March 1937

By the beginning of March the state apparatus was ready, almost fully recovered from the double blow it had received the previous July from the reactionary military and the revolutionary industrial and agrarian working class. With a Cabinet, including the anarchist ministers, fully committed to implementing militarization, Largo Caballero announced that from 1 April all forces on the Teruel front would come under the control of the Ministry of War. José Benedito, commander of the anarcho-syndicalist Torres Benedito Column was assigned to the Organizational Bureau of the General Staff with special responsibility for re-organizing the militia columns. At the same time the Iron Column, the most refractory of the militia columns, was informed that the decree of 30 December which provided for servicemen’s pay being made henceforth by battalion paymaster-officers, answerable to the Treasury would now be enforced.

At a general assembly of the Iron Column, the militians refused to submit to military re-organization and to the new administrative regulations. Many decided to quit the front in protest. To avoid providing the War Ministry with the pretext to conscript the Column’s members, the War Committee issued the following note:

“The Iron Column has not disbanded, nor is it contemplating disbandment. Nor has it militarized… it has requested that it be temporarily relieved so that it may snatch a little rest and reorganize.”

By mid-March the Column had largely been disbanded on account of the desertions by many of its militians. After an assembly held in Valencia on 22 March militarization was accepted as a lesser evil and the remainder of the Iron Column, 4,000 men out of a total of 20,000, became known as the 83^rd Mixed Brigade commanded by José Pellicer, with Segarra as political commissar. Before disbanding the Column’s assets were shared out among rationalist schools, the CNT field hospital, the anarchist international prisoners’ aid group and anarchist publishing ventures and libraries.

In Catalonia the statist politicians and functionaries were also making the final preparations for delivering the deathblow to the revolution. On 4 March, Artemio Aiguadé, the communist Councilor for Internal Security, announced the dissolution of the Control Patrols, the armed representatives of the workers’ organizations, the Internal Security Council, composed of representatives of every shade of opinion, and the Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils.[90] In addition, members of union or political organizations were prohibited from belonging to the forces of public order. Any infringement of this ban was to be punished by dismissal from the security corps. This provoked an immediate government crisis which was to last almost a month. That same day, La Batalla, paper of the POUM, reprinted extracts, with enthusiastic comments by Andrés Nin, from an article that had appeared in the CNT evening paper La Noche. The author was the paper’s editor, CNT militant Jaime Balius, soon to be one of the founders of the Friends of Durruti group:

‘We anarchists have arrived at the limits of our concessions…Not another step backward. It is the hour of action. Save the revolution… If we continue to give up our positions there is no doubt that in a short time we shall be overwhelmed and the revolution will simply be another souvenir. It is for this fundamental reason that it is necessary to develop a new orientation in our movement.’

Balius added, probably in reference to the POUM, that he was pleased to see that:

‘Our anxiety is now shared by the evening paper of an organization with which we are in fundamental agreement concerning the present revolutionary epoch and the role of the working class.’

Next day, 5 March, soldiers presenting what turned out to be forged documentation removed twelve of the most modern armored cars in Catalonia from a military store. The man responsible for the theft proved to be the lieutenant colonel of the PSUC-controlled Voroschiloff barracks. When challenged the officer at first denied all knowledge of the tanks but they were quickly discovered. He then claimed that he had merely been carrying out orders received from the general staff of the Karl Marx Division.

Manuel Trueba, the War Commissar of the Karl Marx Division, quickly denied this allegation. Solidaridad Obrera of 7 March commented:

‘… If these tanks were not taken for use on the front, then to what end was such a brilliant operation mounted? In this we discern the outlines of a dictatorial affront against which everybody knows that we would immediately protest. In this instance, as in every one, we cannot but issue a reminder of the constant peril. Should the unhealthy partisan zeal in someone outweigh the instinct of self-preservation, we have to state yet again our firm and unshakable determination to defeat fascism above all else. And to defeat it as part of a spearhead of close unity with workers of every political and trade union denomination…’

March 5 also saw the formation of what was to be one of the most controversial anarchist groups of the social revolution — the Friends of Durruti (FOD). Dedicated to the defense of fundamental anarchist principles, the revolution, and to challenging the bureaucratic conservatism of the CNT-FAI leadership, the Friends of Durruti were not just another club:

‘We aim to see the Spanish Revolution pervaded by the revolutionary acumen of our Durruti. The FOD remain faithful to the last words uttered by our comrade in the heart of Barcelona in denunciation of the work of the counter-revolution …To enroll in our association, it is vital that one belong to the CNT and show evidence of a record of struggle, a love of ideas and the revolution…’[91]

The group made its official debut on 8 March when the same communiqué appeared in issue 77 of El Frente, the official paper of the Durruti Column.

The nucleus of the group, whose membership quickly grew to between four and five thousand,[92] were militants from the Durruti Column based in the Gelsa sector, anarchists who had consistently stood out against militarization and the strategy of the higher committees. Their intransigence had led to them being warned on a number of occasions by the CNT and FAI Regional Committees to change their attitude and conform to the decisions of the Organization.

These warnings were ignored. Sergeant Manzana, the man rumored to be responsible for Durruti’s death, accidental or otherwise, informed them that by holding out against militarization they might provoke bloodshed among comrades:

‘After long deliberation it was decided that within 15 days of the meeting, they would leave the front, handing over their weapons to other comrades who would arrive to replace them.’[93]

Practically, as well as in theory, the group proposed a return to the ideals of self-management and revolutionary war that had existed among the rank-and-file immediately after the military uprising. In an interview in La Noche on 24 March, Pablo Ruiz, described as:

″ … a delegate from the 4^th Gelsa Group, composed of some 600 CNT-FAI militants’ outlined the factors which gave birth to the FOD group: ‘When we set out for the front we left comrades in the rear in possession of what was, from an anarchist point of view, a Revolution marching victoriously onwards. But in the shaping of that revolution, they have allowed a part to be played by political parties who had no feeling for the revolution having, as they did, to defend the interests of the petite bourgeoisie and the UGT which, by comparison with us, represented only a tiny percentage of workers in Catalonia and had damn little influence on the economic and administrative life of the Revolution. And it is now clear that in reaching an accommodation with them we lost our hegemony in the Revolution and have found it necessary to surrender a little more each day with the result that the revolution has been disfigured and the revolutionary gains made in those early days have evaporated.’

‘This led to the formation of the Friends of Durruti, insofar as this new organization has as its fundamental task the preservation, intact, of the principles of the CNT-FAI, harking back to 19 July, with a view to ensuring that it is the union organization which has responsibility for the management of the economy and society, with no place given to the political parties, the grounds for that being that they are not regarded as equipped for the work of renovation. And we say all this not with the intention of using force to enforce our plans, but rather as grounds for propaganda within the CNT itself, breathing new life into its creative, organizing spirit which we cannot stand idly by and watch die.’

‘And I oppose participation by the parties because it is my belief that this implies the loss of the revolution which must be pursued by all the means at our disposal, but never by means of accommodations with groups which are, let alone in a minority, deaf to the call of revolution.’″

Benjamin Péert, the surrealist writer and volunteer fighter, wrote his last letter to André Breton from Spain on 7 March. He was with the First Company of the Nestor Makhno Battalion, Durruti Division at Pino de Ebro on the Aragón front:

‘Except for a postcard I haven’t written because of the lack of any interesting news. From the first day of my return it was obvious that any collaboration with the POUM was no longer possible. They were ready to accept people on their right, but not on their left.

‘Besides, nothing could be done anyway thanks to the ultra-rapid bureaucratization of all the organizations and the scandalous activities that have developed. Otherwise, under the pressure of the Stalinists the revolution is following a descending curve, which if it is not rapidly halted will lead very quickly to a violent counter-revolution. In such conditions I decided to join an anarchist militia unit and I am here at the front — Pina de Ebro — where I will stay as long as something more interesting doesn’t take me somewhere else.

‘The sector — which I didn’t choose — is perfectly calm; we are separated from the fascists by the whole width of the Ebro, that is to say a good kilometer of water. Not a cannon shot, not a rifle bullet, nothing. It’s too calm to last. I would like to recount all the swinish acts by the Stalinists who openly sabotage the revolution with the evidently enthusiastic approval of petit bourgeois of all shades. There are many things, many signs disturbing to the greatest degree and which I cannot write about now… ‘[94]

Crisis of Generalidad Provoked

On 30 March 1937, the CNT’s Regional Committee issued a circular to soldiers, federations and unions, recommending that they remain vigilant and keep constantly in touch. The POUM’s English language paper, The Spanish Revolution, edited by the American Charles Orr, observed that this circular also indicated an attempt on the part of the CNT leadership to centralize authority in its regional committees. The committees were empowered to decree mobilizations, issue orders and watchwords:

‘All who do not act accordingly to these rules and agreements will be publicly expelled from the organization. ‘[95]