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Title: In Self Defence Author: Jaime Balius Language: en Topics: marxism, a response, self-defense, Friends of Durruti Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120312170603/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/balius.html Notes: Jaime Balius' rebuttal of accusations of Marxism, from the Kate Sharpley Library Bulletin. Jaime Balius was the secetery of the Friends of Durruti and one of the main writers for their paper
I will not repay defamatory comment in kind. But what I cannot keep mum
about is that a legend of marxism has been woven about my person and I
should like the record put straight. In Valencias Fragua Social it has
been claimed that I am a marxist. This innuendo by Fragua Social has
been taken up by other mouthpieces and it has been argued that our Group
(Agrupacin) was a rag-bag of marxists and the like.
At a plenum of anarchist groups I had to bite my lips to stop myself
from answering a comrade who was reminding folk that I came from a
certain political sector. And I also resigned myself to hearing from the
lips of another person present at the plenum that I was driven by spite.
The same thing was said of me in Solidaridad Obrera some time ago. I
paid no heed. Later, on the occasion of the appearance of a weekly run
by E. Carb upon which I helped out as a sub-editor, the same charge was
levelled against me. And on a number of occasions I have had to endure
the same description being used with regard to me.
Let me ask the comrades who have resorted to this innuendo why they call
me a marxist. Can it possibly be that I am a marxist because I am a
steadfast enemy of the petit bourgeois political parties and of the
whole rabble who have lined their own pockets while invoking the
revolution and still are, even though torrents of blood are being shed
on the fields of battle? Do they call me a marxist because I am against
collaborationism and because I understand our position to be a source of
strength only to our enemies? Am I called a marxist because I have been
candid enough to write and bring to public attention what other comrades
only dare say around the cafe table? Why hang this label on me?
Is it because in May I took the line that the uprising should continue
until the Generalidad was annihilated utterly? Or could it be on account
of my view that blood should not be spilled to no purpose and that
whenever sacrifice is asked of the working class, it ought to bring them
benefit rather than cost them ground? I require an explanation. If I am
deemed a comrade at all, let someone tell me why I have been described
as a marxist. I make no mention of the term agent provocateur because on
that score there is a firm undertaking that both sides will retract the
language use