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Title: The Tragic Bandits
Author: Errico Malatesta
Date: 1913
Language: en
Topics: practice
Source: Retrieved on March 3rd, 2009 from http://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1913/08/tragic-bandits.htm
Notes: From La Société Nouvelle, 19th year, No. 2, August 1913. Translated by Mitch Abidor. CopyLeft: Creative Commons (Attribute—ShareAlike) marxists.org 2007

Errico Malatesta

The Tragic Bandits

It would seem that it’s late in the day to still talk about it, but the

subject nevertheless remains current, since we’re dealing with acts and

discussions that have occurred over and again in the past and that,

alas, will repeat themselves in the future as well. For as long as the

determining causes have not disappeared.

A few individuals stole, and in order to steal, killed; they killed at

random, without discernment anyone who stood between them and the money

they were after. Killed men unknown to them, workers, victims like

themselves and even more than themselves of a bad social organization.

At heart there was nothing in this but the ordinary: they were the

bitter fruit that ripen on the tree of privilege in the normal course of

events. When all of social life is stained with fraud and violence, and

when he who is born poor is condemned to all kinds of sufferings and

humiliations; when money is something indispensable for the satisfaction

of our needs and respect for our personality, and when for so many

people it is impossible to obtain through honest and dignified labor,

there is no reason to be surprised if from time to time a few

unfortunates burst forth who, tired of the yoke and taking inspiration

from bourgeois morality, but not able to appropriate the labor of others

under the protection of the gendarmes, illegally steal under the nose of

the latter. Since in order to steal they can’t organize military

expeditions or sell poison in the guise of food, they murder directly

with revolvers or daggers.

But the “bandits” called themselves anarchists and that gave an

importance and a symbolic meaning to exploits that were far from having

them on their own.

The bourgeoisie takes advantage of the impression produced on the public

by such acts in order to denigrate anarchism and to consolidate its own

power. The police, who are often the secret instigators of these

exploits, use them to magnify their own importance and to satisfy their

persecutory and murderous instincts in order to recover the cost of

spilled blood in solid coin and promotions. What is more, since

anarchism was being spoken of a number of our comrades felt themselves

obliged not to deny what called itself anarchist. Many, fascinated by

the colorfulness of the adventure, admiring the courage of the

protagonists, saw in this nothing but an act of rebellion against the

law, forgetting to examine the why and the how.

But it seems to me that in order to determine our conduct, and to

counsel that of others, it is important to examine things calmly, to

judge them in accordance with our aspirations and to not grant aesthetic

impressions more value than they have in reality.

To be sure these men were courageous, and courage (which is perhaps

nothing else than good physical health) is without any fear of

contradiction a marvelous quality. But it can be used in the service of

evil as well as good. We have seen courageous men among martyrs for

liberty as well as among the most odious tyrants. It can be found in

revolutionaries as it can be found among camorrists, soldiers and

policemen. Normally we correctly qualify as heroes those who risk their

lives for the good and we treat as violent individuals or, in the most

serious cases, as unfeeling and blood-thirsty brutes, those who use

their courage to do ill.

I will not deny the colorfulness of these episodes and even, in a

certain sense, their aesthetic beauty. But the admiring poets of the

“beau geste” should take the trouble to reflect a little.

An automobile going at full speed, driven by men armed with Brownings

who spread terror and death in their path is more modern but no more

colorful than a brigand in a feathered hat armed with a blunderbuss who

assaults and robs a caravan of travelers, or the feudal baron, dressed

in steel and seated on an iron-clad charger demanding his due from a

commoner, and it’s not worth any more. If the Italian government had had

something other than operetta generals and ignorant and thieving chiefs

it would perhaps have succeeded in pulling off a beautiful military

operation on Libya, but would the war have been any less criminal or

morally hideous for all that?

Nevertheless these bandits weren’t, or at least were not all, vulgar

criminals.

Among these “thieves” there were disoriented idealists; among these

“assassins” there were heroic natures that in other circumstances, or

inspired by other ideas, could have affirmed themselves as such. What is

certain for whoever knew them is that these individuals were preoccupied

with ideas and that, if they reacted with ferocity against their

environment and sought with a beautiful frenzy to satisfy their passions

and their needs, it was largely under the influence of a special concept

of life and struggle.

But are these anarchist ideas?

Can these ideas, even if we grant words their widest meaning, be

confused with anarchism or are they, on the contrary, in flagrant

contradiction with it?

That is the question.

An anarchist is, by definition, one who doesn’t want to be oppressed or

oppressor, who wants the maximum amount of wellbeing, the greatest

amount of freedom, the most complete blossoming of all humans.

His ideas, his wishes all draw their origins form the feeling of

sympathy, from respect for all beings, a feeling that must be strong

enough to bring him to want the happiness of others as much as his own,

and to renounce personal advantages the obtaining of which demand the

sacrifice of others. If this weren’t the case why would he be the enemy

of oppression and why wouldn’t he seek to be an oppressor?

The anarchist knows that the individual cannot live outside of society.

That on the contrary, as a human being he only exists because he bears,

summed up in him, the results of the labors of countless past

generations, and because he benefits throughout his life from the

collaboration of his contemporaries.

He also knows that the activity of each directly or indirectly

influences the life of all, and thus recognizes the great law of

solidarity that reigns in society as well as in nature. And since he

wants liberty for all he must wish that the activity of that necessary

solidarity, instead of being unconsciously and involuntarily imposed and

accepted, instead of being left to chance and exploited for the profit

of some and to the detriment of others, become conscious and voluntary

and manifest itself in equal advantages for all.

Either be the oppressed or the oppressor, or cooperate for the greater

good of all: there are no other alternatives. And the anarchists are

naturally — and could not be otherwise — for free and consensual

cooperation.

So let’s not “philosophize” and talk about egoism, altruism and other

puzzles. We will gladly agree: we are egoists. All of us seek our own

satisfaction, but he is an anarchist who will find his greatest

satisfaction in fighting for the good of all, for the coming of a

society within which he will feel a brother among his brothers, amidst

men who are healthy, intelligent, learned and happy. He who can live

satisfied among slaves and who can draw a profit from the work of slaves

is not, and cannot be, an anarchist.

There are strong, intelligent, passionate individuals, prey to great

material or intellectual needs who, placed in the ranks of the

oppressed, want at whatever the cost to free themselves and, in order to

do this, have no hesitation about becoming oppressors. These

individuals, finding themselves blocked by current society, come to hate

and despise all societies and, realizing that it would be absurd to want

to live outside the collectivity, want to make all men submit to their

will, to the satisfying of their passions. Sometimes, when they are

somewhat enamored of literature, they call themselves “Supermen.”

Unscrupulous, they want to “live their lives.” Mocking the revolution

and all hopes for the future, they want to enjoy the moment at whatever

price and with contempt for all. They would sacrifice all of humanity

for one hour — and some have literally said this — of “intense life.”

They are rebels, but not anarchists. They have the mentality, the

sentiments of bourgeois manqués, and if they manage to succeed they

become actual bourgeois, and not the least terrible among them.

In the course of the struggle it sometimes occurs that we find them at

our side, but we can’t, we shouldn’t, nor do we want to confuse

ourselves with them. And they know this full well.

But many among them love to call themselves anarchists. Which is true,

and deplorable.

Of course we can’t prevent people from taking whatever name they like,

and for our part we can’t abandon the name that sums up our ideas and

that belongs to us, logically and historically. What we can do is make

sure there is no confusion about this, or at least the least amount of

confusion possible.

Nevertheless, we must try to find out how it is that individuals with

aspirations so contrary to ours have been able to appropriate a name

that is the negation of their ideas, of their sentiments.

I alluded above to the fishy maneuvers of the police, and it would be

easy for me to prove how certain aberrations for which they have

attempted to blame the anarchists had as their place of origin the

police’s dens of iniquity: Andrieux, Goron and their ilk.

At the moment when anarchism began to manifest itself and obtain

importance in France the police had the brilliant idea, worthy of the

cagiest of Jesuits, to fight the movement from within. With this end in

mind they sent agents provocateurs among the anarchists who put on

ultra-revolutionary airs and ably travestied anarchist ideas, made them

grotesque and something diametrically opposed to what they are in

reality. They founded papers paid for by the police, provoked insane and

criminal acts so as to put them on display and qualified as anarchist,

compromised naïve and sincere young people who they soon after turned in

and, with the complicity of the bourgeois press, they succeeded in

persuading a part of the public that anarchism was what they

represented. And the French comrades have good reason to believe that

the same police maneuvers are still being carried out and aren’t foreign

to the events with which we are dealing in this article. Sometimes the

events exceed the intentions of the provocateurs, but whatever the case,

the police profit from them all the same.

We must add to these police influences others that are less disgusting

but no less harmful. At a time when striking attentats attracted the

attention of the public to anarchist ideas writers of talent,

professionals of the pen always on the lookout for a fashionable subject

and the sensational paradox, set themselves to doing anarchism. And

since they were bourgeois in mentality and education, with bourgeois

ambitions, they made anarchism something fit to give imaginative young

girls and blasé old ladies a sensual shiver, but which had nothing to do

with the emancipating movement of the masses that anarchism can

provoke... They were men of talent, who wrote well, often advancing

things that no one understood and...they were admired. At a certain

moment wasn’t it said in Italy that Gabriele D’Annunzio had become a

socialist?

After a while these “intellectuals” returned to the bourgeois bosom to

taste there the price of the notoriety acquired, showing themselves to

be what they had never ceased being: publicity-seeking literary

adventurers. But the harm had been done.

In summary, none of this would have caused great harm if there only

existed people with clear ideas, clearly knowing what they want and

acting in consequence. But along with them how many are there with

confused ideas, their souls uncertain, ceaselessly going from one

extreme to the other.

This is how it is with those who call and believe themselves to be

anarchists but who glory in the evil acts they commit (and which are

often excusable because of necessity or their environment) by saying

that the bourgeoisie act the same, and even worse. This is true, but why

then think yourself other and better than them?

They condemn the bourgeois because he robs the worker of a good part of

his labor, but have nothing to say if one of their own robs from that

worker the little the bourgeois left him.

They are indignant when the boss, in order to increase his profits,

makes a man work in unhealthy conditions, but are full of indulgence for

he will stab that man in order to rob a few sous.

They have nothing but contempt for the usurer who extorts a few francs

in interest from a poor devil for the ten francs he loaned him, but find

it estimable that one of them takes ten francs from him out of ten (that

he didn’t loan him) by passing off a false coin.

Since they are poor in spirit they believe themselves to be naturally

superior beings and affect a profound contempt for the “stupefied

masses,” arrogating to themselves the right to do harm to workers, the

poor, and the unfortunate because they “don’t rebel and are thus the

supporters of current society.” I know a capitalist who, when sitting in

a café, takes pleasure in calling himself socialist, or even anarchist,

but who in his factory is no less of an exploiter: a avaricious, hard,

prideful boss. And he doesn’t deny it at all, but has the habit of

justifying his conduct in a way that is quite original for a boss:

“My workers,” he argues, “deserve the treatment I make them suffer,

since they submit to it. They have the personalities of slaves, and they

are the supporters of the bourgeois regime, etc. etc.”

This is exactly the language of those who call themselves anarchists but

who feel neither sympathy for nor solidarity with the oppressed. The

conclusion would be that their true friends are the bosses and their

enemies the mass of the disinherited.

Well then, what are they doing blathering on about emancipation and

anarchism? Let them go with the bourgeoisie and leave us in peace.

I’ve said enough and I have to conclude.

I will conclude by giving some advice to those who want to “live their

lives” and don’t care about the lives of others.

Theft and murder are dangerous means and, in general, not very

profitable. On that path you only succeed in passing your life in prison

or leaving your head on the guillotine — especially if you have the

impudence to attract the attention of the police by calling yourself an

anarchist and frequenting anarchists.

It’s hardly a profitable affair.

When you are intelligent, energetic and unscrupulous it is easy to make

your way among the bourgeoisie.

Let them strive then through legal theft and murder to become bourgeois.

They’ll do much better, and if it is true that they have intellectual

sympathies for anarchism they will spare themselves the displeasure of

harming the cause that is dear to them — intellectually.