A Guide to the Abraham Guillen Collection
Finding aid prepared by John R. Nemmers
University of Florida Smathers Libraries - Special and Area Studies Collections
August 2004
Descriptive Summary |
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| Provenance: | Guillen, Abraham | |
| Title: | Abraham Guillen Collection | |
| Dates: | 1943-1993 | |
| Extent: | 1 linear ft. 2 Boxes | |
| Identification: | MS Group 152 | |
Biographical/Historical Note
Author, economist, educator. One of the most prolific revolutionary writers in Latin America during the 1960s and intellectual mentor of the Uruguay's revolutionary Movement of National Liberation (Tupamaros). He is most widely known as the author of Strategy of the Urban Guerrilla, which played an important role in the activities of urban guerrillas in Uruguay, Argentina and Brazil.
Guillen was born in Guadalajara on March 13, 1913. During the Spanish Civil War he fought against the Franco's forces, operating within the National Confederation of Work (CNT), the Federation of Spanish Anarchists (FAI), and the General Union of Workers (UGT). At the end of the war, he was arrested by Franco's forces, condemned to death, and ultimately was sentenced to ten years in prison. He escaped from prison in 1945, fled Spain, and spent three years in France.
In 1948, he immigrated to Argentina. During the Peron era, he worked as an editor for Economia y finanzas ("Economy and Finance"), and his contributions were published under the pseudonym, Jaime de las Heras. Under another pseudonym, that of Fernando Molina, he contributed to the Buenos Aires newspaper El Laborista. His 1957 publication, The Agony of Imperialism, resulted in the loss of his job and his barring from employment as a journalist in Argentina. In 1960, he was employed briefly as an economic consultant to the Argentine government.
In 1961, he was imprisoned for a few months on the charge that he was a member of the Uturuncos, guerrillas active in northwest Argentina during 1960 and 1961. Following his imprisonment he sought political asylum in Montevideo in 1962 and soon made contact with revolutionary elements in that country. The first edition of Strategy of the Urban Guerrilla was published in 1966. It served as a counter to the rural insurrectionist methods espoused by Che Guevara, although Guillen did agree with Guevara on several key issues and even authored the introduction to the Uruguayan edition of Guevara's Guerrilla Warfare.
Guillen continued to publish frequently during this time period. He took a position as a journalist for the Montevideo newspaper Accion, often using the pseudonym of Arapey. Throughout the late 1960s and early 1970s, he was a constant subject of investigations both by Latin America police and by the CIA. In addition to Argentina and Uruguay, he also lived and worked in Peru and eventually returned to Madrid, Spain, where he taught theories of self-management and communal action. He died on August 1, 1993.
Scope and Content
The collection includes both unpublished and published manuscripts, as well as a small amount of correspondence with Guillen's publishers. In the manuscripts, Guillen critiques capitalism, socialism and communism for their individual economic weaknesses. He differentiates between the private capitalism of the West and socialism or communism of the East, which he calls public or state capitalism. He also examines variations of economic collectivization in an attempt to achieve an equitable society.
Guillen writes at length about the Tupamaro urban guerrilla movement in Uruguay and also examines the revolutionary guerrilla movement in Brazil. Additionally, Guillen focuses heavily on dissecting capitalism, socialism, communism, collectivization and anarchical models as fallible politically, both in theory and implementation. Guillen reserves his harshest criticism for the communist system, comparing it to fascism for its cruelty; however, Guillen examines only the Soviet experience with that ideology and none other.
The manuscript titles are written in Spanish, but approximate English translations are provided in each folder title.
The 2007 Addition to the collection includes materials donated by educator and author, Donald C. Hodges. These papers include several letters written from Guillen to Hodges over 30 years from 1972 to the 1980s. There are several publications written by or about Guillen between 1943 and 1973, as well as typescripts of a biography about Guillen written by Hodges. The letters from Guillen to Hodges are written in Spanish, but English translations are incorporated in the typescripts for the book.
Access or Use Restrictions
Access
Collection is open for research.
Administrative Information
Preferred Citation
[Identification of item], Abraham Guillen Collection, Special and Area Studies Collections, George A. Smathers Libraries, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida.
Acquisition Information
The Abraham Guillen Collection was donated by Donald C. Hodges.
For further information, please contact: Special Collections Access Services.
