People :
Author : A.G. Schwarz
Text :
[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 20th. 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 20th, 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 adviser 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 20th, 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 20th, 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 19th 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 21st, 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, “Mize 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: libcom.org.]
[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 21st.
[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] Three 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.
[48] 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.
[49] Juan García Oliver, El eco de los pasos, Ruedo Ibérico, Barcelona-Paris, 1978, p. 185.
[50] Ibid., p. 188.
[51] Responses of García Oliver to a questionnaire from Bolloten (1950).
[52] 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.
[53] 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.
[54] 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.
[55] 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.
[56] 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.
[57] All those who attended the meeting signed the above decree, except for the three delegates sent by the Generalitat.
[58] 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.
[59] 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.
[60] The text of this DECREE is reproduced in the Appendix.
[61] 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).
[62] 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.
[63] 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.
[64] These enterprises also paid taxes to the CNT-FAI; Comorera abolished these taxes in February 1937.
[65] Miquel Mir, Entre el roig i el negre, Edicions 62, Barcelona, 2006.
[66] See Peirats, p. 175.
[67] Interview with Miquel Mir in Quadern, supplement to the Catalan edition of El País (July 27, 2006).
[68] 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).
[69] See Agustín Guillamón, “La NKVD y el SIM en Barcelona. Algunos informes de Gerö sobre la Guerra de España”, Balance, No. 22 (November 2001).
[70] “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”.
[71] This expression is used by Munis in Jalones de derrota, promesa de victoria.
[72] See Jaime Balius, “En el Nuevo local del CCMA”, Solidaridad Obrera (August 23, 1936).
[73] 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.
[74] “Informe de la delegación de la CNT al Congreso Extraordinario de la AIT y resolución del mismo”, December 1937, p. 96.
[75] 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.
[76] 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.”
[77] Pozo, op. cit., p. 236.
[78] “Informe de la delegación de la CNT…”, p. 97.
[79] Pozo, op. cit., p. 237.
[80] César M. Lorenzo [César Martínez was the son of Horacio Martínez Prieto]: Los anarquistas españoles y el poder, Ruedo Ibérico, Paris, 1969, p. 98.
[81] César M. Lorenzo, op. cit., pp. 99–100.
[82] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 31 d’agost del 1936.”
[83] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 3 de setembre del 1936.”
[84] This Committee had originally been composed solely of working class representatives of the POUM, the UGT and the CNT-FAI.
[85] Antonio Ortiz was the delegate of the Columna Ortiz (also known as the Sur-Ebro Column).
[86] It replaced the government headed by the republican Giral.
[87] César M. Lorenzo, op. cit., pp. 180–181.
[88] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 4 de setembre del 1936.”
[89] 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.
[90] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords presos en la reunió del dia 6 de setembre del 1936.”
[91] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords presos en la reunió del dia 8 de setembre del 1936.”
[92] 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.
[93] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Acords presos en la reunió del dia 12 de setembre del 1936.”
[94] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 14 de setembre del 1936.”
[95] Lorenzo, op. cit., pp. 182–184.
[96] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 16 de setembre del 1936.”
[97] 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.
[98] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 18 de setembre del 1936.”
[99] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 19 de setembre del 1936.”
[100] 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 advisers. 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).
[101] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 20 de setembre del 1936.”
[102] See Abel Paz, La cuestión de Marruecos y la República española, Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, Madrid, 2000.
[103] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 21 de setembre del 1936.”
[104] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 23 de setembre del 1936.”
[105] This lack of solidarity expressed by the CCMA for the refugees from Madrid could not have been more despicable and shameful.
[106] Comité Central de les Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya: “Resum de la reunió del dia 25 de setembre del 1936.”
[107] García Oliver, El eco…, pp. 281–284.
[108] The first two had been members of the former Council of the Economy of the Generalitat.
[109] Lorenzo, op. cit., p. 185.
[110] Published in the Official Bulletin of the Generalitat on October 28, 1936.
[111] 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.
[112] The delegation was composed of José Xena, David Antona, Horacio Martínez Prieto and Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez.
[113] “Informe de la delegación de la CNT al Congreso Extraordinario de la AIT y resolución del mismo”, December 1937, pp. 75–76.
[114] 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.
[115] Helmut Rüdiger, El anarcosindicalismo en la Revolución Española, CNT, Barcelona, 1938.
[116] Buenaventura Durruti, “Al Consejo de la Generalidad de Cataluña”, Frente de Osera, November 1, 1936. See Appendix.
[117] “Council” was the word used to avoid using the word “Government”, which was taboo for the anarchists.
[118] The speech is reconstructed from various fragments published in Solidaridad Obrera and Acracia.
[119] “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.”
[120] 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.
[121] 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.
[122] 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.comf] 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.
[123] Ilya Ehrenburg, Corresponsal en la Guerra civil española, Júcar, Madrid, 1970, p. 24.
[124] In April 1938 Negrín posthumously awarded this military rank to Durruti.
[125] 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).
[126] “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(?).
[127] 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.
[128] L’Obra normative de la Generalitat de Catalunya. El Pla Tarradellas, Edició del Comissariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat de Catalunya, Barcelona, 1937.
[129] 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.
[130] Trade Union of the Iron and Steel Industry of Barcelona, CNT-FAI, Colectivación? Nacionalización? No: Socialización, Imp. Primero de Mayo, Barcelona, 1937.
[131] 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.
[132] Crónica del Departament de Presidencia del 3 de maig de 1937.
[133] 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”.
[134] The second Tarradellas government was in office from December 16, 1936 to April 3, 1937.
[135] 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.
[136] “Actas de las reuniones de Companys con Herrera y Escorza del 11 y 13 de abril de 1937”.
[137] 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).
[138] 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.
[139] 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.
[140] Josep Tarradellas, “La crisi política prèvia als Fets de Maig. 26 dies de desgovern a la Generalitat”.
[141] 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.
[142] 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.
[143] 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).
[144] “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).
[145] Juan Gimínez Arenas, De la Unión a Banat, Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, Madrid, 1996, p. 59.
[146] This is where the British author George Orwell was stationed.
[147] The nephew of Francisco Ferrer Guardia was murdered by a PSUC patrol at one of these checkpoints, because he resisted being disarmed.
[148] 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.
[149] Testimony of Albert Masó March (a POUM militant), from correspondence with the author.
[150] According to the account of Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos la guerra, Plaza y Janés, Barcelona, 1977, p. 211.
[151] 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.
[152] Correspondence between the author and José Quesada Suárez.
[153] 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.
[154] 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.
[155] 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.]
[156] Anna Monjó, Militants, Laertes, Barcelona, 2003, pp. 465–471.
[157] At the beginning of this chapter.
[158] 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.
[159] 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.
[160] 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.
[161] García Oliver, Ascaso and Durruti were the prototypical “men of action”. Federica Montseny and Abad de Santillán were prototypical “intellectuals”.
[162] 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.”
[163] 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.
[164] “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.
[165] 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.
[166] See Agustín Guillamón, “Josep Rebull de 1937 a 1939”, Balance, issues number 19 and 20 (2000).
[167] 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.
[168] The Paris Commune of 1871 transformed all public offices into elected and revocable positions, paid the average wage of the workers.
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