Italian Anarchist Activity in Brazil: 1909
Report on Italian anarchist groups drawn up by PublicSecurity inspector Cesare Alliata-Bronner, an officer of the specialmonitoring agency attached to the Italian consulate in São Paulo,addressed to Italy’s representative, Luigi Bruno, in Petropolis, Rio deJaneiro, 30 June 1909.
The La Battaglia Group is run by the well knownanarchist Oreste Ristori, director and owner of the newspaper of thesame name and by his close friend A. Cerchiai. It comprises of largenumbers of printworkers and metalworkers and some of their wives. Theymake up the most intellectual group and there are frequent speechesfrom Ristori, Cerchiai, Damiani, Sorelli, Boni (see note) and others,for the purposes of propaganda and to raise funds for the paper andsolidarity funds. The members have modest resources, given that theyare nearly all workers earning between 7 and 10 reis a day! So there issmall danger from them.
Then there is the so-called Ponte Grande Group.It comprises around twenty impoverished Italians, nearly all garbagecollectors, shoemakers, brickmakers, street-sweepers and other menial trades.
The Pensiero e Azione Group, also known as theBom Retiro Group. It is made up of a hundred-odd workers, nearly allbricklayers, carpenters and employees of the nearby railworks; they gettogether for lectures, celebrations and drinks nearly every Sunday. Thedriving force there is one Enrico d’Avino, an educated young manreputedly from a highborn family from Lucca and he has managed tolaunch, as an offshoot of the Group and with the direct cooperation ofpropagandist Tobia Boni, Ristori, Gino Chiari and others, a mixedelementary school attended by around fifty pupils, boys and girls,nearly all children of the anarchists belonging to the group. InD’Avino’s school, which is subsidised by his friends, there ispronounced and unrelenting subversive propaganda, the cruellest classhatreds being instilled into the young hearts of the pupils as well asrejection of religious and moral principles, with the members of our Royal Family exposed to ongoing vilification, worse even that that emanating from the notorious Damiani from Ristori’sLa Battaglia!
The Aurora Group, run by anarchists PietroFrigeri and Onofri Vella has some forty members and voluntarysubscribers. It meets here and there, having no premises of its own, inthe lower districts of the city (Lavapes, Bras, Cambuci) and also goesunder the name of the Cambuci Group: it disseminates propagandapamphlets and organises parties and dances down by the docks at whichbloody brawls frequently erupt: a number of thieves and misfits are members.
From an Italian diplomatic dispatch of 1903 reporting to Italy’s Foreign Affairs Ministry on conversations had with the Baron do Rio Branco:
It is in the city of São Paulo that the anarchistgroup has, so to speak, its headquarters and from where the anarchistsrun the smaller groups they support elsewhere across Brazil (…) In thiscity, where at least a third of the population is Italian, anarchistshave a number of periodical publications and it is here too thatpropaganda pamphlets and subversive sheets and flyers are printed fordistribution not just among Brazil’s workers but for shipment to (…)other centres of Italian immigration. The Baron do Rio Branco tells methat he is convinced that vigorous steps will have to be taken tocurtail the daring of foreign agitators who have thus far enjoyedover-long tolerance from those who are now starting to see the fruitsof this in the form of agitation among the labouring masses and thethreatening nature of the rash of strikes in Brazil’s main industrial cities.
Note
1, Alessandro Cerchiai: Italian anarcho-communistwho served 2 years in prison in Italy in the wake of the popular unrestin 1898, after which he emigrated to Brazil in 1901. In 1903 he leftbriefly for Argentina before returning to Brazilin 1904, remaining there until his death in 1935. His activities werelinked mainly with the anarchist press. Occasionally contributed toGalleani’sCronaca Sovversiva.
Oreste Ristori. (1874-1943) Born in Italy in1874., he arrived in Buenos Aires in 1902 only to de deported to Italy,but he jumped ship in Montevideo, and escaped deportation a second timeby jumping into the sea, eventually making his way to Brazil where hewas such a significant, indeed, legendary agitator that Sao Paulo todayhas a square named after him. He arrived in Brazil in 1904 fromUruguay. During the Spanish Civil War he was in Spain before crossinginto France from where the Pétain government shipped him back to Italyin 1940. He was taken from a prison cell in 1943 by fascists and shotas one of a number of people killed in reprisal for the partisanshooting of the fascist bigwig Colonel Gobbi.
Gigi (Luigi) Damiani(1876-1953). Met Oreste Ristori while in prison for agitation in Italybefore emigrating to Brazil in 1897. He was deported to Italy fromBrazil following his role in the general strike in 1919. There hebecame editor ofUmanita Nova in 1920 andclose associate of Malatesta. After the fascist take-over he left forFrance, only to be expelled to Belgium in 1927 and thence to Spain and Tunisia. In 1946 he returned to Rome and again became editor ofUmanita Nova. Died in Rome in 1953.
Julio (Giulio) Sorelli. Prominent anarchistlabour activist and advocate of a “revolutionary gymnasium” approach tostrikes. He was on the executive of the São Paulo united trade unions.Often dispatched around the country by theFOSP (Federação Operária deSão Paulo - São Paulo Workers’ Federation) to advise strikers. He alsotook part in anarchist theatre groups and founded anarchist groups andpublications (mostly in Italian).
Tobia Boni. Artist whoserved on the Pro-Modern School Committee in 1909. A contributor toanarchist publications he also distributed Malatesta’s pamphletAmong Peasants free of charge and his ambition was to launch a workers’ library.
From: P. S. Pinheiro and M. Hall: A Classe operária no Brasil (2 vols.) Sao Paulo, 1979 & 1981, Vol. 1 (cited in Boletim Operário No 41, Caxias do Sul, 29/01/10). Translated by:Paul Sharkey.
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