anarchism & violence anarchism & violence

240 Pages·2016·0.71 MB·English

AANNAARRCCHHIISSMM
&& VVIIOOLLEENNCCEE
Severino Di Giovanni
in Argentina
1923 - 1931
by
OSVALDO
BAYER
Anarchism and Violence:
Severino Di Giovanni in
Argentina 1923-1931
by Osvaldo Bayer
Translated by Paul Sharkey
Anarchism and Violence:
Severino Di Giovanni in
Argentina 1923-1931
by Osvaldo Bayer
Translated by Paul Sharkey
2012
Elephant Editions
Ardent Press
Contents
Introduction i
Author’s Preface xi
Background Notes xv
I Face to Face with the Enemy 1
II For Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti 18
III Error, Cruelty, and Blind Obstinacy 38
IV Anarcho-Banditry versus
Drawing-room anarchism 68
V The Anarchist, Love, and the Woman 79
VI The Bandits 90
VII The Struggle is Always a Bitter One 109
VIII For Absolute Freedom with a Colt .45 125
IX The Last Battle 153
X The End 165
XI Death 186

Introduction
The book we are presenting here is an interesting at-
tempt by Osvaldo Bayer to reconstruct the activities of the
Italian anarchist Severino Di Giovanni in Argentina in the
1920s. It also bears all the consequences of such a difficult
task undertaken with the thorough but limited tools of the
journalist.
The figure of Di Giovanni has always highlighted a pro-
found division within the anarchist movement, which goes
far beyond the boundaries of the specific events in his life-
time. From well before the period of his activity, right up
to the present day, there have always been comrades who
include the methods of direct action, armed struggle and
expropriation in the struggle against exploitation. On the
other hand there have always been those who are against
these methods, in favour of propaganda and libertarian
educationism alone. The latter is the position that was held
by the anarchists involved in the anarchist daily La Protesta
in Di Giovanni’s time. Today there are still many who hold
this position and who would no doubt have preferred us
to have left Di Giovanni and what he represents in relative
obscurity.As it stands, this book contains certain defects
which need to be pointed out and which we shall examine
further on. Bayer’s work, however, is an honest and objec-
tive attempt far removed from the stereotypes so dear to
the bourgeois press. Contemporary accounts of his activi-
ties filled columns and columns about Di Giovanni, paint-
ing him as a bomb-thrower, bandit and assassin.
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Not only the yellow press, but also areas from which one
would expect better have insisted on seeing Di Giovanni
both detached from the brutal and homicidal reality in
which he lived and carried on his struggle, and detached
from the anarchist movement of which he was a part.
For example the author to the preface of the Spanish
edition of this book, Jose Luis Moreno, states, Di Giovanni
wanted from violence what the bourgeoisie wanted from law: an
instrument to obtain a final aim which, naturally in both cases, were
different and antagonistic. Di Giovanni believed he could fight the
bourgeoisie with their own weapons. And further on, ...he used his
arsenal of war like a basic instrument, relegating ideological problems
to second place. For him, as for many anarchists, that is what `direct
action’ meant. And again, In reality he was a romantic. Paradoxi-
cal as it might seem, and quoting Bayer, we would say he was a
romantic of violence. Love and Violence are real ends: and for him
there were no others.
It might be difficult at first glance to draw a distinc-
tion between the proletarian violence of defence and the
oppressive and terroristic violence of the State. But this
distinction can and must be made. In attacking institu-
tions arms in hand, Di Giovanni was not using the same
weapons as the bourgeoisie, but the quite different ones of
liberation and popular vindication. And wherever did the
author of the preface read that Di Giovanni put ideologi-
cal problems in second place? Perhaps he could have done
better in Di Giovanni’s place, hunted and followed by the
police like a wild animal, but still bringing out numer-
ous anarchist publications, including a fortnightly paper
Culmine, and an edition of Reclus’ work? And finally, why
ii
define him a romantic? When we well know that today
bourgeois historiography links this term to the decadent
aspects of romantic poetics, those out of touch with or
turning away from reality? To use this term today can only
confuse the reader. There existed for Di Giovanni far more
than Love and Violence: the struggle against fascism, the
trade union struggle, the struggle for a new society—the
struggle for anarchy. All were undertaken in full awareness
of the need to use dangerous means, means which were
justified only by the open war declared by those in power.
To return to the book. As we have said, it is an objective
reconstruction far from the sensationalism of Di Giovanni’s
time. The development of Di Giovanni’s activity has been
followed attentively, through consulting contemporary
newspapers, documents, and testimonies. From the events
at the Colón Theatre to the final moment in the face of the
firing squad, we encounter Di Giovanni through a mixture
of distance and sympathy. Not having had access to the
sources used, we can only accept the conclusions reached
by the historian, and consider his work to be positive. It is
other aspects of the book that give us cause for concern,
particularly the frequent recourse to value judgements all
linked to a “romantic and idealist” vision of Di Giovanni’s
revolutionary activity.
It is not our intention to deprive the reader of the plea-
sure of reading the rich narrative which Bayer supplies, so
we will not attempt to go over Di Giovanni’s activity here.
We do however feel it is necessary to attempt to indicate
the lack of foundation to Bayer’s theoretical conclusions.
For example, he writes, As a self-taught man, Di Giovanni
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believed in theory implicitly. And in his tragic naivete he believed
that theory was made to be applied. If Bakunin or Kropotkin stated
that, for the revolution and the achievement of freedom, all means
are legitimate, Di Giovanni would use these means. (page 44)
It is in such passages that we realize that Bayer, although a
conscientious researcher, has either not read, or has not un-
derstood anything of anarchist thought. Whereever did he
find the statement that “Bakunin and Kropotkin say that all
means are justifiable?” Where did he read that to use anar-
chist theory acritically is typical of the selftaught? Where did
he learn that anarchist theory is theory made only to remain
on paper? Di Giovanni was a coherent man. It is not true
that any means were good in his opinion. He always chose
means in relation to the terroristic violence of the structures
of power, and he stayed on this road to the end. To ask one-
self, as our author does, the psychology of his relationship
to anarchist theory does not make sense. Face to Face with the
Enemy, Galleani’s famous volume, and also the title of a sec-
tion of Di Giovanni’s paper Culmine, clearly shows the true
substance of the relationship between theory and praxis. Di
Giovanni knew that the attack against oppression had to use
certain means, but he also knew that the other means—an-
archist propaganda and publications—were of great value
because they serve to prepare the field for active revolu-
tionary intervention. But for this exchange between theory
and praxis to come about, the first had to be developed in
a certain direction, not become an ‘obstacle in the path of
direct action as in the case of the La Protesta editors.Another
interesting interpretation of Di Giovanni that Bayer makes
is to identify him with Nietzschean individualism. This is an
iv
interesting problem. Bayer mentions the German philoso-
pher’s presence in Di Giovanni’s thinking more than once.
In fact his influence cannot be denied. Bayer tells us, Noti-
cable in Di Giovanni was the pronounced influence of Nietzsche
(in searching through his library in Burzaco, police were to discover
printed posters displayed on the walls and bearing quotations from
the author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra). (page 123), and in a
letter of October 22 1928, Di Giovanni himself writes, Oh,
how many are the problems that crop up along the pathway of my
young life, beset by thousands of winds of evil. Even so, the angel
in my head has told me so very many times that only in evil is
there life. And I live my life to the full. The sense of my existence
has been lost in that ...in that evil? Evil makes me love the purist
of angels. Do I perhaps do evil? But is that my guide? In evil lies
the highest affirmation of life. And by being evil, am I mistaken?
Oh, problem from the unknown, why do you defy solution? From
this Bayer concludes, That tenderness turned to ruthlessness later
when action was called for. Apparently he was a wholly impul-
sive man who surrendered fully to his emotions and behaved as if
intoxicated by the whole gamut of colours, struggles, contradictions,
beauties, generosities and betrayals that life has to offer, which is to
say that he is a true Nietzschean. page 64)
Reading Nietzsche certainly makes an impact on many,
and probably did so on Di Giovanni. But to go on from this
to define the man and his actions as Nietzschean seems too
great a step. Even the presence of some phrases from Ni-
etzsche’s works in our comrade’s library seems too modest an
element to justify the claim that he was a dedicated follower
of the philosopher’s doctrines. This is a very serious problem
and one which affects all the actions of an anarchism that
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