A Look at Autonomous and Insurrectionary Anarchism in American History
by Virus
May 19, 2004
Insurrectionary Anarchists of the Coast Salish Territories (Vancouver, Canada)

Anarchism has always been a social movement composed of a variety of perspectives on organization and strategy. Autonomous and insurrectionary anarchism, as defined by an emphasis on individual responsibility, informal organization, direct action and armed struggle, played a crucial part in the early American anarchist movement.

In May of 1885, German anarchists in London, England, formed the Autonomy Group and began to publish a journal entitled "Die Autonomie", partly in response to Johann Most, who they considered too authoritarian. This journal was a source of inspiration in the development of the autonomous anarchist movement in Chicago, and in January of 1886, Chicago anarchists George Engel and Adolph Fischer started the newspaper "Der Anarchist" as a forum for autonomous anarchists in the city. Dissent within the anarchist International Working People's Association in 1885 had led to the emergence of a distinct autonomist movement in the city, as the autonomous anarchists did not support the "Chicago Idea" advocated by anarchists such as Albert Parsons, which essentially outlined an early form of anarcho-syndicalism. Autonomists considered unions to be reformist and bureaucratic structures unsuitable for revolutionary activity.

The Chicago autonomist anarchist movement consisted of working class radicals from the anarchist North-West Side Group, the Anarchist Discussion Club, the South West Side Group Number 3, the Socialistic Male Chorus of the South West Side, and the second and third companies of the Lehr-und-Wehr Verein (an armed workers' militia that Fischer was a member of).

The autonomists called for the "complete destruction of the established order by force," and were distinguished by their refusal to compromise with their class enemies. They did not send delegates to the General Committee of Chicago Groups, and although Fischer was a rank-and-file member of the German Typographical Union, the autonomists would not take any official position in any organization. Instead they advocated the formation of independent action groups to engage in armed struggle and the free association of individuals and groups. The newspaper "Der Anarchist" had no editor, but only an address for communications. Anarchist cultural events played an important part in the movement and included choirs, orchestras, theatre groups, debate clubs and picnics.

The activity of the autonomists corresponded with the spirit of working class radicalism that existed in Chicago at that time. Workers, employed and unemployed, had clashed with police during several strikes and bread riots, including the Great Railway strike of 1877, the first general wildcat strike in America's history. Facing brutal police repression and numerous deaths, workers formed armed militias to defend themselves. The Lehr-und-Wehr Verein, Jaeger Verein, Bohemian Sharpshooters and Irish Labor Guards drilled with rifles, wore uniforms, and marched through the streets during a celebration of the Paris Commune.

After the Haymarket riot of May 4th, 1886, George Engel and Adolph Fischer were arrested, tried and sentenced to death. "No power on earth can rob the working man of his knowledge of how to make bombs - and that knowledge he possesses!" said Engel in his trial statement. The struggle of the Haymarket Martyrs inspired a new generation of anarchists.

Emma Goldman was one of those anarchists, and in 1890 she met with the Autonomie group in New York, after they moved there from London. Goldman began reading "Die Autonomie" and decided that it was closer to her idea of anarchism than Johann Most's "Freiheit", since it stressed the independence of individuals and groups.

An insurrectionary anarchist movement soon emerged amongst Italian anarchist immigrants in America. In 1898, Giuseppi Ciancabilla moved to Paterson, New Jersey, after taking part in armed struggle in Greece, fleeing Italy, and being expelled from Switzerland and France as a "dangerous anarchist". In Paterson, he wrote for the anarchist paper "La Questione Sociale". He then moved to West Hoboken, started the journal "L'Aurora", and translated Kropotkin's "Conquest of Bread" into Italian. The final years of his life were spent in San Francisco, where he published the journal "Protesta Umana".

Throughout his activity in America he called for an anarchist struggle based on informal organization. "We don't form fixed programs and we don't form small or great parties. But we come together spontaneously, and not with permanent criteria, according to momentary affinities for a specific purpose, and we constantly change these groups as soon as the purpose for which we had associated ceases to be, and other aims and needs arise and develop in us and push us to seek new collaborators, people who think as we do in the specific circumstance," he wrote.

In 1901, Italian anarchist Luiggi Galleani moved to Paterson and took over "La Questione Sociale" (which Malatesta had also worked on for a short time). He took part in the Paterson silk worker strike of 1902 and was shot in a clash with the police. Charged with "inciting to riot", he escaped to Canada and then back to the United States, settling in Barre, Vermont, under a false name. There he joined the Barre anarchist group which stone and marble cutters had formed in 1894, and he created the newspaper "Cronaca Sovversiva" (Subversive Chronicle). Cronaca would come to be a rallying point for the Italian insurrectionary anarchist movement across the country, as affinity groups sprung up in many cities.

These informal organizations included the Gruppo Autonomo of East Boston; the Gruppo Diritto all'Esistenza (Straight to Existence) and Gruppo L'Era Nuova (New Era) in Paterson; Gruppo I Liberi (The Free Ones) of New Britain; Gruppo Anarchicho of Youngstown, Ohio; the Francisco Ferrer Circle of Milwaukee; the Gruppo Demolizione of anarchist miners in Latrole, Pennsylvania; Gruppo Gaetano Bresci (the anarchist who killed King Umberto of Italy) in East Harlem, New York City; Gruppo Liberta in Needham, Massachusets; and the Spanish anarchist Grupo Ariete of Buffalo, New York, and Grupo Pro Prensa of New York City; among many others. These groups considered themselves anarchist-communists, or "anarchists without adjectives", and created an uncompromising form of struggle counter-posing self-determination and direct action to standardization and uniformity.

Older insurrectionary anarchists, some with families, who could not directly take part in the armed struggle played an active supporting role, opening up their homes to affinity groups, providing resources and hiding anarchists who were on the run from the law.

Apart from Galleani, the members of the movement were entirely of working class backgrounds. In New York they were garment and construction workers. In Paterson they worked in the silk factory. In Tampa and Philadelphia they made cigars. They were miners in Vermont, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Illinois, and they were barbers, tailors, bricklayers and machinists in Chicago, Detroit, San Francisco and Los Angeles.

They also engaged in a vibrant anarchist culture, with theatres groups, picnics, concerts, dances, a fall harvest festival, lecture tours, anarchist club houses and free schools, and trips through the wilderness, across rivers and mountains. There were about 100 Italian anarchist publications distributed across America at the time.

Well known anarchist martyrs Sacco and Vanzetti were active members of the movement and wrote for Cronaca Sovversiva.

"Both men, it must be emphasized, were social militants, advocates of relentless warfare against government and capital. Far from being the innocent dreamers so often depicted by their supporters, they belonged to a branch of the anarchist movement which preached insurrectionary violence and armed retaliation, including the use of dynamite and assassination. Such activities, they believed, were replies to the monstrous violence of the state," wrote Paul Avrich in his book "Sacco and Vanzetti - the Anarchist Background"

Sacco and Vanzetti did not sit on the sidelines or limit themselves to propaganda work, but instead played active roles in the Hopedale strike of 1913 and the Plymouth strike of 1916. In Plymouth, the spontaneous strike broke out at a rope factory which Vanzetti had formerly worked in. He walked the picket lines, took part in marches, gave speeches to the workers and wrote about their struggle in Cronaca Sovversiva. Representatives from the American Federation of Labour and the Industrial Workers of the World showed up in town and tried to get the workers to join their organizations, only to be rejected.

Vanzetti and other anarchists actively opposed the interference of the unions, writing in Cronaca that the strike itself was the elementary expression of class struggle and was not an affair of specific organizations or theories. Vanzetti praised the workers refusal to be represented, and argued that meaningful change could only come from the action of the workers themselves. The strikers managed to win a one dollar wage increase, but Vanzetti urged ongoing struggle.

Since the beginning of World War One in 1914, the Italian anarchists had been agitating against it and published articles with slogans such as "against the war, against the peace, for the revolution". The Military Registration Act came into effect in May of 1917, and about 60 Italian anarchists, including Sacco and Vanzetti, moved to Monterrey, Mexico, to avoid registering. They most likely spent their time in Monterrey planning and training for armed struggle. In November they returned to America.

Back in the U.S., the Italian insurrectionary anarchists suffered from a wave of police repression after they attacked a pro-American rally in a small town and a bomb exploded inside a police station. Ella Antolini, a crucial member of the movement, was arrested transporting dynamite on a train. She absolutely refused to cooperate with the authorities or supply them with any information and was sent to prison. There she met Emma Goldman, and the two became friends.

Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested, framed and executed, but the insurrectionary anarchists did not surrender in the face of repression and instead launched an escalating series of retaliatory strikes against major capitalists.

Today, insurrectionary anarchists are active in the United States, as well as Italy, Spain, Greece, Chile, Argentina, Canada and elsewhere in the world.

- For more information check out the books "The Haymarket Tragedy" and "Sacco and Vanzetti" by Paul Avrich. They provide an excellent, detailed and non-dogmatic account of anarchist activity at that time.

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