CHAPTER II. August 1917

The proletariat, now strong and populous due to the industrial expansion, entered into open revolutionary struggle. The decisive moments of the battle occurred in the summer of 1917, as Spain teetered on the brink of revolution.

Since the beginning of the century, the Catalan and Basque industrial bourgeoisie understood that the principal obstacle to its growth lay in Spain’s economic and political structures and that the country would never develop as long as the clergy, aristocracy, and military monopolized political power. They thus initiated an offensive aimed at displacing the parties that had been taking turns running the state and linked their efforts, psychologically, to deeply rooted autonomist sentiments among the Catalan and Basque peoples. These passions were becoming increasingly separatist in character and represented a growing challenge to the power of the central government in Madrid.

The explosion of the First World War prompted the bourgeoisie to accumulate wealth at a frenzied rate, although it did not bother to modernize industry or prepare itself for the economic crisis that would occur when the doors of foreign trade closed. In 1916, in the midst of the European war, Spain had to confront a terrible reality: the country had a deficit of more than 1,000,000,000 pesetas and also had to bear new costs deriving from its unfortunate military campaign in Morocco.

The monopolistic oligarchies had been getting rich while the state spent its reserves. The government was desperate and appealed to Catalan and Basque industrialists, in the hopes that they would help it extract itself from its impasse. Conservative Treasury Minister Santiago Alba advocated placing a direct tax on the extraordinary profits made by companies and individuals, but his plan had a limitation that the industrial bourgeoisie noted immediately: the agricultural capitalists were exempt from the tax, which once again demonstrated the feudal influence on the state. Using this exception as a platform, Francesc Cambó, a leading representative of the Catalan bourgeoisie, attacked the project in the Cortes and not only stopped it in its tracks but also caused the government and the Count of Romanones to fall. However, the bourgeoisie faced its own emergency when foreign purchases were limited in 1917. Indeed, the consequent decline in profits marked the beginning of the difficult, irredeemable situation into which Spain would descend after the war. Despite all this, the bourgeoisie was incapable of drawing all the pertinent conclusions and, ideologically speaking, did little to differentiate itself little from the conservatives.

The working class, struggling under the high cost of living, organized a national protest in 1916 that shook the entire country and its dominant strata in particular. For the first time, the CNT (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) and the UGT (Unión General de Trabajadores) signed an accord that spoke openly of social revolution. [20] The industrial and agricultural elites forgot their differences after seeing this proletarian demonstration and both responded belligerently to the workers’ demands. A social war was brewing. Two events disturbed the fragile political situation even further. One was the Russian Revolution, which appeared to all as a transcendent event in which the working class and peasantry took control of their destinies for the first time. In Spain, news from Russia detonated popular uprisings in the cities and the countryside, where rebellions erupted to the shout of “Viva the Soviets!”

The second event was the rebellion of the infantry within the armed forces. Their revolt was not strictly political, but motivated by a reaction to the monarchy’s favoritism toward the African military lobby, which insisted that the government continue the war in Morocco at all costs. [21] By May 1917, the objective conditions necessary for a revolution seemed to have crystallized. The CNT and UGT—in keeping with the 1916 unity pact—had to confront the events and prepare their respective forces for action. The two groups framed the situation very differently. The matter was clear for the CNT: they had to take advantage of contradictions among the bourgeois and exploit the dissension between the army and the state in order to destroy the monarchy and proclaim an advanced social republic. For the UGT, which the Socialist Party controlled, the juncture was not so much social as political in character: it wanted to form a parliamentary block that would install a liberal government but not liquidate the monarchy. The two workers’ organizations were unable to find real common ground between these diametrically opposed approaches to the moment.

While the Socialists discouraged mass action—telling the CNT that it wasn’t the right time to rise up—two additional events helped undermine the revolutionary potential of the period. The first was Eduardo Dato’s entrance into the government, who rushed to meet the demands of the infantry and thus reestablished discipline in the army. The second was the resounding failure of the Parliamentary Assembly that had gathered in Barcelona with a pledge to appoint a provisional government. [22] That Assembly dissolved itself when it learned that Barcelona’s working class had built barricades in the streets and raised the red flag. It left the workers at the mercy of government persecution from then on (July 19, 1917).

With the Assembly dissolved and the Socialist Party’s political dream dispelled—it had pinned its hopes on the triumph of the Parliamentary Assembly—the UGT and the Socialist Party did not know what to do. Their leadership was frightened as it watched social discontent grow more virulent daily and found no solution but to restrain the working class. Pablo Iglesias declared that a peaceful general strike would suffice to calm the masses and, from then on, that was the UGT’s objective. It took control of the workers’ rebellion (in opposition to the CNT) and formed a National Strike Committee. Police arrested the Committee within hours of the declaration of the general strike on August 13, 1917.

A witness of the 1917 general strike summed it up in these terms: “The revolt was revolutionary, unanimous and complete throughout Spain; I don’t know if anything like it has occurred elsewhere in the world. Hundreds of workers fell throughout the Peninsula.... [but] it began without a concrete goal and lasted a week. The heroic workers of Asturias prolonged it for eight additional days.” [23]

Indeed, the repression was severe: “the troops were called out and used their machine-guns against the strikers.... The troops were thought to have behaved barbarously ... the army ... with the King [was] the only real power in the country.” [24]

To round things off, several months later, in response to those who reproached the Socialist Party for having tried to make a revolution in Spain, Socialist leader Indalecio Prieto declared the following in the Cortes: “It’s true that we gave arms to the people and that we could have won, but we didn’t give them ammunition. What are you complaining about?” [25] That was the fate of the workers rebellion nationally. How did it unfold in León?

The strike was as unanimous there as in the rest of Spain and the most rebellious youth were mobilized, including Buenaventura. This handful of youngsters participated actively in the revolt and, when the strike was over, tried to support the Asturian miners who, as just noted, extended it for eight more days. The youth as well as older workers inspired by them used sabotage to stop the trains from operating in the region. They set fire to locomotives, pulled up tracks, and burned down the railroad warehouse.

León’s Socialist leaders hurried to rescind the strike order when they saw the direction that it had taken and that the workers had escaped their control, although not without first publicly denouncing the sabotage (thus making it easier for police to capture its perpetrators). Clashes with the Civil Guard were frequent and, on several occasions, strikers greeted police with stones at the gates of the railway workshops.

Few could stomach the union’s order to return to work, knowing that their fellow comrades were being machine-gunned in the streets of Asturias. But little by little, the strike lost intensity and the workplaces began to operate again, although there was ongoing sabotage on the rail lines and life did not normalize completely until it was clear to all that the rebellion had ended in Asturias.

With normalization came the crackdown. The Railroad Company announced that it was collectively sacking its entire workforce and that each worker would have to reapply individually. This signified the loss of old union rights and that the Company could once again select the personnel. Naturally, the most rebellious, Buenaventura included, stayed away.

For its part, the Railroad Workers’ Union completed the abuse by expelling the youth, who had made up the core of the resistance. Buenaventura Durruti was at the top of their list. In the statement justifying their decision—made unilaterally by the leadership council—they said: “it is a question of a pacific strike in which the working class shows its strength to the bourgeoisie in a disciplined way. The actions undertaken by these young people go against union practices and they are consequently expelled for indiscipline.” [26]

The youth were unable to defend themselves and the Union even helped police by identifying them as the perpetrators of the sabotage. Under such circumstances, they had two choices: either go to prison or leave the city and hope for better times.