FIRST CHAPTER. The first versions

CIPRIANO MERA (NOVEMBER 18)

Manzana asked me to go up to one of the flat roofs of the so-called Cerro del Pimiento, where we saw that the Hospital Clínico was indeed in enemy hands. To retake it, given the positions, we would have to capture the whole block in front of the hospital house-by-house. We went up to Canalillo, so our people could seize the cemetery in front of the reservoir of the Isabel II Canal, the nuns’ convent, the Guzmán el Bueno Civil Guard barracks, the Geography and Cadastral Institute, the Red Cross Hospital, and the whole colony of little houses north of the Metropolitan Stadium.[748]

ANTONIO BONILLA (NOVEMBER 19)

To defend the area, the survivors of the Durruti Column took positions in cottages near Pablo Iglesias, some 400 meters from the Hospital Clínico, whose building in construction was under the control of Franco’s forces. On November 18, the Del Rosal Column from Asturias came to help us and one of its members, a dynamiters’ captain, pointed out to me that the enemy left the building under construction nightly and then returned at dawn. He proposed that we take it that night.... We fired a volley at the building at 4:00 am, and, since no one responded, a large group of comrades occupied it. They shouted from the balcony, asking me if I could hear them sing The International.

There was a dramatic encounter several hours later. The nationalists returned to the building through a tunnel connected to the Casa de Velázquez,[749] as they had every morning. The two sides were face-to-face. There was shooting and more deaths among Durruti’s men. The survivors sought refuge on the upper floors. Franco’s forces eventually withdrew through the tunnel and the men from the Durruti Column returned to the cottages.

I decided to speak with Durruti at 1:00 pm to tell him what had happened. Lorente was driving the car and a very admirable Catalan carpenter named Miguel Doga came with me. When we arrived at the barracks, we saw that Durruti’s Packard was running and that he was getting ready to leave with Manzana. I explained to him what had occurred and he decided to go see it personally. I told Julio Graves to follow our car in order to avoid passing through areas where there was fighting. He did this. Manzana, as was customary, wore his submachine-gun on his shoulder and had a scarf hanging around his neck, upon which he rested his right hand at times, because his finger had been injured several weeks earlier. Durruti appeared unarmed, but as usual carried a Colt 45 under his leather jacket. They followed us until we reached the houses occupied by our reduced forces. They stopped their car, and we stopped ours about twenty meters ahead.

Durruti got out to say something to some militiamen sunning themselves behind a wall. There was no fighting in the area. Durruti was fatally wounded right there and the Spanish revolution suffered the hardest and most unimaginable setback...

We were in the other car, some twenty meters ahead, and had been stopped for three or four minutes. When Durruti was getting into the car, we put our car in gear. When we looked back to see if they were following us, we saw the Packard turning and pulling out at a high rate of speed. I got out of the car and asked the boys what had happened. They told me that someone had been injured. I asked them if they knew the name of the man who had spoken with them and they said no. I told Lorente that we should return immediately. It was 2:30 in the afternoon.

This is what Bonilla said to Pedro Costa Muste. [750] When we spoke with Bonilla and asked him if he had heard a shot, he said no. We also asked him how many people were in Durruti’s car and who his guards were. He replied that only Manzana and the driver left the barracks with Durruti, that Durruti and Manzana sat in the backseat, and that Durruti did not have any “official guard,” but that if someone was accompanying him “it was whoever happened to be around him at the moment.” When we asked Bonilla if he knew a person named Ramón García (“Ragar,” according to Montoto), [751] he answered: “There were two militiamen in the Durruti Column with that name, but neither frequented the Column’s Headquarters and certainly wouldn’t have been one of Durruti’s ‘guards.’ Besides, I don’t recall having seen either in Madrid.” [752] There is nothing in what we’ve transcribed here that provides any compelling evidence explaining exactly how Durruti was killed. In Bonilla’s account, there is only the suggestion of the possibility of a shot from José Manzana’s machine-gun.

JULIO GRAVES (DECLARATION TO ARIEL AT 5:00 PM)

After eating, we headed for the University City, along with comrade Manzana. [753] We went up to Cuatro Caminos and from there down along Pablo Iglesias Avenue at a high speed. We passed through the colony of small houses at the end of this avenue and turned rightward. Durruti’s forces had changed locations, after the losses they’d suffered in the Moncloa and at the walls of the Modelo prison. An autumn sunlight filled the afternoon. When we reached the wide road, we saw a group of militiamen coming in our direction. Durruti thought that they were some boys deserting the front. There was heavy fighting there. The Hospital Clínico, taken by the Moors at the time, towered above the surroundings. Durruti made me stop the car, which I did, at the corner of one of those small houses for protection. Durruti got out and approached the fleeing militiamen. He asked them where they were going and, since they didn’t know what to say, he forcefully convinced them to return to their posts.

“Once the boys obeyed him,” Comrade Graves continues, “Durruti came back toward the car. Bullets were raining down with increasing intensity. The Moors and Civil Guard were shooting with greater determination from the gigantic colored Hospital Clínico building. Durruti collapsed when he reached the car door. A bullet had pierced his chest. Manzana and I jumped out of the vehicle and hurried to put him inside. I turned the auto and, driving as fast as I could, headed for the Catalan militia hospital in Madrid, where we had been a little bit ago. The rest you already know. That’s all.”[754]

Joan Llarch makes an error when he discusses Julio Graves’ testimony in La muerte de Durruti and thus leaves a question in the air. Llarch believes that Durruti and his companions went to the Militias Hospital in the Hotel Ritz after leaving Miguel Angel Street but before going to the University City. This is false. Julio Graves’s comment is unambiguous: “[I] headed for the Catalan militia hospital in Madrid, where we [Ariel and Graves] had been a little bit ago.” Graves left the injured Durruti in the hands of the doctors and then went to see Ariel’s brother at the CNT’s National Sub-Committee building on Reforma Agraria Street, where the Soli correspondent had occupied a secretary’s office. Graves went there at 5:00 pm. And it was there where that he told Ariel the news:

“What’s happening?” I asked, full of concern.

“Durruti’s been seriously wounded,” one of them told me, “and might be dead already.”

“But it isn’t a good idea to disclose the news,” comrade Julio Graves said.

It was 5:00 in the afternoon. The three of us went to the Hotel Ritz, where the hospital of the Catalan Militias was.

Very few knew about Durruti’s dire condition at the time.

Ariel narrates the trip that he, Julio Graves, and his brother made to the Hotel Ritz. He also describes his conversation with Doctor Santamaría.

I said goodbye to them, after saying that I’d return shortly. I went to the CNT National Sub-Committee to report the news. Some information had already arrived there. There was talk of keeping quiet, of discretion. I didn’t dare call Barcelona until later. Madrid’s defense demanded that and much more if necessary. We had to wait for the release of the decisions made by the CNT militants, who were meeting at the time.[755]

Durruti’s driver and I went to the Soli building, where we could speak more calmly.

It is logical that Julio Graves concluded his statement to Ariel with the phrase “where we had been a little bit ago,” given that both he and Ariel were coming from the Hotel Ritz.

CIPRIANO MERA

I went to the Defense Committee on the afternoon of November 19....

We [he and Val] continued our chat, while waiting for Durruti to arrive.... [H]is 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....

Cipriano Mera describes their trip to the hospital. There, Mera, Manzana, and Yoldi again discussed the need to keep the news secret to prevent the Durruti Column’s men from doing something rash. Mera writes that Val, who had just come to the hospital, urged him to go to Valencia to communicate the news to Mariano R. Vázquez, the CNT General Secretary, and Ministers García Oliver and Federica Montseny:

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.” ... I left for Valencia at once.[756]

There are several flaws in Cipriano Mera’s account. The time of Manzana’s arrival at the Defense Committee is confused with the time of Durruti’s injury. Manzana arrived at 4:00 pm and Durruti was not wounded then. Mera did not go to Valencia because of Val’s insistence, but at the request of the CNT militants who were meeting.

Manzana’s and Julio Graves’s accounts are incompatible, in essence and detail. They differ about the militiamen. Also, Manzana says that Yoldi and two messengers were present, whereas Julio Graves states that only he and Manzana were there. Graves is closer to the truth than Manzana.

Nevertheless, it is comprehensible that Mera makes this error, given that Yoldi and Durruti were together so frequently.

Despite all these mistakes and contradictions, all agree that it was necessary to keep silent. Only a small number of people knew about what had occurred until 5:00 pm on November 19.

R. DIKNANIE KARMEN

Karmen was a Russian cameraman who traveled with Ilya Ehrenburg, the journalist from Izvestia. In 1947, he published his notebook from the Spain in Moscow’s Novy Mir. In one entry, he recounts his last meeting with Durruti, which supposedly occurred shortly before his death. He writes that he bumped into Hajji (alias “Santi”) in the Ministry of War. Hajji, he claims, was getting ready to visit Durruti to try to convince him not to withdraw his men from Madrid. Karmen decided to go along, since he also wanted to speak with Durruti, whom he hadn’t seen since he and Ehrenburg were in Bujaraloz in August.

They found Durruti in the palace on Miguel Angel Street:

We entered his office, where Durruti was dictating something to a typist. He got up immediately when he saw us and rushed to greet Hajji, shaking his hand at length, as if fearing that he would never see him again. His black eyes, which had always been bright and shiny, now suggested a certain sadness. A few days ago Hajji had been added to Durruti’s General Staff as an adviser and Durruti couldn’t go very far without him.

According to Karmen, Durruti made them walk through the palace, telling them to take whatever they fancied, paintings or anything else, but all “with the intention of dodging any explanation of his decision to withdraw his men from the front.”

Hajji took him by the arm and sat him down on a velvet couch. Durruti docilely lowered his gaze.

Hajji protested Durruti’s plan to withdraw his men from the front. Doing so, he said, would deal a serious blow to the combatants’ morale. He finally convinced Durruti to continue fighting in Madrid:

“OK, I’m going to the brigade...”

“I’ll go with you,” Hajji said.

“No, no,” Durruti replied, visibly annoyed. “I’ll go alone.” With a quick step, he went to his guard: “The car! To the brigade!”

Durruti adjusted the pistol on his belt and we all went into the street. The car and the guard were already there. Durruti’s Chief of Staff came out of the building with a bandaged arm. I asked Durruti to let me join them, because I wanted to take some photos of the front. He curtly told me: “No, no, especially not now.”

He asked his Chief of Staff: “What’s new in the sector?” and jumped in the vehicle, which took off quickly, followed by four other cars. Hajji and I returned to the headquarters of Madrid’s defense.

An hour later, I saw Hajji while walking through a corridor in the Ministry of War. He was looking out a window. I called out to him, but he didn’t respond. I shook him by the shoulders. He turned to me and I saw that his eyes were full of tears.

“What’s wrong?”

“They’ve killed Durruti. They just killed him.”

A treacherous blow from behind took Durruti’s life, in the most critical moment of his struggle against himself and the “classical” anarchists.... He was an honest man, ready to draw pertinent conclusions from everything that took place in his fatherland, but they killed him.[757]

If we take Karmen’s account seriously, we have to ask: who told Hajji that Durruti had been shot immediately after the event?

THE DOCTORS’ CONTRADICTIONS

They brought Durruti to the hospital and immediately took him to the operating room. Half a dozen doctors surrounded him, all of whom were paralyzed by fear. Since none were prepared to take the initiative, they decided to call Dr. Manuel Bastos Ansart. After seeing the patient, he declared that Durruti “was terminal ... 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.”

Dr. Bastos reported that 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.” [758]

Bastos’s diagnosis was incorrect, as we will see. Regarding the characteristics of the wound, he does not say that it was visible under the left nipple, at heart-level, as it appears in all the photographs of Durruti’s cadaver. Why this silence? We suspect that Dr. Bastos no longer recalled Durruti’s wound clearly when he wrote his book, after having operated on thousands of patients in the interim. In any case, his comments only render the case even more enigmatic, since they contradict those made by Dr. Santamaría. José Santamaría Jaume conducted the autopsy on Durruti: “I opened the thorax to inspect the damage caused by the bullet. 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.”

According to Santamaría, the injury was “caused by a bullet fired less than fifty centimeters from the victim, probably around thirty-five, a calculation deduced by the intensity of the gunpowder stains on the garment that he was wearing.” With regard to the bullet, it was “surely 9 caliber long.” And “the injury was under the left nipple, in the thorax.” [759] Santamaría’s localization of the injury is not consistent with Bastos’ description, and thus one must conclude that they were either discussing different wounds or simply expressed themselves in different terms. We must also point out that we cannot understand Santamaría’s assertion that “an operation could have produced positive results, although doubtlessly the patient would not have survived.” If the patient died, the operation would not have been positive. And if the operation could have had positive results, that implies that there was a significant chance of survival. Santamaría’s emphasis on its possible negative consequences seems best understood in terms of the panic reigning among the doctors (and that Dr. Bastos alluded to).

To summarize, what we have thus far is a series of contradictions that do not clarify the circumstances of Durruti’s injury. Instead, they lay the foundations for the legend that immediately formed around his death and ensure that his demise will always remain a mystery.

The CNT National Committee ordered Ricardo Sanz, another Nosotros group member, to replace Durruti in Madrid. He was in Figueras at noon on November 20 when García Oliver instructed him to go to the capital. He set off at dawn the next day and bumped into the caravan taking Durruti’s body to Barcelona at the San Miguel de los Reyes prison in Valencia. According to Sanz, he spoke with Manzana and Miguel Yoldi, who were representing the Column in that procession. Sanz does not say what they told him. He continued the trip to Madrid, which he reached at sunset.

There was great disorder everywhere. No one could believe that Durruti was dead.

Everyone thought he couldn’t die. Anything but that could happen....

“The communists murdered him,” some said. “They shot him from a balcony,” others added. “Only his enemies could have killed him,” all agreed. Talk like that showed that no one thought that Durruti could have died from a bullet fired from the fascist trenches.

I was extremely interested in finding out how Durruti died. This preoccupied me, as is easy to understand, for several reasons.

In the first place, Durruti was a very close, life-long friend of mine. Second, as Durruti’s replacement, I needed to know exactly what had happened in order to determine how to proceed as the new leader of the unit that he had led.

Ricardo Sanz met with Dr. Santamaría and inspected the Hospital Clínico sector. He says that he took statements from those with Durruti when he was injured (but doesn’t mention any names) and concluded, after his investigation, that there was “no doubt that Durruti died fighting the enemy and from a bullet fired from the Hospital Clínico building in the University City.” He also says: “Durruti was a victim of carelessness.... The vigilant enemy saw the car stop a mere kilometer from the building and waited for its occupants to get out and become exposed. When he had them in range, he shot a burst of machine-gun fire that hit the mark. Durruti was fatally injured, and two of his companions less seriously so.... Thus it was, when there was no fighting and when no one expected it, that an entirely unanticipated attack cut short our precious Durruti’s life.” [760]

There are various problems with Ricardo Sanz’s statement, which he made in 1945. Instead of clearing up Durruti’s death, it simply makes it even more obscure.

Julio Graves and José Manzana mention one or more militiamen to explain why Durruti got out of the car. Antonio Bonilla agrees on this fact.

Sanz does not note any militiamen and writes only that it was reckless to leave the vehicle in a combat zone. Sanz also cites a burst of machine-gun fire, which neither Manzana nor Graves mention. And then Sanz contradicts Manzana, who spoke of heavy shooting, when he writes “there was no fighting.” Sanz should have been more precise in his account and also provided the names of the two men injured with Durruti.

If we give credence to Joan Llarch, Ricardo Sanz responded to a questionnaire of his, possibly in 1970, in which he identified Manzana and Yoldi as the wounded comrades (although in reality neither was injured then, but rather a few days earlier). In his new statement, Sanz admits that he did not speak with anyone in Madrid who had been with Durruti when he was shot, but says that he spoke with Manzana and Yoldi near Valencia. None of his informants had been present during the incident. Thus, Sanz’s new comments only raise more questions.

Before concluding with Sanz’s testimony, we should say a few words about the psychological state in which he found the Column members. Sanz held a meeting with the surviving members of the forces that Durruti brought to Madrid in the barracks on Granada Street. Federica Montseny was also there, trying to calm the agitated men. After Sanz and Montseny spoke, a militiaman voiced the group’s sentiments: “Comrade Sanz, don’t be surprised by our alarm. We’re convinced that it wasn’t the fascists who killed Durruti but our enemies within the Republic.... You run the same risk, since they want to eliminate all men with revolutionary ideas. Some fear that the revolution is going too far.” Sanz later commented: “Everyone who hadn’t died at Durruti’s side thought more or less the same thing.” [761]

Some Column members fulfilled their pledge to return to the Aragón front but most stayed in Madrid. A document sent to José Mira by Miguel Palacios, the Chief Commanding Officer of the X Brigade, confirms this: “Chief Commander to Comrade Mira, representative of Durruti’s forces. Given that the Polish Company must withdraw to the town of Pardo, use your reserve forces to try to cover the area it occupies along the Casa de Campo wall, after Puerta de Aravaca. Leave the rest of your force behind and consult with the Company that you have to relieve. Command Post.

December 7, 1936. Chief Commander.” The document was signed and sealed with the round stamp of the X Brigade. [762]

Most historians who discuss the battle for Madrid obscure the Durruti Column’s contribution to the resistance and also make it disappear from the conflict after Durruti’s death. We hope that the above text will inspire the authors in question to correct their writings.

Solidaridad Obrera dedicated the front page of its November 21 issue to Durruti’s death. Its version of events also does nothing to illuminate the matter:

Our comrade went to visit his Column’s advance positions around 8:30 in the morning. On the way, he ran into some militiamen who were returning from the front. He stopped the car and a shot rang out as he emerged, which we believe was fired from a window of a house near the Moncloa. Durruti collapsed without saying a word. The assassin’s bullet penetrated his back. The injury was fatal.

Who could have provided that information to Solidaridad Obrera? Clearly Ariel wouldn’t have done so, given his statements. Could this version be a fantasy of the newspaper’s editor, Jacinto Toryho?

The first public commentaries appeared on November 23, the day after Durruti’s funeral. The fascists broadcast this on Radio Sevilla: “Durruti was killed by those he annoyed while alive, because he was a threat to their political ambitions.” They added: “What happened to Durruti will happen to many of his friends.”

Moscow’s Izvestia published this on the same day: “To a great extent, the Popular Front government was formed because of pressure from Durruti. After the terrible experiences of the fight against fascism, Durruti underwent an evolution that brought him closer to the Communist Party. When he left the Aragón front for Madrid, he declared: ‘Yes, I feel like a Bolshevik and I’m inclined to put Stalin’s portrait on my desk.’” [763]

The following rumor was circulating through Madrid at the time: “Durruti, convinced of the efficacy of the Communist Party, had renounced anarchism and joined the Communists, on the condition that his membership be kept secret until the opportune moment.” [764]

In response to these stories, the CNT and FAI released a joint communiqué:

Workers! The ambushers of the “fifth column” have circulated the false and despicable rumor that our comrade Durruti was murdered in an act of treason. We urge all comrades to reject that terrible slander. It is a vile attempt to break the proletariat’s formidable unity of action and thought, which is its most effective weapon against fascism. Comrades! Durruti was not the victim of treachery. He fell in the struggle like so many other freedom fighters. He fell like heroes fall: while fulfilling his duty. Dismiss all the rotten lies circulated by the fascists to undermine our unity. Disregard them completely. Don’t listen to those who sow fratricidal myths. They are the greatest enemies of the revolution! CNT National Committee. Peninsular Committee of the FAI.[765]

This document explains nothing about Durruti’s death, but it underscores that he died while confronting the enemy, whatever the exact circumstances of the event. The CNT and anarchist committees conducted an in-depth investigation of his death, although they have never revealed its results. This suggests that their main concern was maintaining the anti-fascist front at all costs. However, the CNT and FAI’s allies were not as generous. Some, particularly the CP, not only spread falsehoods about Durruti’s demise but also hastened to fill the void he left with Kleber. General Vicente Rojo denounced this in a November 26 letter to General Miaja:

The press is making a patently exaggerated and false attempt to exalt this General [Kleber].... And his leadership qualities aren’t real, if only because they depend on his artificial popularity.... It seems that [Kleber] is the military idol of some of our political parties ... who are presenting him as the caudillo capable of leading the revolution to a happy ending.... As always, this is extraordinarily harmful, because it foments the leaderism that has caused so much damage to our homeland. It’s even worse if the person that they’re trying to elevate doesn’t really have the ability to lead. [766]