Buenaventura Durruti

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

He started work aged 14 in the railway yard in Leon. In 1917 the Union General de Trabajadores (UGT) called a strike in which Durruti was an active and prominent participant. The Spanish Government brought in the 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. The Army had, in the words of one observer, 'saved the nation'. 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 Barcelona, with García Oliver and a number of other anarchists, he founded "Los Solidarios" (Solidarity). Members of this group attempted unsuccessfully to blow up Alfonso XIII the Spanish king. In 1923 the group were implicated in the assassination of the despised Archbishop Soldevila. Durruti 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 the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).

Working closely with his comrades Durruti helped co-ordinate resistance to the military rising, successfully defeating Gen. Goded's attempt to seize Barcelona. During the battle for the Atarazanzas 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, they halted at Pina de Ebro, on the advice of a regular army officer, postponing an assault on Zaragoza. Having been persuaded to lead a column of fighters to help relieve Madrid, Durruti was shot and critically wounded by a sniper. (According to 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 a 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.

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 Spanish Civil War.

References

• Emma Goldman's Durruti is Dead, Yet Living (1936)
• Anthony Beevor's The Spanish Civil War (1982)

Quotations by Durruti

• "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."

See also

• Anarchism in Spain
• The Durutti Column - a rock band, whose name derives from Durrutide:Buenaventura Durruti

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