The revolutionary message of the Friends of Durruti

8/14/2019 The revolutionary message of the Friends of Durruti

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In th e first par t of his study, the a uth ortraces with precision the degeneration,the successive capitulations of the an ar-chist leaders of the CNT-FAI. However,perhaps he does no t pene t ra te to thehea rt of the problem with su fficient con-viction. To be precise, was t ra ditional a n-archism, idealistic and prone t o splits, notdestined to fail as soon as it found itself confronted by an implacable social str ug-gle, for which it was n ot in the least wayprepared?

Because it was not mainly infidelity toprinciples, human weakness, inexperi-ence or na ivety among the leader s, whichled them astr ay, but rat her it was a con-genital incapacity to evade the traps of the r ulers(which th ey put up with sincethey weren 't able to write th em off witha st roke of a pen ). As a consequ ence th eywere dest ined to get bogged down inministerialism, to ta ke shelter under th etr eacher ous wing of 'an tifascist' bour geoisdemocracy and finally to let themselvesbe dragged along by the stalinist coun-ter-revolution.

On the other hand, they were damnedwell prepa red for economic self-man age-ment of agriculture, and to a lesser ex-tent , industr y. These, together with lib-

erta rian collectivisation rema in a modelfor futu re revolution an d saved th e hon-our of ana rchism. One might express re-

g r e t t h a t F o n t e n is 'study is only able tosk im the sur face of this glorious episodeof th e Span ish revolu-tion. He would surelybe justified in r etort-ing that it is no lessabsent from the writings which he an aly-ses.

The mer it of these t exts lies elsewhere,in th e political doma in. They reveal anunjustifiably obscure aspect of the Ibe-r ian l ibertar ian avant-garde, the brief rise of the 'Friends of Durr ut i ', nam ed inmemory of the legendary Durruti, whofell on t he front on th e 20th of November1936. They emerged from the lessonsdrawn , a little late, from t he cruel defeatof May 1937 in Barcelona. Just as inFra nce Babouvism was th e delayed fruitof th e severe repr essions of germin al an dpra iria l[*1] 1795, th e lucidity of th ese lib-erta rian commu nists was inspired by thetra gedy of May in Cata lonia.

Throughout the few ed i t ions o f the i rshort -lived paper, 'The friend of the peo-ple' which Fontenis ha s passionatly scru-tinised and tr anslat ed, we see these mili-tan ts refusing, as was advocated by th e

reformist anarchists as much as by thestalinists, to wait un til the war ha s beenwon to carry out the revolution and af-

firming that one couldn't be dissociatedfrom th e other. They proclaim th at it ispossible to batt le against t he fascist en-emy without in th e least renoun cing lib-ertarian ideals. They denounce the as-phyxiation engendered by the machineryof sta te. And finally they affirm th at with-out a revolutionnary theory, revolutionscannot come from below, and that therevolution of 19 J uly 1936 failed for wa nt

of a pr ogram d erived from such a t heory.Georges Fontenis, in his efforts to real-ise such a l ibertar ion communist pro-gram, wrote this in 1954 in France andupdated it in July 1971 at Marseille atthe constitu itive congress of the Organi-sat ion Communiste Libertaire (OCL),which I t ook pa rt in. I will finish by speci-fying th at , today, I find m yself at his sidesin the UTCL (Union des TraivailleursCommunistes Liberataires), which setsitself in the t radition bequeath ed by th efirst intern ational, that is to say ant i-au -thori tar ian.

Preface to the 1st edi t ion (1983) by Danie l Guerin

George Fon ten i s ' s t udy s eem s use fu l t o me , i ndeed Iwo uld go so far as to say i t i s va luable , not only as i tt e a c h e s a b e t t e r u n d e r s t a n d i n g o f t h e S p a n i s hR e v o l u t i o n o f 1 9 3 6 - 7 b u t i t a l s o p r o v i d e s a m o r eex t ens ive i n t e rp re t a ti on o f t he no t ion o f l i be r t a ri ancommuni sm i t s e l f.

When using th is phrase ' liberta rian commun ism' it is certa inlyworthwhile to clearly distinguish it from two other versionswhich are endowed with the same name. To be specific; firstlythe utopia, propagated by Kropotkin an d his disciples, of a t er-

restrial paradise without m oney where, thanks to the a bundan ceof resour ces, each a nd every per son would be able to dra w freelyfrom the stockpile. Secondly the infantile idyll of a jumble of 'free commu nes', at t he hea rt of the Spa nish CNT before 1936,which a rose from th e th inking of Isaac Pu ente. This soft dr eamleft Span ish a na rcho-syndicalism extrem ely ill-prepar ed for th eha rsh rea lities of revolution an d civil war on the eve of Fr an co'sputsch. Fontenis, although he does highlight certain positiveaspe cts of th e congres s of Sar agossa of 1936, seems t o me to erron th e side of those who appea r r emoved from rea lity.

A PDF booklet from the Struggle site www.struggle.ws

The revolutionary messageof the 'Friends of Durruti'English translation 1999/2000 by Chekov Feeney from the French text and translations by George Fontenis. This PDF version May 2003

[*1] 7th and 8th months of the Frence revolutioncalender. March 22 - April 20 & April 21 - May


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INTRODUCTION

Barcelona, May 1937. The first issue of 'The People's Friend', the organ of theFriends of Durr uti, app eared. The policerepression of the Republican state had

just crashed against the fighters of thebar r icades who had responded to thestal inis t provocat ions by retaking ther o a d o f r e v o l u t i o n . B u t w h i l e t h ecombat tan ts of the r evolution were tak -ing th e fight to th e forces of repr ession of the Cata lan General itat and of the cen-tral state, the anarchist ' leaders' of theCNT-FAI, having become m inisters of thebourgeois governm ent, asked th e victorsof th e barricades to lay down th eir arm s,to have faith in their ' leaders' to settlethe conflict and t o reun ite the a nt i-Fra ncoforces. The resu lt wasn 't long in coming:th ousand s of th e barr icade fighter s foundthem selves in prison, and t he censorshipof the press became more brutal thanever. The first issu e of 'Frien d of th e Peo-ple' was ferociously censored. But a t las ti t appeared and went on to t ry to be therallying point for all those who, whilestru ggling against Fr anco, didn't want t oforget the tasks of the revolution. Pre-cisely those tasks which gave meaningto the war against t he mil itary a nd th eirallies.

The 'Friends of Durr uti ' , and m ore gen-erally the Spanish libertarian workers,were to fail. Why? an d wha t r eally wastheir bat t le?

After almost half a century since theseevents, nothing of substance has yet a p-peared in response to these questions.The leaders of the 'off icial ' anarchistmovement, still preoccuppied with hid-

ing the weaknesses and t he inconsisten-cies, blurr ing th e responsibility, avoidingthe fundamental theoret ical problems,avoid discussion or are satisfied with a

few reluctant confessions and regrets.But we st ill await a profound au to-criti-cism, a rigorous analysis of the events.Everything ha s been done to extinguishthe m ost radical critiques, in part icularthose of th e 'Friends of Durr uti ' , and t otry to write them out of history.

However they, the 'Friends of Durruti ' ,have supplied more than an outl ine of such a vigorous a na lysis an d th ey did itin the h eart of the ba ttle itself.

This is why it seems to us to be indispen-sable to publish their pr incipal writings,

still unpublished in France. To contrib-ut e to the d ebate which we wish to clar ify,we add here a brief study of the evolu-tion of the liberta rian movement an d of t h e S p a n i s h r e v o l u t i o n a n d a l s o ,neccessarily, the commen tar ies tha t th etexts and the facts inspire in the com-rades wh o pursue t he str uggle for liber-tar ian commu nism today.

Having said tha t, our work is not a h is-tory of the Spanish revolution which, inour eyes, remains t o be written. We ha vefurthermore deliberately left aside the

immen se episode of economic and sociala c h i e v e m e n t s , c o l l e c t i v i s a t i o n s a n dsocialisat ions, except insofar a s th ey im-pinge up on our st udy. These a re well cov-ered by the works of Gaston Leval andFra nk Mintz. We have only att empted toexamine, from a revolutionary point of view, the per iod from Spring to Sum mer1937. A period which we believe was de-cisive.

It is absolutely necessary - the Friendsof Durruti tried to point out - to find apath which allows revolutionaries, with-out compromising and without fal l inginto an unpr incipled ant i-fascist front, tohave a p rac t ica l s t ra tegy of s t rugglew h i c h u n i f i e s t h e p r o l e t a r i a n f o r c e sagainst th e violent blows of the r eaction,militarism and fascism. One un derstandswhy the F riends of Durr uti, should havegiven such importance to the so-calledchoice 'war or r evolut ion'

But , before addressing the events andtheir a nalysis, we mu st lay out, a s brieflyas possible, the composition of th e forcespresent on th e "antifascist" side, in orderto assist the journey of the non expertreader a cross what one au thor ha s called

Introduction to the writings of theFriends of Durruti

The anti-fascist camp in the

Spanish revolutionthe "Span ish Labyrint h". The bibliogra-phy wh ich we give will allow one t o findfuller information.

SPAIN AND CATALONI A

The pressu re of regional au tonomies inSpain, whose unity was imposed by thecentr al govern men t, goes back far. It car-ries on today, on the institutional level(There exists in various regions, a dmin-istrat ions which enjoy limited a ut onomy),or as subver sive action (which is the casein th e Basque count ry). In th e 1930's itbar ely existed out side two regions wh ichwere otherwise the most economicallydeveloped , Ca ta lon ia and the Basquecount ry. The Republic ha d gran ted t hemtheir own institutions. In Catalonia, a

region which was t o be in th e forefront of t h e r e v o l u t i o n , t h e r e w a s a r e g i o n a lp o w e r : t h e g o v e r n m e n t o f t h eGeneralidad of Cata lonia, a regional pa r-liament, and forces of public order: theguards of the General idad (Mozos deescuadr a). The par ties and organisat ionsoften had a singular composition here, aswe shall see.

THE CATALAN PARTIES

In Cata lonia th ere existed organisationswithout a ny institu tional or historic linkswith the parties and groups which werefound throughout the rest of Spain. Wemention t he most importan t .

-The "Cata lan Lef t " (La Esquar racatalan a) cont rolled the Gen eralidad. Itwas a part y of worker s, intellectuals, butmostly elemen ts of the "left-wing" petiteBour geois. It was th e par ty of Compan ys,the president of the Genera lidad.

-The union of raba ssaires (shar ecrop-pers, agricultura l small holders) was of a similar leaning.

-The part y of the Cata lan sta te (l'EstatCatala) was openly separatist, its na tion-alism leaned t owards fascism.

THE F EDERALIST REPU BLICANS

The federalist spirit appeared in Spainduring th e 19th centur y, as a str ong cur-rent within Republicanism. A certainnum ber of these Republican s saw th em-selves as being very close to th e federal-ist ideas of the anti-authoritarian wing

of the 1st International. The federalistRepublicans recruited mainly from theliberal pet ite bourgeoisie and in certainpeasan t circles.

In 1936, in the Madrid parliament (theCortes), there was an astonishing parlia-ment ary extreme left. It was ma de up of federalist repu blicans. There was a mongthem, notably, lawyers who defendedana rchist an d ana rcho-syndicalist activ-ists in court .

These liberals didn't a t a ll want t o over-turn the basis of bourgeois society butthey had rad ica l rhe tor ic , r easonablyclose to th e declarat ions of th e revolution-aries. The CNT treated them delicatelyand even supported t hem, despite it be-ing anti-parliament.

THE LEFT AND THE E XTREMELEFT

The socialist party (Socialist WorkersParty of Spain) was a reformist party,composed mainly of petite bourgeois in-tellectua ls and burea ucrat s. However, itconta ined a working class base groupedin a un ion organisation, the General Un-ion of Workers (UGT) in so far as thepaths of the party and the un ions wereinterlinked. A good example: the social-ist leader Largo Caballero, who was tobe, for a long time, a pur e reformist andrepressive minister - was secretary gen-


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the mission of combating every reform-ist t enden cy. The conflict escalat ed when ,in 1927, the a nar chist groups, until thenweakly tied together in a very loose fed-erat ion, formed the famous FAI (Federa-t ion of Iberian anarchists) along withsome P ortuguese groups. We now ar rive

at the pr oblem of relations between th emass organisation and the organisationof the a vant -gar de. Even th ough the re-lat ions between the FAI and the CNTw e r e n ' t r e l a t i o n s o f s t r a i g h t f o r w a r ddomination, you could find m ilitan t a n-ar chists who were opposed to the FAI an dwho condemned "the FAI dictatorship".In fact while a certa in nu mber of th e CNTofficers were m ember s of th e FAI, prop-erly speaking this didn't amount to a dic-tat orship, rather a dominan t ideologicalinfluence. The conflict r eached a hea d in1931, at the CNT congress held in Ma-drid. It set the activists wh o proposed areal is t ic analysis and very consideredapproach aga ins t those ac t iv i s t s whowanted to launch the revolutionary up-risings imm ediat ely. The former dr ew upa m an ifesto, receiving 30 signatu res (theywere called the "Trente" and their ten-dency was called "Trentisme"). In thema nifesto th ey denounced the super ficialana lysis, the simplistic an d catast rophicconception of revolution, the cult of vio-lence for its own sake, which seemed tothem to be char acteristic of the militant sof th e FAI[*1]. Cert ain ly, it wa s far frombeing true that al l the members of theFAI were hooligans. However, it is truethat adventuris t revolut ionary a t temptshad been at t empted and were to be at-tempted in the period that followed, atthe inst igat ion, or with the support of some groups of the FAI. These a ttem ptswere doomed to failure and resulted infierce repression. To cut a long storyshort, th e "tren tistes" who called them -selves pruden t, but n ot any less revolu-tionary for th is, count ed in th eir num bersome activists who were incontestably

inclined toward s reform ism. One of th eirleaders, Angel Pestan a wen t on t o foundth e "Syndicalist pa rt y" an d would becomea deput y in th e Cortes.

The activists and the unions which ral-lied to th e Man ifesto of the Thirt y were

expelled from t he Confederation an dconstituted the "unions of opposi-tion". Their influence in some re-gions was far from negligible. Somu ch so tha t they were re-admitt edinto the CNT five years later a t th econgre ss of Zar agozza.

We will soon see ministers whoseorigin was "tren tiste" and even m ili-tants of the FAI or intransigentswho had battled a gainst "Trentism",l ike Garc ia Ol iver and Feder ica lMontseny, in the Madr id cen t ra lg o v e r n m e n t a n d t h a t o f t h eGenera lidad of Cata lonia, in Barce-l o n a . A l s o i n S e p t e m b e r 1 9 3 7 ,

Pestana joined the CNT.[*2]

If we want t o give a brief but r elativelycomplet e overview of th e curr ent s whichwere present in the Spanish l ibertar ianmovement , we can distinguish:

- a small revisionist "fringe" which

e n d e d u p i n t h e s y n d i c a l i s t p a r t yalongside Pestana.

- a "trentist" curr ent, which saw itself as r evolutionary bu t rea listic which in-cluded a certain Juan Peiro. I t hadfought for the creation of Federationsof industr ies in th e CNT and ha d de-nounced the adventurist practices of some groups of th e FAI.

- a traditionalist component consist-ing of ma ny u nion officers who didn 'talwa ys see th e ut ility of a s pecific or-ganisat ion bringing together ana rchist

groups (sometimes they even com-bated its existence). These militantsconsidered themselves anarchist butfor th em an archist groups should sim-ply be centres of th ought an d generalpropa gan da. This point of view is cur-rently very popular among anarcho-syndicalists[3*].

Consequently, it was far from being thecase that the FAI included all the anar-chists for whom the trade-union wasn'tthe a nswer to al l the problems. Furth er-more one must distinguish the working

c l a s s FA I - i s t s , p r i m a r i l y a n a r c h o -s y n d i c a l i s t s l i k e G a r c i a O l i v e r a n dDurr uti, from the an archists from intel-l e c t u a l b a c k g r o u n d s l i k e F e d e r i c aMontseny.

The Liberta rian youth wh o defended th epur ity of the "acrat e"[4*] ideal a nd playeda large part in the cul tural and educa-tional fields especially in Catalonia. Onthis point i t should be s tated that theSpan ish libertar ian movement in its en-tirety was very concerned with spread-ing literacy and education(from whichcame the creation of numerous modernschools , insp i red by the t each ings o f Fra cisco Ferr er, and the proliferat ion of "ath eneums" a kind of popular universitywhich were ver y active).

The "Friend s of Dur ru ti", all mem bers of

era l of the UGT. The leader s of th eUGT openly fought t he syndicalistsof the CNT, however there was ,among the ran k and fi le , in ma nycircumsta nces, a desire for un ity of the working class.

The commu nists were divided andfew, their Stalinism was excessive.Their influence grew quickly dur ingth e revolution. We sha ll see why. InCatalonia, the Stalinist party took the na me of PSUC, United Social-ist Pa rty of Cata lonia, born from th efusion of th e sma ll commun ist par tyand a socialist Catalan pa rty.

The Trotskyists ma de up only a fewgroups whose activity was prima rily inth e field of theory. Their best kn own mili-tant Andreas Nin, joined the POUM. Itis incorrect to see this 'Workers Party of Marxist Unity ' as being Trotskyist . I twas, from 1935 on, th e guise of the block of comm un ists, essentially Cata lan work-

ers and peasants, who had broken withMoscow. It was a party which exerciseda certa in influen ce, nota bly in Barcelona ,but it was ceaselessly buffeted betweensupport for the Cata lan na tionalists andinternationalism, between electoralismand t he fact t hat a certain nu mber of i tsmembers were in t he CNT, between th edenunciations of the rulers in Moscowan d its proclaimed adm irat ion for Sta lin'sregime. In Trotskyist jargon, it was a"Centrist" workers party.

THE LIBERTARIAN MOVEMENT

Let's pass on now to the National Con-federat ion of Labour. With out going intothe details of its history we ha ve to fur-ther elaborat e on this CNT of which the"Friends of Durr uti" were members.

It wa s found ed in 1910, by the workersand l ibertar ian groups which had per-sisted as inheritors of the Spanish fed-eration of the 1st international. It wasinspired by Fren ch revolutionary syndi-calism, thus at its inception it adoptedthe form of organisat ion and stru ggle of the trade union, but it defined its finalobjective as being an ar chist comm un ism.I t s a w t h e u n i o n a s t h e f u n d a m e n t a lstru cture towards th e realisation of th isgoal . It was a mass an archo-syndicalistorganisat ion whose membership cameclose t o 1 million in 1936.

Its h istory is extremely complex, havingpassed through numerous confl icts . I tc o n t a i n e d t w o f u n d a m e n t a l c u r r e n t swhich were o f ten opposed . One waspurely anarcho-syndicalist and consid-ered that the CNT was the only organi-sation needed and r egarded the existence

of organised ana rchist groups, outside t heCNT, as superfluous or even troubling.On the other s ide was the current , in-spired by the a ctivists, which sa w them -selves as being primar ily revolutionaryanarchists and only then members of asyndicalist confedera tion where they ha d


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th e CNT, most also membe rs of th e FAI,form ed a s pecific cur ren t from 1937.

From J uly 1936 on th e links between t heCNT and the FAI became so close thatthe t wo emblems appeared t ogether moreoften th an not (People spoke of th e "CNT-FAI") . There was even a " l ibertar ianm o v e m e n t " c o n s i s t i n g o f t h e t h r e ebranches: CNT, FAI, FIJL (Iberian fed-erat ion of Liberta rian Youth). But in themidst of th e difficulties of th e war we willsee an opposition emerge between thedirection of th e CNT, sacrificing a ll to th eideology of "resistance to the extreme"and su bmitting to the inst ructions of theNegrin govern men t, and t he FAI comm it-tee for the peninsula wh ich ma de a lateeffort to save its honour by denouncingthe advan ce of the count er-revolution.

To f inish with this rapid overview, i twould be useful to note that the FAI,founded in the beginning by practicallyun dergroun d "affinit y groups", was at all

stages on the mar gins of the law an d wasnumerically confined with about 30,000members in July 1936. From then on itwas a ctive in public, and in J uly 1937 ittr an sform ed itself into a federat ion of lo-cal and district groups, considerably moreopen to membership than the aff ini tygroups, al though the decision makingpowers of the committees increa sed. Thusth e sp ecific organisa tion, "la specifica" a sthe Spaniar ds said, became a pa rty in themodern style, aiming to become a "spe-cific mass organisation". Without doubtwe can consider th at the affinity groupswere no longer the same with t he adventof the period which began in July 1936,but on th e oth er ha nd h ow could th ey notsee th e povert y and t he confusion of th eirtheoretic base which consisted of a dec-la ra t ion of p r inc ip les o f a mere fewlines?[*5]

FOOTNOTES1 La CNT en la revolucion Espanola, J Peirats, ed.CNT, tome 1, pages 55 to 58.2 This was denounced by the Friends of Durruti as amanoeveur of the reformist wing of the CNT (in no.8 of their Organ, El Amigo del Pueblo)3 You can frequently find this conception among theGerman anarcho-syndicalists of the FAUD, theSwedes of the SAC, the Argentinians of the FORAetc...4 "A-cratie", total absence of authority, often seemedto Spanish anarchists as a clearer term than anar-chy, from which comes the use of the adjective"acrate" in place of anarchist.5 La CNT en la revolucion espanola, J. Peirats, tome2 p. 328 (ed. CNT, Toulouse 1952)

The bourgeois republicand the revolutionaries

THE REPUBLIC OF 14 APRIL 1931

The bourgeois republic which came topower in 1931, replacing the monarchywas very conserva tive. The support of the

socialists d idnt a ffect th is char acter. Thesocialist m inister of labour, Largo Cabal-lero, was even t o be seen pa rticipating inthe repression of the strikes and insur-rections which r ose in th e face of the in-capacity of the new regime to produceeven the most basic of changes. The tollof the first two years of the republicanp o w e r w a s h a r s h : 4 0 0 d e a d , 3 , 0 0 0wounded, 9,000 arr ested, 160 deported,160 se izures o f workers newspapers...and 4 seizures of right-wing newspa-pers[*1]. We can understand why theparliamentary elections of 1933 ended

with the defeat of the left: the workersdidnt vote. The socialists went from h av-ing 116 depu ties in 1931 to ha ving 60.

The m ost importan t working class force,the CNT, had dec la red an e lec tora lstrike in order t o bring about th e socialrevolution. It effectively produced a revo-lutionar y movement on the 8th of Decem-ber 1933. In var ious regions, in ma ny vil-lages and towns, the m asses declared lib-erta rian comm un ism. The repression wasbrutal. The overtly reactionary govern-ment went on to face a powerful insur-

rection, tha t of Astur ias, in October 1934where socialists, communists and anar-chists fought side by side. The qu ashingo f t h e i n s u r r e c t i o n w a s a v e r i t a b l ebloodbat h, a ccompanied by t he severe u seof tortu re a nd t he impr isonmen t of 30,000workers, of whom a significant propor-tion were members of the CNT.

THE POP ULAR FRONT

It is understandable that the abstent ion-ist campaign wa s weaker for the electionsof 1936; in fact th e CNT a llowed its m em-bers to cast th eir votes for t he pa rties of

the left, combined under the banner of the popular front, with t he idea th at avictory of the left would empty the pris-ons. It was effective; The right was beat enand the political pr isoners were freed...

The agitation within the ar my was grow-ing. It was already evident before theelections, to such an extent t hat two daysbefore the poll, the national committeeof the CNT ha d issued a man ifesto call-ing for mobilisation against a t hrea tenedmilita ry coup dEt at : The p roletaria t onwar footing, against th e fascist and m on-

archist conspiracy!What was the newpopular front governm ent to do? It gam -bled on passivity, and went as far as todeny all dan ger, it even pra ised the loy-alty of th e milita ry chiefs.

THE CNT P REPARES FORREVOLUTION

The CNT met on the 1st of May 1936, atthe congress of Zaragozza. It tried, de-

spite speeches which were not immunefrom na ivety, to define va rious a spects of its program me, libertaria n comm unism.It set the conditions for t he u na voidablealliance with th e UGT in potent ially revo-lutionary circumstances. It specified itsposition, constr uctive and critical a t t hesame time, towards t he pr ojects of lan dreform. Under the t i t le defence of therevolutionthe congress addressed theprob lem of revo lu t ionary power andarmed struggle. Certainly, it was thenimpossible to predict exactly how th e po-tential revolution would come to pass,

however the foundations of a pol i t icswhich was truly a break with the capi-talist an d stat ist order were set out : th eseizure of economic power on ever y level,the r ole of Spain in terms of the intern a-tional revolution, th e abolition of the per-manent army, the need to arm t he peo-ple and to keep the arm s under t he con-trol of the communes, the role of theConfederal defence forcesand th e effi-cient organisation of the military forceson the n at iona l scale, the crucial impor-tance of propaganda with regard to theproletar iat of other count ries. Let us n otforget t he genera l spirit which presidedduring these debates : in the resolutionwhich concerned the alliance with theUGT, it wa s specified th at every kind of collaboration, political or parliam entarywith the bourgeois regime must be re-

jected.

It is worthwhile to recall all this beforelooking at the attitude of the CNT twomonths later, as i t was in J uly that th emilitary u prising occurred.

J ULY 1936

In effect events unrolled very quickly.From the s ta r t o f the par l i ament thedeputies of the r ight in th e Cortes issueddeclarations of civil war. On the 11th of July, the Phalange[*2] seized the radiotra nsmitt er in Valencia. The president of the coun cil was war ned of the potentialuprising of the generals but he refusedto take th ose measu res tha t he could. Onthe 17th of July, the a rmy t ook power inMorocco, the m assa cre of worker s an d of left-wing personalities sta rted... and th eMadrid governmen t declar ed that it wasin cont rol of the sit ua tion. Seville fell intoth e ha nds of th e militar y. Finally the gov-ernm ent of Casar es Quiroga ceased issu-ing reassuring declarations but only sotha t it could pass th e baton to a govern-ment of reconciliation, presided over byMart inez Barrio, with th e ministry of war

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offered to General Mola who refused itand declared himself in open rebellion.

On the morning of July 19th, the paperof the CNT, Solidaridad Obrera, cam e out,severely censured by th e r epublican gov-ernment, but t he appeal of the Catalanregiona l committee, an call to arm s an dfor a genera l strike, escaped the censors.The same regional committee and thelocal federa tion of Bar celona Un ions de-manded that the Generalidad of Catalo-nia and the civil governor sh ould distrib-ute arms to the popular forces. In vain.However, th e militan ts of th e CNT seizedthe ar ms stored in th e ships in th e port .The au th orities order ed th e forces of pub-lic order to tak e them ba ck but only a tin yamount were recovered. In Madrid, thena tiona l committ ee of th e CNT called fora revolutionary general strike over theradio and requested th e activists to guardthe union offices with arm s.

On the 19th and 20th of Ju ly the Barce-

lona ba rra cks were taken by the popularforces and the CNT and FAI activists,who constituted the principal element of these forces, were th e un contest ed ma s-ters of the social and economic life of Cata lonia. In Madr id, from th e 20th on,th e comr ades of th e CNT, aided by groupsof assault guards and by the Socialistyouth, made themselves masters of thesi tuat ion. Elsewhere the s truggle wasconfused, thus in Valencia, due to theprocrastin at ion of th e governm ent it t ook 15 days for t he m ilita ry to be defeat ed.

Wherever it could, the Madrid govern-ment ma de the situat ion worse : its civilgovernors and t he delegate junta s whichit created hurried to end the strikes, tosupp ress t he peoples executive commit -tees which h ad risen. Thus it a llowed theenem y time t o rally, to reinforce its frontat Teruel, to consolidat e at Zaragozza a ndi n As t u r i a s , t o b e c om e m a s t e r o f Andalucia. However on the 19th of July,th e militar y uprising could be consideredto ha ve failed on th e most rich, populousand developed two thirds of the terr itory.

THE MASSES AND THE LEADERSIt was Barcelona which wa s going to ar-b i t ra te the fu ture o f a revo lu t ion forwhich th e militar y uprising was the tr ig-ger. What were t he CNT a nd t he FAI go-ing to mak e of the immense power whichthey had just a cquired?

During an ini t ial meeting, Companys,president of the Catalan General idad,gave a carte blanche to the representa-tives of the leading bodies of the CNT.What else could he do since his govern-ment ha d lost a ll credibility? In fact h e

was to ma nouver : he proposed the crea-tion of a committ ee of an tifascist militia sbut published a decree which tr ied totr an sform t he militia s into a police forceunder t he comman d of the General i tat .The represen ta tives of the CNT forced the

recognition of a committee of militiasma de up of delegat es from var ious organ i-sations, but the CNT was only to havean equa l represen ta t ion as the UGT,which was in t he minority in Cata lonia.I t a lso gave a place to the bourgeoisCata lan organisat ions. Without doubt itwas n ecessary t o take forces outside theCNT into account. But in what mannerwere they to be taken into account? In

effect this was t o put t he governm ent of the Generalitat back into the saddle bygiving numerical s t rength to the con-serva tive forces.

This political line was ra tified by the r ep-resentat ives at the regional plenum of local and cantonal organisations of theCNT an d FAI on t he 23r d of J uly.

A stu pefying false dilemm a obscur ed thedebate from the s tar t : either libertariancomm un ism w hich is equivalent to anar-chist dictatorship or democracy, that isto say collaboration. According t o JosPeira ts (who doesnt cite h is sources)Garcia Oliver was its architect. Oliverclaims, on the contrar y, tha t h e was oneof th e only milita nt s who took th e side of the revolution (everything for everyone)and he accuses Federica Montseny andSant illan of ha ving carr ied the ma jorityat t he plenum a gainst th e dangers of an -ar chist dicta torsh ip. Nevert heless bothG. Oliver and F. Monstseny would soonfind t hemselves collaborat ing within t hegovernment.

How do we explain t hat the vast major-

ity of the CNT and the FAI rallied, it ist rue m ore in resignat ion t han with en-thusiasm, to the side of collaboration inth e midst of sta te bodies? We shouldn tlose sight of the fact that the Spanishanarchist movement, while it was pre-dominantly working class, was not im-mu ne from some of the weakn esses of th eintern ational ana rchist movement of theperiod. Bourgeois idealism, ill-definedhumanism, the subst i tut ion of hol lowphilosophical t alks for solid political re -flection, individua lism and diletta nt ismwere common especially among the in-tellectua ls who were sometim es closer toradical liberalism th an to revolutionarysyndicalism. It suffices to read a few of their ma gazines an d pamph lets to be con-vinced of th is. The Congres s of Zara gozzawas, to a certain extent, a reflection of this situ ation. It was certa inly forced togive a hearing to libertar ian comm un ism,but the problem of political power wasnever clearly posed. Thus t here were t a-boo subjects in th e liberta rian organisa-tions and the idea of power of the ma ssesas opposed to the state power, a vital,fu n d a m e n t a l q u e s t i on , w a s s t i ll s u r -rounded by an embar rassed silence.

Too often the phra se acrat e and the af-firmation of anarchist purity took theplace of deep consider at ion. Ther efore it snot as sur prising as one would imagine,

that the mass of activists were caughtnapping and accepted the crude assimi-la t ion of work ing c lass power in thestreets and factories, in place of a stat eor par ty power, or an ar chist dicta torsh ip.We will come back t o this.

For a while, the collaboration in statepower wasn t very evident . With out doubtto save face and to quieten t he worries of a certain number of activists, the com-mitt ee of militias didnt rea lly ta ke on th ea p p e a r a n c e o f a g o v e r n m e n t a n d r e -mained autonomous to a certain extent,alt hough it h ad been officially crea ted bya d e c r e e o f t h e g o v e r n m e n t o f t h eGeneralitat and wa s merely a congrega-tion of the leaders of the var ious organ i-sa t ions ra t her tha n a body emanat ingfrom ra nk and file committees.

But what is remarkable is the breachwhich, little by little, was to become es-ta blished between th e politics of th e ran k and file organisations and those of the

committees at the top. Thus the unionsections a t th e bottom took the measu resof seizing busines ses, work ers contr ol an deven collectivisat ion. At t he sa me t ime asthese workersdema nds were being car-ried out, the committees were pu blishingcommu niqus insisting on th e necessityof retu rning t o work a nd increasing pro-duction while refrain ing from giving anyrevolutionary advice with regard to therun ning of large companies. 2 examples :the communiqu of the Barcelona localFederation of Unions on July 28th andthe m an ifesto of the peninsu lar commit-tee of th e FAI on th e 26th which wer e acollection of romantic, even delirious,declara tions extolling the heroism of theworkers, appealing for a new era, butwithout even t he least ment ion of politi-cal power or socialisat ion.

The cons t ruc t ive revo lu t ionary dr ive(with th e de facto allian ce of the CNT a ndUGT) rose from th e people, from the u n-ions and from their activists, while thecomm itt ees followed a cour se of modera-tion.[*3] These committees of officialswere also to find themselves confrontedwith criticism which was aimed at theorganisat ions which they represented.The c r i t i c i sms were somet imes wel l -founded: there were some a busive or u n-warranted seizures of goods, arbitraryarr ests by groups of individuals withoutmanda te an d even summa ry executions.

We will go on to see how an a ttem pt wa smade t o sort out th e problem of what onemight call revolutionary security, butone thing tha t we can see immediately isthat the committees at the top were go-ing to fall into the tr ap which the centra l

government and that of Catalonia weresetting: blackmail by foreign goods andby cru de terr orism were used, even by th ecommit tee o f mi l i t i as and the h igherranks of the organisations. Certainly itw a s n e c e s s a r y t o g u a r d a g a i n s t a n y


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provocations and it is tru e tha t war shipsof foreign powers ha d ar rived in th e portof Bar celona. The Cat ala n regiona l com-mittee went so far as to give a list of 87En glish firms wh ich were t o be respecteda t a l l cos t s . But the republ ican s ta tesha melessly exploited a few isolat ed actsof excess an d th e th reat of foreign squad-rons to move the situation in the direc-tion of normalisation und er governm en-

tal a uth ority. However, the governm entsof Madr id an d Bar celona weren t goingto achieve th eir aim without problems.

In effect, beside the committee of mili-tias which kept a revolutionary appear-an ce, popular pat rols, 700 men d ividedinto 11 units, were created to take careof revolutionary security. On this occa-sion the CNT respected the balance of forces between the organisations. Thegovernment o f the Genera l idad wentalong with i t but i t knew tha t th is wasan embryonic ar med popular force and it

would decree the dissolution of the pa-trols as soon a s it wa s able to.

For their part, the rank and file organi-sat ions pursu ed th e work of socialisat ionand a Council of the Catalan economywas created by a decree on August 13th.

THE GOVERNMENTS FIRSTOFFENSIVE

At the beginn ing of August, the cent ralgovernmen t decreed the mobilisation of classes 33, 34 an d 35. In Ba rcelona, th eyout h who were in th ese classes came outinto the str eets an d refused to go to bar-racks. They held demonstra tions cryingdown with the arm y, long live the popu-lar militias. A nu mber of th ese men werealready members of the militias an d werepreparing themselves to leave for thefront. This time the regional committeeof the CNT, the groups of the FAI andthe n ewspaper Solaridad Obrera were ont h e s i d e o f t h o s e w h o r e f u s e dmilitarisation. In this a rea sonable reac-tion of the bottom against t he plans em a-nat ing from governmenta l spheres can beobserved and this was a massive popu-

lar rea ction.However, a compromise solution was toprevail under t he aegis of the committeeof militia s an d th e coun cil of defence: th eyouth went to barracks, but under theauthority of the council of militias. TheCNT and the FAI approved. It seemedthat the most importan t th ing had beenconser ved despit e th e concessions. Whileth e car eer soldiers of var ious levels wouldbe utilised in th e technical field, the com-mand would be assumed by councils of worker-soldiers, composed of elected sol-diers and delegates from the organisa-tions and par ties. But lets n ot forget th ata council of defence had just been cre-ated, at the heart of the government of the General i tat , which had mil itary a u-thority over Catalonia. We will describewha t t his coun cil of defence am ount ed to,

but we should note that the initial buzzof opposition a rising from t he m obilisedyouth had t remendous energy: during animmense r ally which wa s held in Barce-lona on the 10th of August, the va riousorators of the CNT a nd FAI rea ffirmedthe importa nce that th e people should notbe disarmed u nder an y pretext .

The general impression which emergesfrom all this first period is an imp ressionof ambiguity. The revolutionary valuesseemed to have been defended intr ansi-gently while at the same time concretemeasures had been taken which wenttowards the aba ndonment of th e radicalline of social an d political tra nsforma tion.Here is another example of this. At thesame time a s the CNT and th e FAI wererefusing popular disarma ment , they werecreating with their partners a commit-tee of accord which gave a grea t positionto the UGT (which was only beginnin g todevelop in Catalonia) and to the PSUC

which declared itself to be the party of revolut iona ry order, in th e sense of respect for private propertyand which was todrain the petite-bourgeois forces in t hecourse of becoming a significant party.Incont estably th e creation of a comm it-tee of accord illustr at es th e politics of th eleaders an d is itself already a sign of anaban donment of real r evolutionary poli-tics. Having said that, in the context of th e chosen direction, it is difficult to un -dersta nd h ow the CNT a nd FAI acceptedonly ha ving as many repr esenta tives onthe committ ee of accord as d id the UGT

an d th e PSUC. This would come to weighheavily in the course of the months tocome.

TOWARDS OPEN COLLABORATIONWITH THE GOVERNMENT

In Madrid, at t he sta rt of September, thegovernmen t of Giral wa s replaced by thegovernment of Largo Caballero who be-moaned t he n on-par ticipat ion of the CNT.2 months later, on the 30th of October,Largo Caballero revealed, in an inter viewwith th e Daily Express, reproduced in allthe pa pers, the desire of the CNT to sharethe responsibilities of government.

Meanwhile, on the 3rd of September, is-sue 41 of the CNT-FAI information bul-le t in had publ i shed a v io len t ly an t i -stat ist art icle, but in mid September th enat iona l plenum of the regional organi-sations pr oclaimed t he necessity of par-ticipation in a national body equipped to assume functions of leadershipthisbody being a na tiona l council of d efencecomposed of 5 delegates of the CNT, 5from t he U GT and 4 republicans, un-der the presidency of Largo Caballero.

Certainly, the replacement of the an cientinstitutions by regional councils of de-fence, in a way th at was called federalistwas declared, but everything, includingthe representation of the organisationsin th e coun cils, was decided by the lead-

ers of these organisations, and did notrise out of popular a ssemblies an d th eirde lega tes . I t was a rea l par ty powerwhich was pu t in place. Public power wasgoing to be wielded by Largo Caballeroand his ministers who were modest lycalled coun cillers.

In fact, the leaders of the CNT wished to join t he governm ent but h ad t o save faceand quieten the worries of their militan tsfoun d it difficult t o accept t he open a ban -donment of th eir sworn pr inciples.

On t he 30th of September, a meetin g of the nat iona l plenum of regional organi-sations of the CNT rat ified part icipation,or rat her according to its own wording,acceded to the insistent deman d for th ecreat ion of a n at ional coun cil of defence.

In between t ime, on th e 27th of Septem-ber, the ent ran ce of the CNT repr esenta -t i v e s i n t o t h e g o v e r n m e n t o f t h eGeneralidad, taking the title council of

defencewas an nounced, causing t he dis-solut ion of the committee of mil i t ias .Thus the s i tuat ion of dual power hadp a s s e d . T h e s t r u g g l e a g a i n s tun cont rollables was t o get more int ense,an d th e necessity of strong discipline wasto be reaffirmed . Durru tis ambiguousphrase we renounce all except victorywas u sed as cover for t he operation, turn -ing it into a warning against the coun-ter-revolution, while Durr uti was a t th esame t ime declaring to the Madrid press:We, on th e oth er han d, carry on th e war and the revolution at the sam e time.

How had th e CNT and FAI been able tocome to this? How were their leadingcomm ittees able to get a ma nda te for sucha fundam ental change? Had th e problemsposed by the war and by the revolutionreally been tr uly addressed?

The documents of the epoch are silent.Nothing was treated in depth, analysishad been replaced by speeches a nd dec-larations.

If in the international anarchist move-m e n t , d i s c u s s i o n w a s a l i v e , e v e n

heated[*4], apparently in Spain therewas resignation.

BIRTH OF AN OPPOSITION

In reality the situation was more com-plex than i t appeared. One must takeaccount of two important objective fac-tors: on one hand many militants wereat t he front, th ey were at wa r an d politi-cal problems were not a t t he t op of theirlists since the were fighting in particu-larly difficult conditions an d with arm a-ment s which were often worse than defi-cient. On th e oth er ha nd ma ny of th e com-

rades in the rear were consciously ad-vancing their affairs: the socialisationsan d col lect ivisat ions wer e going ful lsteam ah ead, the popular militias and t hepopular patrols appeared at least par-tially like the embryo of a real popular,


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anti-bourgeois power. Both groups wereto be surp rised by th e evolution of events.The ever har sher r etaking of governmen-ta l power, the elimina tion of popular bod-i e s o r a t t e m p t s a t e s t a b l i s h i n g d u a lpower. Nevertheless the forces opposedto th e politics of th e officer corp a nd s tr ug-gles for t he m ainten an ce of the base of aworkers power, could be observed. In t hem i l i t i a s a t t h e f r o n t r e s i s t a n c e t o

mi l it a r i sa t ion remained a l ive and theadvances of socialisation and collectivi-sation were to be maint ained despite thedecisions of the government.

And then, on the purely political front,resistan ce nevertheless sh owed itself. Itwas often shouted down, hidden by thespeeches of the leaders, it was somet imesalive and clear in meetings, especiallyvisible in the press: Ruta, the organ of the Cata lan libertar ian youth , which wasto be a p aper of opposition r ight up to th eend of the war, the review Acracia from

Lrida , th e daily Nosotros from Valen ciasupported by the Iron Column.

A weakness which was not to be sur-mounted u ntil the spr ing of 1937 by theFriends of Durruti was that the opposi-tion remained on the level of acratepurism, rather than on the level of thenecessary ana lys i s o f the under ly ingproblems.

Another weakness was the dispersion,th e lack of cohesion, of co-ordin at ion. Theopposition wasn t m ade u p of a t enden cywhich would st ruggle to be able to express

th emselves in the Confedera te press. Andthis isolation was such that most mili-tants, especially those who were at thefront, didnt even kn ow that ther e wasan opposition.

Whats m ore the opposition was t rap pedby the blackm ail for an tifascist un ity, bythe necessity to disguise disagreementsin th e face of the en emy.

The comm ittees a t th e top didnt h oldback from using under han d manoeuvreslike the speedy convocation of a plenumfor which t he m ass a ssemblies wouldntha ve time to prepare, or incomplete agen-das wh ich a llowed th em t o propose im-portan t points , unannounced, at the lastmomen t[*5]. Fina lly th e cult of th e leader,the charismatic power of the decisionmaker was at play in th e l ibertar ian or-ganisations, like in every grouping.

To sum u p, under the cover of th e ma gicphrases, federalism and autonomy, theleaders hun g on t o power within th e CNTand the FAI. We would ha ve to wait un tilthe govern ment an d the forces which sup-ported it went violently on the offensive

against th e revolutionar y sectors to seeat last t he r ising of an opposition whichat tempted to address fundam ental prob-lems, Los Am igos de Durruti.

Up un til then rea sonable reactions were

certa inly seen but t hey were improvisedand lacked political content. As in midOctober 36 the CNT-FAI column, theIron column , was t o leave th e Teru el frontfor a brief incursion in the rear. It wasintended to denounce parasitism an d theforces of repression, to demand the dis-armament and dissolut ion of the civi lguard, the sending of the armed troopsin the service of the state to the front,

the destru ction of institu tional files andarchives and the seizure of funds andprecious metals for t he pu rchase of arms,etc. That clean sing incursion in th e rea rsaw much blood spilled during the bat-tles with th e forces of repr ession.

The Iron Column published a ma nifestoexplaining its concerns th at the combat-ants should not be betrayed in the rearand they expressed their political choiceclearly: We fight to m ake the social revo-lution a reality. What ever m ay be onesview on the ad ventur ist or inconsequen-

tia l aspect of this a ffair, one can only bestru ck by the feeling of the militia mem-bers th at they should not be toys of theinstit ut ions of governm ent a nd bourgeoisparties, to be refashioned by the highpolitics of the r ulers, t he will of these m ento fight, on the condition th at th ey do itnot for any republic whatsoever but forthe revolution.

We will soon see more reactions of thistype.

THE REPRESSION INCREASES

It is precisely from the m oment th at t heCNT-FAI part icipated in th e governm ent,tha t th e repression was given free reign.I t is certain that the part icipat ion wasexperienced as a setba ck by the m ilita nt s,including th ose who supported it, and asa sign of weakn ess by their adversar ies,extremely happy to ensnare the princi-pal r evolutiona ry force in th e web of lawsand decrees, and within governmentalsolidarity.

The central government left the threat-ened city of Madrid an d ret reat ed to Va-lencia. Madrid was then governed by adelegate junta of defence, of which thepresident, General Miaja, had as a firstduty t o replace the checkpoints a nd wat chguards of the m ilitias with security un itsand assault guards. Clashes occurred,CNT activists were foun d assa ssinated.

The repression also took an insidioustr ack. The bank of Spain possessed a vasttrea sure of gold as well as lar ge cash de-pos i t s in England and in the bank of France. The policy of non-interventiona l lowed Grea t Br i ta in and France torefuse the u se of these deposits but St a-

lins Russia wa s to receive the Spa nishgold in exchan ge for arm s an d supplies.The Russian a rms only reached the sec-tors contr olled by th e commu nist p art y.The organ of this pa rty, Mund o Obrero,preten ded to be outra ged by the ina ctiv-

ity of th e Ara gon front, wh ich wa s ma inlyheld by confedera l divisions which didn tr e c e i v e a r m s , w h i l e t h e w e l l - a r m e dstalinist units wat ched in th e rear. Thus,little by little, a campa ign of slander wasset in m otion, of which th e CNT was n otthe only victim. The P OUM was t he firsttar get. The conflict between th e POUMan d th e PSU C precipita ted a crisis of gov-ernment in Cat alonia. A new governmen t

was in sta lled, hypocritically composed of social categories and not of parties.Thus the representatives of the unions(CNT an d UGT), of the Cata lan left rep-resenting t he petite-bourgeoisie and t herabassaires (small peasants) were to befound in i t , while the POUM was ex-cluded. This didn t sh am e th e CNT whichdescribed the new governm ent as a politi-cal! During th is period th e stalinists ha dorgan ised demons t ra t ions aga ins t thelack of vitals u nt il the a rrival of Russianships which brought th e gift of th e Ru s-sian w orkersto the proletar iat of Barce-lona , paid for by Spa nish gold.[*6]

The nu mber of incidents was t o increase:assassinated comra des, suspended news-papers, deten tions in th e special prisonsof the stalinist agents where prisonerswere tortured. The Cheka was moving in.Meanwhile on th e 21st of Jan uar y 1937the committee of accord, set up on the11th of August (see above), ap pealed onceagain for fraternity, with the signatureof th e CNT, FAI, UGT an d PSU C.

Otherwise, with much reticence in theconfedera l column s, militarisa tion of th emilitias went ah ead. The higher commit-tees of the CNT went to the front to con-v i n c e t h e m i l i t i a m e m b e r s t h a t t h i smilitar isation, which t ended towards th erevival of th e old milita ry rea soning, waswell-foun ded. Some militia mem bers leftthe columns bu t in th e end, even th e IronColumn accepted th e new regulat ions.

The Stalinist provocations went on anda crisis was t o be provoked in Bar celonaby a decree of the 4t h of March 1937 fromth e coun cillor of public order ordering t hedisbandment of the popular patrols andof various armed bodies; the disarma-men t of th e popular forces for the ben efitof th e sta te force.

The confederal and anarchist activistsarose against their representa tives in theCatalan government. The federation of anarchist groups of Barcelona, the re-gional committee of the CNT, the work-ers an d soldiers coun cils, demanded t heann ulat ion of the decree.

C o m p a n y s , t h e p r e s i d e n t o f t h eGeneralidad, tr ied many legal formulasto resolve the crisis. A new governmentwas formed on the 26th of April with 4represent atives of the CNT, but nothingwas resolved.


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MAY 1937

At the en d of April an d th e star t of Mayelements of the police disarmed somemili tants of the CNT and arrested th em.On th e 2nd of May, at 3 in th e afternoon,large contingent s of the stat e forces, un-der th e comma nd of the genera l commis-sioner of public order, laun ched a surp riseatt ack on the telephone excha nge. Theycould only get as far as the ground floorand t he confederal militant s in the work-ing class area s were alerted. Against th estat e forces (assa ult guar ds, national re-publican gu ar d - ex. civil gua rd, securit yservice, guard of the Generalitat), thePSUC and th e Catalan separat is ts , werera nged t he p opular forces CNT-FAI, lib-ertarian youth, POUM, popular patrols,benefiting from t he t echnical a ssistanceof th e confedera l comm ittees of defence.The barr icades were raised and the bat -tle was at least as fierce as that of July19th 1936 the mastery of the town was

at s take.T h e c o n f e d e r a l m i n i s t e r s o f t h eG e n e r a l i t a t h o p e d t o o b t a i n t h eann ulation of th e orders which ha d beengiven t o the sta te forces and t he sackingof th eir colleagues wh o had a bused th eirpositions. But t he other p ar ties didntwant to give way. The a ttitu de of presi-dent Companys was equivocal and heopposed any sanctions against the per-petrators .

A genera l strike was lau nched. The popu-lar forces made t hemselves mast ers of th e

outlying areas and the majority of thecentre. The barracks were taken a nd th egovernm ent s resista nce weakened de-spite the superior arm s of the P SUC andCatalan state .

On the 4th of May, the popular forceswere already, to a large extent, victori-ous[*7]. But the upper committees ap-pealed for the weapons to be laid downwhether they be held by the command-ers of the provoking forces or by the re-gional committees of the CNT weapons.Garcia Oliver, a minister in the central

governmen t, was sent by that comm itteeto find a solut ion, by appea ling to ant i-fascist unity. It certa inly seems th at theC a t a l a n i s t s , t h e c o m m u n i s t s o f t h eGeneral i tat and the president himself wouldnt h ave been disposed to ta ke heedof the doings of Garcia Oliver and hisf r iends , bu t the an t i -a i rc ra f t guns of Montjuch were in t he h ands of the CNT-FAI and the cannons were ready to fireat th e presidential palace.

On th e 5th of May, the Cat alan govern-ment resigned en ma sse. The confederalforces didnt da re to carry t he m at ter t oits conclusion owing to th e calls for a t ru ceand a cease-fire. But the m alconten t t o-wards t he committ ees grew. It was th usthat the Friends of Durruti appeared,whose pamphlet condemning the att itudeof conc i l i a t ion was d i sowned by the

confederal committ ees in a comm uniqucirculated on th e night of the 5th to 6thof May. A manifesto signed by the CNTand UGT of Barcelona was br oadcast onthe ra dio. It appealed for a retur n to calm.Meanwhile the police forces made at-tempts to improve their posi t ions andunits of the navy entered the port. Thecentra l governm ent t ook public order int oits hands and sent a large contingent of

assault guar ds to Catalonia.The ap peals for calm of Garcia Oliver an dMariano Vasquez[*8] were not heeded.Federica Montseny, the envoy from thecentra l governm ent, ha ving miraculouslyescaped t he enemies gunfire, man aged toget to Companys and provisionally re-moved him from his duties in the nameo f t h e g o v e r n m e n t . I t s e e m s t h a tCompan ys ha d been awaiting the arr ivalof the British squa dron which was in ef-fect sailing towards Barcelona.

The CNT and the FAI, on the night of

May 6th made new propositions for anend t o the conflict but the fighting wenton. However, during the morning of the7th , calm seemed t o fall an d forces of th egovernment entered central Barcelona,forces wh ich gua rds of confedera l originhad joined when it was composed, and of which th e comman dan t was himself an dold militia m an of the Terr a y Liberta dcolumn.

The regiona l committ ee of th e CNT con-sidered the tragic incidentto be over.But there were 500 dead and 1000 peo-

ple wound ed. The intervening ar misticewas a ccompanied by th e promise of therelease of prisoners on both sides. Theconfederals carried out this promise whilethe government and the chekists kepttheir prisoners an d even carr ied out n ewarrests. In fact, in the Chekist prisons,man y prisoners were executed a nd u p tillthe 11th of May ma ny mu tilated bodieswere found.

The events of May 1937 had repercus-sions in t he wh ole region, so much so tha tconfedera l co lumns and those of the

POUM remain ed to prevent th e stalinistelements of the 21st division from head-ing towards Ba rcelona.

We wouldnt be a ble to conclude t his br ief outline of events without entering intoevidence the assa ssination, on t he 5th of May, of the Italian anarchist militants,C a m m i l l o B e r n e r i a n d B a r b i e r i [ * 9 ] .

B e r n e r i , w r o n g l y p r e s e n t e d a s t h eleader [*10] of the Fr iends of Durr ut i bythe commu nists, was, as he writes him-self, in a centr ist position. However h isdenun ciations of stalinist crimes an d hissharp and cutting criticisms of govern-ment policy (including the CNT minis-ters) were hi t t ing the ma rk.

The governmental and stalinist repres-sion wa s not to stop with t he a rmistice.The disbandmen t of the popular pa trols,ordered in the decree of March the 4thwas to be carr ied out . The campaignsagainst the CNT were to continue andther e was also to be the monstr ous caseof the POUM

FOOTNOTES1 Consult Histoire des rpubliques espagnoles bVictor Alba2 At the core of the forces of the right, the Phalanwas the fascist party, its links with Italian fasciand the Nazis were openly declared.3 It is however in these achievements of self-maagement that the Spanish libertarian movement wable to show its capacity and its value and thus wthe most beautiful page of the revolution.4 For example the paper edited by PrudhommeauLEspagne antifasciste had to leave Barcelona fFrench territory to avoid cntiste censorship. Guedi classe the paper of the Italian volunteers, inspirby Berneri had to suspend its publication5 It is edifying to consult the work of Jos Peiratsthis matter. La CNT en la revolucin espanola, to1, page 275 forward. In the 1955, Buenos Aires etion.6 See the bottom of page 164 of la CNT en lrevolucion espanola by Jos Peirats, tome 2, edCNT.7 This is true in general for Barcelona, It is impoble to predict what would have happened on an ovall scale if the ceasefire had not taken place.8 Garcia Oliver and Federica Montseny, ministerthe central government, members of the CNT anthe FAI, Mariano Vasquez, first regional, then ntional secretary of the CNT.9 There are solid theories according to which tassassins were far right Catalan seperatists, linketo Italian fascists. The archives of Mussolinis secpolice, the OVRA, seized after the fall of fascisled Berneris family and friends to draw this con

sion. Elsewhere, in his book Los Ecos de los Pasoon page 431 and 432, Garcia Oliver, the minister justice at the time of the killing, questions the anchist obsession with blaming the communistsevery crime, and is inclined to see the hand of thOVRA in the murder of Beneri.10 In Grido del Popolo, the official organ of the ian communist party, the secretary of which wTogliatti.

Note f rom the t ransla tor

The introduction is n ot credited an d th e pub-lishing details are a little bit difficult to dis-cern since there are Alternative Libertairestickers on top of the original publishing in-forma tion. What I can say is th at i t is the sec-ond edit ion, published edit ions "L" and/orAGORA 2000, po box 177, 75267 Paris Cedex20 an d/or Le Fil Du Temps.

There is a note on the inside cover that saysthat the present edition is part of the collec-

tive work of Altern ative Liberta ire. No date isgiven for th is edition.

The t i t le in French is (as i t appears on thecover) le messa ge revolutionna ire des "Amisd e D u r r u t i " ( E s p a g n e 1 9 3 7 ) Te x t e e ttra ductions de Georges Fontenis Avant -Proposde Daniel Guerin.THE REVOLUTIONARYM E S S A G E O F T H E " F R I E N D S O FDURRUTI" -text and translations by GeorgeFonten is, preface by Daniel Guerin.

Transla ted 1999/2000 by Chekov Feeney


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WHO WERE THE FRIENDS OFDURRUTI

We saw, in part one, that opposition be-gan to show itself against the lawyers

who were, to a greater or lesser extent,accustomed to ministerial collaboration.Notably the Cat alan Libertar ian youthhad declared their refusal to become ac-com plices by staying silentand they hadeven added we are ready t o retu rn t o il-legal existence if necessary....

In the spring [*1] of 1937 a grouping of opposition militants began to come outin public under th e na me of the Amigosde Durrut i and before the May days,th ey wrote in a leaflet[*2]:

Th e revolutionary an d ana rchist spirit of the 19th of Ju ly has lost its focus... TheCNT and FAI wh o, during th e early Julydays, best embodied the revolutionarydirection and potential energy of thestreets, today find them selves in a weak-ened position since they failed to trust inthem selves durin g the d ays evoked a bove.We accepted collaboration, a s m inor pa rt-ners, wh ile we were by far th e major forceon the streets. We reinforced the repre-sentat ives of the decrepit, coun ter-revolu-tionary petit-bourgeois.

In no way can we tolerate the adjourn-

m ent of the revolution un til the end of them ilitary conflict.

The glorious workers militias.... are fac-ing th e danger of being tran sform ed intoa regular army which doesnt offer theleast safeguard to the workin g class.

In this leaflet , the Friends of Durrut idraw att ention to the th reat t hat the pub-lic orderproject for Catalonia was pos-ing. The project wa s postponed but wasto raise its head again. It aimed to re-place the r evolutionary forces in th e rea rwith a repressive body, neu tral, am or- phous, capitulat ing in the face of the coun-ter revolu tion.Pr ophetically, the Fr iendsof Durr uti added tha t if such plan s com eto hold sway, it w ill not be long before weonce again fill th e prisons.

During the May days they published al e a f l e t a n d a m a n i f e s t o w h i c h w e r ewarm ly received by the workers. Here ar ethe contents of the leaflet (written in th emidst of th e action, the st yle is sober).

CN T-FAI, Friend s of Durru tigroup ing:

Workers, let u s n ot aban don the streets.

A revolutionary jun ta.Execution of the guilty. Disarm ing of the arm ed bodies.Socialisation of the economy.

Dissolution of the political parties whohave attacked th e workin g class.

We salute our comrades of the POUM (Workers party of Marxist un ity) who havebeen at our sides in the streets. Long live the social revolution!

B u t w h o m a d e u p t h e F r i e n d s o f Durru t i? They ca l led themse lves anagru pacion, tha t is t o say, not a group,but more a grouping, a ral lying. Theywere all CNT activists, man y were alsomembers of the mil i t ias who had notagreed wi th mi l i t a r i sa t ion , some hadeven left t he m ilitias when militar isationhad been put in place. Other s were mem-b e r s o f t h e p o p u l a r p a t r o l s . A g o o dnum ber of them were still at the front int h e p r e d o m in a n t l y c on f e d er a l u n i t swhich ha d emer ged from th e Iron Col-um n, the Dur ru ti Colum n an d other s.

But after the May days they were slan-dered, treated as uncontrollables, asprovocat eur s, even as St alinist agen tsby the lead ersh ip of th e CNT an d FAI, oras fascist agents by the Stal inis ts andtheir allies.

It sh ould be added t ha t t he officials of th elibertarian movement were to voluntar-ily classify them as Trotskyists, due totheir courageous defence of the POUMand i ts act ivis ts . The Trotskyists , ex-tremely happy with this godsend, triedto give some credence to th e ru mour. Re-

cently, issue 10 of cahiers Leon Trotski(published by the institu tion of the samenam e which is made up of various groupsof the Trotskyist persuasion) publisheda st udy by F.M. Aranda on the Friendsof Durruti. The author laboriously at-tempt s to demonstr at e the collaborat ionb e t w e e n t h e s e m i l i t a n t s a n d t h eTrotskyists of the period. What is thetrut h of the mat ter?

The sole established fact, out of all thealleged secret agreements, is the rela-t ions between a few of the Friends of

Durr uti a nd one, yes one single Trotskyistact ivis t , as i t happens the German Han sDavis Freun d, known by the pseudonymMoulin. Nothing is said about t he na tur eof these r elations, none of the n am es of the m embers of the Friends of Durr utiin quest ion is specified.... But t his seem ssufficient t o this hist orian to spea k of aclose association! On page 83 of thes a m e i s s u e o f t h e s a m e p u b l i c a t i o n ,Pierr e Brouff recalls, more honest ly, tha tthe Friends of Durr uti rejected a m eet-ing to plan common activities....the fileis thus extremely thin.

As for the defence of the POUM, thiswould appear log ica l . The S ta l in i s t swant ed to destroy the P OUM, which op-posed th eir hegemony and defended thevictims of the Moscow show-trials. Notbeing able to directly ta ke on t he CNT-

FAI, the S ta linists blocked every a lliancewhich was ind ependent of them (for ex-ample t he collaborat ion between th e lib-ertar ian youth a nd t he P OUMs youthwing). We ha ve seen tha t t he leaders of the CNT-FAI accepted the expulsion of the POUM from th e government bu t th atin May 1937, the l ibertar ian workersfought s ide-by-side with those of thePOUM.

Having said t his, it should be pointed outtha t t he politics of the POUM leadersh ipwas a s disastr ous as th at of th e CNT-FAI.

In fact, the myth of the Trotskyism of theFriends of Durru ti came from the liber-ta r ian movement and the Tro tsky is t str ied to give the myth a s ignif icancewhich it never h ad. They took advan ta geof the fact that the an archist leaders, re-

jecting a ll rigorous a na lysis coming fromtheir own ra nks, were t rying to discreditthe Friends of Durr uti and were a ssist-ing in their r epression. In a milieu wher ethe worst insul t was to be label led a

Mar xist, th is also a llowed t hem to a voiddealing with their urgent problems andtheir proper r esponsibilities.

In a ny case, the Friends of Durr ut i, whowent on to publish a newspaper insteadof leaflets a s th eir mouth piece, were tostrident ly stan d their ground, proclaim-ing their adh erence to revolutionar y an-archism despite the disavowals and slan -ders that the highest circles of the offi-cial libertarian movement never failed tohurl at them. This paper EL Amigo delPu eblo, th e peoples friend, was pu blished

from July to September 1937, in eightissues. In the first issue, on pa ge 4, twolong articles throw light on the attach-ment of the F riends of Durr uti t o the lib-ertar ian movement. We read, in an ar t i -cle entitled

The Friends of Durruti and thePeoples friend


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In trodu cing ourselves. Wh y we are pu b-lishing, what do we want, where are wegoing?.

We have appeared publicly without in theleast wanting to engage in personalsquabbles. Our aim s are loftier. T he suc-cess of our aspirations is measured indays of triump h an d passion for our ideasand desires.

We feel a pure love for the National Con- federation of Labour and for the Anar-chist Federation of Iberia. But this veryattachment which we profess for theseorganisations which is of the same sub-stance as our worries, incites us to con- front certain in sinuat ions which w e jud geas wicked an d un warran ted.

The following issue included on page 3,in large type:

Th e association of th e Friend s of Durrut iis mad e up of CNT and FAI activists. Onlysyndical assemblies can expel us from th eConfederal organisation. Meetings of lo-cal and cantonal delegates do not havethe power to expel comrad es. We challengethe com m ittees to put th e question of theFriends of Durruti to the assemblies,wh ere th e sovereignt y of th e organisa tionresides.

The att achment of the Fr iends of Durru tito the organisat ions of the l ibertar ianmovement went as far as an at temptedreconc i l i a t ion as we can read in thecommu niqu in lar ge type on t he bottomof th e front page of th e th ird issue:

Respecting th e agreement reached d ur-ing th e plenu m of groups of th e FAI, an d hoping that the committees of the CNT and FAI will d o the sam e, we are m akinga correction to the suggestion of treasonwhich appeared in the manifesto that cam e out d uring the May d ays.

We repeat what we declared during the plenu m , that w e didn t attribu te a senseof bad faith and negligence to the word treason. It is with that interpretation inmind that we reconsider the use of theword treason in the hope that the com-mittees will also rectify the suggestion of agents-provocateurs which they havehurled at us.

We have been the first to set the record straight. We are waitin g for the comm it-tees to follow the example shown here, inthe very near futu re.

The story of this a ttem pted compromiseis again taken up in detai l in issue 5,published on the 20th of July, of whichmost of page 3 is tak en up with a solemnappeal. We see, in this t ext entitled Thegrouping of Friends of Durruti to theworkers, how the conflict between theFr iends of Dur ru ti an d th e official organ sof the CNT a nd FAI had been played out.How, after positions had been taken inthe aftermath of the May days, despite

the pr omises, the syndical assemblies hadnot been convoked to discuss the issuesand h ow the committees had t aken th edecision to expel the members of theFriends of Durr uti, despite the fact th atthe Libertar ian youth and many act iv-ists were opposed to the measure. Theexpulsions, having been confirmed by anat ional plenum bringing together theregional organisations (the Andalusian

regional organisation opposed the deci-sion), were in fact rarely carried out inthe unions.

The appea l to th e worker s which finishedwith cries of long live the social revolu-tion, long live libertarian communismand pointed out the sympathetic moodencountered by the Friends of Durruti,was t o be scar cely heard.

However, the va rious issu es of Amigo delPueblo contained news of significantsubscriptions, of new members, of theformation of new branches, ei ther in

confederal units or in localities in Cata-lonia (Sans, Tarr assa or Saba dell for ex-ample). But in a sh ort on page 2 of issue3, and in a lar ge banner on t he bottom of page 3 of the same issue, we learn thatth e Bar celona local federa tion of th e Lib-erta r ian Youth an d t he Youth defencecommittees had informed the regionalcommittees of the CNT and FAI of theiragreement with th e Friends of Durr ut isinterpretation of the May days. But thegroupings influence was t o rema in a l-most exclusively limited to Cat alonia an dmost of the combatan ts in t he predomi-nan tly libertarian u nits never even knewof their existence[*3]. They lacked themea ns of publicising them selves; Repres-sion both overt an d hidden , exercised bythe government and CNT committeeswas t o triumph quickly.

Issue 4 of Amigo del Pueblo containednews of the arrest of Jaime Balius [*4],the chief editor of th e publicat ion, an d th eclosu re by t he p olice of th eir office on N o.1 Ramblas de la F lores.

The following issues were partly given

over to the denouncing the escalat ingrepr ession a nd t he difficulties of publish-ing the pa per. On Septem ber 21st 1937,the last issue, number 8, left th e presses.

Thus the Friends of Durrut i were una bleto be the ra llying point for t he a nar chisto p p o s i t i o n , s p r e a d t h i n l y i n t h eConfederal masses an d at t he front. Butat least t hey were able to leave a legacyto the proletariat, a collection of analy-ses and programmatic proposals whichmust be ta ken into account.

EL AMIGO DEL PU EBLO

It is in this publication [*5], which hasalready been cited tha t we find the coreof the programme and analysis of theFriends of Durr uti.

We posse ss copies (ph oto-copied) of th e 8

issues of this pa per, which a ppeared be-tween July and the end of September1937. Without doubt, everyth ing is foundhere, but since we are m at erially obligedto mak e a selection, we ha ve concentr at edon the m ore profound ar ticles an d beenmore restrained with regard to the po-lemic and apologetic articles. Howeversomething must be said about the lat t erdue t o their frequency and repetitively.

This doggedness is significant, as is thestyle employed which is likely to surpr isetodays rea ders.

It should be stated, even if this is lessand less t rue, that anarchist l i terature(with reference to the press more thantheoretical texts) makes int ensive use of roman tic-revolut iona ry lyricism. On e canfind long incantory passa ges, appealingas m uch to th e mem ory of ancient Rome,as t o the Fr ench revolution. Whats more,Spain h as a pen chan t for excessively epicconcoctions[*6] and the language lends

itself to soaring, passionate. But it cer-ta inly wouldnt be su fficient to see th isas merely the desire of the activists toexpress their exalted sentiments. It rep-resen ts th e last flam es of an ep och. Spainof 1936 was one of the la st h omes of th einsurrectional storm which Europe hadexperienced during the previous century.

To get back to essential ma tt ers, the fun-damental problems, we have thereforeselected articles and grouped them to-gether un der a certa in num ber of topics.Each t opic is indicated by a su b headingand makes reference to published arti-cles.

WHY DURRUTI?

Before addressing the substa ntial ques-tions, th ere is a question which our r ead-ers certainly have the right to ask andwhich should certa inly be an swered: whythe reference to Durr uti?

Along with Francisco Ascaso, who wase q u a l l y v e n e r a t e d b y E l A m i g o d e lPueblo, Buenaventur a Durr ut i was them o s t p o p u l a r r e v o l u t i o n a r y i n 1 9 3 6Spa in. Ascaso fell on t he 19t h of Ju ly 1936at the head of the CNT-FAI combat an tsduring the assau lt of the Atar azana s bar-racks . Dur ru t i l e f t Barce lona for theAragon front with a column of militia-men. He th en ma de for Madr id which wasunder imm inent th reat from the fascists.On th e 20th of November he wa s fatallywounded in circumsta nces which r emainobscure. His life was a series of adven-tures an d his death on t he Madrid fronttur ned him into a legend.

To learn about th e episodes of his life asmuch a s about t he circum stan ces of his

death , Abel Pazbook m ust be consulted(see the bibliography). Equally, to com-plemen t an d corr ect it, Garcia Oliversbook, cited above, reveals the less laud-able a spects of Durru tis per sonality. Onepoin t deserves c la r i fi ca t ion ; Dur ru t i ,


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Ascaso and the whole Solidarios affin-ity group would ha ve been thought of asan ar cho-bolsheviks by certa in Sp an ishana rchists in th e 20s. They were par ti-sans of a revolut ionary al l iance withother forces of th e left, since strictly an -archist insurrections would have beendoomed t o failur e. They ta lked of a con-quest of power, after th e old ma chineryof sta te h ad been destr oyed. Such a point

of view ha s n othing in comm on with gov-ernm enta l par t i cipa t ion, con t ra ry toCesa r M. Loren zos claims in h is book Span ish an archists a nd govern ment .Furthermore, between that old periodand 1936 Durr uti ha d evolved.

Who can say what orienta tion he wouldha ve had if deat h ha dnt come so soon?All we know is that he wa nted to mobi-lise all energy to defeat fascism an d th athe ha d expressed his indignat ion an d con-tem pt for the indifferen ce an d negligencein th e rear. A declar ation ma de just be-

fore his death (and repr oduced on page 4of issu e 3 of Amigo del Pu eblo) condem nsth e plots the interna l strugglesand de-mands that the leaders be sincere and constru ct an efficient economy to allow therunning of a modern war. He asks forthe effective mobilisa tion of a ll th e work-ers in the rear. He expresses reservat ionsabout th e need for militarisat ion an d af-firms the efficiency of discipline at thefront.

It is not certain t ha t he would ha ve fol-lowed, to a full extent, the decisions of th e activists who were to find th emselvesin ra dical opposition to th e leadersh ip of th e CNT an d FAI in 1937. However, onecan still under stan d why those activistsshould h ave chosen him a s a symbol of astern stru ggle without concessions.

The first page of issue 1 of Amigo delPueblo reveals a lot. It is in colour andcont ains only a proclama tion and slogansaround a portrait of Durr uti holding theflag of the CNT, th e ban dera roji-negra.Here is the essential parts of that proc-lama tion, the t one of which is fully in t hesp i r i t o f tha t revo lu t ionary ly r ic i sm,which was insepar able from Spanish a n-archism.

En velloped in th e folds of the red an d black flag, our proletaria t rose to the sur- face with an ardent desire for absoluteliberation.

One man bestrode those sublime days. Buenaventura Durruti rooted himself inthe heart of the mu ltitud es. He fough t for the workers, he died for them . His im m or-tal past is in extricably linked to that red and black flag which gallantly floated inthe majestic Ju ly dawn . On h is coffin wehave discharged him of his burden, intaking it upon our shoulders. With this flag held aloft, we will f all or we will over-com e. Th ere is no m idd le ground : to van-qui sh or to di e.

The bottom of the page declares, in verylarge type:

Are we provocateurs? Are we th e sam eold thin g? Durrut i is our guide! His flagis ours! Long live the FAI! Long live theCNT!

The determination to attach themselvesto the memory of Durrut i (and at thesame time to reply to the accusation of

being pr ovocat eur s or irr espons ibles) isevident in a ll of the following issues.

Can we ta lk of a cult of personality her e?

And does Amigo del Pueblo answer thisquestion?

The second issue of the paper is moregiven over to Francicso Ascano and in-deed the two men are inseparable withregards to the esteem in which they areheld by our Spanish comrades, as theywere inseparable in the events whichmarked out their lives. But issue 3, un-

der the heading let us im itat e the peoples heroes, declar es on page 2:

....we are m ind ful of our position asiconoclasts . However, Buenaventura Durruti would have been outraged bythose who audaciously falsify his posi-tions and ideas. Without lyricism or op- portunism he would have unamhuously fought against the expanding schemeswh ich are lettin g us lose the Ju ly revolu-tion.

It must be understood that to imitate Durruti m eans neither to hesitate nor to

weaken. It means that we ponder the ex- perience of the J uly m ovem ent and , after ana lysing it, we decide tha t th e counter-revolution will not carry the day when faced with our conception of responsibil-ity.

Issue 5 takes up the issue again, in amore genera l sense . But th i s a r t i c le ,prin ted on pa ge 4 in t he ideas sectionand ent i t led no id ols, no arbit rary d eci-sionsis clear ly an opinion piece, address-ing those outside th e Friends of Durr uti.

One part of this article takes up the de-fence of th e Fr iends of Durr ut i (the group-ing is described as a n ana rchist institu -tion, created in the lin gering glory wh icha d ead leader[*7] left beyond his grave.I t supports the r ighteousness of theirfight a gainst th e trad itiona l centra lismof every government and variety of stateand against the incongruouscentralismof th e supposed anar chists who had de-creed the expulsion of the Friends of Durr ut i f rom th e workers movement.The other part of the article deals withthe heroand declares: we are opposed to all types of idolatry or personal cult.....Fur th er on, with reference to Durru ti, itsays:

he obta ined the h eros glory by virtu e of his character and sentim ents, not for hisideas. And , as regards his perfect ideal-

ism, there are other people among theanonymous masses who are not consid-ered to be sym bols and wh o could perhapssurpass our hero

The following issue (no 6, 12 August1937), comes ba ck to the quest ion u nderth e hea ding Los Cau dillos[*7]. But t hecaudillism which is den ounced is t ha t of the parties which reigns in the highestspheres of the CNT and FAI. It is thecaudillism of those who have been builtup by th e press an d orators. It is a d iffer-ent m att er when it concerns th e hero.

hav e we not said a thousan d tim es tha t it is up to the people to choose their menand that if the people wish to give supe-rior consideration to one than to others,that it is they who must decide? What isnot acceptable is that caudillos should be fabricated with ink and quill.

A caudi l lo fe l l in f ront of Madr id . Buenaventura Durruti obtained the es-

teem of the popula r will becau se he acted as the people wished him to.

( . . . . )Buenaven tu ra Dur ru t i was acaudi l lo . Bu t h e d idn t become onethrough petty flattery. He attained that state through the course of his life, on thestreet an d battlefield, w hile th ose otherswh o aspire to be caud illos were hangin gout in th e halls of grand h otels alongsideelegant tourists

This is all that we can discover in theguise of a self-critique! Otherwise, thismatter was not addressed again in the

last issues of Amigo del Pueblo.DENUN CIATION OF

MINISTERIALISM

We have seen, in the first part of ourstudy, th at a significant nu mber of ana r-chist an d confederal activists protestedagainst the spirit of concession whichguided the committ ees at th e summ it of the organisations.

However t he advocates of governmen talcollabora tion wer ent alwa ys cur sory[*8].Thus Diego Abad de Santillan st at ed sub-

tly that the necessary revolution wouldbe carr ied out by the m asses and that thegovernment was merely a good instru-ment for waging the war. He added th at ,moreover, the presence of revolutionar-ies in the governmen t would perh apsa l low them to p reven t the s ta te f romput tin g excessive obstacles in t he wayof th e people s as p i ra t ions . D.A. deSanti l lan argued this l ine in Soli ( thep o p u l a r a b b r e v i a t i o n f o r S o l a r i d a dObrera) on April the 16th, a few daysbefore t he even ts of May. He forgot t o saythat the CNT-FAI officers were collabo-

rat ing in a bourgeois governmen t wh ichwas const an tly striving to limit the work-ers conqu ests[*9] an d which ha d oustedthe P OUM without t he Gar cia Olivers orthe Montsenys h aving raised t heir voicesin protest. He also forgot to specify that


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the central government had in no waysupported the armament production ef-fort which was carried out in Cata loniaand that the l ibertar ian columns of theAragon front wer ent receiving any arm sand that consequently the government,while excelling in reinforcing the secu-rity forces of the ea r, didnt h ave a cluehow to wage t he wa r. How could D.A. deSan tillan not see th at defence of the bour-

geois was being reinforced every dayagainst the s teps tak en by the ma sses of w o r k e r s a n d p e a s a n t s , w h i l e t h eStalinists were extending t heir power bytheir control of the forces of repressionas well as by their par allel police force.

But ministerialism was to culminate inthe May days. I t was the main task of issue 1 of Amigo del Pueblo to t hr ow lighton t his and t o take an intransigent posi-tion on it. The first issue, which is un-dated, appea red visibly rushed, some a r-ticles being almost en tirely suppressed y

the censor. We can reasonably supposetha t it was pu blished on May 15th as itreproduces a text from Barcelona , dated11th May 1937.

In appearance this issue is consecratedto magnifying th e memory of Durr uti. Inreality it is largely focused on the Maydays. The second page, at least half of which was chopped out by th e implacablecensorship, opens the debate withouthesitation, by comparing 2 manifestos;That of the regional committees (CNT,FAI an d Liberta rian Youth) and t hat of th e Friend s of Dur ru ti. The regiona l com-mitt ees ma nifesto is an app eal for work-ers un ity in order to face up to th e provo-cations, an appeal for political honestyin th e rear. It welcomes the popu lar de-cisionwhich cau sed th e enemys plan tobe halted. But this enemy is not identi-fied and after t rying to justify the CNTand FAIs line in t he a ftermat h of Ju ly19th 1936 and pr esenting the m oderationof their pr esent dema nds as a sign of no-bleness and loyalty, it finishes with th efollowing catch-cries Long live the pro-letariats revolutionary alliance! Down

with the counter-revolution! Long live th eCNT-UGT un ity, the guaran tee of trium phin the war and revolution. This mani-festo cont ain s no remind er of th e revolu-tionary objectives, it helps to perpet ua tei l lusions (especial ly when one knowswhat t he UGT leaders in Cat alonia wereup t o), it cont ain s no criticism of th e gov-ernment and doesnt say a word a bout theCNT ministers. It is the very epitome of ambiguity an d political weakness.

As for th e Fr iends of Durru tis ma nifesto,it is mu ch more ra dically censored, it de-nounces th e illusions in an ti-fascist un ityand the t reasons of the leader s. Here ar ethe outstan ding passages.

It has been stated that the days of July(1936) were a response to fa scist provoca-tion, but we, the Friend s of Durrut i, have

publicly supported the position that theessence of those memorable July days re-sides in the proletariats desire for abso-lute emancipation.

The regional committee of the CNT dis-owns us

This disavowal on the part of the supposed executive committees does not sur- prise us. We know in advance that these

com m ittees are capable of doing noth ingexcept to para lyse the ad van ce of the pro-le tar ia t . We know only too wel l thetrentistes who are members of the regionalcommittee.

We are the Friends of Durruti who haveenough m oral au thority to denounce

The revolutionary message of the Friends of Durruti

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