The Complete Works of Malatesta, Vol. V The Armed Strike: The Long London Exile of 1900–13

The original Anarchy in the U.K.

This volume focuses on the crucial years in Errico Malatesta’s life when he was exiled in London. Responding to what he saw as the unrealistic insurrectionism and isolation into which anarchism had fallen, Malatesta advocated “a long and patient work to prepare and organize the people,” through which anarchism would operate in broad daylight to entrench itself in the workers’ movement.

Among the concerns Malatesta addresses in this volume are the assassinations of King Humbert of Italy and President McKinley in the US. The emerging radical labor movement that was taking off in England, France, and Spain at the time, and his own imprisonment in England.

"To an extent difficult to imagine today, the years covered by this latest addition to the monumental publication of works by and about Malatesta were a period of agitation, challenge to doctrine and authority, even hopes for overthrow of the repressive capitalist order, particularly in Italy and England, where Malatesta was a leading figure throughout. This volume is a contribution greatly to be welcomed for the understanding of a major figure of the modern world, and the turbulent period of his impressive contributions." —Noam Chomsky

“This extraordinarily comprehensive project, gathering both Malatesta’s writings and those of the context around him, not only gives us access to his radical thought but also allows us to experience the trials and triumphs of the life of a committed revolutionary.” —Michael Hardt, author of The Subversive Seventies

“Errico Malatesta was one of the most influential activists and thinkers in the history of global anarchism. His approach to revolutionary social change was grounded, perceptive, and sincere. With publication of the extraordinarily ambitious and expertly curated Complete Works of Malatesta, the full range of his ideas is finally available in English.” —Kenyon Zimmer, author of Immigrants Against the State: Yiddish and Italian Anarchism in America

Errico Malatesta (1853–1932) is a principal figure of Italian and international anarchism. His sixty-year militancy, much of it spent in exile or in prison, spanned the foundation of the anarchist movement in 1872 to the eve of the Spanish Revolution. He has written “bestsellers” of anarchist literature, such as Between Peasants, Anarchy, and At the Café. However, his evolving anarchism—pragmatic, theoretically coherent, and as relevant today as it was a century ago—is best illustrated by the myriad of articles scattered in the anarchist press and collected for the first time in these Complete Works.

Davide Turcato is a historian of Italian anarchism and the author of Making Sense of Anarchism.

Andrea Asali is a writer and translator. Her first book is I Belong Only to Myself: The Life and Writings of Leda Rafanelli. 

Carl Levy taught and researched at the Open University, University of Kent at Canterbury, Queen Mary, University of London, and for many years at Goldsmiths, University of London, where he was Professor of Politics. His works include eleven edited or single-authored books and eighty journal articles and edited chapters. Among his works on anarchism are Gramsci and the Anarchists, Carl Levy and Matthew Adams (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Anarchism, and Carl Levy and Saul Newman (eds), The Anarchist Imagination: Anarchism Encounters the Humanities and the Social Sciences. He has written many articles and book chapters about Errico Malatesta and is writing a biography, entitled Errico Malatesta: The Rooted Cosmopolitan.