Durruti in the Spanish Revolution — Part 3, Chapter 6 : The Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias of Catalonia

By Abel Paz

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Untitled Anarchism Durruti in the Spanish Revolution Part 3, Chapter 6

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(1921 - 2009)

Abel Paz (1921–2009) was a Spanish anarchist and historian who fought in the Spanish Civil War and wrote multiple volumes on anarchist history, including a biography of Buenaventura Durruti, an influential anarchist during the war. He kept the anarchist tradition throughout his life, including a decade in Francoist Spain's jails and multiple decades in exile in France. (From: Wikipedia.org.)


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Part 3, Chapter 6

CHAPTER VI. The Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias of Catalonia

The CNT accepted “democratic collaboration” and, according to García Oliver, the structural result was as follows: “The Central Committee of Anti- Fascist Militias was accepted and the balance of forces within it established. Although the distribution of seats wasn’t just—the UGT and Socialist Party, who were minorities in Catalonia, received as many as the triumphant CNT and anarchists—this was a sacrifice designed to lead the dictatorial parties down the path of loyal collaboration and to avoid suicidal competitions.” [524] This was not a bad idea, but groups make concessions when they are in the minority and not the majority. In any case, the CNT and FAI’s political enemies will avail themselves of this generous sacrifice in Catalonia, but won’t make similar gestures in places where the CNT lacks predominance.

This new body, due to the composition of the groups forming it, would be democratic-bourgeois. Along with the CNT, FAI, and POUM, the Esquerra Republicana and Acció Catalana Republicana were also members of the coalition. These parties represented the petty and middle bourgeoisie, which the revolutionary expropriation of the means of production would impact most strongly. Between the extreme left and the right, there was a newly formed party: the Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC). The PSUC, an appendage of the Communist Party, was a “party of order” (i.e., the counterrevolution).

After the CNT’s meeting, its representatives returned to the Generalitat to give Companys the Confederation’s response. There was a sharp difference between what the CNT thought the CCAMC should be and what Companys wanted: the latter thought it should be a secondary body controlled by the Generalitat, whereas the CNT believed that it should be a popular entity that controlled economic, political, and military life in Catalonia and reduced the Generalitat to legalizing its decisions. Lluís Companys reacted as one would expect to the CNT’s stance, but the CNT men were intransigent: either Lluís Companys accepts a popular and fully empowered CCAMC or the CNT will wash its hands of the matter and let the revolution unfold on its own accord. Companys capitulated since, for him, any break on the revolution was better than nothing. The CNT (Escorza and others) considered this a victory but, from a revolutionary perspective, it was really a defeat. García Oliver had correctly regarded that new body as a counterrevolutionary force. But the reality was that CCAMC held power and the CNT and FAI had a controlling influence within it. This at least allowed them to hope that the proletariat could launch the final strike at a later date, particularly if French workers, inspired by Spain, entered the struggle. All was not lost and—to ensure that it would not be lost—they formed the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias of Catalonia that night of July 21, 1936. [525] The following political forces belonged to the body: the CNT, the FAI, the UGT, the Socialist Party, the Esquerra Republicana, Acció Catalana Republicana, Unió de Rabassaires, and the POUM. To clearly mark its independence from the Generalitat, it installed itself that night in a large modern, building in the Palacio Plaza (which the Nautical School had occupied previously).

Its meeting first took place around the large table in the school’s central room. Few of the participants had a clear idea of what the organization was going to do; it was only the CNT and FAI representatives who really knew what they wanted. That, and the fact that they genuinely represented the revolution, put the others in an expectant stance, as if waiting for orders. Jaume Miravitlles represented the ruling party in the Generalitat at the meeting. He recorded his impressions of his first encounter with the CNT and FAI:

I participated in the sessions as a representative of the Esquerra, a liberal leftwing party. We came dressed as typical bourgeois intellectuals—tie, jacket, and fountain pen—and suddenly found ourselves facing a group of anarchists who entered the room. They were unshaven, wearing combat uniforms, and carrying revolvers, submachine-guns, and ammunition belts from which they hung their dynamite bombs. Their leader was a man whose appearance, speech, and dynamic presence made him seem like a giant: Buenaventura Durruti.

I once wrote an article stating that there was no substantial difference between the fascists and the FAI. Durruti, a furious warrior, remembered that piece all too well. He approached me, put his large hands on my shoulders, and said: “You’re Miravitlles, right? Be careful! Don’t play with fire! It could cost you dearly!” This is how the Central Committee of the Anti-Fascist Militias began its activities: in an atmosphere of tension and threats.[526]

No one but the CNT, FAI, and POUM had any interest in building the CCAMC and using it to neutralize the Generalitat. As if to illustrate that, Miravitlles, who took the meeting as a sort of discussion circle, started a debate. He asked: who had made the revolution and, in view of that, what would be the best way to serve it?

The “sans culottes” made the revolution in France and it had been the “shirtless” in Peron’s Argentina.[527] Who made it in Barcelona?

I raised this question at the first meeting of the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias on the night of July 21 in the Nautical School in the port. Myself, Josep Tarradellas, Artemi Aiguader, and Joan Pons participated as a representatives of the Esquerra Republicana.

“Who made the revolution?” I asked. The question was significant, and our answer to it would determine our political strategy and tactics. For the Esquerra men, it was important to reduce the historic panorama to the framework of the reality of events. Despite the name of the Committee to which we belonged, we did not believe that a “fascist” rebellion had occurred and that extreme right groups should be left in liberty if they hadn’t participated in the uprising. Being a Lliga member was not the same thing as being a fascist, and even less being a member of the Federation of Christian Youths, known by the unfortunate phonetic of “ fejocistas.”

The FAI men, as well as the POUM and the Communists, received my question with a shrug. As far as they were concerned, they were facing a historic opportunity and were not about to let it pass them by. Aurelio Fernández, one of the FAI’s most impetuous leaders, gave a response that perfectly reflected the first two or three—but decisive—days: “The revolution has been made by the same people that make all revolutions: the miserables.”[528]

Miravitlles translated Aurelio Fernández’s response with the term “lumpenproletariat,” but what Aurelio Fernández said—and this was how it was interpreted—was that it had been the disinherited, those plundered by the bourgeoisie and the dominant class. The CCAMC’s “political strategy and tactics” would have to correspond to that.

The other men reflected while this exchange took place. They were Santillán, Durruti, García Oliver, Aurelio Fernández, Assens, and Ricardo Sanz for the CNT and FAI; those already mentioned for the Esquerra; Del Barrio, Comorera, Vidiella, Miret, García, and Durán Rosell for the UGT and Socialists; Torrents for Unió de Rabassaires; Fábregas for Acció Catalana Republicana; and José Rovira for the POUM.

Diego Abad de Santillán occupied himself during the conversation by doodling on a piece of paper. He suggested that they begin by discussing the practical division of activities. He submitted his sketches as a schema and, after some debate, they accepted his outline as the structure of the CCAMC. [529]

General Administrative Secretary: Jaume Miravitlles; Department of Militias: Santillán and Ricardo Sanz; Department of War: García Oliver, assisted by Durruti and military advisers such as Colonel Jiménez de la Beraza and later the Guarner brothers; Department of Investigation and Security: Aurelio Fernández, José Assens, Rafael Vidiella, and Tomás Fábregas. There was also a Department of Supply, under the care of José Torrents, and another of Transportation.

They created sections that reported to each department. These included one of statistics, which answered to the General Administrative Secretary; quartering and munitions, which reported to the Department of Militias; and others like cartography, war training, broadcasting, and operations, all of which answered to the Department of War. Santillán writes:

The principle and most overwhelming work naturally fell on us, representatives of the largest and most active part of the Catalan proletariat. We assumed the positions of greatest responsibility, but also those in which exhaustion would soon threaten us, due to the enormous physical effort required. We spent more than twenty hours daily in incessant nervous tension, resolving thousands of problems and attending to the crowds that thronged around our offices with tremendously varied demands. It was hardly an environment that lent itself to serene reflection.[530]

What follows is the first “edict” issued by the Central Committee of Anti- Fascist Militias of Catalonia:

1. A revolutionary order has been established, which all parties constituting the Committee pledge to maintain.

2. For control and security, the Committee has formed teams to ensure that its orders are rigorously observed. The teams will carry credentials verifying their identity.

3. The Committee accredits those teams alone. Everything that takes place without its approval will be considered seditious and will suffer sanctions determined by the Committee.

4. The nocturnal teams will be severe against those who disrupt the revolutionary order.

5. From 1:00 to 5:00 in the morning, circulation will be limited to the following:

a) Anyone demonstrating membership in organizations belonging to the Militias Committee.

b) Persons accompanied by the above and who prove their moral solvency. c) Those showing that circumstances beyond their control oblige them to go out.

6. To recruit people to the Anti-Fascist Militias, organizations belonging to the Committee are authorized to open enlistment and training centers. An internal order will detail the conditions of recruitment.

7. Given the need for revolutionary order to confront the fascist nuclei, the Committee hopes that it will not have to take disciplinary measures to ensure that it is obeyed.[531]

And they signed, in the name of the Esquerra Republicana, Acció Catalana Republicana, the Unió de Rabassaires, the Marxist parties (Stalinist and more or less Trotskyist), the CNT (Durruti, García Oliver, and Assens), and the FAI (Santillán and Aurelio Fernández).

When the first CCAMC session ended, Manuel Benavides says that “Durruti and García Oliver told Comorera, the Socialist Party representative: ‘We know what the Bolsheviks did to the Russian anarchists. We’ll never let the Communists treat us in the same way.’” [532] At that meeting, the CCAMC decided to send a group on a scouting mission to Aragón, to find out about the rebel soldiers’ actual positions. It also decided to mine Barcelona’s access routes as a precautionary measure against a possible attack of a motorized enemy column.

Barcelona’s urban and productive life also had to be normalized, which could only happen with the support of the unions and Revolutionary Committees. The main weight of this task fell on the CNT and FAI, as Santillán said, because they were the only organizations that could work with these groups.

There was also a pressing need to organize workers’ militias to engage the enemy outside of Barcelona. The first of these columns left on July 24, led by Buenaventura Durruti. [533] Although Durruti only participated in the CCAMC very briefly, Miravitlles offers a valuable commentary on his experience with the body. Miravitlles highlights some of Durruti’s personal qualities, which the new military campaign would not change:

The cabinet continued functioning as always in the governmental palace, but only as a phantom government that impotently contemplated the revolutionary situation. With an exception: the President of Catalonia, Lluís Companys, who was a man of great personal merit. He had previously been a defense lawyer for the anarchists and had friends in the CNT. We all stood the first time that he came to a meeting of the CCAMC, except for the anarchists, who stayed seated. There were often vehement arguments between the CNT-FAI people and Companys, who reproached them for jeopardizing the revolution with their violent actions. Durruti got fed up one day and told the Generalitat’s representatives: “Send my regards to the President, but it’s better if he doesn’t come around here again. Something bad could happen to him if he insists on lecturing us.”

Durruti immediately realized that the CCAMC was a bureaucratic organization; it discussed, negotiated, took minutes, and carried out official tasks. But he wasn’t the type of man who could endure that for long. There was fighting outside and he couldn’t sit on the sidelines. He organized his own division—the Durruti Column—and took off for the Aragón front.[534]

Before July 21, barracks and other military building were in the hands of the men who had conquered them; that is, in the hands of the CNT and FAI. But those organizations made a big mistake when the CCAMC was established by allowing each political party to organize its own militias and by ceding the barracks and weapons to them. The militias should have answered to the Department of Militias; this would have allowed arms seized by the workers to remain in their hands. Indeed, the first disarmament of the working class occurred when they permitted the political parties to organize their own columns. That only benefited those who had not fought, since they didn’t have weapons or, if they did, they were holding them in reserve until they thought it was time to unleash the counterrevolution (this was the case with the Stalinists).

Under this system, the Esquerra Republicana took control of the Montjuich fortress; the Cavalry barracks on Tarragona Street went to the POUM; and the Infantry barracks of the Parque de la Ciudadela to the party that was going to become the PSUC. The Partido Federal Ibérico received an old convent. The CNT and FAI kept the Pedralbes Infantry barracks, the Sant Andreu Central Artillery Barracks, the barracks in the Docks, and the Cavalry barracks on Lepanto Street. All would share the Artillery Station and the Quartermaster Corps. The organizations named their barracks as soon as they occupied them: the Stalinists baptized theirs the “Karl Marx Barracks,” the POUM called theirs “Lenin,” and the anarchists, not to be outdone, named theirs “Bakunin,” “Salvochea,” “Spartacus,” etc.

The division of organizational headquarters came after the distribution of barracks. The POUM ceded the Hotel Colón, which its militants had taken, to its PSUC rivals and a hotel on the Ramblas, which they had also occupied during the struggle, was reserved for its Central Committee. The CNT remained in the Casa Cambó. In the neighborhoods, the Revolutionary Committees installed themselves in places that were adequate to their needs. The unions occupied large buildings as well.

The canteens created in the clamor of the struggle became popular kitchens and they were installed in hotels. The Hotel Ritz became a hotel for the militiamen.

The general strike called at the beginning of the rebellion remained in effect, although it was not long before the most important services began operating again. This permitted the phenomenon that militants were unable to see on July 20 to manifest itself clearly: that is, workers’ self-management. Hospitals, laboratories, and pharmaceutical centers, which had been occupied during the initial moments of the battle, now functioned under workers’ control, as did streetcars, busses, metros, and railroads, as soon as they resumed operation. The workers’ committee holding the telephone exchange started repairing lines damaged during the fighting and installing new lines in the workers’ centers established during the first three days. In these centers, the workers met in assemblies and nominated committees, which formed links with workers in other industries. The Food Workers’ Union, which had created hubs for food distribution and popular kitchens from the outset, immediately began providing food for the entire city, collectivizing the Central Markets of fruits, vegetables, fish, and meat. Those who supplied these markets before July 19 continued to do so, but now introduced their products under a collectivist (not commercial) regime. Although the new collective procedures were rudimentary, they were able to immediately satisfy the basic needs of Barcelona residents. To a great extent, people simply gave things away, particularly food items in the popular kitchens. It seemed as though a classless, money-less society had been created. The rapidly established CCAMC prevented the emergence of new, more profound forms of social organization that could have transformed human relations in previously unknown and untried ways. Nonetheless, the collectivization of distribution and production was irreversible once it began, despite the controls and restraints that the CCAMC tried to impose.

Once the rebels were defeated and people began to return to work, it became possible to appreciate the depth of the proletarian revolution. Factory owners, technicians, and managers had felt threatened as a class and disappeared. Some went into hiding and others fled to France. The workers couldn’t care less and devoted themselves to producing and collectivizing the factories, workshops, and other production sites in Barcelona and Catalonia. Factory assemblies resolved the most immediate problems and appointed Factory Committees. Important metallurgic centers like Hispano-Suiza, Vulcano, and La Maquinista Terrestre y Marítima began to build armored trucks. This was the first step toward what was going to be a war industry in a few days.

CAMPSA’s petroleum and gasoline depots, the electricity headquarters, and the gas factories had all been occupied immediately and started operating under workers’ self-management on July 22. Gas stations filled the tanks of cars from the Committees after getting the union’s approval. Money disappeared from circulation.

Artillery Colonel Ricardo Jiménez de Beraza arrived in Barcelona around this time, after having fled Pamplona. García Oliver immediately enrolled him as an adviser in the Department of War. He asked his opinion on the emerging forms of revolutionary organization. His response was unequivocal: “Militarily, its chaos, but it’s a chaos that works. Don’t disturb it!” [535]

The Neighborhood Committees, which had diverse names but all shared a libertarian outlook, federated and created a revolutionary Local Coordination Committee.

Power, properly speaking, did not exist. The Generalitat was a pure symbol. The CCAMC could not take a step without the support of the unions and the militias could not be organized without the collaboration of the Revolutionary Committees and the unions. On July 22, the Neighborhood Committees took over the department stores, where self-managing groups of employes began distributing free clothes. The people opened the pawnshop and returned the items it held to their original owners. Sewing machines, mattresses, blankets, and warm clothes sold by the workers at the end of winter were now back in the hands of their initial proprietors. Lluís Companys called all of this an “excess” of the CNT.

On July 23, the CNT’s Local Federation of Unions published a flier saying: “Worker, organize yourself in militias. Don’t give up your rifle or ammunition. Don’t lose contact with your union. Your life and liberty are in your hands.” [536] This flier was a response to an order that the CCAMC issued to the Revolutionary Committees stating that it would give each armed worker a card listing his name, weapons, and union and that workers who no longer wished to bear arms were to hand their weapons over to the CCAMC, which would deposit them in the barracks closest to their sector. The unions interpreted this as an attempt to disarm the people. The Neighborhood Committees, which wanted to control their own areas with their own armed groups, had a similar reaction. Vicente Guarner, who replaced Federico Escofet as General Commissioner, had this to say about the popular mobilization:

I made a last attempt to reestablish order, in so far as it was possible, by arranging a meeting in my office with the CNT Regional Committee, which led a whole network of Defense Committees in Barcelona’s districts. I believe that [Marcos] Alcón and [ José] Assens presided over the group, and there were other important CNT members there as well. I explained the need to normalize and structure the resistance to the fascists. The District Committees were not to carry out any searches without the approval of Police Headquarters, whose inspectors or agents had to hear a statement in every case. They also can’t allow acts against individuals, such as absurd and lawless assassinations; “popular tribunals” would soon be formed and their rules had already been drafted. They told me that the military rebellion had produced a revolutionary reaction of a certain type and that the people had to act on their own initiative. I replied that I was obliged to ensure that people obey the law. I was asked (by Alcón, I think) if I thought I could rely on my Security forces. He made me look out the balcony at various guards at the door of the General Station who had tied red and black CNT scarves around their necks. I said goodbye to the Confederals and ordered my secretary to arrange the arrest of all guards bearing anti-regulation garments. I also considered it my duty to immediately report that conversation to President Companys, who accepted my resignation. He called his secretary (Joan Moles at the time), who got me a position as a military adviser in the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias of Catalonia.[537]

The whirlwind of events had scattered the members of the Nosotros group. Each was engaged in important tasks. Aurelio Fernández and Assens organized “Control Patrols,” which were formed by union-appointed militants. These patrol groups had the dual mission of ensuring revolutionary order (as decreed by the CCAMC) while also staying in contact with the unions and Neighborhood Committees so that they could respond in a concerted way if there was an attempt from “above” to crush the revolution. Ricardo Sanz, Santillán, and Edo organized militia columns and sent them off to Aragón. García Oliver, head of the Department of War, put the war industry in motion, as well as military and aviation instruction. Vivancos, Ortiz, and Gregorio Jover were busy putting together columns of their own, which would also go to Aragón.

Despite their manifold activities, the Nosotros group was able to meet and discuss the circumstances. They all agreed that it was necessary to transcend the alliance between the CNT and the political parties and create an authentic revolutionary organization. That organization would rest directly on Barcelona and Catalonia’s unions and Revolutionary Committees. Together, those groups would form a Regional Assembly, which would be the revolution’s executive body.

But the militants in the Nosotros group knew that the victory of the revolution required more than that. Without the support of the international proletariat, the Spanish revolution’s days were numbered, whatever the Spaniards themselves might do. That was the tragedy of Spanish anarchism. The anarchist movement had been growing in Spain and ultimately became a powerful and determinant force in the country. But anarchists had been losing ground in the rest of the world: they had lost their influence on the working class, which had fallen under the control of social democrats and Stalinists. Now everything depended on making the international proletariat aware of the fact that Spanish workers had embarked on one of the most extraordinary revolutions in history. This wasn’t an easy task. There was the Soviet Union, whose foreign policy demanded proletarian submission in the bourgeois democracies, with whom the USSR had forged alliances. It also wasn’t easy in the face of a Léon Blum, who was always respectful of democratic bourgeois norms. The Spanish revolution and its anarchist content agitated everyone and little help could be expected. The Spanish revolutionaries themselves would have to disrupt the whole world and internationalize the revolution. That is precisely what the Nosotros group set out to do, beginning with the explosive situation in Morocco. Franco’s headquarters and reserves were there and democratic, Popular Front France was waging a war against the nationalist Arabs. If Spanish revolutionaries could foment a revolt in the so-called “Spanish Protectorate,” the rebellion would spread to the French colonial zone. This would oblige France to intervene as a colonial force, which might wake up the French proletariat. García Oliver took on the task of inciting the Moroccan rebellion.

From : TheAnarchistLibrary.org

(1921 - 2009)

Abel Paz (1921–2009) was a Spanish anarchist and historian who fought in the Spanish Civil War and wrote multiple volumes on anarchist history, including a biography of Buenaventura Durruti, an influential anarchist during the war. He kept the anarchist tradition throughout his life, including a decade in Francoist Spain's jails and multiple decades in exile in France. (From: Wikipedia.org.)

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