Buenaventura Durruti

Buenaventura Durruti (July 14 1896 in León—November 20 1936, Madrid) was a central figure of Spanish anarchism during the period leading up to and during the Spanish Civil War.

Early life

Durruti started work at the age of 14 in the railway yard in León. In 1917 the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) called a strike in which Durruti was an active and prominent participant. The government brought in the Spanish Army to suppress the strike: they killed 70 people and injured more than 500 workers. 2,000 of the strikers were imprisoned without trial or legal process. Durruti escaped to France.

During his exile until 1920, Durruti worked in Paris as a mechanic. He was persuaded to go to Barcelona to organise the workers there. In Catalonia, with Juan García Oliver, Francisco Ascaso, and a number of other anarchists, he founded Los Solidarios ("Solidarity"). Members of this group attempted unsuccessfully to blow up King Alfonso XIII. In 1923 the group was also implicated in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romero, as reprisals for the killing of Salvador Seguí. Durruti, Ascaso, and Oliver fled to Argentina.

Durruti returned to Spain and Barcelona, becoming an influential militant within two of the largest anarchist organisations in Spain at the time, the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), and of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). The influence Durruti's group gained inside the CNT caused a split, with a moderate faction under Ángel Pestaña leaving in 1931 (becoming the Syndicalist Party).

In the Civil War

Working closely with his comrades Durruti helped co-ordinate resistance to the military rising of Francisco Franco, successfully defeating General Goded's attempt to seize Barcelona. During the battle for the Atarazanas Barracks, Durruti's close friend and fellow militant Ascaso was shot dead. Less than a week later, on July 24 1936 Durruti led over 3000 armed anarchists (later to become known as the Durruti Column) from Barcelona to Zaragoza. After a brief and bloody battle at Caspe (in Aragon), they halted at Pina de Ebro, on the advice of a regular army officer, postponing an assault on Zaragoza.

In November 1936, Durruti led 4000 militiamen to Madrid to aid the besieged Republican defenders of that city. On the 19th of November, he was killed while leading a counter attack in the Casa de Campo area (See also Battle of Madrid). According to author Anthony Beevor ('The Spanish Civil War', 1982), Durruti was killed when a companion's machine pistol went off by mistake. At the time, the anarchists claimed he had been hit by an enemy sniper's bullet "for reasons of morale and propaganda". He died in a makeshift operating theatre set up in what was formerly the Ritz Hotel at the age of 40. Durruti's body was transported across country to Barcelona for his funeral. Over a quarter of a million people filled the streets to accompany the cortege during its route to the cemetery on Montjuich. It was the last large-scale public demonstration of anarchist strength of numbers during the bitter and bloody Civil War.

Quotations

• "There are only two roads, victory for the working class, freedom, or victory for the fascists which means tyranny. Both combatants know what's in store for the loser. We are ready to end fascism once and for all, even in spite of the Republican government."

• "No government fights fascism to destroy it. When the bourgeoisie sees that power is slipping out of its hands, it brings up fascism to hold onto their privileges."

• "It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, 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 this minute."

• "The Only Church That Illuminates Is A Burning Church."

See also

• Anarchism in Spain
• Anarchist Catalonia
• The Durutti Column - a rock band, whose name derives from Durruti

References

• Emma Goldman's Durruti is Dead, Yet Living (1936)
• Anthony Beevor's The Spanish Civil War (1982)
• Pedro de Paz's The Man Who Killed Durruti'[1] Read and Noir (2005)

External links

• [2] Buenaventura Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. Biopic by Paco Rios based on the book by Abel Paz
• Biography of Buenaventura Durruti on libcom.org history
• Durruti in the Spanish Revolution by Abel Paz. 2006. Translated by Chuck W. Morse. Published by AK Press. (ISBN 1-904859-50-X).