Guérin was born into a liberal Parisian family.[1] Early on, he started political activism in the
revolutionary syndicalist magazine 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
Le livre de la dix-huitième année (poèmes), Paris, Albin Michel, 1922
L'enchantement du Vendredi Saint (roman), Paris, Albin Michel, 1925
La vie selon la chair (roman), Paris, Albin Michel, 1929
Fascisme et grand capital. Italie-Allemagne, Paris, Éditions de la révolution prolétarienne, 1936
Jeunesse du socialisme libertaire, Paris, Rivière, 1959
Shakespeare et Gide en correctionnelle ?, Paris, Editions du Scorpion, 1959
Le grain sous la neige, adaptation théâtrale d'après
Ignazio Silone, Éditions Mondiales, 1961
Vautrin, adaptation théâtrale d'après
Honoré de Balzac, Paris, La Plume d'or, 1962
Eux et lui, illustré par
André Masson, Monaco, Editions du Rocher, 1962
Essai sur la révolution sexuelle après Reich et Kinsey, Paris, Belfond, 1963
Front Populaire, révolution manquée ?, Paris, Julliard, 1963
Décolonisation du noir américain, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1963
L'Algérie qui se cherche, Paris, Présence Africaine, 1964
Un jeune homme excentrique. Essai d'autobiographie, Paris, Julliard, 1965
Sur le fascisme : I- La peste brune; II- Fascisme et grand capital, Paris, Maspero, 1965 (réédition). English translation of La peste brune by Robert Schwartzwald: The Brown Plague. Travels in Late Weimar and Early Nazi Germany, Durham (NC), Duke UP, 1994.
L'anarchisme. De la doctrine à l'action, Paris, Gallimard, 1965
English translation by Mary Klopper: Anarchism: From Theory to Practice, with an introduction by Noam Chomsky, New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970
Ni Dieu ni maître. Histoire et anthologie de l'anarchie, Paris, Éditions de Delphes, 1965
Pour un marxisme libertaire, Paris, Laffont, 1969
Rosa Luxembourg et la spontanéité révolutionnaire, Paris, Flammarion, 1971
Autobiographie de jeunesse. D'une dissidence sexuelle au socialisme, Paris, Belfond, 1972
De l'Oncle Tom aux Panthères Noires, Paris, UGE, 1973 (réédition : Les Bons Caractères, 2010)
Les assassins de Ben Barka. Dix ans d'enquête, Paris, Guy Authier, 1975
La Révolution française et nous, Paris, Maspero, 1976
Proudhon oui et non, Paris, Gallimard, 1978
Homosexualité et révolution, Paris, Le vent du ch'min, 1983
^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
^Berry, David.
"For a dialectic of homosexuality and revolution". Paper for "Conference on "Socialism and Sexuality. Past and present of radical sexual politics", Amsterdam, 3–4 October 2003. The Anarchist Library. Retrieved 5 November 2017.
^Martel, Frédéric (2000). Le rose et le noir. Les homosexuels en France depuis 1968 [Pink and black. Homosexuals in France since 1968] (in French). Paris: Seuil. p. 46.
^"Aragon, victime et profiteur du tabou" [Aragon, victim and profiteer of the taboo]. Homosexualité et Révolution [Homosexuality and Revolution] (in French). pp. 62–63. The
Parti Communiste Français was "hysterically intransigent as far as 'moral behaviour' was concerned"Gai Pied Hebdo. * The trotskyist
Pierre Lambert's OCI was "completely hysterical with regard to homosexuality";
Lutte ouvrire 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)
^Guérin, Daniel. 1975. "Etre homosexuel et révolutionnaire", La Quinzaine littéraire [
fr], no. 215, no. spécial : 'Les homosexualités' (August 1975), pp. 9-10.
Berry, David (2022). A Life in the Service of Revolution: Daniel Guérin, 1904-1988. Oakland, CA: PM Press.
Copley, Antony R. H. (1989). "Daniel Guérin: Towards Self-Acceptance". Sexual Moralities in France, 1780–1980: New Ideas on the Family, Divorce, and Homosexuality. London: Routledge. pp. 181–197.
ISBN978-0-415-00360-5.
OCLC883700728.