Vittorio Pini

Vittorio Pini (20 August 1859 – 8 June 1903) was an Italian worker, activist, and theorist of individualist and illegalist anarchism. Having arrived in France during the 1880s, he was, alongside Clément Duval, one of the first anarchists to develop illegalism there. Engaged in a series of robberies and thefts with the group he founded, the Intransigents, he led a frugal life and used the proceeds of his crimes to support anarchist groups, newspapers, and printing presses.

His arrest by the French police triggered intense debates within the anarchist movement in France, which was then divided over the legitimacy of emerging illegalism. While historical figures such as Jean Grave initially refused to support this new form of militancy, Pini theorized it during his trial, presenting individual reappropriation as legitimate for four main reasons: to resolve economic inequalities directly through force, to terrorize the bourgeoisie, to pedagogically transmit anarchist ideas on property, and finally, to prepare and incite the population to rise up for the revolution.

The group he founded later influenced several illegalist associations. He was sentenced to 20 years of imprisonment and deported to the penal colony of Cayenne, from which he attempted to escape twice, once with Placide Schouppe that nearly succeeded, before being recaptured and eventually dying there.

Vittorio Achillo Pini was born in Reggio Emilia on 20 August 1859. His mother was named Anna Marzucchi, while his father, Mauro Marzucchi, was a Garibaldian volunteer. One of his grandfathers was hanged in 1831 for conspiring against the government. He grew up in poverty, and several of his brothers died from poverty during his youth. Pini had to start working as a typographer at the age of twelve to support his family. There, he joined the printing house of an Italian republican newspaper and became politically engaged on the left through reading this journal.

He joined the First International before moving to Milan, where he participated in a six-month strike with the city's typographers. The strike ultimately failed, convincing him that this method would not succeed. During this period, he worked as a firefighter and once saved a family from a burning building while on duty. In his youth, Pini also frequented anarchist and revolutionary circles in Rome, as evidenced by his later encounters in France with several companions from these circles, including his friend Sante Magrini.

He left Italy in 1886 after being sentenced to two years in prison for assaulting Baron Franchetti, a wealthy landowner who had attempted to force farmers to vote for him. Passing through Switzerland, he arrived in Paris, where he founded the group of the Intransigents with Luigi Parmeggiani, Caio Zavoli, and Alessandro Marroco.

This group quickly engaged in a series of robberies and thefts, being among the first to develop the ideology of revolutionary banditry, using London and Belgium as their rear bases. The revolutionaries used the money obtained from these actions to finance newspapers and anarchist organizations. Despite earning over 500,000 francs through various activities, Pini personally never kept more than twenty-five cents per day for his own sustenance. The rest of the funds were allocated to printing houses, including the one he established, or to anarchist groups.

This group became the foundation for several later illegalist anarchist associations, attracting figures such as Charles Malato and Errico Malatesta. The French police described these networks in the early 1890s as follows: