The revolution bears within itself a serious contradiction (a contradiction which fortunately-and we will return to the subject -is not irremediable and is attenuated with time): it can only arise, it can only vanquish if it issues from the depths of the popular masses, from their irresistible spontaneous uprising but although the class instinct drives the popular masses to break their chains, they are yet lacking in education and consciousness. I am also in the presence of a badly executed copy (editions la decouverte) with references that go to the wrong pages.'In my opinion the basic cause for the relative failure of the two greatest revolutions in history resides not, to borrow again from Voline, in 'historic inevitability,' or simply in the subjective 'errors' of revolutionary actors. In 2015 you are better off reading the originals and checking out the biographies that are online.

Important references are given late in the text and only a see page XX before that.īack in 1970 it might have been hard to gather all these books and biographies. This way important information is delegated to the small text area. And has the bad habit of using and abusing page notes. Guerin seems to be interesting because of a shortage of authors to cover this part of political theory. And only the need for a short text makes this hagiographies look like biographies. The same way some have tried to make a coherent system of gods out of the anarchic (pun intended) set of cults and temples in ancient Rome or Greece, the same way Guerin tries to give a direction to a group of people that stood for extremely different goals and paths. And in the end you get a good inside into what Guerin feels of anarchy and almost nothing about the anarchist movement. Inside there is a strange mix of biographies and excerpts of the most important books of certain authors.

Somebody (Guerin) decided he likes anarchy so much that he needs to make a book about it.

No Gods No Masters by Daniel Guérin