Insurrectionary anarchism

Insurrectionary anarchism is a revolutionary theory and tendency within the anarchist movement that emphasizes insurrection as a revolutionary practice. It is critical of formal organizations such as labor unions and federations that are based on a political program and periodic congresses. Instead, insurrectionary anarchists advocate informal organization and small affinity group based organization. Insurrectionary anarchists put value in attack, permanent class conflict and a refusal to negotiate or compromise with class enemies.

Associated closely with the Italian anarchist movement, the theory of insurrectionary anarchism has historically been linked with a number of high-profile assassinations, as well as the bombing campaigns of the Galleanisti and Informal Anarchist Federation (FAI).

Among the earliest inspirations for insurrectionary anarchism was Max Stirner's 1845 book The Ego and Its Own, a tract that upheld a kind of proto-individualist anarchism. Stirner distinguished between "revolution" and "insurrection", defining the aims of "revolution" to be a new arrangement of society by a state, while he considered the aims of an "insurrection" to be the rejection of such arrangements and the free self-organisation of individuals.

During the 1870s, the idea of "propaganda of the deed" was initially developed by Italian anarchists to mean small direct actions that would inspire others to themselves carry out acts of insurrection. Insurrectionists viewed every riot or rebellion as a kind of "revolutionary gymnastics" which could lead to a generalised social revolution. Driven by this theory, Italian individualist anarchists carried out a series of high-profile assassinations during the 1890s, killing French President Sadi Carnot, Spanish Prime Minister Antonio Cánovas del Castillo, Austrian Empress Elisabeth Wittelsbach and Italian King Umberto Savoy.

Meanwhile, the question of organisation had divided the Italian anarchist movement into the syndicalists, who advocated for organisation within the labour movement, and the insurrectionists, who emphasised violent and illegal forms of self-organised direct action. The insurrectionary anarchists rejected all forms of formal organisation, including anarchist federations and trade unions, and criticised the movement's reformist and activist tendencies for failing to take "immediate action". Although both tendencies advocated for anarchist communism, pro-organisationalists such as Francesco Saverio Merlino and Errico Malatesta considered the insurrectionists to really constitute a tendency of individualist anarchism, due to their belief in individual sovereignty and natural law.

Contemporaneous with the rise of anarcho-syndicalism, insurrectionary anarchism was promoted in the United States by the Italian immigrant Luigi Galleani, through his newspaper Cronaca Sovversiva. Galleani was a staunch anti-organisationalist, opposing anarchist participation in the labour movement, which he felt displayed reformist tendencies and a receptiveness to corruption. This stance brought Galleani into conflict with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) during the 1912 Lawrence textile strike, following which they entered into a fierce polemic. However, outside observers paid little attention to the differences between the anarchist factions, who were generally viewed as part of the same "amorphous inscrutable threat".

Galleani advocated for propaganda of the deed, which was taken up throughout North America by a network of Galleanist cells, usually consisting of close-knit individuals. Following the American entry into World War I and the ensuing political repression that followed, the Galleanists initiated a violent campaign in opposition to the American government. After some Italian anarchists were killed by police for tearing down an American flag, the Galleanists carried a reprisal attack, which itself triggered a wave of arrests against insurrectionists. When one of the Italian insurrectionists was threatened with deportation, the Galleanists responded with a bombing campaign, sending letter bombs to industrialists, politicians and lawyers. None of the bombs hit their targets, instead injuring a housekeeper and accidentally killing one of the insurrectionist conspirators. Although the conspirators themselves were never caught, Galleani and other Italian insurrectionists were deported and the bombings were used as justification for repression of the 1919 strike wave.

During the subsequent political repression, the Italian anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti were arrested on charges of armed robbery. The Galleanists responded by carrying out the Wall Street bombing, killing 38 people and making the task of exonerating the pair more difficult. Nevertheless, the Galleanists continued their efforts to aid Sacco and Vanzetti, who they considered to have been framed. In 1922, they began publication of L'Adunata dei refrattari, in which they encouraged their readers to break the pair out of prison and carry out retributive violence against the responsible state officials. This further exacerbated the split between the syndicalists and insurrectionists, as the two factions excluded each other from their own campaigns.