‘Capturing Anarchists Across Borders’: the transnational dimensions of Italian antimilitarist campaigns, 1911-1914

This article stems from the vibrant debate on methodological developments and new perspectives that has been inspired by a recent upsurge of interest in the transnational history of labour and radical movements. It engages with the problematic question of the integration between different scales of analysis in the study of radicalism: the ‘transnational’, ‘national’ and ‘local’ or ‘trans-local’. The article reverts the study of transnational anarchism back to a ‘national’ and ‘trans-local’ perspective: the analysis of the intersection between the networks of those who migrated from Italy and those who stayed there provides a fruitful way to uncover the dynamics within the transnational anarchist movement and the inter-playing, in both directions, between: home country - exiles’ communities - host countries. The article focuses on the crucial - but still unexplored - contributions in terms of propaganda, theoretical debate, financing, and counterculture production that the communities of Italian anarchists abroad (among them London, Paris, Berne, Marseille, Barre, and Buenos Aires) gave to the antimilitarist campaigns against the Italian colonial enterprise in Libya and for the release of Augusto Masetti - the soldier who shot at his colonel whilst addressing troops leaving for the frontline - from 1911 to 1914. The investigation of the initiatives that the anarchist exiles established and coordinated with their comrades in Italy provides a significant case study not only for the understanding of network-based transnational anarchism but also to reflect on the mechanisms of political migration and its influence in the development of social conflicts.