CHAPTER XXI. Durruti kills Durruti

They carried Durruti’s mortally wounded body into the Column Hospital at the Hotel Ritz between 2:30 and 3:00 pm. The doctors on duty were José Santamaría Jaume (manger of the Column’s Health Service), Moya Prats, Martínez Fraile, Cunill, Sabatés, and Abades.

They immediately took him into the operating room, which had been installed in the basement as a precaution against the constant bomb raids. All the medical personnel rushed there once they found out the patient’s identity.

“Durruti recognized a trusted friend among them and sat up slightly on the table on which they’d placed him. He spoke with an excited and upset voice; he was confused and incredulous at what had happened to him. The doctor grew pale when he heard Durruti’s revealing words. With a firm gesture, he ordered him to be quiet.” [731] Once the doctors examined the wound and saw how serious it was, they realized that they would incur an enormous responsibility—given the patient’s importance—if they operated and he died. Doctor Martínez Fraile and Doctor Santamaría decided to consult a prestigious surgeon with many more years of operating experience.

Santamaría instructed several militiamen to immediately find Dr. Manuel Bastos Ansart. He was in another CNT hospital located in the Hotel Palace, not far from the Ritz.

The CNT’s Surgical Hospital number 1 had been installed in the Hotel Palace and Bastos Ansart oversaw its operations. There are two curious details about that hospital. The first is that the Soviet Embassy occupied one of the wings of its first floor and the other is that it was precisely there that Franco’s espionage service established one of its first webs. It had compromised the medical activities there and ferried information about the injured and dead to the rebels.

We now move on to Manuel Bastos Ansart’s testimony:

A group of militiamen came to see me during one of the bombings and, with great mystery and visible agitation, insisted that I examine an important leader, who was seriously injured and in another hotel-hospital.... The patient was clearly a prestigious bigwig with a huge reputation. Those around him didn’t hesitate to let me know that his own followers bore responsibility for his wound. The bullet had horizontally crossed the upper abdomen and injured crucial internal organs. The wound was fatal and nothing could be done for the patient, who was already on his last breath. I heard what were probably his final words: “they’re going away now.” He was alluding to the increasingly muffled noise of the explosions, which led one to suppose that the bombers were withdrawing.

When I made my diagnosis that he was terminal—indeed, he died shortly thereafter—all the medical assistants let out a tremendous sigh of relief. I had released them from a heavy burden: the possibility that they might be ordered to operate on the patient, who would very probably die. They knew that his acolytes would attribute his death to their medical intervention and hold them responsible for it, with all its consequences. I’ve bumped into doctors many years later who were present at the scene and they still shudder to recall it. They only speak of it in a whisper and pale at the memory alone.[732]

Given Manuel Bastos’s diagnosis, they decided not to operate, which meant letting the patient die. In the Hotel Ritz’s room fifteen, in the presence of Dr. José Santamaría, who stayed by the bed stringently ordering no one to disturb him, Buenaventura Durruti passed away at 4:00 am on November 20. It was forty years and 129 days after his birth and four months after Francisco Ascaso’s death. The demise of these two men marked the end of one of the most agitated chapters in the history of proletarian struggle. Durruti had lived a good deal of his life underground and his trajectory had always been controversial. He was necessarily an enemy and a bandit for the bourgeoisie. But, for revolutionaries, Durruti was a uniquely gifted man who devoted himself body and soul to the cause. And his death, for either group, had to be exceptional. The fate of those falling daily in the struggle against Madrid’s invaders was simply inadequate for Durruti. The collective imagination began, even before he expired, to turn his death into something extraordinary.

After leaving the site where Durruti was wounded, Antonio Bonilla, Lorente, and Miguel Doga went to the Column’s Headquarters on Miguel Angel Street:

Manzana received me. I asked him where Durruti was and he told me that he had gone to a National Committee meeting. I told him that was a lie, that the CNT National Committee wasn’t in Madrid. The color of his face changed and he told me that he was in the Column for Durruti, and for all of us, and that he would quit if we lost trust in him. “You’ve lied to me,” I told him, “and I hold you responsible for that. I insist that you tell me everything at another time.” I had to return with the people I was with. Comrade Mora arrived on a motorcycle at 5:00 am the next day and told me that Durruti had died.[733]

Cipriano Mera writes:

Although Durruti was an hour late [it was 4:00 pm on November 19], his delay didn’t surprise us because we knew how busy he was, that he needed to be everywhere at once. Manzana came a little later and pulled me aside to speak with me privately. I could see that he was extremely upset and I hastened to ask him: “What’s happening, Manzana?”

Almost in tears, he replied: “They just shot comrade Durruti and it looks like there’s no hope for him.”

“What? What the hell are you saying? I was with him just hours ago and he told me that he was going to his command post to put things in order.” “Yes, but around 4:00 in the afternoon [the hour is incorrect] a messenger told us that the Captain in charge of the two companies sent to the Hospital Clínico had ordered his troops to withdraw. You know how Durruti is with these things. He summoned the car and we took off for the Clínico to see if the messenger’s report was true. I told him that he didn’t really need to be there to confirm the facts. It wasn’t that I thought something might happen, but simply felt that he should stay in the command post and lead the men more calmly from there.”

“OK, OK, but what happened?”

“We reached the end of the avenue and, without stopping, entered through a street that goes to the eastern part of the Clínico. Durruti made us stop the car when he saw a militiaman running in our direction. He got out and asked him why he was running. The militiaman said that he was going to the health post, to get them to send some stretchers, because several men were injured and one had been killed. Durruti let him continue on his way. As he entered the car, whose door opened toward the Clínico, he told us that they had shot him.”

“Who was with you?”

“It was Durruti, his two messengers, Yoldi, and I.”

“Do you think the shot came from the Clínico and that our forces had already abandoned it?”

“Yes, there’s no doubt that it was enemy fire.”

Comrade Manzana told me that it was extremely important to keep quiet about what had happened, since Durruti’s men, after so many scares, might think that he had been assassinated by other anti-fascists. We agreed to this, but I told Manzana that we had to tell Val. He concurred and we entered his office to communicate the terrible news....

Manzana and I went to the Hotel Ritz immediately afterwards.... They were taking Durruti out of surgery on a stretcher when we arrived. They brought him up to an isolated room on the main floor.... He opened his eyes as they put him in a bed and stared at us silently. I was moved and kissed him on the forehead. I then left the room with Manzana, to whom I said: “We’ve lost our comrade Durruti.” ...

Val suggested that I go to Valencia right away to tell the CNT National Committee what had happened and personally inform comrades Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez [who had recently become CNT General Secretary after Horacio M. Prieto was sanctioned for leaving Madrid], García Oliver, and Federica Montseny. I resisted, saying that perhaps the doctor was wrong and there was no need to alarm the other comrades. I didn’t convince anyone: they were all certain that Durruti’s fate was sealed. We again spoke about the circumstances of the deplorable event. Val voiced his suspicions when he asked Manzana:

“Was this an act of Communist treachery?”

“No,” Manzana responded categorically, “the shot came from the Clínico. It was bad luck. The hospital was in enemy hands.”

We talked some more and then said goodbye. I left for Valencia at once. [734]

During the hours that transpired between Bastos Ansart’s terminal diagnosis and the moment of his death, Durruti received massive doses of morphine to counteract the pain. This left him in a state of semi-consciousness, interrupted by brief moments of lucidity. He died at 4:00 in the morning on November 20.

Doctor Santamaría conducted the autopsy in the hospital and confirmed the damage caused by the 9 caliber long bullet. The projectile had entered the thorax under the left nipple near the armpit. His autopsy stated:

Durruti had a very developed chest. Given the topography of the thorax, I realized that the diagnosis that surgery was impossible had been mistaken. An operation could have produced positive results, although doubtlessly the patient would not have survived.[735]

When the autopsy was completed, Durruti’s body was delivered to the city of Madrid’s specialized services for embalmment. They had decided to transfer his corpse to Barcelona for burial.

There are more contradictions enveloping Durruti’s last moments than any other period of his life. Each of three eyewitnesses gives a different version of the events, introducing or omitting various details. That is why Durruti’s death, which should presumably have been a relatively straightforward matter, has become a mystery. Manzana contradicts Julio Graves when he affirms that there were three more in the car in addition to the three passengers that we already know of: two unknowns (the messengers) and Miguel Yoldi. But Graves was categorical: he and Manzana were the only witnesses. The recent declaration from Antonio Bonilla that we have used (thereby correcting the French edition of this book) allows us to discard him as an occupant of the vehicle. However, neither Manzana nor Graves mentions that Bonilla was the person who informed Durruti about the developments at the Hospital Clínico.

The two doctors also contradict one another. José Santamaría declares that Durruti’s wound was “caused by a bullet fired less than fifty centimeters from the victim, probably around thirty-five, a calculation deduced from the intensity of the gunpowder stains on the garment that he was wearing.” [736]

Manuel Bastos Ansart, who gave the definitive (and wrong, according to Santamaría) diagnosis says the “bullet had horizontally crossed the upper abdomen and injured crucial internal organs.” More concretely, expanding on his statement, he writes: “the large caliber bullet (surely 9 caliber long) grazed the colon, destroyed the spleen, perforated the diaphragm, and damaged a lung, where it remained lodged.”[737] Doctor Bastos does not note that the bullet could have been fired from a short distance or any discoloration that a close-range shot would leave around the entry hole.

In addition to these contradictions, there was the absurd decision, apparently made by Manzana, to keep Durruti’s injury a secret and to advance the theory of a bullet fired from the Hospital Clínico: at a distance of one thousand meters, it is impossible that a 9 caliber long bullet could have caused the damage evident in Durruti’s body. What prompted Manzana to falsify the facts? Eduardo Val was the only significant CNT leader in Madrid at that time and Mera states that he found out from Manzana. Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez, García Oliver, Federica Montseny, and other “established” militants were not in the capital and thus had to accept the explanations given to them by Manzana, Graves, and others.

As a result of all this, even before Durruti’s funeral, while he still lay dying, the issue had become a huge problem for those directly or indirectly linked to the fatally wounded revolutionary. Durruti’s comrades, inspired by his exemplary revolutionary life, continued to defend Madrid resolutely. And these men—his comrades from so many battles—knew that the revolution had begun to retreat and that the loss of Durruti would only accelerate the process. Any attempt to explain Durruti’s death—especially as an accident—smelled of assassination and an assassination could only have come from the Stalinists. If we mix all these elements together, we end up with a “conspiracy of fear.” Manzana and Graves (and those around them) were afraid. The doctors were frightened when they found an injured Durruti in their hands: they trembled at the thought of operating because the militiamen would hold them responsible if he died. Doctor Bastos’s diagnosis saved all of them and they let Durruti’s life fade away in the twelve hours of agony that he had left. That fear is apparent in Santamaría’s statement above, in which he says that they were wrong not to operate but that Durruti wouldn’t have lived in any case. What is he trying to say with this? If an operation was possible, that means that there was a chance that he might survive. They did not exploit that possibility and thus condemned Durruti to death by internal hemorrhage.

Durruti, the anti-hero, had become a hero. Ultimately, Durruti the hero killed Durruti the man.