Friday 14 February 2014

Isaac Puente - Libertarian Communism

Isaac Puente was a doctor and an anarchist from Spain, who lived in the first half of the twentieth century. He was an advocate of sex education, eugenics, microbiotic food, and naturism amongst other things. He was shot by the Nationalists in 1936.
Here are some quotes from Mr. Puente, taken from Hugh Thomas's epic history of the Spanish Civil War. I'm not sure if he is describing Heaven on earth, or Hell.

'At the end of the violent stage of the revolution, the following will be declared abolished: private property; the state; the principle of authority; and, in consequence, the classes which divide men into exploited and exploiters, oppressors and oppressed. Once wealth is socialized, the producers, already free, will be charged with the direct administration of production and consumption. After the setting up in each locality of the free commune, we will set the new social mechanism on foot. The producers.......will freely decide the form in which they are to be organised. The free commune will take over the previous property of the bourgeoisie, such as food, clothes, work implements, raw materials etc. These......will pass to the producers so they can administer them directly for the benefit of the community. The communes will first provide the maximum of commodities for each inhabitant, ensuring assistance to the ill and education to the young.....all able-bodied men will seek to carry out their voluntary duty to the community in relation to their strength and skill. All those functions will have no executive or bureaucratic character. Apart from those with technical functions.... the remainder will carry out their duties as producers, meeting in sessions at the end of the day to discuss the questions of detail which do not require the approval of the communal assemblies.'

'On the problems of moral idiosyncracy, which love may bring to the society of libertarian communism, the community and the principle of Liberty leave only two roads open........absence. For many illnesses, a change of air is recommended. For the illness of love......a change of commune is recommended. Religion, that purely subjective manifestation, will be recognised in as much as it stays relegated to the sanctuary of the individual conscience, but in no case will it be permitted as a form of public show, nor a moral and intellectual coercion (all churches thus would be closed).'

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