Errico Malatesta was born on this day in 1853. Mentored by Mikhail Bakunin, he played a pivotal role in the anarchist movement from 1872 until his death in 1932.

In this thread, we present a reading list of the historic debates he participated in—all of which remain timely.

When his former comrade Andrea Costa embraced electoral politics, Malatesta risked a prison sentence to return to Italy to debate him, as recounted in Nunzio Pernicone's "Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892."

He also went to Naples to treat a cholera outbreak:
http://cwc.im/cholera 

At the International Anarchist Congress of 1907, Malatesta argued—contra Syndicalists—that revolution requires an insurrection as well as a general strike:
http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/historical/amsterdam07/5.htm

He chastised Kropotkin and other anarchists who endorsed World War I:
https://archive.elephanteditions.net/library/errico-malatesta-anarchists-have-forgotten-their-principles

Malatesta's "Democracy and Anarchy" offers a lucid analysis of the subject, prefiguring our own "From Democracy to Freedom":
https://www.marxists.org/archive/malatesta/1924/03/democracy.htm

Likewise, long before our text "Against the Logic of the Guillotine," he rejected militarism and revenge:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/errico-malatesta-revolutionary-terror

After the Russian Revolution, when Nestor Makhno and others proposed an "anarchist platform" emulating the Bolsheviks, Malatesta rejected this:
https://usa.anarchistlibraries.net/library/errico-malatesta-and-nestor-makhno-about-the-platform#toc4

In each of these disputes, Malatesta took a principled position, never substituting expediency for ethics.

As anarchists, we don't have heroes, nor do we name our schools of thought after bearded men. We see comrades like Errico Malatesta as our equals—as peers in a struggle spanning centuries. We're inspired by their efforts, we debate their ideas, and we pick up where they left off.