A-Infos (en) Italy, FAI, Umanita Nova #36-25 - The Difficult Practice of Solidarity. 1969-1971 The FAI and Umanità Nova Face the Strategy of Tension (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

Summary of the paper presented at the Carrara Conference (October 11-12, 
2025) on the 80th anniversary of the FAI ---- The strategy of tension, 
developed internationally and implemented by state institutions in the 
late 1960s, attempted to crush the Anarchist Movement and reduce its 
revolutionary potential. Here, we explore the reaction of the Italian 
Anarchist Federation and Umanità Nova to this attack, retracing the 
steps that led the weekly "Umanità Nova" and the FAI Correspondence 
Commission to adopt a decisive and uncompromising stance in denouncing 
responsibility for the assassination of comrade Giuseppe Pinelli and in 
defending the imprisoned comrades unjustly accused of those attacks. For 
this work, we examined texts that offer insights into the topic, but 
above all, public documents from the Anarchist Federation and articles 
from Umanità Nova. As is well known, the FAI expresses itself publicly 
through the positions of its Correspondence Commission, which represents 
it externally, and through the resolutions of its Congresses and 
Conferences. Umanità Nova, with the punctuality of a weekly magazine, 
has devoted numerous articles, directly or indirectly, to the attacks 
and events of that period.

This report covers a period from April 25, 1969, to April 10, 1971.

Let's begin with the April 25 attacks at the Fiera Campionaria and Milan 
Central Station, attacks that constituted the first act of the strategy 
of tension. Several comrades were arrested and accused of various 
responsibilities for the attacks; among them were young anarchist 
militants, some of whom frequented the Livorno Anarchist Federation, 
others from Milan and other locations. Umanità Nova's position from the 
outset was one of clear condemnation of the attacks, but also of 
distancing itself from those arrested, with the exception of a few 
articles expressing solidarity with Giovanni Corradini and Eliane 
Vincileoni, who had translated Mikhail Bakunin's "State and Anarchy," 
published at the time. This initial position was maintained by Umanità 
Nova for several months, largely because some of these young comrades 
had pleaded guilty.

September 1969 marked a turning point: the imprisoned comrades finally, 
after five months, managed to meet with their lawyers for the first time 
since their arrest on April 27, 1969, and retracted their confession, 
claiming it had been extracted from them under torture. Umanità Nova 
promptly reported the stance taken by the Milan Anarchist Movement in 
support of the imprisoned comrades. Solidarity initiatives also began, 
which the weekly magazine reported in both articles and press releases.

Meanwhile, the FAI national conference was held in Carrara on November 1 
and 2, 1969. Ottorino Tonelli's report, published in Umanità Nova, while 
highlighting the debate on the Federation's theoretical and strategic 
updating and its call for a more effective presence in society, fails to 
address the repression that was beginning to affect the Anarchist 
Movement and the solidarity initiatives with comrades who had been 
victims of the police frame-up.

The December 20, 1969, issue of Umanità Nova was the first to be 
published after the Piazza Fontana attacks that would go down in history 
as the State Massacre; the newspaper reported a harsh stance by Mario 
Mantovani, editor of Umanità Nova, regarding the attacks and the massacre.

The statement drafted in the days immediately following by the 
Correspondence Commission of the Italian Anarchist Federation and 
published in the December 27 issue of Umanità Nova is more balanced: 
responsibility for the massacre is attributed to the fascist right, 
while the Anarchist Movement claims complete non-involvement in the 
massacre and the right to accuse the real instigators of the attacks. At 
the same time, comrade Giuseppe Pinelli is remembered (the previous 
issue had published a "breaking news" story due to the newspaper's 
closure coinciding with the first news of his death), who was murdered 
on the night between December 15 and 16, 1969, at the Milan Police 
Headquarters, and calls for "full light to be shed on the tragedy that 
caused the death of our comrade." In the accompanying article, however, 
Mario Mantovani expresses a clear distancing from Valpreda and the 
militants of the March 22 group arrested for the December 12 attacks.

In the first issues of 1970, Umanità Nova no longer mentions the state 
massacre; furthermore, updates on the solidarity campaign for those 
arrested for the attacks of April 25, 1969, a campaign that had just 
begun in September, also disappeared.

Several considerations can be made about that period. Certainly, the 
state's repressive actions, the press campaign against the anarchist 
movement, the imprisonment of several comrades, and the assassination of 
Giuseppe Pinelli represented moments of an effort aimed at erasing the 
Anarchist Movement, or at least weakening its revolutionary potential 
during a period of institutional crisis and the rise of militant 
movements. Several texts have addressed the strategy of tension and its 
impact on the anarchist movement. First, "Years Without Respite" by 
Antonio Cardella and Ludovico Fenech (published by Zero in Condotta), 
which provides a substantially apologetic description, in my opinion, of 
the anarchist movement's actions: The authors claim that the Anarchist 
Movement immediately responded in a united manner to the repressive 
maneuver-a thesis contradicted by Mantovani's article cited above and by 
Umanità Nova's silence in the weeks immediately following the start of 
the state attack.

Other texts, particularly Gino Cerrito's book "The Role of the Anarchist 
Organization," written in 1973, note how the attacks provoked within the 
Federation a sort of closure, if not outright suspicion, towards 
circles, groups, and organizations whose theoretical frameworks were 
more confused.

Returning to the documented facts, the 1969 attacks also triggered a 
crisis within Umanità Nova. The editorial staff was appointed at the 
Ancona congress of 1967, in a completely different political climate 
from that which would develop in the years immediately following, and 
consisted of Umberto Marzocchi and Mario Mantovani. The editorial 
staff's responsibility fell primarily on the shoulders of the latter, as 
Umberto Marzocchi could only make occasional and limited contributions 
to the direct management of the editorial staff. In early 1970, given 
the gravity of the situation, the Bakunin group in Rome increased its 
involvement alongside Mario Mantovani. This support would lead, starting 
in February 1970, to the launch of the campaign for the release of all 
imprisoned comrades and, subsequently, to the establishment of the 
Political and Legal Defense Committee, promoted by the editorial staff 
of Umanità Nova. This structure would involve the various components of 
the anarchist movement and defense lawyers in an effort that would be 
both political and legal.

Thanks to the Political and Legal Defense Committee and its 
counter-information efforts, Umanità Nova was now able to paint a more 
precise picture of the strategy of tension, compared to the denunciation 
contained in the December Correspondence Commission's statement. This 
picture would be confirmed by subsequent investigations. From the early 
months of 1970, the Committee reported weekly in Umanità Nova on 
political and legal initiatives defending its comrades and denouncing 
Pinelli's assassination. In this way, the accusations were gradually 
dismantled and the collaboration of investigators, law enforcement, and 
intelligence agencies was denounced, as well as those responsible for 
the strategy of tension and the Piazza Fontana bombings.

Throughout 1970, these initiatives were hindered by law enforcement, a 
fact the weekly duly reported. A public conference at the Turati Club in 
Milan ended with a violent police charge; A solidarity initiative in 
Cagliari provoked further repression, and so on, until December 12, 
1970, when the city of Milan was placed under siege. Various members of 
the anarchist movement attempted to organize a demonstration and endured 
police charges throughout the day. Police then arrived in Piazza Duomo 
to attack the march organized by resistance organizations in solidarity 
with the Spaniards condemned by the Franco regime. During the charges, 
Saverio Saltarelli was killed, struck by a tear gas canister fired at 
chest height.

Considering the initiatives promoted by Umanità Nova and the Political 
and Legal Defense Committee, it should be noted, however, that the 
Federation, until the 1971 congress, did not express a clear opinion on 
the release of the arrested comrades.

The manifesto drawn up by the Correspondence Commission on the occasion 
of the first regional elections of 1970 in the 15 ordinary-statute 
regions contains a reference to the innocent people thrown in prison, as 
well as a reference to Pinelli's murderer. The Correspondence 
Commission's statement following the clashes of December 12, 1970, once 
again refers to Pinelli and the persecution of the Anarchist Movement, 
but there is no reference, much less a request for the release of the 
arrested anarchists. On October 10 and 11, 1970, a national conference 
of the FAI was held in Carrara; the closing motions of this conference 
referred to the recent dismissal of the investigation into the murder of 
comrade Giuseppe Pinelli and denounced the police and judicial frame-up, 
but no document was released regarding the unjust imprisonment of the 
comrades held for the bombings of April 25 and December 12.

Two documents testify to the Federation's turmoil in those years. First, 
the letter written by Mario Barbani to Umberto Marzocchi, who headed the 
FAI Correspondence Commission at the time. Barbani essentially laments 
the climate of suspicion within the Anarchist Movement toward those 
arrested and urges greater commitment to their release. The other 
document, dated July 1972, is an open letter from a group of federated 
comrades, including Umberto Marzocchi and Mario Mantovani, on the role 
of the Anarchist Movement in the current situation. The letter addresses 
various issues and also takes stock of the FAI's behavior in the face of 
the State Massacre, calling for the Federation's correct action and the 
defense of anarchist ideals, regardless of the defendants' defense.

Thus, in contrast to the positions adopted by the FAI at the 1971 
Congress, with the development of a fully supportive approach to the 
comrades' release, we witness the persistence of different positions, 
albeit in the minority.

Over the years, assessments of the period of state massacres have become 
common knowledge, but this 1972 document is particularly important 
because it allows us to make considerations that are still relevant 
today. These can be summarized in one question: how is it possible to 
defend anarchist principles, which include solidarity, without 
translating this into practical solidarity towards those affected by the 
violence of repression and thrown into prison? Principles must have the 
strength to translate into concrete action; solidarity is necessarily a 
practice, which must be directed towards specific people and situations. 
Every principle, especially that of solidarity, must find the clear 
strength to free itself from prejudice and suspicion, to express itself 
with confidence and generosity towards situations of oppression and 
exploitation. Here and in every part of the world. Then and now.

Tiziano Antonelli

https://umanitanova.org/la-difficile-pratica-della-solidarieta-1969-1971-la-fai-e-umanita-nova-di-fronte-alla-strategia-della-tensione/
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en