Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library 7/1999 No19 $1/50p Karl Max Kreuger Amsterdam December 1946• Den Haag March 1999 For those of us who regularly attended the As a long time activist in the Netherlands, anarchist bookfair in London a meeting with Karl it was only natural that he was also a founding Max would undoubtedly be one of the high points member of the Vrije Bond (Free Union) after it of the day. This good natured and witty Dutchsplit with the OVB (independent union), over it’s man was a positive mine of information regarding failure to involve itself in the broader social issues the international libertarian movement, especially beyond the workplace. He was a regular developments in the old Soviet empire. contributorHis to the VB paper “Buiten de Orde”, relaxed and undogmatic approach to our causeone of the better anarchist journals published gained him many friends in Poland, Ukraine andtoday. Karl Max died suddenly at his home in Den Russia. Through his correspondence he also kept Haag • he will be sadly missed by his many friends in regular touch with comrades in China and Latin and comrades around the world. America; no doubt they also gained greatly fromDat hart klopt ineens niet meer. the information and solidarity he provided. We missen je. New Publication Comrades of the KSL will be glad to know that Anarchists in the Renicci d’Anghiari our latest pamphlet has just been produced. concentration camp Entitled: The Red Flying Column 1945•49 Prisoners & Partisans: This pamphlet is available from the KSL or from Italian Anarchists in the struggle AK Press in Edinburgh or San Francisco against Fascism KSL It’s a collection of essays on the anarchist BM Hurricane resistance inside Italy before, during and after London the Second world War, and complements the WC1N 3XX pamphlets we’ve already produced on the experiences of Italian anti•fascists in the Spanish ENGLAND Civil War. The price is £1.50 The titles of the articles are: Our other pamphlets include: Anarchists against Mussolini Remembering Spain, The CNT and the Livorno: Anarchists versus fascism 1922•45 Russian Revolution, Ned Kelly’s Ghost and Gino Lucetti and the attempt on Mussolini’s life Biographical details on the Spanish Turin 1930 Anarchist Resistance: Please write for details Anarchist Activity in Italy 1939•1945 PIETRO GORI liaising through a number of corresponding Pietro Gori commissions. Along with Amilcare Cipriani, “This was in the early dawn of socialism, or rather, Malatesta and Francesco Saverio Merlino, Gori was the first years when there began to be talk of socialism one of the chief backers and propagandists of this in my country. One day a young law student arrived in party. Returning to Milan, he joined with a number of the Ardenza to make propaganda on behalf of the new workers, artists and students to launchL’Amico del ideas and he spoke with colourful eloquence andPopolo, a newspaper that published 27 issues, all 27 persuasive reasoning. Crowds showed up for hisof which were impounded by the authorities! speeches, drawn by his soft, soothing words, fired by This was one indication of the repression that his oratory, even if they could scarcely fully grasp the battened upon the new•born PSAR, a repression that underlying ideas or had only the vaguest grasp ofculminated after the May Day demonstrations of them. I was seduced by Pietro Gori’s propaganda.”1891, when, yet again, the anarchists were very much (Amedeo Boschi). to the fore. But who was this effective and fascinating Again in 1891, Gori clashed with the socialist propagandist of anarchist thinking? faction led by Filippo Turati. On this occasion, Gori expressed his opposition to constitutional and REVOLUTIONARY ANARCHISM AND parliamentary systems, availing among other things of LEGALITARIAN SOCIALISM arguments drawn from Marx’s Communist Manifesto. Born in Messina on 14 August 1865, (his father, aThe clash with Turati was re•enacted during the one•time conspirator during the Risorgimento, was in Genoa Congress (1892) when the definitive falling•out charge of the local artillery barracks) Pietro Goribetween anarchists and socialists came to pass. completed his schooling in Livorno and Pisa, where he graduated in law in 1889. From then on the youngEXILE student joined the anarchist movement, becoming an Alongside his political activities, Gori was also active propagandist for it in the provinces of Livorno involved in literary and professional endeavours. He and Pisa, on the island of Elba and in the Maremma published three volumes of poetry,Prisons and region of Tuscany. In 1887, Gori published his first Battles, and had his socially critical playsWithout pamphlet Rebel Thoughts, which resulted in his being Homeland and Thy Neighbour staged successfully, tried and acquitted by the Pisa Assize Court. whilst, between 1892 and 1894, he acted a defence In the lead•up to May Day 1890, anarchists, counsel for, among others, Paolo Schicchi, C. di constitutional socialists and republicans in Livorno Sciullo, Luigi Galleani and Sante Caserio, in addition decided jointly to organise the city’s first ever general to fighting many criminal cases. strike. The initiative was a resounding success and the When Sante Caserio assassinated the French strike lasted into the ensuing days. Pietro Gori, who president Sadi Carnot (24 May 1894), the had joined with other anarchists to throw his support conservative press accused Gori of having been firmly behind the strike, was arrested along with 27 implicated in the killing. The campaign against Gori comrades and charged with incitement to class hatred was part and parcel of a swingeing anti•anarchist and incitement to strike. Sentenced to a year in prison, crackdown sponsored by the Italian prime minister he was acquitted by the Pisa Appeal Court, but not Crispi. Gori was obliged to flee to Lugano in before he had served much of the sentence. Upon his Switzerland where he resumed his law practice. There release, he was forced by persistent police harassment too, however, he attracted unwelcome attention from to move to Milan, there to be welcomed by Filippothe Italian police who even orchestrated an attempt on Turati into his law practice, thereby smoothing hishis life; two persons unknown fired two revolver shots entry into the law. at him, but missed their target. Following pressure In January 1891, Gori took part, in the Swiss from the Italian government on the Swiss authorities, city of Capolago, in the foundation congress of theGori was arrested along with 15 comrades and Revolutionary Anarchist Socialist Party (PSAR). This expelled from Switzerland. It was on this occasion was an attempt to float a libertarian organisation that that he penned his famous verses “Farewell to recognised group autonomy, was to achieveLugano”. coordination on the basis of regional federations Bulletin of the Kate Sharpley Library Page 2 PIETRO GORI Travelling through Germany and Belgium, following the escalating price of bread (in the spring Gori fled to London where he met Kropotkin, Louise of 1898), disturbances that turned into out and out Michel, Charles Malato and Sebastien Faure, as well popular uprisings in some areas (cries of “long live as other noted anarchists who had been forced intothe social revolution!” became pretty much the reluctant exile. During this time he joined withkeynote of the disturbances), Pietro Gori was forced Malatesta to get involved in the struggles of tothe go into exile once more. workers’ movement in London. Then he moved on to Holland, but, realising that he could not be of service ACTIVITY IN SOUTH AMERICA to the anarchist movement in a country whoseHis flight was quite an adventure. Disguised as a language he could not speak, he decided to sail to the British diplomat, Gori travelled on the same train as English city of Hull; there he found a job as a plain the Duke of Genoa and after countless incidents seaman on board the SS. ‘Neuland’. After a feweventually reached the French frontier; there he months on the northern seas, he landed in New York donned the disguise first of a prince and then of a to resume his political activities. In a little under apauper in order to make it eventually as far as year he had held something like 400 lectures andMarseilles and take ship for Argentina. In Buenos meetings in Italian, French and English, with visitsAires he launched Modern Criminology a highly•rated also to Canada. At the end of this wearisomereview which attracted contributions from South propaganda tour, Gori was sent as the American trade American and European jurists and scientists. Again unions’ delegate to the international socialist labour in Argentina, Gori was among the promoters of the congress in London (27 July • 1 August 1896) atanarcho•syndicalist FORA (Argentine Regional which anarchists and socialists clashed again.Workers’ Federation). Not that his political and Collapsing under the strain of over•work, he recovered propaganda activities prevented him from joining with in hospital. After a short stay he decided to return to the painter Tomasi to make a long and dangerous Italy (autumn 1896) where his sentence of enforced exploration beyond Tierra del Fuego. residence was commuted to a requirement that he In Argentina, Gori published (among other remain first on the island of Elba, and laterthings) in the pamphletOur Utopia, one of his most Rosgnano Matittimo. important essays. Jettisoning his rather positivistic belief in the inevitability of the Revolution, Gori THE ANARCHIST MOVEMENT’S SECOND argued that the need was for day to day struggle in WIND order to build anarchist communism which naturally meant a struggle well outside parliamentary His health restored, Gori settled in Milan again, institutions. As he saw it, the State was not merely reopening his practice and resuming his political institutionalised violence but a definite brake upon the activities.