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 Among
the many misunderstandings about the anarchist movement, there is
one, created by more or less interested critics, who wants his
story and his story essentially alien to the world of work, the
working class and the proletariat in general. As if this
movement, which sees the vast majority of its activists, the most
popular to the less known, come from the ranks of the people and
wage labor, petty bourgeois was made up by penniless and
disillusioned, or even worse, all driven by intellectuals' action
only to assert his own personality. Logical corollary to this
misconception, the conventional wisdom in political and
historical rather uninformed, the almost complete absence of
unions organized by anarchists, as if they, even if extraction
proletarian working and training, so they were suffering from an
incurable individualism by spontaneously alienate those same
unions that they could protect their interests and the need for
emancipation. In short, a situation of widespread
automarginalizzazione decidedly unconvincing.
In recent years,
however, new studies have been able to appreciate particularly
attentive to the presence of trade unions and anarchists in
particular in those revolutionary, among them biographies of some
of their most prominent members, militants risen nationally and
have left their mark in the history of the country. Suffice it to
recall, among others, the names of Alberto Meschi, Attilio Sassi,
Armando Borghi, Umberto Marzocchi, emblematic figures of the deep
and organic relationship between anarchism and the labor
movement, whose role in the conduct of the struggle and in the
expression of multiple claims radicals was finally fully
recognized. Figures, above all, showing how strong the
relationship between the anarchist and the trade union militancy,
between the organization and the specific mass.
This rich
historiographic production is not only to set new milestones, but
also allows you to bring a world whose existence has simply
incredible size, revealing extraordinary lives so as to be
unthinkable today, for the richness and intensity of events
experiences which they were actors. While, in fact, studies on
trade unions and animated by anarchist libertarians - think
especially Italian Union of Statutory Auditors in the first
post-war grew to over three hundred thousand members - have
contributed to rewrite the rich with more accurate and
uninterrupted history the Italian syndicalism, the rebuilding of
these lives and revolutionary militants, devoted to "cause"
and the affirmation of the emancipation of the working class,
were particularly instructive in explaining how the organization
was strong enough to resort to mark indelibly the traits of the
protagonists existential of that season.
With strong intensity
With this autobiography Gaetano Gervasio, always
attentive to the cause of the exploited and the witness of
solidarity, rebuilds her life, not as isolated and exceptional
experience - even if they are clearly outside the normal
hardening and moral force that has shown - but as an integral
part a social activist and capable of transforming the objective
of exceptionality in the normal networks of mutual support that
you helped create. Its appears as an extraordinary example of
attachment to the ideas and ideals that move, an attachment
marked by consistency, humanity and righteousness simply
exemplary. And nevertheless it must be remembered that, in the
surprising wealth of facts, incidents, circumstances, his
experience was not unique, not only because it was interwoven
with that of other anarchists, socialists and revolutionary
rebels like him who lived the same dramatic situations and
exciting, but also because all the tissue that surrounded the
militant workers and proletarians as its protagonists had also
trained in fighting and education, equally determined to live
their lives according to his principles, and safe in the same way
as the ideas and tools with which to carry them forward.
Born
in a remote country dell'avellinese, at the extreme periphery of
the poorest country, interrupted his studies after the third
grade, fatally Gaetano Gervasio was to lead a life on the margins
of society with little opportunity to become protagonists of
their own destiny. But the circumstances, the strength of will
and a lively intelligence, meant that its existence would become
the equilibrium process of social formation, intellectual and
political these pages, partly autobiographical and partly revised
and supplemented by his daughter Joan, we show with great
intensity.
Spent his childhood in his hometown, after a first
wandering in various places in the south where the forgotten,
just eleven years old, began his apprenticeship with his long
life as a worker, he moved to Milan, making this city the place
where you will develop more his political experience and his
network of human relations, and political union. In Milan, but
not only in Milan, because, like many labor activists of his
generation, Gervasio must often leave their residence and
continuous shoulder transfers in other places, driven by
repression or by the need to work. We'll find him, in fact, in
Switzerland, then in the United States, France, in Turin, Milan
and more. Always and everywhere on the side of his companions,
workers and those who, like him, and for the same reasons, are
forced to carry their arms and their capabilities around the
world. Finally, in late life, as a choice for his definitive
retirement, we find it in Naples.
Now in political activism at
a young age, when he was still attending the school of life of
the "master", among the peasants and workers of Melfi
and Cerignola, Gervase embarks on a journey that, despite the
many hardships, he will never slip no. Despite the lack of
detailed studies, his talent will always be able to express
themselves, accompanying himself with an amazing ability to work
in a fortunate combination of arm and mind. Man of many trades,
with great dexterity and eclectic, will, in fact, to live and
keep the family and the many who turned to him. If we still
believe the "natural talent" of the proletariat, which
would take a certain Marxist mythology, we could see in him the
clearest expression. Person by nature affable, sincere bonhomie,
his influence among the comrades of struggle and work also comes
from the particular political and organizational skills. Ready in
deciphering the social situation and its continuing evolution,
will never miss his presence in the ranks of labor: first Italian
Union of Statutory Auditors, the anarcho-syndicalist organization
that, especially in the first post-war high of hundreds of
thousands of students and direct from some of the most important
figures of revolutionary syndicalism, will lead the proletariat
of its own struggles of a war-weary, then, after World War II,
along with other anarchists, the CGIL, finding in it and its mass
organization the best tool of emancipation, regardless of its
political connotations closer to the Communist Party.
It
will be right in the first decade after World War II that will
further develop its presence in the union world, and with the
continuous interventions in the columns of the weekly anarchist
"The Libertarian" is through participation in the
Steering Committee of the CGIL and the Provincial Board of Fiom.
Anarchist without hesitation, will
also advocate trade union unity, in interpreting the concept made
sense of belonging to the general working class and bringing its
experience and organizational capacity in the trade union
confederation of Defense as an exponent of the Auditors of
libertarian. Adherent to Make since its birth will be one of the
leaders within the group Milan 1, of the theoretical aims to
return the current necessary to anarchist thought. While
remaining in the groove of thought Malatesta and attentive to
innovative thinking and "unorthodox" Berneri, that
group of young intellectuals in Milan, in fact, was in the
presence and authority of Gervase the thread of continuity with
the classical anarchism.
It remains, however, that beyond the
differences in setting and evaluating what to do, his innate
sense of solidarity will never fail. Even prior to the placement
of political and ideological differences, the sense of social
solidarity, the common form of both human and ideological,
constantly mark his whole life. Even in the hardest moments,
those of hunger, repression, fascism triumphant, Gaetano Gervasio
will clear in its duties and obligations. The experience of
creating and conducting the workshop red, the "den" of
subversives he invented, which allowed the companies to earn the
bread during the fascist period without having to lower his head,
is perhaps the most significant and eloquent of his of his
humanity and common sense. No coincidence that the pages that
resembles a short but intense period reveal traces of emotion.
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Gaetano
and Giovanna Gervasio
with Antonio Carbonaro, Torino 1962
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The legacy of his
father's teachings
Giovanna Gervasio, picking up the pages of
forgotten father and adding supplements contained in the final
part, wanted to honor a debt. A debt of gratitude not only for
the richness of values and humanity, which he shared with
his father, but also in the younger generations, which are
primarily dedicated to these pages. Let me be clear, there is no
teaching in this book will, there's that sense of superiority or
distance that sometimes emerges in the autobiographies, always at
risk of self-congratulation. There is neither might be because
Joan has dedicated her life to young people and knows how to get
happily in a relationship with them.
His goal, which certainly
reflects the heritage of his father's teachings, is to show how
the inner strength that moves the will of an individual, can and
must become experience. And as the value system of an individual,
as well as to express themselves through unique experiences can
become the best tool to take control of their destiny and to
assert, even in the face of power, its dignity, so that
individual and that of the world of work. A witness, therefore,
very timely and necessary, now that we find a defensive
proletariat, a class union unprepared for the challenges that
await him, if not complicity with the party that should
counteract a lack of strong ideas about projects such as
re-establishing life and liberation. It is these ideas strong,
these universal values, but also lived individually, you must
pass on to future generations.
The life of Joan Gervasio was a
busy life, full of meetings, of great learning experiences,
projects and achievements are particularly important. Clearly in
the continuation and completion of the life of his father. Still
very young and already active in the newly formed Federation of
Anarchist in the second half of the forties, manifested its
commitment to working together not only a libertarian, but also
bringing their own ideas in the many meetings that held in the
peninsula. Accustomed, from a very young, to face the hardships
of life and to be accountable for its actions, Joan will be able
to attend, in person and in positions of responsibility, some of
the most significant and original social and civil trials of the
second post-war period. It seems evident that the thirst for
knowledge and the availability of the new have not failed to be
transmitted from father to daughter. In addition to the
experience in Berneri Cologne, where he served his educational
work for the children housed in the structure of the anarchists
created by Giovanna Berneri summer and Cesare Zechariah, we find
in Rimini Ceis collaborator and teacher at the Educational Center
created by the Swiss-Italian Socialist Zoebeli Margaret, funded
by the Swiss Banks and Mutual Aid for the training of young
secular and rational, which is one of the happiest experiments in
the field of civil liberties of our time. Not surprisingly, at
his side, will lend his precious manual work and intellectual
father Gaetano.
The meeting with her
future husband Antonio Carbonaro, one of the most interesting and
original of that environment cultural training libertarian sees
that collected, among others, around the pages of Will, the value
of intellectual Doglio Charles, Dauphin Insolera, Virgil Galassi,
Giancarlo De Carlo, the crossing will lead to new environments
for new experiences. The short but intense activity in the
Community Olivetti in Ivrea, as among the most innovative of the
experimental capacity of secular culture of Italy, will be the
seal of the urgent reform which involves many of the most liberal
minds and lives of the country. Here he meets, among others,
Lamberto Borghi, the great libertarian teacher training,
constantly present in the initiatives promoted by Adriano
Olivetti. It is those years of constant intellectual inquiry, and
the environment that surrounds her, as an affirmation of a "third
way" freed from the heavy dogmatism prevailing in the first
decades after World War II. Just as the best part of the country
refused to take up the logic blocks, knowing that true liberation
could only be found in the refusal of the balance of fear, just
as in the intellectual men and women seeking free,
nell'affrancamento from dogmatism new roads to travel. The
formation of the father libertarian, anarchic and very strong
reasoning, helps her daughter to follow, in complete independence
and total freedom, their own way. It is another example of the
intense activities in the Association of Italian educator
Demographic Education, held later in Naples along with Fabrizia
Remondino, collaborator and dear friend for life.
Reading
these pages, written by a modest working-class, self-taught and
"stop" to third grade, and completed by his daughter,
the end of deep culture and intellectual life the civic passion,
we can not escape some of the considerations. It is through
experiences like these that the country has improved and that the
working class and workers have consolidated their fundamental
rights, not concessions graciously bestowed but as lasting
achievements. The same as today, in the absence of self-awareness
and strength, are called into question. It is also why it's
valuable publication of this book: not so much just to show how
it can be formed and fulfilled a lifetime experience model, but
also and above all to give the example of the need to fight and
commit themselves without proxies and loopholes. This
would indicate the way for new generations suffocated by a
massive ideological bombardment, the way to securing his own
life, like that of the community, greater respect, more
perspectives and more guarantees.
Massimo Ortalli
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To order it:
The book has 384 pages and one CD included.
Price: €20,00
Requests to: Zero in Condotta
Casella
Postale 17127 – MI 67 20128 Milano
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www.zeroincondotta.org
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rivista
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