CHAPTER XI. The steamship Buenos Aires

The militants who hadn’t been captured during the January 20 raid—such as Ortiz, Sanz, and García Oliver—met and decided that they would pressure their respective unions to push the CNT National Committee to declare a general strike throughout the country. They believed that this was the only way to stop the government from deporting their comrades.

The Manufacturing and Textile Workers’ Union held an emergency meeting and voted to support the general strike. It sent García Oliver, as its representative, to a meeting of the National Committee, which was based in Barcelona and led by Angel Pestaña at the time. García Oliver drafted the following report for his union:

The National Committee met on the evening of February 9. García Oliver, the secretary, and other delegates were present. He [Pestaña] read the notes sent by the various regions in response to the circular distributed to them which, at the behest of the regional of Aragón, Rioja, and Navarre, asked if they supported the declaration of a general strike throughout Spain or carrying out similar activities designed to prevent the announced deportations.

Levante answered affirmatively, declaring itself for the general strike; Galicia, despite the fact that government repression had weakened it considerably, also supported the strike and promised to do everything it could to make it general in its region; Asturias accepted as well and suggested immediately beginning a propaganda campaign to make the strike as complete as it could be; Aragón, Rioja, and Navarre say they have met with the counties and are prepared for the general strike; the Center regional, due to its limited influence, will organize protests when the National Committee delegation meets with the government to stop the deportations.

Pestaña claimed that Catalonia, Andalusia, the Balearics, and Norte had not responded. He added that “the day before yesterday, Sunday, I wrote all the regionals saying that, from the consultation about whether or not to declare a general strike against the deportations, it turns out that the majority of the regional organizations agree on the need for a massive propaganda campaign, without detriment to other activities that may be deemed appropriate later. I sent the letter in question without the National Committee, because it wasn’t a matter of importance and also to speed things up.”

García Oliver told Pestaña that he had made several important mistakes: First: behind the back of the National Committee, Pestaña has abused his authority and the trust invested in him, due to his possession of the National Committee stamp.

Second: he altered the regionals’ responses, given that the Center regional was the only one that suggested a propaganda campaign. All the others supported the general strike.

Third: Pestaña implied that the majority of regionals rejected the general strike, when in fact the opposite was the case. This is a deliberate and premeditated deception of the Confederal proletariat, which prevented us from stopping the deportations. From all of this, one can deduce that the government’s hurry to order the departure of the Buenos Aires results from the fact that it knew that Pestaña’s actions prevented any effective protest by the CNT. One can also deduce that the deportees would not have departed without his actions and also understand why, despite the considerable time between now and the Fígols rebellion, authorities suddenly ordered the ship to set sail.

García Oliver was unable to do more than submit his report to his union in writing because police arrested him and threw him in the Modelo prison a few days after he wrote it. He told the other prison inmates about the matter and, after hearing his comments, one hundred of them sent a statement to the anarchist press. It asked for “Angel Pestaña’s expulsion from the CNT, in the event that what is said by García Oliver is true. Or, if García Oliver is lying, that he be expelled.” [344]

While all this was happening, the detainees in the Buenos Aires were held incommunicado and impatiently waited to find out what destination the government had in store for them.

The Buenos Aires steamship left the port of Barcelona at 4:45 am on February 10. No one knew where it was going, but most presumed that it was heading for Guinea in Africa. That day Emilienne sent a very expressive letter to the French Anarchist Federation, informing them about the deportation of Durruti and the others:

There is despair at home. The Buenos Aires left Barcelona at four this morning in the direction of Guinea, probably Bata. There are 110 detainees on the ship now and it will stop in Valencia and Cádiz to pick up other militants awaiting exile on those shores. They haven’t allowed us to go onboard and say goodbye to them. Only some children, escorted by the sailors, have been able to bid their parents farewell. Our little Colette, two and half months old, was brought onboard in this way and Durruti could at least give her a kiss. We haven’t been able to see or speak with any of them since they were arrested approximately three weeks ago.

Durruti and some comrades started a hunger strike while the ship was anchored in the port. That’s why Durruti, Ascaso, Pérez Feliu, and Masana were separated from the rest.

The country’s press—with the exception of La Tierra—has slavishly endorsed the actions of the Interior Minister. It bases itself on the most absurd lies and despicable slanders to justify this abominable deportation. Solidaridad Obrera is banned.

Here is the paradox of the Spanish Republic: while it deports 110 prisoners without trial (and most didn’t participate in the Fígols events), the monarchists conspire openly, large rural landowners leave their lands barren, and the peasants die of hunger. It won’t apply the infamous “Law for the Defense of the Republic” against its enemies, but rather against the workers, whose only crime is being conscious of and faithful to their class.

How could it be that the Socialists, who collaborated with Primo de Rivera, are now suddenly concerned with the workers’ demands? An eye for eye, a tooth for tooth; that should be our maxim. Despite the fact that our loved ones are leaving and we don’t know if we’ll ever see them again, we are not declaring defeat and won’t bow our heads. We will continue in the breach.[345]

The deportees used Ascaso’s pen and little Colette’s diapers to send their own message:

Dear friends: it looks like they’ve begun to dust off the compass. We are leaving. That is a word that says many things: to leave—according to the poet—is to die a little. But we aren’t poets, and for us this parting has always been a sign of life. We are in constant movement, on a perennial journey like Jews without a homeland; we are outside of a society in which we find nowhere to live; we are members of an exploited class, still without a place in the world. The departure was always a symbol of vitality. What does it matter if we leave, if we also stay here in our exploited brothers’ ideas and action? It isn’t us that they want to exile but our ideas and there’s no doubt that they will remain. And it’s those ideas that give us strength to live and that will make it possible for us return one day.

What a pathetic bourgeoisie that needs to resort to such things to survive! But we aren’t surprised. It’s in struggle against us and of course it defends itself. It torments, exiles, and murders. After all, nothing dies without at least throwing a punch. Beasts and men are similar in this. It’s unfortunate that its blows cause victims, especially when it is our brothers who fall, but it’s unavoidable and we have to accept the burden. Let us hope that the bourgeoisie’s death throes will be brief! Steel plates are not enough to contain our joy when we realize that our suffering marks the beginning of its end. It collapses and dies, but its death is our life, our liberation. To suffer like this is not to suffer. On the contrary, it is to live a dream cherished for millennia; it is to be present in the actualization and development of an idea that nourishes our thought and fills the vacuum of our lives. To leave is to live! That is our salutation when we say not goodbye but see you soon![346]

The January 18 revolutionary uprising in Alto Llobregat was the detonator needed to set off the revolutionary process that had been incubating in Spain. The miners had had the audacity to turn theory into practice and that theory expressed in practice was going to inspire social struggles across the country. The government hoped that deporting these men would put a break on this, but it only stirred the revolutionary cauldron. Indeed, four days after the ship set sail anarchist groups in Tarrasa occupied Town Hall, flew the black and red flag, and proclaimed libertarian communism. The state crushed this rebellion brutally, just like in Alto Llobregat, but such defeats are really victories in the history of the proletarian struggle because they help the workers free themselves from fear and, when that occurs, the revolution spreads its wings. This important psychological phenomenon generally escapes the myopic historians and salaried journalists.

Emilienne Morin was right to demand an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Francisco Ascaso shared her views when he accepted exile as the bourgeoisie’s inevitable and logical response to its own desperation. The struggle was clearly becoming self-conscious. García Oliver protested from prison when, in the name of the inmates, some tried to justify collaboration with political figures:

Those of us in prison are on the frontlines of this great struggle for the social revolution on the Iberian Peninsula and we are shocked, saddened, and depressed to read so frequently about meetings between anarchist orators and politicians from the parliamentarian minority....

Of course the political minority will try to improve its position with pretenses of revolutionism, but it’s unacceptable for anarchists to justify these politician’s deceitful promises with their presence and support. Anarchists must refuse all collaboration with politicians and have the duty to resist them tirelessly and warn the masses about the hidden dangers that politics hold for them.

We can’t allow such things, even when they occur under the pretext of our imprisonment and deportation. Our duty as anarchists should be enough for our defense.... All paths are closed except the path of proletarian revolution. Parliamentary action, for our post-World War generation, is something old and useless, like Christianity was for the children of the French Revolution.

For our part, we have never had more faith in the realization of our anarchist ideals than now. Our hearts are flooded with enthusiasm after the libertarian communist experiment in Alto Llobregat. Indeed, we are far from those times when being an anarchist meant sacrificing one’s freedom for a society that only future generations could bring into existence. Anything is possible today. Now we fight for ourselves. And, since we’re at war, we’re prepared to defend ourselves. We won’t complain if the enemy wounds us. We’ll simply think of the best way to hit back and bring it down.[347]