Italian Anarchism in America: Its Accomplishments, Its Limitations

Abstract

From the last third of the 19th century until soon after the turn of the 20th century, Italy (with the exception of Spain) was the site of Europe's largest anarchist movement. Mikhail Bakunin, the progenitor of modern anarchism, first found widespread support in Italy, and, while there, from 1863 to 1867, he published his seminal writings, which remain the framework for anti-organizational, libertarian anarchism. Italian intellectuals, notably Carlo Pisacane and Errico Malatesta, contributed to the development of anarchist theory. In the United States, anarchism persisted longer and had more effect in the Italian immigrant community than elsewhere. Most significantly, it challenged (for a time successfully) Fascist hegemony in the multitudinous Little Italys where the vast majority of Italian Americans resided. Marcella Bencivenni's Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in the United States 1890–1940 sheds new light on the culture (both as production/consumption and as a way of life) of the Italian radical movement, especially its anarchist wing, in America. Bencivenni's presentation of the culture of Italian American radicalism explains, despite the anarchist communities' inability to sustain a larger movement and consolidate victories, the appeal of anarchism in the Italian immigrant community, and by extrapolation in other working-class constituencies.