A-Infos (en) Spaine, Regeneracion - In Defense of Subjectivity, or Not Everything Is Revolutionary Theory By Collaborations (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

I was able to attend the presentation of Agustín Guillamón's book, 
published by Calumnia, *Against the State: Theses on War, Revolution, 
and the Proletariat*. I won't delve into the substance of his arguments; 
anyone who has read or listened to Guillamón's lectures in recent years 
will already be familiar with his approach (and if not, they can read 
the book or listen to his presentation). ---- What I do want to focus on 
is an issue we tend to overlook too quickly. At the beginning of his 
presentation, Guillamón points out a matter that most historians who 
attempt to understand the social revolution of 1936 discuss, but which 
political debates about the war and the revolution-whether it was 
betrayed or not, we won't get into that now-of the generations who 
didn't live through that moment tend to ignore.

Five years ago in Granollers, several comrades and I organized a tribute 
to the Vallès Oriental Column, a column of militiamen who marched from 
Granollers to the front in the summer of 1936. At that event, an 
exhibition was presented on the workers' and revolutionary movement in 
the city of Granollers from the late 19th century until before July 19, 
1936. The comrades who designed the exhibition did this intentionally: 
to pause the narrative before a moment that has been extensively 
discussed by everyone. Because, as Guillamón says at the beginning of 
his lecture, you can't explain July 19, 1936, without talking about the 
preceding 70 years. And the truth is, we rarely stop to talk about this 
issue.

There will be other spaces to debate the question of power and 
anarchism, but it's easy to get caught up in an abstract debate or a 
theorization of history that leads us to take stock. It's 
necessary-certainly-but I often get the feeling that this exercise is 
more appealing than reflecting on how we got to July 19, 1936.

In the image: Unió Liberal de Granollers, an Athenaeum from the first 
half of the 20th century in Granollers where anarchists participated 
alongside other groups.
To say that 70 years of libertarian culture educated the proletariat is 
perhaps an oversimplification and makes us take for granted too many 
issues that, in my view, are fundamental. Because what we're talking 
about is that a sufficiently significant part of the proletariat was 
able to set in motion the most profound social transformation known to 
date, and we cannot assume that this is the consequence of either a 
specific program or a specific form of organization, or at least not solely.

We can certainly argue that, despite the political decisions made by the 
CNT and FAI leadership after July 19, 1936, which led to the May 1937 
events, collectivizations and other self-management experiences took 
place. If these remain exemplary today, it is because a proletariat 
emerged that wanted to cease being a proletariat and, beyond leaders or 
programs, the culture and subjectivity of this proletariat led them to 
constitute themselves as an autonomous class.

The truth is that the people who carried out that revolution were 
different from those of today, or at least their subjectivity was. For 
the proletariat to constitute itself as a class, it means that its 
subjectivity is proletarian; the individuals who make up this social 
mass have a non-alienated subjectivity, are aware of their situation of 
exploitation, of class relations, and of the revolutionary program. They 
are the revolutionary party, insofar as they are the part of the class 
that takes sides in the revolution in Marxist terms.

The question is: how do we get there? Because in our context, with 
almost no class struggle, it's easy to end up focusing our analysis on 
the historical balance sheet, power, or whatever else we want to call 
it-the result of past revolutions. In other words, we risk centering our 
analysis on a part of the end of the historical process, its political 
successes and failures, but we avoid the question that challenges us 
today for our daily actions: how do we change proletarian subjectivity? 
How do we get a significant portion of the dispossessed classes to 
become aware of their exploited situation, of being proletarians because 
they have nothing to lose, and that, since they have nothing to lose, 
they only have something to gain through their struggle?

Here we enter a complex field, one that has been and continues to be the 
subject of interesting debates. But I lean towards the materialist 
analysis that defines subjectivity, consciousness, as a product of 
social relations and everyday practice. The idea that "facts precede 
ideas," in short. In this sense, what I mentioned at the beginning of 
this text takes on great relevance. The libertarian and proletarian 
culture, which Chris Ealham describes in his essential work, *The 
Struggle for Barcelona: Class, Culture and Conflict, 1898-1937*, 
constructed a life outside the State and Capitalism, which allowed for a 
proletarian subjectivity that, combined with the propaganda of 
revolutionary militancy, gave rise to a revolutionary workers' movement.

In the past, working-class neighborhoods were physically separated from 
the bourgeoisie; the working class lived palpably apart from bourgeois 
society, and consumer society did not exist. People socialized along 
class lines: their lives were centered in working-class neighborhoods, 
which meant they had traditions and a popular culture independent of the 
dominant classes. They were in a situation of formal, evident 
exploitation. The differences between social classes weren't just based 
on wage labor; there was also a cultural divide, and the State and 
Capital weren't as prominent in mediating all social relations. This led 
the labor movement, over time, to create its own institutions, such as 
schools, cooperatives, strike funds, mutual aid societies, cultural 
centers, and so on. These allowed the socialization of the working 
classes to be class-based, since there were hardly any other resources 
available to the wage-earning population.

Today, we are all aware that this has changed drastically, and has been 
for many decades, first with the integration of the labor movement into 
the State and Capitalism through the post-war social peace, and then 
with the neoliberal offensive against the remnants of the labor 
movement. There is ample literature on these issues. And although we are 
witnessing an increasingly rapid proletarianization of the middle class 
due to falling wages and the rising cost of living (especially housing), 
the subjectivity of today's wage-earning population is not changing, is 
not transforming at the same pace.

Personally, I don't believe this can be brought about at will; it's a 
very complex process, precisely because of this materialist analysis of 
reality. Facts precede ideas; therefore, the conditions in which human 
experience unfolds over time will determine this "change of mindset" for 
more and more people.

What might this environment be that conditions this change of mindset? 
In my opinion, these conditions will arise from the development of the 
class struggle, in which wages can be a much more relevant factor than 
one might initially believe, on the one hand, and on the other, in which 
the massive participation of women in this class struggle can also 
modify collective consciousness and social relations.

In a context where the socialization of the majority of the population 
does not occur in class terms, except among the dominant classes, wage 
labor remains not only the commodity upon which Capitalism is built, but 
also objectively distinguishes the population in broad terms between the 
wage-earning population (whether actually employed, potentially 
employed, or aspiring to be) and the unemployed. In a context of the 
proletarianization of increasingly larger segments of society and the 
progressive dismantling of the welfare state, the mainstay of the middle 
class, it is fundamental that the struggle for wages and living 
conditions be part of the debate among activists who aspire to the 
radical transformation of social relations, as it is a prerequisite for 
future struggles.

In other words, if people are not capable of fighting for their most 
immediate living conditions, we cannot expect them to develop a 
consciousness that goes beyond that. And the problem is that the working 
class is not yet at this stage in the development of the class struggle.

I have previously referred to the massive participation of women-that 
is, the other half of the population-in this class struggle. I believe 
this will be fundamental to achieving a collective consciousness that 
also implies, as Gerda Lerner said, the capacity to develop abstract 
thought where difference does not signify domination. If we analyze the 
different moments in the history of the class struggle, we will discover 
that women have always been part of and a pillar of the various 
struggles and revolutions. The participation of women in the class 
struggle of our time will lead us to an understanding of the full scope 
of social relations and the obsolescence of a world based on wage labor, 
commodities, and the state. I am convinced that today it will be a 
fundamental element in building this proletarian subjectivity, essential 
for changing our world in a revolutionary way.

I believe that these issues are omitted from the debate about our 
militant action, strategy, or revolutionary theory. The objective 
conditions for revolution are the state of the class struggle, not a 
predetermined program. Strategy is something to be debated from the 
starting point and the desired destination. Here, I maintain that the 
strategy is to promote and strengthen the revolutionary trade union 
struggle today and to re-articulate those spaces that allow us to 
socialize again in class terms, not in isolation, but as part of a real 
movement that overcomes and dismantles the current state of affairs...

Genís Ferrero, CNT Granollers militant

https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/05/18/en-defensa-de-la-subjetividad-o-no-todo-es-teoria-revolucionaria
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe https://ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en