A short obituary of Neapolitan anarchist communist Peppe Tassone.
From Umanita Nova, paper of the Federazione Anarchica Italiana(FAI):
After a long illness, comrade Peppe Tassone died (November 20, 2025) at the age of 75. At a very young age, he had moved to Paris to avoid military service. There, he had come into contact with Spanish comrades from the exiled CNT and those of the ORA (Organisation Révolutionnaire Anarchiste), at their historic headquarters at 33 rue des Vignoles.
With these comrades he had shared the libertarian enthusiasm that followed the 1968 riots.
Having returned to Naples in the early 1970s, he was among the founders and key figures in the anarchist communist group Kronstadt. The group's name was chosen at his suggestion, recalling a historical episode of criticism of the despotic and bureaucratic degeneration of Bolshevism, but with classist roots and motivations, without giving in to the mystifications of liberalism.
Peppe contributed to giving the group a decidedly classist orientation, but he also managed to reconcile the more activist and anarcho-syndicalist tendencies. Along with others, Peppe also sought to incorporate the workerist and organisational demands of anarchist platformism while remaining in the Malatesta tradition. Within a few years, the Kronstadt group, which was affiliated with the FAI, became a point of reference for Neapolitan anarchism, both in terms of its numerical size and its political standing. For these reasons, collaboration with Kronstadt was also sought by groups of the revolutionary left of radically different ideological extraction.
His militancy in France allowed his group comrades to engage with broader anarchist experiences, as well as with local working-class groups with whom Peppe had established trusting relationships (Mecfond, Olivetti, Enel). Peppe had no difficulty making himself heard; in fact, his contributions were always sought after and closely followed, so much so that Peppe himself, with withering hints of irony and self-deprecation, curbed any risk of creating psychological subjugation. His caustic humour had become legendary, the same humour with which he courageously faced illness and suffering.
At the National Library of Naples, there is a Giuseppe Tassone collection that preserves some documents relating to those years: https://www.bnnonline.it/it/304/documenti-di-storia-contemporanea-fondo-giuseppe-tassone
On YouTube there is an interview with Enrico Voccia:
Our fondest memories go to Peppe.
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