CHAPTER XVIII. The general strike in Zaragoza

Durruti left Burgos with the comrades from Zaragoza who had been imprisoned with him (Ejarque, Joaquín Ascaso, the Alcrudo brothers, etc) and they paid a visit to local militants when they stopped in the capital of Aragón. They could see the effects of the general strike declared in solidarity with the prisoners as soon as they set foot in the Zaragoza train station. The unions said that the strike would last until the government freed everyone detained for the December events and, since there were still militants in prison, the strike continued. Nothing functioned in the city except vital services like hospitals, dairies, and bakeries. All the other branches of production were suspended, including lighting and public services like garbage collection. Zaragoza seemed like a city under siege, but there was enormous enthusiasm among the workers. The CNT in other parts of the country offered to send shipments of food, but the Aragónians rejected this and only agreed, after much insistence from Francisco Ascaso, to let CNT members elsewhere care for their children.

When Durruti arrived, some Barcelona militants were already there, organizing the shipment of youngsters to the Catalan capital. There was a group from Madrid as well, which would also take responsibility for a large number of the strikers’ children. After meeting with the CNT men from Catalonia, Durruti went to Barcelona to prepare the children’s reception. During the trip, Durruti read the underground paper that Barcelona’s Local Federation of Anarchist Groups published as a substitute for the banned Tierra y Libertad. Its description of the situation in Barcelona reminded him of the worst times of Anido and Arlegui:

The Catalan prisons are packed with inmates, who are treated terribly. Rojas the executioner has returned to run Barcelona’s Modelo prison. Our newspapers are banned, and so Solidaridad Obrera and Tierra y Libertad can’t reach the working masses. Police raid our editorial offices. They arrest magazine editors and staff. Authorities fined Tierra y Libertad’s supplement [a theoretical magazine] five thousand pesetas for no reason at all. They outlaw CNT unions. Cafes and bars where comrades meet are now “secret meeting places.”

Thugs and police hunt down FAI and CNT militants with unprecedented ruthlessness. Militants suffer brutal beatings in the police stations. Police searches and frisks after the recent holdups outrage even the most spineless.

Authorities hold our comrades for a handful of days at whim. Our female comrades go to prison for minor offensives. All of this occurs in Catalonia, under the egis of Luis I, President of the autonomous Catalan government.

What should we do? We have to respond from the underground into which the Generalitat has forced us. The illegal publication of this newspaper is the beginning of our response to the threats made by Catalan authorities, who say that they’re ready to exterminate us. The FAI begins a new revolutionary stage with this publication. Comrades should distribute it in the factories, workshops, workers’ neighborhoods, and in every workplace. We don’t like caverns and prefer to propagate our ideas in sunlight but, since we’ve been forced underground, we go there with faith in victory, enthusiasm, selflessness, and confidence in our strength and the righteousness of the working class’s daily struggle for bread and freedom.[397]

Reading that article, Durruti must have thought of the hypocrisy of politicians. Durruti had conspired with Francesc Macià in Brussels and France and on multiple occasions had provided the old Catalanist with resources that he needed. During Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, the Solidarios acquired weapons for the Catalanists who were now beating CNT men in the police stations. Macià reached the height of political theatricality when he and Durruti were both at a rally in Lérida shortly after the proclamation of the Republic. Hugging him, he tearfully said: “In you I embrace all the anarchists who fought so valiantly for the Republic!” A few days after this emotional outburst, the Generalitat’s autonomous police attacked the 1931 May Day demonstration. They had even had the nerve to declare that it was impossible to clean up the repressive forces because Catalans still lacked full self-government. Of course, the enactment of the Catalan Autonomy Statue did not stop authorities from hounding the CNT with unprecedented severity (and this, for an organization with an endless history of persecution). Durruti was shocked to see his daughter Colette when he returned to his home on Fresser Street. He hadn’t been able to watch her grow or learn to walk or speak, and now she was talking, running around, and infusing everything with her little girl’s joyousness.

The pleasures of home did not last long. That very night several comrades came to talk with him and the subject of government repression dominated their conversation. They told him about the loss of two good friends at the hands of the police. One was Bruno Alpini, an Italian comrade who Durruti had met in Belgium. He worked as a shoemaker on Rogent Street, not far from Durruti’s home, and Mimi used to take shoes to him for repair. Bruno’s activities in Barcelona had more to do with Italy than Spain: he sustained contacts with the comrades living under Mussolini’s regime and provided them with weapons and other types of support. His elimination was inexplicable unless Italian and Catalan authorities were working together and had decided to kill Bruno because of his revolutionary efforts against the Italian fascist government. Whatever the reason, Bruno was arrested at work around 9:00 in the morning and found dead at 11:00 that evening on Cruz Cubierta Street with six bullets lodged in his head and one in the nape of his neck. The newspapers published a police statement that said the following: “Bruno Alpini, a thirty year old Italian from Milan, was arrested while carrying out a robbery. He resisted, but police were able to capture him. He tried to escape when they were taking him to the Police Station and it was then that the unfortunate accident of his death occurred.” It was the same excuse as always: the “ ley de fugas.”

The incident did not end with Bruno Alpini’s murder. A young militant from the Manufacturing and Textile Workers’ Union who went by the name “El Cèntim” was a good friend of Aplini’s and wanted to avenge his death by assassinating Miguel Badía, the General Commissioner of Public Order. “El Cèntim” knew that Badía frequented a cabaret on the Paralelo and waited for him one night at the cabaret’s exit. He tried to fire his pistol at the person he held responsible for Alpini’s death, but unfortunately “El Cèntim” did not accomplish his aim; Badía’s numerous guards protected their patron and shot down the assailant, leaving him dead in the street. [398]

These constant losses enraged Durruti. He had a generous spirit and formed strong bonds with his friends and comrades, despite his reputation for cruelty, which was cultivated so assiduously by the bourgeois press. Durruti repudiated violence and never used it willingly; he only accepted it as a last resort and something that had to be applied as carefully as possible. Nonetheless, that night his gestures and demeanor suggested that he would have destroyed Badía if he could have laid a hand on him.

One of the first things Durruti did in Barcelona was discuss the situation in Zaragoza with the CNT Regional Committee, whose Secretary happened to be Francisco Ascaso. For the moment, there was nothing they could do but attend to the thousands of children that were about to arrive. Barcelona’s population had responded enthusiastically to the CNT’s call for solidarity; more than twenty-five thousand came to Solidaridad Obrera’s editorial office and pledged their willingness to take in the youngsters. This was the second time that a fraternal demonstration of this type had occurred in Spain. The first was in 1917 during the long Riotinto miners strike, although now the magnitude of the act was much greater, given that Zaragoza was a large city.

Ascaso told Durruti that they were likely to have problems with the Catalan authorities. For them, it was a slap in the face that the CNT—which they were persecuting and had forced underground—could still mobilize the Barcelona population so dramatically. When the Barcelona City Council found out that the CNT was preparing to receive the Zaragoza children, it sent a representative to the local Aragónian Community Center to say that the Generalitat would take care of the youngsters. CNT militants and sympathizers were a majority on the Aragónian Community Center’s administrative council and the group had already voted to support the Confederation’s initiative. They told the Generalitat’s spokesperson that “Aragónians living in Barcelona have a responsibility to help their striking compatriots and fully intend to honor it.” It was the Generalitat’s interference that made Ascaso think that authorities would devise something to try to stop that act of workers’ solidarity. Durruti reproached him for his skepticism and told him that would be too outrageous.

Durruti explained the problems that he was having finding work. Ascaso said that he would put him in contact with comrades from the Food Workers’ Union. With the arrival of summer, they could get him a job as a seasonal worker in one of the two beer factories (“Damm” or “Moritz.”) They agreed to meet the following day, May 6, in the Soli office. The families that were going to care for the Zaragoza children had been told to gather there that day as well.

That May 6 was a Sunday. The expedition was due to arrive at 6:00 in the evening, but by 4:00 pm there were so many people there that it was impossible to take a step on Consejo de Ciento Street or the block holding the Soli editorial office. More than twenty-five thousand people had come to receive the children. Women and youngsters were everywhere; militants had brought their whole families in order to emphasize that day’s fraternal and comradely character.

At 6:00 in the evening, a CNT activist announced over a loudspeaker that the children had been significantly delayed because the residents of several towns along the way insisted on greeting them and expressing their support for the strikers. The expedition was now scheduled to arrive around nine. Many of those waiting decided to stay where they were, for fear of losing their place near the building’s entrance. The size of the crowd remained essentially unchanged.

The expedition was not there at 9:00 pm. Several CNT taxi drivers became suspicious and set off in their cars to find it. It was nearing 10:00 pm and there was still no news. People were wondering about the delay when a cavalry squad of Security Guards appeared out of nowhere and began to charge on their horses, shouting “Clear the area!” The crowd contracted into itself and women and children cried out. The men, fearing the worst, tried to protect their compañeras and sons and daughters by surrounding them and turning their backs to the Guards. The horsemen advanced, knocking people down and stomping them. There was tremendous shouting. A representative from the Aragónian Community Center, foreseeing a massacre, urged everyone to stay calm. Another member of the same group tried to speak with the Guards, but firecrackers suddenly started exploding everywhere. As if that were a sign, the Security Guards redoubled their attacks.

A large number of Assault Guards emerged from nearby vans and joined in. With truncheons in hand, they begin to attack without concern for the numerous women and children present. There were scenes of unbelievable sadism. The men did their best to sustain the protective cordon around their families while the guards mercilessly pounded on their backs.

The yelling and children’s screams mixed into a horrendous sound. It seemed like an inferno. The level of terror increased when the Assault Guards began to fire their pistols. A space began to clear and bodies were visible on the ground. There were several injured and one dead person. Some guards grabbed the leg of the corpse and threw it into the middle of the street. Ascaso watched this unimaginable brutality from the balcony of the Soli office.

He was absolutely enraged. Durruti, at his side, regretted chastising Ascaso for his suspicions the previous day. But what to do? The people’s response was more instinctual than reasoned. Those forming the human wall against the police valiantly endured the onslaught, which enabled the women and children to move to a safer space. Later, those remaining decided to stop passively accepting the blows and attacked the guards en masse. The guards were surprised and withdrew, although not without first taking some well- directed swipes. [399]

People spontaneously went toward the city center, forcing the streetcars, metros, and busses to come to a standstill. They set streetcars alight and attacked a police station, causing the police to flee through the windows. Workers declared a general strike that night, which would last until May 12. Proletarian Barcelona unanimously showed its disdain for the authorities. But where were the children? During the tumult, one of the taxi drivers had been able get to the Soli office and let them know what had happened in Molins de Rei, near Barcelona. The Public Order Station, determined to prevent that expression of proletarian solidarity, mobilized several companies of Assault Guards, who blocked the numerous busses carrying the youngsters. The residents of the town struggled with them, but the Guards managed to carry out their orders and divert the caravan to Tarrasa, where they intended to hold the children. Ascaso, Durruti, and other comrades set off at once for Tarrasa. When they got there, they found that the town’s anarchist groups had already mobilized. Everyone went to the esplanade where the busses were parked and under armed guard. Durruti and Ascaso immediately walked toward them, protected by local workers. When they reached the first bus, they shouted to the driver: “The last stop is the CNT. Quickly, to Barcelona!”

The people of Tarrasa joined the children in the busses. The taxi carrying Durruti and Ascaso placed itself at the head of the caravan. That night, the children from the Zaragoza slept soundly in the designated proletarian homes in Barcelona.