Anarchism and Violence by Osvaldo Bayer & Osvaldo Bayer

Author:Osvaldo Bayer & Osvaldo Bayer
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Argentina, Severino Di Giovanni, violence

For Di Giovanni, the capture of Alejandro Scarfó and his four comrades represented a blow which drove him to despair. Emotional as ever, he particularly regretted Alejandro’s arrest for he was the younger of the two Scarfó brothers whom he had taken with him from their parental home.

At least now he would not have to go off looking for ‘names’ for his campaign of agitation. He had a symbol in Alejandro and determined to make an effort on his behalf. He was to spend a year and a half figuring out ways of securing Alejandro’s release. When the time came he would make his move.

But there were other things happening that December of 1928. Di Giovanni took it upon himself to find a good defence counsel for the five prisoners and also hunted for some way of contacting Josefina. In addition there was another matter which filled him with doubt: how could the police so easily have discovered his comrade’s hideout? The circle of his immediate comrades insinuated that, since the administrator of Culmine Giulio Montagna had got married he had undergone a complete change of manner.

Between anarchist factions the controversy raged on. La Protesta never let up in its criticisms of Di Giovanni and his men. In an article which appeared over the signature of Diego de Santillán on January 29 1929, and whose title was “On the subject of anarcho-banditry”, Santillán wrote, “...were a common criminal, after having perpetrated his offence, to seek our aid in eluding persecution, then even though we would repudiate that offence we could not but render him the assistance he sought. It is a question of the instinctive solidarity with him against an enemy worse than the common criminal...we mean the State, capitalism’s political agent. But our outlook and our feelings may not be the same when confronted by an anarcho-bandit; speaking as individuals, our attitude would not be the same, for we should not have the slightest compunction in manifesting our absolute refusal of solidarity, nor would we award that solidarity as a group since our prisoners’ aid committees refuse assistance to those who are not imprisoned for social struggles and, whereas common criminals who operate on their own accounts and at their own risk have no claim upon our sympathies, that criminality which cloaks itself in the mantle of ideas merely in order to bring discredit upon them, while exploiting those ideas to its own advantage deserves our complete repudiation.”

Such was the hardening of attitudes among anarchists that La Protesta held a common criminal in higher regard than any anarcho-bandit or anarchist expropriator. [11]

Italian anarchists rose up in fury at La Protesta’s line and thus we find L’Emancipazione of San Francisco, California, proclaiming in a banner headline, “In Buenos Aires, in the course of the cyclopean campaign for the release of Radowitzky, two young comrades, Scarfó and Oliver have fallen into the hands of the enemy. That enemy, to avenge himself for the affronts he has suffered, is trying to envelope them in the shroud of inexplicable mystery.

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