Buenaventura Durruti Wikipedia

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Buenaventura Durruti

Buenaventura Durruti in 1936.

Born Jos Buenaventura Durruti Dumange

14 July 1896

Len, Spain

Died 20 November 1936 (aged 40)

Madrid, Spain

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Buenaventura DurrutiFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jos Buenaventura Durruti Dumange (14 July 1896 20 November 1936) was a central figure of Spanishanarchism during the period leading up to and including

the Spanish Civil War.

Contents

1 Biography1.1 Early life1.2 In the Civil War

2 Death

3 Legacy4 Gallery5 See also6 Notes7 References8 External links

Biography

Early life

Durruti was born in Len, Spain, son of AnastasiaDumangue and Santiago Durruti, a railway worker in theyard at Leon who described himself as a libertariansocialist. Buenaventura was the second of eight brothers(one was killed in the October 1934 uprising in the Asturias, another died fighting the Fascists on the Madridfront).

In 1910, aged 14, Durruti left school to become a trainee mechanic in the railway yard in Len. Like hisfather, he joined the socialist Unin General de Trabajadores (UGT). He took an active part in the strike ofAugust 1917 called by the UGT when the government overturned an agreement between the union and theemployers. The government brought in the Spanish Army to suppress the strike; they killed 70 people andinjured more than 500 workers. 2,000 of the strikers were imprisoned without trial or legal process. Durrutimanaged to escape, but had to flee abroad to France where he came into contact with exiled anarchists. Thebrutality of the Spanish State had a profound and lasting effect on the young Durruti. From the fall of 1917until the beginning of 1920, Durruti worked in Paris as a mechanic. He then decided to return to Spain andarrived at San Sebastian, Basque Country, just across the border. Here, he was introduced to local anarchistssuch as Suberviola, Ruiz, Aldabatrecu or Marcelino del Campo, with whom he formed the anarchist armed-

struggle group Los Justicieros ("The Avengers"). In 1921, during the inauguration of the Great Kursaal inSan Sebastian, members of this group attempted unsuccessfully to assassinate King Alfonso XIII. Shortly


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Durruti (in the middle) with hiscolleagues Francisco Ascaso (left)and Gregorio Jover (right)

after Buenasca, the then President of the recently-formed anarchist-controlled Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo CNT, persuadedDurruti to go to Barcelona to organise the workers there where theanarchist movement, as well as the syndicalists, was being brutallysuppressed and most of its members jailed or executed. Here, withJuan Garca Oliver, Francisco Ascaso, and other members of LosJusticieros, he foundedLos Solidarios ("Solidarity"). In 1923 thegroup was also implicated in the assassination of Cardinal JuanSoldevilla y Romero, as a reprisal for the killing of an anarcho-syndicalist union activist Salvador Segu. After Miguel Primo deRivera seized power in Spain in 1923, Durruti and his comradesorganized attacks on the military barracks in Barcelona and on theborder stations near France. These attacks were unsuccessful andquite a few anarchists were killed. Following these defeats, Durruti,Ascaso and Oliver fled to Latin America. They subsequentlytravelled widely, visiting Cuba and carrying out bank robberies in

Chile and Argentina.[1]

Durruti and his companions returned to Spain and Barcelona,becoming an influential militant within two of the largest anarchistorganisations in Spain at the time, the Federacin Anarquista Ibrica(FAI), and of the anarcho-syndicalist trade union Confederacin

Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). The influence Durruti's group gained inside the CNT caused a split, with areformist faction under ngel Pestaa leaving in 1931 and subsequently forming the Syndicalist Party.

In the Civil War

Working closely with his comrades in the FAI and CNT Durruti helped to co-ordinate armed resistance tothe military rising of Francisco Franco, an effort which was to prove vital in preventing General Goded'sattempt to seize control of Barcelona. During the battle for the Atarazanas Barracks, Durruti's long-timecomrade and closest friend Ascaso was shot dead. Less than a week later, on 24 July 1936 Durruti led over3,000 armed anarchists (later to become known as the Durruti Column) from Barcelona to Zaragoza. After abrief and bloody battle at Caspe (in Aragn), they halted at Pina de Ebro, on the advice of a regular armyofficer, postponing an assault on Zaragoza.

DeathOn 12 November, having been persuaded to leave Aragn by the anarchist leader Federica Montseny onbehalf of the government, Durruti led his militia to Madrid to aid in the defense of the city. On 19November, he was shot while leading a counterattack in the Casa de Campo area. (See also Battle ofMadrid.) According to author Antony Beevor (The Spanish Civil War, 1982), Durruti was killed when acompanion's machine pistol went off by mistake. He assessed that at the time, the anarchists lied andclaimed he had been hit by an enemy sniper's bullet "for reasons of morale and propaganda".

Another account of Durruti's death, given inDurruti: The People Armedby Abel Paz, claims that rather than

being shot by a fellow soldier he was killed by distant gunfire coming from the area around the ClinicalHospital in University City (Madrid), which had been taken over by Nationalist forces. After a fight toregain control and contact was re-established with troops cut off from communications, Durruti returned
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenaventura_Durruti#cite_note-1


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Durruti's grave at Montjuc Cemetery,

Barcelona

temporarily to the Miguel-Angel barracks to issue orders. A message from Liberto Roig arrived informingDurruti that the Clinical Hospital was in the process of being evacuated. Alarmed, he asked his ChauffeurJulio Grave to get his car and leave immediately for the Hospital. His chauffeur gives the followingtestimonial:

We passed a little group of hotels which are at the bottom of this avenue (Queen VictoriaAvenue) and we turned towards the right. Arriving at the big street, we saw a group ofmilitiamen coming towards us. Durruti thought it was some young men who were leaving thefront. This area was completely destroyed by the bullets coming from the Clinical Hospital,which had been taken during these days by the Moors and which dominated all the environs.Durruti had me stop the car which I parked in the angle of one of those little hotels as aprecaution. Durruti got out of the auto and went towards the militiamen. He asked them wherethey were going. As they didn't know what to say, he ordered them to return to the front. Themilitiamen obeyed and Durruti returned towards the car. The rain of bullets became stronger.From the vast red heap of the clinical Hospital, the Moors and the Guardia Civil were shootingfuriously. Reaching the door of the machine, Durruti collapsed, a bullet through his chest.

He died on 20 November 1936, at the age of 40, in a makeshiftoperating theatre set up in what was formerly the Ritz Hotel. Thebullet was lodged in the heart, and the diagnosis was "death causedby pleural haemorrhage". The doctors wrote a report in which thepath of the bullet and the character of the wound was recorded butnot the calibre of the bullet, since they hadn't removed it and therewas no autopsy.

Legacy

"It is we [the workers] who built these palaces and cities, herein Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers. Wecan build others to take their place. And better ones! We arenot in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit theearth. There is not the slightest doubt about that. Thebourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leavesthe stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts.[...] That world is growing in this minute." Buenaventura Durruti [2]

At first, Durruti's death was not made public, for morale reasons.Durruti's body was transported across the country to Barcelona for

his funeral. Over a half million people filled the streets to accompany the cortege during its route to theMontjuc Cemetery. It was the last large-scale public demonstration of anarchist strength of numbers duringthe bitter and bloody Civil War.

Hugh Thomas remarks: the death of Durruti marked the end of the classic age of Spanish Anarchism. AnAnarchist poet proclaimed that Durrutis nobility while living would cause a legion of Durrutis to springup behind him.[3]

Gallery
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenaventura_Durruti#cite_note-3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buenaventura_Durruti#cite_note-2


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Durruti on campaign inthe Front of Aragn

Anarchist poster fromthe Spanish Revolutionshowing Durruti as anexample and thepeople's hero

Corpse of Durrutishowing the mortalbullet wound in thetorax

Durruti's grave full offlowers on the 69thanniversary of his death

See also

Anarchism in SpainAnarchist CataloniaThe Durutti Column, a rock band whose name derives from Durruti.

Notes

1. ^ Paz, Abel (2007).Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. Oakland: AK. ISBN 1-904859-50-X.2. ^ Durruti Dumange, Jos Buenaventura: 2 000 000 anarchists fight for revolution says Spanish leader. Interview by

Pierre Van Paasen. The Toronto Daily Star. 18th August, pp 1, 5 (note: interview made on 5th August 1936).3. ^ Thomas, The Spanish Civil War 416

References

Hugh Thomas The Spanish Civil War. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books Ltd., 1965.Emma GoldmanDurruti is Dead, Yet Living (http://libcom.org/library/durruti-is-dead-yet-living-emma-goldman) (1936).Antony Beevor The Spanish Civil War (1982).

Abel PazDurruti in the Spanish Revolution, Translated by Chuck W. Morse, AK Press, 2007. ISBN1-904859-50-X.Pedro de Paz The Man Who Killed Durruti [1](http://www.tvhastingschristiebooks.com/documents/durrutihome.html) Read and Noir (2005).Hans Magnus Enzensberger The Short Summer of Anarchy: Life and Death of Buenaventura Durruti(1972) (originally:Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie: Buenaventura Durrutis Leben und Tod).Collective workBuenaventura Durruti, a double CD [2] (http://www.natomusic.fr/catalogue/musique-jazz/cd/nato-disque.php?id=119) nato, (1996).

External links

Buenaventura Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. Biopic by Paco Rios based on the book by Abel Paz
http://www.espanafreetv.com/documents/film_directors.htmlhttp://www.natomusic.fr/catalogue/musique-jazz/cd/nato-disque.php?id=119http://www.tvhastingschristiebooks.com/documents/durrutihome.htmlhttp://libcom.org/library/durruti-is-dead-yet-living-emma-goldman


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(http://www.espanafreetv.com/documents/film_directors.html)Biography of Buenaventura Durruti (http://www.libcom.org/history/articles/1896-1936-buenaventura-durruti) at libcom.org history.Buenaventura Durruti (http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/Durruti.htm) at the AnarchistEncyclopedia.The first days of the Spanish Revolution, Durruti & the Durruti column... (often misspelled as Durutti)(http://recollectionbooks.com/bleed/Encyclopedia/DurrutiColumnEarly.htm) at The Daily Bleed.

Website about Buenaventura Durruti (http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/durruti.html)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Buenaventura_Durruti&oldid=554342036"Categories: 1896 births 1936 deaths People from Len, SpainConfederacin Nacional del Trabajo members Spanish anarchistsSpanish military personnel of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction)Spanish military personnel killed in action Deaths by firearm in Spain Anarcho-syndicalistsAnarchist partisans Anarchist assassins Spanish anti-fascists Anarchist communistsBurials at Montjuc Cemetery Spanish revolutionaries Spanish rebels Spanish atheistsSpanish casualties of the Spanish Civil War

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