Is Bonanno the sole originator of contemporary Italian insurrectionalist anarchy?

Question

For instance did Bonanno have any peers or were there any theorists in the same milieu as him at the time that have been influential?

*In response to the comments below, I am seeking information not on anarchists that had influence on Bonanno's thought but sources about his contemporaries in the 70s, 80s, 90s, today that if at all also have theorized around insurrectional preparation.*

Comments

Thanks for the clarification of what you meant. I don't think I am qualified to try to answer that, but am very curious to see answers from those better versed in current Italian I@.

Answer 1

I expect there will be other, better answers from people more versed in Italian I@ stuff, but first off, Bonanno is, unless I missed something, still very much kicking around, so yes, he does have contemporaries, though most have less name recognition in the anglo world than him.

As far as whether or not he is the sole originator, it seems to me that Italian I@ is built on theory going back at least as far as Galleani. The connections being a focus on violent (and frequently armed) confrontation with the state, illegalism, and a generally uncompromising attitude.

I am hoping someone with a deeper knowledge of Italian anarchism (current and historic) has more to say on this.

Comments

I am upvoting with reservations. I think the trend going back to Galleani et al is only secondarily about violent confrontation, illegalism and uncompromising attitude, and is primarily about immediacy (disinterest in waiting for a critical mass), a critique of formal organization, a critique of the distinction between individualist vs. communist/collectivist @, and--to speak as generally as I find useful--a refusal of forms of mediation, which fairly encompasses the first three points. While Galleani makes sense as an early reference point, especially for the Italian tradition, one could go further back to the ideas of both Stirner and Bakunin. Bonanno was heavily influenced by Stirner.

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Anok - thank you! I knew that I was not quite hitting the nail on the head, and your reply is very helpful!

Answer 2

Wikipedia reports in a sourced information that he became influenced by the spanish exiled anarchist Josep Lluís i Facerias who was practitioner of expropiative anarchism and illegalism. Italian insurrectionarism goes as far as the birth of anarcho communism and so they have a strong tradition of that which has as a main characteristic a mix of stirnerist egoism and anti-organizationalist anarchocommunism. Another prominent italian insurrectionary anarchist that I know of is Costantino Cavalleri. While Bonanno is sicilian, Cavalleri is from Sardinia. For more info on him (in italian) check http://ita.anarchopedia.org/Costantino_Cavalleri I do not know I there are english translations of Cavalleri but I have seen them in spanish. One is introductory to his insurrectionary perspective and on "post-industrial" society and the other is about prisions.

Answer 3

Besides Cavallieri, Jean Weir, and the anonymous author of "Ai Ferri Corti" (Not Bonanno, contrary to anglo rumours), there is also Massimo Passamani, writing since at least the '90s. His book, the disorder of freedom, has been translated into Spanish but not English.

Also, I would challenge the entire assumption of writers as the originators of thinking or political currents. The experience of the Italian Left, and anarchists within or against it, gave birth to the thinking that Bonanno is most famous for articulating.

Comments

for the less-than-hip crowd: "Ai Ferri Corti" is this:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/HTML/Anonymous__At_Daggers_Drawn_with_the_Existent__its_Defenders_and_its_False_Critics.html