Cultura y política del anarquismo en España e Iberoamérica by Clara Lida (review)

Since the collapse of the Soviet bloc and in response to modern globalization, anarchist groups have proliferated around the world. This modern political renewal has led to an interest in the history of anarchism during an earlier phase of globalization: the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The historiography has approached anarchism from a variety of thematic angles. The study of anarchist cultural politics is especially fruitful, illustrating anarchists’ political work beyond the workplace to raise public consciousness and their vision of a new world built on equality and individuality, free from economic, political, and religious authoritarianism. This collection of eight essays, emerging from a 2011 symposium in Mexico City, is a welcome contribution to the historiography.

The chapters address a number of interrelated questions. How did anarchists characterize their struggles (for example, oppressed vs. oppressors in Argentina, or true militants vs. traitors in Brazil)? How did they use cultural imaginings to challenge the elite while at the same time educating potential followers? How did anarchists merge the international goals of the movement with local, national, and racial-ethnic realities in different countries? And what problems did anarchists face in achieving their cultural goals?

For answers, the authors explore the press, anarchist schools, social gatherings, and the staging of plays (often at the gatherings) in Spain, Argentina, Peru, Cuba, and Chile. The role of the press and print culture in general is especially emphasized. Newspapers not only served as a means to communicate meetings, ideas, and critiques but also as cultural sources, publishing books in serial form or creating rituals and symbols on their pages. In nineteenth-century Spain, anarchists kept the clandestine movement alive, thanks in part to anarchist print culture.

The challenge to make international anarchism culturally specific while retaining its internationalist principles was no small one. Anarchist cultural creators had to be sensitive to the realities of native and foreign-born populations as well as white, black, and indigenous populations. In Cuba and Peru, anarchists struggled to make the movement relevant to non-white populations. Such hybridizations not only brought anarchism to different audiences but also helped white readers to better understand the human diversity within their midst.

How successful were anarchist culture wars? Most authors portray anarchist culture as useful in putting forth a new vision while helping to educate followers, but other authors are not so sure. In Chile, anarchists were not the only groups trying to reform the working class; so were socialists, religious groups, and unions. In addition, one can question just how “anarchist” some of this culture was. After all, anarchists staged plays written by non-anarchists, and anarchists often shared symbols and literature with socialists and freethinkers. In Argentina, it appears that most workers ignored anarchist culture while enjoying new forms of popular culture like cinema. Plus, anarchists were puritanical in their public prohibitions against prostitution, billiards, and alcohol—anarchist culture could be quite moralizing and, frankly, not much fun.

As with any edited collection, one will find some shortcomings. For instance, why are there three chapters on Spain and only one each for the other five countries covered, while other countries are ignored? The timeframe is disappointing too. Only a couple of chapters go beyond the early 1910s, and none of the chapters on Spain do; this treatment ignores the rich cultural production of the 1920s and 1930s. One major omission in these studies concerns anarchist fiction. There are only a few brief mentions; yet, anarchists generated a plethora of short stories and novels. But this problem is related to the limited timeframe also, because the Spain-based series La Novela Ideal and La Novela Libre churned out hundreds of short anarchist novels from authors in Spain and the Americas in the 1920s and 1930s. Finally, the collection could have used a concluding essay to compare anarchist cultural politics across countries. Much of what is written in any one...