A history of the Centre for Libertarian Studies

A history of the Centre for Libertarian Studies – Giuseppe Pinelli Archive (1976-2009)

by Luigi Balsamini, 2009; translation by John Bernard Wilson, 2021

The idea of setting up a research centre named after the anarchist Giuseppe Pinelli emerged during the preparation phase of a conference on Bakunin held in Venice in 1976. The members of the organizing committee, who for the most part adhered to the Bandiera Nera group from Milan and to the Nestor Machno group based in Venice, decided to «transform the occasional into the structural»^[1], thus giving solidity and continuity to a deep ferment of libertarian cultural promotion. This new institute, with its headquarters in Milan, had two objectives: firstly, the creation of a historical archive that would conserve the memory of anarchism and, secondly, the development of a libertarian culture able to address the problems of modern society and engage with the most advanced thinking and practices of anti-authoritarianism^[2]. The Centre came into being with the patronage of the Arcangelo and Bartolina Carocari Cultural Association. In turn, this association had been financed by the estate of an elderly libertarian militant^[3] and given a very specific mission: «to give anarchy back the cultural dignity it once deservedly held and that we still believe it deserves today, given that it constitutes the most complete and coherent theory and practice of human liberation»^[4]. In other words, it was necessary to rethink anarchism in the light of the current social context, freeing it from over-contemplation of its own roots to make it a valid and alternative reference point to mainstream culture. Thus, not so much questioning its deepest essence, its nucleus of innermost values but, rather, renewing it with an increasingly open, although still critical, attitude towards all genuinely libertarian manifestations, emerging and developing in the stimulating contemporary scenario of the previous few decades, including social conflicts, the finest intellectual thinking, and a new view of everyday affairs.

In order to further understand the relationship between the specific context of anarchism and the much wider one of libertarian culture, it may be useful to refer to the bold analogy formulated by Rossella Di Leo, one of the founding members and current responsible for the Centre. Her analogy with a couple relationship identifies four historical phases, beginning with the «patriarchal relationship» during which the dominant anarchist movement fails to accept the autonomy of the libertarian area and simply sees it as a recruitment pool for its militants. The second phase is labelled as the «open relationship» phase, during which the libertarian section casts aside its subordinate role and begins to search for new partners. This phase is, however, destined to failure and causes a definitive rupture, a «separation by fault», with negative consequences for both partners. Finally, after overcoming mutual mistrust, there comes a reconciliatory phase, a «relationship between individuals» based on principles of equality and independence: «the reciprocal promise is to continue seeing each other as good friends and maybe occasional lovers»^[5]. In any case, anarchism retained a strong identity while the libertarian area was characterized as the weak partner or, at the very least, as an entity with undefined boundaries, made up of a wide variety of dissimilar elements (ecological, anti-psychiatric, and feminist movements, local action committees, trade unions, areas of pedagogical and urban planning research, etc.) which shared a set of values but at times could struggle to acknowledge each other; so much so that, as Di Leo wrote: «precisely by taking this indeterminacy as a starting point [...] we may venture to speculate that it is the anarchist eye that defines and acknowledges the libertarian area, rather than there being identification by those very categories that comprise it»^[6].

Finally, according to the vision on which the Centre’s cultural project was built, the present and future of anarchism depend on its ability to break out of isolation and to interact with the vitality of the libertarian world. A renewal and a challenge that it will accomplish on two conditions:

«if it manages to rid itself of its own “vulgata” – in other words of that veritable vulgarization and neurotic oversimplification in the theories of classic anarchism, which are repurposed through a quasi-religious de-contextualized orthodoxy – and if it manages to re-define itself as a movement with different traits compared to the ones that are currently prevailing – meaning a community of active anarchists (in various domains, forms and levels of intensity) rather than simply being a militants’ political party»^[7].

The Federated Anarchist Groups and the Milanese anarchist movement.

The establishment of the Centre for Libertarian Studies may be traced back to a series of initiatives set up by the Federated Anarchist Groups (Gruppi Anarchici Federati, GAF), which formed, together with the FAI and the GIA, one of the three organized components of Italian anarchism. Born at the end of 1969 out of the ashes of the pre-existing Federated Anarchist Youth Groups (GGAF), this new group’s objective was to enable anarchism to be considered as an ethical framework, a science and a project for revolution, more incisive in the contemporary social and political arena compared to what it had been in the previous decades^[8]. They used the pluralistic structure of a «federation of leanings» as an organisational model, an aggregation of satellite groups sharing the same political vision, with the freedom to act autonomously within a framework of existing agreements, as elements of a coordinated network that had no central hub or federative roles^[9].

The need for a libertarian affirmation in the intellectual field, as well as the development of anti-authoritarian social struggles were at the forefront of the GAF’s project, so as to recover the terrain anarchism had lost to Marxist culture and to become a coherent critic of dominance and a valid alternative:

«nowadays a libertarian cultural presence is almost non-existent on all levels, among intellectuals, the populace or rebel minorities. Due to this lack of anti-authoritarian presence, advances in the areas of pedagogy, urban planning, sociology and psychology have all been converted into Marxist terms (which is paradoxically authoritarian), thereby neutralizing its revolutionary potential. Therefore it seems necessary to strengthen libertarian culture on all levels by means of a qualitative and quantitative enhancement of the anarchist press and publishing and through the proliferation of cultural initiatives, but, even before this, by means of a continuous effort to update and enrich the basic themes within anarchist thought, which incidentally are also the great themes concerned with human liberation»^[10].

The GAF militants, who disbanded the federation in January 1978 to join the anarchist movement (which was to be rebuilt wholly on new foundations)^[11], set up various initiatives like the Anarchist Black Cross, an organization that between 1969 and 1972 was active in counter-information and providing legal representation for political victims, the «Libertarian Spain» Committee, established in 1974 to support anarchists under Franco’s regime, and the Anarchist Documentation Centre founded in Turin in 1976.

The following were all under the Milanese group: the monthly periodical «A» (from 1971), the Italian editing of «Interrogations» (between 1976 and 1979), the quarterly «Volontá» (from 1980 to 1996), Antistato publishing (between 1975 and 1985) and, after 1976, management of the Centre for Libertarian Studies.

In 1961, in the Lombard capital, Milan, A. Bertolo and other young anarchists, together with Èliane Vincileoni and Giovanni Corradini, had established the Libertarian Youth Group, which subsequently became known as Libertarian Youth. Soon after, Bertolo and others, among whom the anarchists Aimone Fornaciari, Luigi Gerli and Gianfranco Pedron, all in their early twenties, rose to prominence in the news reports for their kidnapping without bloodshed of the Spanish vice consul Isu Elías, accomplished in the space of a few days with the objective of raising public awareness of the merciless repression by Franco’s regime of three militants who were part of the Federación ibérica de juventudes libertarias (FIJL). The trial against the kidnappers was held in Varese in November 1962 and rapidly became a denunciation of the regime, to the extent that those involved were given a light sentence and soon were free again^[12]. The thinking formulated within this group of young Milanese anarchists gave momentum to the publication of three issues of the periodical «Materialismo e libertà», which was opposed to the still widespread sentimental and idealistic view of anarchism^[13]. After a couple of years on the premises of the Sacco and Vanzetti Circle in Viale Murillo, at the end of 1967 a space in Piazzale Lugano, in the working class neighbourhood of Bovisa, became the new headquarters of Libertarian Youth and of the city’s other anarchists. Among these were a few elderly militants that Bertolo recalls seeing immersed in the Sunday reading of the anarchist press and reminiscing over old times. This new space, inaugurated on May 1st 1968, took the name of the nearby Ghisolfa bridge (Ponte della Ghisolfa), «so as not to give it the name of one of our saints or martyrs»^[14]. Pinelli, who in Milanese anarchist circles was the youngest of the senior group and subsequently the oldest in the junior group, was among the main protagonists of this phase, together with Bertolo, Fausta Bizzozero, Umberto Del Grande, Luciano Lanza, Cesare Vurchio and others in the Bandiera Nera group^[15].

Soon after, in order to contain the «two red years» of 1968-1969, the era of «state massacres» began, with the support of fascist elements: a historical fact which still has not received proper attention in the courts of law. On 25 April 1969, in Milan, two terrorist attacks were made on the Central Station and on the Trade Fair, and on 12 December in that same year a bomb exploded in the National Agricultural Bank in Piazza Fontana, Milan, causing sixteen deaths and dozens of injuries. Another unexploded bombing device was recovered at the Italian Commercial Bank, and three others exploded in Rome, causing injuries but no victims. The investigations and media campaign seemed to focus solely on criminalization of leftwing extremism and particularly on the anarchist movement; Valpreda, an innocent man, was arrested and charged with perpetrating the massacre and Pinelli, also innocent, was detained at the police station as were many other anarchists.

On the night between 15 and 16 December 1969, his body flew out of a window of the offices of the political division, headed by police commissioner Luigi Calabresi, and crashed to the ground in the courtyard. The slogan «Valpreda is innocent, Pinelli was murdered, this is a state massacre» resounded with the outrage of an ever-growing movement of protest and counter-information^[16].

The Milanese group, that a few years later would set up the Center for Libertarian Studies in Pinelli’s memory, established the publishing cooperative «A» in 1971 (officially under this name only from 1977). The first achievement of this publishing project was the monthly magazine «A», which to this day remains the most popular publication of the Italian anarchist movement. Its founding members and main contributors were Amedeo Bertolo, Fausta Bizzozero, Rossella Di Leo, Paolo Finzi and Luciano Lanza. Roberto Ambrosoli and Giampietro Berti participated as permanent contributors and Marcello Baraghini was nominated managing editor for the first year of publication^[17].

«Interrogations» was another highly important publication for the development of anti-dogmatic anarchism, not interested in constantly re-publishing the usual classic works, open to analysis of contemporary problems and able to ask the right questions rather than lean on easy answers. This publication could be described as an international workshop of ideas, publishing articles in French, English, Italian or Spanish followed by summaries in the other three languages. The promoters had established that the editorial and administrative staff were to rotate every two years, but, following the 1974 – 1976 two-year period in France, and the shift to the Italian group under the «A» cooperative, the editorial collectives in Spain and Great Britain withdrew; a final issue was published in June 1979.

The «Interrogations» years were marked by the regular participation of Charles Cortvrint, also known as Louis Mercier Vega, a libertarian militant and intellectual with Belgian origins, who deserted in the 1930s and took shelter in Paris under the name Charles Ridel, and subsequently fought with the Spanish «Durruti» column in 1936. Considered as one of the greatest and most original innovators of contemporary anarchism, he died, deciding to take his own life, in 1977^[18]. «Antistato», which was started in Cesena around 1950 and then managed by the Milanese group Bandiera Nera after 1975, published many essays by Mercier Vega. Among these The Practice of Utopia, a collection of five essays, previously published in French and titled L’increvable anarchisme^[19]. The archive of the Centre for Libertarian Studies has a section dedicated to Vega containing ten dossiers of correspondence, notes and rough drafts of his works.

Building up the collections

The first headquarters of the Center for Libertarian Studies was in Viale Monza 255 in Milan, a municipal property with a low rental, where the Ponte della Ghisolfa group and a Milanese division of the FAI had moved in 1976. Only a few years later, another group of young militants would take over these premises. The Centre already had a fair amount of technical equipment (a microfilm viewer, a photocopier and video recorder), and was open between 16.00 and 20.00 on weekdays. Its book collection was conceived, firstly, in relation to the cultural activities offered by the Centre and, therefore, focused on the following four areas of interest:

«1. History and philosophy of the anarchist and libertarian movements.2. Contemporary anti-authoritarian ferment in the human sciences.3. Anti-authoritarian manifestations in contemporary social conflict.4. Contemporary socio-economic dynamics, in particular in relation to the “new masters” (technobureaucracy)».

For each of these themes, the levels of bibliographical and linguistic coverage to be pursued were then specified:

«a) all texts relating to points 1 and 4, in Italian;b) the most interesting texts relating to points 1 and 4, in English, French, and Spanish when not available in Italian;c) the most interesting texts in Italian, French and Spanish, relating to points 2 and 3»^[20].

The periodicals collection was also subject to strict criteria of specialization indicating how it should develop:

«a) up to 1968, all anarchist and libertarian periodicals and single issues in Italian;b) after 1968, all periodicals started previously and subsequently that are continuous, regular and of non-local and/or sectorial interest.c) Certain periodicals in English, French and Spanish that hold special interest for the history and philosophy of the anarchist and libertarian movements»^[21].

Compliance with these criteria in the process of building up the book collection meant, however, coming to terms with the objective limitations of reduced economic means that significantly constrained the possibility of making acquisitions in exchange for payment, instead having to seek specific donations:

«for the most part we are talking about a multitude of quantitatively modest donations that were often however qualitatively significant, sometimes because we were given rare and unobtainable documents and other times because we were given small fragments of the personal stories, memories and important relationships of our donors. Some of these donations were extremely important, both qualitatively and quantitatively, and made a strong contribution to the fundamental composition of the Archive»^[22].

The Centre’s very first donation of books was made by the very same promoters of the initiative itself, the Ponte della Ghisolfa Group, by other militants and by a few publishing companies that were part of, or close to, the anarchist movement. Among the latter, which often would exchange copies with Antistato Publishing, were Altamurgia of Ivrea, Campo Abierto of Madrid, CDA of Turin, La Fiaccola of Ragusa, Noir of Geneva, RL of Pistoia, Salamandra of Milano and Vulcano of Bergamo. As regards individual donations, mention must be made of those made by Giampietro Berti, Amedeo Bertolo, Paolo Finzi, Aline Frigerio, Luciano Lanza, Corrado Perissimo, Luis Tibiletti and Galileo Tobia.

Two important collections were added to this already vast array of publications but, unfortunately, they were not kept separate from the rest and became part of the general collection; however these books are stamped so it is possible to identify their provenance. They consist of around a thousand volumes relating to the history and philosophy of the anarchist and libertarian movements donated by the heirs of Michele Damiano toward the end of the 1970s and, especially, the Pio Turroni collection, a real cornerstone of the Centre’s library.

Turroni, born in 1906, emigrated first to Belgium and then to France, in order to escape fascist repression, and there participated in antifascist activities organized by exiles. In 1936 he fought in Spain with the Italian division of the «Ascaso» column; he then escaped to Marseille where he was arrested just as the second world war broke out,  subsequently escaped and sought refuge in Mexico. He returned to Italy in 1943 and actively participated in the revival of the anarchist movement; for years he was legally responsible for the periodical «Volontà», right from its first issue, in the early 1950s he established L’Antistato publishing group in Romagna, and he was among the promoters of Anarchist Initiative Groups (Gruppi di Iniziativa Anarchica, GIA). From the time of «Materialismo e libertà», he had established connections with the young Milanese libertarians and, subsequently, supported and followed the activities of the Centre for Libertarian Studies with great interest, acting as an intermediary for the acquisition of many donations. As recalled by Amedeo Bertolo,

«il est venu avec son béret d’ouvrier, son visage de maçon et sa profonde sagesse d’anar à l’“ancienne mode”, certes un peu méfiant envers ces jeunes, mais aussi très ouvert à tel point que quelques années plus tard, il était devenu en quelque sorte notre “dieu tutélaire”»^[23].

Even before his death in 1982, Turroni had gifted the Centre his library of around a thousand books relating to anarchism and other political doctrines that he had collected during the postwar years. Later his private archive was added, consisting of ten folders containing more than one hundred dossiers, recently arranged and inventoried by Lorenzo Pezzica using the Mens application, developed by the Lombardy Regional Authority for specific use on personal archives^[24].

The collection comprises the «Documents» series, relating to cultural and political activities, and the «Correspondents» series, which contains the dense network of epistolary exchanges with exponents of the Italian and international anarchist movement, particularly with the Italo-American militants connected with the periodical titled «L’Adunata dei Refrattari». Another integral part of the archive are the documents compiled by GIA, the editorial staff of «Volontà», «L’Antistato» editorial group, writings by Raffaele Schiavina, letters by Luigi Fabbri to Gigi Damiani, and from Sébastien Faure to Armando Borghi. All of this material was personally gathered and kept by Turroni, thus probably avoiding dispersion^[25].

The first series of a «Bollettino» (Bulletin) published by the Centre for Libertarian Studies between 1979 and 1981 contained the complete list of books, pamphlets, newspapers and single issues owned by the library^[26].

In the third issue, two interesting testimonies held at the Centre were presented: a lengthy memoir by Ugo Fedeli on Anarchists in the fight against fascism, a type-written manuscript found among the papers donated by his wife Clelia^[27], and the «L’Antistato» antifascist propaganda booklets, handwritten and clandestinely circulated by Vincenzo Toccafondo on a monthly basis between 1929 and June 1940^[28]. The fourth issue of the bulletin announced the new acquisitions for 1979-1980 and reported on the project for a biographical dictionary of the Italian anarchist movement that was to be structured according to the following guidelines:

«a) about a thousand entries that would constitute 2 volumes of circa 400 to500 pages;b) biographies of not just the best-known militants but also those secondary figures who nonetheless had an important role in the movement’s struggles and organization;c) the period of reference ranging from the First communist International to current times;d) inclusion of the various movements based on the criterion of self-definition»^[29].

A scientific and technical committee which comprised Maurizio Antonioli, Nico Berti, Gino Cerrito, Vincenzo Mantovani and Claudio Venza, was chosen to work on the dictionary. The project was strongly backed by Leonardo Bettini. However, his death in 1982 prevented any further progress. The project was taken up again with different parameters over twenty years later, and brought to completion with more than two thousand entries, thanks to the efforts of around a hundred coordinated researchers from the Franco Serantini Library in Pisa^[30]. Bettini himself donated a collection of around 600 microfilms of anarchist and libertarian publications in Italian, put together during his bibliographical research.

For a libertarian culture

Cultural activities to advance libertarian ideals were, especially in the first few years, exceptionally intense and absorbed most of the resources of the Centre. These initiatives were numerous and diversified, covering a wide range of topics, and were developed, the promoters stated, «both as a retelling of the historical roots of anarchism and as a constructive effort to form a contemporary libertarian body of ideas as an analysis of the present, and a fruitful projection onto the “here and now” of an “elsewhere” which is ethical and esthetic»^[31].

A series of important conferences were organized, based on an interdisciplinary approach, and set up as occasions for free discussion among militants and scholars from different methodological and political backgrounds. Particular attention was given to the international scope of the conferences; speakers from many countries were invited and their speeches were simultaneously translated, in the certainty that a fruitful interchange without borders would benefit the theoretical analysis of contemporary anarchism. Despite the silence of the mass media, these events enjoyed strong attendance. The audience was politically and culturally diverse and during the conference on Bakunin, when incidentally the establishment of the Centre was announced, the organizers were obliged to set up loudspeakers in the courtyard because the 400 available places in the Venetian Palazzo Sceriman were insufficient to accommodate all participants^[32].

An international conference was held in 1978, again in Venice, where the Milanese group was able to count on the support of the Dolo and Nestor Machno anarchist groups, and particularly of Elis Fraccaro. The conference was organized in collaboration with the periodical «Interrogations” and held in the main lecture hall of the architecture faculty; it was dedicated to the subject of the «new masters”, a central element in the political analysis of GAF^[33].

Discussion was framed in a way that sought to go beyond the bipolar conception of class conflict, in favour of a tripartite model: a dominated class, a dominating class and one ascending to power. In other words, a new antagonism was superimposed over the usual dialectic of the exploiters and exploited, the clash between those who have dominance and those who aspire to it, between «old” and «new” masters. The first category represents the traditional capitalist bourgeoisie, whose privilege depends on the ownership of the means of production, and the up-and-coming «techno-bureaucratic» class, that strives to achieve power not through property ownership but rather by means of «function”, in other words the holding of knowledge, indispensible for the management of great political and economic groupings^[34].

This interpretative approach enables us to look beyond the contrast between the Soviet system and the western model: in the first case the «new masters” reach the highest point of their dominance by monopolistically administering politics and the economy; in the second case, centres of techno-bureaucratic power are on the ascent but still remain entangled with the relations of exploitation typical of the capitalist bourgeoisie. The conference lasted for three days: the first two saw the usual succession of reports, speeches and debates, while the last day was dedicated to an open assembly which discussed the implications of the techno-bureaucratic phenomenon and its effect on the revolutionary strategy of the anarchist and libertarian movement^[35].

The Centre for Libertarian Studies sponsored two other important events dedicated to collective reflection on complex topics, with many nuanced interpretative views. The first, in 1979, was on autogestion, intended both as a model of libertarian society and as an organizational template needed to transition toward such a society, despite the institutions’ attempts to empty it of its anti-authoritarian potential.

Rather than use the rigid structure of a conference, the organizers preferred to structure the event in five consecutive sessions, each preceded by the speaker’s brief address and an open discussion. The sessions were titled, in order, «Reformist utopia or revolutionary strategy?», «State and anti-state», «Small is good», «Equality and diversity», «Here and now»^[36]. The second centred on the revolutionary value of utopia and on the subversive imagination that substantiates it, as stated by Bertolo when he opened the proceedings:

«in the majority of its meanings, utopia represents a positive and ineradicable part of humankind – a dimenision of hope, desire for innovation and creativity – in particular, it is necessary for anarchism to critically explore and expand this dimension, dispassionately»^[37].

The Moulin d’Andé seminar (France)^[38] in 1980 had already provided an important occasion for discussion and debate on the theme of utopia. As another example of international collaboration, the Centre and the CIRA set up a theoretical research and analysis program on the role of «power” and its «denial”, which culminated in the Saignelégier conference (Switzerland) in the summer of 1983^[39].

Between the late seventies and the early eighties, the deaths of certain influential figures in the anarchist movement offered the perfect opportunity to hold additional seminars on Borghi, Kropotkin and Malatesta, to draw attention to their thinking rather than simply remember them^[40]. Furthermore, during these events, which attracted large numbers of speakers and attendees, the Centre’s curators felt the need to offer follow-up seminars that were necessarily open to a limited number of participants. The topics dealt with on each occasion varied, including the connection between anarchism and law, and anarchism and ethics, social ecology, the analysis of totalitarianism, the basic tenets of anarchist thought, and libertarian approaches to anthropology^[41].

Other events were organised as theoretical and practical workshops, such as the graphic design course coordinated by the Visual Research Artisan Group (Gruppo Artigiano Ricerche Visive) in Rome. This course enabled militants in anarchist movements to understand the proper use of visual communication in the political arena^[42]. The Milanese group had always insisted on this aspect, and its publications, above all the periodical «A», testified to the group’s clear commitment in trying to leave behind the gray dullness of the movement’s usual publications with a significant forward leap in quality compared to the traditional approach in the postwar period.

A course that was held, a number of years later, by graphic designer Ferro Piludu and by Luciano Lanza, editor of «Volontà» and chief editor of «Il Mondo», had similar practical implications. These lessons dealt with the particular characteristics of periodicals, examining the complexities of producing such publications, aspects such as text editing, graphic editing, layout and production technologies, in order to better promote the ideas expounded by the militant press^[43]. Another practical workshop, led by Piludu and Lucilla Salimei, explored the field of audiovisual communications and led to the creation of a presentation with synchronized slides and sound by the participants^[44].

Among the initiatives promoted by the Centre, the largest organizational effort was undoubtedly the international anarchist Meeting held in Venice in September 1984, with the collaboration of the CIRA, from Switzerland, and the Anarchos Institute of Montréal. For a whole week Venice was invaded by anarchists, numbering an estimated three thousand participants from about thirty countries in all five continents. The attendees mirrored the movement’s very different forms: young punks and university professors, German autonomen and Chilean exiles, Spanish anarchist trade-unionists riven by internal disputes, and militants who had come to give testimony on the libertarian activities in their respective countries, be it Korea or New Zealand.

This week in Venice revolved around three areas: S. Margherita square, S. Polo square and the faculty of architecture. The first area housed the information centre, a large kitchen equipped to prepare twenty thousand meals accompanied by three thousand litres of excellent wine selected by enologist Veronelli, an outdoor exhibition on the anarchist publishing industry, and a stage for concerts and theatrical performances. The marquee in S. Polo square was set up to show films and documentaries, and display exhibitions on  «Art and anarchy» and «The history and geography of anarchism», while the premises of the faculty of architecture hosted a conference titled «Authoritarian tendencies and libertarian tensions in contemporary societies»^[45]. Under this deliberately generic title, the conference analysed a wide range of topics, examined in detail during the numerous plenary meetings, seminars, round-table talks and discussion groups, in order to observe, from a libertarian point of view, the most recent social trends in 1984, a year symbolic of the Orwellian totalitarian nightmare^[46].

In Venice, the intention was not so much to inspire a «new foundation» of anarchism, but to see the signs of a transition. The time seemed finally ripe for a qualitative leap that would enable the anarchist movement to present itself as «a true force of social change», after the vibrant period of the 1960s and 1970s which had been followed by a complex phase of withdrawal^[47].

The profound crisis that the movement had been going through in the preceding years became, paradoxically, a reason for optimism. Not only because, as Bertolo ironically wrote «pessimism must be kept for better times», but mainly due to the fact that although classic «militancy» seemed to languish, there did not seem to be any disappearance of anarchist ideas, that is of an anarchism «that holds within itself the struggle and also life, that reflects everything that within individual and collective behaviours moves in a libertarian direction, and in them is reflected»^[48].

Thus the Venice Meeting represented an important point of reference for anarchist and libertarian culture, a new-found maturity which enabled it to disengage from the burden of belle époque anarchism and helped the movement to interpret modern society in its own way. The shift was so important that many militants, following this wave of enthusiasm, even saw a line of rupture between «pre-» and «post-» Venice anarchism, the first dying and limited, while the second was headed toward a radical renewal^[49]. The organizational approach behind the international gathering was certainly innovative, managed outside the movement’s political structure, with no voting on agendas or congressional motions, but instead creating a collective event distinguished by informality and animated by the «militant community» and not just by the «party of militants»:

«to us “Venice 1984” was a watershed moment [wrote the Centre’s organizers twenty years later] although we only realised all the implications subsequently. This break between before and after was actually played out on an idealistic level: it is absolutely true that “before” then our actions and worldview were undergoing a change in perspective but only “after” was this shift obvious. The international anarchist meeting therefore acted as a catalyst for these changes, which were actually already part of the reasons for conceiving and organizing the event. To be precise, inviting the many faces of anarchism to a meeting that was so unlike a Congress, that was not searching for anything like a political “line”, was in itself a means to distance ourselves from our previous notion of militant activity»^[50].

Elèuthera and around

After ten years of activity the institute underwent a formal schism into two sections that continued to co-exist and interact: on one side the Centre and, on the other, the Archive, in the customary synergy which mirrored respectively the promotion and conservation of libertarian memory and culture^[51]. Still in 1986, the Centre / Archive changed address, moving to via Rovetta 27, with opening hours from 17.00 to 20.00 on weekdays, shortly afterwards from 14.00 to 20.00. A membership fee of twenty thousand lire provided access to all services, including expert bibliographical advice, copying of material at cost price and large discounts for courses and Antistato publications.

This publishing company, founded in Cesena by Turroni and L. Damiani, had moved to Milan in 1975, bringing with it a poor balance sheet and «unsellable stock and some largely uncollectable credit»^[52]. The libertarian group running the Centre and promoting the publishing cooperative «A» had developed, with Piludu, a graphic approach which was instantly recognizable, and had reorganized the publishing work into four main collections (to which other minor ones were added as well as some «one-offs»): «Classics of anarchist thought», whose vitality was meant to shake up contemporary development; «Anarchism today»; «Libertarian imprint», containing specifically cultural contributions of a libertarian mark and «Against history», a series of texts that were critical of official  historiography and reviewed events relating to attempts at emancipation within but «against» history (the history of domination)^[53]. This experience, certainly rich in cultural stimuli, came to an end after about ten years: Antistato ceased publishing in order to make room for the new Elèuthera publishing initiative, with Amedeo Bertolo and Rossella Di Leo once again on the front line^[54].

The chosen name, which in Greek means «free», was inspired by the moniker given, in the 17th century, to a small island in the Bahamas, (stylized in the publisher’s logo), by a group of English heretics who had escaped religious persecution, and had landed there with the intention of building a community based on «freedom and equality». The basic project follows the same line: to renew and restore anarchism, while developing thinking which can be part of contemporary cultural debate, seeking productive interchange with anti-authoritarian and libertarian cultures. The Elèuthera catalogue presents clear differences compared to its predecessor Antistato, despite being a direct descendant. On the whole, the typically militant approach was abandoned. As stated by the editorial collective in a self-interview in the late 1980s:

«Antistato addressed the need (mostly but not exclusively) to regain a theoretical and historical identity that had been lost. This wasn’t just an individual need, it was the need of an entire movement that was rising again after years of stagnation. Subsequently the need to define a new anarchist identity emerged as a priority, although tradition was always the basis for the strong values and ideas which defined it, in order to find new ways and means of expression. Elèuthera was born with this aim in mind».

The new publishing company, in addition to the usual «militant» methods of distribution, also used more commercial channels^[55].

Its aim was to speak to a wider audience, by targeting readers in the libertarian cultural arena who were searching for discussion and in-depth analysis on various subject areas and to promote international authors and issues. Today, there are more than 180 titles available, with approximately fifteen new publications each year, touching on subjects ranging from politics, philosophy, economics, sociology, geography, anthropology and art to a series titled «libertarian fiction» which, however, never matched the sales of the non-fiction titles. The most popular authors are Bookchin, Camus, Chomsky, Vonnegut, Ward and especially Augé, whose anthropological analysis of western lifestyle in Non places and In the metro has been of great interest to the public. These two classics have, in fact, been reprinted respectively ten and nine times^[56]. In 2004 the publisher set up an internet site for online sales, which seems to be fairly popular judging by the 60,000 visits recorded in the first year; from the website, it is also possible to download entire books and other smaller texts that are either not covered by copyright law or released under a copyleft license. This practice is a direct reflection  of Elèuthera’s libertarian aims, and its vision of the publishing industry:

«publishers can only benefit from the free circulation of their books, it makes no sense whatsoever to equate the free replication of knowledge with a loss in revenue. If the only form of liberty we are interested in is that related to profit, it is better to remain silent»^[57].

Right from the start, Elèuthera worked in synergy with the cultural direction followed by the periodical «Volontà», which was also an integral part of the «A» editorial family. The publication started out as a monthly in Naples in 1946. It was born out of the ashes of «La Rivoluzione libertaria» and «Risveglio libertario», an initiative of Giovanna Caleffi and Cesare Zaccaria who made it the main instrument of theoretical debate for the Italian anarchist movement. In the mid 1950s, Zaccaria moved away from anarchism and returned toward the liberal area and, after Giovanna’s death in 1962, a period of withdrawal started where «Volontà» became progressively more isolated from the vibrant libertarian cultural scene. While the social battles of the 1960s and 1970s brought anti-authoritarian feelings to the forefront, the periodical’s columns seemed to ignore current events and, in 1969, it was published only once every two months. There was a rapid succession of editors: Giuseppe Rose (Cosenza), Vincenzo Di Maria (Catania), Aurelio Chessa (Pistoia) and Roberto Tronconi (Verona). Only in 1977, with the participation of the Valdobbiadene publishing group directed by Francesco Codello and the new graphic layout implemented by Piludu, did the magazine begin a process of renovation which freed it from the marginal role it had found itself trapped in. This refound theoretical depth, as the period of time between issues increased, stabilized when it became part of the «A» cooperative of the Milanese libertarian group; having just concluded with «Interrogations», its reshaping of the periodical created a specific role for it in anarchist publishing:

«according to us [wrote the editors in their very first column], this means trying to create a periodical which still remains faithful to the historical-ideological heritage of anarchism, but also opens up to the contributions of contemporary libertarian thought and embraces the most interesting thinking in the social sciences. [...] We believe that today in Italy (and not only in Italy) there is a great need for this type of periodical. The whole anarchist movement is in need of this, not just a group of intellectuals, because as there cannot be theory without practice, there cannot be practice without theory; otherwise it would be blind, contradictory and bereft of any long term prospects»^[58].

From 1987, for a period of about 10 years,  «Volontà» was presented as a series of monographic anthologies aimed at closely examining anarchist identity and the most important themes of contemporary culture^[59]. The legacy of this periodical, which ceased publication in 1996, would be further developed by «Libertaria», also edited by Lanza. Its «original and clear-eyed» approach, aptly summarized in its subtitle (the pleasure of utopia) was aimed at discovering new interpretations of the present by accepting the suggestions of international libertarian culture^[60].

New acquisitions and new activities

In the years immediately preceding and following the move to Via Rovetta, the Pinelli Archive received at least another four important donations that led to the establishment of the same number of documentary collections^[61].

In 1985, Raffaele Schiavina, editor of the Italo-American periodical «L’Adunata dei Refrattari» from 1927 to 1972, better known under the pseudonym Max Sartin, donated around a hundred photographs documenting Italian migration toward the United States and a series of rare leaflets in Italian published in France and other foreign locations between the 1920s and the 1970s. A library of around 400 books on political themes, most of them in French or Spanish, was donated to the Archive, and kept separately, after the death of the owner, Eliane Vincileoni. She had been a model for Christian Dior, a fashion designer and artisan, active in the Milanese anarchist group at the time of  «Materialismo e libertà» and all through the 1960s.

Another series of important documents was related to the anarchist Bartolomeo Vanzetti, an Italian immigrant in the United States, sentenced to death with Nicola Sacco after a clearly sham trial and despite an extensive international campaign on their behalf. The collection was donated by Vanzetti’s sister Vincenzina who dedicated many years of her life to the posthumous rehabilitation of the two anarchists, finally achieved in 1977 with an official statement by the governor of Massachusetts. These documents, whose originals are held at the Historical Institute of the Resistance in Cuneo and copies at the Pinelli and Berneri-Chessa Archives, comprised Vanzetti’s personal papers, newspaper clippings and over a thousand letters both from the 1920s and relating to the reopening of the case after the second world war; all in alphabetical, and then chronological, order according to the name of the sender or recipient^[62].

The fourth donation was a collection of political periodicals from the 1930s and 1940s, for the most part concerned with anarchism, received in 1992 from Luce Fabbri. Among the most interesting were the «Giustizia e libertà» and «La Revista blanca» collections, as well as various single issues published in Parisian antifascist exile circles^[63].

Together with the archive material, the total collection at the beginning of the 1990s numbered about 5,000 volumes and 900 periodicals, of which 600 were on microfilm and 50 in publication. The Pinelli then housed a number of exhibitions, now disassembled, that were created by the Centre over the years, and were available to rent. Two of them, «Art and Anarchy» and «History and Geography of Anarchism», had been exhibited at the International Meeting in Venice; the others related to Malatesta’s life with 73 black and white photos, and to the history of the Spanish civil war and revolution^[64]. Lastly, the final group of photographs mounted on panels presents a series of 28 pen drawings by the artist Camille Pissarro in 1889, inspired by the dramatic social issues and the turpitude (from the series’ title «Turpitudes sociales») of capitalist society, with clear references not just to a generic message of protest but also to clear themes of anarchist propaganda^[65].

As regards the work of cataloguing, the improvised method first employed was abandoned in favour of more professional methods in the early 1990s. The bibliographical data was entered into the File Maker Pro program, on Macintosh computers, while the cards, separated into monographs and periodicals, were ordered alphabetically according to author and title. The curators and those in charge at the institute in this period were Amedeo Bertolo, Rossella Di Leo and Luciano Lanza, with the help of Furio Biagini for the cataloguing, Ornella Buti for the bulletin, first published in 1992, Roberto Gimmi for the Iconographic Archive, and Marina Padovese for exhibitions.

Meanwhile the Centre’s cultural activities continued uninterrupted. New seminars were organized on topics such as architecture, urban planning, libertarian municipalism, and the historical origins of anarchism, these latter identifiable in illuminist thought or, in a more unorthodox fashion, in other cultural traditions such as heretical Christianity or lay Judaism^[66].

In addition, for a number of months, an actual theatre and art workshop was set up under the supervision of Enrico Baj. During these sessions participants created wooden figures of «ordinary and extraordinary monsters» which came alive in a performance at the Milan Faculty of Architecture^[67].

As regards international projects, the Centre for Libertarian Studies participated in the conference in Lyon in 1987, promoted by the Atelier de Création Libertaire, on the «crisis» of feminism and branches of the feminist movement, often given scant support by those with libertarian values:

«to get over this impasse [declared the conference’s promoters] which the feminist movement is faced with is one of the main objectives of this meeting, which proposes to begin from gender inequality in order to achieve a more detailed and global critique of hierarchy, thus broadening the narrow space of interest toward which a certain type of feminist culture has pushed analysis of sexual inequality»^[68].

Some years later the milanesi were involved in organizing the International Anarchist Exposition of Barcellona, a cultural happening promoted by the historic Ateneu Enciclopèdic Popular as well as other Spanish libertarian institutes, thus filling the ten-year void left since the last similar occasion for meeting and discussion had occurred («Venice-1984») within the international anarchist movement. During the two weeks, numerous initiatives revolved around the central debate on «Anarchism in the face of the crisis of ideologies» together with four documentary exhibitions: «The International Presence of Anarchism», «Francisco Ferrer and the Modern School», «Art and Anarchy», «Iberian Anarchism»^[69].

In 1992, as mentioned above, the first issue of a six-monthly bulletin edited by the Pinelli Archive was sent to press and, already by the second issue, had a new graphic layout with the added value of numerous illustrations and photographs. This publication would be progressively enriched over the years with special content, information on the institute’s research activity, rare or unreleased material held in the archive, publishing news and interesting events for the libertarian reader, biographies, reviews, bibliographies and essays. In short, the bulletin mirrored the institute’s objectives: it strove to publicize knowledge of the material it held and to publish research on that same material or, at least, connected to the history of anarchism and all the themes that were dear to libertarian culture. In its pages, both stories and history could find their place, with an eye to the past but without ever forgetting the present:

«we will obviously talk about History with a capital H, its well-known protagonists and sensational events, but also about less-known individual stories, people and episodes that few know about which, however, have made up the connecting tissue of History. This is, therefore, a retracing of our distant past with a few digressions into the present, that at the same time manages to go beyond traditional cultural barriers in order to investigate the manifold faces of contemporary anarchism with the help of the rich interrelation between all the libertarian movements which have sprung up everywhere in the last fifty years»^[70].

Another important feature of the bulletin, which is difficult to find in other similar publications, is its ability to overcome the narrow boundaries of its institute and connect with a network of libraries, archives and study centres of the international and Italian anarchist movement. It started from a basic but much-needed review of this area which was carried out in the early 1990s by «A», solely in the Italian domain but never further updated^[71]. An initial and very promising line of collaboration called «Mutual Aid» was, unfortunately, only developed in outline and subsequently abandoned: the main idea was to establish an exchange of information and bibliographical materials which could be useful in order to complete collections or further develop current research^[72].

The Spanish revolution and resistance movement

On the 50th anniversary of Italy’s liberation, in April 1995, the Centre for Libertarian Studies collaborated with the Anna Kuliscioff Foundation to organize a day-long conference to reflect on the contribution made by anarchists and libertarians to the Resistance struggle, mainly focusing on the Bruzzi-Malatesta Brigade which was part of the Matteotti socialist formations. The presenters spoke to the public of an anti-fascist struggle which did not begin in 1943 but at least 20 years earlier, when the Arditi del popolo (groups of 1^st world war veterans) first began to resist fascism. At this time, only the anarchist movement strove to encourage this form of proletarian self-defence, while the left-wing political parties, for various reasons, tried to stifle it. This anti-fascist struggle continued underground, in exile or prison, re-emerged with the participation of volunteers in the Spanish civil war, and then in the decision to take up arms after 8 September 1943: in some areas where the anarchist movement had strong roots, like Carrara, Pistoia, Lombardy and Liguria, partisan groupings were born that were almost exclusively made up of libertarian militants; in other areas, anarchists joined the communist Garibaldi Brigades, the socialist Matteotti Brigades or those of Giustizia e Libertà^[73].

The Pinelli Archive dedicated the entire fifth issue of its bulletin to the anarchist Resistance. It contained long excerpts from an unpublished memoir by Ugo Fedeli, in addition to documents about the activities of the Bruzzi-Malatesta Brigade, including the list of partisans, brief biographical notes on those who fell in battle and excerpts from two interviews, published by the Centre in 1977, with Mario Mantovani and Mario Orazio Perelli, respectively commander and vice-commander of the Brigades active around Milan (among other responsibles for the Bruzzi-Malatesta were Germinale Concordia and Antonio Pietropaolo)^[74]. This precious collection of oral testimonies also permitted the production of the video-documentary Gli anarchici nella Resistenza ^[75], a collective account providing a rigorous historical reconstruction, and giving voice to the last living protagonists of this story:

«the anarchists who were part of the Resistance are in fact part of the same generation that opposed fascism at the start of the 1920s. This is the reason for the late beginning of this research effort: many memories of that period died with the anarchists who passed away between 1960 and 1980»  ^[76].

After this research on the Resistance, came a year of many anniversaries: 1996 was exactly 20 years after the founding of the Centre and, as regards the «A» publishing cooperative, there was the fiftieth anniversary of «Volontà», twenty-fifth anniversary of the anarchist periodical «A», and tenth anniversary of Elèuthera. But the institute’s curators decided to concentrate on the theme of the Spanish civil war and revolution between 1936 and 1939 rather than dwell on the symbolic significance of these anniversaries. The historical reconstruction of that period had, in fact, been given a decisive turn by the making of Ken Loach’s film Land and Freedom, that succeeded in examining anti-fascist internal conflicts and contradictions, revealing the social revolution that was under way, with all its libertarian drive, opposed by the pro-Soviet and authoritarian political line of the communist party: «the break in terms of historiography and imagination caused by that film made it possible to re-examine events, situations and characters that until recently had been expunged from memory by the left.»^[77]

The Centre / Archive dedicated - to the memory of the Spanish utopia – a day of debate ^[78],  most of the eighth issue of the Bulletin, as well as a new edition of a historic video-documentary with images filmed between 1936 and 1937 by the operators of the Sindicato de la industria del espectaculo (part of the anarchist union CNT, Barcellona). The film, originally titled Fury over Spain, was made to remember international antifascist solidarity. In the mid 1970s it was re-circulated by the Comitato Spagna Libertaria (Milan) with a new soundtrack; the same frames with Pino Cacucci’s new commentary were then re-presented by the Pinelli Archive (in VHS format) with the subtitle: l’utopia si fa storia^[79].

Due to financial restrictions, however, it was not possible to complete the production of an additional documentary organized around a series of video-interviews with French anarchists who were among the protagonists of May ‘68. The footage (shot in November 1997) has nonetheless been conserved and is currently available in the Archive^[80].

An ongoing story

The effort to increase the collection of documents continued constantly over the years. There were also some chance acquisitions, for instance the first Italian edition of The Political Capacity of the Working Class by Proudhon, spotted and recovered from a paper recycling bin^[81]. A significant donation, one of the largest that the Archive was ever to receive, came from Ancona in 1995 when Luciano Farinelli died. Forty boxes, received through Fernanda Bonivento, Farinelli’s partner, contained documents and correspondence concerning Farinelli’s political activity, and also material from the Casa Malatesta anarchist circle in Ancona, as well as the periodical «L’Internazionale», established in 1966 as the organ of the Anarchist Initiative Groups and continuously edited by Farinelli for almost a quarter century. Pezzica did what he could with the boxes which arrived in poor condition, replacing them when necessary. At the same time, he physically subdivided the material into five distinct categories: correspondence, newspapers and periodicals, books, leaflets, and images. Further work is planned to restore and iron out the papers, before arranging and inventorying them.

In the following years, the arrival of other archive and library materials were recorded: a collection of books and correspondence that belonged to Otello Menchi, who was active on the Milanese anarchist scene from immediately after the second world war; part of Michele Corsentino’s extensive collection, which came from London where the anarchist writer and activist had moved in 1958, unfortunately missing the most interesting papers relating to Paolo Schicchi and Sicilian anarchism^[82]; Agostino Raimo’s documentation on the Apulian anarchist movement together with a collection of books; Bruna Casata’s donation consisting of a couple of hundred monographs on anarchist and libertarian themes as well as a number of issues of periodicals like  «Fede!» (Roma, 1923-1926), «Il Libertario» (Milano, 1945-1961) and «Il Martello» (New York, 1916-1946); fourteen folders of correspondence going back to the 1950s between Giuseppe Mascii and the individualists E. Armand e Tito Eschini  ^[83].

In parallel to these generous donations, the Archive also had to deal with less pleasant occurrences. At the end of the 1980s, for example, the anarchist militant and theater aficionado Augusto Micelli, who founded the periodical «Theatralia» in 1924 (suppressed by the fascist regime in 1927), and now aged over a hundred, had given his heirs the task of donating his private library to the Pinelli Archive, also making available an accurate list of items. However, with no written will, his wishes were ignored by his son-in-law who preferred to sell the collection to an antique bookshop:

«we tell this story [wrote the curators of the archive] so that the comrades can learn from this occurrence since, moreover, it is not the first episode of this kind. Furthermore it seems that neither anarchist ethics nor good manners seem to always be bestowed on the heirs. Alas, the inevitable conclusion seems to be that it is better to have a bourgeois will. In sadness»^[84].

Another cause for bitterness is the painful problem of pilfering, perpetrated, here as elsewhere, for financial gain, for the pleasure of unscrupulous collectors or out of plain personal interest:

«all libraries are well-known to be places where thefts take place. We had fondly imagined that an anarchist library would be immune from this and in our ingenuousness we had long managed the library in an open and cooperative fashion. Then we began to notice missing titles, missing microfilms, missing periodical issues… We locked the cabinets, we reduced the number of available items, we found ourselves having to take on a role that we had not envisaged: that of monitors. Custodians of the cultural heritage of anarchism sure, but monitors no. [...] It should be said that we are not referring to an extreme phenomenon, but solely to a decidedly limited one, yet nonetheless unacceptable: there is the fellow with money problems who pinches the rare antique in order to sell it on to the highest bidder, the bibliophile who nicks the rare item to gloat over in his personal library, the student who literally cuts out the photo or newspaper article he needs for his dissertation (in an era in which reproductions of text and images are readily available), only then to throw the cutting in the bin when the job is done… basically the typologies are infinite but the result is the same: something is lost to the community for petty personal gain»  ^[85].

In the last ten years the pace of cultural promotion and research has continued unabated, maintaining a high level of quality. Among the scheduled seminars, we must mention the day dedicated to Malatesta’s clear thinking, that inspired its title: «The common sense of revolution» ^[86], the seminars on historiographic methodology regarding the use of police sources and oral sources aimed at reconstructing the history of anarchism, whose proceedings are contained in the first issue of the «Quaderni del Centro»^[87], or the round-table talks celebrating the 90th anniversary of the Italian Syndicalist Union (USI)^[88]. Furthermore, the Center for Libertarian Studies has recently resumed its former tradition of organizing major international events with two conferences on the relationships between anarchism and Judaism^[89], and on the scientist Élisée Reclus^[90]. The first convention, jointly organized with the Lausanne CIRA in the year 2000, was dedicated to the rapprochement between anarchists and Jews, or rather between the radicalism of the anarchist movement and Jewish spirituality, which was imbued with messianic aspirations of redemption. This affinity, still not fully understood, was born out of Yiddish culture in eastern Europe and followed Jewish emigration toward France, England, the United States and later Argentina where the nascent Jewish labour movement was mainly organized by anarchists. In Europe no such phenomenon can be discerned due to the greater role played by Jews in social and economic affairs, while the communist libertarian tradition, self-help associations, and federalism are all aspects that would re-emerge in the organizational structures of Israeli kibbutzim^[91]. The second convention, organized in 2005 by the Institute of Geography of the University of Milan-Bicocca and strongly promoted by Marcella Schmidt di Friedberg, availed itself of the valuable contribution of the Center for Libertarian Studies. It explored the work of the anarchist geographer Élisée Reclus, a forerunner of an approach to geography which was not exclusively descriptive and particularly focused on the borders of nation states, but which was also open to investigating  relations between mankind, society and the natural world, together with their sociological, cultural, ecological and political implications^[92].

The first website for the Center for Libertarian Studies was created in 1998 by Umberto Montefamiglio and renewed two years later by Alex Steiner and Edy Zarro^[93]. As of 2003 the Pinelli internet page can be reached via two links: <http://www.centrostudilibertari.it> and <http://www.archiviopinelli.it>. In 2008 the site’s graphics were restyled and new content was added. Among other things, as well as the Bulletin being accessible in its entirety, two intriguing articles on two symbols of anarchist iconography can be read. The first is the ironic character Anarchik, with his broad brimmed hat and black cape, created by Roberto Ambrosoli. The second is the circled A symbol. This symbol made its first appearance in 1964 in the Parisian journal «Jeunesses Libertaires» but it only acquired its current status as a direct symbol of anarchism in 1966 when, at the suggestion of Amedeo Bertolo, it began to be used regularly by Milan’s libertarian youth.

The Pinelli currently holds 17 archival collections, a photo and image archive consisting of around 2000 documents, 150 recordings of interviews, conventions and public debates; the archive’s library, numbered among the Catalogue of Italian libraries^[94], has around 1,500 periodical titles, roughly catalogued on paper, and 8000 selected monographs, catalogued with CDS/ISIS technology although bibliographic records are not yet available online. A vast group of Italian and international collaborators work alongside Amedeo Bertolo, Rossella Di Leo, Lorenzo Pezzica and Cesare Vurchio in the day-to-day activities of the institute without any form of institutional financial support.