Bueneventura Durutti

Bueneventura Durruti, was born in Leon, Spain, on 14 July, 1896. From a poor working class family and largely uneducated, he left school aged 14, to start work in the local railway yard. He very quickly joined the socialist dominated trade union, the Union Generales de Trabajadores (UGT). In 1917, they called for a strike which brought the railways grinding to a halt. The Government, unwilling to negotiate, brought in the army to intimidate the strikers back to work. In the ensuing violence 70 were killed and more than 500 injured. Durutti who had been prominent throughout and had been blacklisted by the Authorities as a militant, was forced into hiding. But while more than 2000 strikers were arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned without trial, Durruti made his escape to France.

Durruti, though he was politically active within a socialist trade union, had always identified himself with the anarchists. It was as an exile in France that he met two other Spanish anarchists, Garcia Oliver and Francisco Ascaso. Together with other exiled anarchists they formed Los Solidarios, a revolutionary and violent organization that were soon carrying out armed attacks in Spain. They made an unsuccessful attempt to assassinate King Alfonso XII and in 1923, were held to be responsible for the assassination of Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romero, killed in reprisal for the murder of the anarchist leader, Salvador Segui. Following the abdication of King Alfonso and the fall of the Monarchy in 1924, Spain was governed by the Dictator General Primo de Rivera. Los Solidarios in response immediately organized a series of guerilla raids. They attacked the military barracks in Barcelona and a number of army posts along the border with France. But this only resulted in a series of heavy defeats and many anarchists were killed. With the police closing in, Durruti, Garcia and Ascaso fled to South America. There they lived as bandits.

Francisco Ascaso

Constantly in hiding or on the run they financed themselves through theft and bank robbery.

With the death of Primo de Rivero, and with no other dictator waiting in the wings, the Spanish Republic was formed on 14 April, 1931. Durruti, Garcia and Ascaso, now returned to Spain and immediately joined the Federacion Anarquista Iberica ( FAI ) the militant wing of the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) the anarchist union. Durruti and the FAI’s militancy and belief in violent revolution caused the CNT to split, and its more moderate leader, Angel Pestana, left to form his own Syndicalist Party, leaving the CNT in the hands of the militants, and with more than a million members it was a formidable organization. Spain was in turmoil and riven by political violence on all sides. The birth-pangs of democracy were painful indeed and with the election of the Popular Front Government (an alliance of Socialists, Communists, Liberals and Republicans, with tacit anarchist support) in November, 1934, social unrest increased, and with the Left and Right in a fratricidal struggle, the descent into civil war became inevitable.

The storm finally broke on 18 July, 1936. Despite some early successes the attempted coup d’état failed as the workers’ fought back. In Barcelona, General Goded was assigned the task of subduing the city. Durruti organized the resistance, arming the workers and building barricades. The army was forced back and found themselves surrounded in their Atarazanas barracks. Rather than demand the army’s surrender the anarchists determined to storm the barracks in a headlong assault. In the ensuing battle the barracks were stormed but hundreds were killed, including Francisco Ascaso. Barcelona was saved but it was a needless slaughter. But the point was proven. The surviving defenders were rounded up and executed.

In the meantime, Durruti had raised 3000 armed men for an attack on Zaragoza. But despite some heavy fighting they never reached the city, hoodwinked as they were by a regular officer into withdrawing. Nevertheless, Aragon had been collectivized in their wake. From farmers, to waiters, to prostitutes, even shoe-shine boys, all now worked in collectives. People ate in communal restaurants, ties were no longer worn, formal terms of address were banned, churches were burned, and priests went into hiding. The revolution was born, and nothing epitomized it more than the Durutti Column with their baggy trousers, leather jackets and caps. They came to symbolize worker resistance to the clerico-fascist forces of oppression. The Militia system they represented was the working man in arms defending hearth and home. But It was a short-lived birth of freedom brutally crushed in the May Day fighting of 1937, not by the enemy but by their own side.

Federacion Anarquista Iberica

Durruti’s funeral procession in Barcelona

Bueneventura Durruti, was the hero of the resistance to the fascist Generals, though he was loved and loathed in equal measure. By November, 1936, Madrid was under siege and Durruti led his now 4000 strong column south to defend against the fascist onslaught. The fighting was fierce and Durruti was killed on 19 November, as he led a counter-attack in the Casa del Campo district. With the death of Durutti died the revolution. There is some dispute as to exactly how he died. It is popularly thought that he was killed by one of his own men who slipped and accidently discharged his machine-pistol. It has also been suggested that he was killed by an agent of the Communist Party who perceived him as a threat. According to his driver, however, he was killed by enemy fire as he tried to rally troops near the Clinica Hospital.

Following his death his body was transported back across Spain to Barcelona where his funeral cortege was followed by 500,000 people.

Postscript

Francisco Ascaso, was a carpenter. He helped form Los Solidarios in 1919, and was implicated in the murder of Eduardo Dato, the Spanish Prime Minister, in 1921. Along with Durruti, he led the border raid on the military post of Vera del Bidusa, that was bloodily repulsed. He helped organize the anti-fascist militias in Barcelona and was killed in the assault on the Atazaranas Barracks. His brother, Dominga, was killed in the fighting that followed the Communist coup in Barcelona in May, 1937. Garcia Oliver, compromised his principles and served in the Administration of the socialist leader, Largo Caballero. Disillusioned with his experience of Government he not long after resigned. He survived the war.