Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Anarchist Communism /119
ence will not be lagging behind if production takes such a direction. Guided by observation,
analysis and experiment, they will answer all possible demands. They will
reduce the time which is necessary fo r producing wealth to any desired amount, so as
to leave to everyone as much leisure as he or she may ask for. They surely cannot
guarantee happiness, because happiness depends as much, or even more, upon the
individual himself as upon his surroundings. But they guarantee, at least, the happiness
that can be found in the full and varied exercise of the different capacities of the
human being, in work that need not be overwork, and in the consciousness that one
is not endeavouring to base his own happiness upon the misery of others.
35. Luigi Galleani: The End of Anarchism (1907)
Luigi Galleani (1861-1931) was an intransigent Italian anarchist communist critical of all conventional
organization, including trade unions and any attempts to create al1 "anarchist
party. " Although published in 1925, The End of Anarchism actually dates from 1907.
Malatesta, one of the "organizationalists" criticized by Galleani, nevertheless described it as "a
clear, serene, eloquent exposition of communist anarchism, " although he personally fO lllld it
"too optimistic, too simplistic and too trusting in natural harmonies" (Malatesta, The Anarchist
Revolution, London: Freedom Press, 1995, page 65, fn .). The fo llowing extracts are
taken from the 1982 Cienfuegos Press edition, trans. M. Sartin and R. D'Attilio, and are reprinted
with the kind permission of Stuart Christie.
LIBERTARIAN COMMUNISM ... should be inspired by the ul1suppressible right of each
organism to go all the way and under the best possible conditions in its ascent from
the most elementary to superior and more complex forms; it should be the
unsuppressible right of every person to grow, to develop his faculties in every way, to
achieve his full and integral development.
Now, this ascent of the organism from a rudimentary to a fully developed state
is marked by a series of ever-more, growing and varied needs claiming satisfaction,
and its progressive development results from the more or less complete satisfaction
of those numberless and infinitely diverse needs ...
A fa rmer who lives in an Alpine valley, in the present conditions of his development,
may have satisfied all his needs-eaten, drunk, and rested to his heart's content;
while a worker who lives in London, in Paris, or in Berlin, may willingly give up a
quarter of his salalY and several hours of his rest, in order to satisfY a whole category
of needs totally unknown to the farmer stranded among the gorges of the Alps or the
peaks of the Apennine mountains-to spend an hour of intense and moving life at
the theatre, at the museum or at the library, to buy a recently published book or the