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Revolutionary Activism The Spanish Resistance in
Context Octavio Alberola Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Octavio Alberola; Alvaro Millán; Juan Zambrana; Paul Sharkey
ISBN(s): 9781873605776, 1873605773
Edition: reprint
File Details: PDF, 2.15 MB
Year: 2005
Language: english
REVOLUTIONARY
ACTIVISM
The Spanish Resistance in context
OcTAV1I0O ALBEROLA
texts and interviews
Alvaro Millan & Juan Zambrana
Revolutionary Activism: The Spanish Resistance in context
na
Octavio Alberola, Alvaro Millan & Juan Zambra
The interconnection of memory and libertarian activism Octavio Alberola and Juan
Zambrana and
The murder of Granados and Delgado, Octavio Alberola and Alvaro Millan
Translated by Paul Sharkey from Polémica (Barcelona) No. 70, January 2000
Sabate in perspective from Sabate, Guerrilla extraordinary, 1974
Revolutionary activism from Black Flag June 1973 Vol. III, No. 3.
HK
First English publication Kate Sharpley Library, 2000
Reprinted 2005
ISBN 1-873605-77-3
© 2000 KSL
A list of our publications is available from the KSL. Please contact us for more
details. |
11-00, 06-05
What is Anarchism?
Anarchism is a political theory which opposes the State and capitalism. It says that
people with economic power (capitalists) and those with political power
(politicians of all stripes left, right or centre) use that power for their own benefit,
and not (like they claim) for the benefit of society. Anarchism says that neither
exploitation nor government is natural or neccessary, and that a society based on
freedom, mutual aid and equal share of the good things in life would work better
than this one.
Anarchism is also a political movement. Anarchists take part in day-to-day struggles
(against poverty, oppression of any kind, war etc) and also promote the idea of
comprehensive social change. Based on bitter experience, they warn that new
‘revolutionary’ bosses are no improvement: ‘ends’ and ‘means’ (what you want
and how you get it) are closely connected.
wz
Octavio Alberola has been a prominent militant in the fight against Francoism (as
coordinator of the Interior Defence — DI — agency of the Spanish Libertarian
Movement — MLE — in exile) and his book, Spanish Anarchism and Revolutionary Action in
Spain, 1961-1974 (Ruedo Ibérico publishers, Paris) written in partnership with
Arianne Gransac, is probably one of the few texts offering us an anti-dogmatic
insight into those years.
* eR
Octavio, where did the libertarian movement stand, historically speaking, by the beginning of the 1960s?
By the end of the 1950s and start of the 1960s, the Libertarian Movement was in
very dire straits, due to the repression visited upon it inside Spain and the fact that
the Franco dictatorship was stronger than ever before and that there seemed to be
no prospect of immediate change. To sum up: by the end of the 190s the Liber-
tarian Movement was almost vegetating, both in terms of action as well as in its
thinking and propaganda, being devoted exclusively to ritual acts like paying
membership dues or attending anti-Franco rallies from exile in France. The
downfall of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in 1959 provided a definite spur to the
MLE to try to rise above its internal differences and relaunch anti-Francoist activity.
The congress of Limoges (France) in 1961 brought the reunification of the cNT
(within and without Spain) and motions were passed calling for action to revitalise
the fight against Franco and the libertarian presence in that fight. All of which led
youth groups to do their bit and brought about a relaunching of anarchist action.
Octavio, you have told me about the 1960s and how they evolved, but i should like to know what role
the CNT played between defeat in the civil war in 1939 and the years you have just been talking about,
as well as all about its relationship with revolutionary or anti-systemic movements in the countries where
they were in exile?
The civil war was a tremendous trauma for all of the libertarian membership
forced to become exiles. The internationalist outlook that the exiles had was more
theoretical than practical and we ought to add other factors that made it hard for
them to integrate in the countries which harboured them. Naturally, we ought not
to forget either that virtually immediately after defeat in the civil war the Second
World War erupted and that the libertarian exiles (essentially the ones who had
stayed behind in Europe) fought and in many cases perished in the fight against
Nazism. Later, the tendency among the exiles was to integrate into the host
country and remake their lives in order to survive: later, the natural inclination
was to resurrect those of their organisations connected with Spanish anti-
Francoism and justifying their aims in terms of solidarity with those carrying on
the fight inside Spain to overthrow Franco’s dictatorship. Which, in a way,
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
accounts for the libertarian exiles’ failure to integrate with the social problems of
the host countries. Another factor may have been the slightness of the libertarian
movements in the two countries harbouring the greatest numbers of exiles (France
and Mexico). Finally, another factor might be the progressive ‘de-classing’ that
certain exile sectors underwent, which alienated them more and more from the
working classes in those countries.
Your book seems to suggest that much of the exiled libertarian membership spent those years rebuilding
the MLE’s own organisations (the CNT, the FAI and the FIJL) in order to bolster anti-Francoism inside
Spain, but that their efforts were tokens rather than realities as they had no desire to embark upon a
course of militant activism that would cause difficulties to the organisations in exile’s survival.
That’s how it was. The governments of the host countries wanted the exile organi-
sations to act as stabilising influences and wanted the MLE to have a symbolic
existence: when that line was crossed one ran up against systems intended to
stymie possible actions. Also, more and more the governments of Mexico and
France were renewing their economic and trading links with the Franco dictator-
ship from the Second World War on. And it is conceivable that there was a politi-
cal quid-pro-quo whereby anti-Franco activists in those countries had to be
neutralised.
Octavio, let us turn now to domestic resistance by libertarian militants to the Franco dictatorship in the
wake of the latter’s victory. in Juan Manuel Molina’s book on the resistance role of the CNT in the first
years of Francoist rule, it seems that certain modes of operation went unchanged and that lots of arrests
were due in part to this failure to adapt to the conditions of clandestinity imposed by the dictatorship and
its savage repression.
Let us say that, although there may have been thinking or debates on this score,
preparation and education for coping with clandestinity were not part of the tradi-
tional baggage of the membership. Anyway, this is something that has to be
learned on the hoof. Which is why the first reaction was to keep the organisations
going through the unions, meetings, circulars, etc. There might also be resistance,
organised on foot of tiny affinity groups, to reduce the dangers of police infiltra-
tion. Resisting the dictatorship was the very core of libertarian anti- Francoism and
the really important point was that in the interior there should be libertarian resis-
tance that would link up with the outside world to get the latter to bring diplo-
matic and propaganda pressure to bear against the Franco regime.
How did relations stand between the libertarian movements within and without Spain and how did they
evolve later?
The defeat had been so brutal that no groundwork had been laid for the mainte-
nance of some structure to effectively coordinate the organisations in the interior
and in exile or on the exterior, and this had to be done on the hoof. Remember
too that during the three years of the civil war there had been a huge amount of
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
conflict and squabbling within the ranks of the MLE and that these were further
exacerbated by the subsequent defeat. Once the Second World War was over and
the organisations could be resurrected abroad, the disavowal and continual dissent
between MLE groups and individuals with their sights on controlling the organisa-
tion inside Spain (as well as outside Spain, of course) conditioned their
‘performance’.
Broadly speaking, the roots of the division within the MLE at the time lay in
whether or not to carry on with collaboration with parties within the republican
camp in existing bodies, as well as, of course, the republican government-in-exile
(in 1945). But in reality, both factions, although they never said so explicitly,
were hoping that the Allies would embark upon a campaign to unseat Franco and
his fascist dictatorship, would restore the Republic and allow all of the exiles to
return to Spain.
Was the anti-Francoist guerrilla activity in which various groups and individuals from the libertarian
milieu were involved (like Quico Sabaté, Facerias, etc,) prompted by the MLE’s overall strategy or was it
rather a case of groups and individuals acting off their own bat?
Well, it had nothing to do with any strategy worked out by the MLE, nor in fact
did they enjoy the express backing of the organisation. It was more a case of
individuals ready, able and with the ethical and moral beliefs to operate in an
active way against Francoism.
You, as one of a band of Spanish exiles, a fresh generation (children of other exiles) rebuilt the libertarian
youth in Mexico and carried on as active militants in that country.
I was a university student in Mexico and was caught up in student agitation whilst
at the same time I was frequenting libertarian circles and, together with some
young people, we rebuilt the Mexican libertarian youth and were arrested and
jailed for our pains. The exiles were critical of our activity because we were
causing problems with the authorities and this was having an impact on their modus
vivendi. I came into contact with groups of exiles fighting against dictatorships and
we set ourselves up as the Anti-Dictatorship Youth Front (essentially Venezuelan
groups, groups from the Dominican Republic, from Peru and Cuban groups too).
The anti-dictatorship struggle against the Batista regime in Cuba became one of
our main preoccupations and we collaborated with the 26 July Movement’s propa-
ganda team (it included Fidel and Che Guevara) as well as with the Revolutionary
Student Directory sometime around 1956.
Later, seeing the turn taken by events in Cuba and Fidel Castro’s struggle for
hegemony, I distanced myself from this process and denounced its exploitation for
political purposes. In fact, the libertarian presence was a minority one and that
sector was soon marginalised in the Cuban revolutionary process.
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
The Defence Commission was made up of the general secretaries of the MLE’s
movements (the CNT, FAI and FIJL) and it fell to it to appoint the membership of
the D1 (which initially had to lead a clandestine existence with their names
naturally being common knowledge within the organisation).
The DI was made up of seven individuals drawn from the various wings of the
MLE and I was the FIJL appointee placed in charge of this clandestine work.
One question that besets all of us who analyse or try to understand what the libertarian exile community
was like is the sclerosis that the organisation suffered from in terms of the individuals staffing its
co-ordinating or management bodies. It is hard to understand from the point of view of today’s libertari-
ans that, say, Federica Montseny and Germinal Esgleas, throughout virtually their entire careers as
militants held managerial and leadership positions (paid positions, some of them) and that there was not
greater rotation in the collegiate bodies of the CNT or the MLE generally.
Well, one of the almost permanent contradictions in libertarian circles is that as
militants assume representative office, well sometimes, activity being very
restricted, they end up believing themselves to be irreplaceable and come to think
of themselves as the organisation and that the rest are not equipped to perform
such tasks.
This leads to their clinging to office and/or treating the organisation as their
own little fiefdom. The worst thing is that in exile the organisation had become a
way of life for some who otherwise did not have a notion what to do, leading to
an unhealthy climate in that all criticism of these people was construed as a
general criticism of the CNT or of the MLE as a whole. Complaints about the
bureaucratisation or stagnation brought retaliation from such people in the form
of all manner of denunciation and misrepresentation of whoever was making
them. |
You of the FIJL were among the first groups to begin to expose this situation within the MLE and its
paralysing inertia.
As a matter of moral conscience we had no option but to tackle this inertia in
order to overcome it. Our struggle against Franco was intended to demonstrate to
the foreign press that dictatorship was still present in Spain and that there were
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
groups ready to actively denounce it within Spain as well as without. This activist
dynamic in turn gave rise to a linking-up and solidarity between anti-Francoist
groups. Regrettably, we had to carry on with the fight using the FyL’s own
resources, with assistance only from a few older militants (Garcia Oliver and Cipri-
ano Mera, for instance) who were on the outside of the Intercontinental Secretariat
(st) circles in Toulouse. Operations were claimed in a variety of names, depending
on circumstances or dates — the First of May Group, for example, or the Iberian
Liberation Council (cit) which meant to embrace the whole struggle against
Salazar’s dictatorship in Portugal and Franco’s in Spain. In Montpellier in 1965,
the Esgleists wound up the whole DI essay in anti-Franco activism at the congress
held in that city, although it had already petered out before then due to obstruc-
tion from those very same people. At which point, there was a fresh split inside
the MLE (led by Peirats and Gomez Pelaez) after Cipriano Mera was expelled.
It was also at that Montpellier congress that the contacts that some CNT personnel within Spain had been
having with the machinery of the CNS (Francoist syndicates) on the basis of a five point programme
(hence the popular designation of ‘cincopuntistas’ given to them) came to light, which signified
further grounds for a crisis inside the libertarian camp.
It was a matter of a few comrades (if I may call them such) who had been in
prison and been contacted by the Falangist syndicates in search of ‘trade union
cadres’ to fill some vacancies, and whose motivation was an attempt to counter the
growing influence wielded by some pro-Communist elements within the cns. At
no time did we believe in this strategy of rapprochement with certain segments of
the dictatorship and any way it seemed to us that it would be condemned outright
by our rank-and-file.
Later, to take things in chronological order, we must deal with the various experiences involved in May
"68 in France and elsewhere.
Up until April 1968 the talk was that France was a country whose conscience was
asleep and whose people had been integrated into an increasingly developed
consumer society. In terms of social strife, there was very little in the way of
challenge, except for the campaign against the Vietnam war which sparked
widespread anti-Yankee sentiment in various countries. In the usa itself, a critical
conscience grew up around the war and there was a discourse (the beatnik or
hippy discourse which came close to being libertarian and anti-authoritarian)
which became a significant reference point for the challenges of the various Mays
experienced in several countries. In turn, the Cuban revolution had a positive
influence on a broad slice of the Left which sought real changes in our social and
economic models. We of the First of May Group were pretty much in touch with
all of these factors and we acted in solidarity with the anti-imperialist and anti-
authoritarian movements. Thus, in many countries, anarchism seemed to be
acquiring a fresh relevance through fresh generations and new discourses. The
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
But at one point during France’s May ’68, the labour movement threw overboard the ‘orderly’ watch-
words of the French cp and threw in its lot with the students. do you think that there was an expectation
of and desire for changes in the social set-up on the labour movement's part or not?
No, not so much social change. What happened is that people were frustrated by
the conservative idiosyncrasy displayed by French society at that time. So it was a
case of a sort of overflowing of dammed-up energies that had the power to flood
premises, factories, criticise the boss’s power, etc., but of course, there was no
organisation or strategy with the power to marshal this (not in the manner of a
vanguard or in any authoritarian way, of course), but rather a multitude of experi-
ences which left a clear mark upon participants in France’s May '68.
And how would you assess the various experiences in other countries of this ‘May Cycle’?
Here in Spain, remember that we had another ‘May’ in 1965 in Madrid when the
student groups described as the ‘acratas’ (who included Agustin Garcia Calvo and
other comrades) invested student protest with a quite novel aspect and that this
phenomenon then became widespread in 1968. We had our links with these
young people and were in touch with them. We were agreed on the challenge to
the system, but also, as I said before, on criticising the authoritarian forms devised
to conduct the fight against the system as well. (One cannot combat the system of
alienation by alienated means). Every country had its idiosyncrasies. but there was
a common anti-authoritarian thread running through them all and this led them to
confront the rigidity of political models and their corrupt formulae, and the timid-
ness displayed up until then by those which purported to be their ‘opposition’
(often leftwing parties).
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
After the early 1960s, two separate paths emerged out of the ashes of the
various Mays of 68. On the one hand, the anti-authoritarian, libertarian critique
was sustained and spread to wider circles, and on the other some groups surfaced
(the RAF in Germany or the Red Brigades in Italy) which plumped for activism, or,
rather, for ‘terrorism’, divorced from the masses and under the auspices of an
updated ‘Marxism-Leninism’, in order to overcome the ‘difficulty’ or ‘problem’ of
the question of how revolution was to be made in western Europe.
The groups that emerged from the Marxist-Leninist quarter were also critical of
the bureaucratisation and sclerosis of their ideological co-religionists, but as their
approach was of the authoritarian variety, they arrived at the aim of ‘seizing
power’ or operating as vanguard minorities which the masses would join sooner
or later, even though they had no real connection to those masses. The system’s
response was emphatic and repressive and put paid to them in a short space of
time, but they also failed to inspire a broad movement of support of social aware-
ness within the working class proper (quite the opposite). Insofar as there was
contact with these groups, an attempt was made to show them that the path they
had chosen was suicidal or that they were unwittingly suiting the purposes of the
system. We also believed that the use of violence did not per se make these groups
revolutionary. Now, it must be said as well that the State’s violence is on a much
larger scale than that of these groups or others striking out at the system’s
‘legality’.
Once the Montpellier congress in 1965 was over, the CNT witnessed a series of expulsions of old
militants (Jose Peirats, Gomez Pelaez, etc.) by the st (Esgleas), because of their backing for you in the
FIJL and that later this led to the emergence of the paper and group using the name of Frente Libertario.
What was your connection with that group?
In real terms, we felt closer to that group than to those in charge of the cNT
abroad. Peirats had supported me and we were friends; as for Gomez Pelaez, there
too there was a fair amount of common ground. Where we differed was over the
fact that they were deeply hurt by their expulsion from the cnT and sought at all
times the endorsement of other sectors within the cNnT, albeit not its officials.
It mastered not at all to us whether we were in or out of the CNT because our
belief was more in the movement than the initials behind it. In fact, they were
engaged in an organisational strategy of struggle, in which we had no interest.
When we came to refloat the cNT inside Spain they too wanted to play a role that
was the very same role as the Esgleists performed. Paternalism is probably the
word that describes the situation best.
You always had your doubts about the process of the rebuilding of the CNT after Franco’s death. what
were your thoughts?
T hold that, right from the outset, the process itself was based on false premises.
There was a desire to rebuild the CNT from ‘above’. From those sectors which had
a i
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
been influential in exile (the si and Frente Libertario). These boosted the reconstruc-
tion and wanted thanking for their contribution. Later, once the cNT had been
refloated, they launched a dynamic of spheres of influence which proved tremen-
dously negative in the open debate on anarcho-syndicalism’s role at that point.
That is how I see things, which does not mean, of course, that I am right, but in
France some sectors such as we who were around the libertarian magazine El Topo
Ayizor saw it as a replay of the same old struggles and dogmatism that had disfig-
ured the exiles and which were making themselves felt inside Spain, without your
realising this at the time.
Be that as it may, Octavio, apart from the influence that the exile factions had in the beginnings of the
reconstruction, there was a whole series of new libertarian and anti-authoritarian groups striving to
afford the CNT a new relevance. These were not groups exercising any great influence in the labour
movement, but they did have a minority input at the start (I refer to the GOA, Solidaridad, the oLT,
the MCL, the ELC, the Grupos Anarquistas de Barrios, etc.), operating as pre-trade union groups, ensur-
ing that the CNT later gained a footing for a short time in the labour movement and other social
movements (I refer chiefly to the years 1976-1979).
As I see it, in that setting, where there were factors militating for and against the
expansion of the CNT, it was a mistake to jump the gun by setting up such a
definitive organisational structure, because along came the struggle for control of
the organisation between several factions (internal as well as external) and there
erupted an absurd battle that would never have happened had we plumped for a
process of experimentation by various groups and various libertarian energies.
Maybe, with time, these might have come together in concerted activities without
all the squabbling and resentment generated by the contest for hegemony within
the cnT. The organisation ought to have grown out of the movement itself, rather
than the other way around, as was the aim then. The organisation’s name did not
necessarily have to be cnT, although it would acknowledge the cnt’s historical
tradition. In that way we might have had greater freedom of action and would not
have had the problems of the negative legacy the exiles have left us. The important
point was that inside as well as outside the labour movement as it was, the liber-
tarian options would have fortified one another and would have carried on with
their critique and activity against the system that had been set in place following :
Franco’s death.
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
Spain’s transition into democracy was built upon the mortar of forgetting. Forget-
ting of the political record of a goodly number of the protagonists of the process
and of the construction of the new arrangements: forgetting of the Francoist origin
of the restoration of the monarchy and of the very designation of Juan Carlos as
King: forgetting of the political and social programmes of the leftist parties partici-
pating in the process; and forgetting of the 40 years of the dictatorship’s repres-
sion. Such was the price paid in return for a peaceable transition free of trauma
and causing no upset to the military and high financiers.
The outcome — besides the democratic deficit afflicting the system thrown up by
the Transition (largely the result of this conspiracy of silence) has been a softening
of Francoism’s image and a leaving behind of its darker facets so that it appears to
upcoming generations as a regime which while beset by certain drawbacks and
somewhat shabby and antiquated, was yet able to erect good dams, lay modem
highways, manufacture small runabout vehicles to drive the ‘Spanish economic
miracle’ and enlighten that carefree, upbeat Spain that we see in the movies of
Alfredo Landa and Gracita Morales.
But underneath the sepulchral silence, the facts remain — that a military coup
crushed a Republic and triggered a war punctuated by acts of barbarism and mass
criminality, concentration camps where hundreds of thousands of inmates were
packed for years on end. Not to mention those who died at the hands of firing
squads (their numbers will never be known with certainty, but which are
estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands).
The passage of time and the conspiracy of silence have laid these matters to rest,
even the more recent cases, such as the shambolic trial of Julian Grimau or Salva-
dor Puig Antich or the murder of Rafael Guijarro on police premises in 1967 —
according to the police he committed suicide by throwing himself from a window
—and of Enrique Ruano in 1969. all have been forgotten. And the Granados-
Delgado case was merely one episode in a long history of outrage and barbarism.
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
What was the mission entrusted to Granados and Delgado and what were the circumstances surrounding
their arrest in the wake of the bombings in Madrid?
At the beginning of 1963 DI (Interior Defence) had determined to lay the ground-
work for an attempt on Franco’s life in Madrid. In the course of such preparations,
the pi commissioned Francisco Granados to transport the remote firing mecha-
nism to Madrid and, on arriving there, to pick up a suitcase of explosives that
another comrade had earlier delivered to the city. Granados carried out this
mission and stayed on in Madrid to deliver that mechanism and the suitcase to the
group due to mount the attack. At the beginning of July, not having enough intel-
ligence regarding Franco’s route to the Palacio de Oriente, the DI postponed the
assassination bid and withdrew the intended attack team from Madrid. It was at
this point that José Pascual and Cipriano Mera (the latter a member of the D1)
indicated to me that there was another ‘group’ with better intelligence on Franco’s
route from the Prado palace to La Corufia and which was in a position to carry
through the attack before the end of July, if the mechanism and the explosives
were to be passed on to them. There was no way that I could let this opportunity
go to waste, so they brought me the ‘chief’ of that group, one Jacinto Guerrero
Lucas, so that I might arrange with him a rendezvous in Madrid between a
member of his group and the comrade (Granados) holding the gear. Guerrero’s
envoy was late in setting off (Guerrero knew this) and when the rendezvous was
not kept, no hand-over could be made. Guerrero assured us that if another rendez-
vous could be set up, there might still be time to mount the attack on Franco.
Given the urgency involved, Mera and I had to turn to Delgado who quickly set off
for Madrid to see to this meeting (Delgado had the two contacts). A few hours
prior to his departure, we discovered that Franco had just left Madrid to begin his
summer holidays. That being the case, it was determined that Delgado’s mission
would merely be to inform the member from Guerrero’s group to hot foot it back
to France and to tell Granados to deposit the gear in a safe place before returning
to France too. Delgado reached Madrid on the Saturday and carried out the first
part of his mission, but it was only on the Monday that he was able to track down
Granados. Apparently, from what he said, they decided to hang around before
returning to France together in Granados’s car which was in for repairs. On the
afternoon of that Monday and as night came on, another DI group (unaware of )
their presence and of the planned attack on Franco) decided to bring forward the |
date for carrying out their mission detonated a bomb in the General Security Direc-
torate and another at the HQ of the Falangist syndicates. The following day,
Delgado and Granados were arrested and charged with responsibility for those
bombings. The precise circumstances surrounding their arrest are still not clear,
since the official version given out by the police for public consumption seems
far-fetched: that they were arrested quite by chance.
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
What part did Guerrero Lucas play in the arrests and what was his connection with the DI?
That Guerrero is to blame seems plain enough, because, but for his surprising and
unexpected ‘intervention’ Delgado would have had no reason to be in Madrid and
Granados would have returned to Ales for sure before that fateful Monday: but
back then, in 1963, we just thought that Guerrero was a bit of a maverick.. Bear in
mind that, shortly after the execution of Granados and Delgado, the French
authorities rounded up upwards of 60 FIL militants in France, as well as José
Pascual and Cipriano Mera and that the pi was thrown into disarray for quite a
while. It was only towards the end of the 1980s that we learned of Guerrero
having ‘resurfaced’ as a double agent of the French and Spanish police in their
‘anti-terrorist war’ with ETA.
As for his D1 connection, it is not true that Guerrero was a member of that body,
which was made up of six old comrades (Germinal Esgleas and Vicente Llansola,
who attended only the earlier meetings, and Cipriano Mera, Juan Garcia Oliver,
Acracio Ruiz and comrade Jimeno from Morocco) and I was the FIL representative
on it. The fact is that during the p1’s first four months in operation, from April to
July 1962, Guerrero was in charge of liaison with the FIL groups inside Spain: but
when he lost a suitcase containing organisation documents and when his identity
was blown, we told him to stay in Toulouse and to apply for asylum with the aid
of the cNT’s Intercontinental Secretariat (st). Guerrero did not take kindly to this
removal and turned up again in 1963, proposing, through Pascual and Mera that
his ‘group’ could carry out the attack on Franco... Later he ‘went over’ to the
Esgleists. And, according to one former French policeman, he was giving informa-
tion about the FraP and later about GRAPO.
How come the protests were so feeble and how come the CNT failed to come forward with the real
bombers?
The pi and the cNnT’s Intercontinental Secretariat did what they could to mobilise
public opinion (this was in August and virtually throughout Europe holidays were
the only thing on people’s minds). Also, at the time, the dominant ideology on the
Left was Communism and the cP apparatuses sabotaged the anarchists’ initiatives
everywhere. As to why the real bombers were not produced, there is a very simple
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
explanation: both the pi and the st reckoned that that would not stop the execu-
tions (a short time earlier the communist Julian Grimau had been shot in defiance
of significant worldwide protest) and it was also concluded that the cnT had no
tradition of self-denunciation, nor was one advisable.
Finally: how did it come to pass that, in those days, within the libertarian movement such contrasting
strategies as that of the DI and that of ‘cincopuntismo’ could be pursued?
Whilst not arguing categorically that the strategy of ‘Cincopuntismo’ was, together
with repression, a Francoist ploy to put paid to the potential threat represented by
the D1, I do believe that there is not the slightest doubt but that the Cincopuntistas
were at one with the Esgleists in wishing to see the DI strategy founder. Both
groups were ideologically and morally beaten, which is why they were hoping for
a miraculous recovery by the Libertarian Movement without lifting a finger. Both
groups were anti-communist: but both the defeatism of the Cincopuntistas and the
sclerosis of the Esgleists merely facilitated the onward march of the Communist
Party.
In reality, the only thing that mattered to the Cincopuntisto leaders and Esgleist
leaders was holding office, even should it be in an extinct organisation or a
moribund one.
Remember that the Di only existed and only acted because of the belief of the
young people and because those young people determined to act upon the fight-
ing talk that had hitherto remained a dead letter.
SABATE IN PERSPECTIVE
Though it was not until 1945 that the Spanish Libertarian Movement in Exile
(MLE) was able to reorganise itself openly, armed resistance against Franco took
place on Spanish soil from the moment he entered Madrid.
Between 1939, when Franco conquered, and 1960 (when Sabate and his group
were wiped out) the only people among all the anti-Franco movements to take up
and continue this armed struggle against tyranny were the Anarchists. All other
organisations preferred to beg the Allied Powers for a solution to the Spanish
‘problem’, while for sixteen years the Anarchist movement made constant attacks
upon the dictatorship.
The libertarian movement was to some extent paralysed because of the necessity
to remain legally recognised while on French territory. But the action groups,
either as part of the organisation or outside, were the only ones to confront the
massive repressive apparatus created by the State. As the State strove to maintain its
power and prevent any revolutionary and popular resistance, the action groups
showed the way to liberation from fascism. The number of libertarians imprisoned
or murdered grew by leaps and bounds.
Towards the end of 1960, when even the most optimistic had given up hopes of
the possibility of a diplomatic solution to the Spanish ‘problem’, the fall of the
Batista dictatorship in Cuba awoke new hopes and aspirations within the anti-
Franco movement generally. The successful insurrection by armed guerrillas in
Cuba lent weight to the protagonists of the ‘activist line’ in Spain. It was this
which led to a reunification of the Spanish Libertarian Movement, which decided
on the creation of a secret section known as the Di (Internal Defence) which
would reorganise and animate subversive action against the dictatorship.
Only a few months after the formation of the p1, the effects of its activities were
commented on extensively in the world press. These activities consisted in harass-
ing the Franco regime inside and outside Spain parallel with the growing indus-
trial agitation inside the country of the “Trade Union Alliance’ (CNT — National
Confederation of Labour; ucT — General Workers Union; Basque Workers Union).
They strove to radicalise the ranks of the opposition to Franco and to demonstrate
to the world that the resistance still existed. The idea was that public opinion in
the world should be stimulated so as to induce other countries to bring pressure
on the Franco regime. It also exposed the hypocrisy of the ‘liberalisation’ of the
Spanish Government, and the double game being played by the Church.
The revitalising of the anti-Franco struggle, which was largely due to revolu-
tionary anarchist activism, gave a new impulse to the Spanish Anarchist movement
which once again began to be featured prominently by Spanish journalists.
Likewise, internationally, the anarchist movement began again to play an impor-
tant part in the revolutionary struggle because of the collaboration of anarchist
activists from other parts of Europe. This in turn forced the other anti-fascist
13
REVOLUTIONARY ACTIVISM
movements into a more militant and radical position, because of the intense agita-
tion in Spain itself and the fresh mobilisation of opinion outside. It may also be
noted that at the same time as the series of violent actions organised by the action
groups against the regime in 1962 and 1963, there were mass industrial actions
and strikes in the Asturias and the Basque country. An extensive campaign against
Franco was unleashed in Italy at the end of 1962, following the kidnapping of the
Spanish Vice Consul in Milan, to prevent the execution of the young Catalan liber-
tarian Jorge Cunill. And there was widespread repulsion against the regime
throughout Europe following the execution of Julian Grimau and the young liber-
tarians Joaquin Delgado and Francisco Granados in 1963.
The regime had intended to unleash a new wave of repressive terror in 1962,
but was prevented from taking this course as the result of the pressure of world
opinion. But faced with so much activism it threw all caution to the wind, and
sought to demonstrate its power by carrying out the execution of these three to
show its disregard for foreign criticism.
Unfortunately, Franco succeeded in this aim, because not only did the
‘democratic’ governments not only fail to make any representations, the French
and Belgian Governments supported Franco’s internal policy by simultaneously
unleashing a policy of repression against the Libertarian Youth in exile.
This in turn played into the hands of the non-activist sector in the libertarian
movement in exile, which withdrew what little support they had given the young
libertarians who were supporting anarchist activism, with the excuse that it
compromised the legal position of the Organisation in exile. So once more the
Spanish libertarian movement found itself in a new internal crisis which once
again reduced the activities of harassment against the regime. During 1964 and
1966 the Libertarian Youth movement was almost alone in its difficult and
dangerous struggle against the Franco regime. But this was also a period of
complete reorganisation for the clandestine anarchist movement, and in the course
of this a Scottish Anarchist, Stuart Christie, was arrested together with a Spanish
libertarian Fernando Carballo Blanco, accused of preparing an attempt on the life
of General Franco in the football stadium of Santiago Bernabeu in Madrid. The
arrest of the young Scot brought to public attention the fact of close collaboration
between the Spanish Anarchist movement and the revolutionary youth of Europe
in a struggle against Franco. This had been preceded some months earlier with the
arrest of a young French woman teacher and three French students, Guy Batoux,
Alain Pecunia and Bernard Ferry, and, of course, the kidnapping of the Vice Consul
in Milan by libertarians in solidarity with Jorge Cunill.
Then on 29th April [1966] the ecclesiastical adviser to the Spanish Embassy in
Rome, Mgr. Marcos Ussia, was kidnapped in sensational circumstances by the First
of May Group. This action drew the attention of the world to the plight of the
political prisoners languishing in Franco’s dungeons, and gave a new impetus to
international anarchist activism, the more so when an anarchist commando was
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