Hispanic Urban Studies

Hispanic Urban Studies Series Editors Benjamin Fraser University of Arizona Tucson, AZ, USA Susan Larson Texas Tech University Lubbock, TX, USA Hispanic Urban Studies is a series of scholarly monographs, edited volumes, and translations focusing on Spanish, Latin American and US Latino urban culture. The humanities and the social sciences are closer in methodology than ever before. Hispanic Urban Studies serves a dual purpose: to introduce radically original humanities work to social science researchers while affirming the relevance of cultural production to discussions of the urban. This book series takes advantage of and further contributes to exciting interdisciplinary discussions between Hispanic Studies and Cultural Geography with the aim of bringing in new ideas about space, place, and culture from all parts of the Hispanic world. Monograph titles bring together analyses of the cultural production of the Hispanic world with urban and spatial theory from a range of disciplinary contexts. The series also welcomes proposals for edited volumes related to cities that contribute in creative ways to our understanding of the spatial turn in Hispanic Studies. Translations published in the series introduce English-language readers to the rich legacy of materials on urbanism, urban culture, and cultural geography originally published in Spanish. About the series editors Benjamin Fraser is Professor of Spanish at the University of Arizona, USA. Susan Larson is Professor of Spanish at Texas Tech University, USA. Advisory Board Malcolm Compitello, University of Arizona, USA Monica Degen Brunel, University, London, UK Cecilia Enjuto Rangel, University of Oregon, USA Amanda Holmes, McGill University, Canada Marcy Schwartz, Rutgers University, USA Álvaro Sevilla Buitrago, Polytechnic University of Madrid, Spain Armando Silva, National University of Colombia, Bogotá Michael Ugarte, University of Missouri, Columbia, USA Víctor Valle, California Polytechnic State University, USA More information about this series at http://www.palgrave.com/gp/series/14872 Stephen Luis Vilaseca Anarchist Socialism in Early Twentieth- Century Spain A Ricardo Mella Anthology Stephen Luis Vilaseca World Languages and Cultures Northern Illinois University DeKalb, IL, USA ISSN 2662-5830 ISSN 2662-5849 (electronic) Hispanic Urban Studies ISBN 978-3-030-44676-5 ISBN 978-3-030-44677-2 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44677-2 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland For my dad, Luis, and for all who fight for the continual shake-up of everyday life ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Although creative activism in Spain, the focus of my earlier scholarship, is heavily influenced by anarchistic practices, I was unfamiliar with Ricardo Mella’s work. I would like to thank Benjamin Fraser for introducing me to Mella’s significant body of texts and for encouraging me to pursue this translation project. I gained much insight into Mella’s thought through speaking with Iria Presa. This book would not have been possible without her tireless and exhaustive archival research, and her willingness to share what she had found. Thanks go, too, to George Richard Esenwein for graciously agreeing to ground my reading of the relationship between Mella’s anarchist thought and the city with his expertise in Spanish anarchism. I am also indebted to Matthew Smith for his invaluable suggestions regarding the translation itself, and I thank my wife, Emily Knudson- Vilaseca, for her careful reading of the final manuscript prior to publication. I would also like to extend my gratitude to David Yan who created the maps of Vigo that are included in my introduction to this translation. Finally, thanks go to the anonymous readers solicited by Palgrave who provided thoughtful and constructive feedback. I owe much to colleagues who have encouraged me over the years. In particular, Bryan Cameron, Malcolm Compitello, Matthew Feinberg, Susan Larson, and Araceli Masterson-Algar. I also am grateful for the support given to me by my co-workers at Northern Illinois University. Lastly, I thank my parents and sisters for giving me the strength to be a freethinker. I hope that my sons, Tryggve and Viggo, will someday read this translation and be inspired by Mella’s anarchist ideas. vii viii Acknowledgments The contents of this book comprise texts that Mella signed with his own name (these are the sections I have translated as “Anarchist Socialism: Prolegomena”, “Free Cooperation and Community Systems”, “The Principle of Reward and the Law of Needs”, “Is Labor a Physiological Need?”, “The Practical Meaning of Anarchism”, “Bellicose Literature”, “For the Barbarians”, “Guilty Idealisms”, “Authoritarian Bad Habits”, “The Absurdity of a Judgment”, “Concerning Antinomy”, “The Old Routines”, “How a Method is Strengthened”, “Productive Labor”, “The Great Resources”, “Revolutions”, “Savagery and Ferocity”, “The Sadness of Living”, “Enclosures”, “Dialogue about Skepticism”, “Reason is not enough”, “The Bankruptcy of Beliefs”, “Enough Idolatries!”, “Beyond the Ideal”, “The Intellectualist Hyperbole: Intellectual Workers and Manual Workers”, “Worn-out Socialism”, “Central Error of the Power of Nations”, “Verbalism in Education”, “The Two Spains”, “Culture”, “The Death of Pi y Margall”, “Anselmo Lorenzo: A Young Old Man”, “One Opinion and Another”, “Two Speeches: Maeztu and Alomar”, “Fictions and Realities”, and “Two Books”), with the initials of his first and last name or with the initials of his first name only (“The Uselessness of Laws”, “The Future of Latin America by M. Ugarte”, “Works of Auguste Dide”, and “The Christian Legend”), under his pseudonym Raúl (“Compound 606”, “Official Science of Criminology”, “Regimentation and Nature: Civilization’s Work”, “Vote, but Listen”, “Insignificant Things of an Insignificant Philosopher”, “Vision of the Future”, “Dead Things”, “The Weight of Immorality”, “Secondhand Morality”, “Sincerity”, “Signs of the Times”, “Liberalism and Interventionism”, “Brain and Brawn”, “The Drawbacks of Cheap Philosophy”, and “César o nada, Novel by Pío Baroja”), his pseudonym Mario (“An Indictment”, “Insignificant Things of an Insignificant Philosopher”, “Dunces and Crafty Devils”, and “Costa”), his pseudonym Dr. Alén (“Justice and Triable Issues: The Case of Sancho Alegre”, and “Ideas and Realities”), his pseudonym X (“Regional Monographs”), and texts that Mella did not sign, publishing them as lead- ers or editorials in the newspapers Acción Libertaria (Gijón, Vigo and Madrid) and El Libertario (“Those Who Rule”, “A Day of Almsgiving”, “Crème de la crème”, “Revolutionaries, Yes; Spokesmen for the Revolution, No”, “The Great Lie”, “Overpowering Centralism”, “Questions of Tactics”, “Libertarian Tactics”, “How One Fights”, “Political Evolution and Social Evolution”, “Sowing Death”, “Voices in Acknowledgments ix the Desert”, “The Uselessness of Laws”, “Psychology of Authority”, “Libertarians and Authoritarians”, “The Essence of Power: Dictatorships”, “Not Pessimistic or Optimistic”, “First of May”, “October 13, 19…”, “Class Struggle”, “Concerning Justice”, “The Problem with Education”, “What is meant by Rationalism?”, “Questions of Education”, “For the Spanish Bourgeoisie: An Adversary’s Advice”, “Hunger and Lasciviousness”, and “The Anarchist Danger”). TRaNSLaTOR’S NOTE Our ideals are the experimental result of each moment. (my translation, Mella 1926, 18) This kind of ever evolving storytelling and meaning-making in and through translation—where words are always in continuous and critical creative motion—fundamentally challenges our received ideas about “the expert.” (Nagar 2017, 124) When I began to translate Ricardo Mella’s work, the pressure to produce a faithful, definitive translation weighed heavily on my shoulders. I was unsure how to carry across Mella’s unique style and voice from Spanish to English. My uncertainty was crippling until I realized that the appropriate approach to translating his texts was to be found in his anarchist thought. Mella vehemently argues that anarchism’s “philosophy stems from the

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