rivista anarchica
anno 41 n. 364
estate 2011

Italiano

Bresci

Why talking still of the act of Bresci?
by Massimo Ortalli

Asks himself our partner Massimo Ortalli, author of a pretty cool book about it. We reproduce part of his text and lucid introduction by Ascanio Celestini.

«It seems worthy of mention, for reasons related to the history of the early twentieth century Italian»

To be fully understood in all its implications of the gesture is inserted Bresci age and social and cultural climate in which it occurred. And this more so than other events of lesser importance, given the uproar caused in the world and the consequences that ensue. Even for this gaze of the historian, like that of the militant, should try to take a perspective and a very open-mindedness and "secular".
As we have seen the "reasons" of Brescia and those of Umberto of Savoy and the government are clear and, if we place them on a hypothetical scale, the first appear infinitely more valid and convincing of the second:

• Free ruthlessness of the crackdown, carried out not to pursue greater social stability or to cushion the explosive contradictions of Italian society, but only to achieve a tighter control on the working classes, and stifling outbreaks and created a dramatic situation;
• The deep humanity of the aggressor, his attention to the suffering of the "victims pale and suffering," his spirit of sacrifice taken to the extreme, his unquestioned assumption of responsibility that will probably allow the network of complicity that supported him get away;
• The brutal response to the State, initially called the gesture "illegal" the regicide, expressed as a process, as we have seen, disrespectful of their own procedures, in an inhuman and barbarous imprisonment and, finally, in a "suicide" so obvious that they could not even disguise;
• The performance of blank and pitiless official rhetoric complaining that expressed the seriousness of an act so incomprehensible, having struck the king as "good", without wanting to investigate the causes and motives;
• The consequent and inevitable change of social climate which meant that the living conditions and workers' rights finally found expression, not narrow-minded and benevolent form of giving, but as an indispensable and legitimate conquest. These are, therefore, useful elements for the evaluation of today, many elements, not to be underestimated and still play a meaningful current, independent of the contingency time. It also remains as heavy as a boulder, the fundamental question, one which is difficult to give a "definitive" answer, especially in a case like this: in the political and social struggle is legitimate the use of violence?

As we have seen, the immediate reactions of the anarchist movement were apparently contradictory, if not even of opposite sign, both dictated by an "opportunistic" spirit of survival, both deep and painful ethical beliefs on the issue of violence. Summarizes the complexity of the attitude of the anarchists in the unique number that reads "Bresci" published in Forlì, the anarchist newspaper «L’Aurora», in 1946:

Anarchism as a whole was responsible for the attack of Bresci. It was thus a manifestation of his tactics. Do not attack a specific tactic, that has never existed, but the revolutionary tactics of resistance that the state violence and oppression of despotism.

More and more, after the regicide, he looked out the questions on the instruments of the revolutionary action that questions have been answered in the birth and the gradual emergence of anarchism union organizer and social sign. If, however, at the beginning, there was a discrepancy in the analysis, years later the gesture of Bresci has been an increasingly positive value which is expressed both in a rich iconography of both the historical sedimentation. So much so that no one, now, out of context, and the gesture, then you abandon convictions.
As proven by, among others, two episodes, limited but still significant, have shown that, at the end of the twentieth century, an objective reading of the urgency of the fact. The first was the naming of a road to regicide right in its hometown, the same Prato, in the aftermath of the regicide, did not hesitate to invite the citizens as a sign of mourning,

to close the shops, to hoist the tricolor flag and darkened the homes to show solemn and sincere affection which Prato nourishes as the other cities of Italy for the glorious dynasty of Savoy.

As expected, when the city council has decided to dedicate a street to his neighbor, no shortage of grievances, doubts and criticisms, but the motivation with which the thirty-eight members present voted unanimously the resolution, leave little doubt on how it was totally reversed the opinion on the regicide in that city:
It seems worthy of mention, for reasons related to the early twentieth-century Italian history and meaning in this context is to assume the figure of the city of Prato. [...] His memory relies, in the historical assessment, the recognition that the act done by him led to a turning point in Italian politics in the social field, after the bloody repression and reactionary who had succeeded to the war in Africa and the 1898 motions.

Gaetano Bresci

In Prato and in Carrara

And so today there is in Prato a street named to Gaetano Bresci, while it disappeared for some time, the one named after Umberto Primo. To confirm the "prophecy" of their captors when Bresci had to say, as mentioned, they were the dust while he would go down in history.
The second episode, which followed the first at a distance of about ten years, was the raising of the monument to Bresci in the forecourt of the cemetery in Carrara, obtained after a long and turbulent but successful campaign that has involved and supportive, close to his tireless and determined animator Ugo Mazzucchelli, numerous external bodies or even outside the anarchist movement
As those who remember, in those years had an active role or simply are interested in the campaign for the monument, it was not easy to reach the goal, not only because of opposition from the public, who saw in the "glorification" of this gesture a kind of legitimization of terrorism in those years heavily interested in the political and social life of the country, but also for the contrast more or less explicitly of a part of the same anarchist movement who saw, in the erection of the monument, a sort of "sanctification" of Bresci. To which you objected, they would have opposed the regicide. But they had a good game, however, very determined, and fellow Mazzucchelli closest to him, to demonstrate a strong symbolic value of the monument as a kind of final ruling handed down by history, a sentence as heavy as the white Carrara marble used for the work . In fact, the monument was erected, overcoming resistance of some purists anarchist and the anathemas of the bourgeoisie are still nostalgic for some "magic" of the House of Savoy. Nostalgia is not very understandable, given the sad past monarchist and the questionable personalities of those who still bore that name.
These two examples can not be decisive of any discussion of Bresci and Umberto, however, clearly show that Italy has metabolized Bresci gesture not only from a historical perspective but also from the ethical and moral. So much so that one might think that the famous anti-anarchist conference organized by the major world powers to counter, in the late nineteenth century, the acts of individual revenge of the anarchists, now would be more useful if it were proposed to counter many other daily practices against freedom: the “humanitarian” war, “creative” finance", “liberal” economy, the control of information and consciousness.
In one person's Bresci no shadow has darkened the picture, and even though we may be opposed in principle to all acts of violence, we can venture the hypothesis that his gesture, so loud, has positively contributed to close the season of political attacks, at least those anarchists. Except for the fact assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria in Sarajevo, which officially caused the outbreak of World War I but was the work of a nationalist, Gavrilo Princip, and failed attempts to make an attempt on Mussolini, made by anarchists, but also exponents of Justice and Liberty, the season that just ended regicides can be considered July 29, 1900. The death of Umberto I can therefore be read as symbolic of the break a season that seemed to have no other opportunity of transformation than that of the individual act of desperation and solver.

The revolt of the generous act

Are the masses of the people now who are saying, the masses aware of their strengths as social class, no longer willing to suffer without a fight, and to which also the act of Bresci has opened a road hardly traveled otherwise. The date of 1900 not only marks the end of a century and the birth of the new century, the century will bring with it the greatest achievements and the greatest tragedies of humanity, but also, for the anarchist movement, the end of emblematic phase of the mode of action that has seen him especially in the most appropriate gesture of an individual or that of a small avant-garde. The revolt, the generous act, the act can and must become exemplary in collective action, the project carried out with clear consistency in the affirmation of the solidarity of all rights, advocated by all and by all, together, prosecuted. And the tools can now rest on firmer ground than they are back, as strong, the individual.
The great revolutions of the twentieth century are certainly not born on the example of so many willing to sacrifice on the Gaetano Bresci altar emancipation and social liberation, but it certainly was also due to Bresci the Russian Nihilists, the Spanish expropriators, that the power proved to be more vulnerable than previously thought.
In conclusion, you say? Nothing should be added to show the moral strength of the regicide: the already described and can not be questioned. But the gesture, then? It was so great, was just as morally noble, was equally "right"? What the reader will think after reading these pages? For our part, we conclude with a final comment. Notwithstanding any other assessment, the act of Bresci "should" happen, was the order of things, and the primary responsibility, moral and material, it was he who became the direct victim. This has given us, definitively, the story.