#WORLD #WORLDWIDE #ITALY #ANARCHISM #News #Journal #Update - (en) #Italy, FDCA - Il Cantiere #10-11: 150th anniversary of the "Rimini Conference" BY Giulio Angeli (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 From 4 to 6 August 1872 the conference was held in Rimini which saw the

foundation of the "Italian Section of the International Association of Workers"
(AIL), already founded at the London congress on 4 October 1864 and known as the
"First International". ---- The Rimini Conference opened with the cry of "long
live the International" and took place in an enthusiastic context, effectively
described by Errico Malatesta: ---- I said that it was hoped that the revolution
would break out from one moment to the next. other. It will be useful to mention
the ideological and psychological reasons which explain those too early hopes,
and which also partly explain the nature of the anarchist movement into which the
International was resolved. ---- Given the Italian environment still vibrant with
memories of Mazzinian conspiracies and Garibaldi expeditions, given the
excitement produced by the Paris Commune, given the predominant influence of
Bakunin, given the temperament and convictions of the first initiators, the
International in Italy could not to be a simple federation of workers' resistance
leagues, albeit to radical tendencies as it was elsewhere. From the beginning it
assumed a decidedly subversive character, which finds a certain confirmation only
in Spain, where the character of the inhabitants and the political situation were
almost like in Italy, and where, moreover, the internationalist movement was
initiated by Fanelli, sent there on a mission. by the Bakunist Alliance.
Bakunin's predominant influence, given the temperament and convictions of the
first initiators, the International in Italy could not be a simple federation of
workers' resistance leagues, albeit with radical tendencies as it was elsewhere.
 From the beginning it assumed a decidedly subversive character, which finds a
certain confirmation only in Spain, where the character of the inhabitants and
the political situation were almost like in Italy, and where, moreover, the
internationalist movement was initiated by Fanelli, sent there on a mission. by
the Bakunist Alliance. Bakunin's predominant influence, given the temperament and
convictions of the first initiators, the International in Italy could not be a
simple federation of workers' resistance leagues, albeit with radical tendencies
as it was elsewhere. From the beginning it assumed a decidedly subversive
character, which finds a certain confirmation only in Spain, where the character
of the inhabitants and the political situation were almost like in Italy, and
where, moreover, the internationalist movement was initiated by Fanelli, sent
there on a mission. by the Bakunist Alliance.

The international was born in socialist, anarchist, revolutionary Italy, and
consequently antiparlamenta re ". (1)

Delegates representing 21 sections participate in the Rimini conference (the
sections of the newly formed Italian Section of the AIL were actually about
fifty), including the anarchists Carlo Cafiero and Andrea Costa, respectively
president and secretary of the Conference; the anarchist Giuseppe Fanelli; a very
young Errico Malatesta and the internationalists Celso Ceretti, Ludovico
Nabruzzi, Saverio Friscia.

The conference took some important decisions among which were distinguished those
to interrupt any ideological and political relationship with "authoritarian
communism" and with the London General Council of the AIL following its
centralizing role decided at the previous London Conference (17 / 23 September
1871); not to participate in the AIL congress held from 2 to 7 September 1872 in
The Hague at the same time indicating, instead, for the following 2 September in
Neuchatel, an "anti-authoritarian" international congress, open to all AIL
federations that did not recognize themselves in the decisions taken at the
aforementioned London Conference.

In Rimini, where Bakunin's influence was very evident, the differences that have
matured and persisted within the AIL between the components referring to the
positions of Marx (Engels) and Bakunin reach an irreversible breaking point,
which will culminate with the decisions that will be taken at the forthcoming
Hague congress.

It must be said that in the preparatory stages of the London Conference of
September 1871, held in place of the Fifth Congress of the AIL which had not
taken place due to the international situation (Franco-Prussian War; Paris
Commune; climate of generalized repression) , Marx and Engels had worked
effectively in order to obtain a majority of the delegates to ratify an important
"strategic" decision with respect to the "political struggle" (resolution IX),
which transformed the ILA into an independent party of the proletariat for the
conquest of political power (proletarian state) according to the intentions
tenaciously pursued by Marx and Engels, in addition to the further centralized
role of the General Council which, in fact, greatly limited the autonomy of the
sections of the ILA.

These resolutions, resolutely opposed by Bakunin, would in any case have
constituted a total victory for Marx and the General Council hegemonized by them
but would, at the same time, lay the foundations for the imminent split and for
the end of the AIL, as it would have matured at the next V Congress of The Hague
(from 2 to 7 September 1872) where, with a majority artfully constructed by Marx
and Engels, the resolutions of the previous London conference would have been
fully implemented: centralization of the powers of the General Council which
became "the state greater than the AIL "greatly limiting the autonomy of the
sections; the resolution on "Political Action of the Working Class", which
transformed the AIL into a political party for the seizure of power; the transfer
of the General Council to New York, which meant the end of the AIL; the expulsion
of Bakunin and Guillame from the AIL.

We have seen that the Rimini Conference had decided to celebrate an
"anti-authoritarian" congress in Neuchatel, which instead took place from 15 to
16 September 1872 in Saint Imier where the Hague resolutions were rejected by
opposing them, in the three points that followed the "recitals":

-that the destruction of political power is the "first duty of the proletariat";

- that any organization of a self-styled provisional and revolutionary political
power can only be a deception for the proletariat;

-that the proletarians of every country must establish the solidarity of
revolutionary action outside of bourgeois politics.

But, as Victor Garcia acutely writes: "Things, having reached this point" show
that the organization, founded by the British and French in London in 1864, and
whose existence could be justified by the understanding of the working masses,
was over. . In its place stood, on the one hand, a General Council without a
base, more than 6000 km away from its real field of action and, on the other, a
different International, in the sense that it was more revolutionary than worker,
more social than economic, more specific than class ". (2)

In this striking contradiction, the Hague International will continue its
ephemeral and buroctatic existence until the Philadelphia congress of 1876 which
will sanction its definitive dissolution.

While the "anti-authoritarian" International founded in S. Imier will begin its
path, formally interrupting itself with the last congress held from 6 to 8
September 1877 in Verviers, making a fundamental contribution to the definition
of the theoretical, strategic and organizations that will orient anarchism for
over half a century.

Analyzing the controversy between Marx and Bakunin is a question that goes beyond
this commemoration but, for the sake of clarity, it is still useful to highlight
one of its characteristics with the beautiful words of PC Masini, written in
reference to the work of the German Marxist Franz Mehring: (3)

It is known what the current opinion on Bakunin and on anarchism, borrowed from
the liberalism of the Bismarkian period, was among the philistines of the German
Social Democracy: Bakunin as a conscious enemy of the working class, the
anarchist movement an extraneous infiltration into the workers' movement.

Mehring rejects this current opinion as fantastic and absurd, easily deflates it
by opposing a sound materialistic conception and replacing it with an objective
evaluation. Bakunin, according to Mehring, interpreted certain instances of the
workers' movement, and anarchism constituted the political formulation of these
instances.

At the very source of these complications, in the Geneva dispute between the
fabrique and the gros métiers, the real antagonists were revealed.

Here a well-paid working class, with political rights which allowed him to
participate in the parliamentary struggle, but which also attracted him into all
sorts of questionable alliances with bourgeois parties; there a poorly paid
working class, deprived of political rights, which could only count on its bare
strength. It was a question of these practical antagonisms and not, as the
legendary tradition tells us, of a theoretical antagonism: here the reason, there
the lack of reason! ...

These considerations cut off the head of the qualifications of "bourgeois" or
"petty-bourgeois" attached to the movement inspired by Bakunin and place the
divergence between Marx and Bakunin on the level of the material, objective
differences that weighed on the development of the workers' movement of a hundred
years ago " . (4)

Up to now much has been said and written on the subject, but the distorting
opinion consciously matured "among the philistines of social democracy" in order
to discredit Bakunin and anarchism and which is still very much alive, refers to
other and necessary insights, critics and above all self-critics, whom we want to
remember and wish for with the very topical words of our Errico Malatesta:

It is enough for me to note that all our predictions on the degeneration into
which socialism which became legalistic and parliamentarian would fall have
unfortunately been verified, and beyond what we ourselves thought.

We have made many mistakes, we have seen many illusions vanish, we have grossly
deceived ourselves about the time necessary for the penetration of our ideas
among the masses, but in short, our work was not in vain. Many of the seeds we
have scattered have fallen on the bare rock and been lost, but many have found
the soil fertile.
---
Taken from Il Cantiere n. September 10, 2022

Libertarian Alternative / Federation of Anarchist Communists

To request a copy of the magazine, send an article or a comment you can write to
ilcantiere@autistici.org

Il Cantiere n. 10 Settembre 2022
Alternativa Libertaria/Federazione dei Comunisti Anarchici
ilcantiere@autistici.org
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