Daniel Guérin Explained

Daniel Guérin
Birth Date:19 May 1904
Birth Place:Paris, France
Death Place:Suresnes, Hauts-de-Seine, France
Nationality:French
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Daniel Guérin (in French ɡeʁɛ̃/; 19 May 1904 – 14 April 1988) was a French libertarian-communist author, best known for his work , as well as his collection No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism in which he collected writings on the idea and movement it inspired, from the first writings of Max Stirner in the mid-19th century through the first half of the 20th century. He is also known for his opposition to Nazism, fascism, capitalism, imperialism and colonialism, in addition to his support for the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) during the Spanish Civil War. His revolutionary defense of free love and homosexuality influenced the development of queer anarchism.

CGT, PSOP, and Libertarian Marxism

Guérin was born into a liberal Parisian family.[1] Early on, he started political activism in the revolutionary syndicalist magazine French: La Révolution prolétarienne of Pierre Monatte. He abandoned university and a literary career in 1926, traveling to Lebanon (1927–1929) and French Indochina (1929–1930) and became a passionate opponent of colonial ventures.[1]

LGBT+ activism

Guérin, a bisexual, offers an insight into the tension sexual minorities among the Left have often experienced. He was a leading figure in the French Left from the 1930s until his death in 1988. He contributed to the homophile journal Arcadie.[1] In 1954, Guérin was widely attacked for his study of the Kinsey Reports in which he also detailed the oppression of homosexuals in France. "The harshest [criticisms] came from Marxists, who tend seriously to underestimate the form of oppression which is antisexual terrorism. I expected it, of course, and I knew that in publishing my book I risked being attacked by those to whom I feel closest on a political level."[2] After coming out in 1965, Guérin was abandoned by the Left, and his papers on sexual liberation were censored or refused publication in left-wing journals.[3] Guérin was involved in the uprising of May 1968, and was a part of the French Gay Liberation movement that emerged after the events. Decades later, Frédéric Martel described Guérin as the "grandfather of the French homosexual movement."[4] Guérin spoke about the extreme hostility toward homosexuality that permeated the left throughout much of the 20th century.[5] "Not so many years ago, to declare oneself a revolutionary and to confess to being homosexual were incompatible," Guérin wrote in 1975.[6]

Works

Further reading

External links

Notes and References

  1. Book: Bill . Marshall . France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History: a Multidisciplinary Encyclopedia . 2005 . ABC-CLIO . 978-1-85109-411-0 . 541.
  2. Letter of 27 May 1955, Fonds Guérin, BDIC, Fo Δ 721/carton 12/4, quoted in Chaperon, 'Le fonds Daniel Guérin et l'histoire de la sexualité' in Journal de la BDIC, no.5 (June 2002), p.10
  3. Web site: For a dialectic of homosexuality and revolution . The Anarchist Library . Paper for "Conference on "Socialism and Sexuality. Past and present of radical sexual politics", Amsterdam, 3–4 October 2003 . 5 November 2017 . Berry . David.
  4. Book: Frédéric . Martel . Frédéric Martel . Le rose et le noir. Les homosexuels en France depuis 1968 . fr . Pink and black. Homosexuals in France since 1968 . Paris . Seuil . 2000 . 46.
  5. Book: The Parti Communiste Français was "hysterically intransigent as far as 'moral behaviour' was concerned" . Aragon, victime et profiteur du tabou . Aragon, victim and profiteer of the taboo . 4 June 1983 . Homosexualité et Révolution . Homosexuality and Revolution . 62–63 . fr. Gai Pied Hebdo.
    * The trotskyist Pierre Lambert's OCI was "completely hysterical with regard to homosexuality"; Lutte ouvrire was theoretically opposed to homosexuality; as was the Ligue communiste, despite their belatedly paying lip service to gay lib. (à confesse, Interview with Gérard Ponthieu in Sexpol no. 1 (20 January 1975), pp.10-14.)
    * Together, Guérin argued, such groups bore a great deal of responsibility for fostering homophobic attitudes among the working class as late as the 1970s. Their attitude was "the most blinkered, the most reactionary, the most antiscientific". (Etre homosexuel et révolutionnaire, La Quinzaine littéraire, no. 215, no. spécial : 'Les homosexualités' (August 1975), pp. 9-10. Quote p. 10)
  6. Guérin, Daniel. 1975. "Etre homosexuel et révolutionnaire", , no. 215, no. spécial : 'Les homosexualités' (August 1975), pp. 9-10.

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