Isaac Puente
Isaac Puente Amestoy (3 June 1896 – 1 September 1936), born in Las Carreras near Biscay, was a Basque physician and Spanish anarchist of a strong anarchist communist bent, who adhered to concerns around birth control, hygiene and sexuality. He promoted anarcho-naturism, and was active in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).
He is best known for his pamphletEl comunismo libertario ("Libertarian Communism") published in 1932. This came to be the adopted programme of the CNT at the May 1936 Congress in Zaragoza, just prior to the Spanish Civil War.
Puente was an important propagandist of anarcho-naturism,[1][2] was a militant of both the CNTanarcho-syndicalist trade union and Iberian Anarchist Federation. He was among the contributors of the Valencia-based Orto magazine between 1932 and 1934.[3] He published the book El Comunismo Libertario y otras proclamas insurreccionales y naturistas (en:Libertarian Communism and other insurrectionary and naturist proclaims) in 1933, which sold around 100,000 copies.[4] Puente was a doctor who approached his medical practice from a naturist point of view.[1] He saw naturism as an integral solution for the working classes, alongside Neo-Malthusianism, and believed it concerned the living being while anarchism addressed the social being.[5] He believed capitalist societies endangered the well-being of humans from both a socioeconomic and sanitary viewpoint, and promoted anarcho-communism alongside naturism as a solution.[1]
An active militant, he was involved in a failed uprising in Aragon and La Rioja in 1933 for which he suffered repression. Later, Puente was killed by Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War after being arrested and taken to Vitoria and later executed in Pancorbo in 1936. The Isaac Puente battalion was named after him.
The location of his remains are unknown.[6]
References
- ^ abc"Isaac Puente. El Comunismo Libertario y otras proclamas insurreccionales y naturistas."(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
- ^Iñiguez, Miguel (2004). Anarquismo y naturismo: el caso de Isaac Puente. Asociación Isaac Puente.
- ^Richard Cleminson (2003). ""Science and Sympathy" or "Sexual Subversion on a Human Basis"? Anarchists in Spain and the World League for Sexual Reform". Journal of the History of Sexuality. 12 (1): 120. doi:10.1353/sex.2003.0053. JSTOR 3704513.
- ^"Isaac Puente. El Comunismo Libertario y otras proclamas insurreccionales y naturistas. pg. 4"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 8 July 2012. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
- ^"Y complementarlos puesto que se ocupan de aspectos distintos, –el uno redime al ser vivo, el otro al ser social"Isaac Puente. El Comunismo Libertario y otras proclamas insurreccionales y naturistas.Archived 8 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^REGO, MARÍA (5 November 2013). "Isaac Puente, nuestro más ilustre desaparecido". El Diario Vasco (in Spanish). Retrieved 22 December 2025.
External links
- Biography at the CNT site (in Spanish)
- 1896 births
- 1936 deaths
- 20th-century anarchists
- Anarchists executed by Francoist Spain
- Anarcho-communists
- Basque anarchists
- Confederación Nacional del Trabajo members
- Executed trade unionists
- 20th-century Spanish trade unionists
- Naturism in Spain
- People from Abanto y Ciérbana-Abanto Zierbena
- Politicians from the Basque Country (autonomous community)
- Spanish anti-capitalists
- Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction)