A Turning Point in the History of Anarchism: The London Revolutionary Congress of 1881

Abstract

The revolutionary congress that took place in London in 1881 with the presence of some of the more important leaders of the international anarchist movement, such as Kropotkin and Malatesta, was a failed effort to recreate the antiauthoritarian International that has disappeared after the 1877 Verviers congress and showed therefore the attitude against great organizations which by then dominated in the anarchist movement. The congress launched an appeal to propaganda by deed and to the revolutionary use of explosives, which was echoed in attacks perpetrated in various countries in the following years. On the other hand Kropotkin’s project of combining the broad workers organizations with the small clandestine groups oriented to violent action was not implemented.