Daniel Guerin (1904 - 1988)
Thu May 19, 1904
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Daniel Guerin, born on this day in 1904, was a French libertarian communist and pioneering activist for queer liberation.
Born to a wealthy liberal Parisian family, Guerin worked as a bookseller in Syria and Lebanon in the late 1920s, where he began to develop leftist sympathies after witnessing the brutalities of French colonialism.
As a young man, Guerin also traveled across French Indochina, visiting present-day Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. On the journey over, he studied works by socialist theorists, including Marx, Proudhon, and Lenin.
After returning to France in 1930, Guerin moved into a working class neighborhood and began writing for and directly involving himself with syndicalist and revolutionary socialist groups.
While initially drawn to Lenin and Trotsky, he soon came to reject vanguardism in favor of a more libertarian approach, writing "I concluded…that socialism must rid itself of the fake notion of the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' in order to rediscover its libertarian authenticity".
Guerin was also a committed anti-fascist. In his 1936 text "Fascism and Big Business", Guerin explores the connections between the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany, and their ties to local capitalist classes.
In 1940, Guerin was detained by occupying Nazi forces in Oslo. Upon release, he managed to return to France in 1942.
In the late 1940s, Guerin spent some time residing in the United States, continuing his writing there. He wrote of the American labor movement and the black liberation struggle more broadly.
Although Guerin would often directly relate his radicalization to his sexuality, he lived much of his life at a time when the workers' movement, like society at large, tended towards homophobic attitudes.
In 1955, Guerin wrote a text on the studies of American sexologist Alfred Kinsey where he began to openly argue for change, stating: "The vicious circle will only be broken when progressive workers adopt both a more scientific and a more humane attitude towards homosexuality".
For this stance, Guerin was attacked by many portions of the left, including the Communist Party of France (PCF). In 1965, in rejection of his detractors, Guerin came out, becoming one of the first openly gay communist figures in France.
Guerin's politics continued to evolve, and he would variously describe himself as either an anarchist or a Libertarian Marxist. From 1955, he was a member of the group Nouvelle Gauche, which would go throw a series of mergers before becoming part of the Unified Socialist Party in 1960.
In 1963, Guerin presented a report on workers' self-management to Ahmed Ben Bella, the first President of Algeria following successful war for independence against France. He later opposed the military junta that overthrew Ben Bella in 1965.
Guerin was an active participant of the May 68 uprising in France. Aside from the event's obvious broader political and revolutionary significance, this period marked an opening for significant changes in social attitudes - including towards homosexuality. On May 68, Guerin wrote "in contesting class society more broadly, they’re [homosexuals] led to unmask their sexuality against the ‘hetero-police’ at the same time as they fight for the Revolution".
Among Guerin's works are Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, No Gods No Masters: An Anthology of Anarchism, Autobiography of Youth, and Fire in the Blood.
Guerin continued writing and political activity in later years, joining the Union des Travailleurs Communistes Libertaires. He remained a member until his death in 1988.
"The fact that I am married, a father, a grandfather, bisexual, homosexual, this explosive whole, it seems to me that this is what I must leave behind as the final expression of my life as a writer and as a man."
- Daniel Guerin
