Historia de Barcelona

Etiqueta: barcelona

  • Federico Durán Jordá explica su aplicación en el frente de la técnica soviética de transfusión de sangre guardada; la cuestión de sangre cadaverica

    VISITA A UN HOSPITAL

    El compañero F. Durán Jordá, médico del Hospital de sangre núm. 18, nos habla de la aplicación de la idea del profesor soviético Judine. Por primera vez en Europa — nos dice — se ha hecho un experimento de transfusión de sangre, guardada, con éxito.

    Una labor de gran importancia científica y militar es esta que viene realizando el Hospital de sangre núm. 18, del P. S. U. y de la U. G. T. El «Servicio de transfusión de sangre en el frente», de este Hospital, constituye una admirable prueba de las grandes posibilidades del progreso, de las maravillosas realizaciones que son capaces de llevar a cabo las instituciones creadas al calor del pueblo trabajador.

    Y aun nos hemos de enorgullecer más en el caso concreto a que nos referimos, porque la idea inicial de estas innovaciones en la operación de transfusión de sangre es debida al genio de un gran sabio del proletariado, el profesor Judine, orgullo de la ciencia soviética.

    El hecho es que se ha posibilitado el efectuar la transfusión de sangre en el frente de batalla, en el mismo terreno en que caen heridos los combatientes, sin que precise un donador inmediato. Generalmente, los heridos pasaban mucho tiempo antes de que se les pudiese trasladar a un hospital, donde, en forma simultánea, era inyectada al herido la sangre que se iba extrayendo de la persona donante. Asi se podía dar el caso de que muchos heridos se murieran por el agotamiento causado por la hemorragia, antes de que se hubiera podido llegar en su auxilio.

    […]

    Se nos explica que, en la U. R. S. S., el profesor Judine ha podido conservar la sangre extraída de cadáveres, en perfecto estado de vivencia hasta más de doce días. Este mismo procedimiento es el que se realiza aquí, con la sola diferencia de que la sangre se toma de individuos vivos…

  • Conversaciones con Nin y Sardà, el PSUC es un partido pijo-progre

    On Wednesday morning I visited a POUM barracks, a former cavalry barracks, kitted out with modern fittings in airy rooms. The barracks are for training milicianos.

    At Nin’s: arranged to meet on Saturday morning at 10am. Car ride to the Barcelona hills. In the evening I had a discussion with Comrade Sarda about the organisation of agriculture outside Catalonia. I gleaned from his remarks that it is impossible to tell what has actually happened. Talking about Valencia, he said that not only the large farms but also the smaller ones had been collectivised. In general it seems that in the regions of Spain around Catalonia people have gone much further than the stated intentions of the government in Madrid. A clear solution to the agrarian problem does not exist in the rest of Spain. The comrade reported that, in some cases, with a too radical political leadership on the smallholding question, there have been a few cases of peasants shooting the ‘new caciques’, and in other cases there has been sabotage on the land. The question is how this can be put right. This must be regarded as a very important matter.

    The press reported the arrest of the police chief, who belonged to the Esquerra. Solidaridad Obrera is attempting to suggest that it was a purely criminal matter, but from other press statements it can be seen that it has something to do with the political manoeuvring of a section of the Estat Catala (the military wing of the Esquerra). These endeavours obviously have something to do with separatist and counter-revolutionary tendencies. The public were only given vague hints, perhaps because the investigation was not yet finished. Checa people have arrested a number of people in connection with this, and have apparently been quite busy.

    Sarda has this to report about the composition of the PSUC. Less than a third of its members are former Communists. The majority come from the bourgeois left. On many matters the PSUC is to the right of the Esquerra.

  • El POUM en Gracia

    In the morning I visited some of the poor districts of the city. They are reminiscent of the worst part of the harbour district in Marseilles. In the evening there was a meeting of the POUM in the Gracia district. Agenda: report on organisational questions. Members were called up through their cells. Excluding those who were prevented from attending because they had to take part in some sort of party task, virtually everyone was present. The district has 200 members. Twenty are old ones, that is members from before the revolt. One hundred and eighty have joined since June. This is clearly typical. The membership is largely young.

    There was a report on trade union work, local projects and work in the schools, and a number of organisational questions were tackled. The reports were short. There was a discussion after each one. At the end some complaints were made about the fact that the local committee had not yet replied in writing to suggestions from the districts. It was explained that this was mainly due to them being pushed for time. Comrades were asked to accept oral replies. Comrade Schwarz was made organisational leader of the district, which met with general approval. Sarda is the political leader.

    In the meantime Gorkin and Andrade of the Executive have returned from Madrid. They had been there to settle a dispute to do with the Madrid POUM column. Gorkin, whom I met at the Executive Committee of the POUM, was very optimistic about the military situation in Madrid. The entire civilian population of the city is being evacuated. In Barcelona itself children have been arriving from Madrid and have been warmly greeted by the locals. Gorkin invited me to the editorial offices of La Batalla for a discussion this afternoon.

  • Una larga discusión con Andrés Nin; las relaciones entre el PSUC y Esquerra; las exigencias del PSUC

    Saturday, 28 November 1936: At 10am I had a discussion with Nin. First of all I enquired as to the long term political perspectives for the government in Catalonia. He answered that at the moment it was impossible to see in precisely what way they could establish a workers’ and peasants’ government. Most interesting was what Nin had to say about the ways in which the continual political shifts among the rank and file express themselves in the leadership.

    This happens through the trade unions. According to Nin the workers are 100 per cent trade unionised. Following the shifts in influence of the political parties in the trade unions, the committees, which exercise power in the localities in Catalonia, change their composition in the same proportion. All political questions are discussed in the trade unions, and delegates are chosen according to the attitudes of the rank and file. It is also quite often the case that in areas where, for example, the POUM is strongest, even the CNT and UGT delegates represent POUM positions and feel like POUM representatives, even though they are not members of the organisation. According to this description the trade unions are the broad bodies through which proletarian democracy is put into effect. It can thus be seen that when, for example, the ratio of representatives of the various organisations is fixed in any locality, its real political composition alters in line with the attitudes of the rank and file.

    It is for this reason that the POUM has expended so much energy attempting to win over the UGT. Their former party trade union entered it.8) They maintain that, despite the bureaucracy of the PSUC and the Social Democrats, who have put all kinds of obstacles in their path, they are in a good position to win the leadership of the UGT. One of the PSUC’s tricks is to allow into the unions all kinds of petit-bourgeois elements, people who have nothing to do with trade unions.

    The POUM is also active in the CNT. They stand for a merger of the CNT and the UGT, and, according to them, this will soon be a reality. According to Nin’s account, which is backed up by Arquer and others, it is just not true that the representatives of the leading political committees are simply named by the party political leadership. They are elected by the membership, or the membership must agree with the selection. In any case the political development of the masses organised in trade unions — and that is equivalent to the entire working class — is reflected in the composition or the political position of the committee. This is a proletarian democracy (which is also the start of the proletarian dictatorship), whose organ is primarily the trade unions.

    Nin was very critical of the PSUC. The PSUC and the Esquerra tend to hang around together. The CNT informed him that the PSUC sent them a confidential letter containing the following demands:

    1. Full dictatorial powers for the government
    2. Exclusion of the POUM from the government.
    3. Abolition of the junta de defensa and all bodies through which the workers’ organisations carry out their control over the armed forces at the front and in the rear.

    Even the CNT, as well as the UGT members, strongly opposed this statement and rejected it.

    Nin also gave a report of a conference or meeting of government members after the October celebrations, whereby, quite characteristically, Companys is said to have called for a Socialist republic, whilst Antonov-Ovseyenko,9) the consular representative of the Soviet Union, came out in favour of a bourgeois republic.

    Moreover, Nin told me of an article which Antonov-Ovseyenko sent to the Barcelona press denouncing an article in La Batalla. He described the POUM as Fascistic. On the following Sunday, Nin and some other POUM spokesmen publicly and sharply replied to this attack.

    Nin says the Esquerra should not be taken for a liberal bourgeois party. There are no elements of the big bourgeoisie in their ranks but, rather, peasants, petit-bourgeois and a considerable number of workers — professional workers. It would be more appropriate to compare the Esquerra to the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party.

    On the question of the international working class movement, Nin’s position can be summed up by the following:

    1. He admits that the Brussels conference was a flop.
    2. At the international conference in Barcelona the ideological basis for a new International should be worked out, but the time is not yet ripe for its immediate formation.
    3. In reply to the question of what does he imagine the relationship of a new International to the Soviet Union may be, he said that he thought that a victory in Spain ‘through its effect on France and other countries, could alter the internal regime of the Soviet Union’. A reform of the Comintern would only be imaginable if ‘Stalin were to take a walk’.

    Nin was evasive in response to my suggestion of financial payment from the POUM for our propaganda. He said that the party was currently stocktaking the goods which they had confiscated. It seems that they have come across a lot of things of little worth. Of course, I did not pursue the matter any further.

    Characteristic of Nin’s attitude to the Soviet Union was his remark that the workers have less freedom of expression there than in Hitler’s Germany. We both agreed that we were divided by totally opposing attitudes to the Soviet Union.

  • Problemas de la colectivización

    Sunday, 30 November 1936: A discussion with POUM representatives on the Economic Council. Factories with over 50 workers have been collectivised. Those with less than 50 are under workers’ control.

    The PSUC, as a front for the Esquerra, supports compensation for expropriated owners. The POUM and the CNT reject compensation completely. (Compensation would be paid out in some sort of promissory notes, which would yield an interest rate of three or four per cent.)

    Factories with fewer than 50 workers can also be collectivised if they are important for the war effort, or if the owner has fled. Small employers quite often continue to work in their factories as employees. Decisions about production are made by the staff, though in some cases they have to approved by the Economic Council.

    At the head of each industry is an Industrial Board, made up of four UGT, four CNT, four representatives from factory councils, and one delegate from the government. These are the main problems being faced at the moment:

    1. The supply of raw materials, especially cotton and coal.
    2. The difficulties of selling the goods of some industries because of the collapse of the Spanish market and the paralysis of foreign trade.
    3. Small businessmen are getting credit to pay wages, but are having problems getting money to buy the necessary raw materials.
    4. Many workers tend to treat the factory as the particular property of the employees. In future the profits or gains of all factories will be pooled so that the deficit firms can be supported by the surplus profits of the others.

    The POUM delegate did not want an inflation of the economy but it appears inevitable. He told us in confidence that the Basque government has let it be known that they will not stand for any expropriation of firms and factories in the Basque country as has happened in Catalonia.

  • El POUM rebautiza a calles, un mítin, Lérida después de la revolución

    Monday, 1 December 1936: Some of the streets with saints’ names were renamed after POUM people who have fallen. Arquer gave a little speech at each street. There was a procession with music, flags, etc. The widows of the fallen men were there dressed in mourning.

    Finally a public meeting in a large theatre. Nin, Arquer and [Wilebaldo Alonso Solano] spoke, as did McGovern from the ILP, and a man from the SAP. Nin replied to the attacks on La Batalla and the POUM by the Soviet consul Antonov-Ovseyenko to the sound of mighty applause from the auditorium. The meeting was very lively.

    In the afternoon a trip to Lérida in the POUM car with Walter Schwarz and Sarda. Drove past Montserrat. The countryside round Barcelona has been turned into gardens for market gardening and fruit orchards. Arrived at Lérida at about 8pm. We ate in a huge old nunnery which had been taken over by the town council as a canteen for milicianos and deserters from the Fascists. The catering had been well organised and there was plenty of food, potatoes, fresh meat, wine, etc.

    Later on we went to a POUM bar. It is in the former club building of the Rightist party, very nicely decorated and in the centre of town. Downstairs is a café where milicianos and party comrades have lively discussions. The POUM dominates the town and province of Lérida. It has predominantly textile industries. Several burnt out churches. There is a lot of bustle on the streets. Lots of movement to and from the front. The party secretary is a young man in his early 30s.

    There were two regiments in the town made up mainly of farmers’ sons from the surrounding area. The officers had been preparing an uprising in Lérida, but waited for the result of the battle for Barcelona before they came out. After the defeat in Barcelona they did not dare to crack down. Two hundred officers and leading lights of the right were shot, and the soldiers were demobbed. Initially only workers were sent to the front. Now, soldiers, too, are called up.

    We were quartered in the Palace Hotel. It is clean and in good condition. Breakfast — one peseta. The POUM is in control of the UGT, which is dominant in Lérida. The CNT is weak in Lérida.

  • Thalheimer: Visita a una granja colectiva en Lérida, vuelta a París

    Tuesday 2 December 1936: In the morning visited ‘Good Homeland’, about 20 kilometres from Lérida. This property consists of several thousand hectares. There are large vineyards which produced between 5000 and 6000 hectolitres of wine this year. There are timber plantations (poplars) for the paper industry, and corn fields. Even before the uprising there was a POUM rural workers’ group of around 30 members. About 150 people are employed on the farm. After the uprising the property was confiscated and collectivised. The POUM sent five people to help run the place. They have a former accountant here, a POUM member from Barcelona. The different branches of production have workers’ commissions in charge. Wine is produced using modern methods — hydraulic presses made in Germany, huge cement cisterns, distillation equipment which manufacture alcohol from hops, cooling equipment, chemical laboratories, etc. Every year between 5000 and 6000 litres of alcohol are produced.

    The wages of rural workers have been raised to between seven and 10 pesetas a day. There is a shop and a café, both run by workers. The owner had built a huge church for one and a half million pesetas on the farm. This is now used as a silo. Nuns used to teach at the school, but they have been kicked out and replaced by a secular teacher.

    The farm house is an old castle with a high tower, from which a view stretches far into the distance. It is very modern inside. The rural workers live in miserable little houses, each with a tiny back garden. They will be rebuilt next year. Most of the furniture stayed in the castle, excluding the material that was sent to the front — beds and so on. You get the impression that the farm is successful under the new regime too. Difficulties could arise because only a tiny amount of capital (80 000 pesetas) was confiscated along with the farm. The owner was one of the big bourgeoisie and owned some more property near Barcelona, where some of the wine from the ‘Good Homeland’ was made into sparkling wine.

    The farm continues to produce the usual sparkling wine, red wine (tinto) and, from special grapes (16 to 18 grad) the so-called vino rancio, a wine which is exposed to sunlight for long periods of time. According to the farm director, it is not from wine production that the greatest return is yielded but rather from the cereal harvest. Some of the cattle were handed over for the front. The management of the farm is based on a system of mutual agreement and is directed by the Economic Council of the government. The farm has not been split up. I was told that much of the surrounding land was made up of similar large businesses, and that it was unnecessary to divide up the farm.

    Tuesday evening: Left Barcelona. Reached Figueras at 12 o’clock. Left Figueras early on Wednesday morning, crossed at Port-Bou to reach Perpignan. The French customs offices are about a kilometre from Port-Bou towards Cerbère. The French Customs were obviously quite sympathetic to the cause, as there was no customs search and just a brief passport control. In the clear sunlight we could see the snow covered mountains of the Pyrenees outside Perpignan, and below them vineyards, huge timber plantations, etc. On the journey from Port-Bou to Cerbère and from Cerbère to Perpignan many of the labourers who were working on the roads and so on greeted the car with a clenched fist. Reached Perpignan at 2.43. Paris Thursday morning at seven o’clock.

  • Hambre, miedo, asesinatos

    Feia cinc mesos que els barcelonins no sabíem el que era pau ni tranquil·litat. Cinc mesos que vivíem en un vèrtig i sobresalt continuats. Havíem arribat en un moment en què semblava que no podríem aguantar més, tants i tants eren els aconteixements que havíem viscut i presenciat per dissort nostra. I va venir el dia de Nadal d’aquell any 1936, que gosaria afirmar fou el Nadal més trist i més amarg de tos els Nadals que Barcelona ha viscut. Fou decretat dia feiner, i aquell dia es trevallà com sempre…, com cada dia.

    Déu va permetre que fos precisament en aquells dies de Nadal que comencés a escasejar el pa; i es van veure les primeres cues davant dels forns, que per ésser les primeres, i durar hores i més hores, i coincidir ademés amb els primers dies que deixà d’encendres l’enllumenat públic, feien llòbregs i paorosos els nostres carrers. Que lluny estaven els Nadals d’abans, amb totes les botigues curulles de llaminadures, els aparadors lluents i atapeïts, i la gent amb cara alegre corrent adalerada fent els preparatius per a la gran diada familiar! Aquell Nadal, en altra temps festa de pau i germanor, transcorria enmig del pànic causat pel despotisme més ferotge que mai s’havia conegut.

    D’aquell Nadal tan trist encara en tinc personalment un record més amarg i inoblidable. A mitja tara i estant amb la botiga oberta,–però que no hi entrava ningú–s’aturà davant de casa un cotxe, del que en baixaren quatre o cinc homes amb caçadora de pell i pistoles penjades en bandolera. Entraren tots alhora, i demanaren pel meu pare. El meu pare no pogué sortir… per que feia un mes i mig que un grup armat, semblant al que allavors el demanava imperiosament, se l’havia emportat en un cotxe com aquell i l’havien sacrificiat davant els murs del cementiri de Moncada.

  • La Generalidad y la supuesta desnacionalización de Cataluña

    LA INVASIÓ AL·LÒGENA A CATALUNYA

    He rebut una lletra d’En Ribó parlant-me de la impressió que li ha fet rellegir ara el llibre de Vandellós Catalunya, poble decadent. Em copia els paràgrafs de Conrado Girú explicant com un poble pot ésser desnacionalitzat pel fet d’ésser la seva població submergida per gent al·lògena de major capacitat reproductiva.

    Justament avui mateix rebo notícies de la formidable immigració que sofreix ara Catalunya: de primer, els refugiats d’Irun; ara, els fugitius de Madrid; demà, seran els habitants de la Manxa i d’Aragó. I aquesta torrentada immigratòria no cau sols a Barcelona sinó que s’escampa per tot Catalunya: Vilafranca, Banyoles… Pobra Catalunya!

    Coincidint amb la riuada immigratòria, la millor gent de Catalunya emigra o és assassinada: supressió – sobretot en qualitat – dels indígenes; immigració en massa d’al·lògens que cau sobre el terrer adobat de les immigracions precedents. Això significa que arreu, sense protesta, com a cosa normal acceptada i fins estimulada per poders catalans – i d’una Catalunya autònoma!, independent de fet! – s’està realitzant avui a la nostra terra un fet desconegut en l’Europa occidental però que, a Orient i centúries enrera, fou l’expressió màxima de la brutalitat d’un conqueridor quan volia destruir una raça vençuda: extermini o deportació d’indígenes i immigració d’al·lògens. Així, sobre el mateix territori, fins aprofitant el fruit del treball secular de la raça vençuda, una nova raça s’instaura.

    El que mai s’atreviren a fer a Catalunya ni romans, ni visigots, ni alarbs, ni castellans, ni francesos, s’està fent sota el signe de l’autonomia catalana.

    Examinant la llista de l’actual govern autònom català s’hi troben ja els representants dels invasors. Ja en les sessions del govern autònom de Catalunya no es pot parlar en català, perquè hi ha ministres que no entenen la nostra llengua.

  • La Consejería de Abastos anuncia la Oficina del Huevo

    El problema de la producción de huevos y la repoblación avícola en Cataluña

    Entre los múltiples problemas que se han derivado de la guerra que sostenemos, existe uno de poca importancia aparente, pero que, por la trascendencia efectiva de sus características reclama la especial atención de esta Consejería. Es el problema de la producción de huevos.

    Con la finalidad de promover, aumentar y mejorar la producción de huevos y pollería en Cataluña. se dictó la orden de fecha 29 de diciembre último. En virtud de esta orden ha sido creada en este Departamento, la Oficina del Huevo, a la que se otorgan las funciones de control y protección de los elementos de reproducción avícola, con facultades para realizar campanas de propaganda, disponer inspecciones y ordenar, previa la autorización de esta Consejería, la intervención o apropiación de granjas, salas de incubación, instalaciones agrícolas, etc. El plan de repoblación avícola en Cataluña durará unos cuatro años. En este período se alcanzará la cifra de seis millones y medio de gallinas que al ser seleccionadas por razas, y alimentadas y atendidas de acuerdo con un programa de cultura avícola que se difundirá entre los campesinos catalanes, rendirán un promedio de puesta anual de 110 huevos cada una, que equivaldrá a 700 millones, suficiente para atender las necesidades de nuestro consumo; evitándose, además, automáticamente, la importante sangría que para nuestras energías económicas representaban las importaciones.

  • Batalla del Huevo

    Hasta el presente, para cubrir con relativa suficiencia las necesidades de nuestro consumo, Catalana venia obligada a la adquisición anual de unos 250 millones de huevos en los mercados belga, turco, polaco, marroquí, argentíno y otros. Esto suponía un gasto de 40 a 50 millones de pesetas que anualmente emigraban de nuestro país en beneficio de aquellos mercados…

    Pero dentro de cuatro años tendremos ganada la «Batalla del Huevo». Al terminarse el plan de fomento y repoblación avícola emprendido por la Consejería de Ágricultura, Cataluña producirá normalmente todos los huevos necesarios para el consumo interior. Entonces, el huevo catalán habrá detenido para siempre la invasión extranjera de este producto.

    Por lo tanto, los catalanes deben adoptar como propias las consignas de l»Oficina de l’Ou».

    [Fecha 16/2/1937]

  • TIME: las batallas internas de los nacionalistas e izquierdistas complican la lucha

    That no simple civil war of two Spains, Leftists and Rightists, is being fought, made itself clear again last week as some other Spains became active afresh, notably the Basques and the Catalonians. These regions are violently separatist, even when Spain is at peace. The fact that today Catalonians and Basques are both classed as being with the Leftists of Valencia and Madrid makes them no less rugged individualists.

    In Barcelona, the capital of more or less autonomous Catalonia (through which supplies for Madrid enter Spain in a steady stream), local President Luis Companys umpired a heroic political dogfight in which the Cabinet of this one of the Spains fell. At last Barcelona’s quarreling hot anarchists & communists and warmed-over socialists & republicans grew so helplessly embroiled that most of them seemed relieved when President Companys agreed last week to add the Premiership of Catalonia temporarily to his other offices and worries. Dispatches reaching Valencia said that what had chiefly been accomplished at Barcelona was to «oust the anarchists from their previous control of the police.»

  • Batalla de Torre Baró

    El domingo 18 de abril del citado año a las 6:00h. de la mañana el Comité Pro Ejército Popular Regular, responsable de la formación de nuevos combatientes, movilizó a un total de 6.500 hombres que participaron en unas maniobras destinadas a defender la ciudad de los ataques aéreos. Los voluntarios formaron dos columnas, una de las cuales atravesando el barrio de Horta llegó hasta Sant Cugat del Vallès (entonces llamada Pins del Vallès) mientras que la otra lo hizo hacia el norte de Sant Andreu (actual distrito de Nou Barris), ascendiendo por la sierra de las Roquetes hasta Torre Baró…

  • Escaramuzas rompen la tensión

    On [Monday] May 3, with fighting at the Telefónica, the open conflict began. [Cusick] points out the somewhat enthusiastic reponses of Barcelona’s anarchist masses to the provocation of Erno Gerö: «At last there was something to DO, something to release the unbearable tension … Again time slowed down and sped up simultaneously.»

  • Comunismo, separatismo, anarquismo

    Companys & Co.

    The Spanish spotlight, focused for the past month on the Basque capital at Bilbao, swung last week to Barcelona, greatest industrial city in Spain and chief port remaining in Leftist hands. Catalan Barcelona, like Basque Bilbao, is the capital of a group of Spain’s 50 provinces, which since the Revolution have tended to become more & more autonomous. Unlike Bilbao, Barcelona has not been seriously threatened by Rightists since the first weeks of the civil war.

    Rugged individualists like most Spaniards, the Barcelonians have decked their buildings with many a discordant banner: the five-barred red-&-yellow flag of Catalonia, the red-yellow-&-purple of the Valencia Republic, the red flag of Communism, the black-&-red banner of Anarcho-Syndicalists. There are a number of other parties of varying opinions, all demanding a share in the Government. Nowhere else in the world are Communists so decisively ranked among the conservatives. That is because in Catalonia, Communists believe in discipline, as opposed to the free-for-all philosophy of the pure Anarchists, largest and most troublesome group in the state. The main reason that government is possible at all in Catalonia is due to the extraordinary talent for compromise of Catalonia’s president, excitable Luis Companys. President Companys has been in & out of jails much of his political career, has long fought for Catalan independence, speaks of Spain as «the Iberian Peninsula.» His technique with his spluttering allies is to promise them everything with the greatest goodwill. This worked moderately well for many months in keeping peace in Barcelona, but did nothing at all to help the hard-pressed Leftist armies fight the war. President Companys was too busy keeping peace at home to send many men to the front.

    Suddenly last week the Companys technique did not work at all. Late at night telephone communications with France were mysteriously cut. Hours later the story began to filter out of Barcelona that Anarchists had revolted against the Companys Government. Almost instantly jumbled barricades sprang up along the tree-lined Ramblas. The streets echoed with the Carong! Carong! of machine guns, the Hahp! of light artillery. Immediate objective of the Anarchist Black-&-Reds was the Barcelona telephone exchange, a building almost as imposing as the telephone skyscraper of Madrid. This they seized and held for seven hours. Hero of the revolt then became Barcelona’s Police Chief Rodriguez Sola, who personally led a frontal attack on the building, captured the first floor, methodically started mopping up from stair to stair.

    Loudly President Companys called for peace and unity to face the common foe, warned that the Catalans were leaving the way open for a raid from General Franco’s Rightists. No such raid came, but before peace was restored over 300 people had been killed and according to reports the Valencia Government, to police Barcelona, had had to withdraw 12.000 badly needed troops from the Aragon front. Heretofore careful to avoid mixing in local Catalan squabbles, Valencia also moved in General Sebastian Pozas to be military commander of Catalonia.

    […]

  • «Prohibido hablar en catalán»

    El día 4 algunas barriadas barcelonesas se hallaban en manos de la F.A.I. Tal ocurrió en Sants, donde los ‘bakunistas’ se habían apresurado a proclamar el comunismo libertario y a la entrada de la cual, frente a la misma Plaza de España, ondeaba un gigantesco cartel con esta leyenda: ‘República Independiente de Murcia. Aquí termina Cataluña. Prohibido hablar en catalán.

  • Subida en la reputación del POUM

    [Cita de Lois Cusick (1979). The anarchist millenium, memories of the Spanish revolution, 1936-37. Unpublished.]

    [On Tuesday], the city was in the grip of a complete work stoppage.

    The Patrols of Control took Montjuic fortress and trained its cannon on the Palau de la Generalitat … The block-long Popular Army poster on the communist Karl Marx House came down to reveal machine guns controlling the Passeig de Gracia, which the defense committees took over … Tuesday morning, the C.N.T. printers allowed only two papers to appear, Solidarida Obrera and the P.O.U.M.’s La Batalla … The Friends of Durruti and the genuine Trotskyites (Munis and Moulin) separately printed handbills calling for a revolutionary Junta to take over the government buildings. Josep Rebull’s P.O.U.M. left wing tried to win over the syndicalists at the barricades in another part of town for a march on the government buildings. Nothing came of these isolated initiatives … But the reputation of the P.O.U.M. shot up in the anarchist ranks. C.N.T.-F.A.I.-P.O.U.M. was the password at the barricades.

  • La CNT pierde el control sobre sus miembros, que se pelean con la UGT

    [Cita de Lois Cusick (1979). The anarchist millenium, memories of the Spanish revolution, 1936-37. Unpublished.]

    Wednesday morning the general strike continued. The workers stayed at the barricades and ignored Casa C.N.T.’s orders [to abandon the strike and leave the barricades]. The city’s life was suspended in a will conflict between the anarchist masses and their leadership … The communists tried to take advantage of their truce with Casa C.N.T. to put the city’s bus system back to work. They used U.G.T. members the anarchists had always said were scabs from a big strike years ago. The sight of their red and black pointed trams run by communist scabs started the fighting all over. Barricades went up across the tracks, and the trams stopped running.

  • Asesinado el secretario general de UGT y consejero de la Generalidad, el sindicalista estalinista Antonio Sesé

  • Largo Caballero y Companys, decididos a derrotar a los anarquistas

    The entire effectiveness of the Leftist Government has been in the series of compromises making it possible for a mixed salad of political parties to work in some sort of harmony. Immediately behind last week’s Cabinet crisis was the brief Anarchist revolt in Barcelona of fortnight ago (TIME. May 17). Premier Largo Caballero and President Luis Companys of Catalonia are both secretly determined to put the Anarchists, most hot-headed of Leftist groups, in their places, but the Anarchists are politically potent.