Durruti in the Spanish Revolution

Notes
Translator’s note: The Civil Guard was a paramilitary police force created in 1844 to patrol rural areas. Translator’s note: Alfonso XIII (1885–1941) was born in 1886, six months after the death of his father, Alfonso II. He assumed the throne in 1902 at age 16. The present King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, is his grandson. Translator’s note: The Mesta was an “association of Spanish sheep farmers, formed to regulate sheep raising and to prevent cultivation of pastureland. Its date of origin is uncertain, but by 1273 Alfonso X of Castile formally recognized its long-established privileges, which were confirmed and extended by his successors. The Mesta gradually escaped local jurisdiction and came under direct supervision of the crown. It prospered, especially in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, by exporting wool from its highly prized Merino sheep. The Mesta yielded large revenues to the crown, but its... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Appendix : The Jigsaw Puzzle of the Search for Durruti’s Body
APPENDIX. The jigsaw puzzle of the search for Durruti’s body When Antonio de Senillosa was a deputy for the Democratic Coalition, he submitted a motion in Congress to compel the government to give documents seized in Catalonia during the civil war to the Generalitat. At the time, the San Ambrosio Archive in Salamanca held these important historical resources. The Minister of Culture supported the motion and said the following: “I’m in a position to promise that this slice of Catalonia’s history will be housed in Catalonia shortly.” Today, fifteen years later, the archival material has been recovered. However, the history of Durruti and Ascaso’s lives is not only in the archives, but also scattered throughout Spain. Among other places, it is in Barcelona’s South-East Cemetery. ERASING HISTORY We will begin by identifying questions that must be asked to Barcelona’s city councilors and Mayor P... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 5 : Conclusion
CHAPTER V. Conclusion Today, with the Red Army captive and disarmed, National troops have achieved their final military objectives. THE WAR HAS ENDED. Burgos, April 1, 1939. Year of the Victory. (Final war report of the National Army) Time was passing. The French and international proletariat did not rise up and Spanish revolutionaries lost their first battle. General Franco’s forces imposed the “white peace of the cemeteries” described by Georges Bernanos. More than 250,000 executed, 500,000 exiled in France, and a million dead or disappeared—that was the tragic balance of the military adventure initiated in Morocco on July 17, 1936. And Spain, the so-called “red” Spain that Socialist León Blum and Bolshevik Stalin abandoned to its fate, entered the tragic night of fascist domination that would last for nearly forty years. The... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 4 : Durruti’s second Death, or his Political Assassination
CHAPTER IV. Durruti’s second death, or his political assassination There is no legitimate hypothesis about Durruti’s death that could diminish him or the organization to which he gave the best years of his life. The controversy over his death is not a consequence of his death per se, but rather the nature of the struggle in which the Spanish working people were engaged at the time and Durruti’s revolutionary role within it: specifically, the battle between the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary forces that began in late September of 1936. In the context of a revolution in retreat, Durruti evoked the possibility of a return to and renewal of the journey initiated on July 19, 1936. He was a beacon of hope whose presence suggested that not everything was lost and that peasants and workers, if they continued to fight, could truly re-conquer Spain. His death was a terrible blow to the revolutionaries. Indeed, there were already ominous signs on... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Part 4, Chapter 3 : Contradictions and Fabrications in the Presented Versions
CHAPTER III. Contradictions and fabrications in the presented versions None of the above attempts to resolve the mystery of Durruti’s death are credible enough to be accepted as the “last word” on the topic. There are simple too many contradictions, omissions, or other inadequacies. While each account may have some positive element and perhaps all of those elements, taken together, could produce a narrative of Durruti’s death that is more consistent with the truth, that would involve pure speculation, which is hardly appropriate in historical research. The Stalinist version first surfaced in Izvestia; it was reinforced by the journalist from London’s Times Literary Supplement, and was finally embraced by historian Federico Bravo Morata. It was the latter who wrote that Durruti “joined the Communists, on the condition that his membership be kept secret until the opportune moment.” The Stalinist... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Toward the “Popular Front”
CHAPTER XXV. Toward the “Popular Front” The time that Durruti spent going in and out of jail did not undermine his optimism or change the direction of his thought, but such prolonged “isolations” were hard on the CNT and FAI. The organizations suffered while some of its most valuable militants wasted away in prison. Durruti would start devouring magazines and newspapers as soon as he left prison, until a new incarceration again disrupted his access to information and ability to following the thread of events. It was only his intuitive capacity to grasp issues and developments that saved him. His last conversation with Ascaso before his arrest revolved around what looked like the Socialist Party’s new strategy o... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Anarcho-Communist Union and the Poincaré Government
CHAPTER XVII. The Anarcho-Communist Union and the Poincaré government Louis Lecoin set out to do nothing less than crush French Prime Minister Raymond Poincaré’s foreign policy. Louis Barthou—a faithful servant of the bourgeoisie—was the Minister of Justice—and the veteran socialist Aristides Briand occupied the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The government called itself the “leftwing block” and had won the elections on May 4, 1924 under that name (against the “rightwing block”). The Socialists were well represented in the National Assembly, which had the Radical-Socialist Édouard Herriot as president. However, this leftwing government executed the policies of the right, bot... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

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, 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 ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

Stalin’s Shadow over Spain
CHAPTER XVI. Stalin’s shadow over Spain A rebel offensive against the area occupied by the Durruti Column coincided with the Bujaraloz assembly and the Sariñena military conference. Fascist Lieutenant Colonel Urrutia led a large force made up of infantry battalion number 19, three armored car companies, the “Tercio of the Pillar,” three machine-gunner companies from the Gerona Regiment, machine-gunners fighting under the “Palafox” flag, five Falange companies, two squadrons, and two batteries. There were approximately 4,500 men, as well as air support. On October 4, he attacked to the north of Osera and Villafranca. On October 8, he launched another assault in the direction of Farlete and got within thre... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The International Anarchist Defense Committee
CHAPTER XVI. The International Anarchist Defense Committee Parisian Anarchists first campaigned to save Sacco and Vanzetti through the International Anarchist Defense Committee (IADC) and latter through the Freedom for Sacco and Vanzetti Committee. This permitted the IADC to retain a broader focus. There was an unmistakable need for the IADC, given the oppression of anarchists in Russia under the Bolsheviks, in Italy under Mussolini, and in Spain under Primo de Rivera. They defended Sacco and Vanzetti as victims of North American capitalism imprisoned because of their revolutionary activism among Italian exiles in the United States. Of course the American legal system tried to conceal its function as a tool of the ruling class and thus obsc... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)