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About Berneri / Blow...

Really amazing review of the acts of a libertarian conference in Europe dedicated to Camillo Berneri in 2007 (published in "A" n. ° 365, October 2011). What are the most esteems the expertise and very respectful and detached attitude towards measures contained therein. A crescendo of judgment supported not only by true scientific enthusiasm, but also by great tolerance, openness and sensitivity to the libertarian debate, culminating in the use of precise and unambiguous terms. With regard to my report, I read such a "rough process of a historical point of view and politically very questionable." Congratulations.

Why so jumpy? Antonio Senta, who signs the piece, said first that I would blame to opt for "an interpretation of thought berneriano the light of contemporary politics." Assuming (but by no means granted), let me observe that any work quietly "interprets" the author: it could not be otherwise. Moreover, should he live Berneri "mummified"? It is not the same review to bear the title "Why is it important (and current) Camillo Berneri"?

Here, at first sight, it is certain evidence against a unique job of being "politically very questionable" because, listen, listen, would aim to "contamination between anarchism and politics."

I realize the difficulty, but when it falls on slippery ground must equip themselves with proper shoes. If he fears the "contamination" is taken away from the "contagion". Otherwise if not s'arrabbi opens the way. We therefore ask our what he wrote. In these times dominated by a form of politics that knows abstruse defined only for opposition (without synthesis): the '"anti-politics", so fashionable today. Conversely, once a popular saying that "everything is political" and, on the other hand, feminists of the '70s (and not without reason) came to argue that even "the staff" were "political"! Mutatis mutandis, the Senta is consistent: if anarchism has nothing to do with politics, if it must always be "apolitical" or "anti-political", then the uncomfortable political categories.

Looking quite adequate to explain with words (especially in his speech) where and why my report would be biased. The main problem is all here: the definitions are not critical at all substantiated by documented rebuttals and species. Then it gets worse and unpleasant expressions - that should be avoided, however, a priori - are then also free.

Look accuses me of "use different quotes Berneri to give value to [my] theory." To him "it seems that the ideas, sometimes clashing with each other, that Berneri developed in the course of his militancy, continues to suffer a twist." But there's also Giampietro Berti, who would offer "a reading that pays the merciless fascination for Berneri regarded as the founder and leader of an anarchist political science. " Of course he "in his speech ... force the events of the twentieth century and the activities within a theoretical framework Berneri very questionable. " Look really wants to support this? Then explain why, indicate where, refuting as well, but for good reason!

Me too "seems" something. As often happens, the source of the discomfort that triggers the polemic denouncing par in the first and most elaborate argument. Senta wrote: "Berneri, Berti remarks (...), would be the first to make a division between value judgments and statements of fact, opening the door to anarchy intended as a search for political solutions. This interpretation is also central in the report by Stefano d'Errico. "

Yes, that's the point. Look dear things first. I am convinced for some time that higher education has left us Berneri is contained in this sentence:

"So it is not the thing that you think that is the freedom, but the way in which you think" (1).

This is not a reflection isolated, because the lodigiano then written:

"Today it is customary to make fun of fascist rhetoric. But we laugh at the monkeys in front of a mirror "(2).

And here is a link with this: even in times of political correctness, the confusion between statements of fact and value judgments are more valid than ever.

Culture and practice of analysis are essential for the maturation of Berneri consciousness and libertarian sensibilities, and that is why I loathe ideologism exhibition, static and unchanging:

"An anarchist can not but detest the closed ideological systems (theories that we call doctrine) and can not give a relative value principles" (3). "I confirm it: I focus on the principles it is neither hot nor cold, because I know that under that name they are opinions. (...) I have principles and among these is to never be impressed by reference to the principles. (...) The man who "went on the principles of" take deductive reasoning, the more barren and more dangerous. The man who starts with an examination of the facts in order to formulate the principles adopted inductive reasoning, which is the only truly rational "(4).

This he wrote, of course, not because they had principles (for he has given to the principles of life), but because he could not stand - as in the case of abstention, which criticized its in principle, finding it to be valid absolute - that becoming confused with the principles and methods that the latter withdrawn from the trial, then became immovable. The Lodi could not stand the superficiality botched and possessed of the neophytes and the complacency of some doctrinaire anarchism:

"We are devoid of political consciousness in the sense that we have no awareness of current problems and we continue to dilute solutions obtained from our literature of propaganda. We avveniristi, and that's it. (...) It's time to end with formulaic complicated by pharmacists, who can not see beyond their jars filled with smoke, it's time to stop talkers who get drunk with the public good sounding phrases, is the time finish it with the simplistic, which have three or four ideas nailed in the head and act as the vestal wisp distributing excommunications of the Ideal "(5).

"Among us there is a vulgar, difficult to make new music to new ears, which settings to problems and solutions opposes vague utopian drawings and crude demagogic tirades. Because those four ideuzze, gleaned in large books or pamphlets didactic misunderstood, in cervelluccio idle and they were crouched standard there, the warmth of an easy rhetoric that claims to be a faith full of solar power, while it is not that smoky little fire " (6).

If you are not the architects of their own beliefs, if you do not accept that high form of "secularism" (experimental) inherent in the autonomy of thought and intellectual honesty, you end up convinced of one thing only because others are saying: according to some sociologists, the question (not thought out) opinion of the "pack" (any pack). On the contrary:

"Anarchism must keep that set of generic principles that form the basis of his thought and nourishment of his passionate action, but must learn to face the complicated mechanism of modern society without glasses and without undue attachments doctrinal integrity of his faith "(7).

Berneri was working on a program:

"Our best, by Malatesta Fabbri, fail to resolve the questions that we ask, offering solutions that are political. The political calculation and creation of forces which realize an approximation of reality to the ideal system, using formulas of agitation, and the polarization of accommodation, suitable to be agitating, polarizing and sistematizzanti in a given social and political moment.

An actualist anarchism, conscious of his strength and fighting spirit of construction and hostile forces, romantic heart and realistic with the brain, enthusiastic and able to stall, generous and able to condition their support, capable, in short, a ' economy of forces here is my dream. And I hope he is not alone "(8).

He wanted to put a socially anarchism and "inside" the story:

"Anarchism is the traveler who goes through the streets of the story, and fight with men who are built with stones, and that gives his age" (9).

But he also wrote the "worst":

"Any company can not fully satisfy the needs of individual freedom. The will of the majority is not always compatible with that of minorities. Any form of politics presupposes the subordination of minorities. So authorities. Escaping the authorities is to flee the company. Diogenes in the barrel can be an individual, a people needs of the city "(10).

It was perhaps for this reason a Democrat tout court, or worse, an "authoritarian"? The thing is more complex:

"Anarchy by the approach seems to me it appears, never identified, because this would be stasis, freedom and authority. As principles. As facts, freedom and authority are to one another as truth and error, as entities that differentiate and identify, in the historical process "(11). "The a priori denial of the authority resolves to a angelicarsi men and in an impetuous development of a collective genius, almost inherent to the revolution, which is called popular initiative (...) The problem of representation, the problem of inter-relationships The problem of subrogation of the state: all this has solutions or strictly partial or totally inadequate or outdated because optimistic "(12).

And there is a definite gap between authority and authoritarianism.

In summary, here is the difference between "anarchy" and '"anarchism" (the idea and its political form):

"The anarchist understands that you act in the history of the people to be aware that much that can be understood and to act, pointing to the immediate goals, interpreting, and general real needs, responding to feelings and common living. (...) The story is opposition and synthesis. Anarchism, if he wants to act in history and become a big factor in history, must have faith in anarchy, as a possibility is realized in its social progressive approximations. Anarchy as a religious system (every ethical system is religious by nature) is a "truth" of faith, then by its very nature, evident only to those who can see. Anarchism is more alive, more vast, more dynamic. He is a compromise between the idea and fact, between today and tomorrow. Anarchism proceeds in a polymorphic way, because it is in life. And its deviations themselves are finding a better route "(13).

Berneri is then

"An anarchist who believes anarchy and, even more, anarchism" (14).

Is this not the explicit references to politics?

Here's the problem: people used to live militancy (and politics) in religious terms, so as to confuse the politicians '(or' politicism ") with politics tout court, could not believe self-government of the polis (as an eminently political that Senta then cites contradictory as "antidote" to the policy itself). Who thinks so, risks, past and present, of believing "the most anarchic of all." But it is only an "anarchy" metaphysics, which should (and could) be done without program, without political forms and without the project (ie without herself anarchy "immaterial").

Those who think so, because it is essentially used to think that judgments of fact and value judgments are interchangeable. Therefore necessarily sees those who speak of the attitude of political anarchism "political mediation" the most cheesy, the ability to go through strength "from the field of reform as possible" (never heard of the difference between gradualism and reformism?), And then launched the anathema. Hence the conspiracy, the process of clues. Listen, I want to "political activity of government (...) from the mediation between conflicting interests", which will result in nothing less than "the extinction of anarchism"! What would be the way instead? But of course, "self-government of men and women, that is, direct democracy, that self-management" ... Gosh! And there are forms of politics?

The review of a book can not be less argumentative with a song of Nomads (who identified clearly what is negative in the politics of conformism, of the state delegation and absolute, "which is just a career").

The great task of anarchism is to work against the autonomy of politics, against the ingrained idea that the end justifies the means, against a policy that denies ethical guidance.

All this does not entitle to confuse means with ends, to rise in the same way as the methods of immutable principles. The love and hate politics of the ruling does not allow to make this the only possible policy. The ethical appeal, because priority can not be abstract and idealistic. It is however clear declines in history (and even in politics) is called ethics of responsibility. Berneri wrote:

"Being with people is easy if it is to scream: Viva! Down! Next! Long live the revolution! - Or if it is simply to fight. But there comes a time when all wonder: What do we do? You have to have an answer. Not to be leaders, but because the crowd did not create them "(15).

And this relates to the need for a project, because the revolution is not (can not) the regeneration or, for anarchists, the equivalent of a coup (so you need to consider the level of consciousness and 'aging' of civil society). Ergo, you need a humanistic approach:

"Even with regard to tolerance, the right moral and political profit agree. (...) Tolerance is a concept uniquely ours, when you do not mean by this term the indifference. Anarchism is the philosophy of tolerance "(16).

The revolution can not be done 'ex parte', because no political movement will never be alone on the stage of the revolution (as verified by the Spanish anarchists, despite being the strongest), and here is the problem, purely political alliances (which Berneri, as everyone knows, for example, worked hard with the Rosselli brothers).

As to the criticism (which Berneri received in abundance), comforted him a sentence of Malatesta, whose cropping (collecting and cataloging system widely used by Lodi), jealously preserved:

"Who is not more anarchic retired without saying, more or less frank and elegant, and those who feel anarchism is that even if the interpretation of anarchism was the only tactic of his opinion" (17).

Berneri is so unorthodox to dignify the 'revisionism' in the anarchist camp:

"We do not fear that word revisionism, which is thrown at us by the outraged orthodoxy, because the word of the masters is to know and be understood. But too much we respect our elders, to put them in their theories, snarling Cerberus, almost as holy arks, almost as dogmas. The ideology of authoritarianism 'ipse dixit that do not recognize it as a plot of common ideals reasons, not as a pattern to develop in mere popularizations "(18).

Share your thoughts berneriano is not mandatory, but it certainly does not make you a good service, passing it to an Orthodox ...

I Berneri quotes I provided (and in my work each is marked by a note). The appearance of Senta (and maybe even a couple of books that documented the thought of Lodi will be certainly less "gross" of mine).

Stefano d’Errico
(Roma)

Note

1. C. Berneri, L’ateismo di propaganda, da “L’Adunata dei Refrattari”, N. Y. 1.2.1936.

2. C. Berneri, Della demagogia oratoria (II), da “L’Adunata dei Refrattari”, N. Y. 7.3.1936, riportato fra i testi di complemento nell’edizione curata da P. C. Masini di C. Berneri, Mussolini grande attore, Ed. dell’Archivio Famiglia Berneri, Comune di Pistoia, 1983.

3. C. Berneri, Astensionismo e anarchismo, da “L’Adunata dei Refrattari”, N.Y. 25.4.1936.

4. C. Berneri, I principii, da “L’Adunata dei Refrattari”, New York 13.6.1936.

5. C. Berneri, Anarchismo e federalismo. Il pensiero di Camillo Berneri, da “Pagine libertarie”, Milano 20.11.1922.

6. C. Berneri, Per un programma d’azione comunalista, manoscritto del 1926 rimasto inedito sino al 1964.

7. C. Berneri, Anarchismo e federalismo. Il pensiero…, cit.

8. C. Berneri, Per un programma d’azione comunalista, cit.

9. C. Berneri, Sovietismo, anarchismo e anarchia, da “L’Adunata dei Refrattari”, N. Y. 15.10.1932.

10. C. Berneri, La concezione anarchica dello Stato, inedito incompiuto del 1926, conservato presso Archivio Famiglia Berneri – Aurelio Chessa (ABC), Reggio Emilia.

11. C. Berneri, Libertà ed autorità, in “Fede!”, Roma 22.6.1924.

12. C. Berneri, Per un programma d’azione comunalista, cit.

13. C. Berneri, Sovietismo, anarchismo e anarchia, da “L’Adunata dei Refrattari”, N. Y. 15.10.1932.

14. C. Berneri, Gli anarchici e G. L., da “Giustizia e Libertà”, Parigi 6.12.1935.

15. C. Berneri, In margine alla Piattaforma, da “Lotta umana”, nella serie “Discussioni anarchiche”, 3.12.1927.

16. C. Berneri, Della tolleranza, da “Fede!”, Roma 20.4.1924.

17. Frammento presente nella “Raccolta di articoli sul pensiero degli anarchici classici”, presso l’Archivio Famiglia Berneri – Aurelio Chessa (ABC), Reggio Emilia.

18. C. Berneri, Per un programma d’azione comunalista, cit.

...and answer / over and out

Dear Stefano d'Errico,

I answer willingly and in a quiet, deliberately ignoring the acid tone of your letter.

I try to explain again: by reading this volume of the proceedings of the conference I emphasized those aspects of any relationship which, in my modest way of looking you could focus the attention of the reader. As for your assistance, I remain convinced that from a historical point of view (and a convention of historical studies it) is not correct to proceed with the method that you use, or starting an argument on the condition that would pay today 'Anarchism, trying to prove it by putting together events, places and times different from each other. In your case, the initial theory is that "there is a question of anarchism in the world - more or less conscious - which is not an 'offer' adequate. The Remains of the libertarian movement is unable to be present for some time to himself because of the marginalization caused by an ossified dogmatism "(p. 150 of your essay).

Proceeding from this starting point, in the writings of Berneri excavations in search of the factors of identification between anarchism and politics. This term is often difficult to understand each other, perhaps now even more popular since the term "anti-politics". In my review I meant, and I mean even now, politics as a synonym for "government", ie as opposed to the term "social" as the term "self" or "self". Distinction that is the heritage of the libertarian movement by the Congress of Saint Imier of 1872 and which I think is one of the reasons for the enduring relevance of anarchism. I can be free to have that opinion?

In your research on the texts of the work of assembling fragments Berneri, both those published as the ones he deliberately unpublished (drafts, sketches and so on. Some of them "trash"), written at different times and in particular historical contexts very distant between them. What comes out are not your words, nor those of Berneri, but a complete contamination of paintings and historical ideals also very far apart. That's why I'll confirm that for me this is a crude way to proceed from a historical point of view and distorting historical facts in the light of its own policy of the conviction, and therefore, absolutely partial and particular. This is what I think, is always permissible to express divergent views and criticism from yours.

Finally, two points (as we dance, dance), the first woman minister in 1917, Kollontai was not the Montseny (p. 198). The text of The antisocial is actually Guccini, then also sung by the Nomads, but this is really a trifle.

I wish that this controversy would end here, because I think there are clear terms of understanding and perhaps even a clear comparison, but potential factors for the escalation of the dialectic between us.
Ciao.

Antonio Senta