Excerpts translated from the French publication ‘Catalogne Libertaire 1936-1937’ by André and Dori Prudhommeaux (on the Spanish Civil War)
Army or Militia?
L’Espagne Antifasciste published an article:
… in Barcelona … young folk enlisted in the militias, and some even wanted to set off immediately for Zaragoza. To spell out their point of view, they organized a huge gathering involving 10,000 of them, during which they passed the following resolution:
“We are not refusing to do our civic and revolutionary duty. We are keen to go and liberate our brethren in Zaragoza. We want to be militians for freedom, but not soldiers in uniform. The army has proven to be a danger to the people: the popular militias alone protect public freedoms: Militians, yes! But soldiers, never!”
The Mobilization and the Flight to Valencia
… On October 27 [of 1936], Frente Libertario (organ of the CNT-FAI* militias in the Madrid sector) used violently critical language under the title: Militias or national army? For us: popular militias!
“In the high spheres of politics, work is being done in order to transform the popular militias into a National Army…
To turn the militias into an army is to want Spaniards to return to the past. It is to desire that the Spanish people lack their own personality …
For us, the military is an integral part of fascism. The army is the characteristic instrument of authoritarianism. To suppress the army is to suppress the possibility of oppression that this same army presents to the people …
We proclaim as much as possible, and in spite of everything, that we are antimilitarists. We do not want a National Army. We don’t want the Popular Militias, which are the incarnation of the will of the people, to disappear. They alone can defend the freedom of the Spanish people.
As we did before this social war, we continue to shout:
Down with chains! The army is a symbol of tyranny! Abolish the army!'”
[*Note: CNT = National Confederation of Labour. FAI = Iberian Anarchist Federation]
Documents
… Intervention of an Iron Column delegate at the Plenum of Valencia (approved by the column and reproduced by its organ Linea de Fuego, November 17, 1936, Teruel Front:
“… There is a government decree which provides for the militarisation of all the columns and there are comrades who believe that militarisation fixes everything. We say that it will not fix anything.
Faced with corporals, sergeants and officers from the academies, sometimes totally ignorant of the problems of war, we present our organization and we do not accept the military structure. The Iron Column and all the columns of the CNT and FAI, and even others that are not confederated, have not accepted military discipline.
… We do not accept anything that goes against our anarchist ideas, which are a reality, since we cannot act differently from what we think.
Therefore, we propose that our organization of groups, centuries or Column Committees and War Committees, formed by military and civilian elements, be accepted, in order to establish the coordination of all the militias that fight on the different fronts with the central headquarters…”
See also:
The Death and Funeral of Durruti – Agustín Guillamón
The Durruti Column – Carl Einstein
A Day Mournful and Overcast…, by an “uncontrollable” from the Iron Column (1937)
“Dissolve the army and immediately withdraw from Morocco.”
Fourth demand formulated by the workers at the CNT-FAI rally in Barcelona on May Day, 1931