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.)

The Asturian Commune
CHAPTER XXII. The Asturian Commune Gil Robles was undoubtedly the shrewdest of Spain’s reactionaries. He understood that the country’s problem was social not political and that while the CNT had been unable to unleash a revolution, it had maintained a state of pre-revolutionary ferment that was so dynamic that one could break out at any time. Gil Robles’s political strategy rested on interrupting that process, which is exactly what he did on October 5 by forcing the Socialist Party to either accept the CEDA ministry or rise up. His cleverness lay in his ability to know precisely when he could provoke an uprising without jeopardizing the privileges of the ruling classes. What made Gil Robles so confident that he would risk ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The CNT Judges Durruti
CHAPTER XXVI. The CNT judges Durruti The “straperlo” affair was what brought down the Radical Party in the summer of 1935. “Straperlo” was a game of roulette designed to ensure that the house always won. Its inventor, a Dutchman named Daniel Strauss, had bribed various government officials to obtain permission for the game’s use in San Sebastián’s Gran Casino. However, the government received complaints and was forced to withdraw its authorization. The Dutchman had paid dearly for the permission and asked for compensation from his accomplices. He obtained nothing and, feeling deceived, publicly denounced how he had been treated and revealed the names of the culpable government men. Leading figures ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

October 6 in Barcelona: Against Whom?
CHAPTER XXI. October 6 in Barcelona: against whom? The Socialist Party feared that CEDA leader Gil Robles would try to install fascism in Spain. Paradoxically, those protesting the fascist threat in September had been inactive on December 8, 1933 when CNT workers rose up in arms to confront that very danger and were massacred as a result. That would have been a good time to intervene, but the good Republicans and legalistic Socialists preferred to stay in the comfort of their homes, hoping that the CNT would do their dirty work for them or disintegrate in the process. Instead of supporting the CNT revolutionaries when the time was right, the more extreme Socialist leaders undertook an adventure of their own nearly one year later. Its goals ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The Murder of Fermín Galán
CHAPTER XXIII. The Murder of Fermín Galán The CNT would soon become the country’s most important proletarian organization, thanks to the dramatic reorganization of its unions, the impact of its rallies on the workers, and the widespread distribution of publications. The renewal of the anarcho-syndicalist movement began not only to fill the monarchy’s ruling classes with fear, but also the politicians conspiring against it. For their part, the exiles in France and Belgium were brimming with excitement, thinking that the hardships of the past were justified by the new turn of events. It was harvest time and the harvest looked good. Indeed, many of these refugees were so excited by the developments in Spain that they ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)

The First Versions
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. ANTONIO BONILLA (NOVEMBER 19) To defend the area, the survivors of the Durruti Column ... (From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)