M. C.
The nineteenth century is known as the century of Revolutions. Indeed, they happened in many different contexts. Right before 1800, the French Revolution erupted, and the Napoleonic wars exported its ideas in all Europe and beyond. During the century the European powers expanded their political, economical and military control over the globe, incorporating the remaining independent regions inside their rule and splitting the territories that were left by the pre-modern empires (Ottoman, Russia, China, Iran, etc…). By 1900, the British empire resulted in an empire that incorporated a quarter of the planet’s land inhabited by 800 million people. The Industrial revolution, which also started in the late 18th century, settled in during the nineteenth century bringing with it new technologies and ways to communicate.
By the late nineteenth century, the period in examine, the ways of communications got fast and cheap as never before. There were telegraphs, which permitted to communicate messages at incredible distances, steamships extremely reduced the travel time by sea and made it cheaper. Rotary engines were invented, which permitted to decrease also the cost of printing. Lastly, the trains started to connect far away cities reducing the time of travel also by land.
Thanks to these, and others, incredible technological improvements, we assist to the first globalizing processes that made, for the first time, the East and West neighbours. In this period, the train connection San Francisco-New York is finished, the works on the Transiberian rail are started; the construction of the Panama canal started in 1881, while the Suez canal is excavated in just ten years, with the completion of it in 1869.
The incredible economic growth of these times and the consequent construction, or expansion, of industrial cities and important economic trade-nodes increased the demand of manpower all over the world. In fact, we assist to massive movement of population looking for work also abroad and often in other nations or colonies not under the jurisdiction of their country of origin.
In this paper I want to concentrate on the networks that were established during this first globalization wave thanks to the extraordinary revolutions in communication and transportation technologies, and the consequent first international mass migration of working class people that spread class consciousness and the ideas of Anarchism, Socialism and Syndicalism. I will focus on the eastern Mediterranean area and mostly on the European migrants that there established series of journals, clubs and unions. I will also analyse the way in which these militants related to the concepts of anti-imperialism, nationalism and how, and if, they articulated their discourses in anti-racist terms.
In ultimate stance, I will attempt to understand how anarchism developed as a Transnational movement, going beyond the classical discourse that make anarchism as an European product that has in south Europe (specially Spain) its core and its most important outcomes. Moreover, I would like to “de-atlanticize” the discourse over anarchism, it should be noted that most of the researches on anarchism focus on its Atlantic networks and developments. Undoubtedly, the specific interest is because of the greater migration fluxes that went to the Americas rather than to North Africa and Middle East but, nonetheless, is important to see how in other semi-peripheral cities it articulated and it spread.
In this article, the term “colonial” is used to refer to those regions of the world that are under a formal control of an external power, the power relation in these cases is unequally distributed between the core (the imperial power) and the periphery (the colonized regions). Nonetheless, it does not mean that some parts of the local colonized population were not in favour of such subjugation because they had benefits from the status quo. This is the case of 19th century Egypt, where there was a dual elite, the indigenous elites on one side and foreign investors, diplomats and workers who had a really strong influence over the indigenous economy and politics. In this case, we can call it “informal capitalism”.
It is also necessary to clarify the reason why the term “radical” is used throughout this paper. Even if the stress of the study will be anarchism and anarcho-syndicalism, it is during the period in analysis that the First International is founded (1864) and splits between socialists and anarchists (1872). Also, the leftist ideas that circulated were various and not attributable to the single anarchist or socialist ideology. These ideas were adaptations of the socialist and anarchist principles that in ultimate instance challenged the social and political order both in the colonized regions and in the “imperial centres”.
Core ideas of anarchism are clear: opposition to any form of social and economic inequality or oppression, the rejection of capitalism and of the hierarchical structure of the State. It is a revolutionary doctrine that sought to establish individual freedom through the creation of a cooperative, democratic, stateless socialist order.
Indeed, all these ideas had some fundamental features that give us the idea of how much the movement was built upon transnationalism, the internationalism, and the interest in world events that represented a challenge to the political and economic status-quo (the anarchist attacks in European cities, the arrest and execution of Francisco Ferrer, the May Day, to cite some). All these episodes were discussed in all the nodes of the radical networks around the world. Hence, all of them participated in them and in the globalizing world offering also an alternative to the European imperialist view.
Language and ethnic diasporas played a fundamental role in the construction of the informal networks that connected the global radical community. While the anarchist migrant communities built groups and unions based on their common language or origins, their internationalist ideas permitted them to connect and involve also non-compatriots. Anarchism was not a West European doctrine that diffused outwards, perfectly formed, to a passive “periphery”. Rather, the movement emerged simultaneously and transnationally, created by interlinked activists on three continents—a pattern of interconnection, exchange and sharing, rooted in “informal internationalism”.
In the period taken in exam, classical Marxists still lacked an approach to face struggles in the colonial world. This was mainly because for the doctrine in pre-industrial societies there were not the preconditions for socialism. Also, a commitment to legalistic reformism was not suitable to contexts where few could vote. Until the arrival of Bolshevism, anarchists and syndicalists played a major role in mobilising the masses to reach the real emancipation of all workers in all societies.
Radicalist ideologies were doctrinally against imperialism, hence supported some gradients of national freedom. Albeit, in Bakunin’s ideas the national self-determination was the premise for a future social organisation based on individual freedom obtained through cooperation, statelessness and classlessness. Many of the national liberation struggles were leaded by nationalist groups. The anarcho-syndicalist part of the radical movement had different approaches with nationalists: from seeing independence struggles as futile class-wise, to considering nationalism a necessary step to break with imperialism, to contesting the struggle inside larger groups to push for a libertarian socialist society.
This article will focus on the radical networks that were in Cairo, Alexandria and in Beirut. In the second half of the century these cities underwent incredible changes. Due to their incorporation into the world economy, their population and their geographic extension doubled or more. New international businesses and banks were established there. This globalization was not the only event occurring in the region at those times, there were also an internal reconfiguration of power distribution in the Ottoman Empire. From 1838, with the Edict of Gulhane, the Tanzimat (reorganization) era started. The reforms increased the possibilities regarding private ownership, authorized foreigners to own lands in the imperial territories and permitted the mortgage of land. The increasing involvement in the capitalist globalized economy also increased the monocultures of agrarian lands, in this period Egypt lived a boom of cotton production. As a consequence, the access to land was incredibly affected, more and more peasants were forced by land taxation to sell their lands, hence creating a new class of wage-dependant peasants.
In the meanwhile the governors of the Egyptian Ottoman province enjoyed a great autonomy: thanks to this, Muhammad Ali Pasha, Sa’id Pasha and Isma’il Pasha started a great venture to modernize the governorate both under a military and the economic point of view but also begun the construction of a great series of infrastructure projects. To do so, they borrowed a lot of money from European powers, until in 1876 the khedive (viceroy) declared the inability to repay the debt. As a consequence, a Franco-British Control commission was established to supervise the Egyptian budget and secure the payment of the debts. From now on, Egypt was de facto controlled by European powers. The increasing discontent led to a nationalist uprising led by the army Colonel Ahmed ‘Urabi in the 1881. After initially accepting the requests brought by ‘Urabi, the British Empire started a war that finished in the establishment of the Protectorate in Egypt.
Anarchism was the movement of the most exploited people of the world, hence the studies over this subject should focus on the “south” and “east” of the world. In Egypt the movement emerged in the mid 1860s thanks to the early arrival of skilled European labourers hired to work on the modernisation projects (most notably the Suez Canal). By the shift of the century, the movement started to include also the new working classes such as printers, tramways workers and, most notably, cigarette workers.
Traditionally, Egypt has always been a place of refuge for political exiled. Already in the early 1860s the Italian workers that arrived in the governatorate established the Italian Workers Society. In 1876 a radical group in Alexandria was recognised as an official section of the First international.
The connections between the Egyptian anarchist web and the Italian one was a long standing one. This web of activists was kept alive and vibrant thanks to a thick interconnection that crossed the whole world thanks to an informal network of migrants that traversed the Mediterranean sea. This “imagined community” was kept united through the printing of newspapers that permitted to the Egyptian activists to know what was happening in the world, such as “La tribuna libera” and “L’operaio”.
In 1876 European powers forced Egypt to give them the control over their treasury. The contest for power between the Turko-Circassian elite and the Egyptian Nationalists led by Ahmad Urabi erupted in a conflict that had anti-foreign requests. A group of local anarchists, (including Errico Malatesta) joined the fight side by side with Urabi’s forces. British occupation fragmented the movement until 1906, when finally a national program of action gave the framework for the cooperation between the different Egyptian groups.
At the turn of the century we assist to a demographic change in the movement composition. Even if not so much documented, is incontestable the active co-optation of indigenous workers in the movement, as much as the participation of women. Although, for many years anarchists in Egypt had difficulties to find a common ground. Enrico Insabato said that for Europeans was necessary to disassociate from Westerner’s attempts to dominate the East. Religious dogmatism was the first responsible for ignorance and injustice. Thanks to its lack of hierarchy, Islam was not specifically targeted in anarchist literature, while Catholicism was an “intellectual alcoholism”. The program of action written in 1909 kept internationalism a central theme and stressed the importance of workers’ education to reach a social transformation.
In 1909, in Cairo was held a congress that gave birth to the Federazione Internazionale fra Operai e Impiegati, “alien to any political party, national or religious affiliation”. As part of the propaganda efforts, mobilisations were held after the arrest and execution of the Spanish anarchist Francisco Ferrer y Guarda.
While praising the actions of the comrades in Europe and the US that followed the “propaganda of the deed”, Egyptian anarchists favoured more propaganda of the word. Anarchists founded several associations, studies rooms, clubs (Cercles Athées). The production of this anarchist counter-culture had as pivot the biblioteques and the clubs. Is renowned the “Baracca Rossa”, a marble deposit that was often frequented by the Italian poet Giuseppe Ungaretti.
After a false start in the 1870s, anarchists also founded a series of journals. In 1901, the bilingual journal La tribuna libera/ Le Tribune Libre came back to activity. During that decade, many other journals were founded, such as L’Operaio, Risorgete! (strong anticlerical rhetoric), Domani, L’Idea and L’Unione. We have no informations regarding anarchist newspapers in Arabic, on the other hand, anarchism (usually referred to as fawdawiyya) appeared in common Arabic newspapers since 1890s.
Regarding the effectiveness of this propaganda efforts in the local Arab-speaking population we have to make two important considerations: the literacy of the audience and the affordability of the newspapers. In the cause of public education the Egyptian movement spent most energies creating the Free Popular University (Università Popolare Libera, UPL) in Alexandria in 1901 under the leadership of Luigi Galleani.
At the start of the century, the Italian militants were splitted into two main movements, the anti-organizers in Cairo and the “organizers” in Alexandria. As economic migrants, the European communities had a fundamental role in founding the first unions. However, it must be kept in mind that Europeans were profiting from the capitulation regime.
Until the rise of Bolshevism anarchist ideology played the major role in working class mass mobilisation and syndicalisation. The incorporation of Egypt in the capitalist globalized world, and the massive arrival of foreign workforce changed both the economic role of Guilds and the composition of the working class. Surely, the system of capitulations gave to the European labourers many benefits but, the existence of niqaba mukhtalifa (international union) are the clearest evidence of a common cause. There were sector-based unions for cigarette rollers, shoemakers, and tailors. Italian anarchists had been leaders of these agitations.
The hardest challenge that internationalists had to face came from nationalists like Muhammad Farid that in the 1890s called them an “European disease”. Nevertheless, these two ideologies shared a common enemy: imperialism, which made these two distinct groups de facto allies. The World War I allowed Britain to declare Egypt a Protectorate and to clamp down all political activities. With the end of the war, Egypt witnessed a never seen explosion of industrial strikes, the establishment of new syndicates as the Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT) and the Egyptian Socialist Party in 1921.
Journals, manifestations, protests, strikes, were all part of this propaganda of the word. There are many studies on the influence of the European radicals for the diffusion of social practises in Egypt. Although, there is the impression that the European militants have had some problems in involving the local population in the social struggle.
The reason behind this mistrust of the indigenous population toward anarchism are often written on essentialist images of the Orient. Hence, stressing a presumed difference (and superiority) of westerners, often these discourses were elaborated in racist terms. From the examples of European newspapers we can have an idea of how the Egyptian population was considered: on a number of “L’Operaio” the Egyptian population is attested as “weak”, “lazy”. On the “L’Unione” the country is depicted in terms of intellectual inferiority.
These examples should make us wonder whether the eurocentrism and orientalism that seep from these discourses influenced the capability of the movement to engage with the local populations. The stereotyped definitions of the indigenous as uncivilized, ignorant, idle, etc. put on the table the question of how these revolutionary actions were thought. Generic definitions of “workers of Egypt” are used, often talking about the ignorant indigenous that are not interested in the common good.
The Italian anarchism presented itself as an anticolonial and anti-imperialist movement but, it was not able to create a critical discourse of capitulations. Hence a criticism of his own privileges connected to race and to its position as colonizer. The anarchist movement in Egypt was unable to analyse the many ways in which oppression and inequalities appeared in the Egyptian colonial context.
To “de-colonize” anarchism means to recognize how the concepts of race and class were articulated in the anarchist thought. This is particularly important regarding the colonial context because these elements often took the shape of racial and classist’s supremacy towards the autochthones. Unfortunately, there’s a lack of Egyptian sources on how they perceived radical ideas.
The study of the anarchist presence in Egyptian territories must not be detached from the Ottoman Empire context. The Empire have many interesting similarities with countries recognized as pivotal places for radicalism: Russia, Spain and south Italy; they all had a relatively under-industrialized economy with a strong focus on the agrarian sector and a number of revolutionary movement that had in the peasantry and in the intelligentsia their core power.
Regarding the influence of racist discourses, the colonial legacy and ethnocentrism did affect also anarchism. Some Italian anarchist newspapers took on discourses that belonged to the ideological justification of European colonisation. In an article in “L’unione” there is a clear recall to the colonialist ideology that considered the autochthones barbars. Hence, justifying the capitulation system that permitted just to Europeans to benefit of the liberal freedoms.
In conclusion, the influence of orientalist and racialist ideas on the Italian anarchist in Egypt have been clear. Perhaps, the scarce involvement of autochthones in the anarchist struggle can be attributed to these ideas of superiority and to the incapability of the militants to consider all the shapes that oppression could take, focussing too much on the class struggle without recognizing the different meaning of being a foreigner or indigenous worker under the capitulation system.
Regarding the participation of anarchists to the national liberation struggles: the conceptual divisions are the different attitudes toward the concept of State itself. Even the most nationalist movement was born and grew alongside other ideologies like socialism and anarchism. The chronology and the geography of all these ideologies often overlap. Hence, to separate all these discourses and to analyse them separately can lead us to a theoretical mistake that could bring us to see the history of ideas as hermetically sealed compartments.
1 Hirsch, Steven, e Lucien Van der Walt, “Introduction”, in “Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940: the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution”, Brill, 2010, p. XXXIV
2 Cole, Juan Ricardo, “Introduction”, in “Colonialism and revolution in the Middle East: social and cultural origins of Egypt’s ‘Urabi movement “ Princeton University Press, 1993 p. 1
3 Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham, “The Eastern Mediterranean and the making of global radicalism, 1860-1914”, University of California Press, 2010, page 1
4 Van der Walt and Hirsch, XXXVII
5 Khuri-Makdisi, page 2
6 Van der Walt, Hirsch, LIV
7 Ibidem, XXXV
8 Van der Walt, Hirsch, LXII
9 Ibidem, LXIV
10 Khuri-Makdisi, page 4
11 Cole R., page 14
12 Van der Walt, Hirsch, page XLVIII
13 Ibidem, page 5
14 Ibidem, page 8
15 In this year Ugo Parrini died. He was an influential person inside the Egyptian movement, strongly anti- organisationalist, he was a great obstacle to cooperation between anarchist groups.
16 Van der Walt, Hirsch, page 9
17 Gorman A., “Diverse in race, religion and nationality but united in aspirations of civil progress”: the anarchist movement in Egypt 1860–1940”, in van der Walt and Hirsch, page 12
18 Paonessa, Costantino. “ANARCHISMO E COLONIALISMO: GLI ANARCHICI ITALIANI IN EGITTO (1860-1914)”, Studi Storici, 2023, page 418
19 Ibidem, 415
20 Gorman, in Walt and Hirsch, page 15
21 Ibidem, page 17
22 King Umberto was killed on 29th march 1900 in Monza, shot by the anarchist Gaetano Bresci
23 Ibidem, page 18-19
24 Paonessa, page 407
25 Gorman, in Walt and Hirsh, page 22
26 Ibidem, page 25
27 Ibidem, page 28
28 Paonessa, page 422
29 Ibidem, page 405
30 Çorlu, Axel B., “Anarchists and Anarchism in the Ottoman Empire, 1850-1917”, page 559
31 Paonessa, page 427
32 Çorlu, page 557
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cole, Juan Ricardo. Colonialism and revolution in the Middle East: social and cultural origins of Egypt’s ‹Urabi movement / Juan R. I. Cole. Princeton University Press, 1993.
Çorlu, Axel B., “Anarchists and Anarchism in the Ottoman Empire, 1850-1917”, in “History From Below — A Tribute in Memory of Donald Quataert”, Istanbul Bilgi University Press, 2016.
Hirsch, Steven, e Lucien Van der Walt, curatori. Anarchism and syndicalism in the colonial and postcolonial world, 1870-1940: the praxis of national liberation, internationalism, and social revolution. Brill, 2010.
Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham. The Eastern Mediterranean and the making of global radicalism, 1860-1914. University of California Press, 2010.
Paonessa, Costantino. «ANARCHISMO E COLONIALISMO: GLI ANARCHICI ITALIANI IN EGITTO (1860-1914)». Studi Storici, 2023, pp. 401–27.
Dal 2013, un ponte tra i giovani e l’Europa. Innovazione sociale, arte e mobilità internazionale.
Unisciti alla nostra rete per non perdere i prossimi bandi di mobilità.
© 2026 YouthMED APS – Tutti i diritti riservati. Privacy Policy; Cookie Policy; Trasparenza