 | For a Libertarian Communism — ForewordBy Daniel Guérin |
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| For a Libertarian Communism — ForewordBy Daniel Guérin |
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French Theorist of Anarcho-Communism, Anti-Fascism, and Anti-Colonialism
: ...as Guerin grew older, his politics moved increasingly leftward, leading him later in life to espouse a hybrid of anarchism and marxism. Arguably, his most important book from this period of his life is Anarchism: From Theory to Practice... (From: Faatz Bio.)
• "Because anarchism is constructive, anarchist theory emphatically rejects the charge of utopianism. It uses the historical method in an attempt to prove that the society of the future is not an anarchist invention, but the actual product of the hidden effects of past events." (From: "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice," by Daniel Gu....)
• "The anarchist regards the State as the most deadly of the preconceptions which have blinded men through the ages." (From: "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice," by Daniel Gu....)
• "In general, the bureaucracy of the totalitarian State is unsympathetic to the claims of self-management to autonomy." (From: "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice," by Daniel Gu....)
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Foreword
This volume contains a selection of texts by the French revolutionary activist and historian Daniel Guérin (1904–1988), published here in English translation for the first time. They were written between the 1950s and 1980s and appeared in France in a series of collections: Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire [Youth of Libertarian Socialism] (Paris: Riviere, 1959), Pour un Marxisme libertaire [For a Libertarian Marxism] (Paris: Laffont, 1969), and A la recherche d’un communisme libertaire [In Search of a Libertarian Communism] (Paris: Spartacus, 1984). A further version of the collection was published after his death: Pour le communisme libertaire [For Libertarian Communism] (Paris: Spartacus, 2003). All of these contain slightly different selections of texts around a common core of recurrent pieces, and the same is true of this English edition. We have tried to choose those texts which would be of most interest to present-day readers, but which also give a good understanding of Guérin’s developing analysis of the failings of the Left and of his belief that the only way forward was through some kind of synthesis of Marxism and anarchism.
We are grateful to the Spartacus collective, to Daniel Guerrier, and to Anne Guérin for permission to publish these translations.
The footnotes are Guérin’s except where indicated; additional explanatory material is followed by my initials. We have tried (where possible and practical) to provide references to English translations of Guérin’s sources, and I am grateful to Iain McKay for his help with this. I would also like to thank Chris Reynolds, Martin O’Shaughnessy, and Christophe Wall-Romana for their help in tracking down the source of Guérin’s reference to Armand Gatti; and Danny Evans and James Yeoman for their advice regarding films about the Spanish Revolution.
Guérin was a prolific writer on an exceptionally wide range of topics, and relatively little has been translated into English. A list of his publications in English can be found at the end of the volume. For further information, including a full bibliography and links to texts available online, please visit the website of the Association des Amis de Daniel Guérin (the Association of the Friends of Daniel Guérin) at www.danielGuérin.info.
| AL | Alternative Libertaire (Libertarian Alternative), founded 1991 |
| CFDT | Confederation Française Democratique du Travail (Democratic French Labor Confederation), founded 1964 |
| CGT | Confederation Generale du Travail (General Labor Confederation), founded 1895 |
| CGTU | Confederation Generale du Travail Unitaire (Unitary General Labor Confederation), 1921–1936 |
| CNT | Confederation Nationale du Travail (National Labor Confederation), founded 1946 |
| FA | Federation Anarchiste (Anarchist Federation), founded 1945 |
| FCL | Federation Communiste Libertaire (Libertarian Communist Federation), 1953–1957 |
| FEN | Federation de l‘Education Nationale (National Education Federation), 1948–1992 |
| FO | Force Ouvriere (Workers’ Power), founded 1947 |
| FSU | Federation Syndicale Unitaire (Unitary Trade Union Federation), founded 1992 |
| JAC | Jeunesse Anarchiste Communiste (Communist Anarchist Youth), founded 1967 |
| OCL | Organization Communiste Libertaire (Libertarian Communist Organization), founded 1976 |
| ORA | Organization révolutionnaire Anarchiste (Anarchist Revolutionary Organization), 1967–1976 |
| PCF | Parti Communiste Française (French Communist Party), founded 1920 |
| PCI | Parti Communiste Internationaliste (Internationalist Communist Party), 1944–1968 |
| PS-SFIO | Parti Socialiste-Section Française de l’Internationale Ouvriere (Socialist Party, French Section of the Workers’ International), 1905–1969 |
| PSOP | Parti Socialiste Ouvrier et Paysan (Workers’ and Peasants’ Socialist Party), 1938–1940 |
| SUD | Solidaires, Unitaires, Democratiques (Solidarity, Unity, Democracy), founded 1988 |
| UGAC | Union des Groupes Anarchistes-Communistes (Union of Communist-Anarchist Groups), 1961–1968 |
| UTCL | Union des travailleurs communistes libertaires (Union of Libertarian Communist Workers), 1974–1991 |
From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org
French Theorist of Anarcho-Communism, Anti-Fascism, and Anti-Colonialism
: ...as Guerin grew older, his politics moved increasingly leftward, leading him later in life to espouse a hybrid of anarchism and marxism. Arguably, his most important book from this period of his life is Anarchism: From Theory to Practice... (From: Faatz Bio.)
• "Because anarchism is constructive, anarchist theory emphatically rejects the charge of utopianism. It uses the historical method in an attempt to prove that the society of the future is not an anarchist invention, but the actual product of the hidden effects of past events." (From: "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice," by Daniel Gu....)
• "In general, the bureaucracy of the totalitarian State is unsympathetic to the claims of self-management to autonomy." (From: "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice," by Daniel Gu....)
• "The anarchist regards the State as the most deadly of the preconceptions which have blinded men through the ages." (From: "Anarchism: From Theory to Practice," by Daniel Gu....)
David Berry is senior lecturer in History at Loughborough University. He has published widely on the history of the anarchist movement in France and in particular on the thought of Daniel Guérin. He is the author of A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917–1945 and coeditor with Constance Bantman of New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labor and Syndicalism: The Individual, the National and the Transnational. (From: PMPress.org.)
Translator of Thousands of Materials on Leftist Revolution
Mitchell Abidor is a translator who has published over a dozen books on French radical history and a writer on history, ideas, and culture who has appeared in the New York Times, Dissent, Foreign Affairs, the New York Review of Books, andnbsp; Jacobin, among many others. (From: Google Books.)
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Foreword
