Buenaventura Durruti
Template:Short description Template:Family name hatnote Template:Use American English Template:Use dmy dates Template:Infobox person José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange ({{#invoke:IPA|main}}; 14 July 1896 – 20 November 1936) was a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist militant and a leading figure in Spanish anarchism before and during the Spanish Civil War. As a prominent member of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), Durruti was a key protagonist in the Spanish Revolution of 1936 and is remembered as a hero and martyr in the anarchist movement.
Originally a mechanic and trade unionist from León, Durruti was radicalized by state repression of the labor movement. In the 1920s, he became a leader of the anarchist affinity group Los Solidarios, which carried out bank robberies, termed "expropriations", to fund their revolutionary activities, as well as assassinations of those they held responsible for the oppression of the working class. Forced into exile, he coordinated militant activities from France and engaged in a series of expropriations across Latin America with the group Los Errantes. After returning to Spain with the proclamation of the Republic in 1931, he became one of the primary organizers of the CNT's insurrectionist wing, leading several unsuccessful uprisings for which he was repeatedly imprisoned and deported.
At the outbreak of the Civil War in July 1936, Durruti was a key figure in defeating the Nationalist military uprising in Barcelona. He subsequently organized and led the Durruti Column, one of the largest and most famous anarchist militias, which fought on the Aragon front. There, alongside combat operations, he helped implement libertarian communism in the liberated territories. In November 1936, as Nationalist forces laid siege to Madrid, he led his column to the capital to aid in its defense. On 19 November, he was mortally wounded by a gunshot while fighting in the Casa de Campo park. The circumstances of his death are disputed, with historians debating whether he was killed by enemy fire, friendly fire, or treachery.
Durruti's death was a significant blow to the anarchist movement and the Republican war effort. His funeral procession in Barcelona drew hundreds of thousands of mourners in one of the largest public demonstrations in the city's history. He became an enduring symbol of the revolutionary spirit of Spanish anarchism, praised for his ideological conviction, leadership, and personal dedication to fighting for a classless, stateless society. His legacy influenced later anarchist groups, such as the Friends of Durruti Group, and he remains one of the most iconic figures of the Spanish Civil War.
Early life
Childhood and education
José Buenaventura Durruti Dumange was born on 14 July 1896, in the Santa Ana neighbourhood of León;Template:Sfnm he was the second of eight children, born to Santiago DurrutiTemplate:Refn and Anastasia Dumange.Template:RefnTemplate:Sfn Durruti began his primary education at the age of five; his teacher described him as a mischievous but good-natured child.Template:Sfnm Durruti later remarked that he had been made into a rebel at an early age.Template:Sfn At the age of six, in 1903, he witnessed the arrest of his father during a tanners' strike.Template:Sfn Led by his uncle Ignacio, the strike lasted for nine months before it was finally defeated by the employers. Durruti's family was left destitute afterwards, as many of its members were boycotted or blacklisted for supporting the strike.Template:Sfn Despite their limited means, Durruti's parents endeavoured to provide him and his siblings with an education. During his secondary education, although his teacher had seen intellectual potential in him, Durruti proved to be a below-average student. His grandfather Pedro had hoped he would continue his studies at the University of Valladolid,Template:Sfn but at the age of fourteen, Durruti decided to train as a mechanic and move into the workforce.Template:Sfnm
Trade union activism
In 1910, Durruti began his apprenticeship under the tutelage of Melchor Martínez,Template:Sfnm a master mechanic and a local leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).Template:Sfn Martínez oversaw Durruti's development as both a mechanic and as a socialist; during this period, Durruti stopped attending church and other religious events, which earned him a bad reputation among the city's Catholic population. After two years, Martínez informed Durruti that he had nothing left to teach him and pressed him to move on. He spent the subsequent year at a workshop that assembled machines for mineral processing, after which he qualified as a lathe operator.Template:Sfn In April 1913, Durruti joined the Metalworkers' Union of the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) and became a prominent local union organiser.Template:Sfn Like other workers in his union, Durruti came under the tutelage of the Leonese socialist theoretician Iglesias Munís, but before long became impatient and dissilusioned with the socialist party leadership.Template:Sfn Durruti came to reject electoral politics in favour of revolutionary socialism, which caused tension between him and the party leadership; during this time, he would often remark that "socialism is either active or isn't socialism".Template:Sfn
Following the outbreak of World War I, Spanish neutrality enabled the country to experience an economic boom. As his workshop was unable to keep up with demand, Durruti was dispatched to Matallana, where he would oversee the installation of mineral processors on-site.Template:Sfn A few days after arriving, the Asturian miners went on strike in protest against workplace bullying by one of the engineers, demanding he be dismissed. Durruti led his team of mechanics in a solidarity action, refusing to assemble any machinery until the miners' demands were met. This forced the management to concede to the workers demands. Impressed by his conduct, Durruti's name quickly spread among miners in Asturias, who referred to him as the "big one".Template:Sfn After he finished his job and returned to León, he was reprimanded for joining the strike by both his boss and his union leaders; Martínez urged him to leave León or else face persecution by the Civil Guard. His father secured him a new job as a mechanic for the Northern Railway Company (CCHNE).Template:Sfn Following a nationwide general strike by the UGT in August 1917, the CCHNE fired its entire workforce, breaking the power of the railroad workers' union.Template:Sfn In an attempt to regain its position, the UGT expelled many of its more revolutionary young members, including Durruti, who was finally forced to leave León.Template:Sfnm Wanted for conscription evasion, Durruti fled to Xixón, where sympathetic Asturian miners facilitated his escape to France in December 1917.Template:Sfn
Throughout 1918, Durruti kept moving between the cities of Occitania, while keeping in touch with family and friends in León.Template:Sfn During this time, he came into contact with the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), an anarcho-syndicalist trade union. Through the CNT, he adopted the political philosophy of anarchism, which he identified with his own revolutionary approach to socialism.Template:Sfnm In January 1919, he returned to Xixón and exchanged information about the CNT's activities in France with local activists that had overseen its growth in Asturias. He officially joined the CNT while working as a mechanic in La Felguera, before heading to La Robla, where Asturian mineworkers were on strike. He then attempted to meet up with some old Leonese friends in Santiago de Compostela, but was arrested by the Civil Guard, who discovered he had evaded conscription. He was brought before a Court Martial in Donostia, but with help from friends and his sister Rosa, he managed to escape back to France.Template:Sfn By June 1919, he was working as a mechanic in Paris, while keeping up correspondence with Leonese anarchists.Template:Sfnm His friends kept him up to date with the development and growth of the CNT in Spain, prompting him to return to the country in early 1920.Template:Sfnm
Militant activism
Los Justicieros
When Durruti arrived back in Donostia, he found the local branch of the CNT, run by Manuel Buenacasa,Template:Sfnm which helped him find work as a mechanic in Errenteria.Template:Sfn He frequented the union's branch office after he finished work, although he rarely took part in meetings and mostly sat by himself reading newspapers.Template:Sfn Durruti and other metalworkers affiliated with the CNT formed an opposition group within the local branch of the UGT; Durruti's prominence within the organisation worried its socialist leadership, although he refused to accept any leadership positions that he was nominated for, as he considered rank-and-file militance more important.Template:Sfn He also became close friends with the CNT leader Buenacasa, who introduced him to several of the union's militants.Template:Sfnm Durruti and a number of these new acquaintances formed a new anarchist group, Los Justicieros.Template:Sfnm In reaction to intensifying state terrorism against the trade union movement, the group decided to attempt to assassinate King Alfonso XIII; the group began constructing a tunnel under the location the King was expected to attend, while Durruti was set the task of acquiring explosives.Template:Sfnm However, before they could carry out their plan, it was uncovered by the police.Template:Sfnm Durruti, Marcelino del Campo and Gregorio Suberviola were publicly named by the media as the plotters. With the aid of sympathetic railway workers, Buenacasa arranged their escape from Donostia to Zaragoza by freight train.Template:Sfn
Upon arriving in Zaragoza, the three went to the local self-managed social centre, where they were updated on the activities of the movement in Aragón; Durruti was immediately struck by how large and comprehensive the centre was, compared with the smaller centres he had been to in Donostia and Xixón.Template:Sfn They then found refuge at the house of Inocencio Pina, who informed them of the repression against the local movement's activists and gave them a choice to remain in Zaragoza and join their struggle; Durruti, known to the group as the "young Asturian", agreed to stay.Template:Sfn Despite the repression against the organised labour movement, Durruti was able to find work as a mechanic.Template:Sfn
In February 1921, Durruti was delegated by a conference of Aragonese anarchist groups to travel around the country and contact other anarchist groups, with the intention of establishing an Iberian Anarchist Federation. He managed to convince several Andalusian anarchist groups to form a regional federation, but was prevented from contacting anarchist groups in Madrid after the assassination of Eduardo Dato.Template:Sfn He then travelled to Barcelona and met Domingo Ascaso, who told him about the repressive conditions in the city, which prevented Catalan anarchist groups from participating in any wider coordination.Template:Sfn Fearing the extension of the armed conflict with the pistoleros to Zaragoza, Durruti went to Bilbao to acquire weapons.Template:Sfn Durruti, Gregorio Suberviola, and Rafael Torres Escartín robbed a paymaster in Eibar and used the money to acquire pistols and finance the CNT.Template:Sfn
Back in Zaragoza, Durruti went to work as a locksmith and, other than attempting to support anarchist prisoners, lived a relatively secluded life. He spent much of his free time educating himself on anarchist philosophy in Inocencio Pina's library, where he read the works of Mikhail Bakunin and Peter Kropotkin, finding that their respective radicalism and practicality balanced each other out.Template:Sfn When trials against the imprisoned anarchists were convened, Durruti convinced the CNT to support calls for a general strike, which brought together sufficient public support that the defendants were acquitted.Template:Sfn Los Justicieros then began to discuss the role of the group in revolutionary politics, with Pina advocating for them to constitute a revolutionary vanguard, while Durruti argued against the proposal, which he believed would separate them from the working class. At this meeting, he met Francisco Ascaso, who agreed with his anti-bureaucratic arguments and soon became one of his closest friends.Template:Sfn Ascaso, Durruti, and other members of the group decided to move to Barcelona to combat the rise of "yellow syndicalism".Template:Sfnm
Los Solidarios
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In Barcelona, Durruti formed friendships with trade union activists of the CNT, with whom he established a new anarchist group, Los Solidarios.Template:Sfnm From this group, Durruti participated in the establishment of a Regional Commission of Anarchist Relations, which coordinated anarchist groups in Catalonia.Template:Sfn The Commission tasked him with acquiring weapons and explosives. Durruti and the Catalan metalworker Eusebi Brau manufactured 6,000 grenades in an underground workshop and stockpiled them in depots throughout Barcelona.Template:Sfn After the assassination of Salvador Seguí by pistoleros on 10 March 1923, the city exploded into social conflict, with open gun fights between radicalised workers, police and pistoleros.Template:Sfn
Members of Los Solidarios began carrying out armed robberies to sustain their insurgent campaign.Template:Sfnm In April 1923, Durruti travelled to Madrid, where he gave stolen money to the defense fund of Template:Ill and Template:Ill, who had been charged with murdering Eduardo Dato.Template:Sfn He had planned to attend a conference called by a local anarchist group,Template:Sfnm but the meeting was postponed by a week.Template:Sfn He instead took the time to visit Manuel Buenacasa, who initially didn't recognise Durruti, remarking that he had "dressed like an Englishman" and wore thick-rimmed glasses.Template:Sfn Durruti said that he wanted to visit imprisoned assassins;Template:Sfnm Buenacasa attempted to dissuade him, but Durruti pressed forward, believing a visit would raise their morale.Template:Sfn He was only able to visit one prisoner, Template:Ill, whose deafness prevented them from having a conversation. After leaving the prison, he was quickly arrested by Madrid police on Calle de Alcalá. His identity was confirmed, he was charged with armed robbery, attempted regicide and desertion, and he was transferred to Donostia for trial. The Spanish press praised his capture, declaring him one of the leading terrorists in Spain. Defended by the Catalan lawyer Joan Rusiñol, Durruti was acquitted of the charges of armed robbery and attempted regicide, but remained in prison for desertion.Template:Sfn
His release was delayed after members of Los Solidarios assassinated Fernando González Regueral in León; the police erroneously assumed local members of the CNT and Durruti's family had been involved, so launched an investigation into the possibility of his involvement.Template:Sfn The Spanish press also blamed the "infamous gang led by the terrorist Durruti"Template:Sfn for the assassination of Archbishop Juan Soldevila.Template:Sfnm While police carried out arrests and raids to apprehend Soldevila's assassins, Durruti was released from prison. He had promised his mother that he would immediately visit her in León after his release, but when he heard that Ascaso and other members of Los Solidarios had been arrested, he instead went to Barcelona.Template:Sfn There he found Los Solidarios were discussing internal conflicts between revolutionary, moderate and Bolshevik factions of the CNT, as well as the political crisis in the national government over the ongoing Rif War.Template:Sfn One of their members, who had infiltrated the armed forces, reported that a military coup was being prepared by general Miguel Primo de Rivera.Template:Sfn
In order to procure weapons to resist the imminent coup, Durruti and Torres Escartín set off to Asturias, where they planned to rob a branch of the Bank of Spain. They briefly stopped in Zaragoza, where they learnt of the local movement's plans to break anarchists out of prison, before heading to Bilbao, where they found a weapons supplier.Template:Sfn By August 1923, they had arrived in Xixón and were beginning preparations for the heist.Template:Sfn Joined by other Solidarios, on 1 September, they stole 650,000 pesetas from the bank vault and escaped into the mountains in a hijacked car.Template:Sfn During the heist, the bank manager had attempted to disarm Durruti, slapped him and even bit his finger. After some struggle, Durruti managed to throw him off and fired his gun, with the bullet grazing the manager's neck.Template:Sfn After escaping, the Solidarios then split up, with one group taking the money to purchase the weapons, while Durruti and Torres Escartín hid out in a mountain cabin. On 3 September, the cabin was assaulted by Civil Guards. Torres Escartín was arrested, but Durruti managed to get away.Template:Sfn In León, the press printed fantastical stories about his escape, with one story claiming he had stripped a clergyman of his cassock at gunpoint and fled in disguise as a priest. When his mother was asked about her son, she replied: "I don't know if my son has millions. All I know is that every time he comes to León, I have to dress him from head to toe and pay for the return trip".Template:Sfn
Exile in Paris
By November 1923, Los Solidarios were facing harsh repression by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera,Template:Sfnm which had taken a close interest in liquidating the "Durruti gang".Template:Sfn Fearing for their lives, Durruti and Ascaso fled into exile in France.Template:Sfnm They were given the remaining money from the Xixón heist, with which they were tasked with establishing a revolutionary centre in exile and publishing propaganda.Template:Sfn In Paris, they provided the funds for the establishment of an International Anarchist Press, which published Sébastien Faure's Anarchist Encyclopedia.Template:Sfnm Having quickly spent most of their money, they were forced to live a frugal lifestyle and soon sought out jobs, although the Spanish press alleged they had gone to the city to carry out more robberies.Template:Sfn By January 1924, Durruti was working as a mechanic for Renault and Ascaso was manufacturing tubes at a factory.Template:Sfnm The two lived together in the neighbourhood of Bellveille, where many other exiled anarchists had established themselves.Template:Sfn Durruti and Ascaso constantly discussed the issue of revolution with their fellow exiles. They remained optimistic about the prospects of revolution, eschewing dogmatic debates over political theory in favour of encouraging their comrades to take direct action.Template:Sfn
In mid-1924, Domingo Ascaso arrived in Paris and informed Durruti and Francisco of his plan to ignite an insurrection in Catalonia. Tired of constant meetings and anxious to finally take action, they jumped at the chance.Template:Sfn By September 1924, plans for the operation were well underway, but difficulties acquiring weapons and supporters in Barcelona made many of the insurgents sceptical about their chances.Template:Sfn Durruti gave a speech to his comrades, attempting to make points about revolutionary action, rather than to convince anybody. He admitted that the news from Barcelona was discouraging, but he still believed that a revolutionary situation existed in Catalonia, due to the repression of Catalan nationalists and intellectuals, the continuation of the Rif War and the deteriorating conditions of the working classes. He affirmed that they had the ability to spark a revolution, and that even if they failed, they would still bring Spain closer to revolution.Template:Sfn By the time the day of action came, none of the revolutionaries who heard his speech had wavered.Template:Sfn
In November 1924, Durruti set off to the France–Spain border.Template:Sfnm He was part of a group of revolutionaries that were to cross the Basque side of the border, between Hendaia and Bera.Template:Sfnm They managed to dispatch the first detachment of border guards they encountered and marched into the Pyrenees, where they were ambushed by another detachment of border guards. Outnumbered and exhausted, they were forced into a fighting retreat, during which two revolutionaries were killed and one gravely wounded. Two days later, others in the group were arrested and transferred to Iruña, where they were tried and executed.Template:Sfnm Defeated, Durruti returned to Paris and hid out in a suburban house provided by local anarchists.Template:Sfn At the behest of the Spanish dictatorship, the French government moved to expel Spanish anarchists from the country. But Durruti refused to leave until he heard of the situation in Barcelona.Template:Sfn Before long, Ricardo Sanz García had arrived in Paris. He told Durruti and Ascaso about the defeat of the insurrection in Barcelona, and that the Revolutionary Committee was now in urgent need of funds.Template:Sfn Durruti and Ascaso decided to go to Latin America, where they could solicit support from Spanish emigrants.Template:Sfnm In December 1924, Durruti and Ascaso set off with false passports and embarked from Le Havre.Template:Sfn
Expropriations in Latin America
After arriving in Havana, Cuba, Durruti and Ascaso stayed at the home of a young Cuban anarchist.Template:Sfn They had tactical disagreements with their host, who supported educational initiatives and rejected their agitation for direct action.Template:Sfn Undeterred, the two found jobs as dockworkers and began agitating among their co-workers, who particularly appreciated Durruti's kind and helpful nature.Template:Sfn Using plain language to communicate his ideas, Durruti called for the workers to form a trade union, based on a horizontal structure without union representatives, which could take collective action for the improvement of their living and working conditions.Template:Sfn By the time the dockworkers established such a union, Durruti had caught the attention of the police and had to leave Havana.Template:Sfn They moved to Santa Clara Province, where they found jobs harvesting sugarcane and were quickly caught up in a sitdown strike. After the violent repression of the strike, Ascaso and Durruti murdered their employer, leaving a note which attributed the attack to Los Errantes (Template:Langx).Template:Sfn As police searched for them, they returned to Havana, where they hijacked a fishing vessel and took it to Mexico.Template:Sfn
While disembarking in Yucatán, they were caught by officers of the Mexican Treasury, but Durruti managed to bribe the agents into releasing them. They made their way to Mexico City, where they were hosted by the General Confederation of Workers (CGT) until reuniting with Alejandro Ascaso and Gregorio Jover in March 1925. They then moved to Tecomán, where they linked up with the local anarchist group.Template:Sfn Together they robbed an office and donated the money to the CGT.Template:Sfn Durruti continued to hand over large sums of money to the CGT, which aroused suspicion, forcing him to show a letter from Sébastian Faure confirming his own receipt of a large amount of money.Template:Sfn As he was living under the assumed identity of a wealthy Peruvian mine-owner, Durruti treated his comrades in the CGT to expensive meals at restaurants, where he gave them money to support the establishment of schools for children. Mexican anarcho-syndicalists remembered Durruti as one of the strongest supporters of the CGT.Template:Sfn
In May 1925, after briefly stopping in Cuba for a quick bank robbery, the group went to Valparaíso, Chile.Template:Sfnm There, on 16 July, they robbed a branch of the Bank of Chile.Template:Sfnm In August 1925, they finally travelled to Buenos Aires, Argentina,Template:Sfnm which they planned to make the centre of their operations.Template:Sfn Durruti found a job as a dockworker and lived a rather unassuming life for a few months.Template:Sfn But after a series of botched robberies against train stations by men with Spanish accents, the identities of Los Errantes were provided to the Argentine police by their counterparts in Chile and Spain.Template:Sfnm The Argentine police posted wanted posters for Durruti and his comrades throughout the city.Template:Sfnm One poster was seen by the poet Raúl González Tuñón, who was inspired by it to write a poem about Durruti's mugshot.Template:Sfn In response to the posters, on 19 January 1926, Los Errantes carried out a bank robbery in San Martín and escaped with 64,085 pesos.Template:Sfnm
Police attempts to apprehend them were frustrated after ABC erroneously reported that Durruti had been arrested in the French city of Bordeaux.Template:Sfn At the end of February 1926, Los Errantes left South America; they arrived back in France two months later.Template:Sfn By June 1926, Durruti, Ascaso and Jover were plotting to attack Alfonso XIII, on the occasion of the king's visit to Paris.Template:Sfnm But before they could carry out their attempt, a police informant they hired as driver gave them up.Template:Sfnm They were arrested on 25 June and imprisoned in La Santé Prison.Template:Sfn
Extradition proceedings
On 7 October 1926, the trial of Ascaso, Durruti and Jover began at the Palais de Justice; Durruti was charged with the use of a false passport, the criminal possession of a weapon and rebellion.Template:Sfn As he was proficient in the French language, Durruti spoke for the group:Template:Sfn he confessed to the charges against them, but justified their actions due to the political repression of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship.Template:Sfnm The three were ultimately convicted for short prison sentences, which Durruti and Jover had already served in pre-trial detention.Template:Sfn The French government then granted an extradition request by the Argentine government, but their lawyers appealed the decision, so Durruti and Jover were pre-emptively detained at the Conciergerie.Template:Sfnm
In letters to his family, Durruti assured them that he had not been forced into penal labour, despite the claims by Leonese newspapers.Template:Sfn He told his family to ignore anything the Spanish press wrote about him, refuting every claim the "idiotic journalists" had made about his condition, and spoke about the support he had received from sympathisers in France and Argentina.Template:Sfn He thanked his family for sending their good wishes and reassured them that his deep libertarian convictions had helped him endure every hardship.Template:Sfn He signed off his letter to them with a declaration that "the revolution will put an end to this social disorder".Template:Sfn
By November 1926, as campaigns against their extradition began to gain wider public support, Ascaso, Durruti and Jover were notified that they were to be handed over to the Argentine police.Template:Sfn Durruti and Ascaso accepted their own extradition, but appealed for the French government to grant clemency for Jover, who had two young children.Template:Sfn On 13 February 1927, as disputes over the extradition proceedings escalated into political demonstrations and legislative reforms, Durruti, Ascaso and Jover began a hunger strike in protest against the continued threat of extradition.Template:Sfn On 25 April, he wrote to his family that his life was now in the hands of the French Justice Minister Louis Barthou. He nevertheless remained optimistic and expressed love for his mother, asking his siblings to take care of her.Template:Sfn By the end of May, the Argentine government had retreated from the extradition order and the deadline for the extradition expired.Template:Sfnm On 8 July, after Louis Lecoin had secured a majority in the Chamber of Deputies and threatened to bring down the government of Raymond Poincaré, Durruti, Ascaso and Jover were released.Template:Sfnm When a journalist asked Durruti what he would do next, he responded "we're going to continue the struggle with even greater intensity than before".Template:Sfn
Clandestinity
Immediately after his release, the French government ordered Durruti's expulsion from the country, but he was unable to find a country that would grant him an exit visa. During this time, he frequented an anarchist bookshop in Ménilmontant, where he met and struck up a relationship with the French anarchist Émilienne Morin.Template:Sfn He also met the Ukrainian anarchist revolutionary Nestor Makhno, who had been driven into exile by the Red Army after the defeat of his Makhnovist movement in Ukraine.Template:Sfn Makhno agreed to meet Durruti and Ascaso, who paid homage to him and his struggle to realise anarchism in Ukraine.Template:Sfn Makhno expressed optimism to them about the possibility of revolution in Spain, due to the organisational abilities of the Spanish anarchists, and expressed hope that he would live to participate in it.Template:Sfn
On 23 July 1927, the French police smuggled Durruti and Ascaso into Belgium, where they were received by the Belgian anarchist Marcel Dieu.Template:Sfn The following month, they were taken back to the border by Belgian police and forced back into France.Template:Sfn Facing deportation back to Spain, they were given refuge by the pacifist Émile Bouchet at his home in Joigny.Template:Sfn After some close calls with the Gendarmerie, on the advice of fellow members of Los Solidarios, they moved to Lyon.Template:Sfn In early November 1927, Ascaso and Durruti arrived in Lyon. With false documents, they were able to find housing and jobs, and managed to stay covert in the city, which lacked thorough policing. There they found out about the recent formation of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI), which had united anarchist groups throughout Spain and Portugal.Template:Sfn They also became involved in debates over the relationship between the CNT and the Spanish anarchist movement.Template:Sfn Durruti and Ascaso upheld the revolutionary potential of both the proletariat and the peasantry in Spain, and believed that anarchists ought to accelerate the revolutionary process by encouraging revolutionary initiatives and staying focused on long-term goals over short-term material improvements.Template:Sfn Their ideas were rejected by more orthodox anarchists, who accused them of "anarcho-Bolshevism".Template:Sfn
Durruti and Ascaso also aligned themselves against proposals to establish sections of the CNT in France, as they believed it would divert attention away from revolutionary initiatives in Spain.Template:Sfn In January 1928, Durruti and Ascaso went to Paris, where they heard news from Ricardo Sanz and Joaquín Cortés about the Spanish and Argentine anarchist movements.Template:Sfn Together they attended a meeting of exiled Spanish anarchist groups, where they opposed a proposal by Bruno Carreras to establish CNT sections in France.Template:Sfn Shortly after the meeting, Durruti and Ascaso were arrested by French police.Template:Sfn They were imprisoned from April to October 1928 and, after their release, were still unable to secure visas so they could leave France.Template:Sfn They initially attempted to secure a visa from the Soviet Union,Template:Sfnm but when its embassy required them to pledge their loyalty to the socialist state, they refused.Template:Sfn Instead they moved to Berlin, where the German anarchists Augustin Souchy and Rudolf Rocker hid them in a safe house, while they worked on regularising their situation.Template:Sfnm Despite interventions by members of the Social Democratic Party, they were unable to secure asylum, due to objections by the Catholic Centre Party.Template:Sfnm
Durruti and Ascaso subsequently decided to return to Mexico. With help from the actor Alexander Granach, Rocker was able to raise enough funds to cover their journey.Template:Sfn However, when Durruti and Ascaso arrived in Belgium in early 1929, they discovered the country had relaxed its immigration laws and become a safe haven for Spanish exiles. Marcel Dieu helped secure them a residence permit. They decided to send most of the money back to Rocker and remain in Brussels, where Durruti found work as a metalworker.Template:Sfn Ida Mett recalled that his skills as a mechanic meant that he could easily find work, even during the Great Depression. Mett recalled one occasion, when Durruti tested the best out of any applicants for a job position, the manager asked him for his nationality; he responded that he was a mechanic.Template:Sfn
During their time in Brussels, Durruti and Ascaso were involved in numerous conspiracies. In January 1929, they collaborated in a plot by José Sánchez-Guerra to overthrow Primo de Rivera. The plot was unsuccessful, but it resulted in mobilisation of the CNT and the wider Spanish anarchist movement.Template:Sfn In December 1929, Durruti and Ascaso were implicated in an alleged plot by Camillo Berneri to assassinate Belgian princess Marie-José and Italian prince Umberto, but the plot was eventually discovered to have been fabricated by the authorities of Fascist Italy.Template:Sfn Berneri was deported, but Durruti and Ascaso were allowed to remain in the country.Template:Sfn The following month, on 28 January 1930, Miguel Primo de Rivera was removed from power and his dictatorship in Spain collapsed.Template:Sfn As the Spanish anarcho-syndicalist movement was revived, many anarchist exiles began to return to the country. Durruti and Ascaso were themselves tempted to return, but as many of the repressive structures of the dictatorship remained in place, Template:Ill cautioned them to wait for the right moment.Template:Sfn
Insurrectionary leadership in the Republic
Return to Spain
When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, Durruti and Ascaso were among the first anarchist exiles to return to Barcelona.Template:Sfnm The following day, Durruti and Ascaso reunited with Ricardo Sanz, who told them about the CNT's role in installing the republican government of Lluís Companys; Durruti and Ascaso regarded this to have been a mistake.Template:Sfn They believed that the new Republican government would fail to make any radical reforms to existing socio-economic conditions, which would provoke popular discontent that anarchist revolutionaries could channel into a social revolution.Template:Sfn For this position, they were denounced as "anarcho-Bolsheviks" by other members of the CNT and as "infantile revolutionaries" by Marxists.Template:Sfn
Upon his arrival in Barcelona, Durruti initially stayed at Luis Riera's house in Sant Martí de Provençals. The Ascaso brothers later found him his own place in Poblenou, rented under the name of their mother Emilia Abadía. Durruti was unable to find work in the city and was kept busy by his political activism, which kept him from returning to see his family in León. As many former members of Los Solidarios remained in prison, Durruti and Ascaso had set about agitating for their immediate release.Template:Sfn At a meeting of the CNT at Montjuïc, on 18 April, Durruti gave a speech about the new Republic.Template:Sfn He declared that the regime change had marked the beginning of a process of democratisation and predicted that, if the new government disregarded the political and economic demands of the working class, it would bring the country towards civil war.Template:Sfn According to one listener, his style of public speaking was to improvise short sentences, which formed a close connection with his audience; after his speech, he immediately left the stage to mingle with the crowd.Template:Sfn
In preparation for International Workers' Day, Durruti was delegated to accompany foreign anarchists that would be visiting Barcelona, including the French anarchist Louis Lecoin.Template:Sfn When Lecoin noticed that Barcelona was covered in posters from the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), but none from the CNT and FAI, Durruti reassured him that a few sentences in Solidaridad Obrera would be enough to mobilise their members; on the day, more than 100,000 people turned up to the anarchist rally.Template:Sfnm After the demonstration arrived at the Palace of the Generalitat of Catalonia, the Civil Guard began to shoot at the demonstrators.Template:Sfnm Amid the panicked crowd, Durruti climbed on top of a truck and addressed the demonstrators; he called for calm so that nobody was trampled and cautioned armed demonstrators from returning fire.Template:Sfn Clashes with the police only ended after the intervention of the army, which dispersed the police and the demonstrators.Template:Sfnm
When writing to his family on 6 May 1931, Durruti advised them not to come to Barcelona, as his life at the time was too busy. He welcomed them to come after his partner Emilienne Morin arrived in the city, when they would be able to get a house and spend time with them.Template:Sfn On 11 May, he sent them another letter, informing them that Morin had arrived from Paris, that he had managed to find a job and that he was looking for a house.Template:Sfn By June 1931, Durruti was constantly occupied with meetings, speaking at rallies and attending to other responsibilities. Between activism and his job, he was rarely able to see Morin.Template:Sfn At the third congress of the CNT, hosted in Madrid, Durruti welcomed Rudolf Rocker, the secretary of the International Workers' Association (IWA), and discussed the political changes in Spain with him.Template:Sfn At the welcome rally at the Palace of Communications, Rocker was overwhelmed by the more than 15,000 attendees.Template:Sfn When he asked Durruti why none of the speakers at the rally were applauded, Durruti told him that, as anarchists wanted to prevent the formation of personality cults, they rejected applause as they believed it encouraged vanity and leaderism.Template:Sfn
Political agitation and personal matters
By August 1931, strike actions in Barcelona had escalated into open conflict with the Catalan government and business owners, culminating in the 1931 Barcelona rent strike, during which Durruti spoke before a popular assembly at the Palau de les Belles Arts.Template:Sfn He wrote again to his family that he was constantly occupied by rallies and union organising, which kept him from travelling to León to visit them.Template:Sfn Durruti's mother then pressed his sister Rosa to travel to Barcelona and visit him.Template:Sfn She reported that Durruti and Morin lived in squalid conditions with few possessions; Morin, who was pregnant at the time, slept on an empty bed base without a mattress. When Rosa chided her brother for not having told his family about his living situation and said they could have bought a mattress for Morin, he shrugged it off, saying Morin's pregnancy was going well. In a letter to a friend, she concluded "What could I do? My brother will always be an incurable optimist".Template:Sfn
After the publication of the "Manifesto of the Thirty", in which moderate members of the CNT leadership called for the organisation to rein in its revolutionary initiatives,Template:Sfnm Durruti again came under attack from the right-wing press, which denounced his leadership of the FAI as banditry.Template:Sfn Durruti never sought out journalists to publicly comment on the manifesto, as he instinctively disliked journalists, believing them to be lacking in class consciousness. It was only when Eduardo de Guzmán, editor of the independent anarchist newspaper Template:Ill, approached Durruti for comment that his thoughts on the matter were publicised.Template:Sfn Durruti rejected the manifesto's calls for peace with the Republican government; as the new government had not carried out any fundamental economic or political reforms, he considered it necessary for the Spanish working class to undertake a social revolution against the prevailing socio-economic order.Template:Sfn In articles for Le Temps and Template:Ill, he wrote that he felt personally targetted by the manifesto and criticised its signatories for collaborating with politicians at a time of heightened political repression.Template:Sfn Durruti was later expelled from the Food Workers' Union, after he accused the signatory Template:Ill of collaborating with political parties, without evidence.Template:Sfn
The publication of the manifesto coincided with increased political repression against the CNT, as well as criticisms of the organisation by the PSOE and PCE. In a letter to his brother Manolín, Durruti denounced the PCE as "pawns" of the Soviet Union and advised his brother to ignore their "slander" against the CNT, which he said needed to focus its energies on clarifying its positions and combatting political repression.Template:Sfn At the café La Tranquilidad, on the Ronda de Sant Pau, Durruti had a public debate over Bolshevism with the Soviet journalist Ilya Ehrenburg, during which Durruti criticised the Soviet Union for not providing him refuge during his period of clandestinity.Template:Sfn There he was also informed by his sister that the Template:Ill (BOA) had printed an order to arrest him for the 1923 Xixón bank heist, and that police had searched her home in León, looking for him.Template:Sfn The Spanish press branded Durruti, Ascaso and Joan Garcia Oliver as "public enemies", culminating with Ascaso's arrest in October 1931. Durruti frequently spoke at rallies protesting the arrest, during which he decried the Republic for maintaining the repressive apparatus of the dictatorship and called for social revolution against the political system. For one of these speeches, he was briefly arrested and cautioned for "insults against authority".Template:Sfn
After receiving news of his arrest, his family urged him to quit the anarchist movement and return to León, where he could return to work as a mechanic.Template:Sfn Durruti rebuffed their request, recalling the economic difficulties his family had faced and reaffirming his desire to continue fighting for social justice.Template:Sfn Less than a week after he sent this letter, on 4 December 1931, Emilienne Morin gave birth to their daughter Colette Durruti. On 8 December, Durruti informed his sister Rosa that he no longer needed her money; he had charged the Northern Railroad Company an indemnity for his dismissal in August 1917, which gave him and Morin 2,600 pesetas to spend on essentials for their daughter and furniture for their house.Template:Sfn Durruti continued to organise for the release of anarchist prisoners, causing enough of a political scandal that he predicted he would soon be imprisoned.Template:Sfn A few days later, he went to Girona to speak at a rally and was arrested when he arrived at the railway station. Although he was charged for his attempt against Alfonso XIII in Paris, Durruti believed he had been arrested to prevent him from speaking at the rally. Under pressure from the city's workers, the civil governor quickly ordered his release and the police inspector apologised for the arrest.Template:Sfn When he finally spoke at the rally, Durruti declared that his arrest for attempting to assassinate Alfonso XIII proved that Spain was still effectively ruled as a monarchy.Template:Sfn
After the rally, Durruti received a letter from his sister, informing him that their father was gravely ill. Durruti, along with Morin and their daughter, finally returned to León for the first time in 14 years. His father died before he made it there; Satiago Durruti's funeral was co-organised by the UGT and CNT, who hoped to pay tribute to him and express support for his son.Template:Sfn The local CNT branch asked him to stay so he could speak at a rally, but as pretext to prevent this, the Civil Guard arrested Durruti and charged him for the 1923 Xixón robbery. Durruti told the police chief that the money from the heist had been spent on bringing about the Republic and warned that, if he did not speak at the rally, the city would face an uprising.Template:Sfn Durruti addressed the rally the following day, speaking before workers that had come from León, Asturias, Galicia and Castile. He declared that the Republic had failed to solve Spain's social and political issues and proclaimed that a social revolution against the existing order was inevitable; in order to bring about the revolution, he called for the working class to unite.Template:Sfn Durruti's revolutionary optimism soon spread.Template:Sfn
Alt Llobregat insurrection and deportation
In January 1932, Durruti went on a speaking tour of central Catalonia, where mine workers were being repressed by the Civil Guard.Template:Sfnm At a rally in Sallent, he called for workers to rise up in revolution, expropriate the capitalists and overthrow the state.Template:Sfn In Fígols, he showed mine workers how to make improvised explosive devices out of dynamite and scrap metal.Template:Sfnm On 18 January 1932, insurrection broke out in the region, as workers armed themselves and proclaimed libertarian communism. The insurrection lasted for less than a week before it was suppressed by the army.Template:Sfnm For his part in the insurrection, Durruti was arrested on 21 January.Template:Sfn He was among the 110 anarchist militants who were packed onto the Buenos Aires steamship, where they were sentenced without trial to deportation.Template:Sfnm They were detained for three weeks while the ship was anchored in port. When Durruti and Ascaso started a hunger strike, they were separated from the other detainees. Before his deportation, Durruti was permitted a brief visit to say goodbye to his infant daughter.Template:Sfn On the morning of 10 February, the ship left mainland Spain in the direction of Spanish Guinea.Template:Sfnm
On the way to Africa, the deportees were crammed into the cargo hold below deck.Template:Sfnm Malnourished and held in unsanitary conditions, many of the deportees fell gravely ill.Template:Sfn In protest against the conditions, the deportees mutinied and forced their way onto the deck, forcing the captain to provide them with access to fresh air,Template:Sfnm as well as better food and bunks.Template:Sfn The ship then rerouted to the Canary Islands to drop off the sick, before heading to Río de Oro.Template:Sfnm There the military governor Ramón Regueral Jove, the son of Fernando González Regueral, refused to accept the deportees if Durruti was among them.Template:Sfnm After consulting with Navy Minister José Giral,Template:Sfn the ship returned to Fuerteventura, where it dropped off Durruti and a number of other deportees.Template:Sfnm
Upon arriving in the Canarian island in April 1932, he received letters from Morin, as well as other friends and family. In a letter to his family, he told them of the harsh conditions on the transport ship, including an armed confrontation with soldiers incited by a drunken officer, and chastised the government for subjecting him to social isolation.Template:Sfn He reassured them that he was in good health before describing the squalid conditions on Fuerteventura, where he lived in a barracks on an allowance of 1.75 pesetas per day. He also mentioned how the islanders warmed up to his presence, having initially been under the assumption that the anarchists engaged in child cannibalism; he even met a woman from the province of León, who gave him books and offered him a place to stay at her home.Template:Sfn He did not know how long he would be exiled or even what the reason was. He quipped about returning to León and asking the local deputies why they had supported his deportation and whether the government was "at war with geography", due to the confused journey the ship had taken.Template:Sfn According to an acquaintance of Durruti, he lived an "orderly and contemplative life" in Fuerteventura, where he spent most of his time reading books, frequenting the breakwater. He was a cheerful man who got along well with people, men and women alike. However, he sometimes had petty disagreements with his fellow exiles, whom he perceived as somewhat lacking in knowledge.Template:Sfn
In mainland Spain, social conflict was progressively escalating even without the presence of the "provocateur" Durruti, with strike actions, occupations and violent attacks becoming commonplace.Template:Sfn As the government attempted to crack down on the labour movement's activities, in August 1932, right-wing forces led by General José Sanjurjo attempted a coup, but a general strike by the CNT defeated the attempt.Template:Sfn The coup plotters were exiled to the African colonies, forcing the government to allow the deported anarchists to return.Template:Sfn Durruti was one of the last anarchists that was permitted to leave the Canary Islands, from which he was taken directly to Barcelona by steamship.Template:Sfn By the time Durruti arrived back in Barcelona in September 1932, Catalonia had been granted a statue of autonomy and the CNT had definitively split, with its moderate and revolutionary factions falling into open conflict.Template:Sfn After arriving, he immediately returned to his family, finding that Morin had struggled to financially support their daughter in his absence.Template:Sfn
Barcelona uprising and prison sentence
On 15 September,Template:Sfn Durruti spoke before a large anarchist rally at the Palau de les Belles Arts.Template:Sfnm He praised the CNT and FAI for sticking to their revolutionary objectives and warned the government that the anarchists were ungovernable, despite any attempts to control or repress them. He rejected claims from the press that the anarchists were "thieves and criminals", countering with his belief that business owners were the real thieves, as they lived off the exploitation of labour.Template:Sfn Turning to his deportation, he said that the government had failed in its objectives to isolate him, as it had enabled him to spread anarchist propaganda in the Canary Islands. After praising the CNT for preventing Sanjurjo's coup, he declared that if the Republican government did not resolve the problems which faced the working class, as he believed they would not, then the working class would do it themselves.Template:Sfn The following week, on 23 September, Durruti was arrested and held incommunicado at the Template:Ill on Via Laietana.Template:Sfn He was detained for two months on grounds of "governmental order", which again caused financial difficulties for his family.Template:Sfn
After he was released in early December 1932, Durruti quickly returned to his job at the textile factory; Morin herself worried about when he would next be incarcerated.Template:Sfn Three days after he was released, Durruti and other members of his affinity group Nosotros gathered at Joan Garcia Oliver's house to discuss plans for another insurrection.Template:Sfn At the meeting, Durruti expressed regret that the CNT had wasted time on internal debates, while the state had strengthened itself with a new, well-equipped police force, the Assault Guard.Template:Sfn The group resolved to bring about a social revolution and established a revolutionary committee, on which Durruti served as the official representative of the CNT's National Committee.Template:Sfn Durruti was dispatched to Cádiz, where he met with the Andalusian Regional Confederation and discussed the planned insurrection.Template:Sfn In the Catalan capital, Durruti was assigned to oversee operations in Horta and Gràcia, where he would lead an attack against the Civil Guard barracks at the Travessera de Gràcia and Navas, and against the Carabineros barracks at Template:Ill.Template:Sfn
When the insurrection broke out on the evening of 8 January 1933,Template:Sfnm Durruti led the assault against the Travessera de Gràcia barracks, where he found that the police had already mobilised.Template:Sfn As he distributed weapons to the insurgents in Gràcia, the young student Template:Ill asked him for one so he could die for the proletariat; Durruti refused to give him a weapon, saying it was better to live than die, and told him to return to school, as he could be more helpful in the rearguard.Template:Sfn By the early hours of 9 January, the insurrection had failed.Template:Sfn As public criticism of the insurrection soon followed, in the newspaper La Voz Confederal, Durruti attempted to defend his actions as a necessary effort to prevent the government from consolidating power. He rejected accusations that the insurgents had attempted to take power and establish a dictatorship, denied that they were Blanquists and Trotskyists, and reaffirmed his conviction to continue.Template:Sfn He also drew attention to the peasantry, who he considered of primary importance for revolution.Template:Sfn
For two months after the insurrection, Durruti and Ascaso hid out in Teresa Margalef's house in Horta, where Durruti was able to frequently see his partner Morin and his daughter Colette, despite the police searching for him.Template:Sfn In late March 1933, the CNT dispatched Durruti and Ascaso to speak at a rally in Seville. Throughout Andalusia and Extremadura, local unions planned rallies when they found out that the two would be coming.Template:Sfn After arriving and speaking at the rally, on 8 April, as they were planning a speaking tour of the province, they were arrested on charges of "insults to authority" and "incitement to rebellion".Template:Sfn While in pre-trial detention, they received a visit from their judge, who told them that they would be released on bail. But even after their bail was paid, the provincial governor prevented them from being released. The Madrid newspaper Template:Ill claimed that Durruti had been arrested because he was planning another insurrection in Andalusia.Template:Sfn Durruti was visited in prison by the writer Pío Baroja, who portrayed him as a romantic hero and described him as an "incarnation of the Spanish guerrilla".Template:Sfn In contrast, Interior Minister Santiago Casares Quiroga denounced Durruti as an "idler and delinquent".Template:Sfn
Durruti and Ascaso were incarcerated in El Puerto de Santa María prison for six months.Template:Sfnm They were held incomunicado and in unsanitary conditions, without ever being formally charged.Template:Sfn Prison authorities censored their letters to their families, which they were only allowed to write once per week. Durruti protested, asserting that they still did not know the reason they had been incarcerated. Nevertheless, he was able to smuggle some of his letters out to the Template:Ill and El Luchador newspapers, in which he publicised the conditions he was being held in.Template:Sfn In June, he smuggled out a letter to Morin, in which he reported that the authorities had kept visitors from seeing him.Template:Sfn
Following a meeting between the CNT lawyer Eduardo Barriobero and Casares Quiroga, prisoners began to receive word that the governor of Cádiz was considering their release, although Durruti was notified by the local court that his bail had been voided and that he was still charged with insults and incitement.Template:Sfn As months went past, no prisoners were released. On 14 July 1933, Durruti sent a letter to his family, telling them of how, after the guards murdered a prisoner, he de-escalated an impending prison riot when he noticed the guards had machine guns pointed at them; he believed they intended to provoke a massacre.Template:Sfn The prisoners subsequently announced their intention to carry out a hunger strike, in protest against their continued incarceration.Template:Sfn After eight days of hunger strike, on 5 October 1933, Durruti and his fellow inmates were released. Two days later, he arrived at the CNT newspaper offices in Madrid, then the following day, he finally returned to Barcelona.Template:Sfn
Zaragoza uprising and general strike
By the time Durruti arrived back in Barcelona, President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora had dissolved the Azaña government and called the 1933 Spanish general election, through which the right-wing was set to rise to power.Template:Sfn Growing unemployment in Spain directly affected Durruti, who was unable to find a job at his former factory.Template:Sfn He signed up to the job pool of the CNT Metalworkers' Union, which managed to find him and two other unemployed workers mechanical jobs at a large workshop. But when he showed up to the workshop, the management told him they only sought two workers;Template:Sfn Durruti discovered that he had been blacklisted.Template:Sfnm In solidarity with him, his two colleagues rejected the jobs and threatened to report the incident to the CNT. Worried that it would cause a strike in the workshop, or even escalated to the entire industry, Durruti told them not to. He believed that strikes ought to be declared when workers needed them, rather than in reaction to provocations from employers. He concluded that a strike, at that time, would be detrimental to the workers' cause and told his two companions to go to work the next day.Template:Sfn When he told Ascaso about the incident, his friend approved of his response, agreeing that the employing class was attempting to antagonise the labour movement. The two viewed right-wing newspapers, such as La Vanguardia, as part of the problem, due to their publication of sensationalist pieces about robberies by suspected anarchists. Durruti and Ascaso visited the office of La Vanguardia and gave the newspaper a statement, on behalf of the FAI, clarifying that the organisation did not approve of individual robberies and requesting the newspaper stop publishing its acronym in stories about them.Template:Sfn Although La Vanguardia refused to publish the statement, it also stopped using the names of the CNT and FAI in its reports of such "diverse events".Template:Sfn
In response to the apparent inevitability of a right-wing electoral victory, the CNT resolved to carry out another insurrection against the forthcoming government.Template:Sfnm Durruti was appointed to a National Revolutionary Committee (NRC), within which he was to organise the insurrection.Template:Sfnm Durruti believed that, although the CNT did not have sufficient time or resources to establish a strong paramilitary force, they ought to carry out an insurrection anyway.Template:Sfnm He said that a revolutionary defeat would be preferable to inactivity or absence from political life during an election, and that an insurrection could send a warning to the incoming government about their revolutionary potential.Template:Sfn On 12 November, Durruti spoke before a crowd of 100,000 people, at a CNT rally at La Monumental.Template:Sfnm On 16 November, he spoke at a FAI rally at the Palau de les Belles Arts, which attracted more than twice as many attendees than the 45,000-capacity venue could hold.Template:Sfn Durruti opened that, although he did not possess the oratory skills of Emilio Castelar or Peter Kropotkin, his life spent among working people had made him know how to act.Template:Sfn He believed that the Republic was destabilised enough that the political system would soon collapse and that social revolution would therefore be inevitable. He described how political leaders such as Azaña lacked sufficient popular support to hold rallies, while anarchist rallies attracted numerous and enthusiastic audiences.Template:Sfn He called for Catalan anarchists to abstain from voting in the election,Template:Sfnm as he believed no political party represented Spanish workers, and declared that anarchists would be ready to confront the actions of a reactionary government. He then rejected claims by bourgeois newspapers that the FAI had been involved in robberies, declaring that the FAI only supported the collective expropriation of property: workers seizing their means of production. He also rejected accusations of the FAI forming a dictatorship within the CNT, claiming that only popular assemblies governed the labour movement and accusing moderate syndicalists of abandoning their commitment to anarchist communism.Template:Sfn Durruti declared that the Spanish anarchist movement was the only anarchist movement in the world that was capable of carrying out revolutionary change, that revolutionaries around the globe expected Spanish workers to lead the start of a world revolution. He thus directed workers to stay in their workplaces, where they could respond to any attempt to form a fascist dictatorship by occupying factories and seizing the means of production.Template:Sfn Durruti invoked a sense of collective responsibility, calling for workers to unite against fascism and struggle for an anarchist revolution.Template:Sfn
Following the right-wing victory in the election, on 23 November 1933, Durruti moved to Zaragoza and began planning the insurrection.Template:Sfnm When local Aragonese militants expressed doubt about their region leading the insurrection, he pointed out that political repression had left Andalusia and Catalonia unable to initiate any insurrection, while the workers' movement in Aragon was still strong; he ultimately convinced them to be the ones to lead it.Template:Sfn The insurrection broke out on 8 December 1933.Template:Sfnm A general strike broke out in Zaragoza, where revolutionaries took over parts of the city for a number of days.Template:Sfnm After a week, the insurrection was suppressed, the government declared a state of emergency in Zaragoza and Durruti was arrested.Template:Sfnm He was tortured by police and narrowly saved from being executed under the ley de fugas.Template:Sfn In prison, he attempted to secure the release of as many detainees as possible. He suggested that they make the state's dossier about the insurrection disappear, which would force police to get new statements from prisoners and thus allow for the modification of numerous forced confessions.Template:Sfn A group of young anarchists then broke into the Zaragoza Commerce Court and stole the dossier from the judges at gunpoint.Template:Sfnm With the dossier secured, Durruti and the other members of the NRC confessed to sole responsibility for the insurrection, while many prisoners that had given forced confessions were released.Template:Sfn In February 1934, the government transferred Durruti to a prison in the province of Burgos.Template:Sfnm He was kept in solitary confinement and under constant surveillance, preventing him from communicating with other prisoners.Template:Sfn From his cell, he was nevertheless able to publicise his thoughts on a proposed united front between the CNT and UGT. He called for the alliance to exclude political parties and constitute itself from the bottom-up, based on a federation of workers' councils, which could establish workers' control over the Spanish economy.Template:Sfn
In April 1934, the government proclaimed a general amnesty, both for far-right figures of the 1932 coup attempt and anarchists involved in the December 1933 insurrection.Template:Sfn Durruti was released and attempted to return to Barcelona, but he did not have money for the trip. The Asturian CNT leader Ramón Álvarez, who was also imprisoned for the insurrection, gave him what little money he had.Template:Sfn When Durruti stopped in Zaragoza, he found the city in the middle of a general strike.Template:Sfn The Catalan CNT had offered to provide child care for the duration of the strike, so Durruti continued on to Barcelona to prepare for the reception of the children.Template:Sfnm By the time he returned, Durruti's former ally, the Catalan president Francesc Macià, had overseen a wide-scale crackdown against the anarchist movement.Template:Sfn His daughter Colette had also learned to walk and speak, without him being their to see it.Template:Sfn The night he arrived, he was informed that his friend Bruno Alpini had been executed by police under the ley de fugas.Template:Sfn The killing enraged Durruti, who privately wished death on the Catalan police chief Miquel Badia.Template:Sfn
Durruti quickly sought to discuss the general strike in Zaragoza with the Catalan Regional Committee of the CNT, which had come under the leadership of Francisco Ascaso. Ascaso believed that the Catalan authorities intended to stop the Barcelona CNT from taking in the Aragonese children, but Durruti rejected the possibility, thinking it would cause a public outcry.Template:Sfn Ascaso also helped him find work, putting Durruti in contact with the Food Workers' Union, which secured him a seasonal job at a beer factory.Template:Sfn On 6 May, when people began to assemble on Carrer del Consell de Cent to collect the Aragonese children, they were attacked by the Urban Guard and Assault Guard.Template:Sfn As he watched the violence unfold, Durruti regretted that he had dismissed Ascaso's worries about Catalan government repression.Template:Sfn When they found out that the convoy of buses carrying the children had been diverted to Terrassa, Durruti and Ascaso took a taxi to the city. There they found the local anarchist movement had mobilised and was guarding the buses.Template:Sfn They directed them on to Barcelona and finally united the children with their host families.Template:Sfnm
1934 Revolution
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In May 1934, Durruti's job search was still being hindered by him being blacklisted.Template:Sfn With him out of a job, his partner became the family's breadwinner and Durruti himself stayed at home to care for their daughter. When his anarchist comrades joked about him doing "women's work", he criticised them for misogyny.Template:Sfnm During this period of his life, Durruti sank into a depression and grew increasingly frustrated with the CNT, convinced its members were not sufficiently educating themselves and worried that its activities were turning it towards reformism.Template:Sfn He believed that a political crisis was imminent in Spain, which could create the conditions for a revolutionary situation, and called for actions to strengthen the working class and weaken the capitalists.Template:Sfn In late May, the CNT food workers' union found Durruti temporary employment at the S.A. Damm beer factory, but when he arrived, the company said they would not hire him. Rather than going on strike, Durruti suggested that the CNT organise a boycott against the company, which would stifle the company's profits without affecting production.Template:Sfn The boycott resulted in a victory for the CNT, which secured a stable contract for its workers.Template:Sfnm
In June, Durruti was nominated by the Catalan regional committee to attend a national meeting of the CNT, where the issue of an alliance with the UGT was to be discussed.Template:Sfnm Durruti sought to reiterate his position on the creation of a revolutionary workers' alliance, based on workers' councils, from the bottom-up.Template:Sfn At the meeting, Durruti argued against the Asturian committee of the CNT, which had already signed a pact with the UGT.Template:Sfnm The meeting ultimately resolved to schedule a national conference to make a binding decision on the proposed alliance, but before it could be held, the Revolution of 1934 broke out.Template:Sfnm On 4 October, Durruti was arrested in his home by the Catalan police, who held him incommunicado in their prefecture on Via Laietana.Template:Sfn While he was in his cell, on 6 October, the regional government proclaimed a Catalan State, although this was quickly suppressed by the Spanish Army.Template:Sfn Martial law was imposed in Catalonia and the army took over the police prefecture. There they found Durruti, who they sentenced to 6 months in prison.Template:Sfn
From his cell in La Model, Durruti kept up with the news of the revolution and its suppression. In discussions with other inmates, he argued that anarchists ought to be patient and rebuild their organisational strength, which he considered key to a revolutionary victory against the right-wing. He posited that liberal democracy had already been defeated by fascism in the 1933 election, and that now the choice facing the Spanish people was between fascism and social revolution. While he remained sceptical of the PSOE, he believed that a revolutionary alliance with the UGT would be necessary to resist a coming coup d'état.Template:Sfn As increasing numbers of anarchists were imprisoned for armed robbery, Durruti also aligned himself against the practice, declaring that "it isn't time for individual expropriations, but to prepare the collective one".Template:Sfn When Durruti was released from prison in April 1935, he discovered that he was being blamed for the rise in armed robberies by the journalist Template:Ill. Enraged, he went looking for Planes and forced his way into the offices of Template:Ill, but did not find him.Template:Sfn Jacinto Toryho recalled that Durruti was particularly upset because he had just received an eviction notice, as he had not been able to pay rent while he was in prison.Template:Sfn
At a meeting of Barcelona's anarchist groups in May 1935, Durruti spoke on behalf of Nosotros.Template:Sfn He denounced the recent rise in armed robberies, which he believed served only to discredit the CNT, and proposed that the FAI distance itself from individuals involved in armed robberies.Template:Sfn A young Argentine anarchist objected, pointing out that Durruti was condemning a practice he once participated in.Template:Sfn He admitted to this, but insisted that times had changed. He held that, as the CNT counted more than 1 million members, individual actions were no longer acceptable; conditions demanded only collective action.Template:Sfnm When discussing the political climate, he affirmed his belief that a civil war was imminent, and that anarchists ought to prepare for it by organising workers' militias under strict military discipline.Template:Sfn He also discussed with Ascaso the new communist strategy of the popular front; the two believed that such an electoral alliance, as it was being proposed in Spain by Largo Caballero, would be used to isolate the CNT.Template:Sfn
Preparations for Civil War
Durruti was arrested and imprisoned again in June 1935.Template:Sfn His time in prison caused difficulties for the CNT-FAI, which was deprived of one of its most dedicated activists.Template:Sfn In August 1935, he was transferred to Template:Ill in Valencia.Template:Sfnm There he was surrounded by other anarchist inmates, who often debated the internal divisions in the CNT and FAI, particularly the recent establishment of the Syndicalist Party and the Opposition Unions by the treintistas. Durruti was disinterested in these debates, who was focused on other issues.Template:Sfn On 11 September 1935, he wrote to José Mira, affirming his position that the CNT ought to organise towards a social revolution, rather than focusing on short-term gains and individual acts of sabotage.Template:Sfn He commented that these acts had caused many prisoners in Valencia to lose faith in the CNT and place their hopes in an electoral victory for the left-wing.Template:Sfn Durruti believed that such short-term struggles for better conditions were necessary, but that achieving libertarian communism ought to remain the main priority of the CNT.Template:Sfn
Upon his release from prison in November 1935, Durruti found himself a focus of criticism by some sections of the CNT, including the Transport Workers' Union, which accused him of becoming a moderate. According to Josep Peirats, he convinced them of his arguments by beating his fists on the table as he spoke, which reified his reputation as a fighter.Template:Sfn Some days later, he attended a rally in support of the Andalusian anarchist Template:Ill, who was facing a death sentence for organising a prison break. When police attempted to arrest Ascaso for denouncing the government, Durruti helped him escape. The two were later charged for insulting the government and driven underground. Durruti subsequently travelled back to his home city of León and spoke at a local anarchist rally, where he warned the attendees to prepare for an imminent civil war. He was then arrested by the Civil Guard and transferred to Barcelona, where he was released from detention on 10 January 1936.Template:Sfn By this time, individual attacks against business owners and the police had largely ceased, and anarchists were now discussing whether to vote in the upcoming 1936 Spanish general election.Template:Sfn Durruti believed that a right-wing victory would result in a dictatorship, while a left-wing victory would lead to a reactionary coup d'état. In either case, Durruti believed that workers needed to prepare for open conflict with the right-wing.Template:Sfnm But unlike in 1933, in this election, Durruti refused to advise anarchists to abstain from voting, as he hoped anarchists as a voting bloc would be able to pressure the government to release their political prisoners.Template:Sfnm After the Popular Front won the election, Manuel Azaña's new left-wing government extended amnesty to right-wing military leaders, while limiting it for imprisoned members of the CNT.Template:Sfn On 6 March, Durruti denounced the government's actions at a CNT meeting.Template:Sfn He declared that the new government had been elected by workers and could just as easily be removed by those same workers.Template:Sfnm
By the time of the 4th National Congress of the CNT, held in Zaragoza on 1 May 1936, Durruti was looked up to as an informal leader within the organisation.Template:Sfn Due to his anti-authoritarianism, he often expressed discomfort with this leadership position, which only increased his esteem among others.Template:Sfn Differences of opinion with another leading anarchist, Joan Garcia Oliver, caused clashes between the two.Template:Sfn Garcia Oliver considered the CNT-FAI to be the revolutionary vanguard, while Durruti wanted a wholly anarchist revolution, driven forward by all popular forces, not just the CNT-FAI. Durruti thought Garcia Oliver's conception of revolution resembled Bolshevism and he worried that it would create a dictatorship by the CNT-FAI.Template:Sfn At a meeting of the Textile Workers' Union, Durruti resisted Garcia Oliver's proposals to create a paramilitary, which he believed would impose itself as a new authority and crush the revolutionary aspirations of the masses. Despite Durruti's protests, the union supported Garcia Oliver's motion and called for the creation of a workers' army, based on local groups.Template:Sfn
By July 1936, open conflict was brewing between the Spanish working-class and bourgeoisie, as both were radicalised against each other. Strike actions and factory occupations spread throughout France and Spain, leading Durruti to conclude that a Europe-wide revolution was in the near future.Template:Sfn That month, Durruti had an operation on his hernia. He checked out of the hospital on 14 July, before he had fully recovered, and met up with other members of Nosotros, who had already put contingency plans into place for the predicted outbreak of a military coup.Template:Sfn The following day, he met with Enric Pérez Farràs, the commander of the Mossos d'Esquadra. He wanted to know what the anarchists were planning and admitted that the Catalan government would collapse, as it did in October 1934, without their help. When the police chief refused to give the anarchists weapons, Durruti concluded that the Catalan government was planning to use them as "cannon fodder".Template:Sfn On 17 July, news began to circulate that the Spanish Army had rebelled in Morocco.Template:Sfn CNT unions immediately responded by seizing weapons from the port of Barcelona, causing a standoff with the Assault Guards. Durruti swiftly intervened, telling the police commander Vicente Guarner to disobey his orders and allow the workers to take the weaponry.Template:Sfn In order to save face, Guarner only confiscated rifles that were not in working order.Template:Sfn
At 23:30 on 18 July, Durruti, Ascaso and Garcia Oliver met with the Catalan Interior Minister Template:Ill, who they attempted to convince to disarm the police and hand over their weapons to the workers.Template:Sfn When Espanya objected to the CNT requisitioning cars and storming gunsmiths, Durruti reprimanded him, declaring that they represented "a working class that isn't going to go to battle defenselessly".Template:Sfn They left the meeting and went to speak with the dockworkers gathered outside. Durruti told them to stay put, continue to demand weapons and surveil the barracks in the city centre.Template:Sfn In the early hours of 19 July, Durruti, Ascaso and Garcia Oliver went all over the city, coordinating with the different unions and defense committees.Template:Sfn During this time, Durruti was able to prevent an armed clash from breaking out between the CNT transport union and Assault Guards.Template:Sfn They then returned to Gregorio Jover's apartment on Carrer de Pujades, where the Nosotros group had gathered.Template:Sfnm Everyone else was exhausted, but Durruti remained in high spirits, joking that there would not be any battle that day. At 04:00, they received news that the Nationalists had risen up in Barcelona.Template:Sfn
Military command in the Civil War
Battle of Barcelona
By 09:00 on 19 July, fighting had broken out throughout Barcelona. Durruti met with Ascaso and Garcia Oliver at the Teatre Principal, where they discussed how to gain control of the port and prevent reinforcements from being brought in by ship.Template:Sfn When troops began shooting at them from a nearby hotel, Durruti led an attack against the hotel and cleared out the shooters.Template:Sfnm He was then directed to remain at the Teatre, where he would coordinate their forces for another assault, while Garcia Oliver and Ascaso led their own detachments elsewhere.Template:Sfn At 10:00, Durruti arrived at the Template:Ill, where workers' militias and Assault Guards overpowered the Spanish Army, in the first victory of the day.Template:Sfn By 14:00, Durruti was leading an assault against the telephone exchange. Many anarchists died during the attack, but the forces of the CNT were victorious and the exchange was subsequently brought under workers' control.Template:Sfnm When General Manuel Goded surrendered later that day, Durruti's name was chanted by workers' militias throughout the city.Template:Sfn
By the following day, a social revolution had swept Catalonia, confirming Durruti's prediction that workers would respond to a right-wing coup with revolution.Template:Sfn Durruti, Ascaso and Garcia Oliver sought to finish off the right-wing mutiny with an attack against the Drassanes barracks.Template:Sfnm Durruti himself led the attack.Template:Sfn Ascaso was killed during the assault.Template:Sfnm While Durruti fought back tears for his best friend, the rebel soldiers surrendered and the anarchist militias celebrated their victory.Template:Sfnm Durruti warned one worker that they had not yet won, that the revolution would still be in progress until they defeated every remaining rebel soldier throughout Spain.Template:Sfn
They made their way to the Template:Ill on Via Laietana, where the CNT Regional Secretary Mariano R. Vázquez informed Durruti and Garcia Oliver that President Lluis Companys had requested a meeting with them.Template:Sfnm Durruti and Garcia Oliver went to the Palace of the Generalitat and met with the Catalan President.Template:Sfnm After meeting with Companys and the representatives of other anti-fascist parties, the anarchists moved to establish the Central Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia (CCMA), which would oversee the organisation of militias to fight against the Nationalist forces.Template:Sfnm At the plenary meeting of the CNT which established the CCMA, Garcia Oliver attempted to push for the anarchists to seize power, but his motion was defeated by advocates of collaboration with other anti-fascist political groupings.Template:Sfnm Durruti deferred the anarchist seizure of power until after Zaragoza was liberated from the Nationalists.Template:Sfnm
Durruti attended the inaugural meeting of the CCMA as one of the representatives for the CNT.Template:Sfnm At the meeting, Durruti confronted the Catalan nationalist Jaume Miravitlles over an article he had written comparing the FAI to fascists.Template:Sfnm The meeting appointed Durruti as an assistant to Garcia Oliver,Template:Sfn who himself was appointed to oversee the Department of War;Template:Sfnm Durruti was selected to head the transportation department.Template:Sfn When the meeting concluded, Durruti and Garcia Oliver told the Stalinist politician Joan Comorera that they remembered how the Bolsheviks had repressed anarchism in Russia and that they would not allow the Spanish Communists to treat them the same way.Template:Sfnm Over the subsequent days, Durruti quickly came to regard the CCMA as a bureaucratic organisation, which he did not want to continue participating in.Template:Sfnm Seeking to continue the fight against the Nationalists, he put together the first militia column: the self-titled Durruti Column.Template:Sfnm He was then replaced on the CCMA by Marcos Alcón.Template:Sfn
Departure to Aragon
Following Durruti's anti-authoritarian philosophy, the Durruti Column was established without a chain of command or hierarchy,Template:Sfnm with all of its units electing representatives to coordinate military actions.Template:Sfn Durruti clashed with his military adviser, Enric Pérez Farràs, over this form of military organisation, which Pérez Farràs believed would not function in battle. He later ended up replacing Pérez Farràs with José Manzana, a non-commissioned officer who better understood Durruti's anti-authoritarian philosophy.Template:Sfn Although Durruti believed in the necessity of military discipline and co-ordinated operational planning, he insisted that it had to be established on new foundations, rather than the ideas of traditional militarism. Durruti held that solidarity, rather than obedience to authority, would be sufficient to instil discipline and individual responsibility among the column's fighters. As his aim was victory for the social revolution, he concluded that their methods to achieve it required radical changes from existing norms.Template:Sfn In the organisation of the column, Durruti planned to put anarchist theory into practice.Template:Sfn At 08:00 on 24 July 1936, Durruti spoke over the radio to Barcelona's workers, asking them to supply his column with food.Template:Sfnm He hoped that the response to his call would demonstrate the city's dedication to the war effort and exemplify the workers' commitment to collective responsibility.Template:Sfn
The Canadian journalist Pierre van Paassen reported meeting with Durruti that morning. According to van Paassen, Durruti spoke of the Nationalist victories in Aragon, Navarre and Andalusia, and predicted that the civil war would continue on for at least a month, until the Nationalists were defeated in all these areas.Template:Sfn He then said that the workers were determined to destroy fascism, in spite of the Spanish government, which had consistently failed to suppress fascist elements in the Spanish Army, and the bourgeoisie, which opposed the social revolution. He disregarded the possibility of Soviet intervention, holding Joseph Stalin responsible for the rise of Nazism in Germany and the Japanese invasion of Manchuria, and claimed the Spanish revolutionaries were setting an example for anti-fascists in Germany and Italy.Template:Sfnm He also disregarded the possibility of French or British intervention on the side of the Republic, expecting that the libertarians would have to fight the forces of Spanish, German and Italian fascism by themselves.Template:Sfnm Van Paassen interjected, saying that the country would be ruined even if they were victorious. He reported that Durruti responded:Template:Sfnm
At 10:00, large crowds gathered on the Passeig de Gràcia to bid farewell to the Durruti Column.Template:Sfnm While cheers broke out around him, Durruti remained mostly silent. At the Bakunin Barracks, he had warned the members of his column that the battle they were about to experience would be very different than the ones they had fought before, as it would likely involve aerial and artillery bombardments and close-quarters combat. He knew that the militiamen trusted him and would follow his lead, so he hoped to conduct himself well and preserve as many of their lives as possible.Template:Sfn
On the Aragon front
As the Column passed through the villages of Catalonia, a number of people expressed surprise that Durruti was the leader, as he was not wearing stripes to denote his military rank. At every village they passed, Durruti stopped to speak to the residents, who he directed to organise themselves into collectives.Template:Sfn They quickly captured Casp and Burcharaloz,Template:Sfnm the latter of which the Column established as its headquarters.Template:Sfnm They then set off towards Zaragoza.Template:Sfnm On 28 July, the Column came under heavy aerial bombardment, killing and wounding a number of militiamen. Aiming to avoid another ambush, Durruti led the Column back to Burcharaloz, where he planned to organise reconnaissance on the enemy positions.Template:Sfnm There he was reunited with his partner Émilienne Morin,Template:Sfnm with whom he organised the administrative apparatus of the Column. He also got into an argument with Pérez Farràs, who tried to use the ambush as justification for the restructuring of the Column. Durruti argued that those who had run during the bombardment would go on to fight bravely, if only they were treated as "surprised workers" rather than as deserters.Template:Sfn
From the Burcharaloz town hall, Durruti gave a rousing speech to the Column. He chided them for running from the airplanes, pointing out that they had promised to take Zaragoza or die trying. He reminded them of the peasants who were building libertarian communism in their rear, and that their efforts would be for naught if the Nationalists were victorious. While recognising the dangers they faced, he called on them to take advantage of their victory in Barcelona to strike quickly against their enemies. He warned them against a repeat of what had happened that day, and said he did not want any cowards in his column's ranks.Template:Sfn He welcomed anyone that did not want to continue fighting to give up their rifle to someone more willing, while encouraging those that remained to continue on to Zaragoza and Iruña. He also requested that nobody speak of what happened that day, as he believed it would reflect badly on them. None of the militiamen gave up their rifle, and those who had fled earlier broke down in tears. One eyewitness described it as a transformative experience for the militiamen, who would go on to become hardened fighters.Template:Sfn
The Durruti Column then advanced along the Ebro river towards Zaragoza, but they were halted by Nationalist resistance some 20 kilometers outside the city, forcing them to dig in.Template:Sfnm After consulting with Colonel Template:Ill,Template:Sfnm Durruti agreed to keep his Column in place until reinforcements arrived.Template:Sfnm There was little movement on the front lines in early August, which made Durruti impatient. He constantly visited advanced positions, kept track of enemy movements and stayed up to date with reports from his guerrilla detachments, which gave him useful information to reinforce their line of defense.Template:Sfn He also devoted much of his attention to the agricultural collectives, building relations with local peasants and regularly visiting them to observe their progress.Template:Sfnm As Stalinists began to carry out attacks against the collectives, Durruti became worried that the collectives would come under threat if they did not unite together.Template:Sfn He urged the local peasantry to establish a federation of agricultural collectives, which he said would provide them with more organisational strength and help coordinate the new libertarian socialist economy.Template:Sfnm Durruti successfully encouraged the militiamen to participate in the collectives, including in the wheat harvest, which helped to build relations between them.Template:Sfnm
As the fighting on the front lines continued, Durruti became worried that if the war kept going for much longer, it would have a damaging effect on the psyche of the revolutionaries. Thoughts to this effect prevented him from sleeping, so he would often spend his nights keeping watch at sentry positions. He also began hearing complaints from villagers about the bad behaviour of some militiamen, requiring him to reprimand them. On one occasion, he discovered five militiamen had left their sentry posts to go drink wine at a village. He expelled them from the Column and the CNT, then when they did not respond to his reprimands as he had expected, he stripped them of their clothes and sent them back to Barcelona in only their underwear.Template:Sfn Another time, when he discovered some militiamen had attempted to desert the front, he intercepted them, lined them up against a wall at gunpoint and then forced them to give up their shoes for the militiamen who remained at the front.Template:Sfn His temper grew shorter as time went on.Template:Sfn Members of the collectives had been complaining to him about a lack of technical personnel and that some of their workers had left the collectives to join the Column. On the former issue, he demanded that Ricardo Sanz send them agronomists from Barcelona; of the latter, he dismissed them from the Column so that they could return to work on the collectives, telling them it was more important to the revolution.Template:Sfn Durruti sought to the wage war against the Nationalists and advance the revolution at the tsame time.Template:Sfn
Return to Barcelona
Even as the Durruti Column began to run low on ammunition, the front lines remained stagnant, with only low level skirmishes and unsuccessful offensives taking place. Seeking to break the stalemate, Durruti returned to Barcelona and speak with the CCMA.Template:Sfn Along the way, he witnessed armed workers guarding every village, without any trace of police presence. At one checkpoint in Cervià de les Garrigues, he posed as a rank-and-file militiaman transferring to the rearguard and requested fuel for his vehicle. He was then directed to speak to the local revolutionary committee.Template:Sfn In the town square, he spoke to some women leaving the church and asked them if services were still being held. They told him that the priest had quit to become a farmworker and that a consumer cooperative now occupied the building, which had been stripped of its religious iconography.Template:Sfn In the town hall he found a member of the committee, a former schoolteacher, who told him the rest of the committee was in the fields helping with the harvest. He told Durruti that the committee members had been elected by a popular assembly, which considered each candidate's ability and conduct prior to the revolution, in a process conducted collectively without any involvement from political parties.Template:Sfn When Durruti inquired about dispossessed former landowners, the committee member mentioned that some had joined collectives, while others had opted for individual ownership and cultivation of their own land. Satisfied with the conversation, Durruti returned to the checkpoint and said he had received the fuel for his car, before continuing on his way.Template:Sfn
When Durruti arrived back in Barcelona, he found it was still under workers' control, with electricity, food, fuel, hospitals and public transit, as well as cinemas and theatres, and the textile and metalworking factories, all being managed collectively by the workers themselves. He also found that traditional social relations, including gender separation and the nuclear family, had all but evaporated. He visited a number of collectives, before moving on to the headquarters of the CNT-FAI.Template:Sfn He found the building full of busy people, coming and going between its various offices.Template:Sfn When he asked Mariano Vázquez whether the CNT was becoming a bureaucracy, the Catalan Regional Secretary explained to Durruti that they were simply implementing the decisions of the grassroots and that workers' self-management still formed the formation for all economic organisation.Template:Sfn Durruti left the encounter optimistic that the anarchists were remaining true to their principles.Template:Sfn He then went to the CCMA headquarters on the Pla de Palau and met with Garcia Oliver, who he found to be stressed and sleep deprived.Template:Sfn Together they discussed the situation in Aragon, including the slated offensive to take Zaragoza, the supply shortages and the restructuring of their war committee.Template:Sfn But then Garcia Oliver informed Durruti that the Zaragoza offensive would have to be postponed in favour of the planned Mallorca landings, which they hoped would provoke a confrontation between the British and Italians. Durruti believed that France and the United Kingdom would continue to uphold appeasement rather than confront the Italians. He argued that delaying the Zaragoza offensive further would allow the Nationalists to fortify their positions and thus prevent the militias from taking the city and linking up with Republican forces in the north, which he believed to be a necessary prerequisite to an offensive against the Nationalists in Andalusia.Template:Sfn
Garcia Oliver responded that the decision had already been made, due to their choice to collaborate with the Republican political parties, and that he would have to remain in his position in the CCMA to give legal protection to the revolution.Template:Sfn Durruti argued that the legalisation of their revolutionary activities would only strengthen the Catalan government and weaken the CCMA, which he believed would lead them towards a form of state socialism. Worrying that this would result in an armed conflict between the workers and the Catalan government, Durruti called a regional meeting of the CNT.Template:Sfn At the meeting, Durruti and Garcia Oliver argued for the CNT to end its collaboration with the political parties, but the collaborationist position held firm, as CNT members worried that such a break would accelerate civil conflict within the anti-fascist ranks.Template:Sfn Durruti left Barcelona and returned to Aragon, seeking to hold his position, strengthen the confederal militias and continue advancing the revolution.Template:Sfn
Uesca offensive
Upon Durruti's return to the frontlines, the Aragón War Committee informed him that they were about to carry out an offensive in the province of Uesca, which required him to transfer some of his troops from the Zaragoza front.Template:Sfn While he prepared his troops for the offensive, on 13 August, he was interviewed by the French journalist Template:Ill; they spoke in French, which Durruti had learned during his time imprisoned in La Santé.Template:Sfn Durruti defended the anarchist structure of his militia column, despite De Traversary's insistence on the need for militarisation in order to increase efficiency.Template:Sfn The following day, the Soviet journalist Mikhail Koltsov arrived in Burcharaloz to interview Durruti.Template:Sfnm When the two met, Durruti was busy issuing orders, only stopping once he noticed Koltsov had a letter from Garcia Oliver identifying him as a journalist for Pravda.Template:Sfn He asked Koltsov what the Soviet Union planned to do to aid the Spanish revolution;Template:Sfnm the journalist responded that the Soviet government could not intervene directly, due to diplomatic issues, but that their trade unions had organised a support campaign which raised money for José Giral's government. Durruti responded that it was the Spanish working class, not the government, that was fighting against fascism in Spain; he said it did not make sense to him why Soviet workers were sending money to the government rather than the workers themselves. He then told Koltsov it was his responsibility to better inform Soviet workers of the nature of the Spanish revolution. Koltsov omitted this part of the exchange from his Spanish Diary, in order to abide by the Bolshevik party line on anarchists.Template:Sfn When Koltsov asked him about the military situation, Durruti responded that he thought the Republicans should focus all their strength on taking Zaragoza and lamented that their forces were dispersed across other areas. He said that once their positions in Uesca and Teruel had improved, they would attack Zaragoza. Koltsov then inquired about issues with discipline and command structure, to which Durruti responded that they did not have such problems in his column, as it functioned according to mutual agreement, self-discipline and collective responsibility.Template:Sfn Durruti also told him about the Column's lack of arms and ammunition, which had forced them to rotate fighters between the front and the agricultural collectives, with militiamen even having to conserve empty bullet casings in order to send them back to Barcelona.Template:Sfn He also told Koltsov that the militiamen were trained how to use and maintain their weapons, how to protect themselves and best fight enemy soldiers, but that they were not taught to "toe the line", as the column functioned non-hierarchically.Template:Sfn
Following the encounters with De Traversay and Koltsov, Durruti met with the French journalist Albert Souillon and the Argentine José Gabriel, both of whom wanted to witness the upcoming attack on Fuents d'Ebro.Template:Sfn After the battle, Souillon interviewed Durruti for La Montagne; Durruti complained about Léon Blum's policy of non-interventionism, which he logically understood but philosophically could not abide. He requested that Souillon write that the Spanish were fighting for the French people, as much as for themselves, and that they needed planes if they were to beat the fascists.Template:Sfn He was later interviewed by the American anarchist Emma Goldman; he told her that he was a life-long anarchist and would prefer to lead his comrades as an anarchist rather than command them like a military officer, and that he believed voluntary self-discipline and collective responsibility were the best ways to ensure group cohesion. Goldman recalled that, rather than punishing militiamen who did not cohere with their responsibilities, Durruti calmly communicated with them about why their actions were important to the revolution.Template:Sfn The Italian anarchist newspaper Guerre di Clase reported that, on one occasion, when a militiaman of the artillery battery requested leave to go to Barcelona, Durruti put it up to a vote and the majority gave him permission.Template:Sfn
In early-September 1936, José Villalba launched an offensive to recapture the town of Sietemo, which caused friction with Durruti, as Villalba had refused to coordinate with other militia columns at their War Committee in Sarinyena. At a meeting of the CCMA, Durruti confronted Villalba, blaming him for the Republican loss of Sietemo the previous month.Template:Sfn Despite their differences, Durruti agreed to aid Villalba's offensive and led his Column in the capture of Sietemo, Loporzano and the Castle of Montearagón, clearing the way to Uesca city.Template:Sfn The CCMA then tasked Durruti with addressing Spanish workers over the radio and informing them of the Republican victory on the Uesca front.Template:Sfn He started his speech by disregarding the distinction between workers on the frontline and in the rearguard, declaring they were all united by the same objective to build a working-class society, which he believed would be established by the CNT and UGT after the war was won. He said the workers' militias were not fighting to be rewarded with medals or official positions in the government, and that they would return to their workplaces once they were victorious. He then addressed the upcoming harvest, which he declared would be distributed equally to everyone, with no special privileges, not even for himself.Template:Sfn He told Catalan workers that he was proud to represent them on the frontlines, but that the struggle was a collective action and that they needed to ship all the weapons they had to the front; he also asked women not to send bad news to the front lines, so that militiamen could focus on fighting. He then addressed workers in the Nationalist zone, calling on them to sabotage the Nationalists' military industry and form guerrilla cells to fight them behind their lines. He ended his speech by calling all Spanish workers to have courage, declaring: "Comrades, we should be hopeful. Our ideal accompanies us. That is our strength. Courage and forward! You don't argue with fascism, you destroy it, because fascism and capitalism are the same thing!"Template:Sfn The speech led to a fierce debate between the Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (PSUC) and the Barcelona revolutionary committees, as the former weighed against the revolution and called for obedience to the state, while the latter refused to give up their weapons until workers' control of the Republican zone was secured.Template:Sfn
Tensions with Madrid
On 15 September, Durruti returned to Barcelona, where Garcia Oliver informed him of a plan to incite a rebellion by the Riffian independence movement in the Spanish protectorate in Morocco.Template:Sfn Durruti supported the plan to involve the exiled Riffian rebel leader Abd el-Krim, despite him being incarcerated in Réunion, as he believed he would provide more effective leadership to a rebellion than the Fez-based Moroccan Action Committee (MAC).Template:Sfn He briefly met with the originator of the plan, the French syndicalist leader Pierre Besnard, who spoke highly of Durruti. Besnard said he was the only Spanish revolutionary leader who had "escaped degradation", as he fought with the rank-and-file on the front lines, and compared him positively with Nestor Makhno.Template:Sfn Durruti requested that Besnard contact a munitions dealer to supply his Column with weaponry, before he was himself recalled to the front lines to aid in a Republican offensive.Template:Sfn Durruti and Besnard pressed Catalan prime minister Josep Tarradellas to buy the weapons from Besnard's contact, but he was discouraged from doing so by Garcia Oliver.Template:Sfn Negotiations between the MAC and the Spanish Republican government ultimately broke down, following pressure from the French government, which opposed any plan for Moroccan independence.Template:Sfn On 26 September, the CCMA was dissolved, which incentivised Durruti to continue making revolutionary advances in order to counter what he saw as a mounting counterrevolution. Two days later, Garcia Oliver informed him that Besnard had secured them with an arms dealer.Template:Sfn
When Durruti arrived back in Barcelona on the night of 28-29 September, Garcia Oliver and Abad de Santillán requested that Durruti go with Besnard to Madrid to propose that Largo Caballero's government purchase the weapons.Template:Sfnm But Durruti was sceptical about the plan, believing that there was no point meeting with the prime minister if he was not going to align the government with the revolution.Template:Sfn Durruti and Santillán then discussed the idea of robbing the Bank of Spain and using the money from it to either purchase weapons or machines and materials with which to build a military industry. They contacted the 3,000 militiamen of the Land and Freedom Column, stationed in Madrid, and arranged the transport of the stolen gold by train to Catalonia. Later that night, Durruti met André Malraux, who agreed to put him on a flight to Madrid, despite him lacking an official pass.Template:Sfn But after discussing the planned robbery with the CNT National Committee, which expressed worry that it would increase animosity towards Revolutionary Catalonia, Durruti and Santillán dropped the plan.Template:Sfn They instead went ahead with the meeting with Largo Caballero, who agreed to move forward with the weapons purchase negotiated by Besnard.Template:Sfnm On 3 October, they met in the Navy Ministry and drew up a list of items to purchase. At 03:00 on 4 October, the Soviet ambassador called Durruti and demanded they meet immediately, but Durruti declined and returned Barcelona.Template:Sfn
Two days later, the CNT newspaper published an interview with Durruti from his time in Madrid. It introduced him as an ideologically-committed revolutionary, comparing him favourably to Pancho Villa.Template:Sfn The paper reported that Durruti's visit to Madrid had achieved all its goals, but kept the details vague.Template:Sfn Durruti began the interview by addressing the ongoing Madrid offensive, saying it did not make strategic sense to him why the Nationalists were focusing so much effort on the capital. He stated with certainty that all of Aragon, including Uesca, Teruel and Zaragoza, would soon come under Republican control and that this would represent the beginning of the end for the Nationalists. He then said they would fight through the north towards Asturias, which he believed they would capture in only a few days, before going on to take Galicia and Castile. He thought it likely that the Nationalists would transfer their troops from other fronts to Madrid, which he said would be defeated by the combined effort of the Republican resistance in Madrid and Republican offensives in the rest of the country.Template:Sfn He then discussed the use of defensive fortifications in Aragon, which he characterised as the application of self-preservation to combat scenarios, noting that they allowed militiamen to survive attacks without retreating; he advised that people in Madrid construct similar fortifications to defend themselves against the Nationalist advance.Template:Sfn He said that, as revolutionaries, the anarchist militiamen understood what they were fighting for and pushed for revolutionary change in every frontline town they captured, which gained them grassroots support from local inhabitants.Template:Sfn He then went on to discuss his understanding of discipline, which he conceived of as a form of collective responsibility. He believed it was this sense of responsibility that compelled militiamen to obey orders and remain at the front, although they were able to remove their commanders and leave the frontlines if they chose to.Template:Sfn He concluded the interview by declaring his satisfaction with the militiamen he was leading, although he admitted that they did not know he was in Madrid.Template:Sfn
Reorganisation of the war effort
On 5 October 1936, Durruti returned to Burcharaloz, where the following day he participated in the creation of the Regional Defense Council of Aragon.Template:Sfn Representing his column at the founding assembly of the Defense Council, Durruti expressed support for its establishment.Template:Sfnm He considered it a necessity to establish such a body as part of a move towards a single command structure, through which they could coordinate their military efforts on the front line.Template:Sfn He believed that establishing it, without permission from the government in Madrid, would put pressure on other regions to come together and establish a National Defense Council to coordinate the Republican war effort.Template:Sfnm According to German historian Template:Ill, Durruti was the driving force behind the organisation of the Council of Aragon.Template:Sfn
On 8 October, while the Durruti Column was under attack by Nationalist forces, Durruti was called to a meeting in Sarinyena to discuss the formation of a general staff.Template:Sfn At the meeting, Durruti emphasised the deteriorating situation at Balbastro, where internal conflicts in the Republican ranks were pervasive and large numbers of Nationalists were preparing an offensive. Citing the recent Republican retreats from Farlet and Monegriello, he called for the Republican forces to clarify their internal problems and restore confidence on their front lines.Template:Sfn The PSUC column leader Template:Ill interjected, telling the meeting of an order he had recently given to arrest local village councillors, which the Carabineros had refused to carry out.Template:Sfn Durruti responded by saying that soldiers were there to act as advisors, not to follow political edicts. Del Barrio said that the soldiers were loved by the local people, to which Durruti responded that they were loved because they were fighting, but that them following political edicts raised suspicions. Del Barrio ultimately opposed the creation of a unified command, which Durruti denounced as "inadmissible".Template:Sfn
Following a week of heavy fighting in the area of Perdiguera, Durruti returned to his headquarters in Monegros.Template:Sfn There Pierre Besnard informed him that Largo Caballero had broken their agreement over the weapons purchase;Template:Sfnm the prime minister had instead handed Spain's gold over to the Soviet Union.Template:Sfn Durruti regretted that he had trusted Largo Caballero and not gone ahead with his planned bank robbery. He also learned that the government had decreed the militarisation of the militia columns and the reestablishment of a traditional military hierarchy. Many of Durruti's fighters were now asking him for leave, so as not to submit to the government's decrees.Template:Sfn In an interview with L'Espagne Nouvelle, Durruti feigned ignorance of the decree.Template:Sfn He said that they would be mobilising conscripts, instituting a single command and military discipline, but that they would not be accepting any hierarchical organisation or military justice. He said that in order to prevent militarism from endangering the revolution, they would have to win the war as soon as possible.Template:Sfn As the reorganisation took place, Durruti was visited in Burcharaloz by envoys of the Catalan CNT, who requested he go to Moscow to join an anniversary celebration of the October Revolution. Durruti thought it would be a mistake to send any representatives of the CNT to Moscow, as he believed they would be used for Soviet propaganda and not be able to communicate with Russians about their revolution, but he left the decision up to the Column's War Committee.Template:Sfn When the Column elected to send Francisco Carreño to Moscow, on 23 October, Durruti drafted a letter to Russian workers, appealing for them to support the Spanish Revolution.Template:Sfn
In late October, Durruti received a visit from Horacio Prieto, the General Secretary of the CNT, who at that time was negotiating with Largo Caballero to bring the CNT into the Republican government.Template:Sfn He requested that Durruti transfer his Column from the Aragon front to help defend Madrid, but Durruti refused, not wanting to leave Aragon while the Defence Council was still unrecognised by the government or the CNT. When Prieto told him of the need for "responsibility" and "discipline", Durruti responded that he only recognised militant responsibility and revolutionary discipline, not the bureaucracy of the rearguard.Template:Sfn Having failed to bring Durruti in line, Prieto returned from Aragon to Madrid and hastily finalised his deal with Largo Caballero for the integration of the CNT into the government.Template:Sfn
Transfer to Madrid
As the Nationalists closed in around the Spanish capital in early November, the Catalan ministry of defence called a crisis meeting of all the militia column leaders in Aragon.Template:Sfnm While they decided on which of their forces to send to defend Madrid, Durruti was chosen to give a speech over the radio to raise the morale of the Catalan people.Template:Sfn After the meeting, he met with the revolutionary anarchist Marcos Alcón, to whom Durruti expressed his intent to challenge the rise of bureaucracy within the CNT-FAI during his radio speech.Template:Sfn In the speech, he called for an end to political infighting within the Republican faction, declaring that no single party could beat the fascists by themselves. He also called for workers in the rearguard to mobilise the Catalan economy in aid of the war effort and replicate the discipline shown by the militiamen on the front lines. He ended the speech with the anti-fascist slogan: "They shall not pass!" (Template:Langx).Template:Sfn According to Alcón, the version of his speech that was printed in the anarchist press was censored.Template:Sfn Not long after Durruti's speech, the Republican government fled Madrid, while popular militias manned the barricades to fight the Nationalist advance.Template:Sfnm Durruti's popularity among the rank-and-file surged, as he called for both the Nationalists and those Republicans who undermined the revolution to be crushed.Template:Sfn
On 9 November, Durruti received a visit from Template:Ill of the Madrid CNT and Federica Montseny of the Republican government, who both requested that Durruti transfer himself to Madrid.Template:Sfn Two days later, Durruti attended a meeting of Column representatives in Barcelona, where it was decided that he would lead his militia column to the Spanish capital.Template:Sfnm Durruti objected, as he wanted his forces to focus on capturing Zaragoza, and recommended Miguel Yoldi go to Madrid in his place; but Durruti himself was needed to raise morale, so he ultimately accepted the task.Template:Sfn On 12 November, he called his headquarters and outlined which units would be transferred to Madrid with him.Template:Sfnm The next day, Durruti oversaw the unloading of weapons and ammunition from Mexico and loaded them onto trains bound for Madrid; he later discovered that the rifles were old and of poor quality.Template:Sfn
While his Column took the train, Durruti flew ahead to Valencia. There he met the militiamen on the morning of 14 November, and informed them they would need to transfer onto trucks and buses for the remainder of their journey. Durruti then flew on to the capital, where he was reunited with Mikhail Koltsov. The Soviet journalist reported Durruti greeting him warmly, joking that he had neither captured Zaragoza, been killed or converted to Marxism; Koltsov described Durruti as more disciplined than when they first met, with the affect of a leader.Template:Sfn Koltsov also reported that Durruti was given a Soviet military advisor, Template:Ill (alias "Santi"),Template:Sfnm who promised to teach him how to fire a machine gun.Template:SfnTemplate:Refn Durruti then met the Madrid front's commander-in-chief José Miaja and his chief of staff Vicente Rojo; Durruti told them that he would help save Madrid, but that afterwards, he would immediately return to Aragon.Template:Sfn While waiting for his own Column to arrive, he was given command over the Template:Ill.Template:Sfnm However, the López Tienda Column's commanding officers refused to subordinate themselves to an anarchist militiaman, and continued to operate independently.Template:Sfnm On the morning of 15 November, during offensive operations along the Manzanares, the inexperienced López-Tienda Column withdrew in a disorderly fashion,Template:Sfnm which allowed the Nationalists to break through their lines, enter the University City and occupy the Hospital Clínico San Carlos.Template:Sfn
Battle of Ciudad Universitaria
When his Column arrived in Madrid in the afternoon of 15 November, Durruti met them on Calle de Hortaleza and assigned them to their new positions at the Cárcel Modelo,Template:Sfn where they were to arrive at 02:00 on 16 November.Template:Sfnm While Miaja and Rojo prepared a counter-attack, Durruti met with the CNT's Madrid defense committee.Template:Sfn Cipriano Mera was under the impression that Durruti had brought 16,000 militiamen, but he responded that it was actually less than 5,000. Durruti proposed that the two merge their columns together, but Mera believed it impossible, as his Rosal Column was needed in other positions. Durruti resolved to work with his own Column and follow his order to counterattack in the morning, despite the exhaustion of his men.Template:Sfn Mera attempted to dissuade Durruti from carrying out a frontal assault against the Casa del Campo, but Durruti believed they had no other option and moved his forces in the direction of the Casa de Velázquez.Template:Sfn At the Cárcel Modelo, Durruti showed his Column a map of the University City and pointed out the positions they had been ordered to capture in the coming battle.Template:Sfn Durruti established his command post in the university's Faculty of Sciences.Template:Sfn Over the course of the following 36 hours, the Durruti Column captured the Template:Ill, the Casa de Velázquez and the Template:Ill.Template:Sfnm
On the night of 17 November, Durruti called a meeting of the Column's representatives at their headquarters on Template:Ill.Template:Sfn There he was informed that more than half the men who had gone into battle had died, and the rest had not eaten or rested since the battle started.Template:Sfnm He spent the night visiting the men at their positions, amidst constant bayonet charges from the Nationalists.Template:Sfn Durruti left the front the following morning and set off to secure relief for his exhausted troops. Upon his return to his headquarters, he spoke to a correspondent for Solidaridad Obrera; he expressed his belief that they would win the battle, but admitted that they had suffered heavy losses and they needed to replace their wounded and exhausted fighters.Template:Sfn He then spoke to Eduardo Val, the head of the CNT's Madrid Defense Committee, who called up reinforcements from the ranks of the CNT to provide relief for Durruti's troops, but he was unable to replace all of his men. This left Durruti in a dilemma of whether to keep his exhausted men in battle, despite the dangers of doing so, or withdraw them without replacements, which would demoralise other fighters.Template:Sfn As Durruti prepared to go to the War Ministry, Liberto Roig informed him that José Mira had been wounded and that his men were insisting on relief. Durruti told him frankly that, under the circumstances, there was no likelihood of relief and they would have to continue enduring the battle, even if they were wounded. He also promised that he would replace Mira at his post later that night. Durruti then received a call from Morin, but he was in a rush, so he quickly cut off the call after telling her she would see him again soon.Template:Sfn
Durruti informed Miaja and Rojo about his column's situation and requested relief. They promised him that they would try to replace his men on 19 November,Template:Sfnm but they would need to hold on until then.Template:Sfn On his way out, he briefly spoke with Koltsov and told him he had to attend to his fighters; the Soviet journalist reported that he seemed upset.Template:Sfn He went back to University City and checked his Column's positions, then returned to his headquarters at 20:00.Template:Sfn He met with Eduardo Val to discuss the militarisation of the militias and the Soviet intervention, setting a follow-up meeting with for the following day.Template:Sfn He then met with Cipriano Mera, who proposed that all the confederal militias in Madrid be unified under Durruti's single command; this would prevent an army from being formed, while also relinquishing the democratic control the rank-and-file had over the command structure. Mera and Durruti then agreed to meet the following morning, at the Directorate-General of the Civil Guard, from which Durruti would lead an offensive to capture the Hospital Clinic. Mera's unit and some reinforcements from Barcelona were placed under Durruti's command for the offensive.Template:Sfn
At 06:00, on 19 November, Durruti met Mera at the Directorate-General and together they went up the building's tower to observe the offensive. By 07:00, they had seen their forces had taken some of the floors in the Hospital Clinic. Durruti ordered the Column to occupy the ground floor and the basement before clearing out the building, but his message arrived too late, and his forces were trapped in the upper floors by Nationalist forces on the ground floor.Template:Sfn To free the trapped militiamen, he ordered two companies from a reserve battalion to attack the Clinic's ground floor. After a bullet almost hit Durruti, he and Mera decided to leave the tower and go back down to the street. There he agreed to Mera's proposal that they join their forces under his command and enforce strict discipline, but he remained immediately preoccupied with relieving his men as soon as possible, and told Mera they would revisit the issue in their meeting with Val later that day.Template:Sfn At 12:30, Durruti returned to his headquarters to hear an update from Mora, who passed on a message from Mira begging for relief. He responded to Mira that he had to stay in his post until their men were replaced later that day, and prepared a relief order to be approved by Miaja.Template:Sfn
Death and funeral
As Durruti prepared to go meet with the CNT Defense Committee, Antonio Bonilla arrived to inform him of problems they were facing at the Hospital Clinic.Template:Sfn Durruti decided to see the situation in person and headed for the front in his Packard. Upon arrival, he got out of his car to speak to some militiamen.Template:Sfn There, at 14:30, he was shot.Template:Sfnm It is unclear who was responsible, with various hypotheses blaming either the Nationalists, Stalinists or Durruti's own militiamen for the shooting.Template:Sfnm His driver rushed to get him back in the car and take him to the column's military hospital at the Ritz Hotel.Template:Sfnm Doctor Template:Ill diagnosed his wounds as terminal and decided not to operate.Template:Sfn Durruti died in his hospital bed at 04:00 on 20 November 1936.Template:Sfnm His body was taken to Barcelona the following day, and his funeral was held on 23 November.Template:Sfn His funeral was attended by an estimated 500,000 people, and the procession was headed by Lluís Companys, Joan Garcia Oliver and the consuls from Mexico and the Soviet Union.Template:Sfnm
Legacy
{{#invoke:sidebar|collapsible | name = Anarchism sidebar | pretitle = Part of a series on | title = Anarchism | bodystyle = border: 4px double #000000; border-spacing:0.2em 0; | listtitlestyle = background:transparent; border-top:1px solid #000000; text-align:center; | image = "Circle-A" anarchy symbol | imageclass = skin-invert-image | expanded = People | class = hlist template-anarchism-sidebar | templatestyles = Anarchism sidebar/styles.css | centered list titles = yes | abovestyle = padding-bottom:0.35em; border-top:1px solid #000000; border-bottom:0px solid; | above =
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<section end=Theory /> | list3name = people | list3title = People | list3 = <section begin=People />
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<section end=People /> | list4name = issues | list4title = Issues | list4 = <section begin=Issues />
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<section end=History /> | list6name = culture | list6title = Culture | list6 = <section begin=Culture />
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<section end=Culture /> | list7name = economics | list7title = Economics | list7 = <section begin=Economics />
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<section end=By region /> | list9name = lists | list9title = Lists | list9 = <section begin=Lists />
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- Anti-corporatism
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<section end=Related topics /> | belowclass = plainlist | belowstyle = text-align:center; font-weight:normal; border-top:1px solid #000000; border-bottom:1px solid #000000; | below =
}} At first, Durruti's death was not made public, for morale reasons. Durruti's body was transported across the country to Barcelona for his funeral. Over a half million people filled the streets to accompany the cortege during its route to the Montjuïc Cemetery. It was the last large-scale public demonstration of anarchist strength of numbers during the Spanish Civil War. The event was recounted in Red Spanish Notebook: the first six months of revolution and the civil war, by Trotskyist activist Mary Stanley Low.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Hugh Thomas has remarked that, "the death of Durruti marked the end of the classic age of Spanish anarchism. An anarchist poet proclaimed that Durruti's nobility while living would cause 'a legion of Durrutis' to spring up behind him".Template:Sfn
In 1937, as a response to the further participation of the CNT-FAI in the Republican government, and after the May Days in 1937 in Barcelona, the Friends of Durruti Group was founded, to try and save the anarchist principles of the revolution. The name of Durruti clearly taken because of the revolutionary commitment and the symbol that he still was for that in the anarchist camp. The Friends of Durruti group had a newspaper called El Amigo del Pueblo (The Friend of the People) and tried to make revolutionary propaganda among the rank and file of the CNT. The group was however fiercely repressed by the reformist wing of the CNT, in collaboration with the Republican government.
A Situationist group of Strasbourg University students spent their student union's budget on a giant flyposted comic strip in 1966. One of its panels, featuring two cowboys discussing philosophical reification, was called The Return of the Durutti Column Template:Sic, in reference to Durruti's military unit. This, in turn, influenced Tony Wilson's naming of his English post-punk band, The Durutti Column.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>
Willem van Spronsen, an American anarchist who was killed in 2019 while trying to firebomb a fleet of buses operated by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) for mass deportation, used Durruti's surname as a part of his alias.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>
Gallery
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Photograph of Durruti
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Funeral of Durruti, Barcelona, 23 November 1936
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Durruti's grave full of flowers on the 69th anniversary of his death
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Durruti's grave at Montjuïc Cemetery, Barcelona
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"Hálito Durruti", monument to Buenaventura Durruti in his hometown of León
See also
Notes
References
Bibliography
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