waged by anarchists during the regime, in antifascist exile, in the
Spanish Civil War, in internment, in prisons, and finally in the
Resistance against Nazi-fascism. In postwar Italy, it faced an entirely
new situation: with the advent of the republic and the democratic
system, the end of decades-long anti-monarchist struggle, and the Cold
War strongly limiting the political space and activity of libertarian
forces.

The FAI descends directly from the Unione Anarchica Italiana of 1920,
founded by Errico Malatesta and Luigi Fabbri, adopting its Anarchist
Program and much of the Associative Agreement, thus proposing a social
and organizing anarchism.

The exhibition also includes posters related to historical study
conferences promoted in recent decades - including one on the Unione
Anarchica Italiana - reflecting the organization's strong commitment to
preserving its memory in order to understand the past in relation to the
near future.

In the postwar period, the FAI was rooted throughout the country with
several hundred groups and circles, numerous regional and provincial
federations, about a dozen periodicals and magazines, and two weeklies:
Il Libertario (Milan) and Umanità Nova (Rome). This presence allowed for
wide dissemination of its political vision aimed at social
transformation in a communist and libertarian sense, with an
internationalist perspective, while maintaining a coherent relationship
between means and ends in collective action.

The posters from 1945 to the late 1950s show the FAI's commitment
against imperialist blocs, denounce reactionary government policies, and
illustrate strong mobilizations against dictatorships: both the
Francoist regime in Spain and the Stalinist regimes in Eastern Europe,
culminating in the 1956 invasion of Hungary.

During those years, the FAI also waged a significant struggle to defend
the immediate interests of working-class people and, more broadly,
individual and collective freedoms attacked by repression and the
obscurantism of established powers. Its political proposal was based on
direct action and self-organization of struggles, "outside any electoral
illusion," reaffirming the revolutionary abstentionism valued by
anarchists. It is worth remembering that the poster - alongside the
rally - was the primary tool of political propaganda in the postwar era,
thanks to its captivating visual language.

The second group of posters spans from the mid-1970s to the present,
marking the transition from text-based to illustrated posters. It was
precisely the libertarian '68 and the creative '77 that gave the
political poster a new, highly effective image both graphically and in
its slogans.

With its continued militant presence over time, the FAI has made
extensive use of this powerful communication medium, publishing numerous
posters on various libertarian themes: counterinformation on the strage
di Stato and Giuseppe Pinelli, the cases of Giovanni Marini and Franco
Serantini, the movements of the 1970s, '80s and '90s, Genoa 2001, and
all ecological, anti-militarist, feminist, and anti-authoritarian
initiatives of the last 25 years.

Prominent artists, illustrators, and graphic designers contributed to
these "golden years" of the political poster, making these works small
paper masterpieces - both valuable and sought after. Some of these
authors are featured in the exhibition, including Chicco Aiello, Matteo
Guarnaccia, Nani Tedeschi, and Stefano Raspa; the latter illustrated
both the poster for this exhibition and that of the study conference
"Anarchism. A Global and Italian History (1945-2025)" celebrating the
FAI's 80th anniversary, Carrara, October 11-12, 2025.

Archivio Libreria Fai Reggiana (Reggio Emilia)
Archivio storico della Federazione Anarchica Italiana (Imola)

https://umanitanova.org/manifesti-della-fai-1945-2025/
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