biographies

A simple worker
by Massimo Ortalli

The life of the worker and trade unionist anarchist Gaetano Gervasio (1886 - 1964) in a book edited by his daughter Joan, published by Zero in Conduct. We publish the introduction of our collaborator Max Ortalli.

Among the many misunderstandings about the anarchist movement, there is one, created by more or less interested critics, who wants his story and his story essentially alien to the world of work, the working class and the proletariat in general. As if this movement, which sees the vast majority of its activists, the most popular to the less known, come from the ranks of the people and wage labor, petty bourgeois was made up by penniless and disillusioned, or even worse, all driven by intellectuals' action only to assert his own personality. Logical corollary to this misconception, the conventional wisdom in political and historical rather uninformed, the almost complete absence of unions organized by anarchists, as if they, even if extraction proletarian working and training, so they were suffering from an incurable individualism by spontaneously alienate those same unions that they could protect their interests and the need for emancipation. In short, a situation of widespread automarginalizzazione decidedly unconvincing.
In recent years, however, new studies have been able to appreciate particularly attentive to the presence of trade unions and anarchists in particular in those revolutionary, among them biographies of some of their most prominent members, militants risen nationally and have left their mark in the history of the country. Suffice it to recall, among others, the names of Alberto Meschi, Attilio Sassi, Armando Borghi, Umberto Marzocchi, emblematic figures of the deep and organic relationship between anarchism and the labor movement, whose role in the conduct of the struggle and in the expression of multiple claims radicals was finally fully recognized. Figures, above all, showing how strong the relationship between the anarchist and the trade union militancy, between the organization and the specific mass.
This rich historiographic production is not only to set new milestones, but also allows you to bring a world whose existence has simply incredible size, revealing extraordinary lives so as to be unthinkable today, for the richness and intensity of events experiences which they were actors. While, in fact, studies on trade unions and animated by anarchist libertarians - think especially Italian Union of Statutory Auditors in the first post-war grew to over three hundred thousand members - have contributed to rewrite the rich with more accurate and uninterrupted history the Italian syndicalism, the rebuilding of these lives and revolutionary militants, devoted to "cause" and the affirmation of the emancipation of the working class, were particularly instructive in explaining how the organization was strong enough to resort to mark indelibly the traits of the protagonists existential of that season.

With strong intensity

With this autobiography Gaetano Gervasio, always attentive to the cause of the exploited and the witness of solidarity, rebuilds her life, not as isolated and exceptional experience - even if they are clearly outside the normal hardening and moral force that has shown - but as an integral part a social activist and capable of transforming the objective of exceptionality in the normal networks of mutual support that you helped create. Its appears as an extraordinary example of attachment to the ideas and ideals that move, an attachment marked by consistency, humanity and righteousness simply exemplary. And nevertheless it must be remembered that, in the surprising wealth of facts, incidents, circumstances, his experience was not unique, not only because it was interwoven with that of other anarchists, socialists and revolutionary rebels like him who lived the same dramatic situations and exciting, but also because all the tissue that surrounded the militant workers and proletarians as its protagonists had also trained in fighting and education, equally determined to live their lives according to his principles, and safe in the same way as the ideas and tools with which to carry them forward.
Born in a remote country dell'avellinese, at the extreme periphery of the poorest country, interrupted his studies after the third grade, fatally Gaetano Gervasio was to lead a life on the margins of society with little opportunity to become protagonists of their own destiny. But the circumstances, the strength of will and a lively intelligence, meant that its existence would become the equilibrium process of social formation, intellectual and political these pages, partly autobiographical and partly revised and supplemented by his daughter Joan, we show with great intensity.
Spent his childhood in his hometown, after a first wandering in various places in the south where the forgotten, just eleven years old, began his apprenticeship with his long life as a worker, he moved to Milan, making this city the place where you will develop more his political experience and his network of human relations, and political union. In Milan, but not only in Milan, because, like many labor activists of his generation, Gervasio must often leave their residence and continuous shoulder transfers in other places, driven by repression or by the need to work. We'll find him, in fact, in Switzerland, then in the United States, France, in Turin, Milan and more. Always and everywhere on the side of his companions, workers and those who, like him, and for the same reasons, are forced to carry their arms and their capabilities around the world. Finally, in late life, as a choice for his definitive retirement, we find it in Naples.
Now in political activism at a young age, when he was still attending the school of life of the "master", among the peasants and workers of Melfi and Cerignola, Gervase embarks on a journey that, despite the many hardships, he will never slip no. Despite the lack of detailed studies, his talent will always be able to express themselves, accompanying himself with an amazing ability to work in a fortunate combination of arm and mind. Man of many trades, with great dexterity and eclectic, will, in fact, to live and keep the family and the many who turned to him. If we still believe the "natural talent" of the proletariat, which would take a certain Marxist mythology, we could see in him the clearest expression. Person by nature affable, sincere bonhomie, his influence among the comrades of struggle and work also comes from the particular political and organizational skills. Ready in deciphering the social situation and its continuing evolution, will never miss his presence in the ranks of labor: first Italian Union of Statutory Auditors, the anarcho-syndicalist organization that, especially in the first post-war high of hundreds of thousands of students and direct from some of the most important figures of revolutionary syndicalism, will lead the proletariat of its own struggles of a war-weary, then, after World War II, along with other anarchists, the CGIL, finding in it and its mass organization the best tool of emancipation, regardless of its political connotations closer to the Communist Party.
It will be right in the first decade after World War II that will further develop its presence in the union world, and with the continuous interventions in the columns of the weekly anarchist "The Libertarian" is through participation in the Steering Committee of the CGIL and the Provincial Board of Fiom. Anarchist without hesitation, will also advocate trade union unity, in interpreting the concept made sense of belonging to the general working class and bringing its experience and organizational capacity in the trade union confederation of Defense as an exponent of the Auditors of libertarian. Adherent to Make since its birth will be one of the leaders within the group Milan 1, of the theoretical aims to return the current necessary to anarchist thought. While remaining in the groove of thought Malatesta and attentive to innovative thinking and "unorthodox" Berneri, that group of young intellectuals in Milan, in fact, was in the presence and authority of Gervase the thread of continuity with the classical anarchism.
It remains, however, that beyond the differences in setting and evaluating what to do, his innate sense of solidarity will never fail. Even prior to the placement of political and ideological differences, the sense of social solidarity, the common form of both human and ideological, constantly mark his whole life. Even in the hardest moments, those of hunger, repression, fascism triumphant, Gaetano Gervasio will clear in its duties and obligations. The experience of creating and conducting the workshop red, the "den" of subversives he invented, which allowed the companies to earn the bread during the fascist period without having to lower his head, is perhaps the most significant and eloquent of his of his humanity and common sense. No coincidence that the pages that resembles a short but intense period reveal traces of emotion.

The legacy of his father's teachings

Giovanna Gervasio, picking up the pages of forgotten father and adding supplements contained in the final part, wanted to honor a debt. A debt of gratitude not only for the richness of values ​​and humanity, which he shared with his father, but also in the younger generations, which are primarily dedicated to these pages. Let me be clear, there is no teaching in this book will, there's that sense of superiority or distance that sometimes emerges in the autobiographies, always at risk of self-congratulation. There is neither might be because Joan has dedicated her life to young people and knows how to get happily in a relationship with them.
His goal, which certainly reflects the heritage of his father's teachings, is to show how the inner strength that moves the will of an individual, can and must become experience. And as the value system of an individual, as well as to express themselves through unique experiences can become the best tool to take control of their destiny and to assert, even in the face of power, its dignity, so that individual and that of the world of work. A witness, therefore, very timely and necessary, now that we find a defensive proletariat, a class union unprepared for the challenges that await him, if not complicity with the party that should counteract a lack of strong ideas about projects such as re-establishing life and liberation. It is these ideas strong, these universal values, but also lived individually, you must pass on to future generations.
The life of Joan Gervasio was a busy life, full of meetings, of great learning experiences, projects and achievements are particularly important. Clearly in the continuation and completion of the life of his father. Still very young and already active in the newly formed Federation of Anarchist in the second half of the forties, manifested its commitment to working together not only a libertarian, but also bringing their own ideas in the many meetings that held in the peninsula. Accustomed, from a very young, to face the hardships of life and to be accountable for its actions, Joan will be able to attend, in person and in positions of responsibility, some of the most significant and original social and civil trials of the second post-war period. It seems evident that the thirst for knowledge and the availability of the new have not failed to be transmitted from father to daughter. In addition to the experience in Berneri Cologne, where he served his educational work for the children housed in the structure of the anarchists created by Giovanna Berneri summer and Cesare Zechariah, we find in Rimini Ceis collaborator and teacher at the Educational Center created by the Swiss-Italian Socialist Zoebeli Margaret, funded by the Swiss Banks and Mutual Aid for the training of young secular and rational, which is one of the happiest experiments in the field of civil liberties of our time. Not surprisingly, at his side, will lend his precious manual work and intellectual father Gaetano.
The meeting with her future husband Antonio Carbonaro, one of the most interesting and original of that environment cultural training libertarian sees that collected, among others, around the pages of Will, the value of intellectual Doglio Charles, Dauphin Insolera, Virgil Galassi, Giancarlo De Carlo, the crossing will lead to new environments for new experiences. The short but intense activity in the Community Olivetti in Ivrea, as among the most innovative of the experimental capacity of secular culture of Italy, will be the seal of the urgent reform which involves many of the most liberal minds and lives of the country. Here he meets, among others, Lamberto Borghi, the great libertarian teacher training, constantly present in the initiatives promoted by Adriano Olivetti. It is those years of constant intellectual inquiry, and the environment that surrounds her, as an affirmation of a "third way" freed from the heavy dogmatism prevailing in the first decades after World War II. Just as the best part of the country refused to take up the logic blocks, knowing that true liberation could only be found in the refusal of the balance of fear, just as in the intellectual men and women seeking free, nell'affrancamento from dogmatism new roads to travel. The formation of the father libertarian, anarchic and very strong reasoning, helps her daughter to follow, in complete independence and total freedom, their own way. It is another example of the intense activities in the Association of Italian educator Demographic Education, held later in Naples along with Fabrizia Remondino, collaborator and dear friend for life.
Reading these pages, written by a modest working-class, self-taught and "stop" to third grade, and completed by his daughter, the end of deep culture and intellectual life the civic passion, we can not escape some of the considerations. It is through experiences like these that the country has improved and that the working class and workers have consolidated their fundamental rights, not concessions graciously bestowed but as lasting achievements. The same as today, in the absence of self-awareness and strength, are called into question. It is also why it's valuable publication of this book: not so much just to show how it can be formed and fulfilled a lifetime experience model, but also and above all to give the example of the need to fight and commit themselves without proxies and loopholes. This would indicate the way for new generations suffocated by a massive ideological bombardment, the way to securing his own life, like that of the community, greater respect, more perspectives and more guarantees.

Massimo Ortalli

To order it: The book has 384 pages and one CD included. Price: €20,00 Requests to: Zero in Condotta Casella Postale 17127 – MI 67 20128 Milano email: zic@zeroincondotta.org www.zeroincondotta.org conto corrente postale 98 98 58 31