Anarchism And Violence

“Anarchists are opposed to violence; everyone knows that. The main plank of anarchism is the removal of violence from human relations. It is life based on freedom of the individual, without the intervention of the gendarme. For this reason we are the enemies of capitalism which depends on the protection of the gendarme to oblige workers to allow themselves to be exploited–or even to remain idle and go hungry when it is not in the interest of the bosses to exploit them. We are therefore enemies of the State which is the coercive violent organization of society,” says the Italian anarchist Errico Malatesta. Malatesta wrote of violence as a necessary and sometimes desirable force in revolutionary settings. At the same time, he denounced acts of individual terrorism.