The Collected Works of Errico Malatesta, Volume III, A Long and Patient Work: The Anarchist Socialism of L'Agitazione, 1897–1898 ed. by Davide Turcato (review)

AK Press has long been committed to the mission of not only advancing new scholarly and political texts on anarchism, but also translating, editing, and making available long-neglected anarchist thinkers' and writers' work. AK Press continues that tradition with this 2016 edition of the collected works of Errico Malatesta (1853–1932). Part of a longer series of edited volumes from Malatesta, this entry examines the Italian anarchist's years of life when he returned from exile in London to Italy and began writing in L'Agitazione.

This return to Italy was the exception to much of his life, as Malatesta spent much of it either in prison or in exile. Malatesta's career spanned the anarchist movement's uprisings in the 1870s through to the beginnings of the Spanish Revolution. His writing was expansive, straddling the realm of theorizing about anarchism as a political philosophy, while also focusing on how anarchism would practically work in the realm of politics and economics. In that time, he wrote several longer literary works, such as Between Peasants, Anarchy, and At the Café. However, as editor Davide Turcato argues in this volume, Malatesta's columns for L'Agitazione are where we are most able to see the thought process of this writer.

The collection largely contains four types of documents: First are the pieces published by Malatesta including all pamphlets, articles, and other printed works; second are Malatesta's unpublished works that were never printed; third, the editors have opted to include "Other people's published writings" (i), which include Malatesta's words from interviews, speeches, and reports, as well as manifestos and programs originating from groups he was a part of; finally, the editors also include other people's unpublished works—such as reports from police officials, transcripts of interrogations, and so on—that pertain to Malatesta's life. Taken together, these four categories offer an exhaustive and thorough look at Malatesta and how he was perceived and treated by authorities.

Major themes that arise from these edited pieces are that Malatesta and other anarchists in Italy during this period had a series of ideological positions to take and how specifically to work with competing or complimentary groups to achieve them. As with other volumes in this series, Turcato introduces the collection before turning to an authoritative scholar in the field of anarchist studies to explain the period and issues further. For this volume, Roberto Giulianelli, an associate professor in economic history with the Universitá Politecnica delle Marche, introduces the collection. Giulianelli explains that the ideological challenges for Malatesta and other anarchists focused on the question of terroristic violence to achieve revolution. Malatesta participated as a member of the London Congress in July 1881, where the "insurrectional option was given priority and anarchism was portrayed as the only genuinely revolutionary movement" and therefore "until the end of the century, anarchism favored individualistic terrorism as a privileged weapon in its political struggle" (vii–viii). Despite this, by the time he launched the newspaper L'Associazione in Nice he had somewhat distanced himself from the "propaganda by the deed."

As Giulianelli explains, "Malatesta proposed that a libertarianism finding expression in terrorist attacks should be replaced by an organized movement committed to pursuing individual freedom and social justice by means of activity that should never be at odds with its goals" (viii). This eventually raised the question of participating in both electoral politics and broader political coalitions in nations such as Italy. The question of whether or not to join with the Socialist Party was of particular interest, and Malatesta and others argued that on certain topics and in particular ways this alliance could work. However, the antistate concepts and end goal of total liberation, as Malatesta and other anarchists...