Part 3, Chapter 10 : Koltsov Visits the Durruti Column

CHAPTER X. Koltsov visits the Durruti Column

We noted that activities in Durruti’s sector had diminished by the time he left for Barcelona. The Column’s most advanced position was on “Calabazares Altos,” an observation point from which it was possible to see Zaragoza. Aguilar, Osera de Ebro, Monegrillo, and Farlete had been conquered. Pina was under siege. The shortage of ammunition made it impossible to consider large operations, so the guerrilla groups’ surprise attacks became more frequent:

One day it is the Internationals,[586] who avail themselves of a ford in the vicinity of Aguilar and cross the Ebro. They surprise the enemy forces in their trenches, attack, and take them prisoner. Another day it is La Banda Negra, who wade across the river and assault the rebel command post in Fuentes de Ebro. They seize fifty-nine prisoners (including several officers) and an excellent war booty. Later, it is Los Hijos de la Noche, who go many kilometers behind enemy lines and come back in the early morning exhausted but happy because they’re returning with thousands of cattle.[587]

It was the Aragón War Committee that had summoned Durruti with such urgency when he was in Barcelona.[588] Colonel Villalba was the senior military adviser in this body.[589] After examining the situation in the region, the Military Council planned a large operation in the Huesca area, but they had to move troops from other sectors to carry it out. The Council asked the Durruti Column, which was under less pressure, to assist in the action. Durruti was preparing his militiamen for the Huesca offensive—which ended with the seizure of Pina de Ebro—when Mikhail Koltsov, a correspondent from the Pravda newspaper, arrived in Bujaraloz.

Koltsov had come to Barcelona on August 8. He first visited with his Communist comrades in the Hotel Colón and then met with García Oliver (on August 10). His account of the meeting is very picturesque and typical of “Moscow’s eye in Spain”:

I visited García Oliver at midday. All the Catalan militia units now report to him. His headquarters are in the Nautical School. The building is magnificent, with its large corridors and rooms, glass ceilings, and enormous, artistically executed models of old ships. There are many people, weapons, and boxes of cartridges.

Oliver himself is in a luxurious office, surrounded by tapestries and statues. He immediately offered me an enormous Cuban cigar and some cognac. Dark, handsome, cinematic, and sullen, with a scar on his face and an immense Parabellum pistol on his belt. At first he was quiet and seemed taciturn, but then suddenly let out a long and passionate monologue, which revealed the experienced and talented orator.

The monologue that Koltsov puts in García Oliver’s mouth has two dimensions. First, he makes him sing the praises of the CNT and FAI. Then, Koltsov writes:

Nervously, with what seems like excessive excitement, he begins to contradict everything that he said before.... “It’s not true that the anarchists are against the Soviet Union,” [Koltsov makes García Oliver say].... He tells me that the Soviet Union ... mustn’t disdain the Spanish anarchist workers.... He urges me to speak with his friend Durruti, although Durruti was at the front, at the gates of Zaragoza; why not go see him?

Koltsov told him that he would like to visit the Aragón front and asks for a pass:

“Could you issue me one, Oliver?”

“Yes,” Oliver gave it to me happily. He spoke with his assistant, who typed out a pass right there. Oliver signs. He extends his hand to me and asks me to be sure that Russian workers receive accurate information about the Spanish anarchists.[590]

Koltsov was in Aragón on August 12, in a village named Angüés in Villalba’s sector. Someone named Julio Jiménez Orgue, a mysterious Russian artillery colonel who had come to “help the reds”, accompanied him. Koltsov decided to ask some questions to a captain, a professional soldier in Villalba’s forces:

“What enemy are you facing?”

“The rebels.”

“But who, concretely? What forces? How many cannons and machineguns? Do they have cavalry?

The captain shrugged his shoulders. “They’re the enemy because they don’t report their troops or forces. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be an enemy, but a friend!” Everyone laughed all around at the captain’s wisdom and wittiness.”

The only one who didn’t laugh was Koltsov, because he lacked a sense of humor. How could such questions occur to Koltsov on August 12, 1936?! Given what he wrote later, the most curious thing is that he asked them seriously. Perhaps Orwell penned his comments with the Pravda correspondent in mind.

Before visiting Durruti, Koltsov saw Trueba and Del Barrio in Tardienta. Naturally, what he found there was the greatest organization, efficiency, and even an “armored train.” Trueba joined Koltsov’s entourage when he learned that Koltsov was going to meet with Durruti (Trueba wanted to “have a look at the anarchist Column.”) The Pravda writer’s account of his discussion with Durruti has the same value as the rest of his Diario de la guerra de España, which his Izvestia colleague Ehrenburg said has “no historical merit.”[591] Durruti was in the Santa Lucía Inn when Koltsov arrived on August 14. He says that Durruti was “two kilometers from the front,” which was “crazy,” and thus preferred to speak with him in Bujaraloz.

Koltsov describes the town and says that it was flooded with orders and decrees signed by Durruti. He then describes his encounter with Durruti:

The famous anarchist received us without paying us much attention at first, but he immediately became interested after reading the words “Moscow” and “Pravda” in the letter from Oliver. Right there, in the middle of the road, among his soldiers and clearly hoping to make an impression on them, he launched into an ardent polemic.

This is Koltsov’s account of the notorious Durruti. We will now examine the dialogue that actually occurred between Koltsov and Durruti, which we can reconstruct thanks to help from a witness.

Durruti began by asking Koltsov, “what does the Soviet Union intend to do for the Spanish Revolution?” The journalist said that diplomatic concerns prevented the USSR from intervening directly, but did not exclude the possibility of indirect Russian aid. He also said that Russian workers had organized a national support campaign through their unions, whose first remittance of money had been sent to Prime Minister Giral.[592] The response did not satisfy Durruti. He replied forcefully:

The battle against fascism isn’t the work of the government, but the Spanish proletariat, which unleashed the revolution in response to the military uprising. The Republican government hasn’t armed the workers or done anything to stop the military assault. Under such circumstances, it makes no sense that money from the Russian workers is sent not to the Spanish workers, but to a government that refuses to arm the revolutionary militias, even though it controls the Spanish treasury. The meaning of our war is clear: it’s not about supporting bourgeois institutions, but about destroying them. If the Russian people aren’t aware of the nature of our efforts, then it’s the duty of Russian journalists to inform them.

This was Durruti’s clear response to Koltsov, which he failed to include in his Diario. Of course such an “omission” was extremely understandable, given that Stalin did not want the Russian people to know what was really happening in Spain. By concealing Durruti’s actual response and making him say nonsense, Koltsov reinforced the image of anarchists that Stalinists promoted.

After a digression in the dialogue, in which Koltsov declared that the Soviet Union passionately wanted victory for the Spanish anti-fascists, the conversation focused on military topics. Koltsov’s insistence on the subject is revealing.

Durruti said that they should concentrate forces on Zaragoza and launch a decisive attack on the city, but recognized that the battles were occurring in outlaying areas, which he lamented.

He explained that his forces were immobile because of the strategy put forward by the military advisers, who believed that they had to improve positions to the north and south before attacking Zaragoza. Nonetheless, circumstances will get better after the upcoming attack on Fuentes de Ebro. With respect to the so-called “discipline” and “command” problems, Durruti said that they did not exist in the Column.

He told Koltsov that the War Committee and the Column’s Military Council acted in mutual agreement and that there was no split between the professional soldiers and militiamen. The Column operates in a spirit of self-discipline and comradely responsibility, which renders military punishments unnecessary.

Durruti offered a detailed account of the state of the Column at the time, which Koltsov transformed in his Diario. The Pravda correspondent claimed that Durruti told him that there had been a high number of desertions and that the Column only had about 1,200 men remaining. The truth was that the Column had six thousand and 4,500 of them were armed.

With respect to the Column’s armaments, Koltsov claims that Durruti told him that “it’s excellent.” In reality, Durruti said that “we have old rifles and not enough to arm everyone. We’ve had to use a system of turns, in which militiamen switch between being fighters and helping out with agricultural efforts, in which some 1,500 are employed at present. Some are also engaged in agricultural projects on a trail between Gelsa and Pina.” About the ammunition, Durruti said that it was “a real nightmare, so much so that militiamen have to save empty cartridges and send them to Barcelona to be refilled.”

Koltsov raised the issue of “military training.” Durruti was also concrete on this topic: “Fighters are taught how the weapons work, how to shoot, how to fortify a position, how to protect themselves from bombardments, how to launch surprise attacks, and how to win in hand-to-hand combat. But we don’t teach them to toe the line or salute, because there are no superiors or inferiors here. Relations between Column leaders and militiamen are fraternal.” Durruti believed, and the militiamen shared his view, that the Prussian heel was unnecessary for waging war. Despite all this, Koltsov wrote, “militarily, the Column was a disaster.” Koltsov and Durruti said goodbye cordially, according to Koltsov. He punctuated their separation with a celebrated comment:

“So long, Durruti. I’ll see you in Zaragoza. If you don’t die here, and or in the streets of Barcelona fighting with the Communists, perhaps you’ll make yourself a Bolshevik after some years.”

He smiled and, turning his broad shoulders, immediately began to speak with someone who was standing there.

That “someone who was standing there” was Mora, the Secretary of the War Committee, who had been present during the entire meeting, as had Francisco Carreño and Francisco Subirats.[593] Mikhail Koltsov was not the only journalist to go to the Aragón front and of course no reporter could fully cover the front without visiting the Durruti Column and meeting its leader. The Spanish revolution was unique, as Van Paassen noted, because of the anarchists’ central role in the conflict. Most of the journalists who came to Spain were influenced by what Noam Chomsky calls “liberal culture” or were Stalinists or “fellow travelers.”[594] One could not expect such writers to examine Spanish reality without those tinted lenses, if only because they had to please the patrons who paid for their work. We would also add that the journalists’ ideological dispositions prompted them to see anarchism as a mortal enemy. These writers and intellectuals influenced the mass media, mystified events, and delivered doctored pieces to posterity that still cause researchers to draw false conclusions about the events that transpired in Spain between July 1936 and April 1, 1939. Before Koltsov’s stopover in Bujaraloz, Guy de Traversay visited the area on behalf of L’Intrasigeant. He wrote his article in Barbastro on August 13, 1936. It began like this:

Here I have Durruti, who told me in his picturesque French: “French? I learned it in La Santé, where Alfonso XIII ordered your government to imprison me. Ask me whatever questions you like and I’ll respond as I see fit. But I can’t give details about the front that might aid the enemy and you’ll only see places where there’s no risk if their positions are revealed.

Guy de Traversay stopped by several sites in the Column’s sector and discussed the militarization of the militias with Durruti. Durruti defended his already well-known point of view but De Traversay, even after seeing the situation firsthand, was not convinced of the military efficiency of his approach. That was to be expected. In his piece, he noted that a new regime emerged and private property was abolished wherever the Column went.

But everything happens in an orderly way. The peasants make decisions in assemblies. They burn the property registries and requisition valuables from the bourgeoisie, which they send to the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias in Barcelona. But there is no banditry, which is severely punished.

Guy de Traversay concludes his essay with this observation:

If the rebels are defeated or there’s some agreement with them behind the scenes, this whole workers’ world and its incorruptibles like Durruti will weigh in the balance. This man who considers Largo Caballero an innocuous orator will not let himself be robbed of victory easily. Certainly most aren’t with him, but more than a few will think twice before going to war against the anarchist army.

After Guy de Traversay and Koltsov, Albert Souillon from La Montagne and the Argentine journalist José Gabriel came to Bujaraloz.[595] They told the War Committee that they wanted to witness the attack on Fuentes de Ebro. Souillon described the seizure of that town for his newspaper and how frightened he was during the operation, although he was clearly proud that he had been present at the Durruti Column’s victory. He spoke with Durruti after the battle:

“What about France?” Durruti asked me point-blank.

He wanted up-to-date information about France. He complained about the French government’s stance [Léon Blum’s nonintervention policy] and could not accept it. He understood it—Durruti was quite intelligent—but could not accept it, because he is a courageous fighter and sees the German and Italian trimotor planes bomb his men to death.

“I would have spoken to the French people by radio,” Durruti told me, “but your government needs its middle classes. Say clearly in your article, say in Paris, that we’re fighting as much for you as for ourselves. Stress that we need planes to end this war quickly. And emphasize that we, the anarchists, have numerous militia columns, that our only goal is to crush fascism. Tell the French that we all fight as brothers in Spain and that after victory, when it’s time for us to set up the new economic and social structures, those who really fought elbow to elbow will know how to get along and resolve things fraternally.[596]

The anarchist Emma Goldman also visited the Durruti Column in August:

I had heard a lot of talk about Durruti’s strong personality and the revolutionary prestige that he enjoyed among the Column’s men. Furthermore, I wanted to know how Durruti maintained the coherence of the Column. Durruti was surprised that I, an old anarchist, asked him that question.

Durruti responded: “I’ve been an anarchist all my life and I hope to continue being one. It would be very unpleasant to suddenly convert myself into a general and command my comrades with senseless military discipline. The comrades who have come here have done so willingly and are ready to give their lives for the cause that they defend. I believe, as I have always believed, in liberty: liberty understood in the sense of responsibility. I consider discipline indispensable, but it should be self-discipline motivated by a common ideal and a strong feeling of camaraderie.”

Of course not everything was easy for Durruti, who was responsible for six thousand men and engaged in the very difficult task of leading them in combat. In addition to those challenges, not all Column members had the same fraternal sense of collective responsibility. Some, at the most delicate moments, requested special furloughs. When that occurred Durruti patiently told the comrade in question: “You’re aware, comrade, that the war we’re waging is for the triumph of the revolution. We’re making the revolution to change men’s lives and end their physical and moral miseries.”

No military strictness, no impositions, no disciplinary punishments existed to hold the Column together. There was nothing more than Durruti’s tremendous energy, which he communicated to the others through his conduct and made everything a whole that felt and acted in unison.[597]

Some see Durruti as an educator of the masses, although we do not think that term adequately expresses his motives. We believe it is better to recognize that Durruti was convinced that if the revolution does not transform men and arouse their sense of responsibility, then it would fall into the hands of a caste that would denature it and dominate it under the pretext of better serving the people. We think that Durruti’s goal was to make men and women understand that the revolution was everyone’s concern, and that’s why he became the axis of libertarian Aragón. In this context, it was worth citing an anecdote printed in Guerre di Clase:

One day Durruti was eating with militiamen who were responsible for a battery. One of them asked him for permission to go to Barcelona. “Impossible at the moment,” he replied. The militiaman insisted. Durruti then made a decision: he spoke to the rest of the men and suggested that they vote on the matter with a show of hands. The majority supported his request and the militiaman took off for Barcelona.