CHAPTER XVIII. The anti-parliamentarianism of Louis Lecoin

The French Justice Minister was committed to sending the Spaniards to Argentina. In the National Assembly, a deputy asked Barthou if the government would give them to Spain. The minister replied categorically: “To Spain, no.” The contradiction was glaring: Alfonso XIII said that they had killed the Cardinal Archbishop of Zaragoza and robbed the Gijón bank, which French law recognized as political acts. Then why did France recognize crimes of the same nature supposedly committed in Argentina as common law offenses? Why two weights and two measures? As an Argentine worker said in the Crítica newspaper’s survey, France and Argentina were “playing a diplomatic game that will ultimately lead to Argentina shipping Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover to Spain.” But the battle wasn’t over and both Argentine and French workers were determined to do everything in their power to stop Alfonso XIII from garroting the three anarchists.

On January 7, 1927, the Durruti-Ascaso-Jover Asylum Support Committee held an important rally in Paris’s Wagram Hall. When the building opened at 8:00 pm, it was clear that it would be too small to accommodate the large crowd that wanted to enter, despite its capacity for ten thousand people. Many attendees had to stay outside on Wagram Avenue, under the watchful eye of the police assigned to the meeting by the Prefecture of Paris. This rally was the most significant of those organized thus far. The speakers were Victor Basch, for the League of the Rights of Man; Miguel de Unamuno, a Spanish exile; Frossard, editor of the Soir evening newspaper; Savoie, for the CGT; Henri Sellier, a Paris city councilman; Sebastián Faure, representing the Anarcho-Communist Union; and defense lawyers Henry Torres and Henry Berthon.

This rally unanimously endorsed a statement demanding the immediate release of the three Spanish anarchists. All the Parisian papers noted and commented upon the event.

By that time, one hundred deputies had declared their support for Lecoin’s motion insisting that the government free Jover, Ascaso, and Durruti. Additional adhesions had been gathered in the National Assembly by deputies Erné Richard (Radical-Socialist); Moro-de-Giaferri (Republican-Socialist); Pierre Renaudel (Socialist); Ernest Laffont (Social-Communist), and André Berthon (Communist).

How did the French government respond to the growing movement to liberate these men? Amazingly, Poincaré and his ministers remained firmly committed to handing them over to Argentina. Heavy political pressure must have weighed on Poincaré, who knew that his stance jeopardized his position as Prime Minister.

However, Le Libertaire sensed that something was beginning to break the government’s will and, since you have to strike while the iron is hot, it promptly organized another rally. This one occurred on February 11 in Bullier Hall. The paper wrote: “This impressive demonstration should eliminate the need for a hunger strike, which could have fatal consequences for our three comrades.” [185] Indeed, they also printed a letter from Durruti, Ascaso, and Jover in which they reported their decision to declare such a hunger strike. They said: We’re grateful to all of you, to the organizations, to the newspapers, and those who have supported our defense even if you don’t embrace our ideas. However, we think you’re wasting your time and that the energy you use to support us could be expended more efficiently on other causes. No one except those who take their class hatred to the extreme doubts our right to life. But, for reasons of state, they want to hand us over to Argentina. Although those who made the President of the Republic sign our extradition decree could be disavowed, everything done on our behalf will be in vain when faced with an irresponsible but powerful bureaucracy. We once began a hunger strike and then ended it at your insistence. Now we are going to begin it again and ask that you don’t do anything to break our resolve.

We embrace our fate. Should we be afraid to die? Signed: Ascaso, Durruti, Jover.

Several newspapers reproduced and commented on this letter. They started their hunger strike on February 13.

Three days later the Council of Ministers published a note declaring that it had annulled the decision to extradite the Spaniards and imparted instructions for the law on extraditions approved by the Senate to be submitted to the Chamber of Deputies for a vote as soon as possible. It added that the law would be retroactive.

The French public also began to learn about some of the behind-thescenes, diplomatic maneuvering. Apparently something had not gone well between the Argentine and French governments. Parisian newspapers published a diplomatic communiqué from a French source saying that “the French government had ordered its representative in Buenos Aires to explain to the Argentine government why France might delay the extradition of the anarchists. Argentine authorities expressed some displeasure at the delay in settling a matter that they thought had been resolved. Argentina instructed its man in Paris, Mr. Alvarez de Toledo, to put pressure on the French Foreign Affairs Ministry.” The French government published the following statement in response to the Argentine ambassador’s efforts: “Argentina claims three Spanish anarchists residing in France as perpetrators of common law offenses, such as robbery, murder, and bank robbery. The Argentine government promises to discount all political concerns and not send the anarchists to Spain. The French government, respectful of its obligations, prefers to wait for the vote on the law on extraditions. The goal of that law is to make extradition pass from administrative to judicial control, which will make the Supreme Court the only body capable of authorizing an extradition.” [186]

On February 28, the Chamber of Deputies ratified the law on extraditions without debate. The law was retroactive and thus Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover were ipso facto its beneficiaries. Their case had to be brought before the Supreme Court immediately. This was to occur on March 27, 1927. A few days before the hearing, newspapers reported that police had discovered a plot to free the three Spanish anarchists on March 9. This was clearly a Spanish conspiracy to confuse the public. Jover, Ascaso, and Durruti had requested a revision of the trial and now they were apparently planning an escape, just when their case was going to be reopened with full judicial guarantees. Wasn’t this exactly the type of thing that made the anarchists deserve extradition? Le Libertaire printed an immediate response to the ploy:

Last Friday, the French press announced that police had discovered a plot in which friends of Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover were planning to help them escape.

We can declare without hesitation that no friend of these Spanish anarchists was even remotely mixed up in this supposed conspiracy, which appears to be an attempt to influence the Supreme Court on the eve of Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover’s appearance before it.

Indeed, these three men will appear in that jurisdiction on Tuesday. Their lawyers, Henry Torres, Henry Berthon, and Henry Guernut will defend them.

With this note, we publicly protest against these despicable tactics used at the last moment to impose on the Supreme Court what the “dossier” held by the Argentine government does not support. Signing the communiqué: Durruti-Ascaso-Jover Asylum Support Committee.[187]

Durruti sent a long letter to his family on April 25. He first excused himself for his long silence, which was due to the fact that he still did not know what fate awaited him. His life, he said, was in the hands of the French Minister of Justice. In no way does this letter show his spirit flagging. On the contrary, he was optimistic and tried to reassure his family. His love for his mother was also very clear. To his sister, he said: “Rosa, you not only have to be her daughter, but also her comrade.... I ask all of you to be as supportive as possible, to counteract the pain that I’m causing her against my will.” [188] Two days after Durruti wrote this letter, the French government informed the Argentine ambassador in Paris that Argentina could now take the detainees. Alvarez de Toledo told French authorities that his government had sent a ship, the Bahía Blanca, which would arrive in Le Havre to pick up the prisoners.

According to law, Argentina had four weeks to take possession of the three anarchists, but the extradition would be revoked if it did not do so within the allotted time. That legal period ended on May 27. Would Argentina, its police, and its ruling class deprive themselves of the pleasure of judging and condemning these three men? Impossible. Buenos Aires’s La Antorcha wrote the following, after divulging the news that they would soon be shipped to South America: “Meat to the beasts, those gentlemen leaders of the stultifying French who traffic in human lives.” It described Argentina as “a barbaric country, uncivil, without individual or collective security, exposed to all the abuses and violence from above, which have an easy and immediate hold on it, that is Argentina.... It is an immensely stupid country, without moral conscience, without even the most basic attribute or sense of justice. Here there is only a despicable fear that governs and, even worse, a despicable fear that obeys. We are only assured that there is a cowardly environment, a lying environment, a dissolute environment.”

But the anarchists were not going to give up. “Bring them!” they challenged Alvear’s government. “The Social Prisoner Support Committee is ready to defend the three Spaniards as soon as they set foot on Argentine soil.” [189]

In Paris, Louis Lecoin went from deputy to deputy as he labored to gather the support of a simple majority of the National Assembly in order to make his interpellation, which could not only make the government totter but also fall. He tirelessly collected signatures and even installed himself in the National Assembly so as to do his work more efficiently.

Meanwhile, the days continued passing and the Argentine ship still hadn’t reached French shores. But article 18 of the March 10, 1927 law was categorical: if a month passed and the plaintiff government had not taken custody of its defendants, they had to be freed. And the unimaginable occurred: May 27 came and the promised Argentine steamship was nowhere to be found. According to law, the government had to release Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover, which is exactly what they asserted in a letter to the Justice Minister. Despite this, Barthou continued to hold them in prison and wait for the Argentine vessel.

Why hadn’t the ship from Buenos Aires arrived? According to Osvaldo Bayer, President Alvear took a step back at the last moment. “Agitation for Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover grows continually more intense and joins the campaign for Sacco and Vanzetti. Alvear realizes that when the three Spaniards are lowered onto land it will be another disruptive factor in the already strained environment of 1927. Would it be useful to bring them? Toward what end? Simply to satisfy the police? Alvear is smarter than those Americans who let themselves get stuck in the Sacco and Vanzetti mire and earned the rage of the whole civilized world. Is it worth bringing the three “Galicians” to try them here? No, obviously not. There are already enough problems with Radowitzky in Ushaia. Why give the anarchists a new excuse to throw bombs, hold demonstrations, and declare strikes?” [190]

This analysis makes some of the related events comprehensible, such as the supposed accident that the Bahía Blanca suffered, which prevented it from continuing the trip, and also that Alvear later demanded that French police bring the three anarchists to Buenos Aires. All of these things were too much not to ruin the good intentions of Poincaré and his ministers.

While the Argentine government retreated, Louis Lecoin acquired enough signatures to make his interpellation to the government on July 7, 1927 at 2:00 pm. Poincaré suddenly recovered his political sense and sent his right-hand man, Louis Malvy, to deal with Lecoin two hours before the public debate in the National Assembly was scheduled to begin: “Do you know,” Malvy asked, “that your interpellation could cause Poincaré’s government to collapse? Do you hate him that much?” No, Lecoin didn’t hate Poincaré personally, but politics in general and those who make a profession of it. Why should he care if Poincaré’s government falls? What he wanted—and this is what he told Poincaré’s “terranova”—was freedom for Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover. “So be it!” Malvy said. “Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover will be freed tomorrow.” [191]

The crisis was averted. There was no interpellation that afternoon and the next morning the three Spaniards were released to their comrades and a sizable handful of journalists. The combined action of the Argentine and French workers had made two governments give way and sent a resounding No! to Alfonso XIII and his dictator, Miguel Primo de Rivera.

La Antorcha celebrated the victory in an article that it titled “The Rescue”: “It’s the joy of recovery, the return to action, and the defeat of the reactionaries.”

At 6:00 pm that day Francisco Ascaso had the pleasure of embracing his mother and sister María, who had entered France secretly. Gregorio Jover’s compañera and their two children were also there. They had an improvised dinner that night in a modest third floor apartment on Du Repos Street, next to the Père Lachaise cemetery. Nothing was lacking except Durruti’s mother. Perhaps it was because of her absence that Durruti replied, when a journalist asked him about his next steps: “Now? Now we’re going to continue the struggle with even greater intensity than before.” [192]