Revolutionaries in Suspenders

The beginning could hardly have been more appropriate. There were the firemen searching the decrepit Teatro degli Animosi (Theater of the Courageous) in the Italian town of Carrara for bombs. Only after they had given the all clear did the Third International Congress of Anarchist Federations call itself to order--of a sort. As it turned out, there was more than enough verbal bombast to compensate for the lack of real bombs.

The anarchists, representing the dissatisfied, the disgruntled and the dyspeptic of 37 nations, had convened for their third postwar conference. On their agenda were such burning issues as "Anarchism v. Marxism in the 20th Century" and "The Perspective for Practical Anarchist Expansion in the Imperialist Bloc." The anarchists made the most of the issues. Under their red and black flags, Robert's Rules of Disorder prevailed, and arguments flared into name-calling and an unending flood of combative press releases.

Locking Up Danny. Early in the conference, Paris Student Leader Danny ("the Red") Cohn-Bendit, an unofficial observer, created pandemonium when he berated the representatives as an "assembly of old soldiers" who had no stomach for real revolution. Scuffles broke out on the floor, and Danny was hustled out and locked up in a backstage room for half an hour until a semblance of order could be restored. He returned just in time to hear Mexican Delegate Domingo Rojas blame Soviet influence and Fidel Castro for the sad lot of Cuban anarchists languishing in exile in Miami. "Viva Castro!" shouted Danny. "Your anarchists are paid by the CIA." Once again the congress exploded. "Fascist! You're a fascist!" yelled the delegates. With that, Danny and his group of unofficial French representatives walked out of the conference, taking the Swiss and the British "delegation" (a Scotsman) with them.

For the best of conspiratorial reasons, most of the delegates refused to identify themselves. The nameless U.S. representative made one appearance and then disappeared mysteriously. Many others did not attend the official sessions, where they would be all too visible, but spent their time in clandestine nocturnal gatherings. The bulk of the delegates had undoubtedly seen more ardent days. They were mostly men in their 50s and 60s who wore 1940-vintage clothes and preferred suspenders to belts. The Bulgarian representative, exiled in Paris for the past three decades, had the same reply to virtually every motion. "Bulgarie I'accepte!" he roared in what sounded almost like French. "We can no longer brook Vatican pacifism, no longer kiss the foot of the Pope. Neither can we submit to the imperialism of Soviet Russia."

A Brighter Day. The conference simply brushed the Cohn-Bendit walkout aside. Said Italy's Umberto Marzocchi, the occasional chairman (the anarchists' anti-authoritarian philosophy, of course, would have made any more permanent leadership intolerable): "The youth who walked out think that revolution is synonymous with insurrection. They are deluded." The anarchists finally agreed on one thing: that the conference had been a grand success. They proposed to meet again in Paris in 1971 to celebrate the centenary of the Paris Commune. In hopes for better days ahead, of course. "When capitalism crumbles, Communism crumbles with it," mused Maurice Joyeux, the official French delegate. "The two will die at each other's throats. But we, the anarchists, shall live to see a brighter day."

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