Versus the State : Theses on War, Revolution and Proletariat

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Versus the State is an anthology of incisive articles wherein Agustín Guillamón dismantles the ideological and material underpinnings of modern capitalism: representative democracy, human rights, the State and the bamboozlement of freedom. Through rigorous historical and theoretical analysis, the author shows how the State and capital make up a single, indivisible unit based upon exploitation of waged labour and a monopoly upon political violence.

Shunning all nostalgia or reformism, these articles grapple with central issues such as the nature of the proletariat, the counter-revolutionary function of democracy, the role of social democracy and the workers’ movement’s historical defeats, with particular attention to the 1936 Spanish Revolution and the Friends of Durruti.  

This book offers no abstract recipes or utopias, but rather a radical critique geared to the dismantling of the State and of waged labour as the necessary precondition for human emancipation and the building of a communist, solidarity-based and classless community.

Contents

1. Democracy, Freedom and Human Community
2. Human Rights
3. What is the State?
4. What is the Proletariat?
5. The Being and Essence of the Proletariat
6. How Come the May 1937 Insurrection?
7. Fascism and Antifascism
8. Social Democracy
9. The French-Spanish Friends of Durruti Group
10. The Fight for History
11. Eleven Class-based Theses
12. Thoughts on History as the Theorization of the Proletariat’s Historical Experiences [May 2026, added by the KSL]

 

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.