Politics & Power Quote by Frederica Montseny

A promise of freedom that quietly smuggles in a warning: autonomy will be granted, but only on terms set by power. Montseny’s line is draped in the hopeful language of federation and self-construction, yet it ends by tethering each region’s future to “economic possibilities and political preponderance” - a phrase that sounds administrative, even fair-minded, while admitting that the strong will shape what the weak can “choose.”

The intent is coalition-building. In the Spain of Montseny’s moment - a country fractured by regional identities, class struggle, and the approaching catastrophe of civil war - “Iberian Federation” gestures toward a left project big enough to outgrow Madrid-centric nationalism. It’s also a bid to reconcile two combustible forces: anarchist anti-statism (Montseny’s ideological home) and the urgent wartime need for coordination. Federation offers a workaround: unity without overt central domination.

The subtext is more cynical, or at least more realistic. “Right to construct its life” flatters regional self-determination, but “in accordance with” narrows the field. Economics becomes destiny; politics becomes a euphemism for who controls institutions, guns, unions, or factories. Montseny is effectively acknowledging that revolution isn’t a blank slate - it’s negotiated terrain, where ideals meet supply chains and local strongmen.

Rhetorically, the sentence performs what it describes: it grants, then qualifies. That structure mirrors the precarious balance of the era’s leftist experiment, trying to sound emancipatory while bracing for the inevitable unevenness of power across Iberia.