For A Libertarian Communism

Description

In this collection, written between the 1950s and 1980s and published for the first time in English, Guerin not only provides a critique of the socialist and communist parties of his day, he analyses some of the most fundamental and pressing questions with which all radicals must engage. He does this by revisiting and attempting to draw lessons from the history of the revolutionary movement from the French Revolution, through the conflicts between anarchists and Marxists in the International Workingmen's Association and the Russian and Spanish revolutions, to the social revolution of 1968.

Daniel Guerin was a prominent member of the French left for half a century. He published The Brown Plague in 1933 and Fascism and Big Business in 1936. His controversial, libertarian Marxist interpretation of the French Revolution, Class Struggle in the First Republic, 1793-1797 was judged by his friend C.L.R. James to be "one of the great theoretical landmarks of our movement." Mitchell Abidor is the principal French translator for the Marxists Internet Archive. His translations include Anarchists Never Surrender, Voices of the Paris Commune, and Death to Bourgeois Society. David Berry is currently a senior lecturer in politics and history at Loughborough University, UK. His publications include A History of the French Anarchist Movement, 1917-1945, New Perspectives on Anarchism, Labour and Syndicalism, and Libertarian Socialism. He is currently preparing a biography of Guerin.

"Daniel Guerin is the creator of a unique synthesis between Marxism and anarchism: libertarian communism. His reflections are more than ever relevant for the 21st century." --Michael Lowy, author, Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe