# Alfredo Bonanno

Part of a series on :
Anarchism :
Glossary
History
Outline :
Schools of thought
Feminist
Green
Primitivist
Social ecology
Total liberation
Individualist
Egoist
Market
Naturist
Philosophical
Mutualist
National-
Postcolonial
African
Black
Queer
Religious
Christian
Jewish
Social
Collectivist
Parecon
Communist
Magonism
Without adjectives
Methodology
Counter-economics
Illegalism
Insurrectionary
Pacifist
Platformism
Relationship
Syndicalist
Synthesis :
Theory
Practice
Anarchy
Anarchist Black Cross
Anarchist criminology
Anationalism
Anti-authoritarianism
Anti-capitalism
Anti-militarism
Affinity group
Autonomous social center
Black bloc
Classless society
Class struggle
Consensus decision-making
Conscientious objector
Critique of work
Decentralization
Deep ecology
Direct action
Free love
Freethought
Horizontalidad
Individualism
Law
Mutual aid
Participatory politics
Permanent autonomous zone
Prefigurative politics
Proletarian internationalism
Propaganda of the deed
Refusal of work
Revolution
Rewilding
Sabotage
Security culture
Self-ownership
Social ecology
Sociocracy
Somatherapy
Spontaneous order
Squatting
Temporary autonomous zone
Union of egoists
Voluntary association
Workers' council :
People
Alston
Armand
Ba
Bakunin
Berkman
Bonanno
Bookchin
Chomsky
Cleyre
Day
Durruti
Ellul
Ervin
Faure
Ferrer
Feyerabend
Giovanni
Godwin
Goldman
González Prada
Graeber
Guillaume
He-Yin
Kanno
Kōtoku
Kropotkin
Landauer
Liu
Magón
Makhno
Maksimov
Malatesta
Mett
Michel
Most
Parsons
Pi i Margall
Pouget
Proudhon
Reclus
Rocker
Santillán
Spooner
Stirner
Thoreau
Tolstoy
Tucker
Volin
Ward
Warren
Yarchuk
Zerzan :
Issues
Animal rights
Capitalism
Education
Love and sex
Nationalism
Religion
Violence :
History
French Revolution
Revolutions of 1848
Spanish Regional Federation of the IWA
Paris Commune
Hague Congress
Cantonal rebellion
Haymarket affair
International Conference of Rome
Trial of the Thirty
International Conference of Rome
Ferrer movement
Strandza Commune
Congress of Amsterdam
Tragic Week
High Treason Incident
Manifesto of the Sixteen
German Revolution of 1918–1919
Bavarian Soviet Republic
1919 United States bombings
Biennio Rosso
Kronstadt rebellion
Makhnovshchina
Amakasu Incident
Spanish Revolution of 1936
Barcelona May Days
Red inverted triangle
Labadie Collection
Provo
May 1968
LIP
Kate Sharpley Library
Australian Anarchist Centenary
Carnival Against Capital
1999 Seattle WTO protests
Really Really Free Market
Occupy movement :
Culture
A las Barricadas
Anarchist bookfair
Anarcho-punk
Arts
DIY ethic
Escuela Moderna
Films
Freeganism
Infoshop
Independent Media Center
The Internationale
Jewish anarchism
Lifestylism
May Day
"No gods, no masters"
Popular education
"Property is theft!"
Radical cheerleading
Radical environmentalism
Self-managed social center
Symbolism :
Economics
Communization
Cooperative
Cost the limit of price
Decentralized planned economy
Free association
General strike
Gift economy
Give-away shop
Labour voucher
Market socialism
Mutual bank
Mutual credit
Social ownership
Wage slavery
Workers' self-management :
By region
Africa
Albania
Algeria
Andorra
Argentina
Armenia
Australia
Austria
Azerbaijan
Bangladesh
Belarus
Belgium
Bolivia
Bosnia and Herzegovina
Brazil
Bulgaria
Canada
Chile
China
Colombia
Costa Rica
Croatia
Cuba
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Denmark
Dominican Republic
East Timor
Ecuador
Egypt
El Salvador
Estonia
Finland
France
French Guiana
Georgia
Germany
Greece
Guatemala
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
India
Indonesia
Iran
Ireland
Israel
Italy
Japan
Korea
Latvia
Malaysia
Mexico
Monaco
Mongolia
Morocco
Netherlands
New Zealand
Nicaragua
Nigeria
Norway
Panama
Paraguay
Peru
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Puerto Rico
Romania
Russia
Serbia
Singapore
South Africa
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Syria
Taiwan
Tunisia
Turkey
Ukraine
United Kingdom
United States
Uruguay
Venezuela
Vietnam :
Lists
Anarcho-punk bands
Books
Fictional characters
Films
Jewish anarchists
Musicians
Periodicals :
Related topics
Anti-corporatism
Anti-consumerism
Anti-fascism
Anti-globalization
Anti-statism
Anti-war movement
Autarchism
Autonomism
Communism
Definition of anarchism and libertarianism
Dual Power
Labour movement
Left communism
Left-libertarianism
Libertarianism
Libertarian socialism
Marxism
Situationist International
Socialism
Spontaneous order :
Anarchism portal
Politics portal :
vte :
Alfredo Maria Bonanno (4 March 1937 – 6 December 2023) was an Italian anarchist, recognized as a prominent theorist and proponent of contemporary insurrectionary anarchism. A long-time anarchist, he was imprisoned multiple times. Bonanno was an editor of Anarchismo Editions, among many other publications, only some of which have been translated into English. He was involved in the anarchist movement for over four decades. Bonanno died on 6 December 2023, at the age of 86.

## Political life

In the 1960s a tendency within Italian anarchism which did not identify either with the more classical synthesist Italian Anarchist Federation or with the platformist inclined GAAP (Anarchist Groups of Proletarian Action) started to emerge as local groups. These groups emphasized direct action, informal affinity groups and expropriation for financing anarchist activity. It is from within these groups that Bonanno emerged, particularly influenced by the practice of the Spanish exiled anarchist Josep Lluís i Facerias.
The Magazine Do or Die reports that "Much of the Italian insurrectionary anarchist critique of the movements of the '70s focused on the forms of organisation that shaped the forces of struggle and out of this a more developed idea of informal organisation grew. A critique of the authoritarian organisations of the '70s, whose members often believed they were in a privileged position to struggle as compared to the proletariat as a whole, was further refined in the struggles of the '80s, such as the early 1980s struggle against a military base that was to house nuclear weapons in Comiso, Sicily. Anarchists were very active in that struggle, which was organised into self-managed leagues." A main theorizer of these ideas was Bonanno and his publication Anarchismo.
In 1993 Bonanno wrote For An Anti-authoritarian Insurrectionalist International in which he proposes coordination between Mediterranean insurrectionists after the period of the dissolution of the Soviet Union and civil war in the former Yugoslavia.
Bonanno was one of hundreds of Italian anarchists arrested on the night of 19 June 1997, when Italian security forces carried out raids on anarchist centres and private homes all over Italy. The raids followed the bombing of Palazzo Marino in Milan, Italy on 25 April 1997. On 2 February 2003 Bonanno was sentenced to 6 years in prison plus a €2000 fine (first degree 3 years, 6 months) for armed robbery and other crimes. These charges were related to the "Marini Trial", in which Italian anarchists were convicted of belonging to a subversive armed group whose ideological leader was Bonanno.
Bonanno spent a year and a half in jail for publishing Armed Joy.
On 4 October 2009, Bonanno was arrested with Greek anarchist Christos Stratigopolous in Trikala, Central Greece on suspicion of having carried out an armed robbery at a local bank. 46,900 euros in cash were found in the car.
Bonanno was denied entry into Chile on 13 December 2013. Bonanno had planned to participate in a series of conferences in Chile. Having arrived in Chile with Sky Airlines from Argentina he was flown back to Argentina by the same airline two hours after arrival. The Investigations Police of Chile said the denial of entry was due to Bonanno's penal record.

## Thought

Regarding national liberation struggles, he said that anarchists:
   ...refuse to participate in national liberation fronts; they participate in class fronts which may or may not be involved in national liberation struggles. The struggle must spread to establish economic, political and social structures in the liberated territories, based on federalist and libertarian organisations.
Bonanno rejected formal organizations in favour of affinity groups, although this should however not be confused with a rejection of large groups of people working together to achieve a goal. Regarding this, Bonanno said:
   One single affinity group cannot necessarily carry out such an intervention on its own. Often, at least according to the (few and controversial) experiences to date, the nature of the problem and complexity of intervention, including the extent of the area as well as the means required to develop the project and the ideas and needs of the people involved, require something more. Hence the need to keep in contact with other affinity groups so as to increase the number of comrades and find the means and ideas suited to the complexity and dimension of the problem that is being faced.
Bonanno also rejected syndicalism, and contrasted his critique to that of Errico Malatesta, rejecting it not just as an end, but also as a means:
   As we shall see further on, Malatesta’s position is a radical one, but we do not agree with him completely. There can be no doubt that syndicalism is not an end in itself but the fact that it can be considered a means must imply a means for preparing the revolution, not for continuing exploitation, or worse still, preparing the counter-revolution. That is the problem.
While he rejected formal organization, he did not think praxis should be restricted to mere anarchists. For this, he used the term 'autonomous base nuclei', which includes anarchists and non-anarchists struggling together:
   The essential element in the insurrectional project is therefore mass participation. And, as we started from the condition of affinity among the single anarchist groups participating in it, it is also an essential element of this affinity itself. It would be no more than mere camaraderie d’elite if it were to remain circumscribed to the reciprocal search for deeper personal knowledge between comrades.
   But it would be nonsense to consider trying to make other people become anarchists and suggest that they enter our groups during the struggle. Not only would it be nonsense, but it would be a horrible ideological forcing of things that would upturn the whole meaning of affinity groups and the eventual informal organisation that might ensue to face the specific repressive attack.
   But here we are faced with the need to create organisational structures that are capable of regrouping the excluded in such a way as to begin the attack on repression. So we come to the need to give life to autonomous base nuclei, which can give themselves any other name that indicates the concept of self-organisation.
   We have now reached the crucial point of the insurrectional project: the constitution of autonomous base nuclei (we are using this term here to simplify things).
   The essential, visible and immediately comprehensible characteristic of the latter is that they are composed of both anarchists and non-anarchists.