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Giuseppe Cafiero Biography & Facts

Carlo Cafiero was an Italian anarchist that led the Italian section of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA). An early leader of the Marxist and anarchist communist movements in Italy, he was a key influence in the development of both currents. Born into a noble family in Apulia, he came to dislike the institutions of the Catholic Church and the monarchy, which drew him towards republicanism and revolutionary socialism. After moving to London, he fell under the influence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, for whom he acted as an agent after returning to Italy. In Naples, he became a leader of the local internationalist movement, which consisted largely of anarchists. This caused friction between him and Engels, who saw anarchism as a threat to Marxism. As Marx and Engels consolidated control over the IWA, Cafiero gravitated closer to anarchism, culminated with his meeting with Mikhail Bakunin. He then presided over the affiliation of the IWA's Italian section with Bakunin's Anti-Authoritarian International and its reorganization along anarchist lines. As a central figure in the Italian anarchist movement, Cafiero plotted the 1874 Bologna insurrection and led the 1877 Benevento insurrection, for which he was imprisoned. Cafiero then turned his attentions to writing. He penned a summary of Das Kapital, Volume I, a theoretical synthesis of anarchist communism and a series of articles about social revolution. A committed insurrectionary anarchist, Cafiero clashed with the reformist Andrea Costa over their respective tactical outlooks. But following a period of extreme intransigence, isolation and mental decline, Cafiero himself moved towards social democracy and endorsed Costa's candidacy in the 1882 Italian general election. In the months after the election, Cafiero succombed to his mental illness and was committed to a mental asylum. After a long battle with his condition, he died in an asylum from gastrointestinal tuberculosis. Cafiero left a large legacy as an influential figure in the formation of the Italian anarchist and socialist movements. His figure was a source of inspiration for future generations of Italian activists and artists, and his works are still being studied into the 21st century. Early life and activism Carlo Cafiero was born in Barletta on 1 September 1846, into a family of Apulian landowners. From an early age, he developed a fascination with religion. His family sent him to a seminary in Molfetta to train as a priest, but he instead came to hate the Catholic Church for its repressive practices. Cafiero also disliked farming and his native region, and at the age of 18, he left to study law at the University of Naples. After graduating, he began a career as a diplomat in the Italian capital of Florence. But he quickly grew bored with the job and quit, in order to pursue his intellectual interests in Islamic and Oriental studies. He joined the radical circle led by Telemaco Signorini, whose criticisms of the nascent Kingdom of Italy laid the foundations for Cafiero's turn towards revolutionary socialism. In 1870, he left Italy for Paris, where he witnessed the end of the Second French Empire. The events of the Paris Commune inspired him to become a revolutionary. He then moved to London, where he joined other Italian republican exiles. In the English capital, he attended lectures by the secularist Charles Bradlaugh and the meetings of industrial workers, where a speech by English trade unionist George Odger first convinced him of socialism. He soon joined the International Workingmen's Association (IWA) and quickly fell under the influence of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. As there was not yet any established Marxists in Italy, where left-wing politics were largely influenced by Mikhail Bakunin and Giuseppe Mazzini, Marx and Engels dispatched Cafiero back to his home country. In May 1871, Cafiero returned to Florence, where he established ties between the IWA and local workers' groups. He then moved onto Naples, where he dedicated himself to his work as an agent for the Marxist General Council. Internationalist agent Marxist activities Cafiero was introduced to the Neapolitan internationalists with a letter from Engels to Carlo Gambuzzi. As he was an agent of the general council, he was initially distrusted by the IWA's local section, which was largely made up of followers of Mikhail Bakunin. But his commitment to their activism quickly brought him into the leadership of the Neapolitan section, and he became fast friends with Errico Malatesta and Carmelo Palladino. Malatesta and Cafiero would be each other's closest friend and collaborator until the latter's death. By mid-1871, the internationalists were already facing heavy repression from the government of Giovanni Lanza. Together with Gambuzzi, Malatesta and Palladino, Cafiero managed to reorganise the Neapolitan section, despite attempts by the government to dissolve it. Cafiero was arrested on charges of subversion, but he was never tried and was let off with a fine a few days later. He discovered that his arrest had only strengthened public support for the IWA; the local section quickly reconstituted and the city became a center for the internationalist movement. The affair also enhanced his own reputation and he soon became the leading figure of the IWA in Italy. In Cafiero's first letters to Engels, he described at length the extent of the poverty and oppression throughout Southern Italy and predicted that it made social revolution in the region inevitable. He focused much of his criticism of other revolutionary currents on Mazzini's nationalist and anti-socialist ideology; this worried Engels, who saw a greater danger in Bakunin's anarchism. Cafiero responded that he didn't see Bakunin's followers as a sectarian threat to the Marxists and thought the two factions shared a lot in common, hoping that he could bridge the divide between them. Although Engels thought well of Cafiero, he also described him as a "natural mediator, and as such he is naturally weak". Engels began to distrust him and predicted that he may soon switch allegiances to Bakunin's faction. Engels insisted that Cafiero cut ties with the Neapolitan anarchists, as he considered Bakunin's faction to be actively harmful to the unity of the IWA. When Cafiero wrote back to Engels, he initially didn't respond to the complaints regarding the Bakuninists. He instead reported the Italian state's repression against the left-wing, explaining that the material conditions of the Southern peasantry had provided fertile ground for the IWA's organisers and for the possibility of a social revolution. In later letters to Engels, Cafiero defended Bakunin from the charges against him and reported the great popularity he had with Neapolitan workers. Further letters sent by Cafiero were met with silence from Engels. Having failed to heal the divide between the two factions, he was forced to choose between one or the other. C.... Discover the Giuseppe Cafiero popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Giuseppe Cafiero books.