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Title: Barricades in Barcelona Author: Agustin Guillamón Date: 2006 Language: en Topics: Barcelona, Spanish Revolution, CNT, history, barricades, anarcho-syndicalism Source: Retrieved on 2020-07-19 from https://libcom.org/history/barricades-barcelona-cnt-victory-july-1936-necessary-defeat-may-1937-agust%C3%ADn-guillam%C3%B3n
To Pascual Guillamón, wounded and disabled in the confrontations of July
19 in Barcelona; shot by the fascists when they occupied Tarrasa.
To my grandfather Eliseo, and his numerous brothers: emigrants,
cenetistas, anonymous fighters and exiles; always proletarians conscious
of being proletarians.
To my father, who at the age of twelve lost a war.
In memoriam.
This is a book about the barricades erected by the workers of Barcelona
in July 1936 and May 1937, only ten months apart. It is a study of the
reasons why they were built, as well as their similarities and
differences. It attempts to explain the “offensive” character of the
workers insurrection of July, and the “defensive” character of the May
insurrection. How did the practically unarmed workers manage to defeat
the rebellious army and the fascists in July? And how was it possible
that, in May, a proletariat armed to the teeth could be politically
defeated after having demonstrated its military superiority in the
streets? Why were the barricades of July still standing in October 1936,
while the barricades built in May were immediately dismantled?
The myth of the barricades, which appeared in Barcelona on numerous
occasions during the 19^(th) century, in the general strike of 1902,
during the Tragic Week of 1909 and the general strike of 1917, was not
propagated in vain. As history teaches us, barricades are structures for
defensive purposes, and almost always presage the defeat of the workers
at the hands of the army or the police. In July 1936 the first victory
of the proletariat over the army took place at the Brecha de San Pablo,
against some soldiers entrenched behind the barricades. This book
considers the barricades as one instrument, among others, of the
irrevocable decision of the proletariat to confront the class enemy; not
as a myth that chains it to the past. It contemplates the barricades as
a class frontier, with the proletariat on one side, and the enemy on the
other. Today’s class frontiers would include on the enemy side those who
deny the existence of the proletariat, confuse the Stalinist
dictatorships with communism, propose the conquest of the state instead
of its destruction, or proclaim that capitalism is eternal.
In the epilogue, the committees that arose during the Spanish
revolutionary events of 1936 are considered in the context of the
international experience of the Russian soviets and the German councils,
in order to recognize them as a form of revolutionary organization of
the working class.
July 1936 was a victorious insurrection; but was the insurrection of May
1937 a victory or a defeat? This book aspires to understand why, and
above all how, some of the revolutionary leaders of July 1936 became the
most disastrous and influential counterrevolutionaries of May 1937. To
put it another way, it attempts to explain the history of the workers
movement and to discard the ridiculous comic strips of supermen and
traitors, as well as the bourgeois or Stalinist biased arbitrary
interpretations that are characteristic of university academic studies.
The book also tries to respond to the questions posed by the French
surrealist poet Benjamin Péret, who was in Barcelona between August 1936
and April 1937: “What is the nature of the revolution of July 19, 1936:
bourgeois, anti-fascist, proletarian? Was there a situation of dual
power on July 20, 1936? If so, to whose benefit did it evolve? What
forces presided over its liquidation? Have the workers seized control of
the apparatus of production? Has the nationalization of production led
to or created the material basis for a form of state capitalism? Did the
working class organizations (parties, trade unions, etc.) attempt to
organize a workers power? Where and under what conditions? Why was
bourgeois power not liquidated? Why did the Spanish revolution end up in
disaster?”
The task of the poet is to ask the questions, the job of the historian
is to try to answer them, and the privilege of the reader is to judge
whether the responses given are correct and convincing.
Agustín Guillamón
Barcelona, December 2006
<quote> Vivere militare est. (To live is to fight.)
Seneca, Epistulae Morales </quote>0
At sixteen hundred hours on the sixteenth, the army rose up in revolt in
Melilla. The President of the Government, Casares Quiroga, when asked by
some journalists about what he was going to do about the uprising,
responded with a little joke: “They have arisen? Good. I am going to
bed.” On July 18, 1936 the military rebellion had spread to all of
Morocco, the Canary Islands and Seville.
The military garrison of Barcelona had approximately six thousand men,
against almost two thousand assault guards and two hundred “mossos
d’esquadra” [a special defense corps of the Generalitat]. The civil
guards, whose loyalties were uncertain, had about three thousand men.
The CNT-FAI had about twenty thousand militants organized in
neighborhood defense committees, ready to take up arms. The CNT agreed,
in the liaison commission that included representatives of the CNT, the
Generalitat and loyal military officers, to confront the rebels with
only one thousand armed militants. However, the CNT’s negotiations with
Escofet, the police commissioner, and with España, the regional minister
for the Government, were unproductive. On the night of July 17 the
cenetista [member of the CNT] Juan Yagüe, Secretary of the Maritime
Transport Trade Union, organized the assault on the weapons lockers of
the ships docked at the port, obtaining about 150 rifles; these were to
be added to the guns taken on the 18^(th) from the gun shops, security
guards and night watchmen of the city. This small arsenal, stored at the
Transport Workers Trade Union headquarters on the Ramblas, led to a
confrontation with the police commissioner, who demanded that the
weapons be handed over to him. There was some risk of an armed
confrontation with the assault guards, and the CNT militants themselves
hurled abuse at those who were, in their opinion, much too conciliatory:
Durruti and García Oliver. The incident was defused with the surrender
to Guarner, Escofet’s second in command, of some old inoperative rifles,
which prevented a break between the republicans and the anarchists on
the eve of the military coup.
Starting at three in the morning on July 19^(th), a growing crowd
demanded arms from the Government Chancellory, at the Plaza Palacio.
There were no arms for the people, because the Government of the
Generalitat was more afraid of a workers revolution than it was of the
military revolt against the Republic. Juan García Oliver, from the
balcony of the Chancellory, ordered the CNT militants to keep in touch
with the defense committees of their respective neighborhoods, or to
advance on the barracks of San Andrés to await an opportunity to seize
the arms stored there. A little later, when the uprising was announced
in Barcelona, the militants began fraternizing with the assault guards
at San Andrés when the latter, equipped with every variety of small
arms, surrendered their guns to the civilian volunteers who asked for
them. At the same time, the Deputy Director of the Aviation Services,
Servando Meana,[1] a CNT sympathizer, who was acting as a liaison
between the Prat Airfield and José María España, delivered the arms
stored in the Government Buildings to the anarchosyndicalists[2] on his
own responsibility and at his own risk, without the knowledge of his
superiors. The cenetistas of the Chemical Workers Trade Union began to
manufacture hand grenades.
At four-fifteen on the morning of July 19, 1936, the troops of the Bruc
barracks, in Pedralbes, marched into the streets, heading for April 14
Avenue (now known as Diagonal) towards the center of the city. The
workers, posted in the vicinity of the barracks, had orders to sound the
alarm but not to engage the soldiers until they came very close to the
city center. The previously-determined tactic of the Confederal Defense
Committee foresaw that it would be easier to fight the troops in the
streets than if they remained entrenched in their barracks.
The Jupiter football field on Lope de Vega Street was used as a staging
area from which to initiate the workers insurrection against the
military uprising, due to the fact that the homes of the majority of the
anarchist members of the “Nosotros” group were located in the vicinity,
as well as the large numbers of CNT militants who also lived in that
neighborhood. The Defense Committee of Pueblo Nuevo had requisitioned
two trucks from a nearby textile factory, which were then parked near
the Jupiter football field, and which were probably used as clandestine
arsenals by the anarchists. Gregorio Jover lived at number 276 Pujades
Street. Throughout the night of the 18^(th) to the 19^(th) of July, the
whole second floor of that building was converted into the meeting place
of the members of the “Nosotros” group, awaiting the news of the rebels
taking to the streets. Jover was joined by: Juan García Oliver, who
lived nearby, at number 72 of Espronceda Street, almost at the corner of
Llull; Buenaventura Durruti, who lived less than a kilometer away, in
the Clot neighborhood; Antonio Ortiz, born in the La Plata neighborhood
of Pueblo Nuevo, at the intersection of Independencia and Wad Ras
Streets (now Badajoz/Doctor Trueta); Francisco Ascaso, who also lived
nearby on San Juan de Malta Street; Ricardo Sanz, also a resident of
Pueblo Nuevo; Aurelio Fernández and “the Valencian” José Pérez Ibáñez.
From Jover’s window one could see the fence of the Jupiter football
field, next to which the two trucks were parked. At five in the morning
a message arrived informing Jover and his comrades that the troops had
begun to leave the barracks. Lope de Vega, Espronceda, Llull and Pujades
Streets, which bordered on the Jupiter football field, were full of
armed CNT militants. About twenty or so of the most experienced
militants, tempered in a thousand street battles, boarded the trucks.
Antonio Ortiz and Ricardo Sanz manned a machine gun behind the cab of
the leading truck. The sirens of the textile factories of Pueblo Nuevo
began to sound, proclaiming the general strike and the revolutionary
insurrection, and could be heard in nearby neighborhoods and at the
port. This was the agreed-upon signal for the call to battle. And this
time the alarm of the sirens literally meant that arms must be taken up
for defense against the enemy: “to arms”. The two trucks, flying the
black and red flag, followed by a column of armed men singing “Sons of
the People” and “To the Barricades”, encouraged by the neighbors
crowding the balconies, marched down Pujades Street to the Rambla of
Pueblo Nuevo, to walk up to Pedro IV Street, and from there to the
Construction Trade Union offices on Mercaders Street, and then to the
Metal Workers and Transport Trade Union headquarters on the Ramblas.
Never before had the verses of these songs conveyed such meaning:
“although we expect pain and death against the enemy, duty calls us, the
most precious good is liberty, it must be defended with faith and with
valor”; “with our bodies we shall subdue the fascist hyena, and the
entire people with the anarchists will make liberty triumph”.
The “Nosotros” group, now transformed into a Revolutionary Defense
Committee, directed the workers insurrection in Barcelona against the
military uprising from one of these trucks parked on the Plaza del
Teatro. By commanding the Ramblas the revolutionaries prevented the
link-up of the rebels who were proceeding from the Plaza de Cataluña and
Atarazanas-Capitanía, at the same time that it allowed for the rapid
dispatch, by way of the side streets and alleys of the Chino and Ribera
neighborhoods, of reinforcements to help the combatants at the Brecha de
San Pablo and Icaria Avenue. It was necessary to prevent the troops who
had left their barracks in the outer parts of the city from reaching the
center of the city and linking up with Capitanía-Atarazanas, or seizing
the nerve centers of the telephone, telegraph, postal and radio
transmitter installations.
The invaluable collaboration of the artillery sergeants Valeriano Gordo
and Martín Terrer from the Atarazanas barracks,[3] who opened the door
that faced on Santa Madrona Street, allowed the entry of the armed
anarchist groups and the arrest of almost the entire officer corps who
were conducted under arrest through that same door to Santa Madrona
Street. But a burst of machine gun fire from the nearby building housing
the Officers’ Quarters permitted the escape of Lieutenant Colubí, who
then took command of the resistance. The heavy barred doors of the wide
plazas that connected the old medieval Atarazanas with the building of
the Maestranza (now demolished), which faced directly on the Ramblas,
where the offices of the Artillery Brigade and the quarters of some
officers, made it possible for the soldiers who were entrenched there to
resist the attack. The rebels regained control of the barracks, but the
anarchists had seized four machine guns, several hundred rifles and
several crates of ammunition. The crossfire that was set up between the
office buildings and that part of the Atarazanas barracks that faced the
Rambla de Santa Mónica, to which was added the fire from the machine
guns installed at the base of the Columbus monument, made their position
impregnable. Since the militants from the Metal Workers and Transport
Trade Unions had left for Barceloneta, the anarchosyndicalist forces
that remained in the Plaza del Teatro decided to postpone the assault in
order to transfer their forces to the Brecha de San Pablo, with the arms
taken from Atarazanas, leaving the sector under the Ramblas, with the
buildings of the Military Offices and the Maestranza of Atarazanas
surrounded by a group under the command of Durruti, with an artillery
piece managed by Sergeant Gordo.
LA UNIVERSIDAD
At about four-fifteen in the morning three squadrons belonging to the
Cavalry Regiment of Montesa began to make their way on foot from the
barracks on Tarragona Street. The first squadron, after an initial
exchange of fire with assault guards that lasted about twenty minutes,
occupied the Plaza de España, with a machine gun unit, and then began
fraternizing with the assault guards from the barracks located at the
intersection of the Gran Vía-Paralelo, next to the Hotel Olímpico (today
the Catalonia Plaza Hotel). The assault guards and the cavalry squadron
reached a curious non-aggression pact, and over the course of the
morning reinforcements, which were not molested, left the barracks of
the assault guards for Cinco de Oros and Barceloneta, at the same time
that these assault guards were allowing the rebels to hold the vantage
point of the Plaza de España, and later allowed the passage of a company
of sappers from the engineers barracks of Lepanto, which proceeded along
the Paralelo until it arrived at Atarazanas and the Military Office
Building.
On Cruz Cubierta Street, in front of the Hostafrancs Municipal Building,
the defense committee erected a barricade that blocked the road. The
rebel troops had two artillery pieces, located next to the fountain in
the center of the Plaza de España, which had been brought in trucks from
the barracks at the Docks. The military fired an artillery salvo at the
barricade at Hostafrancs, but aimed too high, and the shells exploded in
a small barricade on the side street of Riego, killing eight people and
wounding eleven. It was a Danteesque scene, with arms, legs and chunks
of human flesh hanging from the trees, lampposts and trolley cables. The
decapitated head of a woman was found seventy meters from her torso. The
rebels controlled the Plaza de España until three in the afternoon.
The second squadron, with a machine gun unit, which was joined by a
group of rightists, was engaged in battle on Valencia Street, but gained
their objective, which was to dominate the Plaza de la Universidad and
to occupy the university building, in whose towers they placed machine
guns. They checked the identification papers of all the pedestrians,
detaining those who were members of the CNT or the parties of the left,
among whom was Angel Pestaña. In the courtyard of the University they
exchanged fire with an armed group from the POUM. Over the course of the
morning the rebels were forced to withdraw to the University Building,
pursued by a group of assault guards at whom they had been shooting, and
the members of the POUM who had occupied the Seminary, from which they
swept the University gardens with gunfire. Completely surrounded, and
after losing a large number of their men to desertion, the rebels
surrendered at two-thirty in the afternoon to a detachment of the civil
guard, and came out into the street behind the shield of the civilian
prisoners they had captured.
From the Lepanto engineers’ barracks, located on the Gran Vía, on the
outskirts of Barcelona, in Hospitalet de Llobregat (at what is now the
Plaza Cerdá, on the site where they are building the “Judicial Center”),
a company of sappers had emerged at about four-thirty and headed towards
the Plaza de España, where they fraternized with the cavalry squadron,
which dominated the vicinity with machine guns and light artillery, and
with the assault guards posted there, even though the latter had
displayed on the door of their barracks the proclamation of the
declaration of a state of war. Given the calm situation that prevailed
there, they were ordered to proceed to the Military Offices (the current
Military Building, across from the Columbus monument). They marched down
the Paralelo, and Vilá y Vilá Street, until they reached the Baleares
dock, where they were confronted by a company of assault guards that had
arrived from Barceloneta, which was defeated[4] because it was caught in
the crossfire from Atarazanas and the sappers. After leaving a small
group in Atarazanas the majority took up positions in the Military
Office Building in order to defend it. The rebels had achieved their
first victory and Escofet lost control of the Paralelo. The rebels
consolidated their hold on the medieval shipyards, the Aduana and the
electric power plant of the three smokestacks, and therefore controlled
the plaza around the Columbus monument and the lower part of the
Paralelo. In order to break their hold and to isolate the rebels at the
Plaza de España from those at Atarazanas, the workers of the Woodworkers
Trade Union and the Defense Committee of Pueblo Seco rapidly constructed
an enormous barricade at the Brecha de San Pablo, between El Molino and
the Chicago Bar.
The third squadron which had left the cavalry barracks on Tarragona
Street was ordered to consolidate rebel control of the Paralelo, with
the objective of linking up their barracks with the Capitanía. Now,
however, when they reached the vicinity of the Brecha de San Pablo, they
were incapable of getting past a monumental barricade built of
cobblestones and sandbags, which formed a double rectangle across half
the avenue, because an intense hail of gunfire prevented them from
proceeding. The soldiers were only able to occupy the headquarters of
the Woodworkers Trade Union of the CNT on Rosal Street and the barricade
in front of the building, abandoned by the CNT militants when, in
accordance with the Mola Plan,[5] the rebel soldiers advanced behind a
human shield of women and children from the neighborhood. Then the
soldiers installed three machine guns, one in front of La Tranquilidad
Bar (69 Paralelo, next to the Victoria theater), another on the roof of
the building next to El Molino, and the third on the barricade of the
Brecha de San Pablo, which were employed to full effect. It was now
eight in the morning. It took the third squadron two hours to take the
barricade, which was defended by the defense committee of Pueblo Seco
and militants of the woodworkers trade union. But the workers continued
to harass the troops from the other side of the Brecha, from the
terraces of nearby buildings and from all the adjoining side streets and
alleys. At eleven in the morning the third squadron had successfully
achieved full control of the entirety of the Brecha, after five hours of
combat. However, the attempt made by the troops located at the Plaza de
España to reinforce their comrades at the Brecha was thwarted when they
reached the Avenida Theater (at 182 Paralelo) and were subjected to
gunfire from the walls of the fairground enclosure that faced the
Paralelo, and from Tamarit. The cenetistas decided to mount a
counterattack against the Brecha, indirectly from Conde del Asalto (now
Nou de la Rambla) and other points, without success. The local residents
built barricades on the side streets of the Paralelo next to Poeta
Cabanyes and Tapioles. About a dozen assault guards, who had been
ordered to go there by the officer of the Assault Guards who was
fighting on the side of the rebel military forces, decided to join the
popular forces. Shortly thereafter, the CNT reinforcements that came
from the Plaza del Teatro, after storming the Hotel Falcón, from which
they had been subjected to sniper fire, then proceeded from the Ramblas
by way of San Pablo Street, and after securing the neutrality of the
barracks of the customs police and after freeing the prisoners at the
women’s prison of Santa Amalia, they arrived at the Ronda de San Pablo
by way of Flores Street, under a hail of gunfire from the rebel troops.
Ortiz, along with a small group of men who had brought the machine guns
seized at Atarazanas, managed to cross to the other side of the Ronda,
and rapidly constructed a small barricade that gave them some shelter
from the bullets of the three enemy machine guns installed in the
Brecha. The anarchists climbed onto the rooftops, and placed their
machine guns on the roof of the Chicago Bar (the same building that is
today the office of the Caixa de Catalunya) which provided covering fire
for the mass frontal assault on the Brecha, directed simultaneously from
Flores Street, from both ends of Aldana Street, from Tapias Street and
from the café Pay-Pay on San Pablo Street, located across from the
Romanesque church of Sant Pau del Camp, which they had entered by way of
the back door.[6] The captain who commanded the troops next to the
machine gun in the middle of the Brecha was felled by shots fired by
Francisco Ascaso, who had gone on ahead of the other attackers and taken
up an advantageous position, while the others advanced without any
cover, in the open. A lieutenant tried to take command of the unit from
his fallen captain, in order to continue to resist, but he was shot by a
corporal from among his own troops. This was the beginning of the end of
the battle. Between eleven and noon the third squadron was defeated, and
the Brecha de San Pablo was recovered by the workers. While Francisco
Ascaso was jumping for joy and waving his rifle over his head, García
Oliver was shouting over and over, “Look what we did to the army!” In
this crucial district of the city the anarchists, among whom were
Francisco Ascaso, Juan García Oliver, Antonio Ortiz, Gregorio Jover and
Ricardo Sanz,[7] had defeated the army after more than six hours of
battle. A small number of soldiers continued to put up some resistance,
after having taken refuge within El Molino, where, after running out of
ammunition, they finally surrendered at about two in the afternoon.
ESCOLAPIOS DE SAN ANTONIO
The infantry regiment of Badajoz (from the Pedralbes barracks) had been
ordered to go to the Capitanía by General Llano from the general staff,
and that is where it went, but with the intention of placing itself
under the orders of General Goded, who had flown from Palma de Mallorca
to Barcelona to assume command over the military uprising. Once it
reached the Gran Vía, the company under the command of Captain López
Belda continued to march down Urgell Street towards the Paralelo, where
they came under fire, and from there they went to Atarazanas, and the
Columbus and Capitanía monument, where they reinforced the remaining
troops at this location. López Belda and the sappers were the only rebel
troops that reached their proposed objectives, which in their case was
to reinforce Atarazanas and the Capitanía.
The rest of the column, under the command of Major López Amor, proceeded
down the Gran Vía towards the Plaza de Cataluña, and exchanged fire with
the squadron of the Montesa regiment, which had already occupied the
Plaza de la Universidad. Once this error was discovered, a company went
down by the Ronda de San Antonio, in the direction of Capitanía, but
once it reached the vicinity of the Market of San Antonio, it was
attacked by the defense committees, which would not allow it to
reinforce the troops fighting in the Brecha, so the company had to take
refuge in Los Escolapios, where they surrendered one hour later, after
putting up stiff resistance.
After leaving a small garrison behind in the University, the rest of the
troops, under the orders of López Amor, entered the Plaza de Cataluña by
way of Pelayo and the Ronda Universidad, where they were surrounded by a
curious and apprehensive crowd, shouting “Viva la Republica”, whose
members did not know if these were loyal or rebel troops. After an
exchange of fire between the rebel troops and the assault guards, white
handkerchiefs appeared, the shooting stopped, and assault guards and
soldiers embraced and fraternized. The crowd of armed civilians arrived
and broke up the troop formation by mixing with the soldiers. The
confusion, the cunning tactics of some, the indecision of the assault
guards, the mistrust of the workers, and the excessive physical
proximity created an incredible and dangerous disorder. The Plaza was
occupied by units of the Assault Guards and by numerous militant armed
workers on the side of the Ramblas, the Telefónica and the Puerta del
Ángel. Major López Amor gave the order to check the identification
papers of the civilians, most of whom were cenetistas, but faced with
the impossibility of arresting all of them he decided to evict them from
the Plaza, and installed machine guns at the four corners of the Plaza:
on the roof of the Maison Dorée (at the corner of Rivadeneira, on part
of the site that is now occupied by Sfera), on the roof of the Cataluña
Theater (approximately the site of the current Habitat), at the Hotel
Colón (now Banesto) and at the Casino Militar (today absorbed by El
Corte Inglés), and he placed two light 7.5 cm artillery pieces in the
center of the Plaza Cataluña. López Amor then went to the Telefónica
with the intention of occupying it and controlling communications. The
initial collaboration of the Assault Guards, obtained by the treason of
their commanding officer, Lieutenant Llop, was transformed, after a very
uncomfortable period of about ten minutes, into open opposition. López
Amor ordered the two artillery pieces situated in the center of the
Plaza to open fire on the Telefónica. After three volleys communications
were almost totally cut off. Gunfire erupted both within and outside of
the building. During the confusion a group of Assault Guards captured
López Amor in front of the Casino Militar. The companies of the Assault
Guards, together with the armed workers, barricaded themselves in
Fontanella, the upper floors of the Telefónica, the Puerta del Ángel and
the Ramblas. Pelayo, Vergara and Ronda Universidad Streets had already
been secured by militant workers, thus isolating the army troops, who
finally had no other recourse than to take refuge in the Hotel Colón,
the Maison Dorée, the Casino Militar and the lower floors of the
Telefónica, from which points they resisted the attacks of the workers
and the Assault Guards. The center of the Plaza was a no-man’s land. The
troops had been prevented from making their way along the Ramblas
towards Atarazanas and Capitanía, or by way of Fontanella and Puerta del
Ángel to the Police Station at Vía Layetana or the Palace of the
Generalitat. The equipment of the Telefónica and the nearby radio
transmitters had also been prevented from falling into the hands of the
rebels. The Telephone workers cut off communications of the Capitanía
with the rebel barracks. The popular forces quickly stormed the Casino
Militar and the Maison Dorée, thanks to the combined efforts of the
Assault Guards and the workers, who had secured their positions by using
the tunnels of the subway. The resistance of the rebels, who now only
controlled the shelled Hotel Colón and the lower floors of the
Telefónica, came to an end at four in the afternoon, when they
surrendered to the late but decisive attack of the civil guards,
supported by the Assault Guards and the enthusiasm of the people, who
did not trust the civil guards. An enormous crowd filled the openings of
the nearby streets, the subway entrances and the adjacent alleys. White
flags appeared in the Hotel Colón and then the popular fury swept away
all in its path. The cannon that Lecha had brought from Claris thundered
once again. Durruti and Obregón (who died in the attack), in a massive
assault from the Ramblas by the anarchist militants, charging right in
the open without cover, retook the lower floors of the Telefónica. At
the same time, civil guards and workers, Josep Rovira of the POUM in the
forefront, entered the Hotel Colón and took the officers prisoner. The
Plaza was littered with corpses. Here, too, the army had been defeated.
From the Gerona Barracks, or from the Santiago Cavalry barracks, at the
corner of Lepanto and Travesera de Gracia Streets, near the Hospital of
San Pablo, around five in the morning three squadrons of about fifty men
each proceeded on foot, with machine guns installed on cars. Their
objective was to take control of the Cinco de Oros (today the Plaza Juan
Carlos I), at the corner of the Paseo de Gracia and Diagonal Street, in
order to proceed from there to Plaza Urquinaona and the Arco del
Triunfo. They were subjected to minor harassment during their entire
passage through Lepanto, Industria, and Córcega Streets, as well as the
Paseo de San Juan (then known as García Hernández). At the Cinco de
Oros, however, they found several companies of assault guards awaiting
them, with a squadron of cavalry and a machine gun unit, accompanied by
a crowd of militant workers, positioned on rooftops and balconies, in
trees and doorways, armed with automatic weapons and hand grenades.
Unexpectedly for the rebels, who had advanced without taking the
precaution of sending out any scouts, a steady barrage of fire swept the
leading ranks of the troops, causing a large number of casualties among
both soldiers and officers. Colonel Lacasa, who commanded the regiment
from Santiago, took refuge with the surviving officers and some soldiers
in the Carmelite Monastery, situated on the Diagonal at the corner of
Lauria Street, where, with the active assistance of the monks, they
barricaded themselves in impregnable positions thanks to the machine
guns installed on the lower floors and on the roof.[8] The detachment of
civil guards that had been sent to fight them joined them instead. The
Colonel stationed advance outposts in the vicinity of the monastery at
the corners of Córcega/Santa Tecla Streets, Claris/Diagonal Streets and
Menéndez Pelayo (now Torrent de l’Olla)/Lauria Streets, which, after
suffering many casualties, were forced to withdraw before nightfall.
That night, the rebels entrenched in the monastery agreed to surrender
to the civil guards at dawn on the following day.
A short distance away, at the corner of Balmes and Diagonal Streets, a
half hour after the beginning of the battle at Cinco de Oros, four
trucks coming from the San Andrés Artillery Depot, transporting about
fifty artillery gunners to the Plaza de Cataluña, were ambushed, stopped
and destroyed by the fusillades of fire from workers and Assault Guards.
Rifles and artillery pieces were seized by the workers.
The Mountain Artillery Regiment, at the barracks of the Docks on Icaria
Avenue, was the principal focal point of the plot of the military
uprising. Two trucks had managed to leave the barracks, each with
artillery pieces, and both successfully arrived at their destiny at the
Plaza de España. One of these guns, installed at the center of the
square, announced with its roar that the artillery had come to the
streets. At six a column was organized, under the command of Major
Fernández Unzué, whose objective was first to take the Palace of the
Government and then the Palace of the Generalitat. In October 1934, this
same Major, at the command of just one battery of artillery, only needed
to fire once on the Palace of the Generalitat and immediately saw the
white flag that put an end to the Catalanist rebellion of Companys. An
airplane had bombed the barracks before the trucks left, causing some
casualties and a certain degree of demoralization. Nonetheless, the
three batteries drove into the streets, without waiting for the arrival
of the two companies of the nearby Alcántara Infantry Regiment, which
were supposed to provide cover for them. That artillery batteries must
be protected by infantry was a fundamental in the military manuals,
since the artillery pieces had to advance slowly through the middle of
the street, in the open, dragged by animals; but the officers were
convinced that the “mob” would run away once they heard the first salvo
of cannon fire. Meanwhile, in Barceloneta, the celebration of the local
residents and the longshoremen was transformed into a unanimous outcry
demanding arms. Enrique Gómez García, the commanding officer of the
Barceloneta barracks of the Assault Guards, faced with an imminent
confrontation, decided to distribute weapons to those who handed over to
him, as a guarantee that they would return the weapons, their trade
union or political party membership cards. The first battery, commanded
by Captain López Varela, managed to proceed without incident until he
came to the bridge of San Carlos (which no longer exists), which crossed
Icaria Avenue and the railroad tracks, when he unexpectedly encountered
gunfire from a group of Assault Guards, along with workers who had been
armed by the Assault Guard barracks, posted in the environs of the Plaza
de Toros of Barceloneta (which no longer exists), the bridge itself, on
the boxcars and walls of the rail yards, and on the nearest balconies
and rooftops. They were rapidly joined by a crowd of militant workers
from Pueblo Nuevo, Barceloneta and from the Transport and Metal Workers
Trade Unions of the Ramblas. The three batteries found themselves
squeezed between two sides, and each prevented the others from
advancing. López Varela managed to set up the machine guns and the four
cannons of his battery, and opened fire, without pausing in his advance
towards Barceloneta. After two hours of fighting on the defensive, the
two batteries of the rearguard, immobilized and constantly harassed by
well-entrenched attackers, managed to withdraw to their barracks with
numerous casualties, in a chaotic retreat, marked by the terrified
stampede of the animals that were transporting some munitions that had
exploded when they were hit by gunfire. At the entrance to the barracks
they suffered fourteen casualties, caused by the machine guns of two
airplanes, which shortly afterwards bombed the barracks themselves with
little effect. The battery of López Varela, which was now incapable of
retreating, could not pass the intersection of Icaria Avenue and the
Paseo Nacional, which was blocked by an enormous barricade that was six
feet high, which the longshoremen had built with the usual cobblestones
and the not so common sandbags full of carob beans, along with pieces of
wood and five hundred tons of spooled paper unloaded in a half hour by
electric forklifts from the ship, “Ciudad de Barcelona”, moored at the
nearby “moll de les garrofes”, the usual location for the unloading of
carob beans from the sailboats that transported them from the coastal
towns of Castellón and Tarragona. The battery was then subjected to
attack by mortar fire from the roof of the Government building, as well
as by a steady barrage of fire from rifles and machine guns coming from
the Escuela Náutica and the Depósito Franco. The soldiers fired their
cannons at the barricades and the crowds, producing terrible damage to
both; but the barricades were rebuilt and the crowds returned to
intensify their determined attack. The position of the rebels became
untenable. At ten they received the order to retreat, but this retreat
turned into a hellish ordeal, because as the soldiers attempted to
withdraw, the spools of paper, now transformed into mobile barricades,
were pushed forward by unarmed workers, while other workers well
protected behind the spools threw hand grenades and maintained a steady
rate of rifle fire. The final assault was made against about thirty men,
barricaded behind their artillery pieces and dead animals, fighting
elbow to elbow. López Varela, wounded, was taken to the Gobernación, and
the rest of the officers were taken prisoner, while the soldiers
fraternized with the people. Several cannons and various small arms were
taken: and it was only ten-thirty in the morning.
The Docks barracks was besieged, with a barricade built a hundred meters
from the main gate. The infantry from the Alcántara regiment was easily
repulsed twice, although some soldiers managed to sneak into the
barracks, without at all altering the desperate situation of the
besieged, who, around eight in the evening, surrendered to several
officers of the Assault Guards, who took charge of the prisoners. That
night the barracks was taken over by the defense committees of
Barceloneta and Pueblo Nuevo, without meeting any resistance.
Next to the Parque de la Ciudadela there were two barracks: that of the
Intendencia, loyal to the republic, so loyal in fact that it was
entrusted with the mission of separating and keeping watch over two
thirds of the civil guard units, which at the orders of Colonel Escobar
had left Layetana to seize control of the Plaza de Cataluña, and the
barracks of the Alcántara infantry regiment, whose officers were divided
between those who sympathized with and those who were opposed to the
military uprising, which maintained a curious neutrality and a typical
“soldier’s caution” that caused the troops to set off quite late, after
nine in the morning, at the order of General Fernández Burriel. One
company was ordered to come to the relief of the besieged artillery
barracks at the Docks; their mission was thwarted by the opposition of
an armed crowd that made them return promptly to their barracks. The
second company was ordered to occupy the broadcast studios of Radio
Barcelona at Number 12 Caspe Street. Coming under fire in the Urquinaona
Plaza, the soldiers made a desperate attempt to make their way down
Lauria Street towards Caspe, but after an hour of heavy fighting the
company was practically destroyed, and only a small group managed to
take shelter in the Hotel Ritz, where they surrendered after being
subjected to artillery fire.
The barracks of the Seventh Light Artillery regiment and the Parque de
Artillería were two buildings located at the end of San Andrés del
Palomar Street. The rebels organized a joint defense of the two
buildings, relying on the collaboration of civilian elements, most of
whom were monarchists who had reacted unfavorably to the speech made to
them by Captain Reinlen, who concluded his speech with final cries of
“Viva España” and “Viva la Republica”. Approximately thirty thousand
rifles were stored at the Parque de Artillería. After the first
departure of the four trucks, which as we have seen were destroyed at
the intersection of Diagonal/Balmes, a second convoy was organized,
whose orders were to support the infantry of the Badajoz regiment (which
had taken refuge in various buildings on the Plaza de Cataluña, without
being able to proceed any farther). This second convoy consisted of one
battery (four cannons). It arrived at Bruc Street, near Diputación
Street, at seven in the morning, after a long trip of six kilometers
almost without incident. At the intersection of Bruc and Diputación they
were ambushed by a group of Assault Guards and armed workers. The
outbreak of gunfire raised the alarm among the nearby Assault Guard
units that were guarding the Police Station at Vía Layetana, and was
also heard by those who had been dispatched from Cinco de Oros to the
Plaza de Cataluña, as well as by the popular forces that were besieging
the Hotel Colón and the Telefónica. The battery advanced down Diputación
Street towards Claris Street, but when it attempted to turn down this
street and cross the Gran Vía, it was subjected to steady rifle and
machine gun fire, which caused numerous casualties among the troops and
the draft animals. Once they set up their cannons and machine guns in
the square formed by Diputación, Claris, and Lauria Streets and the Gran
Vía, they opened fire on the crowds that never ceased to regroup and
counterattack. The seventy soldiers who manned the battery were
confronted by much more numerous attackers, well concealed on rooftops,
in windows and on balconies, whose resolve never flagged despite the
artillery fire. The reinforcements that came to the aid of the popular
forces were composed of two companies of Assault Guards, since a third
company had refused to fight and returned to the comfort of its barracks
on the Plaza de España, and by hundreds of workers who were constantly
joining the battle. The situation of the rebel battery became
increasingly more difficult. After two hours of fighting, however, a
shocking number of fatalities had been caused by the rebel artillery.
The cannons were defended by a screen of machine guns, which made them
inaccessible to every charge. The Assault Guards became discouraged, and
thought that they lacked the means necessary to confront the artillery.
The original and very risky tactic utilized by a group of CNT militants
to successfully carry out the final attack consisted in boarding the
flatbeds of three trucks, and after driving them at full speed towards
the screen of machine guns, leaping from the vehicles throwing hand
grenades. This unexpected tactic led to the disruption of the defensive
screen of the machine guns and their seizure by the workers, who fired
them at the artillery battery. At eleven in the morning the battle was
over. While the rebel officers surrendered to the Assault Guards, the
anarchosyndicalists immediately seized the machine guns and one cannon,
which they dragged by hand towards the Plaza de Cataluña.
PEOPLE: GODED IS TAKEN PRISONER
At the Capitanía building, on the Paseo de Colón, where the commanding
officers of the Cataluña Division were located, the generals and staff
officers gave the appearance of acting in an Opera Buffa. No one obeyed
the orders of General Llano de la Encomienda, the supreme commander of
the Division, who remained loyal to the Republic, but no one dared
either to depose him and take command. The rebel General Fernández
Burriel allowed Llano to continue to issue orders and take telephone
calls in his office. The whole atmosphere was redolent of accusations of
weakness, barracks boastfulness and invocations of honor. When General
Goded, after declaring a state of war in Mallorca and easily dominating
the island, came to Barcelona at about twelve-thirty in one of several
seaplanes to take control of the uprising in Cataluña, he could not
understand why Llano de Encomienda remained at large and why the General
Staff had not yet centralized the command over the operations of the
rebels. Goded’s journey from the Naval Air Station to Capitanía was
surrounded by the sounds of intense exchanges of gunfire and the distant
roar of artillery. After a series of curses and mutual threats of death
exchanged with General Llano, Goded confronted the military situation of
the moment. He made a futile phone call to General Aranguren of the
Civil Guard, in an attempt to give him orders. Aranguren, who was at the
Palacio de Gobernación, accompanied and discreetly kept under
observation by España, Pérez Farrás and Guarner, refused to join the
rebels. Goded ordered the infantry of the Alcántara regiment to make
another attempt to relieve the artillery troops at the Docks. He could
not understand why the latter had been left without infantry protection.
Faced with the demoralization produced among the rebels by the constant
bombardment and strafing by the republican airplanes, Goded ordered,
through a go-between, the seaplanes which had escorted him to Barcelona
to bomb the airport at El Prat. But when his messenger came to the Navy
Air Station with his written orders, the seaplanes had already left for
their base at Mahón, after confronting the manifest hostility of the
naval personnel and the Air Station staff. It was two-thirty and the
defeat of the rebels already appeared to be a forgone conclusion. Goded
then tried to summon reinforcements from Mallorca, Zaragoza, Mataró and
Girona. He could not get a telephone connection with Mataró or Girona,
nor could he send a messenger, because the armored car’s tires had been
punctured by bullets. Zaragoza and Palma were too far away to offer any
effective support. Nor could the infantry of the Alcántara regiment
secure its objectives, since it was easily repulsed in its second
attempt to approach the barracks of the Docks, and the soldiers who
managed to sneak into the barracks were not numerous enough to raise the
siege.
A heterogeneous crowd, formed of militant workers brandishing rifles and
wearing helmets and cartridge belts taken from the enemy, and Assault
Guards with their dress coats unbuttoned, or in their shirts, dragged
the cannons taken at Diputación-Claris, proceeding via Layetana Street
with the intention of assaulting the Division. The longshoreman Manuel
Lecha, a former artilleryman,[9] installed the guns in the Plaza Antonio
López in order to get a direct line of sight to fire on the Capitanía
building, while the batteries taken on Icaria Avenue were firing on an
indirect line from Barceloneta. It was five in the afternoon. Goded,
seeing these arrangements, telephoned España, the Chancellor of the
Gobernación, in order to boastfully demand his surrender, receiving in
response the offer of a half hour to surrender, with the guarantee that
his life would be spared, and once this half hour had expired the
artillery would open fire. At five-thirty the artillery salvos began.
Forty salvos and a barrage of rifle fire that was getting closer and
closer allowed no doubts to be entertained about the imminence of the
final assault. A white flag appeared and both sides observed a
ceasefire, but when a loyal officer approached the building to accept
its surrender, the machine guns of Capitanía opened fire. The battle
resumed and when the doors of the building were about to be forced a
white flag once again appeared, but now the attackers did not cease
firing, and finally broke down the doors and entered in force into the
Capitanía. It was now six in the evening. Major Pérez Farrás,[10]
risking his own life, managed to protect General Goded from certain
lynching, which was the fate of various officers in civilian clothing,
and brought him to the Palacio de la Generalitat, where he was convinced
by Companys to broadcast over the radio transmitter that was installed
there an order to cease fire: “Fate has been unkind to me and I have
been taken prisoner. Therefore, if you want to avoid a bloodbath, the
soldiers who will join me may do so free of any responsibility.” It was
seven in the evening. The message was recorded and broadcast by the
radio transmitters every half hour, with a significant propaganda impact
all over Spain.
The popular victory was so overwhelming that some buildings fell by
themselves, without any violence at all, as ripe fruit falls from the
tree. The warden of the Modelo Prison opened the doors of the prisoners’
cells, anticipating the inevitable riot and assault on the prison. At
Number 26 Mercaders Street the Construction Workers Trade Union as well
as the Regional Committee of the CNT and the Local Trade Union
Federation had their headquarters. Right behind these buildings was the
Barcelona Employers Federation headquarters, a building that is now
Number 34 Vía Layetana. In the adjacent building, currently Number 32,
was the Casa Cambó. Both buildings were occupied by the cenetistas,
without any resistance, since they had been completely abandoned, with
the furniture and the archives left behind. Both buildings together were
known as the “Casa CNT-FAI” and served right up until the end of the war
as the headquarters of the CNT and FAI Regional Committees, the Mujeres
Libres, and, among many other groups, the Committee of Investigation and
Information of the CNT-FAI, directed by Manuel Escorza, who, from the
attic of the Casa Cambó, made extensive use, over the following months,
of the information contained in the archives captured from the Employers
Association and the Lliga.
The small force that guarded the barracks and artillery depot of San
Andrés, most of which was composed of right wing and monarchist
peasants, saw how the crowds that were attacking the barracks kept
growing larger. During the afternoon the republican air force strafed
and bombed the barracks and the Maestranza, taking care not to blow up
the arsenal, causing some casualties, both among the soldiers as well as
among their attackers. The planes repeated their attacks three or four
more times, killing and wounding several more soldiers, causing an
enormous demoralization to spread among the defenders, which was further
magnified by news of the disaster that had overtaken the military
rebellion in Barcelona. By nightfall the defenders, both military as
well as civilian, were gradually abandoning the barracks, and attempting
to escape. Without any resistance the confederal defense committees of
San Andrés, Horta, Santa Coloma, San Adrián and Pueblo Nuevo stormed the
barracks and the Maestranza, before dawn, seizing the entire arsenal
stored there. There were thirty thousand rifles. The Barcelona
proletariat was now armed. The Assault Guards, sent by Escofet to
prevent this from happening, refused to engage in an armed conflict with
the workers.
The barricades built in front of the barracks to prevent the escape of
the besieged rebels, now prevented the entrance of the Assault Guards.
It was now too late to impose bourgeois order: the situation was
distinctly revolutionary. If these Assault Guards had opened fire on the
people they would have been immediately transformed into suicidal
rebels.
In reality, as of six in the evening, with the final capture of the
Plaza de Cataluña and the surrender of Goded at the Capitanía, the
uprising could be considered to have been defeated. All that remained
was a cleanup operation to finish off the last holdouts. The various
barracks, now with hardly any troops, were totally demoralized, and
further discouraged by constant desertions, they surrendered or were
stormed over the course of the evening and night. Such was the case, for
example, at the barracks of Bruc, in Pedralbes, held by a small squad of
rebels. In the evening a plane dropped leaflets, explaining that the
soldiers were discharged and the rebel officers deposed, which provoked
the desertion of almost all the soldiers. The few remaining officers
decided to surrender the barracks to the Civil Guard, although it was
only shortly thereafter stormed by the cenetista workers without meeting
any resistance. They renamed it the “Bakunin” barracks.
BARRACKS
On the 20^(th) only two rebel strongholds remained: the monastery of the
Carmelites and the core positions of Atarazanas and the Military
Offices.
Since dawn an enormous crowd had joined the siege of the monastery of
the Carmelites, impatiently breaking through the cordon of Assault
Guards. The besieged had already announced their surrender on the
previous night, without, however, ceasing to shoot at any of the
besiegers who tried to approach the monastery. The active complicity of
the monks with the rebels, to whom they had given refuge, medical aid
and food, was interpreted by the masses surrounding the monastery in
such a way that they imagined that the monks had also manned the machine
guns, which had caused so many casualties. Towards noon Colonel Escobar
arrived on the scene, in the command of a company of the Civil Guard,
who negotiated with the rebels for their immediate surrender. The gates
were opened and from the outside one could see the officers, mixing
fraternally with the hated monks. An enraged mob, breaking through the
cordon of Assault Guards and Civil Guards, invaded the monastery,
killing the monks and officers with clubs and knives or shooting them
point-blank, and did not even spare the corpses of their enemies. The
body of Colonel Lacasa was decapitated, that of Captain Domingo was
decapitated, mutilated and impaled on a pole and the body of Major
Rebolledo was castrated.[11] Anonymous militiamen dispersed an impromptu
march that celebrated the victory by displaying the impaled head of the
Colonel. The cut-up remains of Captain Domingo were brought in a taxi to
the zoo to be fed to the beasts.[12]
At the end of the Ramblas, in front of the Columbus monument, on the
left was the building containing the Military Offices, and on the right,
just in front, the Atarazanas barracks, divided into two zones,
separated by broad plazas divided by walls and barred doors: the
Maestranza (a building that once faced on the Rambla de Santa Mónica,
which no longer exists), whose defenders were still holding out, and the
old medieval shipyards, which had already been conquered. The Palacio de
Dependencias (the current Gobierno Militar, where Salvador Puig Antich
was tried in 1973), housed all the auxiliary services of the Division:
Judge Advocates, auditors, accountants, prosecutors, mobilization
center, etc. The crossfire between the buildings of the Dependencias,
the Columbus monument and Atarazanas, made them impregnable. Guns
commanded a wide expanse from the balcony of Atarazanas, which opened up
on the Rambla, and caused many fatalities among the attackers. The siege
had begun on the 19^(th). At dawn on the 20^(th), when the uprising had
been defeated in the entire city, all available forces were deployed on
the Rambla de Santa Mónica in expectation of the final assault. A 7.5 cm
gun, under the command of Sergeant Gordo, maintained a steady barrage on
the old masonry of Atarazanas, at the same time that the truck that had
left from Pueblo Nuevo, with a machine gun installed on the back of the
vehicle, protected with mattresses, approached from the other side of
Atarazanas, maintaining a steady fire from the machine gun. The
situation became untenable for the besieged: some one hundred fifty men,
one hundred ten in the Dependencias and about forty in Atarazanas. Two
more cannons and two mortars installed on the pier joined the siege.
Airplanes continuously bombed and strafed the rebel positions. From
nearby terraces men threw hand grenades. After they ran out of
ammunition the soldiers in the Dependencias Militares decided to
surrender, and, after negotiating with the Gobernación concerning
guarantees of safety for the departure of the officers’ relatives who
were in the building, flew the white flag shortly after noon, allowing
the entrance of the Assault Guards. The anarchists who besieged the last
redoubt of the rebels, in Atarazanas, rejected the intervention of the
Civil Guard and the militants of the POUM in the final assault. The CNT
Defense Committee, including all the members of the “Nosotros” group,
was present at Atarazanas, and decided to storm it. The anarchist
attackers approached the barracks, some taking cover by running from
tree to tree, others taking cover “behind the rolling newspaper
spools”.[13] In an imprudent advance Francisco Ascaso was killed by a
shot in the head. Shortly afterwards the soldiers in Atarazanas
surrendered, flying the white flag, at the sight of which the
libertarians climbed over the walls and entered amidst a storm of
gunfire directed at the officers, while they fraternized with the common
soldiers. It was a little before one in the afternoon.
INSURRECTION
The main barracks were on the outskirts of the city and their
predictable strategy,[14] confirmed by the documents of the conspirators
in the uprising, which had fallen into the hands of Major Felip Díaz
Sandino, consisted in converging in the center of the city to occupy the
government buildings, especially the Palacio de la Generalitat and that
of the Gobernación, the communications centers such as the Telephone,
Post Office and Telegraph facilities, and the radio transmitters and to
make contact with the Division headquarters (the Capitanía building).
The forces loyal to the Government of the Generalitat had a bicephalous
leadership, divided between the Police Station on Vía Layetana,[15]
under the direction of Captain Escofet and Major Alberto Arrando, who
exercised provisional command over the Assault Guards, and where
Companys had taken refuge; while in the Palacio de Gobernación the
chancellor José María España directed operations, who had ordered the
mobilization of two-thirds of the Civil Guard forces behind the Palace
since eleven in the morning of the 19^(th).
The plan of the confederal Defense Committee, drafted by García Oliver,
consisted in keeping activities in the vicinity of the barracks under
observation, and allowing the rebel troops to leave the barracks without
engaging them in battle, because it would be easier to defeat them in
the streets. The close personal relations between the leaders of the CNT
and various republican officials, especially from Atarazanas and the El
Prat airfield, proved to be of decisive importance on July 19^(th),[16]
with the seizure of the important arsenal at the Atarazanas barracks and
the weapons stored at the Gobernación, together with the continuous air
bombardments of the barracks held by the rebels. The collaboration of
the CNT with the air force had already materialized several days before
the rebel uprising, in the form of intrepid reconnaissance flights over
Barcelona carried out by various members of the “Nosotros” group in
planes piloted by the officers Ponce de León and Meana, with the
knowledge of Díaz Sandino, commander of the air force at Prat.[17]
The arrogance and ineptitude of the rebel officers, who were convinced
that “the mob” would run away in fear once they heard the first salvo of
cannon fire, or once they saw the soldiers marching down the street in
martial order, led to the ambushes that they suffered at Cinco de Oros,
Balmes-Diagonal and at Icaria Avenue, where they were taken by surprise
and massacred while advancing slowly down the middle of the street, with
mules dragging their artillery pieces, without any scouts sent out
ahead, or any protection from infantry. The rebels were sure that the
uprising would be a military cakewalk, as was the case on October 6,
1934. But on July 19 the rebels did not have to confront four
overweening Catalanists, led by an incompetent governor like the fascist
Dencás, or an anti-CNT police chief like Badía, who was also hostile to
Companys because of a dispute over women,[18] but the industrial
proletariat of Barcelona, organized in defense committees in each
working class neighborhood and in the groups of militants of the various
trade unions of the CNT. That is, by those non-professional proletarian
combatants who, over the course of the struggle itself, would be called
and would call themselves, after the evening of July 19, and as they
took up arms: the workers militias, the militiamen.
With the exception of Cinco de Oros, the initiative in the
confrontations with the rebels was always seized by the proletariat: on
the Paralelo, in Pueblo Nuevo, in Barceloneta, in San Andrés. The
Assault Guards (1,960 men in all)[19] were incited to fight and resist
by the courage and fearlessness of the workers, whom they overwhelmingly
supported. On numerous occasions the Assault Guards hesitated, as they
did at Diputación Street in their confrontation with the artillery unit,
or even collaborated with the rebels, as they did at the Plaza de
España, or were decimated and annihilated by the rebels, as happened to
a company at the port of Baleares. The commanders of the Civil Guard,
General Aranguren and Colonel Brotons, were “semi-prisoners” in the
Palacio de Gobernación, closely guarded by José María España, Vicente
Guarner (Escofet’s second-in-command) and Enrique Pérez Farrás. The
Civil Guards were a non-factor during the events, up until the moment
when Colonel Escobar received the order from General Aranguren to seize
the University and the Hotel Colón. Escofet, the police commissioner,
had ordered Aranguren by telephone, in the name of President Companys,
to bring the Civil Guards into the conflict, in an attempt to dampen the
proletarian combativeness and to break the dubious neutrality and
wait-and-see attitude of the Civil Guard. But the mistrust, both on the
part of the workers as well as the Government of the Generalitat,
towards the Civil Guards was never dispelled. The troops of the Civil
Guards had already received orders to concentrate in just two barracks
on the night of July 18, those of Ausias March and Consejo de Ciento, in
order to keep them under observation and to prevent any of them from
going over to the side of the rebels, as took place with the detachment
sent to the monastery of the Carmelites under the command of Major
Recas. Both barracks were constantly under surveillance by groups of CNT
militants and squads of the Assault Guards. And during their slow
advance up Layetana, when they tried to get from the Palacio de
Gobernación to the Plaza de Cataluña, the remaining two-thirds were
separated by loyal soldiers from the Intendencia, and watched very
closely by groups of armed workers. The intervention of the Civil Guard
was therefore not decisive in Barcelona, and in any case its initial
neutrality was more important, as was the prevention of any attempts on
the part of its members to join the ranks of the rebel troops. The
polemic concerning whether the military uprising was defeated by the
units of the Assault Guards and the Civil Guards, “controlled” by the
Government of the Generalitat, or by the CNT, is clearly an a posteriori
political distortion, and is historically false, because both Guard
forces were undermined by the enemy. The contagious and unstoppable
popular and revolutionary climate, which prevailed in Barcelona on July
19, compelled the forces of public order to do their duty, and they
ended up later fraternally participating in the common struggle against
fascism.
It was the Barcelona proletariat, understood as the population of recent
immigrants in the marginal and marginalized neighborhoods of “cheap
housing” and the shantytowns of La Torrassa, Collblanc, Can Tunis, Santa
Coloma, Somorrostro, and San Andrés, and the industrial workers
(especially the textile workers, but also those employed in the metal
industry, the port, the gas and electric utilities, construction,
transport, chemicals and wood, etc.), paid badly and treated worse,
subject to humiliating factory rules, draconian working conditions,
generalized piecework and wages that did not cover the most basic
necessities; with extremely harsh living conditions, insecure and
miserable, in the neighborhoods of Sants, Pueblo Nuevo, Pueblo Seco,
Clot, San Andrés and Barceloneta, or the numerous unemployed workers[20]
of the various working class neighborhoods of Barcelona, Hospitalet and
Badalona, who took the initiative, organized in each neighborhood into
CNT defense committees.[21] The decisive impact that the victory of the
insurrection in Barcelona would have had on all of Cataluña had also
attracted to the city, already on the night of July 18, a group of
miners from Alto Llobregat and numerous militants from Tarrasa.
The CNT in Barcelona during the 1930s created a world of deeply rooted
and necessary social, family, neighborhood and immigrant relations,
which took the form of a strong sense of neighborhood association, of an
all-embracing kind, from trade union and culture to mutual aid,
self-defense and solidarity against the abuses of the employers and the
police. In a city with an extraordinarily high percentage of recent
immigrants[22] since 1914, a word-of-mouth effect prevailed, in which
the most experienced emigrant conveyed information about jobs and
housing to his family or friends from the “village”, which led to a
largely-unstudied phenomenon whereby people from the same rural towns
came to live in the same urban neighborhoods, or even on certain
streets.[23] The enormous strength of the CNT in the working class
neighborhoods had been able to take root and flourish precisely by means
of that patient and modest work of organizing, trade unionism,
educating, “proletarianizing” and defending that massive population of
migrant labor power that came from the rural world. Barcelona was an
industrial city with huge social inequalities and profound class
distinctions, with marked differences that were manifested both with
regard to clothing and food, as well as in the well defined geographical
class boundaries between the elegant bourgeois neighborhoods (around the
Paseo de Gracia and the Derecha del Ensanche), with luxurious buildings
where modernism flourished; and the working class neighborhoods, without
infrastructure or public services, unhealthy, lacking urban amenities,
subjected to the service of industry, in which the workers housing was
nothing more than warehouses, next to the factories, for cheap and
abundant labor power, which the rising unemployment of the 1930s plunged
into misery and marginalization, concentrating the population of the old
town at Bengali levels of density, and everywhere erasing the
differences between proletarians and lumpen, who shared an identical
situation of struggle for mere survival. Furthermore, the city’s recent
social history, with confrontations like the general strike at La
Canadiense (1919), and the outright class war of the years of
pistolerismo (1917–1923) which concluded with the victory of the
employers during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, showed that
Barcelona society was not based on an authoritarian model of submission
of the proletariat to the dictatorship of the local bourgeoisie, which
did not hesitate to resort to state terrorism, or brutal repression by
means of the army, to preserve its authority.
From the very first moment that the rebel troops began to leave their
barracks, at around four-fifteen in the morning, until the afternoon of
July 19, it was these defense committees (in which the anarchist
affinity groups and the libertarian cultural centers had been
integrated) and the cenetista militants, concentrated in the offices of
the various trade unions of the CNT, especially the woodworkers, on
Rosal Street, the Transport and Metal Workers, on the Rambla de Santa
Mónica, and the Construction Workers, at Number 26 Mercaders Street,
near the Casa Cambó, which led the armed struggle. At about nine in the
morning an unstoppable revolutionary contagion began to spread, massive
and mimetic, curious and bold, which by the afternoon had become a mass
phenomenon, which filled the streets with an immense crowd that wanted
to participate at any price in the battle of Barcelona against fascism,
anxious not to miss the opportunity of intervening so that the people’s
victory would be assured. The radio never ceased to encourage the
struggle with its stirring reports. Requisitioned cars, on which the
initials CNT-FAI or UHP had been emblazoned, full of armed militiamen,
assured effective communication between barricades, the sites where
battles were taking place and the trade union locals, driving at high
speed down the side streets, which were totally controlled by the
workers. The workers at the Telephone company, who had already cut off
the communications of the Capitanía with the rebel barracks, installed
telephones at some of the strategic barricades.
At the Brecha de San Pablo, at the intersection of the Paralelo with San
Pablo Street, the Ronda de San Pablo and Rosal Street, next to El
Molino, the armed proletariat, without help from anyone, defeated the
army. But this victory would not have been possible without that immense
crowd of people who harassed the rebels at every corner, from every
balcony, from every doorway, from the terraces and rooftops, who watched
the movements of the troops, built barricades, offered food and drink,
or medical aid, information and shelter to the combatant workers, and
who anxiously waited for someone to fall wounded in order to pick up
their much-sought after rifle or pistol, in order to carry on with the
battle.
Around nine in the morning a squadron coming from the Plaza de la
Universidad proceeded down the Ronda de San Antonio[24] towards the
Brecha de San Pablo. But already at the Ronda de San Pablo, in front of
the Mercado de San Antonio, the rebels were attacked from all sides by a
bold crowd, and they had to take refuge in the monastery of Los
Escolapios de San Antonio, where, after an hour-long siege, their
ammunition exhausted, they had no other choice but to surrender.
At eleven in the morning, the troops who had occupied the Plaza de
España attempted to go to the aid of the rebels who were fighting in the
Brecha de San Pablo, because after five hours of combat they needed
ammunition and provisions, but not only could they not advance beyond
Avenida Cine, but they were attacked by the crowds and had to retreat.
After several hours of resistance they were forced to abandon a square
that they could no longer control, fleeing in haste to the barracks they
had left, and leaving behind their two artillery pieces that they had
set up in the middle of the square, because the increasing and fearless
attacks of the defense committees of Sants, Hostafrancs, La Torrassa, La
Bordeta and Collblanc had taken the fairgrounds area and all the streets
that led to the Plaza de España, transforming it into a massive trap
without any possible defense, once the masses of the workers had secured
Tarragona Street, the only street that remained open by which the
soldiers could return to their barracks. At three in the afternoon the
Plaza de España was in the hands of the people; it was an eerie plaza,
strewn with corpses and dismembered animals.
Thanks to the fact that the rebel troops who were fighting in the Brecha
remained totally isolated, without being able to obtain any help at all,
between eleven and noon the final assault on the machine guns installed
in the center of the Paralelo Avenue took place, which we described
above. Between noon and two in the afternoon a small group waited for
the last soldiers, who had taken refuge inside El Molino, to finally use
up what remained of their ammunition. Meanwhile, the immense crowds that
had seized the entire Paralelo, from the Plaza de España to Atarazanas,
and from the Brecha to Los Escolapios, set off, victorious,
enthusiastic, and with better weapons, towards those places where
fighting was still taking place, anxious not to miss out on the glory of
participating in the final victory over fascism, or towards the barracks
of San Andrés, where it would soon be possible to obtain a much-desired
rifle.
These same masses, armed or not, but filled with the revolutionary
fever, we find in the Plaza de Cataluña, harassing the rebel troops
until they caused them to break formation, and finally forcing them to
take refuge in the Hotel Colón, without being able to successfully
fulfill their mission to seize the nearby broadcasting station of Radio
Barcelona, at Number 12 Caspe, or Radio Asociación, at Number 8 Rambla
de los Estudios. This was the same crowd, curious, exalted and bold to
the point of recklessness, that, at the intersection of Diputación and
Lauria, stopped and paralyzed the artillery forces that had been
dispatched to aid the rebels who were isolated and besieged in the Plaza
de Cataluña, despite the fact that they were close enough to hear the
rattle of the machine gun at the Hotel Colón. This was the same crowd
that broke and dispersed the rebels in the Plaza de Urquinaona. This
crowd, which did not observe any ideological tendencies, or parties,
fraternized in the street fighting with Assault Guards and Civil Guards,
causing them to relax their discipline. They were the same crowds that
assaulted the barracks of San Andrés, seizing thirty thousand rifles,
and which by their mere presence, exultant and festive, paralyzed the
Assault Guards who were sent to prevent them from doing so. And it was
this enraged and impatient crowd that on the 20^(th) mercilessly
executed monks and officers who had continued to resist, provoking a
useless spilling of the people’s blood, and who displayed some of the
corpses as lessons.
Counting the casualties on both sides the total was about four hundred
fifty dead (mostly cenetistas) and thousands of wounded. In thirty-two
hours the people of Barcelona had defeated the army. Almost all the
churches and monasteries, some already on the morning of the 19^(th),
were burned under controlled conditions or had coffins burned at their
doors, with the notable exceptions of the Cathedral and the Church of
the Holy Family, seized by the “mossos d’esquadra” and the libertarians,
respectively. The Barcelona proletariat was armed with the thirty
thousand rifles of San Andrés. Escofet resigned from his position as
Police Chief at the end of July, because he could no longer guarantee
public order. The Assault Guards and Civil Guards were, from a military
point of view, undoubtedly more efficient and disciplined than the
defense committees and the various groups of armed workers; but without
the participation of the crowds in the street battles, these companies
of Civil Guards or Assault Guards, politically conservative or fascist,
would have passed with their weapons and supplies over to the side of
the rebel troops: they were neither the winners nor the losers in this
battle. The military and fascist uprising, which had counted on the
complicity of the Church, failed almost everywhere in Spain, creating,
as a reaction, a revolutionary situation. The defeat of the army by the
proletariat in the “red zone” had completely destroyed the state
monopoly on violence, leading to the blossoming of a myriad of local
powers, directly associated with the local exercise of violence.
Violence and power were intimately related. On the other hand, in
Barcelona, the so-called “forces of public order”, those Assault Guards
and the Civil Guards, which had been so undecided about which side to
take, and which ended up fraternizing with the armed people, had been
assigned to their barracks by the Government of the Generalitat,
awaiting the opportune moment to deploy them in support of the
counterrevolution. This generalized revolutionary situation was what
caused the emergence, without the directives of any organization, or any
directive centers of any kind, in every place in Spain where the fascist
uprising had been defeated: committees; the arming of the proletariat;
barricades and control patrols; popular militias; confiscated cars and
trucks with the confederal initials painted on their sides, filled with
men waving rifles over their heads, racing loudly up and down the
streets; the disappearance of hats and ties; the burning of the
churches; passes issued by the defense committees; looting of the houses
of the bourgeoisie; revolutionary committees on a regional or local
scale in Málaga, Barcelona, Aragón, Valencia, Gijón, Madrid, Santander,
Sama de Langreo, Lérida, Castellón, Cartagena, Alicante, Almería, among
the most well-known; persecution, imprisonment or murder “in situ” of
fascists, rebel officers, employers and priests; confiscation of
factories, barracks and buildings of all kinds; workers control
committees and a long etcetera in which the exercise of violence WAS
ITSELF the manifestation of the new workers power. In the weeks
following July 19 in Barcelona a revolutionary situation arose, new and
unprecedented, festive and savage, in which the execution of the
fascist, of the boss or the priest, WAS the revolution. Violence and
power were identical. Rather than dual power, there was an atomization
of power. The revolutionary torrent dragged everything along with its
furious, redemptive and inexorable ecstasy. Although the state
institutions remained, the CNT-FAI decided it was necessary to FIRST
crush fascism where it had triumphed, and accepted the creation
alongside the Generalitat, whose existence was not questioned, of a
Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Cataluña (CCMA),[25] which
was to be an extended version of the collaboration of the military
liaison committee in which the Generalitat, the loyal military officers,
the confederal Defense Committee and the other republican and working
class parties and organizations participated during the street fighting.
Also on the 20^(th), Companys, as president of the Generalitat, which
still existed, summoned the leaders of the various organizations to the
Palace, including the anarchists. A debate was held at a plenum of
militants, meeting at the Casa CNT-FAI, to determine whether they should
respond to the invitation of the president of the Generalitat, and after
a brief analysis of the situation in the streets, it was decided to send
the Liaison Committee to the Generalitat to meet with Companys. The
members of the delegation attended the meeting[26] armed, tired and
filthy from battle: Buenaventura Durruti, Juan García Oliver,[27] “Abad
de Santillán”, José Asens and Aurelio Fernández.[28] Meeting with the
delegates of the various political and trade union organizations on the
patio of the oranges, including Andreu Nin, Joan Comorera, Josep Coll,
and Josep Rovira, they discussed their experiences in the events,
excitedly passing from one group to another, until Companys appeared,
accompanied by Pérez Farrás. The various groups combined into one, all
next to one another and in a line, in respectful silence. Companys
looked at all of them, one by one, satisfied, serene and smiling. Fixing
his gaze on the CNT delegation he greeted them with these words: “You
have won. Today you are the masters of the city and of Cataluña, because
only you have defeated the fascist officers, and I hope that you will
not be angry with me for reminding you that you did not lack the help of
the Assault Guards and the ‘mossos d’esquadra’.” He continued, in a
meditative tone: “But the truth is that although you were harshly
persecuted right up until yesterday, today you have defeated the
military and the fascists.” After greeting all of those present,
standing, formed in a circle around him, as the masters of the street,
he asked, “And now what shall we do?” Looking at the cenetistas, he told
them: “Something must be done to deal with this new situation!” He
continued, warning them that, although we had conquered in Barcelona,
the struggle was not over, “we do not know when and how it will turn out
in the rest of Spain”, then he called attention to his position and the
role that he could play in his office: “for my part, I represent the
Generalitat, a real but diffuse state of opinion and international
recognition. They are mistaken who consider all of this as something
useless”, and concluded by claiming that if it was necessary to form a
new government of the Generalitat, “I am at your disposal if you want to
speak to me”. García Oliver responded: “You can remain as President. We
are not at all interested in the presidency or the government”, as if he
had understood that Companys was resigning his position. After this
first meeting,[29] informal and stressful, of the various delegates,
standing all around Companys, the latter invited them to enter one of
the Palace’s parlors, where they were comfortably seated, to coordinate
the unity and the collaboration of all the antifascist forces, by way of
the formation of a committee of militias, that would control disorder in
the streets and organize the militia columns that had to be sent to
Zaragoza.
The Enlarged Regional Committee of the CNT, informed by the CNT
delegation of the interview at the Palace, agreed after brief
deliberation to tell Companys by telephone that the CNT accepted on
principle the constitution of a Central Committee of Antifascist
Militias (CCMA), pending the definitive resolution that would be adopted
at the Plenum of Local and District Committees, which was to convene on
the 21^(st). That same night Companys ordered that the official bulletin
of the Generalitat should print a decree mandating the creation of these
civilian militias.
On Tuesday, July 21,[30] at the Casa CNT-FAI, the proposal of Companys
that the CNT should participate in a CCMA was submitted for the formal
approval of a Regional Plenum of Local and District Trade Unions,
convoked by the Committee of the Regional Confederation of Labor of
Cataluña. After the introductory report by Marianet, José Xena,
representing the District of Baix Llobregat, proposed the withdrawal of
the CNT delegates from the CCMA and that the organization should proceed
with the revolution to establish libertarian communism. Juan García
Oliver then spoke and characterized the debate and the decision that had
to be made as a choice between an “absurd” anarchist dictatorship or
collaboration[31] with the other antifascist forces in the Central
Committee of Militias to continue the struggle against fascism. In this
manner García Oliver, deliberately or not,[32] rendered the confused and
ambiguous option of “going for broke” unviable to the Plenum. As opposed
to the prospect of an intransigent “anarchist dictatorship”, the defense
offered by Federica Montseny[33] of the acratic principles against all
dictatorship seemed more logical, balanced and reasonable, supported by
the arguments of Abad de Santillán concerning the danger of isolation
and foreign intervention. Yet another position arose, defended by Manuel
Escorza, who proposed the use of the government of the Generalitat as an
instrument for socialization and collectivization, while waiting to
dispose of it when it ceased to be useful to the CNT.[34] The plenum
proved to be favorable to the idea of the CNT collaborating with the
other antifascist forces in the Central Committee of Militias, with the
one negative vote of the District Committee of Baix Llobregat. Most of
those who attended the Plenum, including Durruti and Ortiz, remained
silent, because they thought, as did so many others, that the revolution
must be postponed until the capture of Zaragoza and the defeat of
fascism. So, without further debate or philosophical considerations, it
was decided to consolidate and institutionalize the Liaison Committee
between the CNT and the Generalitat that existed prior to July 19, which
was now transformed, expanded and further elaborated in the CCMA that,
by embodying the antifascist unity of all the parties and trade unions,
was to be responsible for imposing order on the rearguard and organizing
and supplying the militias that had to go Aragón to fight the fascists.
At the first meeting of the Central Committee of Militias, held on the
night of the 21^(st), the CNT representatives[35] clearly displayed for
the republicans and Catalanists their power and independent character,
having published a public proclamation that gave the Central Committee
many more responsibilities and duties, both with regard to military
matters and public safety, than were initially conceded by the Decree of
the Generalitat. It was not an idle boast that caused Aurelio Fernández,
in response to a question that had arisen at this first session of the
CCMA about who defeated the army, to answer that it was “the same people
as always: the dregs of society”, that is, the unemployed, the recent
immigrants and the marginal and impoverished population living in the
“cheap housing” of La Torrassa, Can Tunis, Somorrostro, Santa Coloma and
San Andrés, and the abused industrial proletariat that, in extremely
harsh living conditions, devastated by massive unemployment, worked long
hours, went to work hungry, or worked temporary jobs for piecework
rates, piled up in the working class neighborhoods of Pueblo Nuevo,
Sants, Barceloneta, Chino, Hostafrancs or Pueblo Seco, who rented or
subleased small shacks, houses or apartments that they had to share with
others because of the unaffordable rents.
Meanwhile, Companys had authorized Martín Barrera, the Minister of
Labor, to make a radio announcement of the regulations concerning the
reduction of the working day, wage increases, rent reductions and new
labor laws which had to first be agreed to by the representatives of the
employers associations, such as the Employers Federation, the Chambers
of Industry and of Real Estate, etc., to whom he explained the necessity
of channeling the revolutionary impulse of the masses, as the director
of the potash mines of Suria had in fact already done, who preferred to
suffer financial losses instead of going back to the mine and being
taken hostage by the miners. During the course of the meeting various
representatives of the employers received phone calls warning them not
to return to their homes, because patrols of armed men were looking for
them. The meeting ended when it became clear that the businessmen who
were present no longer represented anyone. The radio announcement was
broadcast anyway, several days later, in an attempt to provide a safe
framework for popular enthusiasm and demands.
On Thursday, July 23, at the Casa CNT-FAI, the question of the entry of
the anarchosyndicalists into the CCMA and the significant opposition to
this policy on the part of the militants, was submitted to debate at a
Joint Plenum of the CNT and FAI,[36] that is, a Plenum of leading
militants.[37] During the evening of that same day, the members of the
“Nosotros” group met at the house of Gregorio Jover to analyze the
situation,[38] and to bid farewell[39] to Buenaventura Durruti prior to
his departure on the following day with a Column of militiamen, who left
the next morning from Cinco de Oros, and to Antonio Ortiz, who embarked
with another Column on a train on the evening of the 24^(th).[40]
At nine-thirty on the morning of the 24^(th), Durruti, in the name of
the CCMA, delivered a radio address in which he warned the cenetistas of
the imperious necessity of remaining vigilant against any
counterrevolutionary attempts and not to abandon what they had conquered
in Barcelona.[41] Durruti seemed to be aware of the danger of leaving
the rearguard unsecured, with a class enemy that had not yet been
eliminated. Everything had to be postponed until after the capture of
Zaragoza.
On Sunday, July 26, at the Casa CNT-FAI, the question of the CNT’s
collaboration in the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias, in which
the representatives of the CNT were already participating,[42] was once
again submitted for the formal approval of a Regional Plenum of Local
and District Federations of Trade Unions, convoked by the Committee of
the Regional Confederation of Labor of Cataluña. The result was that the
decisions made by the Expanded Regional Committee to collaborate with
the Government of the Generalitat and the other parties, which already
constituted an irreversible reality, were ratified again by another
Regional Plenum of Trade Unions. It was a policy of fait accompli, in
which the Plenum of the 26^(th) performed the role of a simple rubber
stamp for decisions that had already been made. Although we have no
record of the debates that took place, the final accord left no room for
doubts concerning the serious opposition that arose against the
acceptance of the collaborationist position of the superior committees
of the CNT-FAI—all we know is that there was fierce opposition. The
resolution on the analysis of the current revolutionary situation
concluded with a statement that support for the position was “absolutely
unanimous”. Curiously, the position that was approved at this Plenum was
defined as the “same position”, that is, the one that the CNT delegation
had already provisionally accepted when it met with Companys, the same
one that was approved by the Regional Plenum of the 21^(st), and the
same one that was approved at the Joint CNT-FAI Plenum on the 23^(rd).
What position?: “the fascist rebels are the only enemies of the people”,
and therefore neither the bourgeois government of the Generalitat nor
the republicans were enemies that had to be attacked, but allies. The
renunciation of revolution was already absolute: “No one should go any
further. No one must break ranks.” An appeal was made regarding the
moral obligation to accept the decisions of the majority[43] and a
profession of faith in the antifascist cause was pronounced: “Every day,
against fascism, only against the fascism that rules half of Spain.” The
final communiqué of the Regional Plenum concluded with an unequivocal
and indisputable order to accept and obey the CCMA: “there is a
COMMITTEE OF ANTIFASCIST MILITIAS AND A SUBORDINATE BODY CALLED THE
SUPPLY COMMISSION. It is everyone’s duty to comply with their
directives, and regularly follow the procedures of all their orders.”
On July 28 the Local Federation of Trade Unions of Barcelona proclaimed
the end of the general strike.
Violence and power go hand in hand. Once the state’s monopoly on
violence was destroyed, because the army was defeated in the streets and
the proletariat had taken up arms, a revolutionary situation opened up
that imposed its violence, its power and its order. The power of an
armed working class.
The revolutionary committees—defense, factory, neighborhood or town,
workers control committees, supply committees, etc.—formed the embryo of
the organs of power of the working class. They initiated a methodical
expropriation of the property of the bourgeoisie, implemented industrial
and agricultural collectivization, organized the popular militias that
stabilized the military fronts during the first few days, organized
control patrols and rearguard militias that imposed the “new
revolutionary order” by means of the violent repression of the Church,
the employers, fascists and former pistoleros and yellow trade
unionists, since counterrevolutionary snipers operated continuously for
a whole week in the city. But these committees were incapable of
coordinating their efforts and creating a centralized working class
power. The initiatives and activities of the revolutionary committees
frequently overlapped with and were duplicated by those carried out by
the leaders of the various traditional organizations of the workers
movement, including the CNT and the FAI, or a POUM that was still making
demands for higher wages and minor reforms which had already been
surpassed by the events.
A revolutionary situation existed on the streets and in the factories,
and there were some potential organs of power of the proletariat: the
committees, which no organization was capable or desirous of
coordinating, strengthening and transforming into authentic organs of
power. The spontaneity of the masses had its limitations; their
political and trade union organizations were even more limited. Neither
possessed a prepared, precise and realistic program that could be
applied in that revolutionary situation. Indeed, the anarchist leaders
not only did not know what to do with power, they did not even know what
it was. Against the fascist threat, which had triumphed in half of
Spain, they imposed the slogan of antifascist unity, of the sacred union
with the democratic and republican bourgeoisie. Rather than a situation
of dual power shared between the Generalitat and the Central Committee,
there was a duplication of powers. Furthermore, the superior committees
of the CNT, in mid-August, had already decided to disband the CCMA as
soon as the conditions permitted and the spontaneity in the streets
subsided sufficiently. In the meantime, however, ever since July 19, the
committees that had spontaneously emerged everywhere pragmatically
imposed the new political, social and economic reality that had arisen
from the victory of the workers insurrection over the army, and in
Cataluña these committees, in factories and residential areas, exercised
all power.
The state is the organization of the monopoly of violence at the service
of the ruling social class. The capitalist state is one of the most
important instruments of the rule of the bourgeois class over the
proletariat, that is, the apparatus of repression that assures the
capitalist social relations of production. The first task of a
proletarian revolution is the total destruction of this capitalist
state, and the consolidation of a workers power. Without the intention
and practical action (on the part of a revolutionary organization) to
destroy the capitalist state one cannot speak of a proletarian
revolution. Perhaps one could speak of a revolutionary movement, a
revolutionary situation, or a “popular revolution”, or of antifascist
unity, a war against fascism, or a fantasy “dictatorship of the
proletariat without the destruction of the capitalist state”, the
discovery of the “brilliant” analyses of the POUM, etc., but not of a
proletarian revolution. Ideological ambiguity was congenital to the
libertarian movement. And this ambiguity was made into a virtue by the
antifascist CNT bureaucrats and by the clever bourgeois politicians, who
knew how to channel the muddy waters of anarchist incoherence into their
mills. No attempt was ever made at any time to destroy the bourgeois
state apparatus.
In Barcelona, the CCMA was the product of the working class and
anarchist victory of July 19, but it was also the product of the refusal
of the anarchosyndicalists to destroy the state. The CCMA, the outcome
of a deal between Companys and the libertarians, but also accepted by
the “Marxists” (the POUM and the Stalinists), was an organization of
class collaboration, by means of which the Government of the Generalitat
regained control over those functions it had lost because the anarchists
had conquered them in the streets: basically the police, public order
and the military. The CCMA was never, and never claimed to be, an organ
of workers power, and therefore there was never a situation of dual
power that pitted the CCMA against the Government of the Generalitat. It
is true that, among the anarchists, there were diverse conceptions
concerning the revolutionary situation that had arisen in Cataluña after
the events of July 19–20, 1936: the first conception, and the one that
was by far the dominant one, was the one propounded by Abad de Santillán
and Federica Montseny, which called for absolute and sincere
collaboration with the other political forces (including the bourgeois
ones) in an antifascist unity that they believed was indispensable in
order to win the war, and implied “loyal” collaboration with the
Government of the Generalitat as the lesser evil so as to prosecute the
“revolution” and the war at the same time. The second conception,
advocated by García Oliver, theoretically consisted in “going for
broke”, that is, it entailed the establishment of an “anarchist
dictatorship”, in which a vanguard of enlightened leaders replaces the
proletariat, taking power in its name, but in practice meant
governmental collaboration, in the naïve belief that the “black and red”
color of the Ministers could change the nature of the government in
which they participated. The third conception, pragmatically proposed by
Manuel Escorza, consisted in using the Government of the Generalitat to
legalize the “revolutionary conquests”, controlling the Ministries of
Defense and Public Order, and relying on the indisputable dominance of
the CNT in the streets in order to attempt to “crystallize the
revolutionary situation”, in the expectation that these measures would
lead to more favorable conditions for the definitive revolutionary
victory, while at the same time consolidating the real power of a
libertarian organization parallel to the CNT-FAI, autonomous and
independent, based on the Committee of Investigation and the CNT Defense
Committees, an organization that would be capable of coordinating and
centralizing all the anarchosyndicalist positions in the Government of
the Generalitat, and which later made possible the workers insurrection
of May 1937 against the provocations of Companys and the Stalinists. All
of these positions rapidly evolved towards the same tactic of
integration of the workers movement in the program of antifascist unity
with the POUM, the Stalinists and the bourgeoisie, with the exclusive
goal of winning the war against the fascists. This in turn caused a
distinction to emerge among the anarchosyndicalist between the
“redskins” and the “woodpeckers” or collaborationists, which was
entirely different from the previous divisions between FAIstas and
Trentistas. The critique directed by the “redskins” at the
collaborationists, which was at first purely verbal and moralistic,
evolved towards a pessimism that led the majority to passivity or a
flight forward, which caused them to see no other solution besides
abandoning all militancy or enlisting in the military forces to win the
war against fascism, even if this army was, after the summer of 1937,
the Popular Army, that is, the bourgeois army of the Republic, once the
militarization of the Militias had been implemented. The most coherent
opposition to collaborationism that emerged among the libertarians was
the opposition that took shape in The Friends of Durruti Group, which
after January 1938 was practically defunct, because it had succumbed to
the combined attacks of Stalinist repression and the opposition of the
“government” cenetistas.
There was no party, trade union or vanguard group that called for the
destruction of the bourgeois state and the revolutionary path of
strengthening, coordinating and centralizing the organs of power that
had arisen in July 1936: the workers committees. After July 20 the
Barcelona proletariat exercised a kind of dictatorship “from below” in
the streets and the factories, unrelated and indifferent to “its”
political and trade union organizations which not only respected the
state apparatus of the bourgeoisie instead of destroying it but actually
reinforced it. In the absence of a revolutionary party capable of
formulating the battle for the program of the proletarian
revolution,[44] the war against the fascist enemy imposed the ideology
of antifascist unity and war on behalf of the program of the democratic
bourgeoisie. The war was not conceived as a class war, but as an
antifascist war between the state of the fascist bourgeoisie and the
state of the democratic bourgeoisie. And this choice between two
bourgeois options (democratic and fascist) ALREADY presupposes the
defeat of the revolutionary alternative. For the revolutionary workers
movement antifascism was the worst consequence of fascism. The ideology
of antifascist unity was the worst enemy of the revolution, and the best
ally of the bourgeoisie. The necessities of this war, between two
bourgeois options, stifled any revolutionary alternative and suppressed
the methods of the class struggle that made possible the victory of the
working class insurrection of July 19. It was necessary to renounce the
revolutionary conquests in favor of winning the war against the
fascists: “we renounce everything except victory.”[45]
The alternatives that were thus posed were false: it was not about
winning the war first and then carrying out the revolution (the
Stalinist proposal), or even of fighting the war and carrying out the
revolution at the same time (the POUM and libertarian thesis), but of
abandoning the methods and the goals of the proletariat. The Popular
Militias of July 21–25 were authentic proletarian Militias; the Militias
of October 1936, militarized or not, were already an army of workers in
a war directed by the bourgeoisie (whether fascist or republican) in the
service of the bourgeoisie (whether democratic or fascist).
The “social revolution” and the expropriation of the factories initiated
by the anarchosyndicalist rank and file were in conflict with the
Popular Frontism of the anarchist and POUMist leaders. There are even
people who speak of a social “revolution” without the seizure of state
power, and even of a divorce between the socioeconomic and political
aspects of the revolution.[46] In any event, the Popular Frontism of the
anarchist leaders, and the ideology of antifascist unity, prevailed over
any revolutionary consideration of destroying the state, which was
always rejected as utopian and unrealistic, and which never went further
than fantasy declarations of good intentions on the part of the most
verbally radical elements, like García Oliver.
The CCMA was never an organ of workers power. A situation of DUAL POWER
never existed. In any case there was a DUPLICATION OF POWERS between the
CCMA and certain Ministries of the Generalitat, and above all a
complementary labor on the part of both against the revolutionary
committees.
The vacuum of state or centralized power led to an initial fragmentation
and atomization of power that was resolved in September 1936 with the
entry of the working class organizations into the Government of the
Generalitat (and later in that of the Republic). Neither the anarchists,
nor the CCMA, in which they were dominant, nor the POUM, ever attempted
to remove the republican bourgeoisie from power, or destroy the state
apparatus, which always remained in the hands of Companys. The
definitive armed defeat of the proletariat, which took place in May
1937, was the only possible outcome of the decision made by the working
class organizations in July 1937 to renounce the absolute and total
seizure of a power that the proletariat already exercised in the streets
and the factories. May 1937 had already begun in July 1936.
of CataluñaThree very interesting theses, unfortunately unpublished,
have been written about the CCMA: Josep Eduard Adsuar Torra, Catalunya:
Juliol-Octubre 1936. Una dualitat de poder? , (2 Vols.), Doctoral
Dissertation, Department of Contemporary History, University of
Barcelona, 1979. Enric Mompo, El Comité Central de Milicias
Antifascistas de Catalunya y la situación de doble poder en los primeros
meses de la guerra civil española , Doctoral Thesis read on June 8,
1994, Department of Contemporary History, University of Barcelona. Josep
Antoni Pozo Gonzalez, El poder revolucionari a Catalunya Durant els
mesos de juliol a octubre de 1936. Crisi i recomposició de l’Estat ,
Doctoral Thesis defended on June 21, 2002, Department of Modern and
Contemporary History, Autonomous University of Barcelona.
“All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as
often as was necessary. In no case would it have been possible, once the
deed was done, to prove that any falsification had taken place.”
George Orwell, 1984
“Obsequium amicos, veritas odium parit.” (Compliance raises friends, and
truth breeds hate.)
Terence, Andria
The real power of decision and execution was in the streets, it was the
power of the proletariat in arms, and it was exercised by the local
committees, the defense committees and the workers control committees,
spontaneously expropriating factories, workshops, buildings and land;
organizing, arming and transporting to the front the groups of volunteer
militiamen that had previously been recruited; burning churches or
converting them into schools or warehouses; forming patrols to spread
the social war; manning the barricades, which were now class frontiers,
and which controlled all traffic and manifested the power of the
committees; resuming production at the factories, without employers or
managers, or converting them to military production; requisitioning cars
and trucks, or food for the supply committee; taking bourgeoisie,
fascists and priests “for a ride”; replacing the obsolete republican
municipal governments, and imposing in each locality their absolute
authority in all domains, paying no attention to any orders from the
Generalitat, or the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias (CCMA).
On the night of the 19^(th) there was no other real power besides that
of “the federation of the barricades”, and this power had no other
immediate goal besides the defeat of the rebels. The army and the
police, either dissolved or confined to their barracks, disappeared from
the streets after July 20. They were replaced by Popular Militias
composed of armed workers, who fraternized with the discharged soldiers
and civil and assault guards, many of them in civilian clothing, in one
victorious mass, which transformed them into the vanguard of the
revolutionary insurrection.
In Barcelona, during the following week, while the CCMA was still only a
provisional power, neighborhood committees[47], as the expression of the
power acquired by the defense committees, coordinated their activities
in an authentic urban federation that, in the streets and the factories,
exercised all power, in every domain, in the absence of any effective
exercise of power by the municipal governments, the national government,
or the Generalitat. The dozens of barricades erected in Barcelona were
still manned in October, controlling vehicular traffic and checking for
identification papers and the requisite passes, issued by the various
committees, as a means of consolidating, defending and controlling the
new revolutionary situation, and above all as a symbol of the new power
of the committees.
In order to understand the obvious and numerous contradictions of García
Oliver, and the dense smokescreen that his memoirs cast over the events
of this period, it is necessary to explain his conception of the
adaptability of abstract ideological principles to the pressing needs of
more immediate political tactics, as well as his conception of the
nature of leadership in the confederal organization.
How do we interpret the fact that García Oliver, in El eco de los pasos,
in his account of the regional plenums of the 21^(st) and the 26^(th) of
July, claims he said that the CCMA was a lid[48] on the revolution,
while on August 3, only a week later, he considered the CCMA to be the
best guarantee of the progress of the revolution?[49] How can we resolve
the permanent contradiction of García Oliver, between what he did and
what he says he did? Did he really propose, at the Regional Plenum of
July 21, that the CNT should seize power?
In order to understand the García Oliver of July 1936 we must compare
his attitude and his activities of that period with his attitude and
activities during the electoral campaign of February 1936. During this
electoral campaign, the anarchosyndicalist leaders never explicitly told
the workers to vote. They claimed that, regardless of the outcome of the
elections, a few months later an armed confrontation was inevitable; if,
however, the workers were to vote for the Popular Front, besides
obtaining the release of thousands of prisoners, the circumstances of
the armed confrontation would also be more favorable for them, since
they would benefit from republican legality and republican control of
the state apparatus. Therefore, what the CNT-FAI did was much more than
to renounce their traditional appeal for abstention from voting in the
elections, as García Oliver himself unequivocally explained: “WE ADVISED
THE WORKING CLASS TO DO WHATEVER THEY THOUGHT BEST WITH RESPECT TO
VOTING, BUT WE DID TELL THEM THAT, IF THEY DID NOT VOTE FOR THE LEFT, ON
THE DAY AFTER THE ELECTIONS THEY WOULD HAVE TO CONFRONT THE FASCIST
RIGHTISTS WITH ARMS IN HAND. WHILE IF THEY VOTED FOR THE LEFT, BEFORE
SIX MONTHS HAD PASSED AFTER THE VICTORY OF THE LEFT WE WOULD HAVE TO
CONTRONT THE FASCIST RIGHTISTS WITH ARMS IN HAND. Naturally, the working
class of Spain, which had for many years been advised by the CNT not to
vote, interpreted our propaganda in exactly the way we wanted them to,
that is, that they should vote, since it would always be better to
confront the fascist rightists if they were to revolt after being
defeated in the elections and ousted from the Government.”[50]
We note the curious and contorted argument of García Oliver, who,
without himself renouncing the abstentionist principle, INDIRECTLY
advised the militants and sympathizers to abide by the tactic that was
most beneficial for the CNT’s organization by voting. This is the same
parallelism that we have to apply in order to grasp García Oliver’s
speech at the Plenum of July 21: without himself renouncing “going for
broke”, he encouraged the militants to draw the conclusion of how absurd
and ridiculous it would be, at that time, to impose an “anarchist
dictatorship”.[51]
In short, García Oliver was capable of making a speech that was formally
consistent with the sacrosanct acratic principles, but simultaneously
induced the militant rank and file to choose the tactic that he
considered most appropriate at the time, however inconsistent it was
with respect to those ideological principles.[52]
This pernicious and baroque way of exercising leadership and “leading
the masses” allowed him to indulge months later in a kind of
“victimism”, by which he attributed the catastrophic choice of
collaborationism exclusively to the CNT rank and file. Forty years
later, with the historians unable to consult the minutes of the Plenums
of the 21^(st) and the 26^(th) of July, which have conveniently
disappeared, who would deny the claim of the author of El eco de los
pasos that he proposed “going for broke”, or even that later he
unwillingly assumed leadership of the CCMA, or that he would later
resist being appointed as anarchist Minister of Justice under Largo
Caballero, or that, very much against his will, but for the benefit of
the confederal organization, he performed the necessary role of “fire
chief” during the Events of May 1937, and then later was the frustrated
candidate for Chancellor of the Government of the Generalitat, and then
a long etcetera of contradictory sellouts, each one more surrealistic
than the last.
In any event, no one is what he says he is, but what he really does, and
what the others say he is. And this also applies to García Oliver. Juan
García Oliver was an anarchosyndicalist leader who, from his position as
the effective president of the CCMA, suffocated the revolution of the
committees, when the revolutionary initiatives of these committees
superseded the directives of the confederal organization. The
collaborationism of the CNT, however, did not just consist of the entry
of a few of its leaders into the government; it was the entire
organization that was implicated in the various levels of the state
apparatus. And this fact was more important than the more than dubious
position of the individual García Oliver in favor of an ambiguous “going
for broke”. The CNT lacked a program and a tactic that would have
prepared it for the seizure of power; and that is why its leaders did
nothing but improvise, and sought to collaborate with the other
antifascist forces and the government of the Generalitat, despite the
“provisional setback” this implied for their anti-state prejudices,
which led to the hybrid CCMA. In fact, if the CNT had such a program and
such a tactic it would not have been an anarchist trade union, but a
Marxist party. The anarchosyndicalist organization and ideology
foundered on the rocks of the openly revolutionary situation that arose
following the insurrectional victory of July 1936.
And here we return to our analysis of García Oliver’s idea of leadership
in the CNT. Not all the militants were equal, nor did their opinions, or
proposals, carry the same weight; one only needed to pay heed and give
consideration to the speeches of those who, before they mounted the
podium, had risked their lives and their liberty for the organization,
rather than those who had limited their intervention to talk. Those who
had become leaders did so by means of their dedication and courage. This
leadership of “the man of action” and, on a secondary level, of the
“intellectuals”,8 was an integral aspect of the CNT, although this was
not enunciated in its regulations and statutes.
The theoretical horizontal and egalitarian structure of the CNT rapidly
disappeared, if it had actually ever prevailed at the highest
decision-making levels. The superior committees provided a screen for
the upper echelons of the leadership, which debated and decided
everything secretly, in its own environment of friends and
acquaintances. The great trade union Plenums on a national and regional
scale, only served to ratify the resolutions already made by the
superior committees, and to make them public.
The CNT functioned in a pyramidal and quasi-Leninist manner, in which a
small vanguard debated and decided everything, and this was only made
worse by the fact that it was impossible for tendencies to form within
the organization that were capable of organizing with their own programs
and leaderships against the majority, since the CNT was formally a
unitary and horizontal trade union organization.
The first informal meeting of the CCMA took place during the evening of
the 20^(th), for informational and preparatory purposes, once the CNT
delegation had obtained the provisional consent of the Joint Regional
Committee. Representing the government of the Generalitat and the ERC
were Josep Tarradellas, Artemi Aguadé and Jaume Miravitlles; for the
Unió Socialista, Comorera; for the UGT, Vidiella: Peypoch for Acció
Catalana; Gorkin for the POUM; and Buenaventura Durruti, Juan García
Oliver and Aurelio Fernández represented the CNT-FAI.
Tarradellas proposed the exclusion of Estat Català, as he considered it
to be a right wing organization, since its leader Dencás was a fascist
who had taken refuge in Italy. García Oliver proposed a representational
scheme for participation in the CCMA: three posts for the CNT, three for
the UGT, and three for the ERC; two for the FAI, and one for each of the
following organizations: Acció Catalana, POUM, the socialists, and the
Rabassaires. On that same night the decree concerning the formation of
Citizen Militias was sent to be printed in the Official Bulletin of the
Generalitat, which was published on the following day. In this decree,
Lluís Prunés was named Minister of Defense by Companys, and Pérez Farrás
was appointed chief of the militias. The militias were an institution
that assumed the responsibility for Defense, without any participation
from the national government, which lacked any presence in the
government of the Generalitat.[53]
On July 21 at eleven in the morning, at the Naval School, the first
official meeting of the CCMA took place, where García Oliver, ignoring
the published decree and the delegates named by the Generalitat,
submitted for debate and approval his project for the constitution of a
Central Committee of Antifascist Militias that would impose a new
“revolutionary order”. The CNT had renounced any intention of seizing
power, but it was not ready to become a simple bit player in the
Generalitat and thus renounce its armed victory in the streets, which
the rank and file militants would never have tolerated. After a debate
in which Artemi Aguadé argued against Juan García Oliver’s idea of the
concept of “revolutionary order”, the CCMA was officially founded. The
leadership of the CCMA was exercised de facto by García Oliver. The
delegates at the meeting[54] approved the following text, which was
published as a Decree:
“The Committee of Antifascist Militias of Cataluña having been
constituted, this institution, in accordance with the Decree published
by the government of the Generalitat of Cataluña in today’s Official
Bulletin, has approved the following resolutions, with which all
citizens must comply:
“1. Revolutionary order is established, which all the organizations
represented on the Committee are pledged to uphold.
“2. For control and security, the Committee has appointed the necessary
squads for the purpose of ensuring rigorous compliance with its orders.
Towards this end, the squads will bear the corresponding credentials
that will identify their personnel.
“3. These squads will be the only ones accredited by the Committee. Any
other persons or groups that act outside the purview of these squads
will be considered to be rebels and will suffer the punishments that the
Committee considers appropriate.
“4. The night squads will be especially strict with regard to those who
disrupt the revolutionary order.
“5. Between one and five in the morning traffic will be restricted to
the following elements: a) all those with credentials proving that they
are members of any of the organizations that constitute the Committee of
Militias; b) those persons who are accompanied by any of the above
elements who will vouch for their moral character; c) Those who can
prove that they had to leave their homes for reasons of force majeure.
“6. For the purpose of recruiting elements for the Antifascist Militias,
the organizations that constitute the Committee are authorized to open
corresponding recruitment and training facilities. The conditions
regarding this recruitment will be set forth in detail in internal
regulations.
“7. The Committee hopes that, given the need to construct a
revolutionary order to confront the fascist groups, it will not have to
resort to disciplinary measures in order to enforce obedience.
“The Committee.”[55]
The decree forming the CCMA was therefore nothing extraordinary, and was
primarily oriented towards measures to ensure public order. The term,
“revolutionary order” does not allow us to seriously speak of anything
like dual power, as some historians have. Nor did the contemporary press
emphasize the constitution of the CCMA as anything extraordinary, nor
did it at any time view the CCMA as a revolutionary government that was
a rival of the Generalitat. The Generalitat, for its part, continued to
lead a phantom existence, assuming responsibility for the secondary
tasks that the CCMA delegated to it, and its authority was practically
limited to publishing the Official Bulletin.
In Barcelona, the defense committees, having been transformed into
revolutionary neighborhood committees, in the absence of any directives
from any organization and without any other coordination than was
required by the revolutionary initiatives of each moment, organized the
hospitals, overwhelmed by an avalanche of wounded, organized popular
kitchens, requisitioned cars, trucks, weapons, factories and buildings,
searched private homes and arrested suspects, and created a network of
supply committees in each neighborhood, which were coordinated in a
Supply Committee for the entire city, in which the Food Supply Trade
Union played a significant role. The revolutionary contagion affected
all social sectors and all organizations that were sincerely sympathetic
to the new revolutionary situation. This constituted the only real power
of the CCMA, which appeared to the people in arms as the antifascist
institution that must conduct the war and impose the new revolutionary
order.
We have already seen how a Plenum of Local and District Committees had
on July 21 renounced the seizure of power, understood as a dictatorship
of the anarchist leaders rather than as the imposition, coordination and
extension of the power that the revolutionary committees were already
exercising in the streets. On the 23^(rd) a secret joint plenum of the
superior committees of the CNT and the FAI closed ranks around the
decision made to collaborate in the CCMA, and to prepare to overcome the
resistance of the militants at the upcoming Plenum on the 26^(th). On
that same day García Oliver broadcast a speech directed at the workers
of Zaragoza, calling upon them to go into the streets and let themselves
be killed by the fascists.[56] At a bar across from the Pino church, the
Unified Socialist Party (PSUC) was formed, as a merger of four small
socialist and Stalinist groups.
We have also seen how, on the 24^(th), the first two anarchist columns
departed for the front under the command of Durruti and Ortiz. Durruti
broadcast a speech over the radio in which he warned his listeners of
the need to be vigilant against a possible counterrevolutionary coup.
The revolutionary situation in Barcelona had to be consolidated, in
order to “go for broke” after the capture of Zaragoza.
On July 25 Companys appeared at the Naval School to accuse the members
of the CCMA of being ineffective in assuring public order, in the face
of the indifference of García Oliver who dismissed him in a threatening
manner.
On the 26^(th) of July, the definitive collaboration of the CNT-FAI in
the CCMA was ratified that morning at the Regional Plenum, a decision
that had already been approved by the superior committees of the CNT-FAI
in their debate on the 23^(rd) and at the previous Regional Plenum held
on the 21^(st).
The Plenum of the 26^(th) unanimously confirmed that the CNT would
maintain the same position approved already on the 21^(st) of July to
participate in this new institution of class collaboration known as the
CCMA. This same plenum of the 26^(th) created a Supply Commission,
dependent on the CCMA, to which the various supply committees that had
emerged all over the city were ordered to submit,[57] and at the same
time ordered a partial termination of the general strike. The summary of
the main resolutions approved at this Plenum was published in the form
of a Decree,[58] in order to ensure that they were understood and
observed. The CCMA met on the evening of the 26^(th) to create a flow
chart and schematic of various departments: War, Militias of Barcelona,
Regional Militias, Supply Commission, Propaganda, Authorizations and
Permits, Control Patrols, Military Hospitals, Transport and Subsidies.
García Oliver was in charge of the Department of War. Abad de Santillán
was responsible for supplying the militias, assisted by Miret and Pons.
Aurelio Fernández was named chief of the Department of Investigation,
or, which amounts to the same thing, the real chief of the revolutionary
police, with the assistance of José Asens and Tomás Fábregas (Acció
Catalana), who led the Control Patrols. Marcos Alcón (who replaced
Durruti) was responsible for the Transport section, with the assistance
of Durán Rosell (who replaced Antonio López Raimundo, who was killed on
the front at Huesca), from the UGT. Josep Miret (Unió Socialista, later
to merge with the PSUC) and Joan Pons (ERC) were in charge of the
Department of Regional Militias. Miravitlles (ERC) was made leader of
the Department of Propaganda and Torrents (Unió de Rabassaires) was
appointed head of the Supply Commission. Rafael Vidiella (replacing José
del Barrio, the delegate of the Carlos Marx Column) was also appointed
to the Department of Investigation, which was led by Aurelio Fernández.
Joan Pons Garlandí (ERC) was named to head the Department of
Authorizations and Permits (passports). Artemi Aguadé (ERC) led the War
Hospitals department. Josep Tarradellas was appointed to head the
decisive department of the Economy and War Industries. The brothers
Guarner, Díaz Sandino and Pérez Farrás were named as military advisors.
Lluís Prunés, Minister of Defense of the Generalitat, soon resigned from
his ostensible but scarcely effective position (which was not
recognized) as president of the CCMA.
The dominance of García Oliver and his clashes with the government of
the Generalitat were constant features of the CCMA until its
dissolution, although they diminished in intensity, importance and
interest with each passing week, both because of the fact that García
Oliver lost the support of the Regional Committee, and because of the
ineffectiveness of the CCMA and the very early secret decision of the
CNT to dissolve it. The most serious confrontation was undoubtedly
García Oliver’s veto of the Casanovas government, proposed by Companys
on July 31, 1936, in which two PSUC Ministers were admitted: Joan
Comorera and Rafael Vidiella, and one from the Unió de Rabassaires:
Josep Calvet. García Oliver’s ultimatum, which included a threat to
overthrow the Generalitat, because he saw the new government as an
attack against the existence of the CCMA, ended with Companys relenting
and modifying the composition of the government (now with only
republicans) just a few days after having published the decree of its
constitution.
The position of the superior committees[59] of the CNT-FAI was
incoherent, unsustainable and contradictory. Their ideological
principles prevented them from entering the Government of the
Generalitat, but they did not want that government to pose a threat to
the CCMA, either, and thus sought to keep the government subject to an
institution that was not, and did not want to be, a revolutionary
government that was an alternative to the Generalitat. The CCMA did not
hold all power in its hands, nor did it want to leave all power in the
hands of anyone else. The anarchosyndicalist leaders wanted to
consolidate the existing revolutionary situation. If this has been
called dual power it is only because there was no understanding of the
fact that dual power entails a ferocious and merciless struggle, carried
out between two opposed poles, to destroy the rival power.[60] In the
case of Cataluña it was more appropriate to speak of a duplication and
complementarity of powers divided among various ministries of the
government and the CCMA, which occasionally proved to be problematic,
ineffective and irritating for everyone involved. García Oliver’s threat
against the formation of the Casanovas government had no other purpose
than to preserve this duplication of powers. The anarchosyndicalist
participation in the tasks of the government by way of the CCMA was
unsatisfactory. But no one dared to propose to the armed masses of
libertarian militants that the anarchosyndicalists should directly enter
the government. When reality clashes with principles, it is the latter
that usually have to give way.
In the meantime, the CCMA created the Council of the Unified New School
(July 27, 1936), the Commission of War Industries (August 7, 1936), the
Control Patrols (August 11, 1936) and the Council of the Economy (August
11, 1936). There was a tendency underway towards an exclusively military
specialization of the CCMA. In reality what was taking place was a
process of integration of all the revolutionary initiatives into the
government machinery. All these mixed commissions had a high degree of
autonomy and independent power of decision, besides counting on a
notable working class presence, even at the presidency and the
leadership levels, but they were always organically embedded in the
various departments of the government of the Generalitat, which was
beginning to acquire prestige, presence and portions of power, to the
permanent detriment of the CCMA and the revolutionary committees. The
most notable case was that of the Commission of War Industries, in which
Tarradellas was able to form a team of professional technicians, such as
Colonel Jiménez de la Beraza, the Head of the Air Force Miguel Ramírez
and the Artillery Captain Luís Arizón, who, together with highly skilled
workers, such as the metal worker Eugenio Vallejo,[61] a pioneer in
creating an incipient war industry after July 20, who brought the
collaboration and enthusiasm of the various trade unions and committees,
and successfully created a war industry from absolutely nothing, which
attained significant production levels in only a few months.
The purpose of the Council of the Economy was to “provide a suitable
structure for and normalize the functioning of the Catalan economy”, as
the Decree of the Generalitat that ratified its creation stated on
August 11, 1936. It was an institution of class collaboration between
the different antifascist forces that composed the CCMA, in a
revolutionary situation dominated by the political and military hegemony
of the CNT, and its goal was to channel, control, regulate and
neutralize, or minimize as much as possible, the methodical
expropriation of the bourgeoisie that the proletariat was carrying out.
It was the point of departure for the counterrevolution to recover the
functions lost by the state apparatus, first transforming the
expropriations into collectivizations, which were nothing more than
appropriations of the enterprises by their workers, reflecting a kind of
“trade union capitalism”,[62] and finally established rigid control over
the Catalan economy, which was planned, centralized and directed by the
Generalitat. In this manner a parallel evolution was underway, of a
legislative character, but also one that imposed effective control over
the enterprises by the Generalitat which, starting with the Plan of
Socialist Transformation (August 17, 1936), concluded with the Decree on
Collectivizations and Workers Control (October 24, 1936), which imposed
an inspector appointed by the Generalitat on the collectivized
enterprises. The explanation of the Collectivization Decree, and its
public introduction and imposition on the working class that took place
during the Conference on the New Economy on December 5–6 of 1936,
although presented as a kind of working class assembly with
decision-making powers, nothing could have been further from the truth.
The much-mythologized self-management of the collectives never went
beyond a capitalism of trade union management and state planning,
against which the industrial workers of Barcelona fought in the spring
of 1937, in favor of the alternative of socialization.
Already during the weeks prior to the military uprising the Nosotros
group had organized some requisition patrols, which had been
reconnoitering the churches to prepare for their plundering, in order to
obtain money, precious metals and artworks with which weapons could be
bought from foreign countries.[63]
These requisition patrols went into action on July 19 and engaged in
frenetic activity during the first few weeks. The atomization of power,
the confinement of the forces of public order to their barracks, and the
absence of control and coordination on the part of the CCMA, caused
Barcelona to experience a wave of looting and terror, as a natural
continuation of the street battles against the military uprising. It was
a kind of extension of the social war in which priests, bourgeoisie and
rightists were enemies to be hunted down and killed by patrols of armed
men, subject to no authority, who defended themselves from attacks from
snipers for a whole week. On July 28 the CNT-FAI published a serious
warning that all disturbers of the public order who took justice into
their own hands would be shot. And some outstanding militants were in
fact shot,[64] along with various criminals and opportunists. In order
to quell this social disorder the CCMA created the Control Patrols,
conceived as a revolutionary police force, on August 11.
The Control Patrols lasted much longer than the CCMA, as they were not
dissolved until early June 1937, shortly after the events known as “the
May Days” of 1937.
They were formed into eleven sections, distributed throughout all the
neighborhoods of Barcelona. At first they had a total of seven hundred
men, plus eleven commanding officers, one for each section. They wore
uniforms composed of a leather jacket with zipper, corduroy pants,
militia cap and a black and red bandana, they carried identification
cards, and they were armed. Some of them came from the requisition
patrols and others from the defense committees, although many of the
latter proved to be reluctant to act as “police” for ideological
reasons, which allowed new, unreliable elements to enter the Control
Patrols. Furthermore, only half the members of the Patrols were members
of the CNT, or the FAI; the other half were members of the other
organizations that formed the CCMA: POUM, ERC and PSUC, for the most
part.
The Control Patrols were under the authority of the Committee of
Investigation of the CCMA, led by Aurelio Fernández (FAI) and Salvador
González (PSUC), who replaced Vidiella. The central office of the
Committee of Investigation was at Number 617 Gran Vía, where the two
delegates of the Patrols, José Asens (FAI) and Tomás Fábregas (Acció
Catalana) were based. The Patrolmen’s wages, ten pesetas a day, were
paid by the government of the Generalitat. Although all the sections
made arrests, and some of those arrested were interrogated at the old
Casa Cambó, the central prison was located in the former convent of the
Nuns of San Elías. The warden of the prison was Silvio Torrents “Arias”
(FAI), the delegate of the central office of the Control Patrols. A
tribunal was constituted at San Elías, created by the Control Patrols
themselves, without the formal consent of any organization, whose
mission was to judge the detainees as quickly as possible. This tribunal
was composed of the Patrol members Riera, the brothers Arias, Aubí and
Bonet, of the FAI; África de las Heras and Salvador González of the
PSUC; Coll from the ERC and Barceló from the POUM. The operations of
this tribunal were totally independent of the CCMA, any other
organization and the Generalitat. It was led by Aurelio Fernández,
Manuel Escorza, Vicente Gil (“Portela”), Dionisio Eroles and José Asens.
The detainees were interrogated summarily, without any judicial
safeguards of any kind.
The Control Patrols included, at the time of their founding, the
following sections: the First, or Casco Viejo, at Number 31 Ancha
Street, under delegate Miguel Lastre; the Second, at the intersection of
Aragón and Muntaner Streets (Number 182 Aragón Street). The Third,
covering Barceloneta and the Estación del Norte. The Fourth included the
working class neighborhoods of Poble Sec and Can Tunis. The Fifth, the
working class neighborhoods of Sants and Hostafrancs, its headquarters
located at the Orfeó de Sants on Galileo Street—its delegate was “Mario”
(FAI); the Sixth, the upper class districts of Bonanova and Pedralbes,
with its headquarters on Muntaner Street; The Seventh, the Gracia and
San Gervasio neighborhoods, with its headquarters on Balmes Street; the
Eighth, the working class neighborhood of El Clot—its delegate was
Oliver (FAI); the Ninth, the working class neighborhood of San Andrés
and its delegate went by the name of Pérez (FAI); the Tenth, Horta; the
Eleventh, with its headquarters at the Ateneo Colón, at Number 166 Pedro
VI Street, in the working class neighborhood of Pueblo Nuevo—its
delegate was Antonio López (FAI), and it shared its headquarters with
the Patrols of San Adrián. The patrolmen had no other restrictions on
their jurisdiction that were clearly expressed other than to respect the
rights of the freemasons and the consulates.[65]
Aurelio Fernández had effective control of the borders. He competed with
Pons (ERC) with regard to the issuing and control of passports and
travel permits. Aurelio assigned Vicente Gil (“Portela”) to supervise
control over the airfields and ports.
Aurelio Fernández worked very closely with Manuel Escorza, the real
decision-maker who directed, coordinated and informed the other CNT
“police” officials: José Asens, the delegate of the Control Patrols, and
Dionisio Eroles, the Secretary of the Council of Workers and Soldiers,
an institution created to purge the military and police of elements
whose loyalty was in doubt.
Manuel Escorza del Val was the director of the Services of Investigation
and Information of the CNT-FAI, that is, an institution that was not
under the authority of the CCMA, but of the regional committees of the
CNT and the FAI, in other words, it was a libertarian institution that,
in accordance with the proposal made by Escorza at the Plenum of July
21, constituted an attempt to create an autonomous and independent armed
force that would be capable of “giving the boot” someday to the
government of the Generalitat. The central investigation patrol, which
was under its authority, made San Elías, which was already the central
prison for all the Control Patrols, into a fortress, a power center, a
general barracks and the headquarters of the tribunal of the Patrols.
This Investigation Service of the CNT-FAI carried out missions involving
information gathering and espionage, even in France, where Minué,
Escorza’s brother-in-law, established an efficient information gathering
network.
Manuel Escorza del Val, with his office on the top floor of the former
Casa Cambó, had confiscated the archives of the employers association
(Fomento del Trabajo) and the chamber of commerce (the Lliga), which
provided him with many names, dates, relations and addresses, with which
he carried out an efficient labor of repression against rightists,
priests and individuals dissatisfied with the “new revolutionary order”.
It was Escorza, for example, who revealed the scandal and the conspiracy
of the plot of Casanovas against Companys, in November 1936.
Salvador González established at the Hotel Colón and the Círculo
Ecuestre a prison and a network of repression under the control of the
PSUC, similar to that of Escorza, with the help of Olaso, Rodríguez
Sala, África de las Heras and Sala. Soler Arumí, of the ERC, set up his
own repressive apparatus at the Centro Federal at the Paseo de Gracia.
These repressive institutions had no connection or fealty to the
Generalitat or the CCMA, or even to their own organizations. This
autonomy of the repressive forces, which allowed them to act with total
independence, without having to justify their activities to anyone,
degenerated, among the cenetistas as well as the PSUC, POUM and the ERC,
into abuses and unnecessary and unjustifiable arbitrary actions. The
practice of taking priests, bourgeois, and rightists “for a ride” became
a regular occurrence, especially along the roads in Arrabassada, el
Morrot, Can Tunis, Somorrostro, Vallvidriera and Tibidabo; and later at
the cemetery of Moncada. The shakedowns and payoffs in the form of
money, gold or jewels in exchange for allowing arrested persons to avoid
imprisonment and trial,[66] whether they were priests or rightists, was
absolutely odious, corrupt and reprehensible. We must differentiate
between the police and repressive duties carried out against those who
opposed the “new revolutionary order”, typical of any regime, from the
corruption that was practiced on behalf of the patrol members and their
leaders, which only grew worse as the impression that the republican
side might lose the war began to make headway.
During the first two months of their existence the Patrols generated a
climate of social anxiety and insecurity due to their arbitrary actions
and their multiplicity of allegiances, since there were the patrols of
the CCMA, those of each organization and each neighborhood (or town),
factory or barricade. Looking back on this period, those who have
focused on the intestine struggle among the antifascists, that is, the
struggle of the PSUC and the ERC against the CNT, attributed the
repression of the first months solely to the anarchists, overlooking the
repression carried out by the ERC and the PSUC, which, after May,
established in Barcelona the ubiquitous terror of the Military
Investigation Service (SIM).[67]
The Control Patrols constituted the failed attempt on the part of the
CCMA to corral the prevailing public disorder. Not only did they
constitute an undesirable political police of the CCMA, but they also
acted in parallel with the patrols of the political police of each
organization; and in competition with the armed patrols of the
militiamen of the defense committees, who were answerable to no other
authority other than their own neighborhood, factory or village
committees, and who continued to man the barricades months after July,
and who at their own initiative and risk carried out requisitions,
confiscations and “took people for rides”, which allowed them to finance
their own activities and even to buy arms from foreign countries.[68]
These were the autonomous militiamen or patrolmen, from every
organization or from no organization, who were not subject to the orders
of the CCMA’s Control Patrols, and who might or might not bring their
detainees or plundered booty to San Elías, and who often executed their
own justice directly in accordance with their own understanding. In
these conditions, no one could clearly differentiate, much less control,
or direct, the limits between the necessary class terror, the ambiguous
“new revolutionary order” of the CCMA, and mere crime, with the
consequent discredit that fell upon anyone who wanted to push forward
the “revolutionary conquests” and extend the social war. Once again we
find ourselves faced with the atomization of power that prevailed in the
summer of 1936: patrols of the CCMA; patrols of the CNT-FAI, of the
POUM, the PSUC, and the ERC; patrols of every defense committee, every
town, every factory, every neighborhood, and even every barricade; all
autonomous and self-financing, acting in parallel, without being
answerable to any central authority or outside the control of the
authorities to which they were supposed to be subject.
COMMITTEES
With the formation of all these Commissions and Councils (of the
Economy, of Supplies) the CCMA was gradually transformed into an
institution that specialized exclusively in matters of Defense and
Public Safety, and therefore became more and more estranged from any
pretense to constitute a revolutionary government that would be capable
of replacing the government of the Generalitat. This refusal to become a
revolutionary government, however, led irremediably to the CCMA’s
failure in its attempts to constitute an institution for the direction
and centralization of the war against fascism, due to the political
incapacity of this institution to become the sole organizing and leading
force of the new army. The improvised militias were formed without a
single directive institution. Instead of mobilizing a unitary
proletarian army, the militia columns were formed under the aegis of the
various parties and trade unions, with the concomitant problems of
coordination, homogenization and centralization. The Stalinists and the
government of the Generalitat easily used this structure to consolidate
the counterrevolutionary advance a few months later. But if the leaders
of the CNT had renounced an anarchist dictatorship, how were they going
to impose an anarchist army? Furthermore, the absence of a revolutionary
theory, program and perspectives led the anarchist leaders, left behind
by the revolutionary initiatives of the rank and file committees, to
engage in constant improvisation which, combined with their optimistic
view that the war would only last for a few weeks, prevented the
superior committees of the CNT from understanding the future
significance of their erroneous decisions. The CCMA therefore also
renounced the main reason for its creation: to create volunteer workers
militias, supply them and direct the war. The chronic shortage of
weapons and ammunition, which were not distributed to the fronts and the
columns that needed them, but wherever the leaders of the parties
decided, depending on their ideological affinities, was used by each
militia to discredit its rivals. The slogan, “go for broke after
capturing Zaragoza”, was turned against its proponents, for if Zaragoza
was not taken there would be no anarchist coup attempt; that is, the
anarchist militias must not be given arms. The inability to impose a
unitary command structure on the militias led to serious deficiencies
with regard to their organization and operations, since there was not
the least coordination and planning of military operations even among
the various militias on the same front.
The CCMA therefore failed with regard to the military question as well.
The only function that it performed adequately, and which was the
function that all of its components, with the exception of the POUM and
the anarchists, explicitly wanted it to perform, was that of defending
and strengthening the government of the Generalitat; this was in any
case its principal objective after the first week of September, when the
CCMA voted to dissolve itself. The Generalitat, as well as the
Stalinists and ERC, would deftly capitalize on the opportunity offered
by the constant errors of the CCMA. On October 24 the Decree
militarizing the militias established the foundations for the bourgeois
army of the Republic. The only thing the militiamen could do was to
resist the inevitable militarization, which was already implemented by
March of 1937.
Meanwhile, the revolutionary situation in the streets was indifferent to
the collaborationist directives imposed by the anarchosyndicalist
leaders. The atomized power of the various Local Committees extended
throughout all of Cataluña, with various degrees of power and autonomy,
and which in some locations reached the level of making an absolute
break with republican legality and the kind of equilibrium that
prevailed at the time in Barcelona between the Generalitat and the CCMA.
Thus, in Lérida, the CNT, POUM and UGT did away with the city government
and constituted a Popular Committee that excluded the republican forces
in order to constitute a power based only on the working class
organizations. Not only Josep Rodés (POUM), who assumed the position of
police commissioner, but also Joaquín Vila (UGT), who was appointed as
the delegate to the Generalitat, usurped these positions to enhance the
power of the Popular Committee of Lérida; and to these were added the
position assumed by Francisco Tomás (FAI) as the head of the
newly-created Committee of Popular Information. These local
revolutionary committees constituted authentic city-states, or
committee-governments,[69] imposing fines and collecting taxes,
recruiting militiamen for the front, forming control patrols to impose
their authority, carrying out public works financed by revolutionary tax
measures to solve the problem of massive unemployment, imposing a new
rationalist educational model, confiscating food, etc. These local
committees replaced the municipal governments, depriving the Generalitat
of the least influence in their towns. Throughout Cataluña, without any
directives from the CNT, a methodical expropriation of the factories and
properties of the bourgeoisie, the churches and monasteries was carried
out, at the same time that, in Barcelona, the CCMA was sharing out among
the various organizations the barracks, printing presses, newspapers and
some buildings and hotels. The committees complied with the directives
of the CCMA if they did not conflict with the interests of the
revolution, but mounted enormous resistance when they were thought to be
the product of a compromise with the bourgeoisie and the government of
the Generalitat. At the same time, however, the CCMA had to rely on
these local committees if it wanted its directives to be observed. The
internal conflict within the leadership of the CNT-FAI, between those
who supported and those who were opposed to collaboration, was also
manifested in the problematic relations between the Central Committee of
Antifascist Militias and the local revolutionary institutions. The
government of the Generalitat restricted itself to providing a legal
sanction for the social and economic reality of the collectivizations
and “revolutionary conquests”, as the only way it could hope to acquire
the prestige and the acceptance that it lacked. The CCMA could barely
govern, or give any orders at all, outside of the city of Barcelona,
without the acquiescence and collaboration of the local committees or
trade unions. The weakness of the latter was rooted in the impossibility
of their consolidation as an authentic alternative power on the scale of
all of Cataluña, without the coordinating and centralizating support of
a working class organization, much less against the opposition of all
the existing organizations.
The CCMA and the Generalitat coincided in their policy of supporting the
restoration of the powers of the old municipal governments against the
usurpation of their powers by the local revolutionary committees, and
this mission was performed with great effectiveness by the Department of
Regional Militias, led by Josep Miret and Joan Pons. This Department
stripped the local committees of the responsibility for the recruitment
and organization of the militiamen, which the committees had
spontaneously exercised during the first few weeks, and transferred this
responsibility to the regional commissions, based on the new territorial
division of Cataluña. This regional structure facilitated the
subjugation of the various local committees, which had to send
delegations to the regional offices, far from the pressure of their
local revolutionary conditions.
Thus, not only was the CCMA not a revolutionary government that
coordinated the activities of the local committees; it saw the latter as
signifying a diminution of its authority. And the anarchist leaders not
only helped to consolidate the power of the Generalitat, but were also
quite pleased with the weakening of the local committees. That is why
they allowed Miret of the PSUC and Pons of the ERC to undermine the
power of the local committees in Cataluña. This was another serious
error on the part of the leaders of the CNT, because the weakening of
the local committees undermined the real basis of the CNT’s power
outside the city of Barcelona.
In Barcelona, the defense committees, upon which the real power of the
CCMA was based, existed in almost all the neighborhoods and in some
confiscated buildings, among which were the Hotel Número 1 at the Plaza
de España, the Escolapios at the Ronda de San Pablo, the Estación de
Francia, the Estación del Norte, and the defense committees of
Barceloneta, Pueblo Nuevo, San Andrés and Gaudí Avenue, among others.
DISSOLUTION
According to the account of Joan Pons Garlandí, as related in his
memoires, two stages of the CCMA’s history can be distinguished, which
coincided with the period when its offices were located at the Naval
School, next to the Gobernación, at the Plaza Palacio, and the period
after their transfer[70] at the end of July to the Capitanía at the
Paseo Colón. During the first stage no minutes were recorded, or at
least none have been located to date. In the second stage, Miravitlles
was responsible for drafting them, until he appointed a secretary for
the purpose. They exist, but in an incomplete form.[71]
The nocturnal meetings of the CCMA were usually held on every other day,
very late at night, so that the majority of the members could attend,
who were busy during the rest of the day with the responsibilities of
their various positions. They tended to be somewhat chaotic and
disorganized. Problems were resolved as they came up, in an improvised
manner. Some members, such as García Oliver, Rovira and Vidiella,
exhibited from the beginning their oratorical gifts, with very long,
vacuous and boring speeches that interested no one, which is why they
were not even recorded in the minutes of the meetings. All the members
of the CCMA attended its meetings heavily armed and ostentatiously
displayed their enormous pistols. The threats made by Durruti against
Miravitlles, reminding him of his authorship of an article in which he
proclaimed the equivalence of FAIstas and Fascistas, and García Oliver’s
insulting treatment of Companys, caused the first meetings to generate a
certain climate of tension, which was definitively dispelled when the
offices of the CCMA were moved to the Capitanía.
The meetings of the CCMA were often attended by people who were not
members of the CCMA, such as technicians, reporters or advisors.
Resolutions were usually unanimously approved. Dissenting views were
recorded in the minutes, until, at the meeting of September 6, it was
decided to record only the final resolution.
Ever since the end of July 1936, David Antona, the Interim Secretary of
the National Committee of the CNT in Madrid, had been receiving offers
from the Giral government to collaborate with the republican government
and the other antifascist forces, offers that were debated at the
National Plenum of Regional Committees held in Madrid on July 28.[72] At
this meeting the representatives of the Catalan Regional Committee
became enmeshed in a debate regarding whether the CNT should or should
not seize power. Once the option of establishing libertarian communism
was rejected, on the basis of the argument that the CNT was a minority
grouping outside of Cataluña, the debate focused on the ways and means
of the CNT’s collaboration with government bodies.
During the entire month of August the anarchist “notables” were split
over the dilemma of whether they should put an end to the CCMA, without
entering the government of the Generalitat, or maintain it. There were
two basic approaches: the first consisted in creating technical
commissions in the various Councils (Ministries of the Generalitat) as a
formula for controlling without participating in the government: this
approach was exemplified in the commission of war industries or the
Council of the Economy;[73] the second was to do the same thing but
within the revolutionary institutions, formally based on legal powers,
but upholding a revolutionary power that would provide them with a real
position of power: this was exemplified in the Control Patrols, the
defense committees and the Committee of Investigation of the CCMA,
coordinated and directed by Manuel Escorza from the Committee of
Information and Investigation of the CNT-FAI, which was answerable only
to the Regional Committee of the CNT and the Peninsular Committee of the
FAI.
On August 3[74], in a resolution signed by Jaime Miravitlles as
secretary of the CCMA, various agreements of a minor nature were
approved, such as the confiscation of the Elizalde and Anet factories;
the creation of an ammunition dump at Lérida, with subsidiary storage
depots at Caspe and Monzón; a salute to the Durruti column “for its
discipline and organizational acumen”; the approval of a motion to
inform in writing the Local Federation of Trade Unions of all decisions
of a general nature made by the CCMA; the dispatch of a delegate to
oversee the manufacture of bombs at Reus; the selection of loyal
officers from a list presented by UMRE; the appointment of Jiménez de la
Beraza and the brothers Guarner as technical specialists on the General
Staff of the Militias; etc.
Already, on August 17, while a Plenum of Local and Regional Committees
of the CNT was being held, the decision to dissolve the CCMA was made,
although this was not yet made public to the confederal militants.[75]
The explanation that was given for the resolutions adopted at this
Plenum, in the Report of the delegation of the CNT to the Extraordinary
Congress of the AIT, leaves no room for doubt: “It was considered that,
in order to avoid the duplication of powers represented by the CCMA and
the Government of the Generalitat, the former had to disappear and the
Council of the Generalitat of Cataluña had to be formed, carrying out
some more positive activities without the hindrance of a clash of powers
and to put an end to the pretext that the democracies will not help us
‘because the anarchists are in charge’.”[76] The goal of this maneuver
was, in short, to replace the CCMA with a system of technical
commissions, attached to the Ministries, and to limit the authority of
the CCMA to military questions. This resolution was ratified on August
21 at a Regional Plenum of anarchist groups.[77]
Finally, at the end of August, a secret Plenum of the Libertarian
Movement of Cataluña was held. García Oliver, tired of the endless
debates, shouted to the delegates, “Either we collaborate, or else we
impose a dictatorship: You decide!”[78] The Plenum had to decide whether
or not to accept the invitation, which arose from numerous conversations
between Companys and Marianet, to the CNT to participate in the
“Council” of the Generalitat. The Plenum finally decided in favor of the
entry of the CNT-FAI into the government of the Generalitat.[79]
On August 31,[80] at 11:30 p.m., a plenary session of the CCMA was held,
attended by the majority of the members and delegates. García Matas
reported on the situation of the republican forces in Mallorca. He
warned the delegates that the enemy possessed six fighter squadrons that
posed a threat not only to the Baleares but also to Barcelona and
Valencia. He thought that the enemy was preparing for a major offensive
in Mallorca. Jiménez de la Beraza, whose argument was then supported by
Marcos Alcón, insisted on the necessity of finishing off the assault on
Huesca in order to shift the scarce war materiel that was available to
operations at Mallorca. Vidiella emphasized the international importance
of the Mallorca campaign.
At the next Plenary of the CCMA, held on September 2,[81] Aguadé
reported on the fate of the hospital ship, “Marqués de Comillas”,
filling in the gaps in the information provided at the previous meeting,
concerning the damage inflicted on the ship by a bombing attack. Miret
proposed, and his proposal was approved, to order Captain Bayo to
evacuate the military personnel and remove all war materiel from the
ship, which was henceforth to be just a hospital.
Miret reported on the events at Lérida, concerning the theft of
provisions, weapons and munitions. A long and bitter debate ensued in
which Aurelio Fernández, Gironella (POUM), Abad de Santillán, Artemi
Aguadé, Marcos Alcón, Torrents, Fábregas, Vidiella, Asens, and others
participated. It was decided that the theft was the result of shortages
everywhere, both in Lérida as well as in Barcelona, and that the
irregularities that were being denounced had already been abolished due
to the new measures implemented by the War, Supply and Health
Commissions. It was announced that some of the weapons that had been
stolen had already been recovered. And it was resolved that the
Commission of War, reinforced with representatives from all the
organizations that were members of the CCMA, accompanied by a strong
contingent of armed militiamen, should scour all the towns of Cataluña
in order to collect all the arms and munitions they could find. With
regard to the composition of the Committee of Militias of the city of
Lérida,[82] it was resolved that it would be required to allow the entry
of representatives of the ERC. At the suggestion of the comrades from
Lérida, the CCMA resolved that the Commission of War should relocate to
that city, which was a strategic point on the Aragón front, for the
purpose of resolving the serious problems that continued to accumulate,
with regard to troop movements and the provision of arms and other war
materiel.
José Asens proposed, and his proposal was approved, to abolish all the
special seals of the Militias, and sections of the Central Committee, in
order to prevent abuses, and that there should only be one official seal
of the CCMA.
Marcos Alcón reported on the problems posed for the Transport Commission
by the need to constantly requisition cars and trucks, exposing the
abuses of the various organizations and public bodies, which possessed
an excessive number of vehicles. It was resolved to grant full powers to
the Transport Commission to requisition all the individually owned
vehicles in Barcelona and all the trucks that it should need, as well as
to deprive the organizations, groups and public bodies of all their
excess vehicles.
Asens reported that there was an insufficient number of patrolmen to
attend to the volume of services that had to be performed. He thought
that all the units of the Militias, including those of the Capitanía,
should send contingents for the Control Patrols, which were also
supposed to act in coordination with the Investigation Patrols. Aguadé
thought that the Patrols had to be motorized, and that it was necessary
to carry out a purge of the elements that formed the Sections. It was
resolved to increase the number of Patrolmen, the precise number to be
established by the Commission, and that the Investigation Patrols should
be integrated with the Patrol Sections, and also that the personnel of
the Sections should be purged.
Asens also proposed the need to carry out an investigation in Caspe
concerning the activity of Antonio Ortiz,[83] which was opposed by
Aurelio Fernández because he thought that it was improper to attend to
matters that were not the result of the conduct of the CCMA.
A proposal of Miret and Fernández was approved, which mandated that, at
the next meeting, a project should be undertaken to regulate
investigatory proceedings, and that the latter may not be authorized
with any other seal than that of the CCMA.
A proposal made by Lluís Prunés was approved to require that all the
special taxes, subscriptions, donations and receipts from festivals to
raise money for the militias should be controlled by the CCMA.
All the resolutions were unanimously approved, and the session ended at
three in the morning on September 3.
On September 3 a National Plenum of Regional Federations was held in
Madrid to debate Largo Caballero’s offer to name Antonio Moreno as
confederal Minister, an appointment that had been “provisionally”
accepted by Moreno and by Interim National Secretary David Antona. The
National Committee, basing its deliberations on the resolutions of the
recent Plenum held in Cataluña, where the participation of the CNT in
the “Council” of the Generalitat was approved, declared its support for
participation in the government of Largo Caballero. The delegates,
however, rejected this proposal. After lengthy debate a compromise was
reached, consisting in the CNT’s support for the new government and the
formation in each Ministry of an auxiliary commission composed of
representatives of the CNT. At a press conference held on September 4,
the formation of the first[84] government of the socialist Largo
Caballero was announced, without any CNT representation. On September 8,
Largo Caballero rejected the CNT’s proposal concerning auxiliary
commissions, but remained open to the offer of a Ministry to the
CNT.[85]
At 11:45 p.m. on September 4,[86] the CCMA met again, with the
attendance of most of the delegates. Giménez de la Beraza reported on
the war materiel available for the various fronts. He emphasized the
lack of small arms ammunition and the advisability of proceeding to
requisition all the supplies of such ammunition throughout Cataluña, and
also recommended that gunpowder be manufactured, which would take two
months, with all the problems that such a timetable entailed. He
mentioned the negotiations being carried out in foreign countries and
the positions of the various governments “with respect to our struggle
against fascism”.
Aurelio Fernández explained that the Section of Investigation was
“proceeding to requisition arms and ammunition, which some organizations
had already handed over”, adding that “we have to find and collect all
we need”.
Guarner reported that the conquest of Huesca “will require one million
bullets”.
García Oliver reported that the retreat from Mallorca had been carried
out “without the knowledge of the Committee”, and that it was the result
of a powerful bombardment by the enemy and the interference of the
Madrid government, “which had ordered the withdrawal without informing
Cataluña”.
Prunés informed the delegates that Captain Bayo “had been ordered by the
Committee of the ship ‘Jaime I’, in the name of the Squadron Committee
and the Government of the Republic, to abandon Mallorca with all the men
and materiel, in order to proceed to Málaga, and that he was given two
hours to decide and forty eight hours to leave”.
González revealed that some of the militiamen who had returned from
Mallorca said that there was a heavy bombardment and that Bayo ordered
them to throw equipment into the sea. An order was issued for Bayo to
present himself immediately and that various militiamen who were willing
to provide testimony should also present themselves before the CCMA.
Aurelio Fernández called attention to the receipt of several messages by
the CNT from outstanding comrades in Zaida, requesting that an
investigation be carried out concerning the events at Belchite “after
the withdrawal of the Ortiz Column”. Santillán said that these reports
and the documentation provided did not support “any specific
accusation”, but that he was in favor of pursuing the investigation.
García Oliver stated that the withdrawal from Belchite was due “to the
lack of artillery”. He appointed a commission to carry out the
investigation.
A proposal to transfer the gasoline stored at Can Tunis to another
location to prevent its destruction by bombing was approved.
Miret (PSUC) and Aguadé (ERC) referred to various border patrols that
were organized on the initiative of various individuals and groups,
without any effective control on the part of the CCMA. Aurelio Fernández
expressed his view “that the border patrols are the responsibility of
the Investigation Section and that everything that is currently taking
place is a result of organizational deficiencies”; in order to remedy
the situation, it was resolved that the Investigation Section should
improve its organization of the border patrols, and that the CCMA should
exercise strict control and unified direction over these patrols.
Likewise, it was resolved to withdraw authorization for the
establishment of a hospital that some self-styled Alpine Militias had
organized on their own account in Barcelona, without the authorization
of the Health Committee.[87]
The session took a Copernican turn with the appearance of Captain Bayo
in the royal chambers of the Capitanía, where the CCMA was meeting.
García Oliver asked him why he had ignored the CCMA, with regard to both
his decision to embark for Mallorca and then to return. Bayo responded
that he sailed for Mallorca after having been requested to do so by a
large group of militiamen who had presented themselves to him at the
Airfield, and with the consent of the Government Minister, España; and
that he returned in obedience to an appeal by the government of the
Generalitat, which is why he had not been able to come before the
Committee. García Oliver insisted that he had an obligation to obtain
the consent of the CCMA, “which holds the power of decision over all
matters pertaining to the war”, because if he had done so it would at
least have prevented the bad effect that the retrreat from Mallorca had
produced with respect to public opinion.
Bayo continued to proffer explanations, relating to the situation of the
troops and the way the landing was conducted. He praised the morale and
bravery of the troops under his command, “who were ready to fight
wherever I sent them”. He pointed out that he had loaded all the
materiel he could and that supplies and equipment were only destroyed or
thrown into the sea to prevent the enemy from seizing them. He read the
order, signed by the committee of the “Jaime I” and by the Squadron
Committee, requiring him to withdraw in the name of the Government of
the Republic. He accepted the order to withdraw, to save the lives of
the militiamen, since the enemy air forces were bombing them with one
hundred kilogram bombs. He denied having received any motorcycles,
trucks or artillery, and said that if they had been sent they were
probably at Mahón.
Marcos Alcón explained the manner in which these expeditions were
conducted, without authorization of the CCMA, and that the latter was
faced with so many faits accompli, and that the defeat at Mallorca was
due to a lack of organization. Vidiella asked for the opinion of the
military advisors. Giménez de la Beraza claimed that Bayo’s action was
“militarily a defeat, politically a disaster, all because he acted on
his own account without consulting the CCMA, and that the political
aspect is much more serious than the military aspect”. As for the
equipment, he said that throwing the heavy equipment into the sea was
justifiable, but not the light arms.
Then a group of militiamen appeared in the royal chamber, arriving from
the failed expedition to Mallorca, militants of the ERC, the CNT and the
UGT, who provided their reports, confirming the information submitted by
Bayo.
After Bayo’s report on the fascist air forces in Mallorca, García Oliver
notified the delegates of the agreement between Santillán and Sandino
and the Madrid government to send five thousand men to the Central
front.
It was resolved that the four thousand militiamen who had returned from
Mallorca should depart on Monday: two thousand for the Madrid front and
two thousand for the Aragón front, and that one thousand national guards
(the new name for the civil guards) should also leave for Madrid, and
that the garrison at Mahón should return to their base with the “City of
Barcelona”. All these resolutions were unanimously approved. The session
ended at 1:45 p.m. on the 5^(th) of September, after a marathon meeting
of fourteen hours, in which it had become apparent that the CCMA was
incapable of controlling and directing the military operations based in
Cataluña.
The Mallorca expedition had been carried out behind the back of the
CCMA, organized by Captain Bayo, with the assistance of Companys, and
with the support of the UGT (Comorera) and the Maritime Transport Trade
Union of the CNT. It failed as a result of a lack of organization of the
operations and the sudden order to withdraw issued by the central
government. The lack of war materiel for the Aragón front was
exacerbated by the loss of equipment and supplies at Mallorca, and the
disaster was magnified by the discrediting of the CCMA, which was not
only incapable of directing all military operations, but was even
incapable of being aware of their existence.
The next meeting was called to order on September 6[88] at midnight, and
was attended by the majority of the delegates to the CCMA. Over the
course of the meeting various questions were asked, among which were:
the request of the Syndicalist Party, led by Ángel Pestaña, to be
admitted to the CCMA; a proposal concerning the advisability of an
immediate attack on Jaca; the appointment of Llorenç Perramon as
Recording Secretary, without the right to vote, and that the minutes of
the meetings should only consist of the resolutions approved, without an
account of the debates.
The minutes of September 8[89] record the replacement of Josep Rovira
(the delegate of the Lenin Column of the POUM) by Julián Gorkin. Various
resolutions regarding subsidies, the prohibition of collecting money on
the street, closer surveillance over the correct use of the food
subsidies granted by the CCMA, the clearing of lines of people in front
of the Capitanía, and increasing the number of members of the Control
Patrols to one thousand six hundred were approved, along with other
minor issues.
On September 10 the minutes record the ratification of the resolution to
dissolve[90] the CCMA and the recommendation that at the next meeting
the respective criteria with regard to the form and proportional
representation for the posts each organization will occupy in the
Council of Defense of the Generalitat should be determined. The
resolution to dissolve the CCMA was kept secret.
It was also resolved that the dead should be buried at the front and
that the bodies should not be shipped home. It was once again insisted
that only the Control Patrols and the Investigation Patrols were
empowered to authorize and carry out searches, and that anyone who did
so on his own account should be punished. Three delegates, from the CNT,
the UGT and the POUM, were appointed to carry out weekly inspections of
subsidies, donations, and festivals for raising money for the militias.
All of the above resolutions were unanimously approved.
On September 12[91] a resolution was approved, with the abstention of
the representatives of the UGT and the POUM, that mandated that the
current government of the Generalitat should be replaced by a Council of
Defense of the Generalitat of Cataluña, with representatives of all the
organizations that composed the CCMA, “which would at the same time be
dissolved”.
On September 14[92] García Oliver publicized the CNT’s resolution
concerning the constitution of the Council of Defense of the
Generalitat, replacing the current government of the Generalitat, within
the framework of a new political conception of the Spanish state,
conceived as a “Confederation of Free Nations, starting with Cataluña”.
Gorkin, in the name of the POUM, stated that the new Council of the
Generalitat must be composed of representatives of all the organizations
that composed the current CCMA and that “the program of this Council
must be of a socialist kind, or one involving socialization”.
Vidiella, for the UGT, agreed with the first point expressed by Gorkin
with regard to the representatives on the Council, as well as with the
name of “the Council of the Generalitat”, and also thought that its
jurisdiction must be extended over all of Cataluña, and that it must
embrace all the factions, and that this Council must be the only
authority empowered to carry out confiscations, or to proceed with the
collectivization or socialization of the country. Vidiella therefore
advanced the idea of a strong government, vested with full authority.
Miravitlles, for the ERC and the Generalitat, said that this new
government (he dared to violate the acratic taboo concerning calling
something that was really a government by the name of “council”) must
include all social classes and that as for a program, it must be
whatever is necessary to defeat fascism.
Santillán, for the FAI, expressed his view that it was necessary to
establish points of convergence that would unite all the factions, as
had been the case up until this time, and that the principal goal must
be to destroy fascism in all of Spain.
Torrents informed the delegates that it was the view of the Unió de
Rabassaires that it was necessary to form a strong government, with the
same representatives as the current CCMA: “a single power that would
prosecute the war against fascism and establish order in the new
economy”.
García Oliver said that everyone was in agreement on the need to
transform the country in every respect, establishing a new juridical,
political and economic order; and as for a program, “there is already a
Council of the Economy responsible for carrying out the economic
transformation”.
Gorkin (very meticulously) said that “antifascism is not a program”,
which is why it was necessary to specify in what manner the dominant
privileges had to be destroyed. Gorkin thought that it was necessary to
specify just what economic policies had to be enforced in the rearguard,
and to define the purpose of the struggle of the combatants at the
front, which was to create a better society. He proposed that alongside
each Minister of the new government, as was already the case in the
Council of the Economy, there should be a Council composed of
representatives of all the organizations.
Miravitlles explained that the time to establish a concrete program,
whether communist or anarchosyndicalist, would arrive if the war was
won, but in the meantime it was necessary to create a government capable
of winning the war against fascism.
Alcón (CNT) maintained “that the government must conduct the war against
fascism and the economic transformation must be carried out by the
working class organizations in the streets; and that it is useless to
oppose this because the organizations will go on with their work
regardless of our resolutions”. It was the mission of the government to
direct the war, but it must not legislate with regard to economic
matters, because this is the job of the workers, operating through the
Council of the Economy. He finished his speech by claiming: “the war
must be fought by the Government, Collectivization must be carried out
by the Council of the Economy.”
Miret, of the PSUC, said that it was indispensable to formulate a
concrete program that would assure the unity of all the factions.
Gorkin declared that the formulation of a program did not require that
each faction renounce its ideals, but that all the points of convergence
and the necessary directives for the defeat of fascism should be
established. He did not agree with the proposal that spoke of social
classes, but of organizations that represent the classes and that the
latter must not reorganize but transform the social and economic
foundations of the country, which “is to say, carry out the social
revolution”.
Vidiella said that only a strong government would be respected by
foreign countries and that socialization in the countryside would entail
a confrontation with the peasantry.
García Oliver expressed his view that the revolutionary transformation
must affect all the juridical, economic and political aspects of the
country, and that each region must proceed in accordance with its own
characteristics, since the policies that are appropriate for Cataluña
would not be appropriate for Andalucía. He thought that a mere Council
must not do anything but prepare the policies that would have to be
implemented once the war was over.
And he emphasized that to create this Council all that was necessary was
for the CCMA to tell the President of the Generalitat that it wanted it
to be formed, so that the Generalitat would proceed to its immediate
creation.
Vidiella agreed that it would be the President who would form the
Council.
Gorkin and Miret both made proposals. Miret’s was approved, which was as
follows:
“The representatives of all the organizations that compose the CCMA
should petition the President of the Generalitat of Cataluña, proposing
the convocation of a meeting of delegates of all the organizations
represented in the CCMA to discuss the organic constitution of a Council
of Defense of the Generalitat and of the program that the latter must
implement”.
Pons (ERC) referred to the name of the Regional Defense Council,
suggested by the CNT, and expressed his view that the word, “Regional”,
must be deleted. Alcón expressed his opinion that the word must be
maintained, and that a National Council of Defense must be formed in
Madrid. Miravitlles seconded the proposal to eliminate the word,
“Regional”. García Oliver prudently resolved the dispute, proposing that
the first act of the Council would be to give itself a name. Vidiella,
for his part, proposed to delete the word, “Defense” and designate it as
simply the “Council of the Generalitat of Cataluña”. After the semantic
debate the session ended at two-thirty on the morning of September 15.
No one opposed the dissolution of the CCMA. No one, except the
anarchists, allowed themselves to be deceived regarding the fact that
this entailed the formation of a new government of the Generalitat,
whether it was called a “council” or not. The debate on the program of
the new government that would supersede the CCMA, revolved around the
concepts of “socialization”, proposed by the POUM, or “antifascist”,
advocated by the ERC and the PSUC. The CNT-FAI maintained its
characteristic ambiguity: the economy was the task of the Council of the
Economy, while the war was the job of what they called the Council of
Defense of the Generalitat. García Oliver, Marcos Alcón, Aurelio
Fernández and José Asens actually thought that the program of the
“Council” was of no importance. It was the price that had to be paid to
avoid isolation. What was of importance for them was the fact that the
CNT would continue to control the various Ministries, by way of
technical commissions, like those attached to the Council of the Economy
or the commission of war industries, while a good part of the military
and police apparatus would be in the hands of the CNT-FAI. This
indefiniteness, ambiguity and incoherence led them irremediably to
support the program of antifascist unity, that is, of that antifascism
that proposed the constitution of a strong government capable of
“imposing order” on the economy and winning the war.
On the 15^(th) of September a National Plenum of Regional Committees was
held in Madrid, at which it was resolved to approve the intervention of
the CNT in the military, economic and political leadership of republican
Spain, with the proposal of the formation of a National Council of
Defense. This was, in short, a proposal that the CNT should collaborate
with the government of the Republic, by means of this Council that was
to be composed of five delegates of the CNT, five from the UGT and four
republicans. This National Council was conceived as the unified summit
of the various regional Councils. It was a federalist conception, so
dear to the CNT, in which the economy was to be socialized and the army
unified under a unitary command structure and a commissariat of war.
Although it persisted in the old trick of not calling things by their
names, the CNT’s proposal pointed towards the reconstruction of a strong
and centralized state.[93]
On September 16[94] a report concerning the case of Captain Bayo was
presented, an order was issued to remove the bales of cotton from the
barricades,[95] the Control Patrols were authorized to issue a special
Section identity card, in addition to the one already possessed by each
patrol, and it was agreed to await the return of Tarradellas in order to
dispatch a commission from the CCMA to Madrid.
On September 18[96] it was agreed to organize coastal defense with
militiamen from the local committees, that a commission of information
and censorship should be appointed that would be composed of
representatives of every organization that was part of the CCMA, to
create a new ID card for the members of the Patrols, and that “a
commission composed of the comrades García Oliver, Miravitlles, Vidiella
and Gorkin should meet with the President of the Government of the
Generalitat tomorrow and that the latter should make an appointment to
receive them”.
On September 19 a commission of the CCMA, composed of García Oliver,
Miravitlles, Vidiella and Gorkin met with Companys in order to deliver
the proposal drafted by Miret concerning the formation of the Council of
the Generalitat, that is, of the new Government of the Generalitat that
would include anarchosyndicalist Ministers, once the great semantic
dilemma about calling the Council of the Generalitat what it always
really was, the Government of the Generalitat, was finally resolved. On
that same day[97] Vidiella, Aurelio Fernández and Miravitlles were named
as members of the commission that was to travel to Madrid to “negotiate
with the government of the Republic as a consequence of the result of
the journey of the comrade Minister Tarradellas”.[98]
On September 20[99], in the royal reception hall of the Capitanía, at
6:00 p.m., a special session of the CCMA convened that was attended by
García Oliver, Fábregas, Alcón, Vidiella, Miravitlles, Fernández,
Torrents and Gorkin, along with invitees such as Sesé for the UGT,
Escorza for the FAI and Calvet for the Unió de Rabassaires, to initiate
discussions with the Moroccan delegates Mohammed El Ohazzari and Omar
Abd-el-Jalil, the representatives of the Moroccan Action Committee, who
had arrived in Barcelona in early September for the purpose of obtaining
support for Moroccan independence. At this meeting the support of the
CCMA for the Moroccan delegation was solemnly formalized, and it was
promised that the CCMA would try to get the Government of the Republic
to declare the independence of the Spanish Protectorate in Morocco.[100]
The session, which was conducted in a formal manner, ended at 6:15 p.m.
A photograph exists (“Història Gráfica del Moviment Obrer a Catalunya”,
Diputació de Barcelona, 1989), taken after the signing of the agreement
by the Moroccan Action Committeeand the CCMA, in which one can
recognize, among others (from left to right), Marcello Argila Pazzaglia,
the two Morrocan delegates, Juan García Oliver, Julián Gómez García
(“Gorkin”), Manuel Estrada Manchón, Rafael Vidiella, Mariano Rodríguez
Vázquez (“Marianet”), Manuel Escorza del Val (with crutches) and Aurelio
Fernández Sánchez.
On September 21[101] it was resolved to add Gorkin to the commission
that was to be dispatched to Madrid and that Guarner and Miret should
appoint an officer to command the coastal defenses.
At the meeting of September 22[102], the CCMA decided to “prohibit the
entry into Cataluña of the families from Madrid and the provinces who
are constantly arriving in Barcelona, and that they should be returned
to their places of origin”. This resolution was transmitted to the
Ministry of the Government and to the railroad workers Committees of
Barcelona, Lérida, Tortosa, Mora de Ebro, Valencia and Madrid for its
effective implementation.[103]
On September 25[104] the CCMA voted to broadcast a message to the
cruiser “Libertad” which, according to the press, was transporting the
mortal remains of the heroic militiawoman Lidia Odena, informing the
ship’s captain of the resolution of the CCMA according to which the
comrades killed at the front were to be buried at the front, and that
they could not be shipped back to the rearguard without the express
permission of the CCMA, and that if the ship had already left port, that
upon its arrival in Barcelona the burial should be carried out without
any public demonstration.
This was the last act of the CCMA that we can identify. As soon as
September 18, its resolutions were very brief and drafted in a
telegraphic style, although according to García Oliver the CCMA held two
more meetings, on the 27^(th) and the 28^(th),[105] before its last
session when it officially disbanded, which took place on October 1,
1936.
GENERALITAT
On September 26 the new government of the Generalitat was constituted,
with Tarradellas as Prime Minister, in which three CNT-FAI Ministers
participated: Joan Porqueras Fábregas as Minister of the Economy,
Antonio García Birlán as Minister of Health and Social Welfare and Josep
Joan Doménach as Minister of Provisions.[106]
The resolution to dissolve the CCMA was not made public until the end of
the Regional Plenum of Trade Unions, which was held from September 25 to
27, and which had to formally approve this dissolution, which was
presented as the consequence of the entry of the cenetistas into the
government, since, in the words of García Oliver himself: “today the
Generalitat represents all of us”.
Solidaridad Obrera, in its September 27^(th) issue, insisted on claiming
that a new institution called the “Council of the Generalitat” had been
created, rather than a new government; after September 29, however, it
accepted the new reality and explained the reasons why the CNT entered
the new government of the Generalitat at the same time that it announced
the dissolution of the CCMA. Curiously, the dissolution of the CCMA was
presented as an inevitable consequence of the formation of the
Government of the Generalitat, when in reality it was only when, between
the end of August and the first days of September, that it was decided
to dissolve the CCMA, when anyone began to discuss the entry of the CNT
into the government.
On September 28 another National Plenum of Regional Federations was held
in Madrid, where the national secretary Horacio Prieto attacked the
proposed National Defense Council for its lack of realism. He set forth
his arguments in favor of pure and simple participation in the
government of Largo Caballero. He insisted that things should be called
by their real names and that the CNT should dispense with its
ideological prejudices. He did not, however, obtain the support of the
delegates to the Plenum, who merely voted in favor of a manifesto that
acknowledged the need for antifascist unity.[107]
On the evening of October 1^(st), the last, purely ceremonial, session
of the CCMA was convened. García Oliver delivered a concluding speech in
which he called for the unity of all the parties and organizations.
After proclaiming that he had been a staunch defender of the CCMA, but
that now he would be a passionate defender of the new Council of the
Generalitat, he responded to a query of Miravitlles by asserting that as
a Catalanist he could only celebrate the decision of the CNT to enter
the government of the Generalitat.
The Official Bulletin of the Generalitat published on October 3
contained the decree, signed on October 1, in which Juan García Oliver
was appointed general secretary of the Department of Defense, a new
position expressly created for him. In this same issue of the Bulletin
the Decree Proclaiming the Dissolution of the CCMA was also published:
“The CCMA, created by the decree of July 21, has understood that, having
fulfilled the mission that it certainly performed so appropriately
during the first days of the military uprising, it must now dissolve.
Therefore, in accordance with the Executive Council, it is hereby
Decreed: Article 1. The CCMA, created by the Decree of July 21, is
dissolved. Article 2. By decree and in accordance with the orders
pertaining thereto, as required, the present Decree will be fulfilled.
Barcelona, October 1, 1936. The Prime Minister, Josep Tarradellas.”
In the Official Bulletin published on October 4, by decree signed on
October 3, Aurelio Fernández was appointed general secretary of the
Committee for Internal Security. For the CNT, this signified the
preservation of its grasp on the key positions of Public Order and the
Militias.
The new government of the Generalitat proposed to strengthen the economy
on the basis of a program initiated by the Council of the Economy and to
reinforce the war effort by way of compulsory mobilization and the
establishment of discipline and a unitary command structure.
The presence of all the antifascist organizations in the government of
the Generalitat implied a major step forward towards the reestablishment
of republican legality and the rehabilitation of all state functions.
This implied the termination of all those revolutionary committees that,
in every locality, exercised sovereign and total power, from the
collection of taxes and maintenance of control patrols to the financing
of public works to address the problem of unemployment.
The Decree of October 9, complemented by the one issued on October 12,
declared the dissolution of all the local committees that were formed on
July 19, which were to be replaced by the new municipal authorities.
Despite the resistance of many local committees, and despite the delay
of several months before the new municipal government bodies could be
created, this was a death-blow from which the committees would not
recover. The resistance of the CNT militants, who ignored the directives
of the superior committees and the orders of the government of the
Generalitat, endangered the antifascist pact. The anarchosyndicalist
leaders were caught between the Scylla of the CNT militants, reluctant
to obey its directives, and the Charybdis of the charge leveled by the
other antifascist forces that it was necessary to comply, and enforce
compliance with the decrees of the government, and bring “the
uncontrollables” into line.
This was the real balance sheet bequeathed by the CCMA in its nine weeks
of existence: the transition from a situation where local revolutionary
committees exercised all power in the streets and the factories, to
their dissolution for the exclusive benefit of the complete
reestablishment of the power of the Generalitat. Likewise, the decrees
signed on October 24[108] concerning the militarization of the militias
effective as of November 1 and the promulgation of the Collectivization
decree, completed the disastrous balance sheet of the CCMA, that is, the
transition from working class Militias composed of revolutionary
volunteers to a bourgeois army of the classical type, subject to the
monarchical code of military justice, commanded by the Generalitat; and
the transition from expropriations and workers control of the factories
to a centralized economy controlled and directed by the Generalitat.
The delay in the application of the decrees, provoked by the mute but
determined resistance of the confederal militants, who were still armed,
caused the government of the Generalitat to make the disarmament of the
rearguard its number one priority, initiating a propaganda campaign
against the so-called “uncontrollables”, which was conflated with the
secondary objective expressed in the constantly repeated slogan: “arms
to the front”.
The powerful resistance of the anarchosyndicalist rank and file to the
militarization of the militias, to the control of the economy and the
collectivized enterprises by the Generalitat, to the disarming of the
rearguard and to the dissolution of the local committees, resulted in a
delay of several months before the decrees of the Generalitat on these
matters could really be enforced. This resistance crystallized in the
spring of 1937 in a major outburst of disenchantment, which was
intensified by discontent with the progress of the war, inflation and
the shortages of food and clothing, and led to the consolidation of a
generalized critique on the part of the CNT rank and file militants of
the participation of the superior committees of the CNT-FAI in the
government, and the antifascist and collaborationist policy of their
leaders, who were accused of forfeiting “the revolutionary conquests of
July 19”.
This was the incubator that gave birth to the Events of May 1937, which
once again saw Barcelona littered with barricades. This discontent
explains the emergence and the power of the Friends of Durruti Group,
which in May proposed the necessity of imposing a Revolutionary Junta to
replace the Generalitat. After May, the Group was able to express this
confederal discontent in an analysis in which it claimed that in July
1936 there was no revolution and that the CCMA was an institution of
class collaboration, and elaborated a program that concluded that
revolutions are totalitarian or they are defeated. What distinguished
the Friends of Durruti from so many other enraged groups of cenetistas
and anarchists[109] was precisely the fact that the former proposed a
program, whereas the others issued appeals to certain abstract and
ineffective principles, which were shared by the superior committees
they were criticizing.
Only then, after the May Days of 1937, did the anarchosyndicalist
leaders elaborate their justifications and distortions concerning what
had taken place. Some began to understand, too late, the impact of their
errors and improvisations.
It was therefore necessary to find justifications for so many mistakes,
and to elaborate a response that would allow the anarchosyndicalist
leaders to refuse to assume responsibility for those mistakes. The
delegation of the CNT to the Congress of the AIT,[110] in December 1937,
had to provide the first answer, under the impact of the constant
insults and accusations of ineptitude and abandonment of the ideological
principles of anarchosyndicalism that they were subjected to by the
majority of the delegates to the international congress.
“Political power fell into our hands without our wanting it [….] The
CCMA, the institution for the coordination of the combat forces at the
front, was created. Our Libertarian Movement accepted this Committee,
but first we had to resolve the main problem in our Revolution:
antifascist collaboration or anarchist dictatorship. We accepted
collaboration. Why? [….] the circumstances made us think it advisable to
collaborate with the other antifascist sectors.”[111]
In fact, the Spanish delegation needed the help of a prestigious
intellectual to defend themselves from the attacks of the international,
with a report that exuded a certain intellectual stature. This secret
report so pleased the Spanish anarchosyndicalist leaders that they
decided to publish it in a propaganda pamphlet, translated into Spanish,
despite the inconsistency entailed in publishing a text that had been
declared “secret”.[112]
In this pamphlet,[113] Helmut Rüdiger fully justified the pragmatic
actions of the CNT as being due to the particularities of Spain,
averring that it was a working class movement without intellectuals, or
any theoretical preparation or political experience, due to its
permanent state of clandestinity; and that it was characteristic of
extremism, based on a simplification of social relations and an
unlimited optimism, to think that all that was necessary was to proclaim
libertarian communism in order to transform man into an angelic being.
Rüdiger’s entire argument can be summarized as an assimilation and
application to the anarchist movement of the ideology of antifascist
unity. According to Rüdiger, July 19 was a victory for the CNT because,
for the first time ever, it was able to unite the entire population
behind it. The CNT would be victorious when it would once again be able
to rally the entire people behind it. That is, antifascist unity
justified everything, explained everything and permitted everything. All
the pragmatic actions of the leaders of the CNT, the abandonment of the
anti-state theories, the abandonment of principles, the collaborationism
with bourgeois parties and the government, the militarization of the
Militias, the anarchist Ministers, the war economy, everything,
absolutely everything, was justified by this ideology of ANTIFASCIST
UNITY. Helmut helped the anarchist leaders to justify their errors,
their incapacity and their constant improvisations: one could, and must,
renounce libertarian communism, and the revolution, in favor of
antifascist unity.
Now the anarchosyndicalist leaders were enabled to rewrite their
contemporary history. Now García Oliver was enabled to appear as a
sacrificial victim of the rejection on the part of the confederal
organization of his proposal to “go for broke”.
This made it possible to claim that, “what began on July 19 was not yet
the definitive social revolution, but only the first step of that
revolution, the beginning of the antifascist struggle”. Helmut crafted a
veritable anthology of catchphrases for the supporters of
collaborationism: “This was the first time in the history of revolutions
that a victorious revolutionary organization renounced its own
dictatorship.”
What Helmut did not say was that this ideology of antifascist unity
presupposed the acceptance of the methods and goals of the program of
the democratic bourgeoisie.
The advocates of State anarchism and those who supported the proletarian
revolution were, and are, incompatible. The absence of an ideological
and organizational break within the libertarian movement could only
lead, first to the suppression, and later to the assimilation of the
critical sectors with the worst aberrations of State anarchism. Without
such a break a process of clarification and delimitation between the
positions of the various factions could not take place. Ambiguity and
confusionism comprised the other defeat of the libertarian movement,
which was pregnant with consequences for its future.
“Cui prodest scelus is fecit.” (Whoever benefits from the crime is the
one who committed it.)
Seneca, Medea
“We anarchists can go to jail, or die the way Obregón, Ascaso, Sabater,
Buenaventura Durruti and Peiró died, whose lives are worthy of a
Plutarch. We can die in exile, in the concentration camps, in the
maquis, or in a hospice, but to accept the position of government
minister, this is inconceivable.”
Jaime Balius, “For the Record”, Solidaridad Obrera, September 2, 1971.
On November 4, many people were eagerly waiting to listen to a surprise
speech by Durruti that was to be broadcast by Radio CNT-FAI from
Barcelona to all of Spain. On that same day the press reported on the
accession of four anarchist Ministers to the Madrid government: Federica
Montseny, Juan García Oliver, Juan López and Joan Peiró. The Durruti
Column had not captured Zaragoza. The difficulties with regard to the
supply of arms comprised the main problem at the front. Durruti had
tried everything in his power to obtain weapons. He even sent a
detachment of militiamen in early September on a punitive expedition to
Sabadell, in order to force them to deliver the arms that had been
stored there in anticipation of forming a Sabadell Column that had not
yet been organized. Furthermore, on October 24 the Generalitat had
approved the Decree militarizing the Militias, which re-imposed the old
Code of Military Justice, effective as of November 1. Both the friends
as well as the enemies of Durruti eagerly awaited his speech.
Even before the speech started, people gathered in the vicinity of the
speakers that had been installed in the trees of Las Ramblas, which
usually broadcast revolutionary songs, news and music. Wherever there
was a radio in Barcelona, people were impatiently waiting for the
announcement: “Durruti Speaks”.
The Militarization Decree had been passionately discussed in the Durruti
Column, which had voted not to comply with it, because it could not
improve the combat conditions of the volunteer militiamen of July 19,
nor could it resolve the chronic shortage of weapons and ammunition.
Durruti signed, in the name of the Committee of War, a text[114]
rejecting the militarization demanded by the “Council”[115] of the
Generalitat, significantly datelined from the Osera Front on the same
day (November 1) that the hated Military Code was supposed to become
effective. The Column denied the need for barracks discipline, to which
it opposed the superiority of revolutionary discipline: “Militiamen,
yes; soldiers, never.”
Durruti, as the delegate of the Column, sought to evoke the indignation
and protests of the militiamen of the Aragón front against the clearly
counterrevolutionary course that was emerging behind the lines. The
broadcast of Durruti’s speech[116] began at 9:30 p.m.:
“Workers of Cataluña! I am speaking to the Catalan people, to the
generous people that four months ago defeated the soldiers who tried to
crush them beneath their boots. I send you salutations from your
brothers and comrades fighting on the front in Aragón, who are only
kilometers from Zaragoza, within sight of the towers of Pilarica.
“Despite the threat that is closing in on Madrid, we must always
remember that the people have risen, and nothing in the world can make
them retreat. We shall resist on the front of Aragón, against the
Aragonese fascist hordes, and we call upon our brothers in Madrid to
resist, because the militiamen of Cataluña will know how to do their
duty, just as they did when they went into the streets of Barcelona to
crush fascism. The workers organizations must not forget their
imperative duty at the present time. At the front, as in the trenches,
there is only one thought, one goal. Our gaze is fixed, we look forward,
with the sole purpose of crushing fascism.
“We ask the Catalan people to stop the intrigues and bickering. You must
rise to the occasion: stop quarreling and think of the war. The people
of Catalonia have the duty to support those fighting on the front. We
have to mobilize everyone, but don’t think that it will always be the
same people. If Catalan workers have assumed the responsibility of going
to the front, it’s now time to demand sacrifices from those who remain
in the cities. We have to effectively mobilize all the workers in the
rearguard because those of us who are at the front need to know that we
can count on the men behind us.
“To the organizations: stop your rows and stop tripping things up! Those
of us who are fighting on the front ask for sincerity, above all from
the CNT and FAI. We ask the leaders to be genuine. It is not enough for
them to send encouraging letters to us at the front, and to send
clothing, food, rifles and ammunition. It is also necessary for them to
face the facts, and plan for the future. This war has all the
aggravating factors of modern warfare and is proving to be very costly
for Catalonia. The leadership has to realize that we’ll need to start
organizing the Catalan economy, and imposing rules on the economic
order, if this lasts much longer. I do not feel like writing any more
letters so that the comrades or the son of a militiaman can have one
more crust of bread or pint of milk, while there are Ministers who do
not have to pay to eat and have no limits on their expenditures. We call
upon the CNT-FAI to tell them that if they as an organization control
the economy of Catalonia, then they must organize it as it should be
organized. No one should think of wage increases or reduced working
hours now. It’s the duty of all workers, especially the workers of the
CNT, to make sacrifices, to work as much as necessary.
“Of course we’re fighting for something greater and the militiamen will
prove it. They blush when they read about fund drives to raise money for
them in the press, when they see those posters asking you to make a
donation. The fascist planes drop newspapers on us that publish lists of
donations for their soldiers, and they are neither more nor less than
what you give. That is why we have to tell you that we are not beggars
and therefore we do not accept charity in any form. Fascism represents
and is in effect social inequality, and if you do not want those of us
who are fighting to confuse those of you in the rearguard with our
enemies, then do your duty. We are waging war now to crush the enemy at
the front, but is this the only enemy? No. Anyone among us who is
opposed to the revolutionary conquests is also an enemy, and we must
crush them as well.
“If you want to neutralize the threat, you must form a granite front.
Politics is the art of obstructionism, the art of living [like
parasites], and this must be replaced with the art of labor. The time
has come to invite the trade union organizations and the political
parties to put an end to this business once and for all. In the
rearguard we need capable administrators. The men at the front want
responsibility and guarantees behind us. And we demand that the
organizations look after our women and children.
“They’re mistaken if they think that the militarization decree will
scare us and impose an iron disciple on us. You are mistaken, Ministers,
with your militarization decree. Since you have so much to say about
iron discipline, then I say to you, come to the front with me. At the
front we do not accept any discipline, because we are conscious of doing
our duty. And you will see our order and our organization. Then we shall
return to Barcelona and we shall ask you about your discipline, your
order, and your control, which does not exist.
“Remain calm. There’s no chaos or indiscipline at the front. We’re all
responsible and cherish your trust. Sleep peacefully. But remember that
we’ve left Catalonia and its economy in your hands. Take responsibility
for yourselves, discipline yourselves. Let’s not provoke, with our
incompetence, after this war, another civil war among ourselves.
“Anyone who thinks that his party is strong enough to impose its policy
is wrong. Against the fascists we must marshal one force, one
organization, with a unified discipline.
“The fascist tyrants will never cross our lines. That is our slogan at
the front. To them we say: ‘You will not pass!’ To you: ‘They will not
pass!’”
Hours after having listened to Durruti’s radio address, people were
still discussing what he had said with his usual energy and integrity.
His words resonated with force and emotion in the Barcelona night,
embodying the genuine thought of the working class. It was a cry of
alarm that reminded the workers of their condition as revolutionary
militants. Durruti did not recognize any gods, nor did he see the
working class as gods. He took it for granted that the militiamen who
were fighting fascism at the front were not going to allow anyone to rob
them of the revolutionary and emancipatory content of their struggle:
they were not fighting for the Republic or bourgeois democracy, but for
the triumph of the social revolution and the emancipation of the
proletariat.
His entire address did not contain even one demagogic or rhetorical
phrase. His words were a spur to the great and the small of the earth.
For the workers and the CNT leaders comfortably settled into responsible
positions, for the ordinary citizens and for the Ministers of the
Generalitat or the glamorous anarchist Ministers. A diatribe against the
bureaucratic deviations of the revolutionary situation that arose on
July 19, and a condemnation of government policy, with or without CNT
leaders to provide a façade. In the rearguard there was an unfortunate
confusion between duty and charity, administration and command, function
and bureaucracy, responsibility and discipline, agreement and decree,
and example and orders and commands. The threat to “return to Barcelona”
caused the resurgence of terror among the political representatives of
the bourgeoisie, although it was already too late to remedy the
inexcusable and naïve error of July, when the revolution was postponed
“until after Zaragoza is captured”, as a result of theoretical
shortcomings and a lack of perspective on the part of the libertarian
movement. But these threats against the ruling powers were not in vain:
his words, directed at his class brothers, possessed all the value of a
revolutionary testament. A testament, rather than a proclamation,
because his fate was already sealed, a fate that his posthumous
deification transformed into an enigma.
The immediate consequence of the radio address, was the convocation by
Companys on the following day, November 5, at 11:00 p.m., of an
extraordinary meeting[117] in the Palace of the Generalitat of all the
Ministers and representatives of all the political and trade union
organizations, in order to discuss the growing resistance to compliance
with the Decree militarizing the militias, as well as to the Decree
proclaiming the dissolution of the revolutionary committees and their
replacement by Popular Front municipal government bodies. Durruti was
the cause and the target of the debate, although everyone avoided
mentioning his name. Companys proclaimed the necessity of putting an end
to “the uncontrollables”, who, outside of all political and trade union
organizations, “were ruining everything and compromising all of us”.
Comorera (PSUC) stated that the UGT had expelled from its ranks those
who did not comply with the decrees, and invited the other organizations
to do the same. Marianet, secretary of the CNT, after boasting of the
sacrifices made by the anarchists with their renunciation of their own
ideological principles, complained of the lack of tact demonstrated by
the attempt to immediately enforce the Code of Military Justice, and
assured those present that after the decree ordering the dissolution of
the committees, and thanks to the efforts of the CNT, there were fewer
and fewer uncontrollables, and that this was not so much a matter of
groups that had to be expelled as resistance that had to be overcome,
without provoking revolts, and of individuals who must be convinced. Nin
(POUM), Herrera (FAI) and Fábregas (CNT) praised the efforts carried out
by all the organizations to stabilize the situation after July 19, and
to reinforce the power of the current Council of the Generalitat. Nin
mediated the dispute between Sandino, Minister of Defense, and Marianet,
concerning the causes of the resistance to the Militarization Decree,
saying that “everyone basically agreed” and that there was a certain
amount of fear among the masses “about losing what they had gained”, but
that “the working class agrees that a real army must be created”. Nin
saw the solution of the current disagreements in the creation of a
Commissariat of War in which all the political and trade union
organizations would be represented. Comorera, much more intransigent
than Companys and Tarradellas, claimed that the fundamental problem
resided in the Generalitat’s lack of authority: “groups of
uncontrollables are still doing whatever they want”, not only with
regard to the question of militarization and the conduct of the war or
the issue of a unitary command structure, but also with regard to the
dissolution of the committees and the formation of municipal governing
bodies, as well with respect to the collection of arms in the rearguard
and recruitment, which augured disaster. Comorera even said that this
lack of authority extended to the collectivizations, “which are still
being carried out capriciously, without observing the Decree that
regulates them”. Companys accepted the possibility of modifying the
Military Code and creating a Commissariat of War. Comorera and Andreu
(ERC) insisted that it was necessary to comply with and to enforce
compliance with the decrees. The meeting concluded with a joint appeal
to the Catalonian people to exercise discipline in complying with all
the decrees of the Generalitat, and to all the organizations to make a
commitment to declare their support for all the government’s decisions
in their press.[118] No one at this meeting opposed militarization: the
problem for the politicians and bureaucrats was merely how to make the
people obey the government’s decrees.
On November 6 the Council of Ministers of the Republic, including the
four anarchist Ministers, voted unanimously to evacuate the Government
from Madrid, which was besieged by fascist troops. The scorn for this
decision on the part of the Local Federation of the CNT of Madrid was
reflected in the publication of a belligerent manifesto that declared:
“Madrid, free of Government Ministers, will be the tomb of fascism.
Onward, militiamen! Long live Madrid without a government! Long live the
Social Revolution!” On the 15^(th) of November elements of the Durruti
Column were already fighting in Madrid under the command of Durruti, who
had resisted leaving Aragón, and who was finally convinced by Marianet
and Federica. On November 19, a stray bullet, or perhaps not so
stray,[119] struck him while he was at the Madrid front, where he died
the next day. On Sunday, November 22, in Barcelona, an endless, chaotic
and disorganized funeral procession[120] advanced slowly through the
streets, while the two bands that were unable to harmonize their music
only contributed to the augmentation of the confusion. The cavalry and
motorized troops who were supposed to lead the procession were prevented
from doing so by the enormous crowds. The cars that bore the funeral
wreaths had to be driven in reverse. The members of the cavalry escort
attempted to make their way forward separately. The musicians who had
been dispersed in the crowd tried to regroup amidst a confused mass of
people bearing antifascist placards and waving red flags, red and black
banners, and the striped flags of the republic. The procession was led
by numerous politicians and bureaucrats, although the limelight was
monopolized by Companys, the president of the Generalitat,
Antonov-Ovseenko, the Soviet consul, and Juan García Oliver, the
anarchist Minister of Justice of the Republic, who addressed the crowd
from in front of the Columbus Monument in order to display his
oratorical gifts before the multitude. García Oliver rehearsed the same
arguments of sincere friendship and fraternity among antifascists that
he would later use in May 1937 to help to smash the barricades of the
workers insurrection against Stalinism. The Soviet consul initiated the
tradition of ideological manipulation of Durruti by depicting him as a
champion of military discipline and unitary command. Companys delivered
the most dastardly insult when he said that Durruti “had been shot in
the back as all cowards die … or as those die who are murdered by
cowards”. All three of them coincided in their praise for antifascist
unity above all else. Durruti’s funeral bier was already a tribune for
the counterrevolution. Three orators, excellent representatives of the
bourgeois government, of Stalinism and the CNT bureaucracy, disputed
among themselves for the popularity of the man who was yesterday’s
dangerous uncontrollable but today’s embalmed hero. When the coffin,
eight hours after the beginning of the spectacle, now without its
official cortege, but still accompanied by a curious crowd, arrived at
the cemetery of Montjuic, it could not be buried until the next day
because hundreds of wreaths blocked the way to the site of the grave,
which was too small, and a heavy downpour prevented it from being
enlarged.
We may never find out how Durruti really died, since there are seven or
eight different and contradictory versions; but it is most interesting
to ask why he died fifteen days after having delivered his radio
address. Durruti’s radio broadcast was perceived as a dangerous threat,
which encountered an immediate response in the convening of the
extraordinary meeting of the Council of the Generalitat, especially in
the brutality of Comorera’s speech, which could hardly be moderated by
cenetistas and POUMistas, who ultimately swore to devote themselves to
the common task of complying with and enforcing compliance with all the
decrees. The sacred antifascist union between working class bureaucrats,
Stalinists and bourgeois politicians could not tolerate uncontrollables
of the stature of Durruti: this is why his death was such an urgent and
necessary matter. By opposing the militarization of the militias,
Durruti personified the revolutionary opposition and resistance to the
dissolution of the committees, the direction of the war by the
bourgeoisie and state control of the enterprises expropriated in July.
Durruti died because he had become a dangerous obstacle for the ongoing
counterrevolution.
And for this very same reason Durruti had to die twice. One year later,
at the commemoration of the one-year anniversary of his death, the
all-powerful propaganda machine of Negrín’s Stalinist government worked
at full capacity to attribute the authorship of a slogan to Durruti,
invented originally by Ilya Ehrenburg,[121] and later given the support
of the bureaucracy of the superior committees of the CNT-FAI, in which
he was made to say the opposite of what he always said and thought: “We
renounce everything, except victory.” That is, Durruti renounced the
revolution. We do not even possess a complete and reliable version of
his speech broadcast over the radio on November 4, 1936, because the
anarchist press of the period revised and censored Durruti’s live speech
for publication.
Once he was dead, Durruti could become a God. And even a Lieutenant
Colonel[122] in the Popular Army.
and its program
“The function of history would therefore be showing that the laws
deceive, that the kings play a part, that power deludes and that
historians lie.”
Michel Foucault, The Genealogy of Racism
The Friends of Durruti Group was an anarchist organization, founded in
March 1937. Its members were militiamen from the Durruti Column who were
opposed to militarization, and anarchists who were critical of the entry
of the CNT into the republican government and the Generalitat.
The historical and political importance of the Friends of Durruti
resided in its intention, which arose in 1937 within the ranks of the
libertarian movement itself, to create a revolutionary Junta that would
put and end to the abandonment of revolutionary principles and
collaborationism with the capitalist state; so that the CNT would defend
and intensify the “conquests” of July 1936, instead of gradually
surrendering them to the bourgeoisie. The Group never actually proposed,
however, to become, during the May Days of 1937, an authentic
revolutionary alternative to the collaborationist leadership of the
CNT-FAI, which had various Ministers in the government of the Republic
and in that of the Generalitat.
In October 1936 the decree militarizing the Popular Militias provoked
major discontent among the anarchist militants of the Durruti Column on
the Aragón Front.[123] After long and passionate discussions, in March
1937 several hundred volunteer militiamen, stationed in the Gelsa
sector, decided to abandon the front and return to the rearguard.[124]
An agreement was reached to the effect that the relief of the militiamen
opposed to militarization would be sent within fifteen days. They
abandoned the front, taking their weapons with them.
Once they arrived in Barcelona, together with other anarchists
(defenders of the continuity and intensification of the July revolution,
and opposed to confederal collaboration in the government), the
militiamen from Gelsa decided to form an anarchist organization that was
separate from the FAI, the CNT and the Libertarian Youth, an
organization whose mission would be to channel the acratic movement into
the revolutionary path. The Group was formally constituted in March
1937, after a long period of incubation that lasted several months,
beginning in October 1936. The directive Committee chose the name of
“Group of the Friends of Durruti”, a name that was in part testimony to
the fact that most of its members were former militiamen of the Durruti
Column, but, as Balius astutely pointed out, it was not chosen as a
reference of any kind to Durruti’s views, but rather as a result of the
popular cult that had grown up around his memory.[125]
The central headquarters of the Group was located on Las Ramblas, at the
corner of Hospital Street. The group experienced a rapid and notable
increase in its membership. Just before May 1937, the Group had
distributed between four and five thousand membership cards. In order to
qualify for membership, one had to be a CNT militant. The Group’s growth
was the result of the discontent of a wide sector of the anarchist
militants with the CNT’s betrayal of its principles. Another factor in
its favor was the struggle that was underway against the implementation
of the Collectivization Decree, which was being effected by means of
budgetary decrees prepared by Tarradellas at S’Agaró, and by means of
which the government of the Generalitat sought to control and direct the
operations of all the Catalonian enterprises, subjecting them to a rigid
state economic plan.[126] The Catalan economy was in fact being
transformed into a kind of collectivist (or trade union) capitalism of
state planning, in which the government of the Generalitat exercised
financial control over each and every one of the enterprises, and
possessed the additional power of appointing an Inspector from the
Generalitat, who acted on behalf of the government and directed the
enterprise. From January to July 1937, in Barcelona, the industrial
workers had attended numerous assemblies in the factories, which were
often menaced by large contingents of police just outside the meeting
halls, where the question of the conflict between socialization and
collectivization[127] was posed with greater or lesser clarity and
effectiveness, together with the extremely serious problem presented by
the decline in purchasing power of wages and the difficulties in
obtaining food and meeting other basic needs. Collectivization implied
that the ownership of the small and medium-sized enterprises and
workshops had passed from their former owners to the workers in each
enterprise, disconnected from and unsupportive of the wage workers in
other, less productive enterprises, or enterprises that faced greater
difficulties. This is therefore a form of collective ownership, on the
part of the workers in each enterprise, although subject to the iron
grip of state control, since the general direction of the economy was
planned by the government of the Generalitat, which not only exercised
financial control and therefore the power to starve out insubordinate
enterprises, but also held effective managerial powers due to the
Inspector, who in fact became the director and new boss, appointed by
the government. In reality, collectivization had therefore become a kind
of collective capitalism, under trade union management, with state
planning and direction. Socialization, however, means the organization
of the workers in Industrial Federations or Trade Unions, which are
supposed to reorganize and rationalize production in an entire
industrial sector, directed and planned by the trade unions, in which
gains are supposed to accrue to the benefit of all of society, and not
just the workers of each enterprise.[128] The totality of all these
Federations of Industry, rather than the bourgeois government of the
Generalitat, should therefore be responsible for the direction and
planning of the economy in all of Cataluña. Besides an ideological
struggle, which it certainly was, it was above all a struggle for the
mere survival of the worker-managed industries, for if Companys and
Comorera had the power to tax the enterprises and establish the
standards for their working conditions, as well as prevent access to
credit or raw materials, they had in their hands the real control of any
enterprise, by way of the Inspector they imposed, and with the
generalization of this situation a kind of state capitalism was
established, directed by the Generalitat.
This struggle was ideologically concretized in the slogan disseminated
by the Group of the Friends of Durruti, in April and May of 1937, “All
power to the trade unions”. Recall that the May Days were provoked
precisely by the refusal of the workers to accept an Inspector appointed
by the Generalitat at the Telephone Company.
The Group engaged in frenzied activity. From its formal constitution on
March 17, up until May 3, the Group organized various public meetings
(at the Teatro Poliorama on April 18 and at the Teatro Goya on May 2),
distributed various manifestoes and pamphlets, disrupted Federica
Montseny’s speech at the rally at the Monumental on April 11, and
plastered the walls of Barcelona with posters explaining their program.
Two of this program’s points are particularly noteworthy:
expression of this working class power, which they called the
Revolutionary Junta.
They also called for the trade unions to assume full economic and
political direction of the country. When they spoke of trade unions they
were referring to the confederal trade unions, excluding the Stalinized
UGT. In fact, some of the members of the Group had abandoned their
positions as UGT militants in order to join the CNT, and therefore to
become eligible for membership in the Friends of Durruti Group.
In reality, although the working class origins of the members of the
Group made all of them eligible to be members of the CNT, most of them
were militants of the FAI, which is why it could very well be said that
the Group of the Friends of Durruti was a group of anarchists who, from
acratic doctrinal purism, but above all because they reflected the
ongoing struggle for the socialization of the enterprises and against
the militarization of the confederal militias, opposed the
collaborationist and statist policy of the leadership of the CNT, and
the FAI itself.
They were a dominant force in the food supply trade union, with branches
throughout Catalonia, as well as in the mining districts of Sallent,
Suria, Fígols and Cardona, in the vicinity of Alto Llobregat. They also
had influence in other trade unions, in which they were a minority
faction. Some of the Group’s members were also members of the Control
Patrols. They never formed a fraction or a sub-group within the Patrol
Controls, however, or ever attempted to infiltrate the Patrols.
We cannot characterize the Group as an affinity group, or even as a
conscious and organized vanguard that was methodically carrying out a
plan to present itself as an alternative to the FAI. It was, both from
the numerical as well as organizational and ideological point of view,
much more than a more or less informally constituted affinity group
(which would usually have a maximum of between twelve and twenty
members) formed on the basis of certain shared ideological views and
common discontent. And although it would be even less correct to view it
as just another branch of the Libertarian Movement (ML), such as the
CNT, FAI and the Libertarian Youth, it could be compared to the Mujeres
Libres of that time: an organization with its own goals, not completely
demarcated by any of the three great organized branches of the ML. It
was a large organization of militants (five thousand members before May)
that instinctively felt the imperative need to confront the
pusillanimous policies of the CNT and the constantly advancing
counterrevolutionary process. Its most outstanding spokespersons were
Jaime Balius and Pablo Ruiz. On Sunday, April 18, the Group held a
public meeting in the Teatro Poliorama, where they intended to publicize
their existence and present their program. Jaime Balius, Pablo Ruiz (the
delegate of the Gelsa Group of the Durruti Column), Francisco Pellicer
(from the Food Supply Trade Union) and Francisco Carreño (a member of
the War Committee of the Durruti Column) spoke at this meeting. The
event was a major success and the ideas expressed by the speakers were
loudly applauded by the crowd. On the first Sunday in May (the 2^(nd)),
the Group held another informational rally in the Teatro Goya, which
filled the theater to overflowing and provoked great enthusiasm in the
audience. A documentary film entitled, “July Nineteenth” was shown, in
which the most emotional incidents of the revolutionary days of July
1936 were depicted. Pablo Ruiz, Jaime Balius, Liberto Callejas and
Francisco Carreño spoke at this meeting. During the course of the
meeting the audience was warned that an attack by the reactionaries
against the workers was imminent. The superior Committees of the FAI and
the CNT immediately attempted to discredit the Friends of Durruti Group,
whom they slandered as Marxists.
The program set forth by The Friends of Durruti, prior to May 1937, was
characterized by its emphasis on the management of the economy by the
trade unions, the critique of all the parties and their state
collaborationism, as well as a strict return to acratic doctrinal
purity. The Friends of Durruti explained their program in the poster
with which they covered the walls of Barcelona at the end of April 1937.
These posters now advocated, before the insurrection took place, the
need to replace the bourgeois government of the Generalitat of Catalonia
with a Revolutionary Junta. The posters read as follows:
“From the Group of the Friends of Durruti. To the working class:
from the city and the countryside and combatants.
over distribution by the trade unions.
Attention, workers: our group is opposed to the advancing
counterrevolution. The decrees on public order, sponsored by Aiguadé,
will not be implemented. We demand that Maroto and the other imprisoned
comrades be released.
All power to the working class.
All economic power to the trade unions.
Against the Generalitat, the Revolutionary Junta.”
The poster of April 1937 foreshadowed and explained the leaflet
distributed during the May Days, along with many of the other themes and
concerns addressed by Balius in the articles published in Solidaridad
Obrera, La Noche and Ideas (on revolutionary justice, prisoner
exchanges, the need for the rearguard to live for the war, etc.). And
this was the first time that the Group advocated the necessity of a
Revolutionary Junta to replace the bourgeois government of the
Generalitat. This Revolutionary Junta was defined as a revolutionary
government formed by all the workers, peasants and militiamen who had
fought in the streets during the revolutionary days of July 1936 (and
this excluded the PSUC, founded on July 23, and the ERC).
The most important point, however, was the combined expression of the
three concluding slogans. The replacement of the bourgeois government of
the Generalitat by a Revolutionary Junta appears alongside the slogan of
“All power to the working class” and “All economic power to the trade
unions”.
The political program expressed in this text, which was distributed
immediately before the May Days, was undoubtedly the most advanced and
lucid of all the programs of all the proletarian groups of the time, and
made the Group the revolutionary vanguard of the Spanish proletariat at
this critical and decisive moment. And that is just how the Group was
viewed at the time by the POUM and the Bolshevik-Leninist Section of
Spain.
Barcelona, CNT-FAI, Colectivación? Nacionalización? No: Socialización ,
Imp. Primero de Mayo, Barcelona, 1937.
There was no demonstration in Barcelona on May Day, which fell on a
Saturday. The Generalitat had declared the day a working day, for
increasing war production, although the real reason was fear of a
confrontation between the different workers organizations, due to the
growing tension in various towns and districts in Catalonia. On that
same Saturday, the Council of the Generalitat met to deliberate on the
disturbing situation of public order in Catalonia. This Council
expressed its approval of the efficacy displayed during the last few
weeks by the Ministries of Interior and Defense, to whom it agreed to
grant a vote of confidence to resolve those questions concerning public
order that still needed to be addressed.
The President of the Generalitat, on Monday, May 3, was conveniently
absent due to a trip to Benicarló for a meeting with Largo Caballero,
which allowed him to disavow responsibility for the first incidents. In
any event, the political decision of Companys, with his absolute refusal
to dismiss Artemi Aguadé and Rodríguez Salas, as the CNT demanded
earlier that same day, was one of the most important trip-wires that led
to the armed confrontations of the following days. On that same day, a
large contingent of miners from the Alto Llobregat mining basin were
present in Barcelona, who were interested in the agreements the
government had to make concerning the export of potash,[129] and who
subsequently took an active part in the defense of the barricades.
On Monday, May 3, 1937, at around 2:45 p.m., three trucks carrying
heavily armed assault guards pulled up in front of the headquarters of
the Telephone company in the Plaza de Cataluña. They were commanded by
Rodríguez Salas, a militant of the UGT and a dedicated Stalinist, who
was the publicly appointed chief of the Commissariat of Public Order.
The building containing the Telephone company had been confiscated and
controlled by the CNT since July 19. The questions of the surveillance
of telephone communications, control over the borders, and the control
patrols were the bones of contention that had provoked various incidents
since January pitting the republican government of the Generalitat
against the confederal masses. It was an inevitable confrontation
between the republican state apparatus, which claimed absolute dominion
over all the responsibilities that “pertained” to it, and the defense of
the “conquests” of July 19 on the part of the cenetistas. Rodríguez
Salas attempted to take control of the Telephone building. The CNT
militants on the lower floors, taken by surprise, allowed themselves to
be disarmed; on the upper floors, however, serious resistance was
organized, thanks to a strategically placed machine gun. The news spread
quickly. Barricades were immediately erected throughout the city. It is
not possible to speak of a spontaneous reaction on the part of the
Barcelona working class, because the general strike, the armed
confrontations with the police forces and the barricades were the fruit
of the initiative taken by the Committee of Investigation of the CNT-FAI
and the defense committees, which rapidly encountered support thanks to
the existence of an enormous amount of generalized discontent, the
increasing economic hardships occasioned by the rising cost of living,
long queues and rationing, as well as the tension among the rank and
file base of the confederal militants between collaborationists and
revolutionaries. The street battles were initiated and carried out by
the neighborhood defense committees (and only partially and secondarily
by some elements of the control patrols). The fact that there was no
directive from the superior committees of the CNT, whose members were
acting as Ministers in Valencia, or from any other organization, to
mobilize and build barricades throughout the city, does not mean that
these actions were purely spontaneous, but rather that they were the
result of the directives issued by the defense committees.[130] Manuel
Escorza had spoken at the assembly of the CNT-FAI on July 21, 1936,
advocating a third way, as opposed to García Oliver’s half-hearted
advocacy of the “go for broke” strategy and the overwhelming majority
position of Abad de Santillán and Federica Montseny in favor of loyal
collaboration with the government of the Generalitat. Escorza advocated
the use of the government of the Generalitat as a tool to socialize the
economy, and that it then be disposed of when it ceases to be useful to
the CNT. Escorza was the highest ranking official of the Investigation
Services of the CNT-FAI, which had since July 1936 been executing all
kinds of repressive tasks, as well as espionage and intelligence. These
Services had preserved their own separate organizational structure,
autonomous and independent of both the government of the Generalitat as
well as, during its brief existence, the CCMA. It was directly
responsible to the superior committees of the CNT-FAI (the Regional
Committees of the CNT and the FAI), while at the same time it exercised
a coordinating role for the neighborhood defense committees and the CNT
militants who were members of the public institutions of the
Commissariat of Public Order and the Control Patrols: José Asens,
Dionisio Eroles, Aurelio Fernández, “Portela”, etc. In April 1937, Pedro
Herrera, the “conseller” (Minister) of Health under the second
Tarradellas government,[131] and Manuel Escorza, were the CNT officials
who negotiated with Lluis Companys (the President of the Generalitat) to
resolve the serious government crisis of early March 1937, due to the
resignation of the “conseller” of Defense, the cenetista Isgleas.[132]
Companys decided to abandon the tactic employed by Tarradellas, who
could not imagine a government of the Generalitat that was not a
government of antifascist unity, and in which the CNT did not
participate, in order to adopt the tactic advocated by Comorera,
secretary of the PSUC, that consisted in using force to impose a
“strong” government, one that would no longer tolerate a CNT incapable
of keeping its own militants, whom he referred to as “uncontrollables”,
in line. Companys was determined to break with a an increasingly more
problematic policy of compromises with the CNT and thought that the time
had come, thanks to the support of the PSUC and the Soviets, to impose
by force the authority and the decrees of a government of the
Generalitat that, as the facts had demonstrated, was not even strong
enough to refrain from making deals with the CNT. The fruitless
discussions held by Companys with Escorza and Herrera,[133] which failed
to arrive at any kind of political solution in two months of talks, and
despite the ephemeral new government of April 16,[134] led directly to
the armed confrontations of May 1937 in Barcelona, when Companys,
without conferring with Tarradellas (not to mention Escorza and Herrera)
issued the order to Artemi Aguadé, “conseller” of the Interior, to
occupy the Telephone building, which was then executed by Rodríguez
Salas,[135] Commissar of Public Order, at approximately 2:45 p.m. on May
3, 1937. The general strike order was not the product of a “spontaneous
class instinct”. The order to seize the Telephone building was the
brutal response to the CNT demands[136] and an expression of contempt
for the negotiations[137] carried out during the month of April by
Manuel Escorza and Pedro Herrera, representing the CNT, directly with
Companys, who had expressly excluded Tarradellas. Escorza[138] had the
motive and the ability to respond immediately to the provocation staged
by Companys from his position in the Committee of Investigation of the
CNT-FAI, an autonomous organization that coordinated the defense
committees and the CNT members who held positions of authority in the
various departments of public order. This was most likely the trigger of
the armed confrontations of the May Events, and created a favorable
terrain for the activities of the Friends of Durruti. They were able to
immediately adapt to what was required by the circumstances. While the
workers were fighting with arms in hand, the Group attempted to lead
them and give them a revolutionary goal. Its limitations soon became
apparent, however. It criticized the leaders of the CNT, whom it called
traitors, in its Manifesto of May 8, but it was unable to counteract the
CNT’s directives to abandon the barricades. Nor did it propose to act
outside of the framework of the confederal organization and its
directives, which immediately sought to stop the insurrection that was
started by the defense committees, when the great ones, such as García
Oliver, Federica Montseny and Abad de Santillán, tried to put out the
fire. The Friends of Durruti was incapable of realizing its proposal to
form a Revolutionary Junta. Its members knew that its critiques of the
anarchosyndicalist leadership were not enough to displace it from its
ruling position in the CNT organization. Furthermore, the Group’s
members were mostly young and inexperienced and lacked prestige among
the confederal masses. Its ideas had not deeply permeated the rank and
file militants.
While the Group was floundering in this situation of impotence it
received a note from the Executive Committee of the POUM, requesting
that an authorized deputation of the Group meet with the Executive
Committee. This meeting was attended by Jaime Balius, Pablo Ruiz,
Eleuterio Roig and Martín. At 7:00 p.m. on May 4, they met with Gorkin,
Nin and Andrade at the Principal Palace on the Ramblas. Together they
assessed the situation, and reached the unanimous conclusion that, given
the opposition of the leadership circles of the CNT and the FAI to the
revolutionary movement, the movement was condemned to failure.[139] They
agreed that it was necessary to carry out an orderly retreat of the
combatants and that the latter should keep their weapons. That the
withdrawal should be carried out before the positions have to be
abandoned as a result of the actions of the enemy forces. That it was
necessary to obtain guarantees that the combatants at the barricades
would not be targets of repression. On the evening of the next day, the
highest-level anarchosyndicalist leaders and officials again spoke on
the radio, calling for an end to the fighting. And now the rank and file
militants at the barricades no longer mocked the “firemen” of the
CNT-FAI, or the kisses that García Oliver gave the assault guards.
On Wednesday, May 5, the Friends of Durruti distributed the well-known
leaflet at the barricades that made them famous, whose text reads as
follows:
“CNT-FAI. ‘The Friends of Durruti’ Group.
WORKERS! A Revolutionary Junta. Shoot those responsible. Disarm all
armed government forces. Socialization of the economy. Dissolution of
all the political Parties that have attacked the working class. We shall
not surrender the streets. The revolution above all else. We salute our
comrades of the POUM who have fraternized with us in the streets. LONG
LIVE THE SOCIAL REVOLUTION! DOWN WITH THE COUNTERREVOLUTION!”
This leaflet was printed during the night of May 5^(th) by workers
forced to do so at gunpoint, in a print shop in the Barrio Chino. The
improvisation and lack of infrastructure of the Group were evident. The
text was drafted after the meeting with the Executive of the POUM, held
at 7:00 p.m. on the previous day, when the Group and the POUM had
already agreed on a position of defensive retreat, without abandoning
any weapons, and with the demand that guarantees be secured against
repression. The leaflet, approved by the POUM, and published in issue
number 235 (May 6) of La Batalla, was not backed up by a plan of action,
and was nothing but a declaration of intentions and an appeal to the
spontaneity of the confederal masses to persevere in their actions
against the advances of the counterrevolution. In reality, everything
depended on the decision of the CNT leadership. It was absurd and
illogical to think that the confederal masses, despite their initial
reticence, and despite their criticisms, would not follow the leaders of
July 19. Only if the leadership of the CNT was supplanted by another
revolutionary leadership would it be possible, although even then it
would be very difficult, for the masses to follow the directives and the
action plan of a new leadership. Neither the Group, however, nor the
POUM attempted to dislodge the confederal leadership, nor had either
prepared any kind of plan of action. Both, in practice, encouraged a
tailist policy with respect to the decisions of the CNT leadership. The
Executive Committee of the POUM rejected the proposal of Josep
Rebull[140] to seize the Generalitat and any buildings that might still
put up any resistance in the city center, arguing that this was not a
military question, but a political one. The confrontations were
restricted to the center of the city.
On May 5 there was a meeting between the Local Committee of Barcelona of
the POUM and the Friends of Durruti, which the POUMistas characterized
as a failure, because:
“They [the Friends of Durruti] did not want to directly intervene within
the confederal structure to replace the leadership, they only wanted to
have an influence on the movement without assuming any other kind of
responsibility.”
In the leaflet distributed on May 5, The Friends of Durruti proposed a
joint POUM-CNT-FAI action. As an immediate objective, to lead the
revolution, they advocated the formation of a Revolutionary Junta. BUT
THIS COULD NEVER BE CARRIED OUT IN PRACTICE. They were people of the
barricades, rather than organizers. The proposal for joint CNT-FAI-POUM
action did not go beyond a salute to the militants of other
organizations, who were fighting shoulder to shoulder with them at the
barricades. This proposal never proceeded from the text of the leaflet
to a concrete pact. They did practically nothing to unseat the CNT
leadership and deprive it of control over the confederal masses, who had
repeatedly ignored the CNT’s orders to abandon the struggle in the
streets.
The Friends of Durruti were the most active fighters on the barricades
and completely dominated the Plaza Maciá (now the Plaza Real), with all
the side streets blocked by barricades, and the entire length of
Hospital Street. At the intersection of Las Ramblas and Hospital Street,
under an enormous portrait of Durruti draped over the façade of the
building where the Group had its headquarters, a barricade was built
where they established their center of operations. Their absolute
control over Hospital Street connected with the headquarters of the
Confederal Defense Committee (the central barracks of the defense
committees) at Los Escolapios[141] on the Ronda San Pablo, and from
there with the Brecha de San Pablo, secured by forty militiamen from the
Rojinegra Column, who, under the command of the Durrutista Máximo Franco
had “dropped in on Barcelona” for purposes of “observation and
intelligence”, after both the Rojinegra Column as well as the Lenin
Column, commanded by Rovira, had returned to the front after yielding to
pressure exerted by Abad de Santillán and Molina, that is, by the
cenetistas who were giving orders from the Department of Defense of the
Generalitat, in the absence of Isgleas.
The POUM totally dominated the Plaza del Teatro with several barricades
that defended an extensive perimeter around the headquarters of the
Local Committee (in the Principal Palace) and the Hotel Falcón, which
had been transformed into a fortress.
The bloodiest and most decisive battles took place on May 4^(th) and
5^(th). The working class neighborhoods were under CNT-FAI control from
the very first moment of the insurrection. In the heart of Pueblo Nuevo,
for example, barricades were erected systematically to control the
incoming and outgoing traffic on the Mataró highway, yet all was quiet
in this area, and in those neighborhoods where fighting was necessary
the battles were rapidly decided in favor of the defense committees, as
was the case in Sants, where the defense committee, installed in the
Hotel Olímpic on the Plaza de España, attacked the neighboring barracks
of the Assault Guard (which housed 600 men) at the Plaza de España, and
then, as a preventive measure, attacked the barracks of the National
Guard (the former Civil Guard) at Casarramona[142] (now the headquarters
of Caixa-Fórum), held by a squad of 80 men, since the rest of the
garrison, which had a total of 400 National Guards, had departed with
orders to seize the radio station on Las Ramblas. As soon as they
reached the vicinity of Los Escolapios they were defeated and took
flight. In Pueblo Seco, the defense committee fired artillery salvos at
the Cine América (No. 121 Paralelo), where about sixty of these National
Guards had sought refuge during the course of their attempt to get back
to their barracks.
The bloodiest battle was fought in the center of the city, and often
involved confrontations between adjacent barricades erected by the POUM,
CNT, PSUC, ERC and the Generalitat, to defend their respective
headquarters and local offices.
The Plaza de Sant Jaume, where the Palacio de la Generalitat and the
offices of the City Government were located, was defended by barricades
manned by the mossos d’esquadra. The members of the POUM erected a
barricade at the intersection of Las Ramblas and Fiveller Street (now
Ferran/Fernando), from which they fired on the barricade of the
Generalitat. The PSUC built a barricade at the intersection of
Llibreteria Street and the Plaza del Angel (at that time, Dostoievski),
right in front of the building containing the headquarters of the UGT
federation of water, gas and electric power trade unions, located on the
Vía Layetana (then known as Durruti). The resulting ability to open fire
from two sides at once allowed them to dominate this sector of the Vía
Durruti, and also blockaded the gates of No. 2, Plaza del Angel, where
Berneri and Barbieri resided, who were kidnapped and murdered by a UGT
patrol. There were also battles on Vía Durruti between the Commissariat
of Public Order and the Casa CNT-FAI, which was defended by tanks. The
combat in the Post Office building was fought floor by floor.
On the Paseo de Gracia gunfire was exchanged between the Casal Carlos
Marx of the PSUC and the nearby local headquarters of the CNT’s
Woodworkers Trade Union; there was also a battle at the Cinco de Oros,
between the barricade erected in front of the POUM headquarters, on the
Paseo de Gracia, and the barricade of the nearby Assault Guard barracks.
Also on the Paseo de Gracia, the German anarchosyndicalists had built
another barricade in front of the former German consulate, protected by
a machine gun that raked the entire Paseo de Gracia.
On the Gran Vía, between Balmes and the Paseo de Gracia, there was a
battle that pitted Assault Guards and special troops of the Estat
Català, who had occupied the café Oro del Rhin and erected a barricade
on the Rambla de Cataluña, against the cenetistas of the Food Supply
Trade Union and the headquarters of the Control Patrols; meanwhile, from
the Hotel Colón, which shared a courtyard with the building housing the
CNT’s Graphic Arts Workers Trade Union, whose members were preparing to
assault the hotel, shots were fired on the Telephone Building. On the
upper part of Las Ramblas the headquarters of the Executive Committee of
the POUM, endangered by gunfire from a platoon of Assault Guards who had
constructed a fortified position in the adjacent Café Moka, was defended
from the astronomical observatories of the Poliorama,[143] a building
located on the other side of Las Ramblas, from which gunfire was
directed at the entrance of the Café Moka. There was also a fierce
battle at the Parque de la Ciudadela, around the Parliament building,
Azaña’s residence (the president of the Republic), the Mercado del Born
and at the Estación de Francia, which was controlled by the cenetistas,
but which was finally captured by the troops from the nearby Palacio de
Gobernación. There were also battles between the Carlos Marx Barracks
(PSUC) and the nearby Espartaco Barracks (CNT), formerly known as the
Docks Barracks.
The patrols of the various factions searched and disarmed[144]
individuals and groups from other factions on the streets of Ensanche.
Numerous incidents, brawls and armed clashes were taking place
everywhere, but especially in the triangle formed by the Hotel Colón
(the headquarters of the PSUC), the Palacio de la Generalitat and the
Commissariat of Public Order, on the Vía Durruti. This
counterrevolutionary bastion in the center of the city, composed of
narrow and twisting alleys, easily blocked by small barricades, and
still disputed, should have yielded to the resolute assault of the
Barcelona workers, as Josep Rebull insistently demonstrated to the
Executive Committee of the POUM with a map of Barcelona. But the radio
broadcasts of the speeches of the anarchist Ministers and other
dignitaries had a powerful demobilizing effect. Although at first some
people actually fired their guns at their radios when they heard García
Oliver say that he had to kiss the dead police,[145] because they were
antifascist brothers, the demoralizing effect of such broadcasts on the
barricades soon became apparent,[146] which witnessed a slow but steady
desertion by the anarchist militants. Manuel Escorza and Aurelio
Fernández immediately obeyed their superiors, with the excuse that it
was “obvious” that the insurrection had been the “spontaneous” response
to the provocation implied by the occupation of the Telephone Building
at the order of the Generalitat.
At the Generalitat the top echelon leaders of the CNT, “protected” by
the artillery of Montjuic that were aimed at the Palacio,[147] the
Stalinists and the Catalanist bourgeoisie did the only thing they could
do: they formed another government, the same government with different
names. The leaders of the POUM met with the Regional Committee of the
CNT to appeal for caution! Among the barricades various Committees for
the Defense of the Revolution arose, but they did not succeed in forming
a Revolutionary Junta.[148]
Balius, the most outstanding theoretician of the Friends of Durruti
Group, crippled due to progressive encephalitis, and spastic hemiplegia
that affected the left side of his body, which made him unable to move
his left leg and caused stiffness and trembling in his left arm, leaning
on his crutches, read a proclamation from the barricade of Las
Ramblas/Hospital in which he called for the revolutionary solidarity of
the European proletariat, and especially the French proletariat, with
the struggle of the Spanish proletariat. It was a powerful revolutionary
image that captured the moment, as beautiful as it was unavailing.
Distributing leaflets at the barricades was not easy, and was often met
with suspicion on the part of many militants, and even with physical
force. On the evening of May 5, the Bolshevik-Leninists Carlini and
Quesada[149] held an informal meeting with Balius, without any other
purposes or perspectives than to continue the struggle on the
barricades. Jaume Balius also met with Josep Rebull,[150] the secretary
of cell 72 of the POUM, which, due to the small numerical importance of
both organizations, had no practical result. The Friends of Durruti
rejected Josep Rebull’s proposal to issue a joint Manifesto.
On Thursday, May 6, the militants of the CNT, as a demonstration of
their sincere desire to bring peace to the city, evacuated the Telephone
Building, where the conflict began, which was immediately occupied by
the forces of the police, who guaranteed that the UGT militants would be
able to keep their jobs, in order to resume telephone service. Faced
with the protests of the anarchist leaders, the Generalitat responded
that “it was a fait accompli”, and the confederal leaders chose not to
publicize this new bourgeois “betrayal”, in order not to fuel the fires
of discontent. The vernacular term for this was that they were acting as
firemen, that is, putting out fires and/or conflicts. The abandonment of
the barricades by the cenetistas was now generalized. Little gunfire was
heard.
When the news was reported that a contingent of troops was on its way
from Valencia to pacify Barcelona, Balius proposed the formation of a
confederal column that should depart from Barcelona and intercept them.
Once this column was formed in Barcelona, it would be joined by other
fighters along the road, and it would also have the support of not a few
militiamen from the Aragón Front: it could go all the way to Valencia
and then assault heaven…! Commissions were formed to consult with the
militants in the trade unions and the streets, but the proposal found no
echo whatsoever. It was absolutely unrealistic.
On Friday, May 7, starting at 7:00 p.m., the troops from Valencia
marched down the Diagonal and the Paseo de Gracia. A few days later only
the barricades of the PSUC were still standing, which it wanted to
preserve as monuments commemorating its victory.
On Saturday, May 8, order once again reigned in Barcelona. The corpses
of Camilo Berneri, Alfredo Martínez, and many other persons who had been
tortured and executed by the Stalinists, began to turn up. The superior
committees of the CNT-FAI demanded the expulsion of the Friends of
Durruti, although no trade union assembly would ratify this decision.
The confederal masses, disoriented by the appeals of their leaders—the
same ones they had on July 19!—finally chose to abandon the struggle,
despite the fact that at first they had laughed at the appeals from the
CNT leadership for calm and to abandon the struggle so as to preserve
antifascist unity.
The Manifesto distributed on May 8 by the Friends of Durruti Group, in
which the Group presented their evaluation of the results of the May
Days, was printed at the printing press of La Batalla. The Group,
denounced by the CNT as an organization of provocateurs, had no
publishing facilities of its own. A militiaman of the POUM, Paradell, a
leader of the retail workers trade union, when he found out that the
Group needed access to a press, told Josep Rebull, the editor in chief
of the POUM newspaper, and the latter, fulfilling the most elementary
duty of revolutionary solidarity, without consulting any superior ranks
of the party, offered to print the Manifesto for the Friends of Durruti.
In this Manifesto The Friends of Durruti Group related the seizure of
the Telephone Building to previous provocations. They identified the
provocateurs of the May Events as the Esquerra Republicana, the PSUC,
and the armed forces of the Generalitat. The Friends of Durruti
proclaimed the revolutionary nature of July 1936 (and not just its
nature as opposition to the fascist uprising) and of May 1937 (they
would not be content with just another change of government):
“Our Group, which has been in the streets, on the barricades, defending
the conquests of the proletariat, advocates the complete victory of the
social revolution. We cannot accept the fiction, and the
counterrevolutionary reality, of the formation of a new government with
the same parties, but with different representatives.”
In opposition to the back room deals that the Group qualified as
deceits, The Friends of Durruti offered their revolutionary program,
already set forth in the leaflet issued on May 5:
“Our Group demands the immediate formation of a revolutionary junta, the
shooting of those who are responsible, the disarmament of the armed
forces, the socialization of the economy and the dissolution of all the
political parties that have attacked the working class.” The Friends of
Durruti Group did not hesitate to claim that the workers won the battle
on the military field, and therefore that they had to put an end once
and for all to a Generalitat that meant nothing. The Group accused the
leaders and superior committees of the CNT, who had paralyzed a
victorious workers insurrection, of “betrayal”: “The Generalitat
represents nothing. Its continued existence reinforces the
counterrevolution. The workers won the battle. It is inconceivable that
the committees of the CNT have acted with such timidity that they would
order a ‘cease-fire’ and that they would even order a return to work
when we were on the verge of total victory. They did not take into
account the real source of the aggression, they did not pay attention to
the real meaning of the events of the past few days. Such conduct must
be defined as a betrayal of the revolution, conduct that no one, for any
reason, must every commit or sponsor. And we cannot even find the words
to describe the nefarious work done by Solidaridad Obrera and the most
well-known militants of the CNT.”
The term “betrayal” was used again when the Group commented on the
expulsion order issued by the Regional Committees of the CNT against The
Friends of Durruti Group, as well as in its discussion of the
encroachment by the central government of Valencia on the security and
defense powers of Catalonia (not those exercised by the Generalitat, but
those controlled by the CNT): “This is betrayal on a vast scale. The two
essential guarantees of the working class, security and defense, are
offered on a platter to our enemies.” The Manifesto concluded with a
brief auto-critique with regard to certain ineffective tactics employed
during the May Days, and with an optimistic perspective on the future,
which the immediate wave of repression that began on May 28 demonstrated
to be vain and illogical. May 1937 did not end in a draw; it was a
severe defeat of the proletariat.
Despite the pervasive mythology of the Events of May 1937, the one thing
that is clear is that it was a very chaotic and confused situation,
characterized by the eagerness to negotiate of all the parties
implicated in the conflict. May 1937 was at no time an offensive and
resolute workers insurrection, but merely a defensive struggle without
any precise objectives, although it formed part of the ongoing struggle
of socializaton against collectivization, and the struggle in defense of
“the conquests” of July. The detonator of the conflict was the assault
on the Telephone Building by the security forces of the Generalitat. And
this action took place within the framework of the logic pursued by the
government of Companys to slowly take over all the powers that the
“anomalous” situation brought about by the workers insurrection of July
19 had momentarily deprived it of. The recent successes it enjoyed in
Cerdaña cleared the way for a decisive showdown in Barcelona and all of
Catalonia. It was obvious that Companys felt that he had the support of
Comorera (PSUC) and Ovseenko (the Soviet Consul), with whom he had
collaborated very closely and effectively since December, when the POUM
was expelled from the government of the Generalitat. The policy of the
Stalinists coincided with the objectives of Companys: the weakening and
annihilation of the revolutionary forces, that is, of the POUM and the
CNT, were Soviet goals, which could only be achieved by way of the
strengthening of the bourgeois government of the Generalitat. The long
open crisis of the government of the Generalitat, after the refusal of
the CNT to consent to the transfer of the Carlos Marx Division (of the
PSUC) to the Madrid Front, and after the Decree of March 4 ordering the
dissolution of the Control Patrols and the disarmament of the rearguard,
led to its inevitable violent culmination, after various episodes
involving armed confrontations in Vilanesa, La Fatarella, Cullera
(Valencia), Bellver, the funeral of Cortada, etc., in the assault on the
Telephone Building and the bloody events of May in Barcelona. The stupid
blindness, the unbreakable loyalty to antifascist unity, the high degree
of collaboration with the republican government on the part of the
principal anarchosyndicalist leaders (from Peiró to Federica Montseny,
from Abad de Santillán to García Oliver, from Marianet to Valerio Mas)
were not irrelevant factors, nor did they pass unnoticed by the
government of the Generalitat and the Soviet agents. Their idiotic
sanctity could always be counted on, as was abundantly displayed during
the May Days. But Companys did not expect the rapid and decisive armed
response of Escorza, from the defense committees, and then he was
infuriated by the refusal of the Valencia government to order Díaz
Sandino (who was the commander of the Republican air force) to bomb the
barracks and buildings controlled by the CNT. Companys ended up
forfeiting all the powers of the Generalitat with regard to Defense and
Public Order, which had never been very extensive in the first place.
As for the activities of the Friends of Durruti during the May Events,
there is certainly no justification to engage in a deceptive
mythification of their participation in the barricades and of its
leaflet, since the Friends of Durruti at no time called for the
replacement of the confederal leadership, and limited its efforts to
harsh critiques of its leaders and their policy of “betrayal” of the
revolution. Perhaps they could not have done any more than that, given
their small numbers and the slight influence they had on the cenetista
masses. But we should emphasize their participation in the street
battles, and their control of various barricades on Las Ramblas,
especially the one in front of their social center, and their
interventions in the struggles in Sants, La Torrassa and Sallent. We
must, of course, acknowledge their attempts to provide leadership and
minimal political demands, in the leaflet distributed on May 5. The
distribution of this leaflet was not easy, and cost the lives of several
of the Group’s members, but its distribution on the barricades could
count on the sympathy and the support of many CNT militants. Among the
noteworthy actions that took place during the May Days, we must not
forget the appeal issued by Balius from the barricade on the corner of
Las Ramblas and Hospital Street, for the active solidarity of all the
workers of Europe with the Spanish revolution. The Friends of Durruti,
once the group received news of the formation of a column of Assault
Guards that was to be sent from Valencia to crush the rebellion, reacted
with a call to form an anarchist column to intercept it. This idea never
amounted to anything more than a vain proposal, which no longer found
any echo whatsoever among the cenetista militants, who began to abandon
the barricades. Meanwhile, Ricardo Sanz, the delegate of the militiamen
of the Durruti Column, who had returned from the Madrid Front while
awaiting transfer to the Aragón Front, remained inactive in the barracks
of the Docks on Icaria Avenue, totally uninvolved with the street
battles, as if he was unaware of them or they were taking place on the
planet Mars.[151]
We must finally note, from a political point of view, the agreement made
with the POUM to issue an appeal to the workers that, before they
abandon the barricades, they should request guarantees that there would
be no subsequent reprisals; and above all that the best guarantee was to
keep their weapons, which they must never surrender. A defeated workers
insurrection might not abandon its arms, but it cannot expect that
repression would not be directed against the insurrectionaries, which is
just what took place after June 16.
It is certainly true, however, that, once the fighting was over, the May
barricades proved to be a nuisance for everyone: the troops that had
arrived from Valencia tore up the membership cards of the cenetistas and
forced peaceful passersby to tear down the barricades, at the same time
that the Regional Committee of the CNT was calling for the rapid
dismantling of the barricades as a sign of a return to normal. Within a
few days only the barricades of the PSUC remained, which the PSUC wanted
to preserve as a monument to and sign of its victory. The total
casualties amounted to five hundred dead and several thousand wounded.
From a theoretical point of view, the role of The Friends of Durruti
Group was much more significant after the May Days, when they began
publishing their bulletin, which was given the name of the newspaper
published by Marat during the French Revolution: The Friend of the
People.
The leadership of the CNT proposed the expulsion of the members of the
Friends of Durruti Group, but could not convince any trade union
assembly to ratify this proposal. A large part of the confederal
militants sympathized with the revolutionary opposition embodied by the
Group. This does not mean that they either took part in the actions of
or held the same views as the Friends of Durruti, but they did
understand and respect the Group’s positions, and even supported its
criticisms of the CNT leadership.
The confederal leadership deliberately used and abused the accusation of
“Marxists”, the most serious insult imaginable among anarchists, which
it launched on repeated occasions against the Group, and specifically
against Balius. Balius and the Group, of course, defended themselves
from this quite underserved “insult”, and not without reason. There was
nothing in the theoretical propositions of the Group, much less in The
Friend of the People, or in the Group’s various manifestoes and
leaflets, that would allow one to call the Group Marxist. The Group
comprised merely an opposition to the collaborationist policy of the
confederal leadership, from within the organization and on the basis of
the anarchosyndicalist ideology.
The first issue of The Friend of the People was legally published on May
19, with a large number of censored galley proofs. The front page, in
black and red and in full sized format, was emblazoned with a sketch
showing the smiling Durruti carrying a red and black flag. This first
issue was not dated; the editorial offices of the paper were located at
Number 1, Rambla de las Flores, on the first floor. The newspaper was
published as the voice of The Friends of Durruti Group. It listed Balius
as editor in chief, and Eleuterio Roig, Pablo Ruiz and Domingo Paniagua
as editors. The most interesting article, signed by Balius, was
entitled, “For the Record. We Are Not Agents Provocateurs” [“Por los
fueros de la verdad. No somos agentes provocadores”], in which Balius
complains about the insults and attacks originating from among the
confederal ranks themselves. He referred to the leaflet and the
manifesto issued in May, which he said he would not republish in order
to avoid its certain and inevitable censorship. He directly attacked
Solidaridad Obrera for its hostility towards The Friends of Durruti, and
denied the slander spread by the CNT leadership: “we are not agents
provocateurs.” To avoid censorship, starting with the second issue, The
Friend of the People was published clandestinely. The fifth issue is one
of the most interesting editions of The Friend of the People. Its cover
page features an article entitled: “A Revolutionary Theory.” This
editorial alone would be enough to assure the political and historical
importance of The Friends of Durruti, not only in the history of the
civil war, but in the history of acratic ideology as well. In this
article, The Friends of Durruti attribute the advance of the
counterrevolution and the failure of the CNT, after the latter’s
undeniable and absolute victory of July 1936, to one reason alone: the
absence of a REVOLUTIONARY PROGRAM. And this was also the cause of the
defeat of May 1937. The conclusion of this development is set forth with
great clarity:
“The descending trajectory [of the revolution] must be attributed
exclusively to the absence of a concrete program and immediate efforts
to implement such a program, and this is why we have fallen into the
nets of the counterrevolutionary sectors at the very moment when the
circumstances had become genuinely favorable for the crowning act of the
aspirations of the proletariat. And because the awakening of July was
not allowed to develop freely, in a genuinely class sense, we have made
possible a petty bourgeois rule that could have by no means ever emerged
if among the confederal and anarchist milieus a unanimous resolve had
prevailed to install the proletariat in control of the country. […]
succumbing to the foolish notion that a revolution of a social type
could share its economic and social nerve centers with enemy elements.
[…] In May the same conflict was again posed. Once again, the wind was
blowing in favor of the revolution. But the same individuals who in July
were frightened by the danger of foreign intervention, during the May
Days once again fell prey to that same lack of vision that would
culminate in the fateful “cease fire” order that was later transformed,
despite the declaration of a truce, into an insistent disarmament and a
merciless repression of the working class. […] So that, by depriving
ourselves of a program, i.e., libertarian communism, we have entirely
surrendered to our enemies who possessed and still possess a program and
various directives […] to the petty bourgeois parties that we should
have crushed in July and in May. We think that any other sector, were it
to have an absolute majority such as we possess, would have become the
absolute arbiter of the situation. In the previous issue of our bulletin
we published a program. We feel the need for a revolutionary Junta, the
economic predominance of the Trade Unions and the free construction of
Municipal bodies. Our Group has sought to provide a guide, out of fear
that, should circumstances similar to those of July and May re-emerge,
the same things would happen. And victory depends on the existence of a
program that must be supported, without hesitation, with guns. […]”
“Revolutions that do not have theories do not get anywhere. The
positions outlined by ‘The Friends of Durruti’ may be subjected to
revision by major social disturbances, but they are rooted in two
essential points that cannot be circumvented. A program and guns.”
This text is fundamental; it marks a milestone in the development of
anarchist thought. The theoretical concepts set forth in this text,
which had previously been only vaguely outlined, are now expressed with
a blinding clarity. And these theoretical achievements would later be
repeated and argued in the pamphlet by Balius, “Towards a New
Revolution”. But this is where they appeared for the first time. And no
one can deny their novelty and their significance for anarchist thought.
The Friends of Durruti Group had accepted old theoretical concepts,
formulated after a painful historical experience, which over the course
of a civil war and a revolutionary process had starkly revealed the
contradictions and the necessities of the class struggle. Is it possible
to seriously believe and present documentation to the effect that this
development in the political thought of the Friends of Durruti was due
to the influence of a group outside the anarchist movement, whether
Trotksyists or POUMistas? It is undeniable that this development was due
exclusively to the Friends of Durruti Group itself, which in its
analysis of the political and historical situation had reached the
conclusion of the necessity, which is unavoidable in a revolution, of
establishing a program and a government that would impose the
dictatorship of the proletariat against the bourgeois enemies of the
revolution.
The sixth issue of The Friend of the People was datelined Barcelona,
August 12, 1937. The lead editorial was entitled, “The Need for a
Revolutionary Junta”, which, following up on the editorial in the
previous issue concerning the need for a revolutionary theory, claimed
that what was needed in July 1936 was a Revolutionary Junta:
“Concerning the July movement, we have come to the conclusion that the
enemies of the revolution must be crushed without mercy. This has been
one of the main errors we have made that we are now paying for many
times over. This defensive mission will be the responsibility of the
Revolutionary Junta, which will have to be unyielding with enemy
sectors. […]
“The importance of the constitution of the Revolutionary Junta is
immense. This is not just another idea. It is the result of a series of
failures and disasters. And it is the categorical rectification of the
course that has been followed up until the present.
“In July an antifascist committee was formed that did not measure up to
the importance of that sublime moment. How could the embryonic organ
arisen from the barricades function with friends and enemies of the
revolution side by side? Due to its composition, the antifascist
committee was not the exponent of the July struggle. […] we advocate
that only the workers from the city and the countryside, and combatants
who, at the decisive moments of the battle have proven to be the
champions of the social revolution, should participate in the
Revolutionary Junta. […]
“‘The Friends of Durruti’ Group, which has formulated an exact critique
of the May events, feels, from this very moment, the need to constitute
a Revolutionary Junta, as we conceive it, and we believe it is
indispensable for the defense of the revolution […].”
The development of the political thought of The Friends of Durruti was
already quite noteworthy. After the recognition of the necessity of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, the next question that was posed was,
who exercises the dictatorship? The answer is a Revolutionary Junta,
which is then defined as the vanguard of the revolutionaries who fought
on July 19. As for the role of this Junta, we cannot believe that it
would be any different than that attributed by the Marxists to the
revolutionary party.
Munis, however, in the second issue of La Voz Leninista, criticized the
sixth issue of The Friend of the People because he discerned in its
claims a regression with respect to the same formulations made by The
Friends of Durruti Group during, and immediately after, the May
events.[152]
The eleventh issue of The Friend of the People was dated Saturday,
November 20, 1937, which was the anniversary of the death of Durruti,
and was almost entirely devoted to commemorating the popular anarchist
hero. Among all the articles in this issue, mostly devoted to a more or
less accurate commentary on the figure of Durruti, one article stands
out, entitled, “Comments on Durruti”, in which the author engages in a
polemical denunciation of Solidaridad Obrera with regard to the question
of Durruti’s ideology and intentions. According to the anonymous author,
Soli [Solidaridad Obrera] claimed that Durruti was prepared to renounce
all revolutionary principles to win the war. The author of the article
in The Friend of the People viewed such a claim as an outrage and as the
worst possible insult against the memory of Durruti. The Group’s view of
Durruti’s ideology was entirely contrary to that offered by Soli:
“Durruti never renounced the revolution. If he did say that everything
except victory must be renounced, he was referring to the fact that we
must be prepared for the greatest sacrifices, even of life itself,
rather than submit to fascism.
“In the mouth of Durruti, however, the concept of victory does not imply
the least separation of the war and the revolution. […] We do not
believe, and of this we are convinced, that Durruti would have advocated
that the class, which achieved total victory at the cost of such great
sacrifices, would be the same class that is constantly making
concessions and compromises for the benefit of the enemy class. […]
“Durruti wanted to win the war, but he always kept an eye on the
rearguard. […]
“Buenaventura Durruti never renounced the revolution. The Friends of
Durruti will never renounce it either.”
The twelfth issue of The Friend of the People, dated February 1, 1938,
was the last issue of the bulletin of The Friends of Durruti Group.
The pamphlet, “Towards a New Revolution”[153] was published
clandestinely in January 1938, although Balius began writing it around
November 1937. It is the most elaborate of the texts of The Friends of
Durruti Group, and therefore deserves a separate commentary.
The most important theoretical contributions of the pamphlet were
already set forth in the editorials of The Friend of the People in
issues 5, 6 and 7, that is, in the issues published between July 20 and
August 31.
The pamphlet consists of 31 pages, and is divided into eight chapters.
In the first chapter a brief historical introduction is presented, in
which Balius offers a grotesque depiction of the period extending from
the dictatorship of Prima de Rivera until October 1934. In the second
chapter the events leading to the revolutionary insurrection of July 19
are analyzed.
Some of his claims are quite striking, and are no less true for being
presented in such a blunt manner:
“The people looked for weapons. They got them. They obtained them by
their own efforts. Nobody gave them to them. Neither the government of
the Republic nor the Generalitat gave them a single rifle.”
We must call attention to the profound analysis of the revolution of
July 19, 1936 carried out by The Friends of Durruti Group:
“The immense majority of the working class population was on the side of
the CNT. The majority organization in Cataluña was the CNT. What
happened that caused the CNT not to carry out its revolution, which was
the revolution of the people, that of the majority of the proletariat?
“What happened was what had to happen. The CNT was without a
revolutionary theory. We did not have a correct program. We did not know
where we were going. A lot of poetry, but in the final accounting, we
did not know what to do with those enormous masses of workers, we did
not know how to give flexibility to that popular surge that poured forth
in our organizations and because we did not know what to do we
surrendered the revolution on a platter to the bourgeoisie and the
Marxists, who played the same old masquerade, and what is much worse, we
gave them the respite they needed to rebuild their forces and implement
a victorious plan. No one knew how to realize the full potential of the
CNT. No one wanted to follow through with the revolution with all its
consequences.”
Thus, the revolution of July failed, according to The Friends of Durruti
Group, because the CNT lacked a revolutionary theory and a revolutionary
program. Many reasons, and diverse and various explanations have been
offered from within the anarchist movement concerning the nature of the
July revolution; some hypotheses are more or less convincing, but
neither Vernon Richards, nor Semprún-Maura, nor Abad de Santillán, nor
García Oliver, nor Berneri, have been as clear and as definitive, nor
have they analyzed the nature of the July revolution with the same
profundity, as The Friends of Durruti Group did in the paragraph we just
quoted.
This is only the tip of the iceberg, however, because The Friends of
Durruti, who were not brilliant theoreticians, or good organizers, but
essentially people of the barricades, who defended their theoretical
positions on the basis of their reflections on their experiences,
without any other compass than their class instinct, were capable, in
the text that we shall consider next, of one of the best contemporary
analyses of the Spanish revolution. An analysis that deserves close
consideration, and one that we must not label as anarchist or Marxist,
because it is the analysis of men who did not play with words, but with
lives, and first of all with their own: “When an organization has spent
its entire existence calling for revolution, it has the obligation to
carry that revolution out precisely when the opportunity to do so is
presented. And in July this opportunity arose. The CNT had to step up
and assume the leadership of the country, delivering a solid kick to
everything archaic, everything ancient, and in this way we would have
won the war and we would have won the revolution.”
“But we proceeded in a manner contrary to this. The CNT collaborated
with the bourgeoisie in the offices of the state at the very moment when
the state was falling apart everywhere. It reinforced Companys and his
entourage. A breath of fresh air was given to an anemic and cowed
bourgeoisie.
“One of the causes that led most directly to the strangulation of the
revolution and the displacement of the CNT is that fact that it acted
like a minority faction despite the fact that we had the majority in the
streets. […]
“We furthermore assert that revolutions are totalitarian no matter what
anyone says. What happens is that various aspects of the revolution
gradually continue to develop but with the guarantee that the class that
represents the new order of things is the one that holds the greatest
responsibility. And when things are done halfway, what happens is just
what we are commenting on, the disaster of July.
“In July a committee of antifascist militias was constituted. It was not
a class organization. It contained representatives of bourgeois and
counterrevolutionary fractions. It seemed that this committee had arisen
in opposition to the Generalitat. But it was a scene in a comedy.”
First of all, we must call attention to the Group’s definition of the
Central Committee of Antifascist Militias as an institution of class
collaboration, rather than the embryonic stage of a working class power.
The critique of the confederal collaborationism in saving and rebuilding
the state is combined with the tautology that the only duty of a
revolutionary organization is to carry out the revolution.
So far, all the assertions of The Friends of Durruti are anarchist
orthodoxy. As a direct consequence of these assertions, however, or
perhaps it would be more correct to say, as a consequence of the
contradictions of the CNT, that had become bogged down in a project as
foreign to anarchism as the salvation and reconstruction of a
decomposing capitalist state, we come to a notable theoretical
breakthrough on the part of The Friends of Durruti: revolutions are
totalitarian.
Totalitarian means, above all, “total”, although in this context we
cannot exclude the second accepted meaning of authoritarian. If this
claim is in contradiction with the libertarian spirit, then we would
have to assert that an anarchist revolution is an irresolvable
contradiction. The anarchists in Spain in 1936 experienced something
like this.
The pamphlet by Balius, in the next chapter, addressed the revolutionary
insurrection of May. The reasoning of The Friends of Durruti Group was
as clear and as radical as it was precise: the cause of the May Events
can be found in the July insurrection, because the revolution was not
carried out in July.
“The social revolution in Cataluña could have been a reality. […] But
events took a different turn. The revolution did not take place in
Cataluña. The petty bourgeoisie, who during the July events had kept in
the background, once they noticed that the proletariat was once again
being victimized by a handful of sophistical leaders, prepared for
battle.” “The revolution did not take place in July 1936.” This
assertion on the part of The Friends of Durruti Group (as well as their
assertion concerning the necessarily totalitarian nature of all
revolutions) could not be more clear and emphatic. All the historians,
however, including those who glorify The Friends of Durruti as
superheroes and replace the cult of personality of Lenin or Durruti with
that of Balius, disregard this declaration that is fundamental and
crucial in understanding the rise, the reason for existence and the
struggle of the Group.
The Group’s analysis of Stalinism, and the decisive role played by
Stalinism as a spearhead of the counterrevolution, was not only astute,
but was deeply rooted as well in the description of the social layers
that provided their base of support. We must point out, however, that
the word “Stalinism” was never used, but rather the terms, “socialism”
or “Marxism”, with the evident meaning that we today give, from a
historical and ideological point of view, to the word, “Stalinism”.
“Socialism in Cataluña has been disastrous. Its ranks have been filled
with people who are against the revolution. They have assumed leadership
of the counterrevolution. They have given life to a UGT that has been
taken over by the GEPCI. The Marxist leaders have sung the praises of
the counterrevolution. And they have made the united front a creature of
their own, first eliminating the POUM, and then they tried to repeat
this feat with the CNT.
“The maneuvers of the petty bourgeoisie allied with the
socialist-communists, resulted in the events of May.”
According to The Friends of Durruti Group the May Events were a planned
provocation, whose purpose was to create a climate of indecisiveness,
which would make it possible to deliver a decisive blow against the
working class, in order to definitively bring an end to a potentially
revolutionary situation:
“… the counterrevolution sought to bring the working classes into the
streets without a solid plan so they could be crushed. Their goals were
in part achieved due to the stupidity of a handful of leaders who issued
the order to cease fire and who accused The Friends of Durruti of being
agents provocateurs when the street battles were being won and the enemy
was being eliminated.”
The accusation directed against the anarchist leaders (although no names
are mentioned, we cannot help but think of García Oliver, Abad de
Santillán and Federica Montseny) was not meant to be an insult, but
constituted an adequate description of their activity during the May
Days.
The Friends of Durruti thought that the counterrevolution had attained
its chief objective, which was the control of public order by the
Valencia Government. The description and assessment of the workers
response to the Stalinist provocation, that is, the May Events, carried
out by The Friends of Durruti, is very interesting: a) It was a
spontaneous reaction; b) There was no revolutionary leadership; c) The
workers had achieved, in a few hours, an overwhelming military victory.
Only a few buildings in the center of the city continued to resist, and
they could have been easily taken; d) The defeat of the insurrection was
not a military defeat, but a political defeat.
“Within a few hours the struggle was decided in favor of the proletariat
of the CNT, which as in July defended its prerogatives with arms in
hand. We conquered the streets. They were ours. There was no human power
that could dislodge us. The working class neighborhoods immediately fell
into our power. And our enemies who were gradually surrounded and
bottled up in one part of the city—the downtown area—would soon have
been conquered had the committees of the CNT not defected.” Next, Balius
justified the actions undertaken by The Friends of Durruti during the
bloody week of May 1937: The Friends of Durruti, in a situation of
indecision and generalized disorientation among the ranks of the working
class, distributed a leaflet and a manifesto, for the purpose of giving
a revolutionary direction and goals to the events. Subsequently, the
main concern of the Group, faced with the incredible position of the
confederal leadership that sought peace and brotherhood, was that the
barricades not be abandoned without conditions and guarantees.
According to Balius, in May there was still time to save the revolution,
and The Friends of Durruti were the only people who were capable of
rising to the challenge of the circumstances. The blindness of the
CNT-FAI to the repression that would be inflicted with impunity against
the revolutionary workers, had already been foreseen by The Friends of
Durruti. The chapter of the pamphlet devoted to collaborationism and the
class struggle is of great interest. Collaboration in the tasks of the
government of the bourgeois state was the main accusation leveled by the
Group against the CNT. The critique of The Friends of Durruti Group was
even more radical than that of Berneri, because the latter criticized
the participation of the CNT in the Government, while the Group
criticized the collaboration of the CNT with the capitalist state. Nor
was this just a matter of two verbal expressions with only a slight
difference in emphasis; this involves an entire political conception
distinct from the one that Berneri had in mind. As we read in the
pamphlet:
“We do not have to collaborate with capitalism, not from outside the
bourgeois state or from within its governmental departments. Our role as
producers is to be found in the trade unions, strengthening the only
bonds that must continue to exist after a revolution led by the workers.
[…] And one cannot preserve a state alongside the trade unions—much less
reinforce it with our own forces. The struggle against capital
continues. A bourgeoisie exists in our own land that is complicit with
the international bourgeoisie. The problem is the same as it was years
ago.”
The Friends of Durruti claimed that the collaborationists were the
allies of the bourgeoisie, which amounts to saying that the anarchist
Ministers, as well as all those who advocated collaborationism, were
allies of the bourgeoisie:
“The collaborationists are allies of the bourgeoisie. The individuals
who advocate this kind of complicity do not care about the class
struggle nor do they have the least respect for the trade unions.
“At no time must we accept the consolidation of the power of our enemy.
“The enemy must be attacked. […] Between exploiters and exploited there
cannot be the least contact. Only in the struggle will it be decided
which side is victorious. Either the workers or the bourgeoisie. But by
no means both at the same time.”
The Group, however, never took the next, decisive step, which could be
none other than to break with an organization of a collaborationist
nature, which had proven its inability to curtail and put an end to this
policy of alliance with the bourgeoisie. The Group never proposed a
break with the CNT, nor did it ever denounce this organization as an
organization of capitalism. It did not draw all the conclusions of the
ideological premises it set forth. It was easier to accuse a handful of
individuals, a few leaders who advocated a policy of collaboration with
the bourgeoisie, than it was to arrive at the brutal and painful
conclusion that the CNT, which during the twenties and thirties had been
the best organizer of the revolutionary proletariat in Spain, had
become, over the course of the war, by way of its unconditional support
for the policy of ANTIFASCIST UNITY, an organization of collaboration
with and submission to the bourgeoisie. It was not the anarchist
Ministers who were responsible for the CNT’s deviation from its
principles; it was the CNT that produced such Ministers.
The trade unions of the CNT had by 1938 ceased to be working class
organizations oriented towards the class struggle; they had been
transformed into bureaucratic organizations in the service of the state,
by means of the institutions that were responsible for the increase of
and conversion to war production, at the same time that labor was being
militarized. The trade unions now played an important and irreplaceable
economic role.
The Group, however, thought that the trade unions were still
organizations of the class struggle. Not even the Catalan UGT, Stalinist
to the core, and the mere tool of the PSUC, the party of the
counterrevolution, was viewed by the Group as an institution of the
bourgeoisie.
After May 1937 the various Trade Unions and Federations of Industry
underwent a change of function and nature, having become regulatory,
coordinating and centralizing institutions for production, conveniently
“inspected” by technical commissions. They had ceased to be class trade
unions, defenders of the demands of the workers, in order to become “a
new type of boss”[154] that organized the economy in obedience to the
directives issued by the government of the Generalitat (or, beginning in
1938, by the Republic). We have already seen[155] how the
collectivizations had been transformed from the workers expropriations
of July 1936 into a capitalism of trade union management and state
planning, legalized by the Collectivization Decree, in October 1936, and
further authorized by the decrees of S’Agaró in January 1937. In the
spring of 1937 a revolutionary struggle by the workers for socialization
as opposed to collectivization of the economy was underway.
Beginning in June 1937, the Industrial Trade Unions, having lost their
functions as representatives of the demands of the workers and once
every revolutionary attempt had been defeated,[156] became alienated
from the workers, and their nature underwent a transformation, as they
became institutions of economic management, as well as control and
monitoring of labor productivity.
In this context, the revolutionary socialization promoted by the workers
in the Trade Unions or Federations of Industry in the spring of
1937,[157] was in fact converted, after the defeat of May, into a
determined drive for economic and managerial centralization, coordinated
from these same Industrial Unions, and subject to state planning, which
in addition led to advocacy of the need, from an exclusively
productivity-based perspective, of CNT-UGT unity. Managerial unity,
presented demagogically as the culmination of “working class unity”.
The Industrial Unions, which prior to May 1937 were the revolutionary
instruments of the workers for socializing the economy, had been
transformed, after the defeat of the May insurrection, into the
instruments of the counterrevolution to enforce the militarization of
the economy and labor. The Group was incapable of analyzing this
transformation.
It was therefore impossible for The Friends of Durruti to take the
decisive step. If they were incapable of recognizing the real nature (in
1938) of the trade unions as an apparatus of the capitalist state, they
could not propose a break with a CNT that had exchanged its working
class and trade union character for that of a bureaucratic institution
of the state. To the contrary, the trade unions played a key role in the
Group’s theoretical arguments; its accusations were directed against
individuals, not against organizations. The Group did not recognize the
illness or its causes, but only a few of its symptoms. The pamphlet
proceeds with an explanation of the positions and the program of The
Friends of Durruti Group. The principles and characteristic political
positions, of a tactical character, were enumerated in a partial,
confused and imprecise way, compared to previous formulations, which was
perhaps the result of the fact that the pamphlet was written in haste
and under pressure, or else due to the insignificant support they
encountered at the time.
The program was succinctly outlined on the basis of the experience of
July, which The Friends of Durruti depicted very expressively as a
triumphant insurrection, which only lacked a theory and revolutionary
goals: “No one knew what road to follow. We lacked a theory. We had
spent years revolving around abstractions. The leaders at the time asked
themselves, what do we do now? And they allowed the revolution to slip
away. During culminating moments like those we must not hesitate. But we
have to know where we are going. And this is the vacuum we want to fill,
since we understand that what took place in July and in May cannot be
repeated.”
“In our program we introduce a slight variation within the anarchist
tradition. The constitution of a Revolutionary Junta.”
The Revolutionary Junta was defined by the Group as a vanguard formed to
repress the enemies of the revolution:
“The revolution, as we understand it, needs institutions that watch over
it and that will repress, in an integral sense, those enemy sectors that
current circumstances have demonstrated are not resigned to their own
disappearance.
“Perhaps there are anarchist comrades who feel certain ideological
scruples, but the lesson we have so harshly learned is sufficient to
convince us that we cannot beat around the bush. If we want to prevent
the next revolution from being an exact replica of what has just
occurred, we must proceed with the utmost energy in dealing with those
who do not identify themselves with the working class.”
Next, The Friends of Durruti set forth their revolutionary program,
which can be briefly summarized by three major points: 1. The
constitution of a Revolutionary Junta, or Council of National Defense,
whose mission would consist of the conduct of the war, control of public
order, international affairs and revolutionary propaganda; 2. All
economic power to the trade unions—this implied the creation of an
authentic trade union capitalism; 3. The Free Municipality, as the basic
cell of territorial organization, halfway between a decentralized state
and the typical anarchist federal conception. The pamphlet concludes
with a final section, which has the same title as the pamphlet, in which
a lapidary and realistic assessment is offered: “the revolution no
longer exists.” After a long series of assumptions and questions about
the immediate future, in which the force of the counterrevolution is
verified, a voluntaristic, and perhaps rhetorical appeal is made on
behalf of a future revolution capable of satisfying the hopes of
humanity and the anarchist ideal. The victory of the counterrevolution
in the republican zone, however, and the victory of the fascists in the
war were already inevitable, as Balius acknowledged in his 1978
Introduction (entitled “Forty Years Ago”) to the English language
edition of “Towards a New Revolution” (published under the title,
“Towards a Fresh Revolution”).
The Friends of Durruti Group was, both with regard to its numerical
strength as well as its goals, much more than just an affinity group,
and was more like a sector of the libertarian movement, similar to the
“Mujeres Libres”. It never attempted to propose a revolutionary
alternative to the CNT-FAI. It only opposed the bureaucratic leadership
of anarchosyndicalism, and was content to call for new leaders. It was
not influenced, either in whole or in part, by the Trotskyists, or by
the POUM. Its ideology and its slogans were typically confederal; at no
time could it be said to have displayed a Marxist ideology. In any
event, it certainly displayed a great deal of interest in the example of
Marat, and one might be able to speak of a powerful attraction for the
assembly movement of the Paris Sections, for the sans-culottes and the
enrages, as well as for the revolutionary government of Robespierre and
Saint-Just, which were studied by Kropotkin in his History of the French
Revolution. It never referred to, and was perhaps unaware of, the
anarchist Platform, with which it nonetheless possessed certain features
in common.
Its goal was simply to confront the contradictions of the CNT, to
provide the CNT with ideological coherence, and to rescue it from the
rule of individuals and superior committees staffed by officials in
order to return it to its roots in the class struggle. Its raison d’être
was to engage in criticism of and opposition to the CNT’s policy of
constant concessions, and of course to the COLLABORATION of the
anarchosyndicalists in the central government and the government of the
Generalitat. The Group was opposed to the abandonment of revolutionary
objectives and of the fundamental and characteristic ideological
principles of anarchism, which had been disregarded by the leaders of
the CNT-FAI in the name of antifascist unity and the need to adapt to
circumstances. Without a revolutionary theory there is no revolution. If
principles are only cast aside at the first obstacle imposed by reality,
perhaps it would be better if we admitted that we have no principles.
The highest leaders of Spanish anarchosyndicalism thought they were
clever negotiators, but they were manipulated like puppets. They
renounced everything, in exchange for nothing. They were just so many
opportunists without any opportunities. The insurrection of July 19 did
not encounter a revolutionary vanguard capable of imposing the power of
the proletariat, destroying the capitalist state and undertaking an
authentic working class revolution. The CNT had no plan for what to do
once the military uprising was defeated. The victory of July plunged the
anarchosyndicalist leaders into dismay and confusion. They had been left
behind by the revolutionary impetus of the masses. And since they did
not know what to do they accepted the proposal of Companys to
constitute, together with the other parties, an Antifascist Front
government. And they posed the false THEORETICAL dilemma of anarchist
dictatorship or antifascist unity and collaboration with the state to
win the war, because in PRACTICE they did not know what to do with
power, at a time when their failure to seize it left it in the hands of
the bourgeoisie. The Spanish “revolution” was the tomb of anarchism as
an organization and as a revolutionary theory of the proletariat. This
is the origin and the reason for existence of The Friends of Durruti
Group, which could not, however, nor did it know how to, save the
anarchosyndicalist ideology from its death throes.
The limitations of the Group were very clear. And so, too, are its
historical limitations. At no time did it ever propose a break with the
CNT. Only an absolute lack of acquaintance with the confederal
organizational mechanics[158] could lead one to believe that a project
of criticism or an attempt to foment a schism would not inevitably lead
to expulsion, which in the case of The Friends of Durruti was prevented
by the sympathy for the Group expressed by the confederal rank and file
militants, although at the price of an iron ostracism, and almost
complete isolation.
The Group’s maximum objective was the critique of the leaders of the
CNT, and to put an end to the policy of confederal participation in the
government. Not only did the Group want to preserve the “conquests” of
July, but it also sought to continue and intensify a revolutionary
process that it considered to be insufficient and neutralized. Its
organization and the means at its disposal, however, were even more
limited. Its members were people of the barricades, they were not good
organizers, and were even worse theoreticians, although they had some
good journalists. In May they put all their faith in the spontaneity of
the masses. They did not effectively counteract the official CNT
propaganda. They were incapable of providing leadership and coordination
for the defense committees that had unleashed the insurrection of May.
They did not make use of, or attempt to organize, the militants who were
members of the Control Patrols. They issued no orders to Máximo Franco,
a member of The Friends of Durruti Group, and the delegate of the
Rojinegra Division of the CNT, who on May 4, 1937, wanted “to drop in on
Barcelona” with his division but, except for himself and about forty
militiamen on an “observation mission”, returned to the front (as did
the POUM column, led by Rovira) as a result of initiatives undertaken by
Molina. The high points of the Group’s activity were: the poster
distributed at the end of April 1937, in which it proposed the overthrow
of the Generalitat and its replacement by a Revolutionary Junta; its
domination of several barricades on Las Ramblas, during the May Events;
the reading of the appeal for solidarity with the Spanish revolution,
directed at all the workers of Europe; the distribution at the
barricades of the famous leaflet of May 5; and the summary of the events
set forth in the Manifesto of May 8. The Group was unable, however, to
implement any of its slogans: a Revolutionary Junta was never formed.
The Group called for the formation of a column that would set out to
confront the troops coming from Valencia; but it soon abandoned the idea
in consideration of the scanty support it generated. After the May
Events the Group began publishing The Friend of the People, despite its
repudiation by the CNT and the FAI. In June 1937, although the Group had
not been outlawed like the POUM, it suffered from the political
persecution aimed at the CNT militants as a whole. Its bulletin was
published clandestinely after the second issue (May 26), and its editor
in chief Jaime Balius was arrested and imprisoned on several occasions.
Other members of the Group were dismissed from their positions, such as
Bruno Lladó, a councilman in the Sabadell municipal government; or
Santana Calero, who underwent an inquisitorial persecution within the
Libertarian Youth. Most of its members experienced attempts to expel
them from the CNT, which was advocated by the FAI. Nonetheless, they
carried on with their clandestine publication and distribution of the
Group’s press and leaflets until February 1938. The Group’s most
outstanding tactical proposals may be summarized in the following
slogans: the economy run by the trade unions, federation of
municipalities, army of militias, revolutionary program, replacement of
the Generalitat by a revolutionary junta, and unity of action between
the CNT-FAI-POUM. The Friends of Durruti Group was therefore a failed
attempt, one that had arisen from within the libertarian movement, to
constitute a Revolutionary Junta that would deliver all power to the
trade unions. It proved to be incapable, not only of realizing its
slogans in practice, but even of effectively propagating its ideas and
providing practical orientations for the way to fight for them. Maybe
the terrified bourgeoisie and the disguised priests saw them as a group
of wild brutes, but among its members it included such journalists as
Balius and Calleja, military commanders such as Pablo Ruiz, Francisco
Carreño and Máximo Franco, and municipal councilors like Bruno Lladó,
and trade unionists like Francisco Pellicer, and the leading member of
the Libertarian Youth, Juan Santana Calero. Its remote origins should be
sought among the libertarians who shared the revolutionary experience of
the insurrection of Alto Llobregat in January 1932, in the FAI affinity
group “Renacer” between 1934 and 1936. Its more immediate origins are to
be found in the opposition to the militarization of the militias
(especially in the Gelsa sector), and in the defense of the
revolutionary conquests and the critique of cenetista collaboration,
expressed in articles published in Solidaridad Obrera (from July until
early October), and in Ideas and La Noche (from January to May 1937),
especially by Balius. Its means of struggle were the leaflet, the
poster, the bulletin and the barricade; but it never proposed schism or
a break as a weapon of struggle, nor did it denounce the
counterrevolutionary role of the CNT, nor did it even, during the May
Days, make a serious effort to confront the confederal leaders to
attempt to counteract the effect of the defeatist directives of the
CNT-FAI. The Friends of Durruti had elaborated an alternative program to
that of the CNT-FAI, but did not provide an alternative leadership,
which left them defenseless against the measures taken to expel them.
The historical importance of The Friends of Durruti Group is undeniable,
however. And its importance resides precisely in its character as an
internal opposition to the collaborationist orientation of the
libertarian movement. The political importance of its emergence was
immediately recognized by Andreu Nin, who devoted a eulogistic and
hopeful article to the Group, because it opened up the possibility of a
revolutionary orientation of the cenetista masses who could oppose the
treasonous and collaborationist policy of the CNT. This explains the
interest in trying to influence The Friends of Durruti Group that was
displayed by the Trotskyists as well as the POUM; an influence that they
never managed to assert.
The principal theoretical contributions of the Group to anarchist
thought can be summarized in these points:
have to be prepared to defend the revolution from the inevitable attacks
of the counterrevolutionaries. Guns will be used to defend the
revolutionary program.
Both points were recapitulated by the Group itself in its slogan: “A
program and guns.”
Its traditional anarchist apoliticism caused the CNT to lack a theory of
revolution. Without a revolutionary theory there is no revolution, and
not seizing power means leaving it in the hands of the capitalist state.
For the Group, the CCMA was an institution of class collaboration, and
had no other purpose than to consolidate and fortify the bourgeois
state, which the CCMA did not want to destroy and was incapable of
destroying. Hence the advocacy by The Friends of Durruti Group of the
necessity of forming a Revolutionary Junta, capable of coordinating,
centralizing and fortifying the power of the multitude of workers,
local, defense, enterprise, militia committees, etc., that were the only
holders of power between July 19 and September 26. A power that was
fragmented into multiple committees, which locally held all power, but
because they did not federate, centralize and consolidate their
operations among themselves, they were detoured, weakened and
transformed by the CCMA into Popular Front municipal administrations,
managing committees of trade union-run enterprises and battalions in a
republican army. Without the complete destruction of the capitalist
state, the revolutionary days of July 1936 were incapable of taking the
step to a new structure of working class power. The degeneration and
final fiasco of the revolutionary process were inevitable. The
confrontation between the reformist anarchism of the CNT-FAI, however,
and the revolutionary anarchism of The Friends of Durruti Group was not
clear, precise and starkly outlined enough to provoke a split that would
clarify the opposed positions of both sides. The accusation of
“betrayal” hurled by the Group at the CNT-FAI in May, which was later
withdrawn, did not explain anything either, nor did it amount to
anything besides a deserved insult, but did not allow for the slightest
progress. Thus, despite the fact that the political thought expressed by
The Friends of Durruti Group was an attempt to understand the reality of
the Spanish war and revolution from the perspective of
anarchosyndicalist ideology, one of the main reasons why it was rejected
by the confederal militants was its authoritarian and “Marxist”
character.
These anarchosyndicalist militants, however, proved to be incapable of
controlling their leaders, who made all the important decisions in
secret discussions among “dignitaries”, which were then formally
ratified and publicized at the official Plenums. The war rendered the
horizontal and democratic organizational methods of the CNT, which were
too slow and ineffective, obsolete, and the leaders issued orders to the
militants by way of memoranda. Furthermore, the urgency of the decision
making process and the privileged information to which they had access,
due to their positions and responsibilities, made them indispensable.
This is why their resignations or accusations of betrayal of principles
were always ineffective. The widespread opposition of the
anarchosyndicalist masses to the collaborationism of their leaders,
documented and displayed at a myriad of meetings and local plenums,
found no outlet, because it was expressed in the name of the same
principles that their leaders professed. The strength of The Friends of
Durruti, and the Group’s positive achievements with respect to this
massive but “silent” opposition, resided in the fact that the Group had
its own program to oppose to the confederal bureaucracy; its weakness
derived from the fact that it was incapable of also opposing a
leadership, a group of leaders that would be capable of opposing the
aristocracy of “the men of action” or “the intellectuals”,[159] who
proved to be the only leaders possible.
We can conclude that The Friends of Durruti found themselves in a dead
end. They could not accept the collaborationism of the leading cadres of
the CNT and the advancing counterrevolution; but if they theorized the
experiences of the Spanish “revolution”, that is, the need for a
Revolutionary Junta that would overthrow the bourgeois republican
government of the Generalitat of Cataluña, and violently repress the
agents of the counterrevolution, then they were labeled as Marxists and
authoritarians and therefore forfeited any chance of proselytizing among
the confederal rank and file. We must ask ourselves whether the dead end
of The Friends of Durruti was nothing but the reflection of the
theoretical incapacity of Spanish anarchosyndicalism to confront the
problems posed by the war and the “revolution”.
In Barcelona it was, and still is possible to hear words of hatred and
contempt directed against Durruti and “his friends”, in the mouths of
the class enemies; among working class milieus, however, people have
always spoken respectfully of a mythologized Durruti, of the enormous
demonstration of the proletariat at his funeral procession, of the
indomitable revolt of the Durrutistas, of the anarchist and
revolutionary achievements of July 19. During the long night of
Francoism, anonymous hands wrote the names of Durruti and Ascaso on
their nameless tombstones. It is not the historian’s job to respect
myths; but it is his job to derive the important lessons of the class
struggle. We need only retain two images. In the first, we see a
submissive, persuasive and garrulous Companys, who on July 20 offered
the anarchist leaders positions in an Antifascist Front government,
because they had defeated the fascist military, and power was in the
streets. In the second we see a Companys cornered, with the gloves off,
who on May 4 was pleading with the government of the Republic to
dispatch an air force squadron to bomb[160] the barracks and the
strongholds of the CNT, and all the other targets indicated by the
military chief of the PSUC, José del Barrio.[161] Between these two
images roll the film of the “revolution” and the war. May 1937 was
contained in embryo in July 1936. The Group had understood that
revolutions are totalitarian (that is, total and authoritarian) or else
they are defeated: this was its great merit.[162] And it is on this
basis that they must be rejected or accepted, if it is understood that
some revolutionaries who are taking the factories and properties from
their legal owners, cannot do so peacefully and politely, begging and
saying, “please”. There is nothing more authoritarian and violent than
stripping the bourgeoisie of its possessions, nothing is more
authoritarian and violent than to defeat the army in the streets and
seize weapons from the barracks, nothing is more authoritarian and
violent than to burn churches and monasteries to put an end to the
social and political power and influence of the Church of 1936. This
should be obvious. The Friends of Durruti had understood that a
revolution, besides being authoritarian and violent, must be TOTAL: one
cannot make political agreements with the bourgeoisie and govern
alongside it, it was necessary to destroy the capitalist state, abolish
the Generalitat and exercise power from a Revolutionary Junta,
constituted exclusively by the working class forces that had fought in
the streets on July 19, 1936. Revolutions are totalitarian or they are
defeated; this was the essential theoretical achievement of the Group.
The Friends of Durruti Group has been ignored and mythologized for a
long time, and maybe the time has come to understand it in its
historical context. In order to do so, however, we have to avoid
transforming the history of The Friends of Durruti into a “situationist”
comic strip of superheroes, because not only did its members not have
the makings of heroes, but they also had their own theoretical and
organizational limitations, since they could not, nor did they ever even
attempt to become a “revolutionary alternative” to the CNT-FAI, from
which they not only never split, but to which they always remained
attached organizationally even in the face of attempts to expel them on
the part of the superior committees.[163]
The Friends of Durruti Group became disturbing mirror for the CNT
because they reflected a monstrous image, which many people did not want
and still do not want to see: it was and is better to just break the
mirror.
The fundamental question, the question that is taboo for the libertarian
movement and the topic that so many books, militants and historians have
been unable to elucidate, because they do not understand it, is why the
revolutionaries of yesterday were transformed after a few months into
Ministers, “firemen”, and counterrevolutionaries…. Why did the anarchist
leaders and/or the libertarian movement renounce the revolution in July
1936 and in May 1937? The answer given by The Friends of Durruti
themselves—“the BETRAYAL of the leaders”—was nothing but an insult that
explained nothing. From the very first moment the libertarian movement,
lacking a program or revolutionary theory, supported antifascist unity.
It sought to unite with socialists, Stalinists, POUMistas, republicans
and Catalanists to defeat fascism. During the thirties antifascism was
the worst poison and the greatest victory of fascism. The sacred union
of all antifascists to defeat fascism and defend democracy implied for
the libertarian movement the renunciation of its own principles, its own
revolutionary program, the revolutionary conquests, everything … that
is, the famous slogan falsely attributed to Durruti: “we renounce
everything except victory”, to submit to the program and interests of
the democratic bourgeoisie. It was this program of antifascist unity, of
complete and loyal collaboration with all the antifascist forces, that
led the CNT-FAI, rapidly and unconsciously, to government collaboration
with the sole objective of winning the war against fascism. It was this
adherence to the antifascist program (that is, the defense of capitalist
democracy) which explains why and how the same revolutionary leaders of
yesterday became, a few months later, Ministers, “firemen”, bureaucrats
and counterrevolutionaries. It was the CNT that produced Ministers, and
these Ministers betrayed nothing and no one; they restricted their
efforts to faithfully exercising their functions to the best of their
abilities.
The difference between the insurrections of July 1936 and May 1937
resides in the fact that the revolutionaries in July were without arms,
but had a precise political objective: the defeat of the military
uprising and of fascism; while in May, despite the fact that they
possessed more arms than they did in July, they were politically
disarmed. The working class masses began an insurrection against
Stalinism and the bourgeois government of the Generalitat, despite their
organizations and without their leaders, but they were incapable of
waging war to the end without their organizations and against their
leaders. In May 1937, as in July 1936, there was no revolutionary party,
which the proletariat had failed to create during the thirties. Neither
the POUM nor the CNT-FAI were, nor could they have been, that
revolutionary vanguard; to the contrary, they were the major obstacles
to its emergence. The incompetence of the anarchosyndicalist leaders and
the absence of any revolutionary theory left no other horizon than that
of antifascist unity and the democratic program of the republican
bourgeoisie. The methods and the goals of the proletariat had already
disappeared from the stage. The CCMA not only failed to reinforce the
power of the revolutionary committees, but it collaborated with the
Generalitat to weaken and abolish them.
The barricades erected in July 1936 were still standing months later;
while the barricades erected in May 1937 disappeared immediately, except
for the few that the PSUC wanted to leave standing as a testimonial to
its power and its victory.
May 1937, from this perspective, although it was undoubtedly the
consequence of the increasing discontent in the face of rising prices,
the shortages of food and other provisions, the struggle within the
enterprises for socialization of the economy and workers control, the
escalation of the attempts by the Generalitat to disarm the rearguard
and seize control of public order, etc., etc., was above all the
necessary armed defeat of the proletariat, which was required by the
counterrevolution in order to put a definitive end to all revolutionary
threats to bourgeois and republican institutions.
In 1938, the revolutionaries were dead, in jail or in hiding. The
prisons contained fifteen thousand antifascist prisoners. Hunger,
bombing and Stalinist repression were the masters and lords of
Barcelona. The militias and labor had been militarized. Order now
reigned throughout all of Spain, both in the Francoist part as well as
in the Republican part. The revolution was not crushed by Franco in
January 1939; the Republic had already finished it off many months
earlier.
[153[ Correspondence and interview of the author with Josep Rebull
Cabré. See also Agustín Guillamón, “Josep Rebull de 1937 a 1939: la
crítica interna a la política del Comité ejecutivo del POUM durante la
Revolución española”, Balance. Cuadernos de historia, nos. 19 and 20
(2000).
“The working class is revolutionary or it is nothing.”
Karl Marx, Letter to Schweitzer (February 13, 1865)
In July 1936, what was lacking was a revolutionary theory. Without
theory there is no revolution. After seventy years of anti-state
preaching, the Spanish anarchist movement, without understanding the
real nature of power and the state, had come to a historical crossroads
where it had to decide whether to advance by the revolutionary road, or
collaborate with the bourgeois government of the Generalitat (and the
Republic) in order to defeat fascism. The ambiguous option of “going for
broke” proposed by Juan García Oliver was conceived as a coup d’état, in
which the anarchosyndicalist leaders would impose an “anarchist
dictatorship” that was contrary to their ideological principles. The
high level leaders of the CNT-FAI, left behind by the rank and file
militants, felt dizzy before their incapacity to manage the victory of
the workers insurrection. And they chose to collaborate. The
revolutionary situation as it existed in July, characterized by power
that was fragmented into hundreds of committees, was throttled by that
institution of class collaboration known as the Central Committee of
Antifascist Militias (CCMA).
There was no revolutionary vanguard capable of inspiring the further
development of the revolution of the committees. No working class
organization, neither the CNT-FAI, nor the POUM, proposed in July the
revolutionary road of reinforcing, intensifying, extending, coordinating
and centralizing the revolutionary committees that, in the streets of
Barcelona and in many municipalities of Catalonia, already exercised all
power. And the committees by themselves were not able to do so, either,
because they would have had to resolutely confront their own leaders and
organizations.
In only two months this CCMA, with a predominant representation of the
CNT-FAI, successfully weakened the multitude of revolutionary committees
which had arisen everywhere, and reconstructed the state apparatus,
which the CNT-FAI reinforced by accepting various official positions,
first in the Catalonian government, and then a month later in the
government of the Republic. The first decrees of the government of the
Generalitat, reinforced with anarchist Ministers, ordered the
militarization of the Militias and, naturally, the dissolution of the
committees that nonetheless resisted their effective forced
disappearance for several more months. May 1937 was therefore the
necessary armed defeat of the proletariat required by the
counterrevolution in order to finish off the least trace of the
revolutionary threat.
The revolutionary committees that had arisen in July 1936 were
incomplete and imperfect institutions, incapable of transforming
themselves into authentic institutions of working class power. They
differed from workers councils (which had arisen as institutions of
workers power in the proletarian revolutions of Germany and Russia) in
the following respects: 1. They were not institutions that were
democratically elected by mass assemblies of rank and file workers and
therefore independent of the trade union bureaucracies and the parties;
2. They were not unitary institutions of the working class, and were
furthermore incapable of coordinating among themselves, in such a way as
to create superior institutions that would centralize the power of the
workers.
After the victory of the revolutionary insurrection of July 19 two
choices were possible: the revolutionary option consisted in
reinforcing, intensifying, coordinating and centralizing the
revolutionary committees as institutions of workers power, TRANSFORMING
THEM INTO WORKERS COUNCILS; the popular front or reformist option
consisted in the integration of the workers movement into the state
apparatus of the republican bourgeoisie and therefore in the weakening,
isolation and final dissolution of the committees.
The government of Largo Caballero, despite its working class
appearances, was based on the old state apparatus of the bourgeoisie and
its purpose was to absorb all the revolutionary institutions and
structures in order to gradually neutralize them until, once the
bourgeois fraction of the government felt strong enough, they could be
openly crushed.
The trade unions, by their very nature, were not institutions of workers
power. The committees were not yet such institutions of workers power.
The committees were not councils and therefore proved to be incapable of
coordinating among themselves, and of creating superior institutions
capable of centralizing, unifying and creating a working class power
that would confront the capitalist state. The irreplaceable and
necessary mission of a revolutionary vanguard or party would have been
precisely to impel the transformation of the committees into workers
councils.
The POUM and the CNT-FAI failed as revolutionary vanguards, and the
committees were incapable of becoming (by their own efforts) councils.
This was the principal limitation and determining cause of the rapid
degeneration of the revolutionary situation that existed in July 1936,
which made possible the sudden recovery of the bourgeois state
apparatus.
We must therefore make the distinction, as Josep Rebull did in the
spring of 1937,[164] with precision, rigor and clarity, between
committees,[165] workers councils and trade unions. They were distinct
working class institutions with different functions.
The trade unions, during a revolutionary period, were supposed to be the
economic institutions in control of production and distribution, that
is, technical and administrative institutions. But they could not be,
nor could they fulfill, functions of political representation or
institutions of working class power. The Councils are precisely those
institutions of workers power that, due to their democratic election in
assemblies, are independent of the trade union bureaucracies and the
parties. The strengthening of the councils means that they will assume
leadership functions in every locality, accelerating the decomposition
of the capitalist system. They are therefore incompatible with the
capitalist state, and their defense is irreconcilable with the parties
that participate in the governments of the bourgeoisie.
The seizure of power is based on the armed struggle and the destruction
of the capitalist state, which is replaced with a government of Workers
Councils.
The function of a revolutionary vanguard is not to be a substitute for
the working class in those functions that only pertain to the class
itself: seizing power, exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
control of the economy and the militias, conduct of the war,
centralization of workers power and class unity, etc. The function of
this organization, in a revolutionary situation, is necessarily that of
impelling the creation of the institutions of working class power, so
that they can exercise their functions of workers power, and thus
establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, incompatible with the
capitalist state, and therefore without any political collaboration of
any kind with the bourgeoisie.
If we define revolution, in the 20^(th) century, as the violent
confrontation with the state for the final goal (whether it is achieved
or not) of the seizure of state power, carried out by political forces
that are opposed, not only to the current regime, but to the existing
social order, and the proletarian revolution as the attempt to destroy
the capitalist state apparatus, we are differentiating the proletarian
revolution from the popular revolutions and the latter from other
political forms of changing the government, such as coups d’état,
fascist and Stalinist counterrevolutions (as in the twenties and
thirties), social revolts, riots and protests, the fall of totalitarian
regimes (the fascist regimes during the forties, or the Stalinist ones
at the end of the eighties and beginning of the nineties), colonial wars
of independence (especially those of the fifties and sixties) and civil
wars.
Insurrections, revolts or revolutions are almost always violent, but
this violence by itself lacks significance. All the insurrections of the
past show us that, although they were violent, this violence has always
been overcome by the subsequent counterrevolution, which has massacred,
imprisoned or deported its enemies on a mass scale, especially after the
fighting has ended, when it had already obtained military victory: the
hatred and carnage born from the fear of the owning classes of the
proletarian threat. If the revolution resides in the revolutionaries,
then they must be exterminated in order to carry on with the peaceful
exploitation of the “good citizens”. If the spirit of vengeance has
played a certain role in working class insurrections, it has always been
paid back with interest by the reaction. We need only consider the
Kuomintang in 1926 or Francoist Spain (1939–1975). Working class
insurrections have for their part been less bloody and ferocious than
the anti-feudal peasant revolts, because the latter were the product of
desperation. The destruction of property, or murders, which have taken
place in some insurrections have generally been the spontaneous result
of backwardness and desperation on the part of a lumpen sector that
cannot escape from its poverty, or abolish oppression. Rebellions,
revolts or insurrections, no matter how violent or socially radical they
may be, cannot be defined as revolutionary if they are limited to
attacking the local administrators of capitalism, and leave the
capitalist economic and social system standing. Revolutions are always
struggles for state power and lead to the attempt (whether or not it is
successful) to seize state power by a group, a coalition or a class. The
starting point of a proletarian revolution is the destruction of the
bourgeois state. Therefore, in order to understand just what a
revolution or an insurrection is, how it develops and what it seeks, we
need to understand the nature of the state, and especially the nature of
the capitalist state.
It is not the state, or political power, that creates the classes; it is
the existence of a society that is divided into classes that creates the
state, in order to defend all the privileges of the ruling class. We
could find a thousand different definitions of the state. They can
basically be reduced to just two, however. One, which is very broad, and
that improperly speaks of the state as already existing in the first
civilizations, with the development of major agricultural surpluses, of
Mesopotamia and Egypt, and then Greece and Rome, we shall not use, as it
is inadequate for the study of the capitalist society in which we live.
This definition, in any event, requires that the state be defined
according to the prevailing mode of production: the slave state, the
feudal state, the capitalist state. The other definition, which is more
specific, is the one that utilizes the current concept of the state, or
the capitalist state, or the modern state, as an absolute sovereign
power or as the sole power in each country, which is the one we shall
use.
The modern, or capitalist, state, is a recent historical form of the
political organization of society, which arose about five hundred years
ago in a handful of countries, with the end of feudalism and the first
manifestations of the system of capitalist production. The emergence of
the (capitalist) state presupposed the disappearance of the feudal forms
of political organization. The concept of the (modern) state is
therefore quite recent and arises with the historical emergence of the
system of capitalist production. It is the form of political
organization that is proper for capitalism.
In feudal society sovereignty was understood as a hierarchical relation
that mediated a plurality of powers. The power of the King was based on
the loyalty of the other seigniorial powers and these royal powers were
furthermore alienable, that is, they could be sold or granted to the
nobility: the administration of justice, the recruitment of the army,
the collection of taxes, the bishoprics, etc., could be sold to the
highest bidder or were awarded in a complex network of favors and
privileges. Sovereignty resided in a plurality of powers, which could be
subordinated to one another or compete among themselves.
In capitalist society, the state transforms sovereignty into a monopoly:
the state is the sole political power in a country. The (modern or
capitalist) state possesses the monopoly of political power, and as a
result also lays claim to the monopoly on violence. Any challenge to the
monopoly on violence is considered to be a crime and an attack on
capitalist law and order, and is therefore persecuted, punished and
annihilated. In feudal society, social relations were based on personal
dependence and privileges. In capitalist society, social relations can
only exist between juridically free and equal individuals. This
juridical freedom and equality (not freedom and equality with regard to
property) is indispensable for the formation and existence of a
proletariat that provides the cheap labor for the new manufacturers. The
worker must be free, and he also must be free of all property, in order
to be available and prepared to rent himself for a wage to the owner of
the factory, a business or to the state itself. He must be free and
lacking any bond to the land that he farms, any reserves for survival,
and any property, in order to be driven by hunger, pauperization and
misery to the new industrial concentrations where he can sell the only
commodity that he possesses: his strength and his intelligence, that is,
his labor power and ability to work.
These new social relations, particular to capitalism, correspond with a
new political organization, unlike the feudal organization: a state that
monopolizes all political relations. In capitalism all individuals are
theoretically (juridically) free and equal and no one is any longer
subject to any kind of political dependence on the old form of feudal
lords or the new owner of the factory. All political relations are
monopolized by the state.
In pre-capitalist modes of production the relations of production were
also relations of domination. The slave was the property of his master,
the serf was bound to the land that he worked or he was directly bound
to a lord. This dependence has disappeared in capitalism. The (modern)
state is therefore the product of the capitalist relations of
production. The (current) state is the specific form of organization of
political power in capitalist societies. There is a radical separation
between the economic, the social and the political spheres.
The (modern) state monopolizes power, violence and the political
relations between individuals in the societies in which the capitalist
mode of production prevails. In the capitalist system of production
capital is not just money, or factories, or machines; capital is also,
and above all, a social relation of production, and precisely that
social relation of production that exists between proletarians, sellers
of their labor power for a wage, and the capitalists, buyers of the
commodity known as “labor power”.
The (capitalist) state has only recently emerged, about five hundred
years ago, and it will disappear along with the capitalist relations of
production. The (capitalist) state is thus not eternal; it has a very
recent origin and will also come to an end. The political theory of the
modern state was born in England in the 17^(th) century, anticipating or
justifying that historical process known as the Industrial Revolution,
with Hobbes (and Locke). Hobbes is not just the first theoretician, from
the chronological point of view, but his works already express the
present-day problematic of the (modern) state. From Plato to
Machiavelli, pre-state political theory was characterized by its
definition of political power and the community as something NATURAL,
and by its identification of the civil community with the political
community. After Hobbes, state political theory is characterized by its
definition of the state as an ARTIFICIAL entity, its separation of the
concepts of civil community (civil society) and political community (the
state) and by its addressing the question of the reproduction of
political power.
The (capitalist) state arises from a contradiction, which was its origin
and its reason for existence, between the theoretical defense of the
common or general good, and the practical defense of the interests of a
minority. The manifest contradiction between the illusion of defending
the general interest and the real defense of the interests of the
bourgeois class. The reason for existence of the (current) state is
nothing but to guarantee the reproduction of the social relations of
capitalist production.
The (capitalist) state, however, reified in its institutions, is the
mask of society, conveying the appearance of an external force that is
motivated by a higher rationality that embodies a “just” order for which
it performs the role of a neutral arbiter. This fetishization of the
(modern) state ALLOWS the capitalist social relations of production to
appear to be mere economic relations, rather than relations based on
coercion, at the same time that it also VEILS the oppressive character
of state institutions. In the market, worker and employer have the
appearance of free individuals, who engage in a “purely” economic
exchange: the worker sells his labor power in exchange for a wage. In
this free, “exclusively” economic exchange, all coercion has been
obscured, and the (capitalist) state has not intervened at all: it is
not there, it has (apparently) disappeared.
The necessary split between the public and the private is a necessary
precondition of the capitalist relations of production, because only
thus can they APPEAR to be free agreements between juridically free and
equal individuals, in which violence, monopolized by the (capitalist)
state, has disappeared from the stage. All of this leads to a
CONTRADICTION between the state AS FETISH, which must conceal its
monopoly of violence, permanently exercised against the proletariat in
order to guarantee the capitalist relations of production, that is, of
the exploitation of the proletariat by capital, and the state AS THE
ORGANIZER OF SOCIAL CONSENSUS and legality, which conducts free
elections, tolerates democratic rights of freedom of expression,
assembly, press and association; allows trade unions and legislates
labor reforms like health coverage, pensions, the eight hour day,
unemployment insurance, etc.
It is the existence of a society divided into classes that creates the
state, in order to defend all the privileges of the ruling class. In
crisis situations the capitalist state immediately reveals that it is
first of all a capitalist state, rather than a state of the nation, the
people, or its citizens, or a “welfare state”. The coercive component of
the state, linked to class rule, is the FUNDAMENTAL ESSENCE of the
state, which becomes transparent when social consensus and state
legitimacy are sacrificed on the altar of subjecting the proletariat to
the exploitation of capital. Proletarian revolts and insurrections
always reveal the class nature of the state and its essential repressive
function.
The capitalist state arises from this contradictory relation between its
repressive essence and its apparent function as an arbiter. It attempts
to conceal its repressive role, fulfilled as a guarantee of the rule of
the bourgeois class by way of the monopoly on violence, at the same time
that it seeks to appear to be the organizer of the consensus of civil
society, which in turn legitimizes the (modern) state as a neutral
arbiter. By this means the state also reinforces its ideological
monopoly and obtains a more complete and disguised domination over civil
society.
The fundamental institutions of the state are the standing army and the
bureaucracy. The tasks of the army are defense of the territorial
frontiers against other states, imperialist conquests, to extend markets
and obtain control over raw materials, and above all to serve as the
ultimate safeguard of the established order against working class
subversion. The task of the bureaucracy is to administer all those
functions that the bourgeoisie delegates to the state: education,
police, public health, prisons, mail, railroads, highways…. The civil
servant of the (capitalist) state, from the schoolteacher to the college
professor, from the policeman to the cabinet minister, from the truck
driver to the doctor all performed, or still perform, necessary
functions for the normal operations of the affairs of the bourgeoisie;
where they are detrimental to the latter, they are privatized, as has
recently been taking place with regard to jails, police and the army in
some countries.
The (modern) state is the ORGANIZATION of the political rule over, and
the permanent coercion and economic exploitation of the proletariat by
capital. The (capitalist) state is therefore not a machine or a tool
that can be used for opposite purposes: yesterday to exploit the
proletariat, tomorrow to emancipate the proletariat and suppress the
bourgeoisie. It is not a machine that can be conquered, nor can it be
manipulated according to the whims of the machine operator. The
proletariat cannot conquer the state, because the state is the political
organization of capital: it must destroy the state. If a victorious
insurrection of the proletariat limits itself to conquering the state,
and then reinforcing and rebuilding it, then we can speak of a coup
d’état or a revolution, or even of a proletarian revolution (as in
October 1917 in Russia), but in any event it is a revolution that has
left standing the foundations of a rapid and powerful counterrevolution,
which will soon lead to another form of managing capitalism, as was the
case with Stalinism in Russia.
The proletariat must destroy the state because the state is the
political organization of the economic exploitation of wage labor. The
destruction of the state is a condition sine qua non of the beginning of
a communist society. The capitalist state cannot really be destroyed,
however, unless the proletariat immediately destroys the economic,
social and historical preconditions for the existence of wage labor and
the law of value on a world scale.
What replaces the state? The administration of things in communism. The
proletarian revolution, however, is not a question of parties or
organization. What determines the possibility for communism is a high
degree of development of the productive forces and the extension of wage
labor and the proletarian condition. Organizational problems cannot be
posed outside of those who are being organized and the problems that
crop up at any particular moment. There are no rules, or magic formulas,
or guarantees against bureaucratization and the counterrevolution.[166]
Bureaucrats tend to be experts at organization, outside of society. The
historical experience of the international proletariat points to the
Russian Soviets, the German “rater” and the Spanish Committees, that is,
the organization of the proletariat in workers councils, as the
revolutionary form of organization of the working class.
We are therefore not speaking of one or another particular
organizational form of committee or council, but of the councilist
organization of society. The councils do not represent the workers, they
are the organized proletariat. The council is a class institution and an
institution for struggle. It is not a political body, it is the
organization of society in new relations of production, and therefore it
is not democratic, nor is it dictatorial, it is beyond politics, and
avoids the separation between the public and the private that is
characteristic of capitalism. Soviets, rater and committees failed in
the past, but they existed, demonstrating the capacity of the
proletariat for directing and managing factories, cities and countries;
but also showing their limits and their limitations, which we must
understand and correct. They have always appeared whenever the
revolutionary proletariat rose up against capitalist barbarism. They
were the working class response to the vacuum left by the bourgeoisie,
rather than the result of a radicalization of the struggle. The
councilist ideology contemplates the councils as a goal and not just as
a moment of the struggle in the transition to communism. The councilists
replace the “party” concept of the Leninists with the “council” concept.
Both ideologies are sterile. The councils will only be what the
proletariat makes them in the struggle to destroy the state and
construct communism.
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Barcelona, 1937.
“Actes del Comité Central de Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya.”
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de poder? (2 Vols.), Tesina de Llicenciatura, Departament Història
Contemporània, Universitat de Barcelona, 1979.
Bernecker, W., Colectividades y revolución social, Crítica, Barcelona,
1982.
Bolloten, Burnett, La Guerra Civil española, Alianza, Madrid, 1989. [In
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Struggle for Power during the Civil War, Revised and Expanded Edition,
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published in 1961 under the title, The Grand Camouflage.]
Diaz Sandino, Felipe, De la conspiración a la revolución, mimeographed
text.
Escofet, Federico, De una derrota a una victoria: 5 de octubre de 1934 –
19 de Julio de 1936, Argos Vergara, Barcelona, 1984.
García, Piotrowski, Rosés (eds.), Barcelona, mayo 1937, Alikornio,
Barcelona, 2006.
García Oliver, Juan, El eco de los pasos, Ruedo Ibérico, Barcelona,
1978.
Guillamón, Agustín, “Los Amigos de Durruti 1937–1939”, Balance (1994).
[English translation: Guillamón, Agustín, The Friends of Durruti Group:
1937–1938, tr. Paul Sharkey, AK Press, San Francisco, 2001.]
Lacruz, Francisco, El alzamiento, la revolución y el terror en
Barcelona, Librería Arysel, Barcelona, 1943.
Lorenzo, César, Los anarquistas españoles y el poder, Ruedo Ibérico,
Paris, 1972.
Llauge, Félix, El terror staliniano en la España republicana, Aura,
Barcelona, 1974.
Mompó, Enric, El Comité Central de Milicias Antifascistas de Catalunya y
la situación de doble poder en los primeros meses de la guerra civil
española, Tesis doctoral leída el 8 de junio de 1994, Departamento de
Historia Contemporánea, Universidad de Barcelona.
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la revolución española (1930–1939), Muñoz Moya, Brenes, 2003.
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Madrid, 1996. [English translation: Paz, Abel, Durruti in the Spanish
Revolution, tr. Chuck Morse, AK Press, San Francisco, 2006.]
Peirats, José, La CNT en la revolución española, Ruedo Ibérico, Paris,
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3, PM Press, Oakland, 2012.]
Pons i Garlandí, Joan, “Memorias”, text in Spanish, mimeographed.
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els mesos de juliol a octubre de 1936. Crisi i recomposició de l’Estat,
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Translated in September-October 2013 from the Spanish text:
Agustín Guillamón, Barricadas en Barcelona: La CNT de la victoria de
Julio de 1936 a la necesaria derrota de Mayo de 1937, Ediciones
Espartaco Internacional, Barcelona, 2006.
[1] Information drawn from the “Declaración manuscrita de Servando Meana
Miranda, capitán arma de Aviación”.
[2] Abad de Santillán brought a hundred pistols to the Construction
Trade Union. See: Diego Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos la Guerra
[1939], Plaza Janés, Esplugues de Llobregat, 1977, p. 76.
[3] Sergeant Manzana, despite the fact that his name is erroneously
cited in many books as a leading figure in the revolutionary events of
July 19, could not participate in the struggle because he was being held
prisoner in the barracks brig, and was not liberated until the evening
of the 20^(th). See: Marquez and Gallardo, Ortiz, General sin dios ni
amo, Hacer, Barcelona, 1999, p. 101.
[4] At six in the morning a company of assault guards from Barceloneta
received orders to proceed to the Paralelo, but after unexpectedly
running into a company of sappers in front of the Atarazanas they
suffered numerous casualties, among others Captain Francisco Arrando,
their commanding officer (the brother of Alberto Arrando, Chief of Staff
of Security and Assault Guards). The company was pinned down for thirty
hours in the warehouses along the Baleares Dock, until the Atarazanas
barracks surrendered.
[5] The Plan of General Mola, the organizer of the military revolt
against the republican government, ordered the use of terror by the
rebels as the only effective means to confront massive popular
resistance. It expressly contemplated employing threats against the
children and wives of the resistance, as well as mass shootings. From
the very start the minority of rebel military personnel and fascists
needed to impose their rule with terror over a much more numerous enemy,
by way of a war of extermination that had already been practiced in the
colonial war in Morocco.
[6] Because the entire breadth of San Pablo Street was swept by machine
gun fire from the machine guns situated in the center of the Paralelo
and on the roof of the building next to El Molino.
[7] And also many anonymous CNT militants, among others, Quico Sabaté, a
militant from the Woodworkers Trade Union, who also participated in the
assault on the Atarazanas barracks on the 20^(th), and who was a famous
guerrilla fighter during the Franco regime.
[8] It appears that Colonel Lacasa had already, during the previous
night, prepared to use the monastery as a hospital-fortress, and had
also installed machine guns on the roof of the Casa de Les Punxes,
across the street from the monastery.
[9] The incredible exploits of “El Artillero” were summarized in a brief
account published in Solidaridad Obrera (July 27, 1936), in which we are
told how he had conquered two cannons in the battle fought against the
light artillery at Diputación-Lauria, how he then forced the surrender
of the rebels who had taken refuge in the nearby Ritz, after firing
three salvos; from there he went to the Plaza de Santa Ana (today an
unnamed square, at the end of the Puerta del Ángel, at the intersection
with Cucurella-Arcs) where he fired several volleys of indirect
shellfire at the Hotel Colón until the rebels inside it surrendered.
Then he took his cannons down Layetana Street in order to fire
thirty-eight volleys at the Capitanía. From there he went to Diagonal,
in order to end the evening in the Sants neighborhood, firing on Galileo
Street at a church, until its defenders surrendered.
[10] He was chief of the “mossos d’esquadra” in October 1934. His death
sentence was commuted and he was amnestied and then joined the military
reserve. On July 19, without assuming any official responsibility, he
effectively participated as an organizer of the street battles.
Appointed by Companys to be secretary of the proposed Committee of
Civilian Militias, he became the military advisor of the Durruti Column.
[11] Lacruz, p. 50; Romero, p. 525.
[12] José María Fontana, Los catalanes en la Guerra de España, Acervo,
Barcelona, 1977.
[13] Juan García Oliver, El eco de los pasos, Ruedo Ibérico,
Barcelona-Paris, 1978, p. 189.
[14] Felipe Díaz Sandino went to the airport at Logroño to investigate
the preparations being made for a military coup promoted by Captain del
Val, coming from Madrid. Once he confirmed the existence of a conspiracy
he informed Generals Núñez de Prado and Casares Quiroga. Faced with the
passivity of his superiors he decided to purge the right wing elements
under his command and accumulated a stock of bombs and machine gun
ammunition at the airport of El Prat, at the same time remaining in
close contact with the Generalitat and the CNT.
[15] Two fast cars, with full gas tanks, were parked in the courtyard of
the police station, prepared for the flight of Companys, Escofet and
their families, who were to be taken to the port at Maresme, where a
ship was waiting to take them to France.
[16] Juan García Oliver, “Ce que fut le 19 de juillet”, Le Libertaire,
(August 18, 1938).
[17] Ricardo Sanz, “Francisco Ascaso Morio”, mimeographed text.
[18] Enric Ucelay-Da Cal, “El ‘complot’ nacionalista contra Companys.
Novembre-Desembre del 36’, in La Guerra civil a Catalunya (1936–1939),
Vol. 3, Edicions 62, Barcelona, 2004, pp. 205–214.
[19] This was a police unit, with little real military training, most of
whose members were older men with wives and children.
[20] The defense committees of the CNT during the 1930s had recruited
into their ranks numerous unemployed workers with a dual objective: one
of solidarity, because they paid them a wage, and the other, tactical,
to prevent them from becoming strikebreakers. This recruitment was
always palliative and assigned on a rotating basis, both for reasons of
solidarity and in order to prevent any professionalization and to ensure
that the largest possible number of militants should pass through the
defense committees, which in case of emergency could rely on an ample
number of trained, combat-ready members. See Chris Ealham, Class,
Culture and Conflict in Barcelona, 1898–1937, Routledge, London, 2005.
[21] In Barcelona the defense committees constituted an authentic
clandestine military structure, already formed in 1931 and powerfully
reinforced in 1935. See “Ponencia presentada a la Federación Local de
Grupos Anarquistas de Barcelona. Comité Local de Preparación
Revolucionaria”, Barcelona, January 1935. The groups that signed this
document were The Indomables, Nervio, Nosotros, Tierra Libre and Germen.
[22] Between 1900 and 1930 Barcelona’s population doubled, increasing
from half a million to one million inhabitants. The opening of Layetana,
the construction of the Ensanche, and the public works on the subway and
the International Exposition of 1929 required a vast supply of cheap
labor, which during the 1930s went to swell the bloated ranks of the
unemployed.
[23] Such as, for example, the torrential emigration from “the ravine of
hunger” (a mountainous district in the provinces of Castellón and
Teruel) to Pueblo Nuevo between 1910 and 1930, and from Murcia to La
Torrassa, during the 1930s.
[24] There is a well-known photograph of the barricade built on Tigre
Street, at the corner of the Ronda de San Antonio, taken by Agusti
Centelles.
[25] José del Barrio, in his mimeographed memoirs, claims that he was
responsible, as secretary of the UGT, for suggesting to García Oliver
the idea of forming the CCMA on the afternoon of the 20^(th), before his
interview with Companys, and that therefore García Oliver appropriated
the idea and conveyed it to Companys. Regardless of who originated this
idea, the idea of forming a CCMA that would resolve the burning issues
of creating militias to confront the fascist army in Aragón, and Control
Patrols that would replace the sequestered forces of public order, was
something that was imposed by the existing revolutionary situation. It
is not necessary to seek the copyright: only with hindsight can we
debate the circumstances that led to the creation of the CCMA, in the
form it assumed; on the 20^(th), however, it seemed to everyone involved
to be obvious, necessary and inevitable, just as it was everywhere else
in Spain where the military uprising was defeated by the workers
insurrection.
[26] For a reliable version of this famous interview, which is very
different from the all-too-imaginative version offered by García Oliver,
see: Josep Coll and Josep Pané, Josep Rovira. Una vida al servei de
Catalunya i del socialisme, Ariel, Barcelona, 1978, pp. 85–87.
[27] Juan García Oliver himself, in 1950, also provided a different,
“more complete and believable” version, of his famous account (published
in July 1937) of his interview with Companys: “The military-fascist
uprising had taken place exactly as we had predicted. Companys […] took
refuge in the Barcelona Police Station, where he arrived at seven in the
morning on the 19^(th) of July, as he was terrified by the consequences
of what he expected to happen, because he assumed that, with all the
soldiers of the Barcelona regiments joining the uprising, they would
easily sweep away all resistance. However, the forces of the CNT-FAI,
almost alone, faced the rebels for those two memorable days and, after a
bitter and bloody struggle […] we defeated all the regiments […]. For
all these reasons, Companys, facing the representatives of the CNT-FAI,
was overwhelmed and confused. Confused, because, in his consciousness he
only thought about the weight of the great responsibility that they bore
towards us and the Spanish people for not having heeded all our
predictions […]. Overwhelmed, because despite the fact that they did not
fulfill the commitments they made with us, the CNT-FAI in Barcelona and
in Cataluña had defeated the rebels […]. This is why, when he addressed
us, Companys told us: ‘Now I know that you have many reasons to complain
and to express your dissatisfaction with me. I have fought against you
for a long time and I was incapable of really appreciating your true
worth. It is never too late, however, to sincerely make amends, and the
way I shall do so, which you will now see, has the value of a
confession: if I had appreciated you at your true worth, it is possible
that we would not be facing the situation we are now facing; but there
is no other remedy, now, you alone have defeated the rebel officers, and
logically you should govern. If that is what you think, then I am quite
pleased to surrender to you the Presidency of the Generalitat and, if
you think I can be of any use in another position, you need only tell me
what post I should occupy. BUT DUE TO THE FACT THAT WE STILL DO NOT KNOW
EXACTLY WHO HAS EMERGED VICTORIOUS IN THE OTHER PARTS OF SPAIN, AND IF
YOU BELIEVE THAT FROM THE PRESIDENCY OF THE GENERALITAT I CAN STILL BE
OF SERVICE BY ACTING AS THE LEGAL REPRESENTATIVE OF CATALUÑA, LET ME
KNOW, SO THAT FROM THIS OFFICE, AND ALWAYS WITH YOUR CONSENT, WE SHALL
CONTINUE THE STRUGGLE UNTIL IT IS CLEAR WHO HAS WON.’ For our part, and
this is what the CNT-FAI thought, we understand that Companys should
still remain at the head of the Generalitat, precisely because we have
not filled the streets and fought specifically for the social
revolution, but to defend ourselves from the fascist military coup.”
[From García Oliver’s responses to Bolloten’s inquiries.]
[28] Aurelio Fernández replaced Francisco Ascaso on the liaison
committee, whose other members were Durruti, Oliver, Santillán and
Asens.
[29] Information derived from the version provided by Coll and Pané, op.
cit., pp. 85–87.
[30] “On July 21, 1936, a Regional Plenum of Local Federations and
District Committees, convoked by the Regional Committee of Cataluña, was
held in Barcelona. At this meeting, the situation was analyzed and it
was unanimously determined not to speak about libertarian communism as
long as we had not yet conquered that part of Spain that was in the
hands of the rebels. The Plenum therefore decided not to proceed to
enact totalitarian measures […] it decided in favor of collaboration,
and agreed to form, with only one vote in opposition, that of Bajo
Llobregat, together with all the Parties and Organizations, the
Committee of Antifascist Militias. The CNT and the FAI so order their
representatives by resolution of this Plenum.” Quoted from Informe de la
delegación de la CNT al Congreso Extraordinario de la AIT y resoluciones
del mismo, p. 96.
[31] See Juan García Oliver, “El Comité central de Milcias Antifascistas
de Cataluña”, in De julio a julio. Un año de lucha, Tierra y Libertad,
Barcelona, 1937. García Oliver wrote this article one year after the
events in question, and it is very much influenced by the political
context following May 1937.
[32] “Finally, my informant claims that at the assembly or plenum of the
21^(st), García Oliver proposed the question of anarchist dictatorship
or libertarian communism and that it was not supported by the assembly.
I say that if he did so, he did so without conviction, as he was
convinced that an anarchist dictatorship could only lead to disaster. He
posed this dramatic dilemma in order to create more support for his
collaborationist choice [….] García Oliver confirms this air of comedy
by arrogantly writing the following: ‘the CNT and the FAI decided upon
collaboration and democracy, renouncing revolutionary totalitarianism,
which would have led to the strangling of the revolution by the
confederal or anarchist dictatorship’.” See José Peirats, “Mise au point
sur de notes”, Noir et Rouge, No. 38, June 1967.
[33] The previously cited testimonies of José del Barrio, Juan García
Oliver himself, in 1950, and José Peirats, are corroborated by that of
Federica Montseny: “Nobody even ever imagined, not even García Oliver,
who was the most Bolshevik of all, the idea of seizing revolutionary
power. It was only later, when we saw the extent of the movement and of
the popular initiatives that we began to discuss whether we could or
should go for broke.” (Abel Paz, Durruti: El proletariado en armas,
Bruguera, Barcelona, 1978, pp. 381–382.) [English language edition: Abel
Paz, Durruti: The People Armed, Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1996.]
[34] Letter from García Oliver to Abel Paz. See Abel Paz, Durruti en la
Revolución española, FAL, Madrid, 1996, pp. 504–505. [English language
edition: Abel Paz, Durruti in the Spanish Revolution, tr. Chuck Morse,
AK Press, San Francisco, 2006. Available online at:
.]
[35] The anarchosyndicalist representatives were Josep Asens,
Buenaventura Durruti and Juan García Oliver for the CNT, and Aurelio
Fernández and Diego Abad de Santillán for the FAI. Durruti was later
replaced by Marcos Alcón.
[36] “Just how far can we proceed with an experiment in libertarian
communism in Cataluña, without having ended the war and with the dangers
posed by foreign intervention? This dilemma was posed to the anarchists
militants and the representatives of the trade unions on July 23, at a
Plenum of the two organizations […] it was decided to preserve the
antifascist bloc, and to issue the directive to the entire region: we
must not proclaim libertarian communism. Seek to maintain hegemony in
the committees of the antifascist militias and postpone any totalitarian
attempt to realize our ideas.” Quoted from El anarquismo en España.
Informe del Comité Peninsular de la Federación Anarquista Ibérica al
Movimiento Libertario Internacional, n.d. [1938?], p. 2.
Another document confirms the testimony of the one just quoted above:
“At a Plenum attended by both the anarchist and the confederal
organizations it was agreed, due to the urgent circumstances that
prevailed at that time, to accept collaboration and to participate
directly in the state institutions of political and economic
administration.” Quoted from the FAI pamphlet, Informe que este Comité
de Relaciones de Grupos Anarquistas de Cataluña presenta a los camaradas
de la Región, n.d. [March 1937?].
[37] Because of the urgency of making decisions on these matters, after
July 19 the horizontal and federative machinery of the CNT collapsed and
with it any practice of direct democracy also fell by the wayside. The
usual practice was to adopt the important decisions that had to be made
at meetings of leaders, members of the Regional Committee, the Local
Federation of Barcelona, the Peninsular Committee of the FAI, and all
those who had positions of responsibility in the CCMA, the Council of
the Economy or the Investigation Committee, the Control Patrols, etc.
These decisions made by the leading militants and office holders would
then be submitted at a later time to Plenums for ratification, thus
“formally” preserving the appearances of the traditional modus operandi
of the CNT.
[38] García Oliver reiterated his proposal to take power by taking
advantage of the concentration of militiamen who were supposed to depart
for the front.
[39] García Oliver, El eco…, pp. 190–191. Gallardo and Márquez, Ortiz,
pp. 109–110.
[40] Antonio Ortiz, “La segunda Columna sale de Barcelona”.
[41] “You have a duty now. Come to a rally at the Paseo de Gracia at ten
in the morning. A warning, workers of Barcelona, all of you and
especially those of the CNT. The positions that have been conquered in
Barcelona must not be abandoned. The capital must not be abandoned. You
must remain on permanent guard, eyes open, in case you have to respond
to any possible events. Workers of the CNT, all as one man we must go
the aid of the comrades of Aragón.”
[42] See the PROCLAMATION signed by the Committee of the CRTC, which we
reprint in its entirety in the Appendix. An article appeared in
Solidaridad Obrera (July 27, 1936) which stressed that “the confederal
position, in relation to the revolutionary situation, will continue to
be the same one maintained up until now”, as if it was necessary to
overcome significant resistance to what was already approved at the
Plenum of the 21^(st).
[43] The horizontal and federative organizational machinery of the CNT,
which rapidly broke down and became a mere formal ratification of the
debates and resolutions already adopted by the superior committees, was
not conducive to the emergence of “tendencies” capable of defending
their minority positions within the organization.
[44] That is: destruction of the capitalist state (whether fascist or
republican); extension and centralization of the committees as organs of
workers power; socialization of the economy; proletarian control over
the war effort; and dictatorship of the proletariat.
[45] Propaganda slogan coined by Ilya Ehrenburg, which Solidaridad
Obrera under the editorship of Toryho falsely attributed to Durruti. See
Ilya Ehrenburg, Corresponsal en la Guerra civil española, Júcar, Gijón,
1979, p. 24.
[46] Santos Juliá, “De la división orgánica al gobierno de unidad
nacional”, in Socialismo y guerra civil. Anales de historia de la
Fundación Pablo Iglesias, Vol. 2 (1987), pp. 227–245.
[47] The Constancia group, at a meeting of anarchist groups and defense
committees, proposed “that our representatives in the government should
withdraw and that the neighborhood committees should elect a Central
Committee.” See “Segunda sesión del pleno local de Grupos Anarquistas de
Barcelona […] con asistencia de los grupos de Defensa confederal y
Juventudes libertarias”, Barcelona, April 24, 1937. The proposal,
although far too late, shows that these neighborhood committees were
still active in April 1937.
[48] Juan García Oliver, El eco de los pasos, Ruedo Ibérico,
Barcelona-Paris, 1978, p. 185.
[49] Ibid., p. 188.
[50] Responses of García Oliver to a questionnaire from Bolloten (1950).
[51] In reality, this term, “anarchist dictatorship”, was probably not
used by García Oliver, but by Federica Montseny, as a suitable summary
of his long speech at the Plenum of July 21.
[52] According to Peirats, “during the first days of the movement,
García Oliver and a few other militants half-heartedly proposed the idea
of establishing libertarian communism in Cataluña. I think that this
idea was proposed without real conviction. García Oliver was convinced
that libertarian communism was impossible in Cataluña”. See the
interview with José Peirats in Colección de Historia Oral: El movimiento
libertario en España (1). José Peirats.
[53] Durruti, García Oliver and Aurelio Fernández were the prototypical
men of action. Federica Montseny, Abad de Santillán and Pedro Herrera
were the prototypical anarchist intellectuals.
[54] It was therefore by no means a revolutionary government, but an
institution of class collaboration, created to fight against fascism
under extraordinary circumstances, which required the government of the
Generalitat to assume responsibilities for Defense that were not
ordinarily within its jurisdiction.
[55] Juan García Oliver, Buenaventura Durruti and José Asens for the
Regional Committee of the CNT; Aurelio Fernández and Diego Abad de
Santillán for the FAI; Artemi Aguadé, Jaume Miravitlles and Joan Pons
for the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya; Tomás Fábregas for Acció
Catalana; Josep Torrens for the Unió de Rabassaires; Josep Rovira for
the POUM; Josep Miret for the Unió Socialista; José del Barrio, Salvador
González and Antonio López Raimundo for the UGT; and the envoys of the
government of the Generalitat, Lluís Prunés, Pérez Farrás and Vicens
Guarner.
[56] All those who attended the meeting signed the above decree, except
for the three delegates sent by the Generalitat.
[57] García Oliver said exactly this in his speech: “Militants of the
CNT and the FAI, you have to make them kill you.” See El eco…, p. 196.
[58] Instead of coordinating these supply committees, created by the
revolutionary committees from below, the control of their operations was
transferred to the CCMA, to be exercised from above.
[59] The text of this DECREE is reproduced in the Appendix.
[60] The Regional Committee of the CNT, the Peninsular and Regional
Committees of the FAI, the Regional Committee of the Libertarian Youth,
the Local Federation of the CNT, the Local Federation of Anarchist
Groups, the CNT-FAI Committee of Investigation, and all the
representatives of the regional and local federations, and those who had
responsible positions in the CCMA (and later in the government).
[61] We need only recall the intervening stage between the February
Revolution and the October Revolution in Russia in 1917. Only a profound
lack of knowledge of what really happened in Cataluña enabled some
historians to make an unfortunate historical comparison between the
Russian case and the Catalan case, and made it possible for them to
speak erroneously of dual power shared by the CCMA and the Generalitat.
[62] On July 20 he was authorized by Durruti to create a war industry.
Vallejo initiated a coordination network among the metallurgical and
chemical industry trade unions, together with the miners of Sallent, and
supervised the transformation of civilian industrial production to an
industry for production of military goods. The collaboration of the
cenetista Vallejo with Tarradellas proved to be effective in the medium
term, but implied the submission of the initial revolutionary direction
to the government of the Generalitat.
[63] These enterprises also paid taxes to the CNT-FAI; Comorera
abolished these taxes in February 1937.
[64] Miquel Mir, Entre el roig i el negre, Edicions 62, Barcelona, 2006.
[65] See Peirats, p. 175.
[66] Interview with Miquel Mir in Quadern, supplement to the Catalan
edition of El País (July 27, 2006).
[67] Bishop Irurita was liberated by high-level officials at San Elías
in exchange for jewels. When the patrol staff discovered the identity of
the liberated prisoner several days later they were very upset. See
Quadern, Catalan supplement of El País (July 27, 2006).
[68] See Agustín Guillamón, “La NKVD y el SIM en Barcelona. Algunos
informes de Gerö sobre la Guerra de España”, Balance, No. 22 (November
2001).
[69] “It would be advantageous for us to acquire weapons, small arms but
of high quality, which are most necessary for the defense of the
revolution. The Defense Committee complains about the late delivery of
war materiel to Barcelona and explains the situation as follows: There
are many neighborhood groups that, independently, supply themselves with
all they need from foreign countries, more cheaply and more quickly.”
Quoted from “Reunión de comités, celebrada el día 6 de octubre de 1936”.
[70] This expression is used by Munis in Jalones de derrota, promesa de
victoria.
[71] See Jaime Balius, “En el Nuevo local del CCMA”, Solidaridad Obrera
(August 23, 1936).
[72] I have been able to consult the following records for minutes of
the CCMA: August 3 and 31; and September 2–4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16,
18–21, 23 and 25 of 1936.
[73] “Informe de la delegación de la CNT al Congreso Extraordinario de
la AIT y resolución del mismo”, December 1937, p. 96.
[74] Concerning the Council of the Economy one may consult the book by
Ignasi Cendra, El Consell d’Economia de Catalunya (1936–1939),
Publicacions Abadia Montserrat, 2006.
[75] Govern de la Generalitat de Catalunya. Comité de Milícies
Antifeixistes: “Acords presos en la reunió del CC de les MA en el dia 3
d’agost del 1936.”
[76] Pozo, op. cit., p. 236.
[77] “Informe de la delegación de la CNT…”, p. 97.
[78] Pozo, op. cit., p. 237.
[79] César M. Lorenzo [César Martínez was the son of Horacio Martínez
Prieto]: Los anarquistas españoles y el poder, Ruedo Ibérico, Paris,
1969, p. 98.
[80] César M. Lorenzo, op. cit., pp. 99–100.
[81] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 31 d’agost del 1936.”
[82] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 3 de setembre del 1936.”
[83] This Committee had originally been composed solely of working class
representatives of the POUM, the UGT and the CNT-FAI.
[84] Antonio Ortiz was the delegate of the Columna Ortiz (also known as
the Sur-Ebro Column).
[85] It replaced the government headed by the republican Giral.
[86] César M. Lorenzo, op. cit., pp. 180–181.
[87] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 4 de setembre del 1936.”
[88] This issue was one aspect of a struggle between the interests of
the Generalitat, defended here by the PSUC and the ERC, and those of the
CNT-FAI, concerning the control of the borders, and more specifically
the frontier pass at Puigcerdà, which was completely dominated by
Antonio Martín, the anarchist leader of La Cerdaña. The attack of the
PSUC-ERC concerning the border question was answered by the CNT with an
attack on the financing of the hospital of the Alpine Militias, which
comprised the embryo of a Catalanist army.
[89] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords
presos en la reunió del dia 6 de setembre del 1936.”
[90] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords
presos en la reunió del dia 8 de setembre del 1936.”
[91] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords
presos en la reunió del dia 10 de setembre del 1936.” The word,
“ratification” suggests that a proposal to dissolve the CCMA was made at
a previous meeting, a proposal we cannot locate among the previous
minutes, although it may refer to certain conversations that took place
outside of the CCMA, as Joan Pons Garlandí suggests in his memoires.
[92] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords
presos en la reunió del dia 12 de setembre del 1936.”
[93] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 14 de setembre del 1936.”
[94] Lorenzo, op. cit., pp. 182–184.
[95] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 16 de setembre del 1936.”
[96] There were still barricades on the streets almost two months after
July 19. The order to remove the cotton bales was issued due to the
shortage of raw materials in the textile industry.
[97] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 18 de setembre del 1936.”
[98] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 19 de setembre del 1936.”
[99] Tarradellas had gone to Madrid to obtain financial and technical
assistance to create a military industry in Cataluña. As Tarradellas
said: “one of the reasons for my trip—as you must already know—was,
besides accompanying the forces of the Civil Guards to place them at the
disposal of the military commander in Madrid, to request that the
Central Government transfer as soon as possible to Cataluña the Toledo
arms and ammunition factory. Accompanied by Colonel Giménez de Abraza,
the director of the Oviedo arms factory, and Air Force Colonel Ramírez
Cartagena, one of the commanders of the Barcelona air force when the
uprising began, accompanied then by these two republican officers,
faithful to their oath to defend the Republic, I had several interviews
with Sr. Largo Caballero and his advisors. You have no idea of how I
felt, I had to return to Barcelona without having obtained the transfer
of the Toledo arms and ammunition factory to Cataluña.” Quoted from
“Letter from Tarradellas to Bolloten dated March 24, 1971”, published in
its entirety in Balance, Issue No. 6 of the archival series (1998).
[100] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 20 de setembre del 1936.”
[101] See Abel Paz, La cuestión de Marruecos y la República española,
Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, Madrid, 2000.
[102] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 21 de setembre del 1936.”
[103] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 23 de setembre del 1936.”
[104] This lack of solidarity expressed by the CCMA for the refugees
from Madrid could not have been more despicable and shameful.
[105] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum
de la reunió del dia 25 de setembre del 1936.”
[106] García Oliver, El eco…, pp. 281–284.
[107] The first two had been members of the former Council of the
Economy of the Generalitat.
[108] Lorenzo, op. cit., p. 185.
[109] Published in the Official Bulletin of the Generalitat on October
28, 1936.
[110] See “Segunda sesión del pleno local de Grupos Anarquistas de
Barcelona […] con asistencia de los grupos de Defensa confederal y
Juventudes libertarias”, Barcelona, April 24, 1937.
[111] The delegation was composed of José Xena, David Antona, Horacio
Martínez Prieto and Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez.
[112] “Informe de la delegación de la CNT al Congreso Extraordinario de
la AIT y resolución del mismo”, December 1937, pp. 75–76.
[113] Rüdiger’s argument in favor of the necessity of subordinating all
the activity, all theory and all the principles of the CNT to
antifascist unity, as the only way to guarantee victory in the war,
OBVIOUSLY implied the necessity of keeping this report SECRET. If the
Russian and Spanish Stalinists were to find out about the blind
determination of the CNT to submit to antifascist unity, at any price,
then the CNT would run the risk of becoming a puppet in the hands of its
political rivals. The National Committee of the CNT, however, did not
hesitate to PUBLISH this SECRET report: there was nothing new about the
incompetence, naiveté and political immaturity of the CNT leaders.
Furthermore, by publishing this pamphlet in 1938, Rüdiger’s secret
report could only have scandalized those few simple souls who, in 1938,
still believed in the revolutionary nature of the CNT.
[114] Helmut Rüdiger, El anarcosindicalismo en la Revolución Española,
CNT, Barcelona, 1938.
[115] Buenaventura Durruti, “Al Consejo de la Generalidad de Cataluña”,
Frente de Osera, November 1, 1936. See Appendix.
[116] “Council” was the word used to avoid using the word “Government”,
which was taboo for the anarchists.
[117] The speech is reconstructed from various fragments published in
Solidaridad Obrera and Acracia.
[118] “Acta de la reunió celebrada sota la presidencia de S.E. el
president de la Generalitat pels conseller i representants dels partits
i sindicats que tenen representació en el Consell, els dies 5 i 6 de
novembre de 1936.”
[119] Marianet replaced the old and experienced anarchist Liberto
Callejas with the young bureaucrat Jacinto Toryho as editor in chief of
Solidaridad Obrera, which then published a censored version of Durruti’s
speech.
[120] A stray bullet was also blamed for the death, in April 1937, of
Antonio Martín, the anarchist leader from Puigcerdà. The memoires of
Pons Garlandí disclose that his death was actually the result of a
premeditated assassination, orchestrated by high level officials of the
ERC in the Generalitat’s police force, who had contracted the services
of two snipers, one of whom was known as “penja robes”, well known in La
Cerdaña for his marksmanship. Posted in the bell tower, with the bridge
that leads to Bellver in their sights, they had no other objective than
to assassinate Antonio Martín.
[121] Concerning Durruti’s funeral, see Solidaridad Obrera (November 24,
1936) and the books by H. E. Kaminski, Los de Barcelona [1937], Ed.
Cotal, Barcelona, 1977 [a partial English translation can be found
online—in October 2013—at:
misterscruffles.files.wordpress.com
f] and by Mary Low and Juan Breá, Red Spanish Notebook: The First Six
Months of the Revolution and Civil War [1937], City Lights Books, San
Francisco, 1979.
[122] Ilya Ehrenburg, Corresponsal en la Guerra civil española, Júcar,
Madrid, 1970, p. 24.
[123] In April 1938 Negrín posthumously awarded this military rank to
Durruti.
[124] See Agustín Guillamón, “Habla Durruti”, in La Barcelona Rebelde,
Octaedro, 2003. See also the interview with Pablo Ruiz in La Noche, No.
3545 (March 24, 1937).
[125] “Not only do they refuse militarization, but they will not abide
by the requests of either Committee [the Regional Committees of the CNT
and the FAI] and instead cast down their weapons and abandon the front.
[…] seeing that it was not possible to harmonize the differences of
opinion that existed in the Durruti Column […] since there was so much
tension that it was feared that the dispute would degenerate into a
bloody clash […] the majority of the comrades of the Gelsa group have
abandoned the front against all regulations and in conflict with the
agreements undertaken by both the specific and the confederal
organizations.” FAI, Informe que este Comité de Relaciones de Grupos
Anarquistas de Cataluña presenta a los camaradas de la Región, March
1937(?).
[126] This chapter provides new information, and revises and corrects
the account in a previous work, published in English: Agustín Guillamón,
The Friends of Durruti Group, AK Press, San Francisco, 1996. The latter
book is a translation of the contents of issue number 3 of Balance.
[127] L’Obra normative de la Generalitat de Catalunya. El Pla
Tarradellas, Edició del Comissariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat de
Catalunya, Barcelona, 1937.
[128] Anna Monjó, “L’economia entre revolució i guerra”, in Història,
Política, societat i cultura del Països Catalans (Vol. 9), De la gran
esperança a la gran ensulsiada 1930–1939, Enciclopèdia Catalana,
Barcelona, 1999.
[129] We shall not present a complete account of the May Days, but only
of those aspects that involve the Friends of Durruti Group; in any case,
the reader may consult the Appendix for more information.
[130] Crónica del Departament de Presidencia del 3 de maig de 1937.
[131] As Gorkin states: “In reality the movement was totally
spontaneous. Of course, this spontaneity was quite relative, and must be
explained by the fact that Defense Committees have existed since July
19, scattered everywhere, in Barcelona and Cataluña, which were
primarily organized by rank and file elements of the CNT and the FAI.
For a while these Committees were mostly inactive, but it can be said
that on May 3 they were the ones who mobilized the working class. They
were the action groups of the movement. We know that no general strike
order had been issued by any of the trade union federations.” See Julián
Gorkin, “Réunion du sous-secrétariat international du POUM—14 mai 1937”.
[132] The second Tarradellas government was in office from December 16,
1936 to April 3, 1937.
[133] Isgleas resigned because of the proposal that the Carlos Marx
Division, controlled by the PSUC, should be transferred from the Aragón
Front to the Madrid Front, and not, as some historians claim, due to yet
another in a series of disarmament decrees promulgated for the rearguard
that nobody took seriously. Isgleas was opposed to the weakening of the
Aragón Front, and demanded that, in any event, the men of the Marx
Division should be replaced by two thousand men from the police forces
in the rearguard. This was intended as a countermeasure in response to
the attempts on the part of Companys to disarm and control the
rearguard.
[134] “Actas de las reuniones de Companys con Herrera y Escorza del 11 y
13 de abril de 1937”.
[135] In this government (in office from April 16 to May 4), the CNT
Ministers were Isgleas (Defense), Capdevila (Public Services) and
Aurelio Fernández (Health and Welfare).
[136] According to the memoires of Joan Pons Garlandí, before May, in a
meeting of the Committee of Internal Security, in the office of the
Commissar of Public Order Rodríguez Salas, in the Palacio de Gobernación
on Plaza Palacio, Artemi Aguadé persuaded Aurelio Fernández, who had put
his pistol to the head of Rodríguez Salas, not to shoot. This anecdote
reflects the great tension that existed between the CNT leaders and the
appointees of the ERC who had positions of authority in the police
forces.
[137] Herrera and Escorza advocated the formation of Inspection
Commissions in all the Ministries of the Generalitat, which would allow
them to control what was done and what was planned in all the
departments of the government, especially in those directed by the PSUC,
as a safeguard to avoid future conflicts between the different
antifascist organizations. It would be modeled on the Council of the
Economy and the Commission of War Industries, which had proven so
effective, according to Escorza and Herrera.
[138] Josep Tarradellas, “La crisi política prèvia als Fets de Maig. 26
dies de desgovern a la Generalitat”.
[139] Escorza was born in Barcelona in 1912, the son of a CNT militant
in the Woodworkers Trade Union. He suffered from polio as a child, which
left him permanently paralyzed. Of very short stature as a result of the
atrophy of his legs, he used enormous lifts in his shoes that, in
addition to his crutches, gave him a pathetic appearance and extremely
limited his mobility. Of an extremely sour and severe disposition, he
was very well educated and willful and would not allow anyone to help
him move about. He was a militant in the Libertarian Youth and became a
member of the Peninsular Committee of the FAI. At the beginning of the
civil war he addressed an assembly of the CNT-FAI on July 20, 1936,
advocating a third way, as opposed to García Oliver’s half-hearted
advocacy of the “go for broke” strategy and the overwhelming majority
position of Abad de Santillán and Federica Montseny in favor of loyal
collaboration with the government of the Generalitat. Escorza advocated
the use of the government of the Generalitat as a tool to socialize the
economy, and then dispose of it when it ceases to be useful to the CNT.
Escorza was the highest ranking official of the Investigation Services
of the CNT-FAI, which had since July 1936 been executing all kinds of
repressive tasks, as well as espionage and intelligence. The Committee
of Investigation was organized in two sections: Minué was in charge of
foreign espionage and Escorza himself was in charge of internal
intelligence. Repression was directed not just at rebel organizations
and individuals, but also against CNT militants. Escorza was responsible
for the execution of José Gardeñas, of the construction federation, and
Fernández, president of the Food Supply Workers Trade Union, at the
order of the confederal organization, with the knowledge and consent of
Federica Montseny and Abad de Santillán. García Oliver stated that
Escorza’s intelligence and espionage work were excellent. His police
work, intelligence activities and repressive measures relating to fifth
columnists, as well as fascist elements and priests, and their
activities, as well as those relating to the so-called “uncontrollables”
within the antifascist camp itself, including those who were members of
the CNT, conferred upon Escorza a sinister reputation that, combined
with his handicap and his arresting appearance, transformed him into a
figure of revulsion and horror, feared for his power over life and death
of others, radiating a mythical aura that was half contempt and half
terror, led him to be known as (in the words of García Oliver) “a
cripple in body and in soul”. It cannot be denied, however, that he was
extraordinarily effective (and this was acknowledged by García Oliver
himself) with respect to his responsibilities in the matter of
espionage, intelligence and repression, which he always carried out
strictly under orders from the confederal organization. During the
summer of 1936 he made outstanding contributions to the conversations
between the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Cataluña
(CCMAC) and the Moroccan Action Committee (CAM), whose representatives
proposed that the government of the Republic grant independence to
Morocco as a means to undermine the effectiveness of the Moroccan troops
that had been recruited by Franco’s army. On October 22, 1936, Manuel
Escorza and Dionisio Eroles, in the name of the Regional Committee of
the CNT, and Pedro Herrera, for the FAI, signed the unity pact between
the CNT-FAI and the PSUC and the UGT, which was explained to and
submitted for the approval of a mass meeting held in the Monumental
Plaza de Toros, at which Antonio Sesé, Federica Montseny, Joan Comorera
y Vázquez, as well as the Soviet consul in Barcelona, Antonov Ovseenko,
spoke.
[140] See W. Solano, “La Juventud Comunista Ibérica (POUM) en las
jornadas de mayo de 1937 en Barcelona”, in Los sucesos de mayo de 1937.
Una revolución en la República, Fundación Nin y Fundación Seguí, Pandora
Libros, Barcelona, 1999, pp. 158–160.
[141] Agustín Guillamón, “Josep Rebull de 1937 a 1939. La crítica
interna a la política del CE del POUM sobre la Guerra de España”,
Balance, Issues 19 and 20 (May and October 2000).
[142] “Pedro” (Gerö), in his reports to Moscow, identified Los
Escolapios as the controlling center of the insurrection of May 1937.
See Agustín Guillamón, “La NKVD y el SIM en Barcelona. Algunos informes
de Gerö sobre la Guerra de España”, Balance, no. 22 (November 2001).
[143] Juan Gimínez Arenas, De la Unión a Banat, Fundación Anselmo
Lorenzo, Madrid, 1996, p. 59.
[144] This is where the British author George Orwell was stationed.
[145] The nephew of Francisco Ferrer Guardia was murdered by a PSUC
patrol at one of these checkpoints, because he resisted being disarmed.
[146] These are his exact words: “I declare that the guards who have
died today, are like my own brothers: I bow down before them and kiss
them.” (“declaro que los guardias que hoy han muerto, para mí son
hermanos: me inclino ante ellos y los beso”). See El eco…, p. 427.
[147] Testimony of Albert Masó March (a POUM militant), from
correspondence with the author.
[148] According to the account of Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos la
guerra, Plaza y Janés, Barcelona, 1977, p. 211.
[149] The Local Committee of Barcelona [of the POUM], “Informe de la
actuación del Comité local durante los días de mayo que éste presenta a
discussion de células de Barcelona”, mimeographed text.
[150] Correspondence between the author and José Quesada Suárez.
[151] Ricardo Sanz, El sindicalismo y la política. Los “solidarios” y
“nosotros”, Edición del autor, Toulouse, 1966, p. 306. The barracks of
the Docks (renamed “Espartaco”) was attacked by the Stalinists from the
nearby Carlos Marx Barracks, but the troops under the command of Ricardo
Sanz limited their activities to passive defense, without going into the
streets. At this same barracks, militiamen from the Tierra y Libertad
Column, who had participated in the street battles, obeyed the orders
issued by the Regional Committee of the CNT on the evening of May 5 to
halt all offensive operations. Only a group of Italians (who had brought
four tanks to defend the Casa CNT-FAI on May 4 and on May 5 had
delivered six armored cars to the Gran Vía to defend the headquarters of
the Control Patrols and the Food Supply Workers Trade Union) continued
to fight at the barricade erected on Icaria Avenue.
[152] Munis, in the second issue of La Voz Leninista (August 23, 1937)
subjected the concept of the “revolutionary junta” that was elaborated
in the sixth issue of The Friend of the People (August 12, 1937) to
critique. For Munis, The Friends of Durruti were suffering from a
progressive theoretical deterioration, and a diminishing practical
capacity to exercise influence in the CNT, which led them to abandon
certain theoretical positions that the experience of May had allowed
them to encompass. Munis claimed that in May 1937 The Friends of Durruti
had simultaneously launched the slogans of “revolutionary junta” and
“all power to the proletariat”; while in the sixth issue, dated August
12, of The Friend of the People, the slogan of “revolutionary junta” was
proposed as an alternative to the “failure of all state forms”.
According to Munis this implied a theoretical regression insofar as it
reflected the assimilation by The Friends of Durruti of the experiences
of May, which distanced them from the Marxist concept of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and once again dragged them into the
ambiguity of the statist-anarchist theory.
[153] Republished by Etcétera (Apartado 1363) and Ateneu Enciclopèdic
Popular (Apartado 22212) [both 08080 Barcelona] in 1997, although
accompanied by an inadequate preface containing erroneous information.
[For an English language translation of this text, including the 1978
Introduction by Balius, see The Friends of Durruti, Towards a Fresh
Revolution, Zabalaza Books, Johannesburg, n.d.; available online in
October 2013 at:
zabalazabooks.files.wordpress.com
.]
[154] Anna Monjó, Militants, Laertes, Barcelona, 2003, pp. 465–471.
[155] At the beginning of this chapter.
[156] Most revolutionaries were in prison or in hiding. Those who had
not yet suffered the impact of repression fled to the front to find
refuge. The few who wanted to continue the fight for socialization in
the factories encountered indifference or suspicion, or else were
reduced to impotence by the new bureaucrats, who obtained the support of
the flood of new members after July 19, 1936.
[157] In the city of Barcelona the 24 Sindicatos Únicos were organized
into 12 Industrial Unions. The FAI underwent a development similar to
the one that affected the CNT: after July 1937, it was organized
territorially into Groups, which replaced the traditional affinity
groups. This reorganization of both the CNT as well as the FAI, was a
consequence of the defeat of the revolutionaries in May 1937, and
implied the transformation of the class trade unions (sindicatos únicos)
into institutions of economic management and for enforcing the
militarization of labor (industrial unions); and this was paralleled by
the transformation of the FAI into an antifascist political party.
[158] The horizontal and federative functioning of the CNT did not
permit its militants to organize dissident poles in organized
tendencies, with their own leaders and programs distinct from those of
the superior committees.
[159] García Oliver, Ascaso and Durruti were the prototypical “men of
action”. Federica Montseny and Abad de Santillán were prototypical
“intellectuals”.
[160] According to the testimony of Jaime Antón Aguadé i Cortès, written
and dated before witnesses in Mexico City on August 9, 1946: “During the
May Days the government of the Generalitat requested that the government
of Spain send airplanes to bomb the CNT strongholds and this request was
denied. Companys then asked what he was supposed to do to get the
situation under control and he was told that there was no other solution
besides surrendering jurisdiction over Public Order in Cataluña to the
central government, and Companys surrendered it.” These statements are
confirmed by the teletypes exchanged between Companys and the government
of Valencia, in the fragment that confirms the request by Companys to
bomb Barcelona: “The President of the Generalitat, communicates to the
subsecretary of the Council, that the rebels have brought artillery into
the streets. It is requested that orders be conveyed to Sandino to place
himself at the disposal of the Government of the Generalitat.”
[161] Teletype from José del Barrio: “To Comrade Vidiella. Order from
Comrade del Barrio. Say the following: ‘Situation Barcelona very
serious. Must work to prepare air force and bomb when we advise, the
Escolapios, Plaza de Toros Monumental, the Campos Sagrado rail depot,
the Barracks at San Andrés, Pueblo Nuevo and the Hotel del Reloy at
number 1 Plaza de España. The mission of the air arm is absolutely
necessary by tomorrow morning (it is now already seven)’.” See Appendix.
[162] “Revolutions are totalitarian no matter what anyone says. […] In
July a committee of antifascist militias was formed. It was not a class
institution. Bourgeois and counterrevolutionary fractions were
represented in it. It might seem that this committee arose to confront
the Generalitat. But it was a scene in a comedy. […] Neighborhood
defense committees, municipal committees, supply committees were
created. Sixteen months have passed. What remains? Of the spirit of
July, a memory. Of the institutions of July, a past. But the whole nest
of politicians and petty bourgeois are still standing. In the Plaza de
la República of the Catalonian capital there is still that crowd of
elements that only intend to live on the backs of the working class.”
From the pamphlet of The Friends of Durruti Group, “Towards a New
Revolution”, written by Balius.
[163] These superior committees at the highest levels of the
organization were reduced to a handful of bureaucrats, who, after May
1937, were profoundly hostile to one another due to personal grudges,
pitting the National Committee of the CNT, the Regional Committee of
Cataluña, the Peninsular Committee of the FAI and the Executive
Committee of the Libertarian Movement against each other. At the end of
the war, after obscure vacillations and miserable reversals of position
on the part of the various factions, the opposition between the
bureaucrats, who were totally indifferent to the rank and file militants
who were preoccupied with hunger and bombs, had been reduced to the
confrontation between the Negrinistas of the National Committee,
controlled by Marianet and Horacio Prieto, and the Anti-Negrinistas
García Oliver, Isgleas, Esgleas, Peiró, Montseny and the Nervio Group:
Abad de Santillán, Pedro Herrera, Rafael Nevado, Fidel Miró and Germinal
de Souza. Others, such as Joaquín Ascaso and Antonio Ortiz, condemned to
hell by slander, fought to survive.
[164] See Agustín Guillamón, “Josep Rebull de 1937 a 1939”, Balance,
issues number 19 and 20 (2000).
[165] The committees were bureaucratic rather than democratic
institutions, in which the delegates were not democratically elected by
the working class rank and file in mass assemblies, but were appointed
by the trade union or political bureaucracies. This implies, on the one
hand, a separation between the committees and the rank and file workers,
and on the other hand, their dependence on the bureaucracy. This was the
reason for their inability to coordinate among themselves and to create
centralized and unitary class institutions; coordination was carried out
by the various trade unions and parties, and the problematic of unity
and centralization (with regard to military, economic, productive,
supply issues, etc.) became a kind of jigsaw puzzle of multifarious
discussion circles, on all scales and in every field, involving the
various antifascist organizations, both working class and bourgeois and
Stalinist.
[166] The Paris Commune of 1871 transformed all public offices into
elected and revocable positions, paid the average wage of the workers.