On Saturday, May 1, 1937, there was no May Day demonstration in Barcelona. The Generalidad had announced that this was a day to be worked for the sake of war production, although the real reason was fear of a confrontation between the different labor organizations following heightened tension in several comarcas and localities around Catalonia. That Saturday too the Generalidad council met to look into the worrying public order situation in Catalonia. The council endorsed the effectiveness displayed over the previous few weeks by its councilors for internal security and defense, agreeing to pass a vote of confidence in their ability to resolve outstanding2 public order business.
As the council meeting concluded, there was a meeting of a panel made up of the councilors for defense3 and internal security and the premier, for the purpose of looking into public order issues.4 It seems hard to believe that the initiative to seize the Telephone Exchange could have been a personal decision by the councilor for security, Artemi Aiguadé. It is more likely that the decision would have been made by the panel which met after the council meeting on May 1st,5 or resulted from the incident on Sunday May 2nd, when a telephone conversation between Companys and Azaña (who happened to be in Barcelona) was crassly interrupted by CNT militants. Of course, if the operation failed, the security councilor would carry the full political responsibility. By a stroke of luck, on Monday May 3rd, Companys happened to be on a visit to Benicarló for a meeting with Largo Caballero, conveniently enabling him to dissociate himself from the initial incidents. Be that as it may, Companys' political action, with his blinkered, incomprehensible refusal to dismiss Artemio Aiguadé and Rodriguez Salas,6 as the CNT had insisted right from May 3rd, was one of the most significant triggers of the armed clashes in the ensuing days.
On Monday May 3, 1937, three truck loads of heavily armed Assault Guards, drew up outside the Telephone Exchange in the Plaza de Cataluña. They were led by Rodriguez Salas, UGT militant and dyed-in-the-wool Stalinist, the officer commanding the public order commissariat in Barcelona. Ever since July 19, the Exchange had been commandeered by the CNT. The sore point was control of telephone links, border controls and the control patrols: since January, the Generalidad republican government and the masses of the CNT had clashed several times over these. It was an inevitable struggle between the republican state apparatus, which was insisting upon complete recovery of all of "its" proper prerogatives, and the CNT membership's defense of the "gains" of July 19, 1936.
Rodriguez Salas attempted to take control of the Telephone Exchange. The CNT militants on the lower floors, caught by surprise, let themselves be disarmed: but on the upper floors dogged resistance was organized, thanks to a machine-gun strategically positioned on the top floor. The news spread like wildfire. Barricades were thrown up immediately all over the city. We can speak of a spontaneous backlash from the Barcelona working class, if we regard as such the initiative shown by the middle ranking cadres of the CNT,7 as well as the fact that there already existed significant militant organization among the CNT rank and file, in the shape of the district defense committees and the control patrols.8 Similarly, we can speak of a spontaneous backlash, if we bear it in mind that at no time did an order go out from the CNT leadership, or from the leadership of any other party, before mobilization occurred and barricades were thrown up all around the city.
Nor had anyone issued the call for a general strike, which was the product of class instinct. This was ground ripe for the action that offered itself to the Friends of Durruti. They managed to attend immediately to what the circumstances required. Whilst the workers fought with weapons in hand, they strove to lead them and provide them with a revolutionary objective. But they soon discovered their limitations. They criticized the CNT's leaders, whom they labeled traitors in their May 8 Manifesto, but they were unable to overrule the order to quit the barricades. Nor did they consider supplanting the CNT leadership. They did nothing to see to it that their slogan about establishing a Revolutionary Junta was implemented. They knew that their criticisms of the anarcho-syndicalist leadership would not be enough to wrest control of the CNT organization from it.
On the other hand, the Group was newborn, lacking experience and lacking in prestige with the CNT masses. ItsIdeashad not managed to permeate the rank and file membership thoroughly.
Wallowing in this situation of powerlessness, they received a note from the POUM Executive Committee, requesting an authorized delegation from the Group to meet them.9 Jaime Balius, Pablo Ruiz, Eleuterio Roig and Martin were selected.10 At 7:00 P.M. on May 4 they met in the Principal Palace in the Ramblas with Gorkin, Nin and Andrade.11 Jointly, they scrutinized the situation, and reached the unanimous conclusion that, in view of the CNT12 and FAI leaderships' opposition to a revolutionary uprising, it was doomed to failure.13 It was agreed that an orderly withdrawal of the combatants was required, and that the latter should hold on to their weapons.14 And that this withdrawal should take place once the opposing forces had abandoned their positions. And that assurances were needed that there would be no crack-down on the fighters on the barricades. The next day, the top leaders and officers of the CNT made a further radio broadcast, calling for the fighting to cease. By now the grassroots militants had stopped joking about the "firefighters" of the CNT-FAI and about the Guards kissing Garcia Oliver.
On Wednesday May 5, the Friends of Durruti distributed around the barricades the celebrated handbill that made them famous: it read as follows:
CNT-FAI. "Friends of Durruti" Group: Workers! A Revolutionary Junta. Shoot the culprits. Disarm the armed corps. Socialize the economy. Disband the political parties which have turned on the working class. We must not surrender the streets. The revolution before all else. We salute our comrades from the POUM who fraternized with us on the streets. Long live the Social Revolution! Down with the counterrevolution!
This handbill was printed at gun-point on the night of May 4-5, 1937, in a print shop in the Barrio Chino.15 The improvisation and the Group's lack of infrastructure were obvious. The text had been drafted after that meeting with the POUM Executive Committee at 7:00 P.M. on May 4, by which time the Group and the POUM had agreed upon a defensive withdrawal with no surrender of weapons, and insisting upon assurances that there would be no repression. The handbill, endorsed by the POUM, and reprinted in issue No. 235 of La Batalla (on May 6) was not backed by any plan of action and was merely a statement of intent and an appeal to the CNT masses' spontaneity to press ahead with their activities against the encroachments of the counterrevolution. In point of fact, everything hinged upon the decision that the CNT leadership would make. It was absurd and laughable to believe that the CNT masses, in spite of their initial inhibitions, or criticisms, would not follow the leaders of July 19. Only if the CNT leadership were to be supplanted by a revolutionary leadership was there any chance, albeit very slim chance, of the masses' abiding by the revolutionary watchwords and plan of action of a new leadership. But neither the Group nor the POUM made any attempt to unseat the CNT leadership: nor had they drawn up any plan of action. In practice, both pursued a policy of compliance with the CNT leadership's decisions. The POUM's Executive Committee rejected José Rebull's plan to capture the Generalidad and the buildings still holding out in the city center, on the grounds that this was a political matter, not a military one.16
Also on May 5 there was a meeting between the POUM Local Committee in Barcelona and the Friends of Durruti - a meeting which the POUMists described as negative,17 because:
They [The Friends of Durruti] are unwilling to work directly upon CNT ranks to unseat the leadership, wishing only to influence the movement, with no more responsibility than that.
In the handbill they issued on May 5, the Friends of Durruti suggested concerned action with the POUM. As their immediate objective and to direct the revolution, they proposed that a Revolutionary Junta be established. But once that watchword had gone out, they did nothing to put it into effect. They were barricade fighters, rather than organizers. The suggestion of concerted CNT-FAI-POUM action was nothing more than a salute to the militants from other organizations who had fought alongside them on the barricades. The printed word of the handbill never progressed as far as a hard and fast agreement. They did virtually nothing to unseat the CNT leadership and wrest away control of the CNT masses which repeatedly turned a deaf ear to orders to quit the fighting in the streets. They failed to exploit, organize or issue specific instructions to those Group members who were members of the Control Patrols. They issued no orders to Máximo Franco, a Group member and delegate of the Rojinegra Column, which, along with the POUM division commanded by Rovira, had left the front line in order to intervene in the fighting in Barcelona. Both Josep Rovira and Máximo Franco were persuaded to return to the front by Isgleas, Abad de Santillán and Molina - that is, by the CNT personnel who gave the orders in the Generalidad's Defense Department. The Friends of Durruti trusted entirely to the creativity and instincts of the masses. There was not even the merest hint of coordination between the various members of the Group: instead everyone did as he pleased, wherever he thought he must or wherever seemed best to him. They failed to counter the action of the CNT leaders who toured the barricades to argue with and persuade the grassroots militants to quit the barricades.
And the CNT masses, bewildered by the appeals from their leaders (the very same leaders as on July 19!) eventually chose to give up the fight, even though, to begin with, they defied the CNT leadership's appeals for concord and for the fighting to cease for the sake of antifascist unity. On Tuesday May 6th, as a gesture of good will and to restore peace to the city, the militants of the CNT withdrew from the Telephone Exchange building where the fighting had begun: it was immediately occupied by the security forces and UGT members took up the work stations. When anarchist leaders protested, the Generalidad's response was that "it was a matter of a fait accompli" and the CNT leaders chose not to broadcast this further "treachery," lest it inflame passions.
The Friends of Durruti Group was at no time a serious impediment to the CNT's policy of antifascist unity. At most they were an opposition critical of the CNT and FAI leaderships, and above all, an irksome and unwelcome reminder that the policy of collaboration with the machinery of the State was a betrayal of anarcho-syndicalist principles and ideology.
Distribution of the handbill around the barricades was no easy undertaking, risking the suspicions of many militants and even braving physical18 retaliation.
We know of one meeting between Balius and Josep Rebull, the secretary of the POUM's Cell 72, during the May events. A meeting which, given the numerical slightness of both organizations, had no practical effect. The Friends of Durruti declined Josep Rebull's suggestion that they issue a joint Manifesto.19
The Manifesto which the Group distributed on May 8th,20 in which they reviewed the May events, was printed on the presses of La Batalla . The Group, having been denounced by the CNT as a band of provocateurs, had no presses on which to print it. A POUM militian by the name of Paradell, a leader of the Shop assistants' union, upon discovering the problem facing the Friends of Durruti Group, raised the matter with Josep Rebull, the administrator of the POUM newspaper, and the latter, honoring his basic duty of revolutionary solidarity, and without consultation with any higher party authority, offered the use of his presses to the Friends of Durruti Group.21
In the Manifesto, the Friends of Durruti linked the seizure of the Telephone Exchange with earlier provocations. They named the Esquerra Republicana, the PSUC, and the Generalidad's armed agencies as responsible for having triggered the May events. The Friends of Durruti asserted the revolutionary character of July 1936 (and argued that it was not just opposition to a fascist uprising) and of May 1937 (which was not simply aimed at a change of government):
Our Group which was on the street, on the barricades, defending the proletariat's gains, calls for the total triumph of the social revolution. We cannot countenance the fiction, and the counterrevolutionary fact, whereby a new government is formed with the same parties, but with different representatives.
The Friends of Durruti countered the parliamentary compromises which they labeled as deceit with their revolutionary program, as set out in that handbill distributed on May 5th:
Our Group demands the immediate establishment of a revolutionary junta, the shooting of the guilty ones, the disarming of the armed corps, the socialization of the economy and the disbanding of all the political parties which turned on the working class.
The Friends of Durruti Group had no hesitation in arguing that the battle had been won by the workers and, that being so, they had to do away once and for all with a Generalidad that signified nothing. The Group leveled a charge of treason against the CNT's committees and leaders who had brought the victorious workers' uprising to a standstill:
The Generalidad stands for nothing. Its continued existence bolsters the counterrevolution. We workers have carried the day. It defies belief that the CNT's committees should have acted with such timidity that they ventured to order a 'cease-fire' and indeed forced a return to work when we stood on the very threshold of total victory. No account was taken of the provenance of the attack no heed paid to the true meaning of the present events. Such conduct has to be described as treason to the revolution which no one ought to commit or encourage in the name of anything. And we know how to categorize the noxious work carried out by Solidaridad Obrera and the CNT's most prominent militants."
The description "treason" was repeated in a reference to the CNT Regional Committee's disavowal of the Friends of Durruti, and to the transfer of responsibilities for security and defense (not those under Generalidad control, but the ones under CNT control) to the central government in Valencia:
The treason is on a monumental scale. The two essential guarantees of the working class, security and defense, are offered to our enemies on a platter.
The Manifesto closed with a short self-criticism of some tactical shortcomings during the May events, and an optimistic look to the future - one which the immediate tide of repression unleashed on May 28 would show to be vain and insubstantial. May 1937 did not end in stalemate, but was a heavy defeat for the proletariat.
For all of the mythology surrounding the events of May 1937, the fact is that it represented a very chaotic, confused22 situation, characterized by every one of the sides involved in the fighting developing an enthusiasm for negotiations. May 1937 was not at all a revolutionary insurrection, but began as a defense of "trade union ownership" established in July 1936. What triggered the fighting was the storming of the Telephone Exchange by Generalidad security troops. And that move was part and parcel of the Companys's government's ongoing intent to recover, bit by bit, the powers which the "irregular" situation of a workers' uprising in July 19 had momentarily had wrested from it. The recent successes scored in Puigcerdá and throughout the Cerdaña paved the way for a definitive move in Barcelona and right across Catalonia. It is obvious that Companys felt that he had the backing of Comorera (PSUC) and Antonov-Ovseenko (the Soviet consul) with whom he had worked very closely and to great effect since December, when the POUM had been dropped from the Generalidad government. Stalinist policy coincided with Companys's aims: the undermining and side-lining of revolutionary forces, that is, of the POUM and the CNT, were Soviet aims that could only be encompassed if the bourgeois Generalidad government could be strengthened. The protracted crisis opened up in the Generalidad government following the CNT's refusal to accept the March 4, 1937 decree disbanding the Control Patrols, was resolved with violence (after several instances of armed skirmishing in Vilanesa, La Fatarella, Cullera (Valencia), Bellver, and at Roldan Cortada's funeral, etc.) in the attack upon the Telephone Exchange and in the bloody events of May in Barcelona. Stultifying shortsightedness, unshakable fidelity to antifascist unity and the extent of the main anarcho-syndicalist leaders' (from Peiró to Federica Montseny, from Abad de Santillán to Garcia Oliver, from Marianet to Valerio Mas) collaboration with the republican government, were not negligible factors, nor had the Generalidad government and Soviet agents overlooked them. They could also count upon an asinine saintliness, as was amply demonstrated during the May events.
As far as the actions of the Friends of Durruti Group during the May events are concerned, a misleading mythologization of its role on the barricades and its handbill23 would also be out of place. As we have stated already, the Friends of Durruti did not, at any time, intend to unseat the CNT leadership, but contented themselves to the utterance of scathing criticisms of its leaders and their policy of treason towards the revolution. Maybe they were unable to do anything else, given their numbers and the slightness of their influence upon the CNT's mass following. But we should single out their involvement in the street-fighting,24 their ascendancy on several barricades on the Ramblas, especially ones opposite their headquarters,25 and their involvement in the fighting in Sants, La Torrassa and Sallent. Naturally, their attempts to offer a lead and some minimal political demands in the handbill of May 5, 1937 deserve to be emphasized. Distribution of that handbill was no easy undertaking and cost several Group members their lives. In the distribution of it around the barricades, they could depend upon help from CNT militants. Among the activities during the May events worth mentioning, we should not forget the call, issued by Balius from a barricade located at the junction of the Ramblas and the Calle Hospital, for all of Europe's workers to show solidarity with the Spanish revolution.26 Upon receiving reports that a Column of Assault Guards was on its way from Valencia to put down the revolt, the Friends of Durruti responded by trying to marshal an anarchist column to head it off. But this never got beyond the planning stages, in that it was not taken up by the CNT militants who set about abandoning their barricades.
Finally, we ought to single out, from a political point or view, the agreement reached with the POUM that an appeal should be issued to the workers that they should seek, before quitting the barricades, assurances that there would be no retaliation: and above all pointing out that retention of arms - which ought never to be surrendered - constituted the best guarantee of all.
From a theoretical angle, the Friends of Durruti's role was much more outstanding after the May events when they set about publishing their newspaper, which borrowed its name from the paper published by Marat during the French Revolution: The People's Friend.
NOTES FOR CHAPTER 6.
l. Information about the May events has been taken from the following sources:
J. Arquer Les Jornades de maig Unpublished manuscript deposited with the AHN in Madrid Burnett Bolloten La Guerra civil española: Revolución y contrarrevolución (Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 1989, pp. 659-704) [English language readers should see Burnett Bolloten, The Spanish Revolution, Chapel Hill, 1979]
Luis Companys "This is a carbon copy of notes made by President . . . and of teletyped conversations between various political figures during the fighting in Barcelona, May 3-7, 1937" [Deposited with the Hoover Institution]
Manuel Cruells Mayo sangriento. Barcelona 1937 (Ed. Juventud, Barcelona, 1970)
Francisco Lacruz El alzamiento, la revolución y el terror en Barcelona (Libreria Arysel, Barcelona, 1943)
Frank Mintz and Manuel Peciña Los Amigos de Durruti, los trotsquistas y los sucesos de mayo (Campo Abierto, Madrid, 1978)
Andres Nin "El problema de los órganos de poder en la revolución española." Published in French in No. 1 of Juillet. Revue internationale du POUM in June 1937. Available in a Spanish translation in Balance No. 2 (March 1994)
Hugo Oehler Barricades in Barcelona (1937). Reprinted in Revolutionary History No. 2, (1988) pp. 22-29
George Orwell "Yo fui tesligo en Barcelona" in Boletin de información sobre el proceso politico contra el POUM No. 5, Barcelona, December 15, 1937
[Agustin Souchy] Los sucesos en Barcelona, Relación documental de las trágicas jornadas de la 1a de semana Mayo de 1937 (Ediciones Españolas Ebro, no place indicated, 3rd edition August 1937)
Pavel and Clara Thalmann Combats pur la liberté. Moscou, Madrid, Paris (Spartacus, Paris, 1983)
Various Los sucesos de mayo de 1937. ona revolución en la Republica (Fundació Andreu Nin, Barcelona 1988)
Various Sucesos de mayo (1937) Cuadernos de la guerra civil No. 1, (Fundación Salvador Segui, Madrid, 1987)
2. Jordi Arquer Les jornades de maig Unpublished manuscript text deposited with the AHN in Madrid.
3. The Councilor for defense was CNT member Francisco Isgleas, a faithful friend and supporter of Garcia Oliver, who, during the May events, played a very prominently "neutral" role, preventing CNT and POUM troops from taking a hand in the fighting. Miguel Caminal offers testimony from Rafael Vidiella, according to whom Companys ordered Artemi Aiguadé to take the Telephone Exchange, and this in the presence of several councilors and the CNT's Domenech, who merely pointed out the possible consequences of such a move. [In Miguel Caminal Joan Comorera Vol. II, p. 120]
4. See Arquer, op. cit. and a report in Solidaridad Obrera of May 2, 1937 of the Generalidad council's having met on Saturday May 1.
5. Yet Arquer (op. cit.) appears to believe that Aiguadé was acting off his own bat, without the knowledge of the panel. Be that as it may, it seems obvious that the Generalidad government had washed its hands of Tarradellas's policy of compromise and collaboration and opted instead for the direct confrontation (as advocated by Companys) which had worked so well in Bellver de Cerdaña.
6. See the observations of Manuel Cruells (Mayo sangriento. Barcelona 1937 Ed. Juventud, Barcelona 1970, pp. 55-56) on this point. Cruells was a journalist with the Diari de Barcelona at the time. As for the influence of Stalinists over Aiguadé or Rodriguez Salas, whether there was any or not strikes us as irrelevant given that collaboration that was obtained between Companys, Comorera and the Soviet consul in Barcelona. This view is also expressed by Agustin Souchy in Los sucesos de Barcelona. Relación . . . op. cit. p. 13.
7. Shortly after news broke of the armed clash inside the Telephone Exchange building: "In order to ensure that this incident would not lead to wider clashes, the Chief of Service at the Public Order Commissariat, Eroles, the general secretary of the 'Control Patrols,' Asens and Diaz, representing the Defense Committee, traveled to the Telephone Exchange to get the attackers to withdraw.
Rodriguez Salas consulted by telephone with Aiguadé, the Councilor for Internal Security, on whose orders he had acted, and the latter instructed him that under no circumstances was he to withdraw, but should hold the positions he had captured. . . .
Along with some other anarchists, Valerio Mas showed up at the office of [. . .] Tarradellas, asking him to order the Assault Guards trying to occupy the Telephone Exchange to withdraw [. . .] Tarradellas, and later [. . .] Arlemio Aiguadé, on whom they also called, feigned surprise and claimed that they had not issued any instructions to the effect that the Telephone Exchange should be occupied.
-This is Rodriguez Salas acting on his own account - Aiguadé told them. - And I promise you that [. . .] I will issue the requisite "orders for peace to be restored."
[From Francisco Lacruz El Alzamiento, la revolución y el terror en Barcelona (Libreria Arysel, Barcelona, 1943)]
Francisco Lacruz's information was probably lifted from the pamphlet published anonymously by Agustin Souchy in 1937 which stated: "To ensure that this incident would not lead to wider clashes, the police chief Eroles, the Control Patrols' general secretary Asens, and comrade Diaz, representing the Defense Committee, journeyed to the Telephone Exchange [. . .] Valerio Mas, along with some other comrades, spoke to the premier, Tarradellas and the councilor of the Interior, Aiguadé, to urge them to pull out the troops. [. . .] Tarradellas [. . .] and Aiguadé assured them that they knew nothing of what had happened at the Telephone Exchange. It was discovered later that Aiguadé himself had signed the order for it to be occupied." [Los sucesos de Barcelona. Relación. . . op. cit. p. 12]
8. See the claims of Julián Gorkin in "Reúnion du sous-secretariat international du POUM - 14 mai 1937": "In point of fact the movement was entirely spontaneous. Of course, that very relative spontaneity ought to be explained: since July 19th, Defense Committees, organized primarily by rank and file CNT and FAI personnel, had been formed pretty well everywhere in Barcelona and across Catalonia. For a time, these Committees were scarcely active, yet it can be said that it was they which mobilized the working class on May 3. They were the action groups behind the movement. We know that no general strike instructions went out from either of the two trade union associations."
9. Jordi Arquer Història de la fundació i actuació de la 'Agrupació Amigos de Durruti' Unpublished manuscript [Deposited with the Hoover Institution]
11. Jordi Arquer, op. cit. There can be no question but that Nin took an interest in the Friends of Durruti right from their launch, since as early as March 4, 1937, in La Batalla , Nin published an article fulsome in its praises for theIdeasmooted by Jaime Balius in an article printed in La Noche of March 2, 1937, in which he warned of the dangers of the counterrevolution's steady progress in Catalonia.
12. On May 3rd, the CNT Regional Committee and the POUM's Executive Committee met in the Casa CNT-FAI for talks about the situation. After lengthy and detailed analysis of the prospects for action on the part of the POUMists, Valerio Mas, on behalf of the CNT Regional Committee, thanked Nin, Andrade and Solano for a pleasant evening, reiterating several times that the debate and discussion had been highly interesting, and that they should do it again some time. But no agreement was reached or made. The shortsightedness and political ineptitude of the CNT personnel defied belief: they thought that it was enough that they should have bared their teeth, that the barricades had to come down now, because the Stalinists and Republicans, having tested the strength of the CNT, would not dare go beyond that. On making his way back to the Ramblas, and dodging the barricades, Andrade could not help repeating over and over to himself: "A pleasant evening! A pleasant evening!" [Oral evidence taken from Wilebaldo Solano, Barcelona June 16, 1994]
On the meeting between a POUM delegation made up of Nin, Andrade, Gorkin, Bonet and Solano and the CNT Regional Committee, and, more especially, with its secretary, Valerio Mas, see Wilebaldo Solano "La Juventud Comunista Iberica (POUM) en las jornadas de mayo de 1937 en Barcelona" in Ls sucesos de mayo de 1937, Una revolución en la Republica (Fundación Nin y Fundación Segui, Pandola Libros, Barcelona, 1988, pp. 158-160)
13. Jordi Arquer, op. cit. See also Wilebaldo Solano, op. cit.
14. Jordi Arquer, op. cit. See also La Batalla editorials in Nos. 235 (May 6, 1937) 236 (May 7, 1937) and 237 (May 8, 1937)
15. According to the Thalmanns' account. See Note 1 above.
16. Wilebaldo Solano, op. cit. p. 164
17. The Barcelona Local Committee (of the POUM) "Informe de la actuación del Comité local durante los dias de mayo que ésta presenta a discusión de las celulas de Barcelona," Archivo Histórico Naciónal de Madrid.
18. According to Balius's own claims in his correspondence with Burnett Bolloten, distributing the handbill on the barricades cost several Group members their lives.
For the printing and distribution of the handbill, see Pavel and Clara Thalmann Combats pour la liberte. Moscou, Madrid, Paris (Spartacus, Paris, 1983, pp. 189-191)
19. Josep Rebull's answer No. 7 to a questionnaire put to him by Agustin Guillamón (Banyuls-sur-mer, December 16, 1985):
Question: Did Cell 72 attempt to establish contacts with other groups with an eye to creating a revolutionary front, that is to say, with the Friends of Durruti, the Libertarian Youth, Balius, Munis, or other segments of the POUM?
Josep Rebull: The only contact with the 'Friends of Durruti' came during the May events, but the numerical slightness of that group, which had no links with the rank and file, and the modest representativity of Cell 72 did not produce a practical agreement, such as we wished to suggest, that we issue a manifesto to the struggling workers.
20. Balius slated in 1971: "on account of the 'cease-fire' order issued by the CNT's ministers, we issued a manifesto describing the committees responsible for that order as 'traitors and cowards.' That manifesto was distributed throughout the Catalan capital by the members of the Group and by the Libertarian Youth [Jaime Balius "Por los fueros de la verdad" in Le Combat syndicaliste of September 2, 1971]
22. See Juan Andrade Notas sobre la guerra civil (Actuación del POUM) (Ediciones Libertarias, Madrid, 1986, pp. 117-125)
23. Because they puncture all the mythology, Andrade's comments upon the Friends of Durruti are extremely interesting: "[. . .] we made contact with the 'Friends of Durruti', a group of which it has to be said that they did not amount to much, being a lightweight circle which had no intention of doing anything more than act as an opposition within the FAI, and was in no way disposed to engage in concerted action with 'authoritarian marxists' like us. I am making this point because an attempt has since been made to depict the 'Friends of Durruti' as a mightily representative organization, articulating the revolutionary consciousness of the CNT-FAI. In reality, they counted for nothing organizationally and were a monument of confusion in ideological terms: they had no very precise idea of what they wanted and what they loved was ultra-revolutionary talk with no political impact, provided always that they involved no commitment to action and did not breach FAI discipline. We did all that we could, in spite of everything, to come to some agreement on the situation, but I believe we only managed to jointly sign one of two manifestoes urging resistance, because they would not countenance anything more. Later the group vanished completely and found no public expression." [in Juan Andrade, op. cit. 12]
In any event, Andrade's claims are, to say the least, contradictory, since one is forced to wonder why the POUM bothered to have talks with the Friends of Durruti if they amounted to nothing and were nobodies. Then again, we have already pointed to the interest which Nin displayed in Balius's stance and in the birth of the Friends of Durruti, from as early as March 1937. Similarly, there is no question but that Andrade of l986 contradicts the Andrade of 1937 who wrote the article "CNT-POUM" carried by La Batalla on May 1, 1936: see Chapter 5, note 5.
24. As Balius himself was at pains to make clear, the Friends of Durruti were alone [only the Group and the Bolshevik-Leninist Section issued leaflets with revolutionary watchwords] in welcoming the street-fighting and they attempted to provide the spontaneous struggle of the workers during the events of May 1937 with a lead and revolutionary purpose: "In Espoir, Floreal Castillo states that Camillo Berneri was the leader of the opposition in May. This is wrong. Camillo Berneri published La Lutte de Classes [actually, it was the Italian language paper Guerra di classe,] but played no active role. It was the men from the Friends of Durruti who turned up the heat. It was the miners of Sallent who erected the barricade on the Ramblas at the junction with the Calle Hospital, beside our beloved Group's headquarters." [Jaime Balius "Por los fueros de la verdad" in Le Combat syndicaliste of September 2, 1971]
Balius's testimony is corroborated by Jaume Miravithes: "The city - so far as I know - is occupied throughout by FAI personnel, especially by groups from the Friends of Durruti, and by relatively large numbers from the POUM." [Jaume Miravithes Episodis de la guerra civil espanyola. Notes del meus arxius (2) (Pórtic, Barcelona, 1972, p. 144)]
25. As Balius says in his article "Por los fueros de la verdad," cited earlier, the barricade was built by miners from Sallent.
26. See Pablo Ruiz "Elogio póstumo de Balius" in Le Combat syndicaliste/Solidaridad Obrera of January 9, 1981.
Previous Chapter | Table of Contents | Next Chapter
Published by:
Preface to the English-language Edition
1. Introduction and Chronology
2. Towards July 19
3. From July to May:
Uncontrollables or Revolutionaries?
4. Origins of the Friends of Durruti; The Opposition
to Militarization and Balius's Journalistic Career
5. The Friends of Durruti Group from its Inception
up to the May Events
6. The May Events
7. After May
8. Balius' Pamphlet Towards a Fresh Revolution
9. Balius's Thoughts from Exile in 1939
10. The Friends of Durruti's Relations
with the Trotskyists
11. Conclusions and Concluding Note
Bibliographic info and Credits
AK Press