“It is we [the workers] who built these palaces and cities, here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. We can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. [...] That world is growing in this minute.”
-Buenaventura Durruti
In the years following the First World War, fascism spread like wildfire throughout Western Europe. While Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were just getting their footing, an exiled General named Francisco Franco was plotting an uprising against the newly-elected Leftist government of Spain called the Popular Front. His uprising was aided by Italy and Germany. In response to the rebellion, Leftists of all leanings took up arms to fight fascism. One of those militants was Anarchist, Buenaventura Durruti.
Buenaventura Durruti was born July 14, 1896, one of eight siblings, the son of a railway worker. Later in life, he recalled his father working constantly and yet he and his brothers having to go without food. He left school at age 14 to work on the rails with his father, joining a union. In his twenties, he participated in a strike that resulted in military intervention. Within three days, the Spanish army killed seventy strikers, while wounding an additional 500 and arresting another 2,000.
After the deadly strike, Durruti fled to Paris, where he would live for three years before returning to Spain and meeting other syndicalists and forming Los Justicieros, a paramilitary anarchist group. After an unsuccessful assassination attempt on King Alfonso XIII, he moved to Barcelona to organize and assist other anarchists who were being persecuted. He, along with other syndicalists formed Los Solidarios, a group that in 1923 would assassinate Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romera after the Cardinal had hired gunmen to murder and/or otherwise terrorize union members throughout Spain. Throughout the late 1920s, Durruti and other members of Los Solidarios fled to Cuba.
On February 16, 1936, the Popular Front won the Spanish general election. The front encompassed a vast array of Leftists from Democratic Socialists to Anarchists. After this win, violence ensued throughout Spain. The Left saw especial resistance with both professional military officials and the Catholic Church. General Franco declared war on July 18, 1936. Early on, the Left dominated the rebels. Durruti coordinated an armed resistance and led troops of armed Anarchists into battle.
Just weeks after the initial battles of the civil war, Durruti was interviewed by Pierre van Paasen, a journalist for the Toronto Star where he described why he fights.
“For us, it is a matter of crushing Fascism once and for all. No government in the world fights Fascism to the death. When the bourgeoisie sees power slipping from its grasp, it has recourse to Fascism to maintain itself. [They] could have rendered the Fascist elements powerless long ago. Instead, it compromised and dallied. Even now at this moment, there are men in [our government] who want to go easy on the rebels.”
The recourse he spoke of was the back and forth swinging of the political pendulum of the Spanish governments in the years following the abdication of Alfonso XIII in 1931.
On November 12, 1936, Durruti led his militia into Madrid to defend the city from rebels. On the 19th of November, he was shot while leading a counterattack. While being treated for the wounds at a hospital within the city, he was informed that the facility was to be evacuated. The following account is by Julio Grave, who acted as Durruti’s chauffeur:
"We passed a little group of hotels which are at the bottom of this avenue [Avenida de la Reina Victoria] and we turned towards the right. Arriving at the big street, we saw a group of militiamen coming towards us. Durruti thought it was some young men who were leaving the front. This area was completely destroyed by the bullets coming from the Clinical Hospital, which had been taken during these days by the Moors and which dominated all the environs. Durruti had me stop the car which I parked in the angle of one of those little hotels as a precaution. Durruti got out of the auto and went towards the militiamen. He asked them where they were going. As they didn't know what to say, he ordered them to return to the front. The militiamen obeyed and Durruti returned towards the car. The rain of bullets became stronger. From the vast red heap of the clinical hospital, the Moors and the Guardia Civil were shooting furiously. Reaching the door of the machine, Durruti collapsed, a bullet through his chest."
The Spanish War would continue until April 1939, with the Soviet Union aiding the Left and both Germany and Italy aiding Franco’s rebels. General Franco became El Caudillo (“the leader”) de España and ruled under a military regime for just under forty years. The Spanish Civil War would be a precursor the Second World War but differing greatly as Fascism was not defeated. In fact, Franco remained dictator decades after the deaths of Hitler and Mussolini.
Buenaventura Durruti and his contemporaries may have lost the war, but his spirit, his legend, and his rhetoric continue to live on.
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| Durruti, 1936. |
