Baer, James. Anarchist Immigrants in Spain and Argentina

Anarchist
Immigrants
i n S pa i n a n d
Argentina
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Anarchist
Immigrants
i n S pa i n a n d
Argentina
Anarchist
Immigrants
i n S pa i n a n d
Argentina
Ja m e s A . B a e r
University of Illinois Press
U r ba n a , C h i c a g o , a n d S p r i n g f i e l d
© 2015 by the Board of Trustees

of the University of Illinois
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 5 4 3 2 1
∞ This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931457

isbn 978-0-252-03899-0 (hardcover)
isbn 978-0-252-09697-6 (e-book)
For Carolynn, always
Contents
List of Illustrations ix
Preface xi
Principal Individuals xv
List of Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 1
C h a p t e r 1. Origins of the Spanish Anarchist Movement

in the Nineteenth Century 15
C h a p t e r 2 . Anarchists and Immigration from Spain to Argentina 32
C h a p t e r 3 . Deportations and Reverse Migration, 1902–1910 51
C h a p t e r 4 . The CNT and the War Years: Anarchist Rivalries
and New Leadership 74
C h a p t e r 5. The FORA and the CNT: Transnational
Anarchist Rivalries 93
C h a p t e r 6 . Changing Political Climates and Return Migration:
Abad de Santillán and the FAI in Spain 118
C h a p t e r 7. Abad de Santillán and the Anarchist Revolution
in Spain 141
C h a p t e r 8 . Argentine and Spanish Anarchists in the
Spanish Civil War 161
C h a p t e r 9. Exile and Homecoming 179
A p p e n di x A . List of Spanish Refugees aboard the Winnipeg 193
A p p e n di x B . La Protesta: Prisoners in or Deported from

Argentina, 1905–1906 199
Notes 203
Bibliography 223
Index 231
Illustrations
Photographs
1. Antonio Pellicer Paraire, 1906 36
2. Immigrants in Argentina, 1905 41
3. Immigrants’ Hotel, Buenos Aires, early
twentieth century 49
4. Cell block in the National Penitentiary, 1923 53
5. Conventillo detail, Buenos Aires, 1910 59
6. Conventillo patio at Piedras 1268, early

twentieth century 60
7. Meeting of the car drivers (chófers) union, 1911 67
8. Shoemaker working in the conventillo patio,
Buenos Aires, 1914 75
9. Prison, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, 1918 83
10. Diego Abad de Santillán, mid-1920s 85
11. Prisoners on their way to cut timber, Tierra del Fuego,
Argentina, early twentieth century 88
12. Diego Abad de Santillán identification card,
mid-1920s 94
13. General José Félix Uriburu, president
of Argentina, 1930 120
14. Villa Devoto Jail, Buenos Aires, 1939 126
15. The Chaco, 1930s 128
16. Manuel Villar, Spain, 1936 143
Tables
1. Spanish Immigration to Argentina, 1871–1914 24–25
2. Spanish Immigration to Argentina and to
Latin America, 1882–1910 40
3. Spanish Immigration and Return from
Latin America, 1882–1940 62
4. Ages of Spaniards Deported from Argentina,
July–September 1919 90
5. Immigration to Argentina, 1915–1940 100
6. Spanish Anarchist Immigrants Deported,
October–November 1930 123
Preface
T h i s st u dy b e ga n when I immigrated to Argentina in the

1970s. I had already spent one year there as a high school exchange student and
made many friends in Mar del Plata, where my host family lived, and in Buenos
Aires. With their assistance, I obtained immigrant visas so that my wife and
I could move there as permanent residents. We lived and worked in Buenos
Aires for just under two years, experiencing the excitement of the end of the
military dictatorship and the return of Juan Perón.
I had begun a study of the Spanish Civil War while in graduate school and
was impressed with Noam Chomsky’s perspective in American Power and the
New Mandarins. Chomsky’s criticism of liberal studies of the anarchists in Spain
piqued my interest. When I contacted a Buenos Aires editorial house that pub-
lished works about anarchists in Spain, I learned that one author, Diego Abad
de Santillán, resided in Buenos Aires and welcomed young researchers. I asked
to meet him, and he agreed.
I walked up to the second floor of a downtown office building and into a
very busy office. Several secretaries were typing or on the phone, and another
brought me coffee. They ushered me into Abad de Santillán’s office, and I took a
seat across the desk from this grandfatherly man of seventy-six. He was dressed
in slacks and wore a cardigan to ward off the chill. I explained that I was just
learning about the events in Spain in the 1930s and asked him to tell me about
his role. His voice was steady as he recounted, “The revolution that broke out
Preface
in July 1936 was made by the people. There was no ‘head.’ No one was leading
the spontaneous uprising.”
We talked for nearly an hour, and he gave no hint that answering a neo-
phyte’s questions was bothersome. He was gentle and patient and encouraged
me to learn more. He directed me to the anarchist athenaeum on Brasil Street
in Buenos Aires and shared the names of Jacobo Maguid and José Grunfeld,
two of his comrades who frequented it. I spent much time there, talking with
members, reading books, and learning about their ideas.
When I returned to the United States, I continued to correspond with Ma-
guid and Grunfeld. They met with me whenever I returned to Buenos Aires
and helped me understand more about their ideas, their organization, and their
experiences in Spain. As we spoke, I realized that they did not dwell in the past
and had many strong opinions about current events.
My study expanded as I learned more about Spain and Argentina. Many
people assisted me, and I am sure that I will overlook some. Nevertheless, I do
want to thank everyone who made this book possible.
My deans at the Alexandria Campus of Northern Virginia Community
College, Jimmie R. McClellan and Paul McVeigh, encouraged me, and Kevin
O’Hagan, interlibrary loan librarian, obtained every book I needed quickly and
efficiently. I received a 2000 sabbatical funded by the National Endowment for
the Humanities Fellowship for College Teachers. This support allowed me to
spend one month in Buenos Aires in the National Library and the Archives. I
was assisted by my daughter, Amanda Baer, who worked long hours in unheated
buildings, reading old newspapers and records of those deported. Staff mem-
bers at both of these institutions were very helpful, making sure that I found
photographs and census information. Friends Jorgelina Sara and Alberto An-
tonino assisted with interviews of individuals and obtaining research materials

in Buenos Aires. Hernán Scandizzo of the Biblioteca Popular José Ingenieros
and Diego Bugallo at the athenaeum of the Federación Libertaria Argentina
were very helpful in providing me with archival material.
The NEH fellowship also allowed me to travel to Amsterdam, where I spent
several weeks at the International Institute for Social History, looking over the
Abad de Santillán and Max Nettlau Archives and the files of the FAI and the
CNT. Mieke IJzermans was not only a wonderful librarian but a kind hostess
who made rooms in her home available for visiting foreign researchers.
The Northern Virginia Community College Educational Foundation as-
sisted me with travel to Spain through a 2002 “Open Moment” award. In Ma-
drid, Marcela García Sebastiani accompanied me through the maze of official-
dom in the National Library and the archives in Alcalá de Hernares. I also spent
xii
Preface
time at the Arús Library in Barcelona and visited many of the sites where the
events I was studying took place.
Colleagues in the Middle Atlantic Council of Latin American Studies lis-
tened to many versions of the chapters of this book, making comments and
offering suggestions that helped me refine many of the concepts. Professors
Ronn Pineo of Towson University in Maryland and Daniel Masterson at the
Naval Academy were especially forthcoming with encouragement and advice.
I also appreciate the assistance from Professor Michael Seidman, who read an
early draft of my manuscript and offered helpful comments.
Laurie Matheson, editor in chief at the University of Illinois Press, has guided
me through several revisions that made the manuscript clearer. I appreciate the
readers who gave me criticism and suggestions on additional literature. Every
book is the work of many, although I take full responsibility for the contents.
I just could not have done this alone.
I hope that readers, academic or casual, will learn more about the dynamics
of population movements, especially at the turn of the twentieth century, and
about the importance of the transnational experience that shaped the ideas
and experiences of the individuals studied here. The interaction of those who
migrate and the lands in which they reside still shapes many people’s lives. In
some ways, I continue to live in two worlds, the United States and Argentina.
One who experiences life in another country never quite leaves that other land
behind. Countless people and many countries continue to be enriched by the
immigrant experience.
xiii
Principal
Individuals
Abad de Santillán, Diego (1897–1983): Born in Spain and arrived in Argentina

with his family in 1905. Member of FORA. Left Argentina in 1932 and settled in
Spain in 1934. Member of FAI. Served as economic counselor to Catalan gov-
ernment in 1936. Returned to Argentina in 1940. Moved back to Spain in 1982.
Barrett, Rafael (1876–1910): Immigrated to Argentina in 1903. Participated
in the anarchist movement. Became writer exposing working conditions in
Paraguay. Moved to France due to illness in 1910.
Camba, Julio (1882–1962): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina in 1898. De-

ported in 1902 and remained in Spain. Writer and participant in anarchist move-
ment.
Gilimón, E. G.: Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina at the end of the nineteenth
century. Deported in 1909. Returned to Argentina and deported again in 1910.
Spanish authorities immediately stripped him of citizenship and deported him
to Uruguay. Later that same year, he returned to Argentina, where he had fam-
ily. Writer for La Protesta.
González Pacheco, Rodolfo (1882–1949): Argentine-born writer and editor of
La Protesta and La Batalla. Spent several months in Spain during the Civil War.
Grunfeld, José (1907–2005): Argentine-born founder of FACA. Served in
Spain, 1936–39. Returned to Argentina and participated in FLA.
Principal Individuals
Inglán y Lafarga, Gregorio (1876–1929): Born in Spain. Immigrated to Ar-

gentina before 1896 and remained there the rest of his life. Editor of La Protesta
Humana and founder of FOA in 1901.
López Arango, Emilio (1894–1929): Born in Spain. Immigrated to Argentina
in 1910. Editor of La Protesta, member of FORA. Murdered in Buenos Aires.
Loredo, Antonio (?–1916): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina in 1897. Edi-
tor of La Protesta. Deported to Spain in 1905. Editor of Solidaridad Obrera
until deported from Spain in 1909. Deported from Argentina to Spain in 1910.
Remained active in the CNT.
Maguid, Jacobo (1907–97): Argentine-born member of FACA, served in Spain
during Civil War.
Montero, José María (1897–?): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina about
1925. Driver and creator of collective bus service in Buenos Aires. Returned
to Spain in 1937. Fled to Mexico in 1940 and remained there for many years
before returning to Spain.
Pellicer Paraire, Antonio (1851–1916): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina
in 1891. Founder of FORA.
Prat, José (1867–1932): Born in Spain. Fled to Argentina in 1897. Returned to
Spain in 1898.
Rouco Buela, Juana (1889–1969): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina in 1900
with her parents. Feminist anarchist and editor of Nuestra Tribuna.
Villar, Manuel (1905–72): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina in 1912. Member
of FORA. Deported to Spain in 1933. Member of FAI. Served in Spain during
Civil War. Jailed for eighteen years. Returned to Argentina in 1960s.
xvi
Abbreviations
AIT Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores; anarcho-

syndicalist international, founded in Berlin in 1922
CEDA Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas;
conservative Spanish political party, founded in 1933
CGT Confederación General del Trabajo; Argentine labor
federation, founded in 1930
CNT Confederación Nacional del Trabajo; Spanish anarcho-
syndicalist labor federation, founded in 1911
CORA Confederación Obrera Regional Argentina; Argentine

syndicalist labor organization, founded in 1909
CRRA Comité Regional de Relaciones Anarquistas; broke from
FORA in 1932 and became FACA in 1935
FACA Federación Anarco-Comunista Argentina; Argentine splinter
group, separated from FORA in 1935
FAI Federación Anarquista Ibérica; Iberian organization of
anarchist affinity groups, founded in 1927
FOA Federación Obrera Argentina; Argentine anarchist labor
FORA Federación Obrera Regional Argentina; Argentine successor
to the FOA, founded in 1904
Abbreviations
SIA Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista; international agency

to assist Spanish refugees, founded in 1936
UGT Unión General de Trabajadores; Argentine socialist labor
USA Unión Sindical Argentina; Argentine syndicalist labor
xviii
Anarchist
Immigrants
i n S pa i n a n d
Argentina
Introduction
A n t o n i o L o r e d o , Diego Abad de Santillán, and Manuel

Villar were among the millions of Spanish immigrants to Argentina in the late
nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Loredo became an editor of a Buenos
Aires daily anarchist newspaper, La Protesta, before being deported (twice) to
Spain. Abad de Santillán was a writer, a historian, and one of the most important
anarchists in both Spain and Argentina. Villar also served as an editor of La
Protesta until 1933, when he was deported to Spain. There, he quickly assumed
the position as editor of Solidaridad Obrera. The lives of these individuals reflect
a powerful current at the turn of the twentieth century: the sharing of anarchist
ideas between Spain and Argentina through immigration and return. This study
shows how the ebb and flow of Spanish anarchist migrations to Argentina helps
explain the development of both a transnational anarchist ideology and related
organizations that connect these two countries.
The book follows the lives, careers, ideas, influence, and travel of dozens of
individuals who moved between these two countries in the decades around
the turn of the twentieth century. The life stories of individual immigrants al-
low us to explore their movements and understand how supranational links
influenced the growth of the anarchist movements in Spain and Argentina. In
many cases, these connections were established by migrant laborers who sailed
back and forth across the Atlantic, harvesting crops in both countries, and by
Introduction
immigrants who left Spain for economic, personal, and political opportuni-
ties in America. Some of these Spaniards were or became anarchists, moving,
adapting, and maneuvering for advantages provided by each country. These
migrants formed a critical nucleus of militants who bound the two countries in
an ideological relationship that profoundly affected the history of both nations.
This study encompasses the period between 1868, when the ideas of Russian
anarchist Mikhail Bakunin first became known in Spain, and the end of the
Spanish Civil War, after which the regime of Generalíssimo Francisco Franco
and the Second World War effectively ended the relationship between these
two countries’ anarchist movements.
The investigation of Spanish anarchist immigrants to Argentina brings into
focus three strands of history that join these two countries and their seem-
ingly disparate worlds. First is the significance of population movements as
fluid choices by individuals that impact the development of ideas and institu-
tions in the country of origin and the country of settlement. My approach uses
biography and labor, institutional, and intellectual history to understand the
lives of anarchist migrants whose mobility generated bonds powerful enough
to create a transnational anarchism. Individuals from several countries forged
these interpersonal relationships through the experience of migration and the
working conditions they encountered, creating one of Argentina’s most power-
ful labor federations. This perspective expands on the work of Delsey Deacon,
Penny Russell, and Angela Woollacott, who use the mobility of individuals
rather than the nation as their frame of reference. Using multiple approaches
(economic, cultural, political, and personal) that emphasize the various influ-
ences that make national boundaries less meaningful, these authors note that
those who have resided in more than one country embody “connections and
movements that have preceded, transcended or exceeded national boundaries.”1

Many of the anarchists identified in this study moved back and forth across
the Atlantic Ocean, and their migrations connected Spain and Argentina
through shared ideas and organizational networks. Their individual political
ideas and activities shaped thinking and actions in both locales while generat-
ing new links between them. Their physical journeys, in the words of David
Berry and Constance Bantman, reflect journeys of the mind.2
When Julio Camba was deported to Spain in 1902 as a result of the Residency
Law, he found out how much he had changed since he left his native land for
Argentina four years earlier. He returned espousing a synthesis of individu-
alist anarchism (following the ideas of Peter Kropotkin) and the collectivist
anarchism (looking to the ideas of Mikhail Bakunin) that had divided Span-
ish anarchists. In 1900, eleven-year-old Juana Rouco Buela came to Argentina
2
Introduction
from Spain; she developed into a passionate supporter of anarchists. At age

eighteen, she was deported and met with Federica Montseny, one of Spain’s
leading women anarchists. Rouco Buela never forgot that meeting and when
she returned to Argentina, she continued the mixture of feminism and anar-
chism she had learned from Montseny.
Camba and Rouco Buela were two of nearly 1.5 million Spaniards who left
their homeland hoping to make better lives for themselves in Argentina between
1871 and 1914. Some Spaniards emigrated because they could not obtain land
or were unemployed or because wages in Argentina were higher than in much
of Spain. Contrary to the conclusions of Timothy J. Hatton and Jeffrey G. Wil-
liamson, my research shows that population growth in Spain was not a factor
that drove emigration.3 In discussing an “emigration cycle” that resulted from
demographic and economic forces, they attribute mass migration from Europe
in the late nineteenth century to a confluence of an increase in population
within a country or region and the availability of better wages abroad. Hatton
and Williamson mention the importance of friends and relatives but do not
consider the continuing strength of the relationships that bound many expa-
triates to their native lands. Influential Spanish anarchists Ricardo Mella and
Anselmo Lorenzo contributed to the Argentine anarchist weekly La Protesta
Humana in the 1890s. Fernando Po and Gregorio Inglán y Lafarga, anarchist
immigrants who had been active in Spain, held important posts at the found-
ing of the Federación Anarquista Argentina (FOA) in 1901. These examples
demonstrate how anarchists shared newspapers, membership in labor organi-
zations, and personal ties across the Atlantic Ocean.
Douglas S. Massey et al. also attribute economic factors to emigration. They
describe neoclassical economic theories and other approaches relating to the
relative growth of capital markets and availability of labor within broader world
systems.4 Massey and his coauthors recognize that individuals who have moved
once, either within their own country or abroad, are more likely to migrate
again. José María Montero left Spain to look for work in the United States, where
he worked in an automobile factory in Detroit. He subsequently returned to
Spain before heading to Argentina. Though Argentina’s need for labor unques-
tionably affected immigration, one of the most significant findings of this study
is that political circumstances in Spain and Argentina led many anarchists to
flee Spain or return as conditions changed. Anarchist militants Rafael Roca,
Pedro Esteve, and Indalecio Cuadrado left Spain as a consequence of political
circumstances at the end of the nineteenth century and continued as militants
in Argentina. José Prat and Antonio Rosado resided for a time in Argentina but
returned to Spain when the political climate there changed.
3
Introduction
Blanca Sánchez-Alonso focuses specifically on the significance of Spanish

regional variations on emigration, studying the effects of wealth, literacy, in-
come, and urbanization.5 These are important factors, although my research
shows that it is difficult to identify emigrants’ regions of origin from ports of
embarkation alone. Most Spanish emigrants left through Vigo and La Coruña
in Galicia. An emigrant from Andalusia in the south might take a train to Vigo
and then a ship to the Americas. Likewise, returning immigrants might arrive in
Vigo before traveling by train to their village of origin. My research recognizes
that Spanish regionalism affected the labor movement but is less significant in
anarchist migrations. Regional variations influenced migrations within Spain,
although returning migrants almost always sought to go back to their villages
of origin. Sánchez-Alonso does touch on return migration, but only in regard
to fewer economic prospects abroad, rather than a broader perspective of eco-
nomic and political circumstances available to migrants that I emphasize.
This study also explores the supranational/transnational connections
through migrations and return that are affected by national events but ad-
vanced without regard to national boundaries. Returning immigrants often
chose destinations based on plans that did not assume permanent residence
abroad or the breaking of ties with their native land. The immigrant experi-
ence was not a single act but a process that could include a return to Spain,
voluntary or not. Between 1871 and 1914, Argentina received almost 5 million
immigrants, but 2.5 million people then emigrated to other countries. Thus,
nearly half of all immigrants to Argentina did not remain permanently.6 These
aspects of migration caused individuals continuously to evaluate their goals
and the opportunities available in their new country, their native lands, or else-
where. Adrián Troitiño worked as a baker in Argentina but also helped laborers
in Montevideo. When he was deported to Cadiz, Uruguayan workers helped

pay his way to Montevideo, where he became a key leader in the country’s
anarchist movement. He was instrumental in helping others deported from
Argentina jump ship in Montevideo.
In the mid-twentieth century, Frank Thistlethwaite criticized the parochial
nature of immigration research among American and European historians,
which created what he called “a salt-water curtain”: the Atlantic was a barrier not
to be breached.7 Much has been done since Thistlethwaite coined the phrase,
yet dynamic links between the Americas and Europe still have escaped scrutiny.
Return migration—individuals who did not remain abroad but went back to
their native lands—is an integral part of the migration story. In the first decade
of the twentieth century, Argentina deported Spaniards Benjamín García, Julio
Camba, Miguel Ríos, Manuel Lago, Antonio Navarro, Ramón Antoñeda, José
4
Introduction
Pañeda, Guido Monachessi, José Pérez, Alfonso García de la Mata, and Manuel
Lourido. Some subsequently returned to Argentina, but others remained in
Spain as anarchist activists.
Mark Wyman’s Round-Trip to America: The Immigrants Return to Europe,
1880–1930 does an excellent job of describing the variety of immigrants who
chose to return home. However, he focuses exclusively on immigrants to the
United States. His statistics show that many immigrants to the United States
never planned to remain permanently abroad.8 These Atlantic journeys con-
stituted extensions of centuries-old migrations within Europe that had drawn
labor from one region to another for a limited time. But Wyman does not track
returnees back in Europe. In contrast, I follow the activities of Antonio Loredo
and Manuel Villar, who continued to serve as editors in the anarchist press after
returning to Spain, showing their influence on Spanish anarchists.
David Gregory has demonstrated the importance of returned migrants in
Spain. In Andalusia, he writes, “the majority of the leaders of the new inde-
pendent unions in rural areas are returned emigrants.”9 However, he does not
pursue the link between immigrants’ experiences abroad and their activities
after returning. The transnational perspective provided by the stories of anar-
chist migrants H. Grau and Joaquín Hucha, who wrote for the anarchist press
in both Argentina and Spain, demonstrates how they helped knit together the
two countries’ movements.
Spanish anarchists who immigrated to Argentina carried with them ideas and
experiences from their previous activities. In some cases, this baggage included
antagonisms over differences in approaches and ideological emphases. When
individualist and collectivist immigrants arrived in Argentina and affiliated with
the anarchist movement, these conflicts were renewed. However, because of
the different environment and the mixture of immigrants from Italy, France,
Ireland, and England, the Argentine anarchist movement altered the nature of
these Spanish conflicts. Italian immigrants in Argentina such as Pietro Gori
and Errico Malatesta urged a greater emphasis on organization. Antonio Pel-
licer Paraire’s writings began to reflect a combination of Spanish and Italian
ideas and helped in the formation of an Argentine national labor federation.
When Argentine authorities deported some of these Spanish militants, this
new mixture of ideas and experiences accompanied them and often affected the
Spanish movement. Thus, the back-and-forth of individuals and ideas helped to
create a trans-Atlantic anarchist movement with what Akira Iriye calls a global
consciousness arising from the idea that a wider world exists over and above
individual states and national societies.10 José Prat, back in Spain after listening
to the debates among Argentine workers, wrote about the dangers syndical-
5
Introduction
ism posed to the anarchist movement. When the newly formed International
Workingmen’s Association of syndicalist, anarchist, and other nonpolitical labor
groups met in Amsterdam in 1925, syndicalism became a bone of contention
between Argentine and Spanish anarchists. Nevertheless, the Atlantic anarchist
community possessed an awareness of common interests and concerns that
were not unique to one nation but formed part of a transnational anarchist
ideology. Anarchists in all countries sought a revolution.
The bonds that united anarchists in Spain and Argentina were the social
networks created among migrants. Charles Tilly has explored “trust networks,”
which he defines as a specialized form of personal relationships among migrant
streams.11 While Tilly focuses on recent migrants and the bond between those
in the United States and Peru through remittances, anarchist migrants in the
early twentieth century also demonstrate the “solidarity between people at the
origins and destinations of migration streams.”12 Enrico Moretti did not identify
his approach as transnational when he proposed a “model in which the prob-
ability of migrating depends positively on the social networks that link the mi-
grant to that country.”13 He notes the significance of previous immigrants, who
provide information, money, and job prospects in the receiving country. The
concept of chain migration, or individuals who emigrate, establish themselves,
and then bring other family members, is well known and is demonstrated by the
experiences of Pellicer Paraire, who had a relative in Argentina; Abad de San-
tillán, whose father sent for the rest of the family after he was established; and
Juana Rouco Buela, who came because an aunt gave her passage to Argentina.
However, Moretti expands the concept to include wider networks of friends, a
pattern followed by anarchists who were deported back to Spain and welcomed
immediately into the Spanish movement. Ramón Palau, for one, reported that
he and his fellow deportees received an enthusiastic reception in Barcelona.

Militants returning as immigrants and deportees often quickly obtained posts
within the Spanish movement because they shared similar goals and knew of
conditions in Spain through the anarchist press.
Davide Turcato’s article on Italian anarchism highlights the importance of
newspapers in anarchist networks.14 He explains how anarchist newspapers
around the world helped create a shared ideology of anarchism. This volume
highlights the importance of the anarchist press in reporting on economic
and social conditions in Spain and Argentina as well as personal experiences
shared by returning and deported anarchists. Emilio V. Santolaria wrote about
poor working conditions and low wages in Argentina in the Spanish periodical
Solidaridad Obrera, and a Buenos Aires paper, La Protesta, printed a series of
articles, “Crónica de España,” on economic and social conditions in Spain.
6
Introduction
When political conditions in Spain changed, some migrants returned, others

stayed in Argentina, and still others traveled back and forth between the two
countries. Their experience resembled that of the golondrinas (birds of passage),
migrants who sought opportunities from the reversed seasons of the northern
and southern hemispheres, though the anarchists followed political seasons as
well. The Spanish anarchist migrants in this study are like the “transnational
activists” identified by Sidney Tarrow.15 The “Nesting Pigeon” lived abroad but
returned to engage in local affairs. Antonio Rosado, for one, fled after being ar-
rested for organizing workers in Andalusia, spent two years in Argentina, and
then returned to Spain after a general amnesty, continuing to organize work-
ers for the CNT. The “Bird of Passage” resides in the receiving country while
organizing and participating in activities against his native government. Abad
de Santillán left for Argentina as a child but returned to Spain to study and
was influenced by the anarchists he met there. He then went back to Argentina
and became an editor of La Protesta, vociferously attacking Spanish anarchists
for what he perceived as syndicalist heresies. He sailed again for Spain when
the republic offered possibilities for action but left again, disappointed in the
Spanish movement. Finally, when faced with Argentina’s military dictatorship,
Abad de Santillán headed back to Spain, where he became one of the anarchist
leaders during a social revolution and the civil war. Abad de Santillán is one of
the best examples of the continuous movement of anarchists and ideas across
the Atlantic Ocean, although his leadership positions in both Spain and Ar-
gentina were unusual.
Finally, this study recognizes the importance of anarchist networks in
understanding the relationship of the individual to the state. In Global and
Transnational History: The Past, Present, and Future, Akira Iriye approaches
transnationalism from an international relations perspective. He recounts his

development and that of historians in general regarding the place of the na-
tion in history and the advantages of supranational studies. He recognizes the
importance of international environmental, business, and nongovernmen-
tal organizations in turning historians’ focus away from the state. While both
global and transnational approaches look beyond national boundaries to issues
relevant to humanity as a whole, transnational history is unique in exploring
nonnational entities and connections. While this book focuses on anarchist
organizations as nonnational entities, my perspective is binational rather than
global. Although some of these migrants traveled to several countries, the ma-
jority went back and forth between Spain and Argentina. Their consciousness
as anarchists encompassed values that rose beyond citizenship in a particular
country. Newspaper articles in Barcelona and Buenos Aires reported on re-
7
Introduction
pression in both countries, and Spain’s execution of educator Francisco Fer-

rer sparked demonstrations in protest in Buenos Aires. Anarchists believed in
federations of groups and identified countries as regions rather than nations.
They contested government structures wherever they lived and were less likely
to exhibit a sense of patriotism. Nevertheless, their identity as Spaniards was
not totally obliterated by migration, and many Spanish anarchists sought to
participate in the anarchist revolution of 1936, viewing it as an accomplishment
of Spanish goals as well as world revolution. Some of these anarchists returned
voluntarily to Spain, while others were deported from Argentina during the
1930s. When Abad de Santillán formed a new affinity group within the FAI
in Spain, he was joined by Idelfonso González, who had been deported from
Argentina, and Fidel Miró who returned to Spain from the Caribbean. These
men joined together as revolutionaries, not just Spaniards who had returned
to fight for their country.
Spanish and Argentine anarchists looked to a revolutionary future regardless
of their country of residence, since the ideology of anarchism does not recog-
nize the legitimacy of the political nation-state. Spain’s earliest anarchist federa-
tion was the Spanish Regional Federation, and Argentina’s anarchist federation
used the term region rather than nation. This approach gave rise to some tension
with individuals who felt strong ties to their country of birth or their country of
residence. At the end of their lives, José María Montero and Abad de Santillán
returned to their native Spain to die. Anarchists in Spain who had not experi-
enced the transnational migration did not welcome advice or interference by
Argentine anarchists, and although Jacobo Maguid received an important post
in Spain, he was called “the Argentine” to emphasize his foreign birth. Emilio
López Arango and other anarchists in Argentina, who experienced a fusion of
ideas brought by immigrants from many countries, saw their dynamic move-
ment as superior to anarchist movements in Europe. Writing to Abad de San-
tillán at the International Workingmen’s Association Congress, Enrique Nido
warned that Ángel Pestaña of the CNT was “a troublemaker.” An individual
who migrates from one country to another must balance the transnational and
the nation. To what extent does mobility create another plane of awareness?
To what extent does the individual continue to live in the Old World through
periodicals, social and sports clubs, and personal associations? The Spanish
anarchists studied here, especially Abad de Santillán, demonstrate an aware-
ness of ideological and organizational contacts that transcends one nation.
But they also show their devotion to the land of their birth. Abad de Santillán
saw himself as both Spanish and Argentine, presenting a fine distinction. His
aspirations for an anarchist revolution were global. His participation in a fluid
8
Introduction
anarchist movement that spanned the Atlantic Ocean was transnational. And
his influence in Spain during the 1930s reflected his comrades’ acceptance of
him as a native Spaniard. This study demonstrates the power of personal and
transnational ties among Spanish anarchist migrants.
An analysis of anarchist immigrants and their transnational social, institu-
tional, and personal networks also helps clarify interpretations of Spanish and
Argentine history that are not well defined when isolated in a national history.
Venerable histories of Spanish anarchism such as those by Murray Bookchin,
Juan Gómez Casas, and Juan José Morato have failed to explore the link be-
tween Spanish and Argentine anarchism and how the two sides of the Atlantic
influenced each other.16 These works concentrate on events in Spain without
recognizing the importance of immigrants coming home from Argentina. After
being deported, E. Reyes wrote to La Protesta that he was greeted by a large
crowd at the port in Vigo. He then toured Spain, denouncing the Argentine
government. Angel Smith’s excellent study on the Catalan labor movement
also does not include any recognition of the role played by Spanish anarchists
returning from Argentina.17
Chris Ealham refers to Abad de Santillán’s and Manuel Villar’s roles in Spain
in the 1930s but does not account for the two men’s experiences in Argentina.18
Both were profoundly affected by the military coup in 1930 and by the feuding
anarchist factions’ inability to unite to oppose the regime. Julián Casanova is
imprecise when he identifies a new generation of anarcho-syndicalist leaders
in the CNT, including Antonio Loredo. Loredo had been deported from Ar-
gentina, where he supported anarcho-communism against syndicalism among
Argentine unions. Loredo’s writings after returning to Spain suggest that he
was not a supporter of syndicalism within the CNT, and to include him with
Ángel Pestaña as an anarcho-syndicalist ignores the events within the anarchist

movement that shaped Loredo.19
Studies of anarchism in Argentina recognize the importance of Spanish im-
migrants but have overlooked the significance of those deported to Spain and
of Argentine anarchists’ critique of the influence of syndicalism in the Spanish
movement.20 José Moya’s extensive study of Spanish immigrants to Argentina
shows that structural changes such as railroads and steamships played a large
role in stimulating immigration.21 But he also states that letters from immi-
grants abroad to friends and relatives back home influenced many Spaniards
to leave in search of better opportunities. However, his study focuses only on
immigrants’ impact on Argentina’s history. Moya recognizes that immigrants
who returned from Argentina with wealth and stories of success had a great
effect on immigration, but he overlooks immigrants who were deported from
9
Introduction
Argentina with tales of police repression and unemployment. In 1910, Antonio

Zamboni was deported to Barcelona, where he wrote for Tierra y Libertad on
Argentine anarchists’ response to repression after 1902. Yet, although returnees
influenced some Spaniards to remain in Spain and agitate for better conditions
in their native land, many continued to seek better opportunities abroad.
Recent works on anarchism have recognized the transnational aspects of the
anarchist movement as well as the blending of labor and social issues. Benedict
Anderson describes the peregrinations of anarchists such as Catalan Fernando
Tarrida del Mármol, who moved between France and Spain, and Michele An-
giolillo, an Italian anarchist who spent time in France, Belgium, England, and
Spain, where he assassinated Prime Minister Cánovas del Castillo.22 Anderson
argues that connections among revolutionary groups and individuals were
independent of the specific nation. My study affirms Anderson’s thesis, es-
pecially in the late nineteenth century, when immigrants in Argentina from
many countries—Victoriano San José, Ettore Mattei, Emilio Piette, and John
Creaghe—worked together to oppose the state and its institutions. A global
perspective on the era of mass migrations (1870–1915) permits a focus on “not
only national and local context but on supranational connections and multi-
directional flows of the ideas, people, finances and organizational structures
that gave rise to these movements,” according to Steven Hirsch and Lucien van
der Walt.23 I emphasize these multidirectional flows in focusing on anarchist
movements in both Spain and Argentina and their interconnections.
As Spanish immigrants moved between Spain and Argentina depending on
the opportunities and the circumstances available in each country, their expe-
riences demonstrate how immigrants carefully planned their moves based on
assessments of which country would provide the most benefits at a given time.
Connections across continents enabled these activists to influence events on

both sides of the Atlantic. Repression in late-nineteenth-century Spain drove
anarchists abroad, often to Argentina, where they created the country’s most im-
portant labor organization, the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA).
Facing increasing strike activity in the early twentieth century, the Argentine
government passed laws to restrict anarchists and deported many back to Spain,
where they participated in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT),
which became the country’s most important labor movement. In the 1920s,
Miguel Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship repressed Spanish anarchism, leading to
a transnational debate over the correct response. Facing challenges from syndi-
calist groups that favored some cooperation with the state, Argentine anarchists
argued that syndicalist tendencies weakened the Spanish movement. In part,
this pressure helped bring about the creation of the Federación Anarquista
10
Introduction
Ibérica (FAI), a coalition of affinity groups that proposed strengthening the

ideological purity of the Spanish movement. Argentina’s 1930 military coup
crippled the anarchist movement, leading to the deportation of hundreds of
activists and forcing others to flee to Spain, where the dictatorship had ended
and the monarchy had given way to a new republic. As the circumstances of
anarchists in Argentina changed, migrations to Spain increased. There is no
way fully to understand the progression of anarchist ideas and the nature of the
movements in these two countries without a detailed study of the movement
of anarchist migrants and the transnational networks they developed.
This study explores these questions about the state and the transnational
character of migrations that establish an extrastate dimension. As a work of
history, this volume balances individual lives and experiences with national
and international events over a period of seventy-two years. But it also uses
the concept of transnationalism to weave the story of population movements
between Spain and Argentina into a perspective on how humans can retain
ties to more than one country and how their migrations can influence the his-
tory of multiple countries. According to Donna Gabaccia, this transnational
focus creates a “nomadology,” a term she took from Gilles Deleuze and Félix
Guattari, who have criticized national migration historiography.24 Nomadol-
ogy recognizes the significance of the individual and the group as a unit itself
rather than as a subset of the history of the nation. My emphasis on the lives of
individual migrants broadens our attention from strictly national issues such as
labor federations and government repression to the contacts among individuals
who travel back and forth between Spain and Argentina. Such transnational
migration studies can pose challenges because they do not necessarily give the
same perspective as national studies and may not support the emphasis on the
state. In this respect, the choice of anarchist immigrants seems fitting. Spanish
anarchists regarded their migrations as tactics toward a goal rather than the
goal itself.
Organization of the Book
Chapter 1 provides a short history of anarchism and the ideas of Mikhail Ba-
kunin, giving an overview of the origins and ideas of anarchism and its impact
on Spain. It discusses the turbulent late nineteenth century in Spain, the growth
of the Spanish Regional Federation, and the beginnings of immigration to Ar-
gentina, demonstrating the movement of people between these two countries.
Chapter 2 explores the Spanish anarchist movement and its link to emi-
gration through the lives of Antonio Pellicer Paraire, José Prat, and Gregorio
11
Introduction
Inglán y Lafarga. Their travels, experiences, and influence link the anarchist
movements in Spain and in Argentina. Some Italian and Spanish and a few
French immigrants had been familiar with or participants in European anarchist
movements. Many had struggled with internecine conflicts before coming to
Argentina and brought these quarrels with them. But in a new environment
with mixtures of peoples and ideas from many areas, they began to integrate
different notions into a truly Argentine anarchism that became very dynamic
at the turn of the twentieth century.
Chapter 3 focuses on the anarchist movement in Argentina to 1910, as its
ties to Spain were reinforced through deportations from Argentina as well as
continued immigration from Spain. After strikes and labor unrest in 1902, the
Argentine government passed the Residency Law, which allowed the deporta-
tion of unruly immigrants. Deportations of anarchists then occurred sporadi-
cally until the 1930s. Many deported writers, editors, and activists remained
active after returning to Spain. Juana Rouco Buela, deported in 1907 for her
role in an anarchist feminist organization, took part in the movement in Spain
before returning surreptitiously to Argentina. Antonio Loredo had been a mem-
ber of the editorial board of the anarchist daily La Protesta prior to his 1909
deportation and later surfaced as an editor of Barcelona’s influential anarchist
newspaper, Tierra y Libertad. These deportations of Spanish anarchists show
not only that population movements can be involuntary as well as voluntary
but also that these returnees brought experiences and ideas from Argentina.
Chapter 4 details the relationship between the anarchist movements in
Argentina and Spain from 1910 to 1918, when World War I and the Russian
Revolution brought serious challenges to the anarchist movement. Violence
and labor unrest leading up to the 1910 centennial of Argentine independence
caused the government to pass a new social defense law that further restricted
radical immigrants and increased deportations. At the same time, Spanish an-
archists created the CNT, which became the country’s most powerful and im-
portant labor federation through the 1930s. However, the Argentine anarchist
movement experienced a serious rupture at a 1915 meeting of unions, and the
FORA, which had guided the movement since the beginning of the century,
became weakened. World War I had virtually ended immigration from Spain to
Argentina, and the new group of anarchists included some Argentine natives.
In this period of personal and ideological rivalries, a branch of the old federa-
tion became the FORA V. It emerged as champion of what it called a “purer”
anarchism and challenged the ideology of the Spanish movement’s leaders.
Chapter 5 describes the transnational conflict between the Argentine FORA
and the Spanish CNT during the 1920s, when the administration of Hipólito
12
Introduction
Yrigoyen in Argentina presented opportunities for anarchists but the dictator-

ship of Miguel Primo de Rivera in Spain repressed the movement there. The
1922 creation of the International Workingmen’s Association gave Abad de
Santillán a forum in which to present the American emphasis on antipolitical
anarchism and oppose the reformist leadership of Ángel Pestaña and Salvador
Seguí in Spain. The Spanish created a new leadership group, the FAI, to serve
as an ideological guide to the CNT, much as La Protesta’s editorial group had
provided leadership within the FORA. These developments illustrate how the
back-and-forth nature of population movements influenced anarchist organiza-
tions in both nations.
Chapter 6 presents a history of the political and social climates of Spain
and Argentina after 1930. A military coup led by General José Félix Uriburu
created a new political climate in Argentina, as the new government hunted
down, arrested, and deported anarchists. Abad de Santillán fled Argentina and
eventually moved to Spain. Argentina deported hundreds of other Spaniards,
most notably Manuel Villar, who became important in the anarchist movement
in Spain before and during the civil war. At the same time, the end of Spain’s
military dictatorship, the abdication of the monarch, and the creation of a par-
liamentary republic offered new hope to anarchists there. Consequently, the
changing political climate in Argentina forced some Spanish-born anarchist
émigrés back to Spain.
Chapter 7 looks at the significance of returning immigrants and the impor-
tance of the Argentine anarchist movement during the Second Spanish Repub-
lic and in the anarchist revolution that transformed Catalonia in 1936. Abad de
Santillán’s After the Revolution (1936) gave a detailed account of the organization
of an anarchist society. In July 1936, workers in Barcelona armed themselves
and defeated the military in that city before beginning a social revolution that
implemented many of the ideas expressed in Abad de Santillán’s book.
Chapter 8 focuses on Spanish anarchist immigrants and Argentine anarchists
during the civil war and the experience of refugees from Spain. Abad de Santil-
lán served on the powerful Antifascist Militias Committee, while Villar edited
Solidaridad Obrera, an important anarchist periodical. Many other Spaniards
returned from Argentina to participate in the civil war, among them José María
Montero and Antonio Casanova. While these individuals were only a small
number of those fighting in the war, their experience in Argentina and their
enthusiasm for the social revolution at the outbreak of the civil war made them
staunch supporters of the republican cause.
Chapter 9 provides information about the lives of refugees who fled from
Spain in 1939 and evaluates the significance of this transnational history on
13
Introduction
migration studies as well as Spanish and Argentine history. Population move-

ments transfer more than just individual immigrants. They also transmit ideas
from one nation to another. And since migration sometimes leads to a return,
those ideas can come back, altered by experiences abroad, and affect the country
of origin. If Argentina became a nation of immigrants, Spain became a nation
whose returning immigrants helped to shape its history.
14
Chapter 1
Origins of the Spanish

Anarchist Movement in
the Nineteenth Century
N i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u ry S pa i n experienced sporadic out-

bursts of violence against the Crown, uneven economic growth, and an increas-
ingly tenuous hold on its colonies. The reign of Isabella II, from the regency of her
mother, María Christina in 1833 to her overthrow in 1868, led to an increasingly
powerful central state propped up by the army. “Henceforth, no institution would
remain outside the ambit of the state or arm of the law, not even the Church.”1
Two countercurrents emerged in the mid- to late nineteenth century: re-
gionalism in many forms, and the initiation of an organized labor movement
influenced by the First International. The increasing tension within the First
International over personal and ideological difference between Karl Marx and
Mikhail Bakunin brought Giuseppe Fanelli to Spain to share the ideas of an-
archism and recruit support for Bakunin. This chapter traces the growth of
Spain’s anarchist movement and shows immigration’s importance for labor as
well as for militants fleeing repression.
Growth of Anarchism in Spain
Several currents of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought merged in

the development of the Spanish anarchist movement. William Godwin, an
English writer considered the father of philosophical anarchism, responded
to the events of the French Revolution with concern over the role of the state.
Chapter 1
He valued individual liberty and believed that education that allowed students
to pursue freely their own interests and did not impose any doctrine or dogma
would result in rational humans who did not need coercion to live in harmony
with others. Godwin argued that private property should be abolished because
it restricted humans. He even said that individuals should not be restricted by
the convention of marriage in the pursuit of love. In short, Godwin was philo-
sophically an anarchist. The term anarchy derives from the Greek an-archos,
“without a leader.” Anarchy, in Godwin’s mind, did not mean disorder or chaos.
Instead, it referred to a state of order established voluntarily by individuals
rather than imposed on them. Godwin’s major work, Enquiry Concerning Politi-
cal Justice (1793) reflected his suspicions that even a revolutionary state such as
France was inimical to the liberties of individuals.
The French Revolution brought many new terms into the political vocabu-
lary. Terrorism came from the reign of terror, a policy of the Committee of
Public Safety to destroy enemies of the revolution and, eventually, of its leader,
Maximilien Robespierre. While terrorism in the twenty-first century has come
to mean individuals committing criminal acts of violence to further their cause,
its original meaning and purpose was to further the goals of the state and its
leadership. Enemies of the French revolutionary state were called anarchists,
a term Robespierre coined “to attack those people on the left whom he had
used for his own ends but whom he was determined to be rid of.”2
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French writer and social theorist, also reacted to
the French Revolution and the question of individual liberty. He pursued the
idea that one’s labor, not government, was the basis for all social organization.
In his most famous work, Proudhon asked, “What is property?” His answer,
“Property is theft,” became one of the intellectual foundations of modern anar-
chism. Property, in the form of capital or land, whose owners were supported
by the state, denied workers their fair share, claimed Proudhon. This emphasis
on the state’s economic foundation made anarchism an anticapitalist movement
that rivaled socialism for support among members of the nineteenth-century
working class.
By far one of the most significant individuals in the development of Eu-
ropean anarchism during this period was Mikhail Bakunin, a Russian noble.
Bakunin met and talked with Proudhon while in France in the 1840s. Arrested
in Russia and condemned to death for his support of revolution, Bakunin was
instead exiled to Siberia in 1857. Four years later, he escaped to Japan and then
traveled on to San Francisco and New York before finally arriving in London
at the end of 1861. In 1865, Bakunin moved to Naples, where he founded the
first of his revolutionary organizations, the International Brotherhood. In 1868,
16
Origins of the Spanish Anarchist Movement
he created the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy but agreed to

dissolve it to join the International Workingmen’s Association (known as the
International) later that year. Bakunin and Marx did not get along. Bakunin
mistrusted Marx and his desire to have workers control the state. Bakunin
believed that the greatest force for tyranny was the state itself and thought
workers themselves should collectivize without formal organizations created
by socialists. Bakunin wanted workers to create their own society in “a spon-
taneous, formidable, passionate, energetic, anarchic, destructive, and savage
uprising of the popular masses.”3 Marx felt Bakunin was too disorganized and
accused him of maintaining the separate International Alliance.4 In 1872, the
two great leaders of the proletarian movement had a falling-out, and Bakunin
was expelled from the International. Many members of the organization left
with him, and the organization effectively ceased to exist. Bakunin died in 1876,
but his movement continued in several countries, including Spain.
That country’s Pellicer family contributed greatly to the development of
anarchism there and, through the immigration of Antonio Pellicer Paraire, in
Argentina as well. Antonio Pellicer Paraire was born in Barcelona on February
23, 1851. As a youth, he was apprenticed to a typesetter, and he practiced that
trade for much of his life. He became familiar with anarchist thought because
many typesetters—skilled craftsmen who valued their independence and feared
the changes of the Industrial Revolution— were influenced by Bakunin and
his ideas. Antonio’s uncle, José Luis Pellicer, and cousin, Rafael Farga Pelli-
cer, who later went to Switzerland to meet directly with Bakunin, numbered
among Spain’s first anarchists. Pellicer Paraire and his family first heard Fanelli,
Bakunin’s Italian emissary, when he came to Spain to gain adherents for the
Alliance for Social Democracy in 1868. Fanelli spoke only French and Italian
and could not communicate easily with most of his listeners. He went first to
Madrid and then on to Barcelona, where he met Farga Pellicer, who spoke
French. According to Anselmo Lorenzo, another of the founders of the Span-
ish anarchist movement,
There was Farga Pellicer—in the Catalan Athenaeum—illuminating the of-
fice with the luster of his stare, cheering it with the candidness of his smile,
animating everyone with his constant and thoughtful activity.
He was of medium height, well built, with a reddish face, blond hair, and
beard. His voice was strong and well modulated to express clearly what he
thought. He chose his words well, especially when he spoke Castilian, using
the neologisms he created with great ease and propriety to express better
what he wished to say.5
17
Chapter 1
Farga Pellicer was impressed with both Fanelli and Bakunin’s ideas, and in
1869, Farga Pellicer joined with Gaspar Sentiñon, José García Viñas, Trinidad
Soriano, and Antonio González Meneses to create the International’s official
Barcelona section. Farga Pellicer and Bakunin corresponded, and in September
1869, the Spaniard traveled to Basel, Switzerland, to attend the meeting of the
International. There, Bakunin charmed Farga Pellicer personally and brought
him into the International Brotherhood, an alliance of militants he maintained
in defiance of Marx and the International.
Murray Bookchin, an American libertarian writer, describes the Interna-
tional Brotherhood as a “secret organization of anarchist militants.”6 According
to Bookchin, Bakunin never bothered to reconcile his secret organization with
his distaste for organizations in general, believing that he and his associates
were honest in their desire to help the anarchist cause and were not seeking
power for themselves. Critics of anarchism have often noted this contradic-
tion, but the concept survived in Spain and in Argentina, where small groups
of dedicated anarchists attempted to keep the anarchist movement free from
reformist tendencies and political activities.
Spain in the Late Nineteenth Century
Several strains of federalism emerged from the individualism in Andalusia, the

fueros (local autonomy derived from Medieval Spanish towns), and separat-
ist sentiments in the Basque Provinces and in Catalonia. This blend allowed
anarchist ideas of individual liberty to join in a multifaceted opposition to
Spain’s central government. In 1868, Francisco Pi y Margall translated Proud-
hon’s book on federalism, Du principe fédératif, into Spanish, providing the
country with the theoretical background for republican ideas on federalism. Pi

y Margall’s federalism thus had an impact on Spanish anarchists. “Consciously
or unconsciously, the doctrines of Proudhon make up the creed of the major-
ity of people in Spain, so that, in one form or another, in every Spaniard you
will find a federalist,” said Ricardo Mella, one of the early theoreticians of the
Spanish anarchist movement.7 While most federalists were regionalists rather
than anarchists, the two groups became allies in the chaotic period between
the abdication of Queen Isabella II in 1868 and the restoration of her son, King
Alfonso XII, in 1875.
Civil war, division, and scandal had weakened the Spanish central govern-
ment and encouraged a variety of opposition movements. Queen Isabella II
had come to the throne of Spain as a child in 1833. She had relied on the military
to keep the supporters of her Uncle Carlos, the Carlists, from attempting to
18
overthrow her. Isabella’s reign was long, but her personal life was dissolute, her
mother was implicated in a railroad scandal, and she ultimately lost the sup-
port of most of her subjects. She created a crisis by refusing to accommodate
reformists from the Progressive Party, pushing them into an alliance with the
Democratic Party and the military. In the 1860s, General Juan Prim allied the
military with the growing number of politicians who were willing to remove
Isabella from power. The issue that divided the conspirators was what to do after
deposing Isabella. Prim pushed ahead and overthrew Isabella in a September
1868 army coup. Isabella went into exile in France, and the military rejected
members of her family as candidates for monarch.
The Revolution of 1868 brought a period of both hope and chaos. It led to
political instability, but it also allowed workers and the middle class to par-
ticipate in government in ways that had been previously denied. For one brief
moment, Spain’s nascent anarchist movement found itself with the support of
a wide range of regional federalists in seeking greater liberties for Spaniards.
This situation led to the creation of the first anarchist organization in Spain
and then to its destruction. Nevertheless, once established on Spanish soil, the
ideas of anarchism and the goals of liberty for peasants and workers remained
powerful for the next seventy years.
The members of the coalition that overthrew Isabella agreed only on creating
a Constituent Cortes (parliament) that would begin writing a new constitu-
tion. They remained divided on issues of religion, form of government, and
economic policies. General Francisco Serrano served as regent after Septem-
ber 1868, and General Prim became prime minister. Under their leadership,
the Constituent Cortes produced the new constitution in 1869, establishing a
constitutional monarchy. Progressive Party members, Liberal Unionists, and
Democrats participated in the creation of the new constitution, but some Dem-
ocrats, including Pi y Margall, who wanted an end to the monarchy in Spain,
bolted their party and established a new Republican Party. Raymond Carr
believes that by that early date, the Republicans already exhibited a preference
for “extreme federalism”—Pi y Margall’s idea for a union of cantons in Spain
not unlike that in Switzerland.8 This Republican notion of regional autonomy
appealed to both members of the middle class and workers in Barcelona and
throughout Catalonia.
The Spanish government urgently sought a new king from among Europe’s
many royal dynasties, but no viable candidate emerged. In September 1869, the
Republicans rebelled, refusing to accept the new constitution. The rebellion
was quickly put down, but other groups, including the Internationalists, who
were members of the organization dominated by anarchists, also distanced
19
Chapter 1
themselves from this government. The Internationalists represented a mixture

of artisan and working-class Spaniards, some of whom supported the Demo-
crats or later the Republicans in opposing the policies of the recently exiled
queen. Faced with a new monarchy, the Internationalists reacted against the
government.
Creation of the Spanish Regional Federation
Spanish workers suffered from long hours and poor working conditions. Many
felt that the changes in government had little impact on their plight. In June
1870, 150 delegates representing Spanish laborers met at the Teatro del Circo
in Barcelona and created the Federación Regional Española (Spanish Regional
Federation). Key to the success of the Spanish movement was its connection
to the working class. At the meeting they heard about the misery of Spanish
workers: “The report of Bove, a Barcelona textile worker, is typical. The work-
ers, he tells us, are exploited from five in the morning to late at night. Women
work from ten to fifteen hours for less than a dollar, and in some factories, for
as much as eighteen hours for a little more than a dollar.”9 Miserable condi-
tions had led many Spanish workers to migrate to the industrializing cities in
the north of the country, while others migrated abroad. But now that Fanelli
had brought Bakunin’s ideas of revolution, Spanish workers and artisans eagerly
sought to bring about change. Farga Pellicer and other anarchists attempted to
shape the movement according to Bakunin’s ideas.
The participants in the Spanish Regional Federation represented several fac-
tions. Led by Anselmo Lorenzo, who supported Bakunin, the Madrid section
contained nearly two thousand individuals, among them liberals, Masons, and
mutual aid supporters. The Barcelona section contained workers who belonged
to the Federal Center of Workers Societies. The Federal Center had cooper-
ated with Republicans in support of a federal republic, and its members were
not adverse to political participation. These differences mirrored the divisions
within the International Workingmen’s Association between the followers of
Marx and those of Bakunin.
The constituent congress of the Spanish Regional Federation in Barcelona
produced mixed results, reflecting its disparate membership. Farga Pellicer
opened the congress by speaking out against the state and the church. He knew
of the divisions among the participants but wanted to push forward with a
broad program that would appeal to many Spaniards. The key issue proved to
be the organization’s stance toward political participation. Farga Pellicer and
the anarchists opposed any participation, but members of the congress decided
20
to allow individuals to choose whether to participate. However, according to

Bookchin, the congress’s most important achievement was the creation of a
dual structure for the Spanish Section of the International.10 Spanish workers
were to be organized by trade as well as by locality. Workers within the same
industry would be organized into unions that would seek to redress grievances
associated with the workplace. Workers within the same locality would become
members of a local organization, irrespective of occupation, that would seek
to coordinate economic and social activities within the locality. Of course, all
of these local organizations would federate with regional and national orga-
nizations to cover the entire country. This apolitical federalism fit well with
Republicans’ growing demand for a federal republic.
The growth of the Spanish Regional Federation continued through 1870
and into 1871. However, the widening rift between Bakunin and Marx became
unbridgeable during the September 1871 London Conference. The key issue
there was the same one skirted in the congress in Barcelona: whether to par-
ticipate actively in the political process. The Marxists demanded political par-
ticipation, and the Bakuninists rejected it. Marx’s son-in-law, Paul Lafargue,
traveled to Spain in December 1871 to support Marx’s followers, known as the
Authoritarians. This group opposed Bakunin’s Alliance of Social Democracy,
to which Farga Pellicer and other Spanish leaders belonged. Bakunin eventu-
ally dissolved the Alliance. Spanish Bakuninists retaliated by expelling Marx’s
followers from their organization. The issue was resolved in the Hague in Sep-
tember 1872, when Bakunin was expelled from the International. The split of
the movement in Spain had mirrored that of the International and weakened
the workers’ organizations.
An alternative for workers in Spain who lacked a strong labor organization
was emigration. Spanish workers might find excitement as well as economic

opportunity abroad. When the Spanish Federation was established in 1870,
Pellicer Paraire became secretary to the typographers’ section. But in 1871,
he escaped his country’s political and organizational conflicts by emigrating:
“From the time I was twenty until I was twenty-four, I traveled through Mexico,
Cuba, and the United States, always with my typesetting equipment in hand as
my stock-in-trade,” he later wrote.11 He earned enough money to survive and
indulge his “desire to see and to learn.”12 While in New York, Pellicer Paraire
took advantage of the Catalan population residing there to help establish a
Catalan-language periodical, La Llumanera.13 After four years abroad, Pellicer
Paraire became tired of traveling and stowed away on a ship bound for Spain.
Midway through the voyage, he presented himself to the captain and asked for
compassion; he then worked off his passage in the ship’s galley.
21
Chapter 1
Pellicer Paraire’s experience as an immigrant brought out four aspects of

international migrations. First, the variety of motives: he did not escape Spain
for economic reasons, since the country experienced a period of economic
expansion from the 1870s until the late 1880s. Instead, Pellicer Paraire wanted
to see the world and experience life abroad.
The second issue is that of immigration policies. Since the Spanish govern-
ment encouraged immigration to the colony of Cuba, Pellicer Paraire could
begin there before moving on to Mexico and the United States. Third, in the
United States, he chose to live and work among Catalan immigrants, indicat-
ing the importance of networks among immigrants. Finally, Pellicer Paraire
returned to Spain, like other immigrants who did not want to remain abroad
permanently and remained active among other Spaniards. Pellicer Paraire knew
when he returned in 1875 that great changes had taken place in Spain.
Between 1868 and 1875, the Spanish government had gone from a consti-
tutional monarchy to a republic and then to a renewed Bourbon monarchy.
Amadeo of Savoy accepted the throne in October 1870 and made arrangements
to come to Spain. On the day he arrived, his greatest supporter, General Prim,
was assassinated. Prim’s death foreshadowed the lack of support for Amadeo
among many groups of Spaniards. The new king was genuinely concerned with
creating a government that would provide stability and promote liberal values,
but he faced the outbreak of a third Carlist War in the north in 1870 and was
saddled with a fractious coalition that fell apart by 1871. When Manuel Ruiz
Zorrilla became the first Progressive prime minister, his party split into two fac-
tions. A series of governments followed: Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, followed by
General Serrano in 1872, and then Ruiz Zorrilla again. In February 1873, Amadeo
abdicated the throne and left Spain. With no king and no royal family ready to
accept the throne for one of its members, Spain, by default, became a republic.
By 1873, the Internationalists had broken into factions, and the anarchists
had little interest in a republican government. They had also lost the support
of much of the working class. “The workers [in Barcelona] were indifferent to
the Internationalists’ pleas for revolutionary strikes and, after the failures of
1869, they had lost interest in the schemes of the artisan intellectuals of Cata-
lanism.”14 The first president of the Spanish Republic, Estanislao Figuras, lasted
until April 1873, when Pi y Margall assumed the presidency. Pi y Margall hoped
to preside over a nation that freely adopted a federal structure. But opposition
from centralists, Carlists, and monarchists made Pi y Margall’s vision of a na-
tion of autonomous regions unlikely. When he resigned in July 1873, republican
cantonalist uprisings erupted all over southern and eastern Spain.
22
Most supporters of these cantonalist uprisings were regionalist factions that

feared a central republic. However, joining them in an attack on the government
were Internationalists throughout the south. The division of the Spanish move-
ment into Marxist and Bakuninist factions continued. But in December 1872,
Farga Pellicer and González Morago organized a conference in Córdoba that
was attended by fifty-four delegates representing twenty thousand members.
This conference asserted the Bakuninist preference for autonomy of member
organizations. The federal council held no coercive power over the membership.
Instead, it acted as a statistical bureau, with no paid functionaries. According
to Gerald Brenan, the major resolutions at this congress included demands for
“universal education, the eight-hour day and improved sanitation in factories.
This, as we shall see, was simply the programme of Pi y Margall’s Federals.”15
Antigovernment violence broke out in Seville, Málaga, Cartagena, and Va-
lencia on July 19, 1873. General Manuel Pavía took Seville for the government
after two days of fighting; battles continued in many other cities for nearly
two weeks. The Internationalists shared some of the goals of the cantonalists
but had little influence on these events except in the town of Alcoy, south of
Valencia on Spain’s eastern coast. There, a general strike began July 7, and the
police fired on a crowd of workers, who stormed City Hall two days later. The
workers disarmed the police and killed the mayor. A Welfare Committee was
appointed to maintain order and to negotiate a surrender to the approaching
army. The entire affair lasted only a few days and preceded the outbreaks in
major cities. But it was the first time workers had organized against the govern-
ment, and much of Spain was aghast at the prospect. When the government
restored order later that summer, it cracked down on Spanish anarchists, and
the anarchist federation disappeared.
Nicolás Salmerón presided over the destruction of the cantonalists and the
defeat of the Internationalists, but his regime barely lasted two months. On
September 6, 1873, he was succeeded by Emilio Castelar, a federalist seen as less
extreme than Pi y Margall. However, Castelar was unable to salvage a federal
republic. In 1874, General Francisco Serrano replaced Castelar as president after
a military coup by General Pavía, effectively ending the federalists’ control of
the Republic. Throughout 1874, strikes were outlawed and members of the an-
archist Spanish Federation went underground as the Ateneo de la Clase Obrera
(Athenaeum of the Working Class) in Barcelona was shut down. There was no
functioning national federation of anarchists. Instead, regional groups in Barce-
lona, Madrid, and Andalusia continued but could not coordinate their efforts.
Serrano remained in power for one year, until an early 1875 coup by General
23
Chapter 1
Arsenio Martínez Campos led to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy

under Alfonso XII.
The new king was the sixteen-year-old son of Isabella II and a cadet at Sand-
hurst, a British military academy. He learned of plans for the restoration of
the Bourbon family after the coup and made his way to Spain, where he was
crowned. However, the new king did not remake the country’s political system.
The key individual in the reorganization of Spain’s government was politician
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo. According to Brenan, Cánovas was “guided by
two main principles—one to exclude the Army from political power—the
other on no account to trust to free elections.”16 Cánovas maintained political
stability through repression and political fraud, excluding the groups that had
enjoyed some participation in the federal republic, especially the federalists
and their temporary allies, the anarchists. In 1878, when anarchist Juan Oliva
Moncusí attempted to assassinate the king, the government arrested many
anarchists as well as militant union members.
This repression shattered the initial relationship between the anarchists
and the labor movement: “The Spanish Federation, however, was in hopeless
decline. . . . The Federal Commission, continually in flight from the police,
clawed itself to shreds with internal bickering. A quarrelsome, unstable body
with a waning following and obscure leaders, it had finally lost the respect of its
small rank and file.”17 In addition, this repression led some Spanish anarchists to
emigrate, many to Argentina. Members of the Spanish labor movement feared
arrest and looked for opportunities abroad. Although immigrants from Spain
came to Argentina throughout this period, they came in larger numbers dur-
ing the upheavals of 1873–74 than at any other time during the decade. In 1872,
approximately 4,000 Spaniards immigrated to Argentina. In 1873, that number
more than doubled to 9,000, and it remained at 8,000 in 1874 (see Table 1).
These immigrants chose to leave a chaotic and repressive Spain for Argentina.
Tab l e 1. Spanish Immigration to Argentina, 1871–1914

Year Total Immigration Spanish Immigration Percentage
1871 20,933 2,554 12.2
1872 37,037 4,411 11.9
1873 76,332 9,185 12.0
1874 68,277 8,272 12.1
1875 42,036 4,036 9.6
1876 30,965 3,463 11.2
1877 36,325 2,700 7.4
24
Tab l e 1. Continued
Year Total Immigration Spanish Immigration Percentage

1878 42,958 3,371 7.8
1879 55,155 3,422 6.2
1880 41,651 3,112 7.5
1881 47,484 3,444 7.3
1882 51,503 3,520 6.8
1883 63,243 5,023 7.9
1884 77,805 6,832 8.8
1885 108,722 4,314 3.4
1886 93,116 9,895 10.6
1887 120,842 15,618 12.9
1888 155,632 25,485 16.4
1889 260,909 72,151 27.7
1890 110,594 13,560 12.3
1891 52,097 4,280 8.2
1892 73,294 5,650 7.7
1893 84,420 7,100 8.4
1894 80,671 8,122 10.1
1895 80,989 11,288 13.9
1896 135,205 18,051 13.4
1897 105,143 18,316 17.4
1898 95,190 18,716 19.7
1899 111,083 19,798 17.8
1900 105,902 20,383 19.2
1901 125,951 14,778 11.7
1902 96,080 12,218 12.7
1903 112,671 21,917 19.5

1904 161,078 39,851 24.7
1905 221,622 53,029 23.9
1906 302,249 79,517 26.3
1907 257,924 82,606 32.0
1908 303,112 125,497 41.4
1909 278,078 86,798 31.2
1910 345,275 131,466 38.1
1911 281,622 118,723 42.1
1912 379,117 165,662 43.7
1913 364,271 122,271 33.6
1914 182,292 52,186 28.6
Source: República Argentina, Tercer Censo Nacional (Buenos Aires: Rosso, 1916), vol. 10, “La Inmigración,”
399.
Chapter 1
Immigration from Spain to Argentina
The movement of people from Spain to Argentina increased in the 1870s for
three reasons. First, railroads and steamships made traveling faster and easier.
Railroad construction began in both countries at midcentury, and by the 1870s,
railroads connected many parts of Spain and radiated out from Buenos Aires
into the provinces, making travel to port cities cheaper and swifter. Steamships
reduced the time needed to travel across the Atlantic by many weeks, allowing
migrants to pay less for their tickets and lose less time en route. In a history of
Spanish immigration to Argentina, José Moya identifies improvements in trans-
portation as one of the revolutionary changes that sparked mass immigration.18
Second, the combination of the new technologies of refrigeration and of
steam-powered ships allowed frozen meat to be shipped from Argentina to
Europe, transforming Argentina into one of the world’s wealthiest nations by
the end of the nineteenth century. Third, the resolution of political tensions
in both Spain and Argentina increased political stability, permitting the two
countries’ governments to regulate population movements.
The Bourbon monarchy was restored to the Spanish throne in 1875. The
new government arrested and jailed many anarchists. Others fled the country,
becoming part of migratory exodus. In Argentina, Nicolás Avellaneda, a native
of the interior city of Tucumán, became president in 1874. Bartolomé Mitre led
one last rebellion, renewing the split between the province of Buenos Aires and
the interior provinces that had kept the nation from unifying until midcentury.
The revolt failed, and Avellaneda’s government went on to conquer the Pata-
gonia by the end of the decade, strengthening the central government’s power
and control.
Steam-powered transportation dramatically changed the way people trav-

eled. Spain had only five hundred miles of railroad track in 1858, more than
three thousand miles by 1868, and double that by 1900. As railroad lines ex-
tended from city to city and region to region, they helped link port cities such
as La Coruña and Vigo in Galicia with the rest of the country.19 Transportation
costs dropped, making travel more affordable for larger numbers of people.
Travel time also decreased. The trip from northern Spain to the Río de la Plata
by sailing ship took sixty-one days in the 1860s but only twenty-two days by
steamship the following decade .
Railroad construction in Argentina likewise had a great impact on transpor-
tation costs and time. But it also helped to stimulate the export economy by
bringing commodities to the port city of Buenos Aires for shipment abroad.
The Western Railroad laid the first fifty-seven miles of track in 1857. The Central
26
Railroad completed a line from Rosario to Córdoba in the 1860s. The Southern
and Northern Railroads completed lines in the 1860s, and by 1900, Argentina
had ten thousand miles of track. In the 1870s, the government allowed the
Central Railroad in Santa Fe Province to take land along the right-of-way as an
incentive. The company brought immigrants to settle the land, thus benefiting
the railroad both via increased ridership and sales of the land. However, later
national governments guaranteed profits for railroad companies rather than
allocating land, making it more difficult for immigrants to obtain land and
emphasizing urban settlement. Buenos Aires grew because all the railroads
radiated out of the city, making it the hub of the transportation system. In ad-
dition, as more goods arrived in the port for shipment abroad, the city began
to expand and modernize its port facilities.
New technologies would have to be developed to enable Argentina’s greatest
export, meat, to be shipped to Europe for consumption by the general public.
The first attempt at shipping chilled meat in the 1870s failed: the meat spoiled
on the journey. By the 1880s, however, refrigerator ships kept meat frozen and
edible, enabling Argentina’s exports to nearly double from 106 million pesos
the previous decade to 209 million pesos.20 The old port of Buenos Aires, with
its long wharves and oxcarts unloading ships from the shallow Río de la Plata,
needed to be deepened and enlarged. The construction in the port and in the
city increased the need for immigrant workers.
Spain and Argentina began to regulate the movement of people between
their two countries in the last half of the nineteenth century. They ratified a
treaty establishing diplomatic relations in 1864.21 However, the Spanish gov-
ernment did not encourage emigration: “Most politicians and intellectuals
disapproved of immigration, and deeply regretted that Spain was thereby losing
population.”22 In January 1865, the Spanish government issued a royal order giv-
ing the state authority to regulate emigration. Conversely, in 1869, the Argentine
government created the Central Immigration Commission to foster immigra-
tion. On October 19, 1876, the Argentine government promulgated Law 817,
“Immigration and Colonization Law,” which created the General Department of
Immigration. Article 3 outlined the department’s duties: “Develop information
materials, send free reports to those interested, certify the industrial aptitudes
and conduct of immigrants, become involved in transportation contracts, and
in some cases provide free passage.”23
In 1877, Spain’s population topped sixteen million, whereas Argentina had
about one-eighth as many inhabitants and needed more. The Argentine gov-
ernment asked its consuls in European cities to encourage immigration. But
according to a survey by the Spanish government, the best advertisements for
27
Chapter 1
migration were returned immigrants, like Pellicer Paraire. The survey, under-
taken in the Basque Provinces between 1876 and 1881, asked individuals why
they had decided to emigrate. Thirty-two percent responded that they wanted
to improve their lives and get rich, 30 percent said they were responding to an
invitation from a friend or relative already in America, 18 percent cited busi-
ness reasons, and only 5 percent reported that they were leaving Spain because
of their poverty. These Basques were leaving, in the words of the investigator,
primarily in “response to those individuals who had returned triumphantly to
Spain after some years in America.”24
These immigrants helped to change Argentina in many ways. Buenos Aires’s
population doubled from about 255,000 in 1874 to more than 500,000 in 1890.
Immigrants brought with them ideas and experiences and created in Argentina
a society that combined elements from their native lands. Italian and Spanish
immigrants in particular shaped the anarchist movement in ways that would
make Argentine anarchism very dynamic. As La Protesta argued in 1932, “Work-
ers persecuted in France, Italy and Spain brought to these lands the seeds of
revolution, which for over sixty years have been germinating.”25 In 1872, after the
rupture of the First International, Bakuninist Spanish immigrants established
a section in Argentina. By 1873, Buenos Aires had three sections, one each in
French, Spanish, and Italian. The secretary-general of the Buenos Aires section
of the International wrote to the general council in France, “The French section
was established first; the Italian and Spanish sections immediately afterward.
Each section has its own central committee, and questions of general interest
are dealt with by a Federal Council made up of six members, two from each
section.”26 The Marxists were most influential in the French section, while the
Bakuninists dominated the others. These ideological divisions seem to have
sprung from the happenstance of immigration. According to anarchist histo-

rian and writer Max Nettlau, “Sometimes, anarchist ideas were the first to be
diffused in a locality, if the instigator who founded the first group came from
Buenos Aires, or Montevideo, or had turned anarchist back in Spain, Portugal,
sometimes Italy and France.”27
Zacarias Rabassa, a Catalan who had represented shoemakers in the Work-
ers’ Congress in Barcelona in 1870, was among the first Spanish anarchists in
Argentina. Feliciano Rey and Francisco Morales, both members of the Work-
ers’ Federation of the Spanish Region, also migrated to Argentina.
In Buenos Aires, many immigrants joined the Bakuninist International
Workers’ Association, established in 1873. In 1876, the association created the
Center for Workers’ Propaganda and began publishing a newspaper, La Voz
del Obrero (Voice of the Worker). Other early anarchist publications included
28
Le Revolutionaire (1875) and El Descamisado (1879). Italian anarchist Errico

Malatesta, who lived in Argentina from 1885 to 1889, helped found the bakers’
union, the first anarchist union in Argentina, in 1887. That year, Il Socialista, an
Italian-language anarchist weekly, also began publication. Through the end
of the nineteenth century, anarchists continued to publish newspapers and
manifestos, including one in 1888 that referred to events surrounding the 1886
Haymarket affair in Chicago, where anarchists were executed after a riot.28 In
1889, three anarchists were arrested for publishing a manifesto during an Ar-
gentine carpenters’ union strike. Nevertheless, Argentina had no strong fed-
eration that brought together the anarchist labor unions until the beginning
of the twentieth century.
Anarchist Movement in Spain

in the 1870s and 1880s
In 1875, Pellicer Paraire returned to Barcelona to a nearly moribund anarchist

movement. Nevertheless, he resumed his work as a typographer and as a mili-
tant anarchist, joining the clandestine Typographers’ Section in Barcelona.
Anarchism had been crushed among the working class in the cities but survived
in the villages of Andalusia in southern Spain. According to Brenan, “The char-
acter of the rural anarchism that grew up in the south of Spain differed, as one
would expect, from that developed in the large cities of the north. The ‘idea,’
as it was called, was carried from village to village by Anarchist ‘apostles.’”29
Bookchin agrees: “But there were also marked differences between the An-
archism of the industrial cities and the Anarchism of the countryside.”30 Anar-
chists in Barcelona, Madrid, and Spain’s other cities were often skilled in trades,
like Pellicer Paraire. Their focus on labor organizations came from participation
in the International, despite the split between Marxists and Bakuninists and
the International’s dissolution. However, the power of the communal village
existence in rural Andalusia had a powerful effect on Spanish anarchists. This
aspect of anarchism was expressed well by Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin.
Kropotkin, a Russian noble and geographer, served as a member of a sur-
veying party in Siberia and as government functionary before settling in Swit-
zerland in 1867. There, he joined the International and began to write about
anarchism, basing his ideas on the cooperation he had observed among animals
and villagers in Siberia. Kropotkin accepted much of Bakunin’s teachings but
emphasized a kind of individualist anarchism, anarcho-communism, that was
not focused on the labor union and collectivist ideas. The primary differences
between these two men arose in the question of wages. Bakunin had supported a
29
Chapter 1
system in which wages were based on the type and amount of work performed.
Kropotkin preferred the idea that the means of production and survival could
be evenly divided among all those in a society. These ideas about mutual aid
refuted nineteenth-century thinkers who advanced Social Darwinian ideas
about competition and appealed to villagers in southern Spain.
Anarchism in Andalusia was more individualist, while anarchism in Cata-
lonia remained largely collectivist. Throughout the 1870s, as the anarchist idea
spread among peasants in Andalusia, no sharp divide arose between these two
approaches to anarchism. But by the early 1880s, a majority of Spanish anar-
chists lived in Andalusia, where anarcho-communism was widely accepted. The
distinctions between the two approaches reflected the different organization of
labor in these Spanish regions rather than a split between a modern, industrial
worldview and a backward, communal mentality. Nevertheless, these differ-
ences persisted as irritants among the various members of the new national
labor movement.
Spain had no national anarchist movement to unite the regions until 1881,
when the Sagasta’s Liberal government assumed power in Madrid. The new
government offered workers an opportunity to emerge from underground if
they renounced their militancy. The Federación Obrera Regional Española
(Workers’ Federation of the Spanish Region), founded in Barcelona on Sep-
tember 24, 1881, reflected a mixture of ideas from republicanism to conventional
unionism to anarchism. The 162 federations voted overwhelmingly to affirm
anarchist principles but were cautious about antagonizing the government and
recognized strikes only as a last resort. Throughout the 1880s, these differences
continued to divide Spanish anarchists, not only along Bakuninist (collectivist)
and Kropotkinist (individualist) lines but also over the dueling goals of violently
overthrowing existing society and improving workers’ lives. These divisions

resurfaced many times over the next half century and followed Spanish anar-
chists to Argentina. Of all these immigrants, Antonio Pellicer Paraire perhaps
provided the most crucial link between Spanish and Argentine anarchism.
Pellicer Paraire was accustomed to conflict. From the time of his return to
Spain in 1875 at the age of twenty-four until 1891, Pellicer Paraire devoted himself
to the anarchist movement, whether underground or in legal organizations. A
photograph of him later in life shows him to be well dressed with his head held
high. His eyes are dark and his nose is long and straight. His hairline is receding
and he has a full beard, pointed at the chin. He was proud of his profession as a
typographer and proud of his association with the anarchist movement, both
as a militant and as a writer. From 1882 until 1888, he served as a member of the
30
Federal Commission of the Workers’ Federation, and he edited the Barcelona

anarchist magazine Acracia between 1886 and 1887.
The second congress of the Workers’ Federation was held in Seville in 1882,
recognizing the importance of Andalusia. A total of 218 federations met for three
days and battled over the movement’s future direction. The Andalusians were
incensed by the Catalans’ reformist tendencies, and the congress resulted in
a compromise that satisfied no one and weakened the anarchist movement in
Spain throughout the 1880s.
Politics in Spain changed in 1885 when the Liberals and Conservatives agreed
to alternate in power. In so doing, they monopolized control of Spain for an
elite that did not wish to accommodate working-class demands. The mem-
bers of the Workers’ Federation lost what support they had, and the anarchist
movement became even more deeply embroiled in the debates over tactics and
philosophy.
In addition to Acracia, Pellicer Paraire wrote for La Crónica de los Traba-
jadores, Revista Social, and El Productor. He often decried those he called fa-
natics, individualists who advocated violent acts known as “propaganda of the
deed.” Murders in Andalusia led to arrests of anarchists and the execution of
seven in 1883. According to Gonzalo Zaragosa, Pellicer Paraire’s writing focused
on clarifying and extending anarchist principles. He preferred the term acra-
cia (antiauthoritarian) to anarquia (anarchy) because he wanted to distance
himself from the more violent aspects of the movement and make the ideas
more tolerable to a wider audience.31 Individualists, in turn, denounced Pellicer
Paraire and his comrades in La Justicia Humana (1886) and Tierra y Libertad
(1888–89), both of which were published in Barcelona.
By 1890, Spain’s anarchist movement had become fractured and weak. The
national organization disintegrated. Only sixteen delegates came to the third

congress of the Workers’ Federation, held in Madrid in 1887, and by the end of
the decade, the federation officially dissolved. But while the movement ebbed
in Spain, it began to achieve importance in Argentina, in part as a consequence
of the immigration of Spanish anarchist militants.
31
Chapter 2
Anarchists and
Immigration from
Spain to Argentina
W h e n A n t o n io P e l l ic e r Pa r a i r e left Spain for Argen-

tina, he was following a pattern of movement that had developed over the last
decades of the nineteenth century. Spanish workers responded to economic
hardships and to political repression by seeking better opportunities abroad.
Often, one member of the family traveled abroad to search for work, while the
rest of the family remained in Spain. Spanish anarchist immigrants to Argentina
brought with them the ideas and arguments that had divided their community
in Spain and continued to influence individuals in both hemispheres. Though
the dynamics of internecine conflict came to Argentina with the immigrants,

the circumstances differed, and anarchism received nourishment from both
Europe and America. The connections to migration provided Pellicer Paraire
and others the opportunity to develop ideas on both continents. This chapter
examines the events in Spain that divided anarchists and the repression that
caused many anarchists to flee to Argentina, where they contributed to the
development of that country’s anarchist movement.
Divisions among anarchist workers increased in Argentina during the 1890s
when collectivist anarchists, many from Spain’s more urban north, and individu-
alist anarchists, who tended to come from the rural south, fled from increasing
repression. In the late 1880s, Rafael Roca, one of the individualist writers for
Tierra y Libertad, immigrated to Argentina, where the conflict among Spanish
anarchists resurfaced. The debate continued in Buenos Aires, and this dissen-
Anarchists and Immigration from Spain
sion complicated anarchists’ efforts to oppose organizing by rival Argentine

socialist unions, which began to form new labor federations. By the end of
the nineteenth century, however, Argentina’s anarchist movement began to
resolve some of its differences. The mixing of Italian and Spanish ideologies
through the organizing efforts by Errico Malatesta, the eloquent speeches of
Pietro Gori, and the writings of Antonio Pellicer Paraire created a unique Ar-
gentine anarchism. The cooperation among Italian and Spanish anarchists also
led to the 1897 creation of a new periodical, La Protesta Humana, and to the
1901 establishment of the Federación Obrera Argentina (Argentine Workers’
Federation). By the early twentieth century, anarchist unions were among the
most influential in the country’s labor movement. These unions pressured the
state through numerous strikes as the influential La Protesta Humana spread
the ideas of anarchism. The state reacted to this activity by passing the 1902
Residency Law, which allowed the government to deport immigrants who
threatened social peace. Officials enthusiastically took advantage of this new
tool for controlling foreigners. Many anarchist deportees returned to Spain
with new ideas and experiences that helped shape the anarchist movement in
their native land.
“Propaganda of the Deed” in Spain and Repression
Antonio Cánovas del Castillo still dominated the Spanish government in the
1890s. He oversaw an agreement between Liberals and Conservatives to al-
ternate in power during the regency of Alfonso XIII between 1885 and 1902.
This electoral fraud produced political stability and economic growth but did
so at the expense of popular participation and support. As small-scale indus-
try increased in Barcelona and the mining industry in Asturias grew, Spain’s
working class continued to seek improvements, even after the dissolution of
the Workers’ Federation in 1888.
This era saw the emergence of two important regional organizations, the
Organización Anarquista de la Región Española (Anarchist Organization of the
Spanish Region) and the Pacto de Unión y Solidaridad de la Región Española
(Pact of Union and Solidarity of the Spanish Region). Founded in Valencia in
September 1888, the Anarchist Organization was a loose collection of anarchist
groups, many of which had objected to the Workers’ Federation’s alliance with
unions. These groups acted on their own, often focusing on debating theories,
and the Anarchist Organization lacked a unified mission. Members favored
the individualist teachings of Peter Kropotkin, emphasizing education over
organization. Members met in cafés and held tertulias (intellectual discussions),
33
Chapter 2
gaining the sympathy of many Barcelona intellectuals. “The desire to shake by

some violent action the complacency of this huge, inert and stagnant mass of
middle-class opinion became irresistible. Artists and writers shared this feel-
ing,” wrote Gerald Brenan.1 By 1890, the term Propaganda of the Deed emerged
among these anarchists to refer to terrorist acts designed to attack the old order
and mobilize the general population to revolution. At first, Kropotkinists un-
derstood Propaganda of the Deed to mean local rebellions and propaganda to
enlighten workers and others; after 1890, however, Spanish anarchists used the
term to mean individual acts of terror. Thus began an era of increasing violence
that created new divisions.
The rival Pact of Union and Solidarity of the Spanish Region grew more
directly out of the dissolved collectivist Workers’ Federation and the union
movement. The Pact of Union and Solidarity called its first congress in March
1891 in Madrid. According to Murray Bookchin, it was “primarily a Catalan
movement, influenced by Anarchist Collectivists and by militant syndicalists.”2
Brenan states that the differences between anarcho-communists (sometimes
called individualists) and collectivists centered on whether to include only
anarchists or to work with other groups.3 While this remained the key issue in
Spain for much of the next four decades, the real question involved tactics: an
era of bombings and assassinations had begun. Would dramatic acts of violence
garner more success than did union organizing?
On May 1, 1890, large demonstrations broke out in Andalusia. The authori-
ties resurrected a discredited accusation of a conspiracy by a group known as
La Mano Negra (the Black Hand). In 1891, 157 anarchists were arrested and
accused of membership in the Black Hand. In response, 500 marched into the
city of Jerez in January 1892 and tried to free the jailed anarchists. The Civil
Guard captured several anarchists implicated in the conflict and garroted them
in the city’s main square. Anarchists sought revenge against this government
repression. Paulino Pallas was born in 1862 in Cambrils, south of Barcelona.
He became an anarchist and traveled in France and Italy before heading to Ar-
gentina, where he met Errico Malatesta. Pallas lived for some time in Rosario,
Argentina, but traveled to Brazil and set off a bomb on May 1, 1891. Pursued
by the authorities, Pallas returned to Barcelona, and in September 1893, he at-
tempted to assassinate the captain general of Catalonia, General Arsenio Mar-
tínez Campos. The attack killed two individuals and wounded twelve soldiers.
Pallas was quickly subdued and was executed eight days later behind the walls
of the Montjuich Fortress overlooking the city.
The violence escalated throughout the 1890s. In 1893, anarchists threw two
bombs in the Barcelona opera house, killing twenty-two people and wound-
34
ing dozens, a crime for which Santiago Salvador, an anarchist artisan, was
caught, tried, and executed. In 1896, anarchists threw a bomb into the city’s
Corpus Christi procession, killing eleven. The police created a new unit, the
Social Brigade, to hunt down suspected terrorists. Hundreds were arrested and
thrown into jail cells in Montjuich. J. Romero Maura, a historian of Spanish
anarchism, suggests that indiscriminate arrests and torture occurred.4 Known
as the Montjuich Affair, these trials and executions led to the August 1897 as-
sassination of Spain’s prime minister, Cánovas del Castillo, by Italian anarchist
Michele Angiolillo, who sympathized with his Spanish colleagues. This era
of Propaganda of the Deed brought continuous government repression that
in the words of George Esenwein, “precipitated the exodus of the anarchists
themselves. Although small at first, this migration began to swell—perhaps
climbing into the hundreds—as repression intensified. Some of those fleeing
were the ablest of anarchist leaders—Pedro Esteve, for instance—who even-
tually found refuge in countries like Argentina, Mexico and the United States,
settings that seemed to afford them better opportunities for continuing their
revolutionary activities.”5
Spanish Immigration to Argentina
Anarchist militants including Anselmo Lorenzo, Teresa Claramunt, Federico

Urales, and Soledad Gustavo now joined the exodus of economic migrants
from Spain. Some went to Paris, while others—among them Pellicer Paraire,
José Prat, Gregorio Inglán y Lafarga, Indalecio Cuadrado, and Francisco Ros—
immigrated to Argentina in the 1890s.6 While many of these emigrants were
Catalan and all feared the government’s wrath, they represented a variety of
opinions regarding Propaganda of the Deed and anarchist tactics. Both the
individualists, and the collectivists brought their viewpoints across the Atlan-
tic, resulting in the same divisions in the Argentine movement. Whether these
immigrants remained in Argentina or returned to Spain depended mostly on
the shifting opportunities present in each country and on their personal goals.
In 1891, Pellicer Paraire left Spain and sailed to Argentina. An article in Barce-
lona’s Tierra y Libertad stated that he “had to emigrate to escape the clutches of
Marzo, Portas, and the other tigers of Montjuich.”7 Family connections enabled
Pellicer Paraire to find employment in Argentina despite the country’s eco-
nomic difficulties. A European financial disaster had brought on a depression
in Argentina, slowing immigration from all countries from 260,909 in 1889 to
110,594 in 1890 and only 52,097 in 1891. Spanish immigration also dwindled from
about 72,000 to about 4,200 in those years (see table 1, pp. 24–25). Nevertheless,
35
Chapter 2
F i g u r e 1 . Antonio Pellicer Paraire, 1906. Source: International

Institute for Social History, Amsterdam
Pellicer Paraire’s ability to find work as an editor for a Buenos Aires technical
journal demonstrates the importance of earlier immigrants to the success of
later arrivals. Pellicer Paraire became one of the intellectual progenitors of the
Argentine anarchist organization and remained in the country for the rest of
his life. He brought with him his experience with Anselmo Lorenzo and the
Spanish anarchist movement, and he continued to publish in Spain’s anarchist
press while living in Argentina. In 1894, his En defensa de nuestros ideales (In De-
fense of Our Ideals) was published in Gijón, Spain. In this book, Pellicer Paraire
wrote in support of anarchism, human rationality, and the need for workers’
36
rights. His focus on workers put him in the Bakuninist camp of collectivist
anarchists, in Spain and in Argentina, and he defended his position in both
countries. He published articles in several anarchist publications, including La
Question Sociale and Ciencia Sociale in Buenos Aires and Titella in Barcelona.
Pellicer Paraire recognized the need for individual rights but emphasized the
need for organization. In Spain, he had been active in the Workers’ Federation
of the Spanish Region. According to Abad de Santillán, in an 1881 document,
the federation described itself as “purely economic and, as such, . . . totally dif-
ferent from, and opposed to, working-class political parties. These parties are
created in order to capture the power of the state. We, on the other hand, have
organized to reduce the functions of the state, politically and legally, to purely
economic duties and to create in their place a free Federation of free associa-
tions of free producers.”8 After moving abroad, Pellicer Paraire continued his
correspondence with anarchist friends in Barcelona, giving his opinions on
people and events. La Protesta Humana published a series of Pellicer Paraire’s
articles under the pseudonym “Pellico,” and those writings, along with his 1900
book, Conferencias populares de sociología (Popular Conferences on Sociology),
helped form the intellectual foundation of the anarchist organization in Argen-
tina, even though he retired from active participation in Argentina’s anarchist
movement after the repression and deportations of 1905.9
Gregorio Inglán y Lafarga was another Spanish anarchist immigrant who
made significant contributions to the movement in Argentina. He fled Spain
in the late nineteenth century, when government repression was violent, and
came to Argentina, a nation that needed immigrants and valued their skills. A
cabinetmaker by trade, the Catalan Inglán y Lafarga helped to found the anar-
chist daily newspaper La Protesta Humana in 1897. He also served as secretary
during many of the sessions that led to the 1901 creation of Argentina’s first
anarchist federation, the Federación Obrera Argentina (FOA). However, for
reasons that remain unclear, Inglán y Lafarga retired from active participation
in the movement the following year.
José Prat worked with Pellicer Paraire and Anselmo Lorenzo in Spain, and
Prat and Ricardo Mella coauthored an 1897 attack on the Spanish government,
La barbarie gobernamental en España (Governmental Barbarism in Spain). After
Cánovas del Castillo’s assassination later that year, Prat fled to Argentina and
became editor for La Protesta Humana. Prat returned to Barcelona in 1898 and
continued his anarchist activities, serving as an administrator in Francisco Fer-
rer’s Model School and publishing articles in the anarchist press until ill health
forced him to retire in the 1920s.10
37
Chapter 2
While these men migrated for ideological reasons, economic factors led
many other Spaniards to leave their native land. While Spain as a whole had
begun to prosper in the 1880s and 1890s as a consequence of increasing indus-
trialization in Barcelona and elsewhere in the north, the southern regions, es-
pecially those dependent on agriculture, stagnated. Relative poverty and desire
for economic improvement stimulated migrations of individuals within Spain
and emigration abroad.
The owners of latifundia (large estates) in Andalusia employed rural laborers
for only a few months each year, leaving them unemployed and impoverished for
the rest of the year. According to Brenan, in a typical small town in Andalusia,
the first impression is one of decay and stagnation. A few wretched shops
selling only the bare necessities of life: one or two petty industries—soap-
making, weaving of esparto mats, potteries, oil-distilleries that between them
employ some couple of hundred men: the ancestral houses of the absentee
landowners, dilapidated and falling into ruin: then a few bourgeois fami-
lies—the overseers of the large estates or the farmers who rent from them—
and who only remain here because their interests compel them to: from eight
to twelve hundred families, mostly poor, who own or rent a small property
or have some settled employment. And then the landless proletariat. Three-
quarters of the population consists in these men and their families, who are
hired by the day, by the month, by the season—rarely longer than that—by
the overseers of the large estates or by the tenant farmers who rent from
them. For more than half the year they are unemployed.11
Some of these workers began to migrate north to Barcelona or other indus-
trial regions. From there, as José Moya has pointed out, many would take the
next step and emigrate.12 The Argentine consul wrote from Barcelona that the
terrible state of Spanish agriculture pushed many immigrants to Argentina.13
The same economic and population pressures that stimulated the growth of the
anarchist movement in both Andalusia and in Catalonia also led to emigration.
Two issues regarding population movement stand out here: why these Spanish
workers left their native land, and why they chose particular destinations.
Emigrants left for social as well as economic reasons, and chose Argentina
when conditions there were better than in Spain. In 1895, the second war of
independence broke out in Cuba, and Spain had to send troops there as well as
continue to defend its interests in North Africa, where fighting against Moroc-
can tribal armies persisted. Fearing the loss of potential conscripts, the Spanish
government passed an 1896 royal order requiring young men of age for military
service to pay a deposit of two thousand pesetas before emigrating. Men appar-
38
ently continued to emigrate, because the Ministry of the Interior promulgated

another royal order the following year that halted emigration by men who had
not completed their military service.14 Pressure to stop the emigration of young
males continued through the Spanish-American War in 1898, and not until 1901
was the bond of two thousand pesetas reduced to fifteen hundred.
The Argentine consul in Spain reported that emigration figures were no-
toriously inaccurate.15 No visa or permission was needed to enter Argentina,
and the government kept records based on ships’ registers and passenger lists.
Spanish emigrants had to provide documentation before boarding ships to
travel abroad. However, since passenger ship lines regarded immigrants as a
commodity and sought to transport as many as possible, captains often failed
to record all passengers’ names on manifests.
On February 21, 1900, Governor Eduard Saenz Escerton signed a new law in
Barcelona requiring Spaniards who wished to emigrate to meet strict require-
ments. Each male up to age fifteen needed a baptismal certificate, notarized
permission from his parents, and a certificate indicating that he was not wanted
by the authorities. Males between ages fifteen and nineteen needed these docu-
ments as well as identification and had to pay a tax of fifteen hundred pesetas
in lieu of completing their military service. Males aged between nineteen and
twenty-five did not need baptismal certificates or parental permission but had
to demonstrate that they had completed their military service or paid the tax.
Finally, males over twenty-five had to have identification and certificates prov-
ing that they were not wanted by the authorities.16
A married woman of any age needed identification, permission from her
husband, a marriage certificate if she was traveling with her husband, and a
certificate indicating that she was not wanted by the authorities. Unmarried
women up to age twenty-five needed identification, parental permission, and

certificates from the authorities. Finally, women over twenty-five needed the
identification and certificates but not parental permission.
Emigration varied by region as well as by year. Consular reports from Spain
indicated that the largest number of immigrants to Argentina left from Catalonia
and Galicia in the north. Of the almost four thousand immigrants from nine
major Spanish port cities in the early 1890s, approximately thirteen hundred
left from Catalonia, and more than twelve hundred others left from Galicia’s
two port cities, La Coruña and Vigo.17 However, the people who embarked
from those cities could have come from any part of Spain.
The economic impact of emigration also reverberated throughout Spain. In
the last decades of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth
century, 1.5 million Spaniards emigrated. Spanish immigrants to the Americas
39
Chapter 2
sent back cash that was an important part of Spain’s economy. Spanish im-
migrants abroad remitted 143,840,000 pesetas through the Banco Asturianas
between 1881 and 1911, nearly half of it (more than 800,000 pesetas per year)
from the Banco Español de la Río de la Plata in Buenos Aires.18 José Ramón
García López concludes, “The phenomenon of remittances, perhaps the most
representative effect of emigration to America, became the element that from
an economic point of view united the two extremes of the migratory thread. It
originated in the destination country as a consequence of the activities of the
emigrant and of the conditions of production and was directed to the country
of origin, where it thus produced its beneficial effects.”19
Argentina was the destination for most Spanish emigrants at the turn of the
twentieth century.20 (See table 2.) More traveled to Buenos Aires when the Ar-
gentine economy was strong, while fewer went in times of economic distress,
with totals ranging from a low of about one hundred thousand in the early 1880s
to a high in excess of half a million between 1906 and 1910. The nineteenth-
century peak in Spanish immigration to Argentina occurred between 1886 and
1891, a time of turmoil in the Spanish labor movement and the beginning of
the era of violence. However, Argentina suffered economically after 1890, so
some Spanish émigrés chose other destinations. The Argentine consul wrote
in 1892 that the Spanish government encouraged its citizens who wished to
emigrate to go to Spanish territories abroad, such as Cuba.21 Fifty-two percent
of all Spanish emigrants went to Argentina between 1886 and 1891, while only
13 percent did so between 1892 and 1896. These figures seem to show that Span-
iards constantly evaluated their opportunities and changed their destinations
depending on circumstances.
Tab l e 2. Spanish Immigration to Argentina and to Latin America, 1882–1910

Spanish Immigration Spanish Immigration
Years to Argentina (% of Total) to Latin America
1882–85 19,688 (18.4) 106,813
1886–90 136,709 (52.1) 262,420
1891–95 36,440 (12.9) 282,751
1896–1900 95,264 (34.4) 276,839
1901–5 141,793 (59.9) 236,910
1906–10 505,884 (86.2) 586,934
TOTAL 935,778 (53.4) 1,752,667
Sources: República Argentina, Tercer Censo Nacional (Buenos Aires: Rosso, 1916), vol. 10, “La Inmigración,”
399; Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz, “La emigración española a la América en medio milenio: pautas sociales,”
Historia Social 42 (2002): 41–58.
40
Fig u re 2. Immigrants in Argentina, 1905. Source: Departamento de Documentos

Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires
Many Spaniards chose Argentina during the 1890s because their compa-
triots had already established themselves in Buenos Aires. The percentage of
immigrants who hailed from Spain grew from about 8 percent in 1891 to nearly
20 percent at the end of the decade. By contrast, Britons, whom the Argentine
government had encouraged to immigrate, complained to their Foreign Office
of economic hardship in Argentina, and Irish church officials began to discour-
age immigration after receiving reports about the lack of jobs.22 For Pellicer
Paraire and other Spaniards who had friends or relatives in Argentina, a job
offer was the critical factor encouraging immigration. For Spanish anarchists,
the presence of fellow anarchists and a period of growth in Argentina’s labor
movement played crucial roles. When Prat had to flee Spanish authorities, he
went to Argentina and was welcomed there.
41
Chapter 2
Anarchism in Argentina
Spanish anarchist immigrants created labor organizations to defend the working

class, which had no influence in the political system of the 1890s. In addition,
by continuing the contentious debate between individualist and collectivist
anarchists that had begun in Spain, they helped to create a uniquely Argentine
brand of anarchism that combined elements of both Spanish and Italian anar-
chism. This blend gave Argentine anarchists a sense of energy and even supe-
riority as their movement claimed a leadership role in early twentieth-century
anarchism worldwide.23 Moreover, these immigrants’ ties to the movement in
Spain remained important throughout the ensuing decades.
Many immigrants from a variety of countries looked for work in Buenos
Aires as construction laborers, port workers, or day laborers. Italian immigrants
comprised 49 percent of Argentina’s new arrivals during the period of mass im-
migration, outnumbering Spaniards by 17 percent.24 These numbers included
anarchist leaders from both European countries.
Errico Malatesta, for example, left Italy and lived in Argentina from 1885 until
1889, helping to create anarchist unions. Malatesta is sometimes regarded as the
founder of the Argentine movement because of his role in the formation of the
bakers’ union, which became one of the mainstays of the country’s anarchism.25
In 1885, he founded La Questione Sociale, which continued publication for about
a year. In 1888, as Malatesta argued for the formation of a workers’ federation,
anarchists in Argentina split into the same factions as in Spain, with Malatesta
and the collectivists opposing the anarcho-communist individualists.
Other important Italian anarchists included Ettore Mattei, who helped to
create the bakers’ union, and Fortunato Serantoni, who later revived La Ques-
tione Sociale and collaborated on it with Pellicer Paraire. Pietro Gori was already
well known as a writer when he came to Argentina in June 1898 at age twenty-
nine. Before leaving four years later, Gori helped to energize the movement
with his speeches.
The period from 1888 until 1902 was critical for the anarchist movement and
in the development of Argentina. During these years, the country’s government
was dominated by the Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN). Since Bartolomé
Mitre’s defeat and Buenos Aires’s integration into the federal republic in the
1860s, elections held every six years had brought members of Argentina’s elite
to the presidency. Ever mistrustful of the interior provinces and jealous of Bue-
nos Aires’s power, Mitre led an 1874 rebellion, charging that the elections were
unfair. In truth, almost all of these elections were unfair in the sense that few
Argentines were eligible to vote, opposition was not tolerated, and the PAN
42
candidate always won. Increasingly, however, this elite-dominated government

was challenged by the rising middle class. Despite crises in the 1870s and early
1890s, economic growth brought new opportunities for professionals and mer-
chants, many of whom were the sons of immigrants. Few of these members of
Argentine society were welcomed into the Jockey Club or other institutions
reserved for landowners and their retainers. Middle-class reformers represent-
ing this group, supported by the aging Mitre, helped to create the Civic Union
in 1889. A year later, a radical wing of the group led by Leandro Alem rebelled
against the government of Juárez Celman. After three days of fighting, President
Celman resigned. Alem split the Civic Union in 1891 and formed the Radical
Party (Unión Cívica Radical), which continued to push for greater transpar-
ency in government and a share of power. These political machinations, how-
ever, did little to address the needs of the immigrants who swelled the city of
Buenos Aires. Many turned to labor organizations. The anarchist movement
increased in importance over the 1890s as it moved from a series of groups and
publications often divided by the same ideological and tactical differences that
had divided anarchists in Spain to perhaps the country’s largest organized labor
movement. In a report to the 1889 socialist conference in Paris, the German
socialist newspaper Vorwärts reported on the weakness of labor organizations in
general in Argentina: “There are trade unions and associations here and there;
their numbers are insignificant and [the organizations] barely survive. There is
one group of internationalists comprised principally of Italians, Spanish, and
French that meets weekly. They profess anarchist tendencies and the money
they collect is sent to Europe to help with propaganda.”26
In 1888 and 1889, many individualist anarcho-communists arrived in Argen-
tina, bringing their debate with collectivists across the Atlantic Ocean. This
group included Rafael Roca, an Andalusian writer for Tierra y Libertad.27 His
ongoing dispute with Pellicer Paraire, who had been a writer for Barcelona’s El
Productor (The Producer), a collectivist publication critical of Tierra y Liber-
tad and the individualists, shifted to Argentina. Other individualist anarchists
who came at this time include Victoriano San José and Bernardo Sánchez.
Gonzalo Zaragoza suggests that between 1889 and 1895, individualist anarchists
dominated the movement in Argentina under the leadership of the periodical
El Perseguido (The Pursued). In his words, “The libertarian movement in Ar-
gentina was built on the foundation of Spanish anarchism, which emphasized
spontaneity, even to the point of denying reality.”28
Continuing persecutions in Spain at the end of the nineteenth century also
led many Catalan adherents of Bakunin to flee to Argentina. Among the anar-
chists who left Spain, Inglán y Lafarga, Indalecio Cuadrado, Francisco Ros, and
43
Chapter 2
Prat sided with Pellicer Paraire in the polemic.29 Francisco Fo and Indalecio
Cuadrado arrived on the same boat in 1889. The twenty-five-year-old Cuadrado
was a typographer from Valladolid who had edited El Productor and served as
secretary of the Federación Española in 1887. Cuadrado remained in Argen-
tina and published in the anarchist press but eventually drifted away from the
anarchist movement.
Pellicer Paraire opposed the individualists because he felt that organization
was necessary. Writing in La Protesta, he clearly explained the need for worker
solidarity and union federation.
There is nothing, from the infinitesimally small to the immensely large, that
does not suggest the need for association, organization, or force.
Applying this principle to social questions, we have a ruling elite, domi-
nant, oppressors, exploiters (the minority) who exploit, oppress, dominate,
and rule or govern the productive class (the great majority); the former
depend on their great organization of interests and power to maintain their
domination: the latter have neither organization nor power. Even though
they are the majority, they are dominated by the minority.
From this it follows that to combat and defeat the oppressing class, we
need to organize and to create a force that is greater than that of the govern-
ing classes.
This force resides in each of us, the oppressed. But this power is meaning-
less without association, without organization.
Therefore, if we have the goal, we must organize to realize our objective.30
Pellicer Paraire advocated a national federation of anarchist workers along
the lines of the Spanish organization of which he had been a part. Pellicer Paraire
spoke of one organization with two parallel tracks: “one branch of the workers’
organization that can be called revolutionary, comprised of those militants who
labor directly for the triumph of the ideal; the other branch could be called eco-
nomic. This is to be made up of the masses of workers who struggle to improve
their condition, responding to the abuses of their employers.”31 Each of these
parallel tracks had a specific function, yet according to Pellicer Paraire, both
were heading toward the same ultimate goal: “Each individual must maintain
his liberty and rights, equal to the rights and the liberty of his comrades. He
should not allow his [individual] liberty to be crushed underfoot by any acts,
even in the heart of our organization, where we act for the good of all.”32
These ideas evolved from Pellicer Paraire’s articles in Acracia in Barcelona
in the 1880s and demonstrated the continuity of circumstances for workers in
Barcelona and Buenos Aires. Similarities between Spanish and Argentine cir-
44
cumstances in part follow the developing capitalist economy in both industrial-

izing countries but also result from the immigration of Spaniards to Argentina.
Among these early immigrants were Feliciano Rey and Francisco Morales, who
had taken part in the Workers’ Federation of the Spanish Region; Zacarias Ra-
bassa, a Catalan who had represented shoemakers in the Congreso Obrero de
Barcelona in 1870; and Gabriel Abad, a collaborator in La Unión Obrera in his
native El Ferrol in Galicia.33 These immigrants established several periodicals
to publicize their views and influence the Argentine labor movement. During
the 1889 carpenters’ union strike, Victoriano San José, Ettore Mattei, and Emilio
Piette published a manifesto denouncing the Argentine state. All three were
arrested and jailed for more than ten months.
Argentine socialists also vied for control of the working class, seeking to
influence the political process to benefit labor. The socialist-dominated Inter-
national Workers’ Committee organized Argentina’s first labor federation, the
Workers’ Federation of the Argentine Region, in 1890. Argentine anarchists
participated in the federation but withdrew the following year to protest the
federation’s political orientation. These anarchist workers created a series of
periodicals to publicize their goal of a nonpolitical labor movement. One of
the first was El Perseguido, which was published from 1890 to 1897 by Spanish
individualist anarchists. El Oprimido (The Oppressed) was published by an
Irish immigrant, Juan ( John) Creaghe from 1894 until 1897, when he folded
the publication to work with the newly established La Protesta Humana. Other
early publications included El Obrero Panadero (The Bakery Worker), estab-
lished in 1894; La Unión Gremial (The Workers’ Union), begun in 1895; and La
Federación Obrera (The Workers’ Federation), which first appeared in 1896.
The mid-1890s saw a transition from the dominance of individualist anar-
chists who believed in Propaganda of the Deed to an increasing emphasis on

organization that led to the creation of an anarchist labor federation after 1897.34
Jorge Solomonoff identifies three areas of disagreement among anarchists in
Argentina in the 1890s.35 First, like Zaragoza, Solomonoff sees divisions between
collectivists and individualists, with the individualists dominating. Second,
Solomonoff sees a split between the “organizers” (who favored the creation
of anarchist organizations to help create a libertarian society) and the “anti-
organizers” (who countered that any such organization would be tainted by
the environment in which it was created and that truly libertarian organizations
could emerge only after the revolution). Finally, Solomonoff posits a division
between those who sought to keep anarchist ideology pure and untainted by
political or reformist considerations and those who wished to participate more
fully in ongoing union organizing and activities.
45
Chapter 2
The first two of these divisions appear to have reflected the basic differ-
ences between the Bakuninist and Kropotkinist interpretations of anarchism.
In Spain, Bakuninists were divided about the nature of their participation in the
labor movement and favored ideologically based cells over complete identifica-
tion with the labor organization. However, the Italian influence seems to have
been significant in Solomonoff ’s third division. Malatesta’s role in founding the
bakers’ union in 1887 helped to bring Argentine anarchism more fully into the
labor movement throughout the 1890s, while Gori’s speeches played a vital role
in fusing these various anarchist groups into the Federación Obrera Argentina
(FOA), and he served as a delegate to the FOA’s constitutional congress.36
Argentine anarchism developed a unique hybrid association from a dispa-
rate mix of immigrants, unlike Spanish anarchism, which remained divided
over individualist versus collectivist approaches, and the Italian version, which
emphasized union organization over ideological foundations. Perhaps the most
important periodical leading Argentine anarchism’s transition from diverse
groups to a powerful movement was La Protesta Humana, which published
twice a month from June to October 1897 as the successor to La Revolución
Social (1896–97). Published weekly from October 1897 until 1904, when it be-
came a daily, La Protesta Humana brought together some of the country’s most
influential anarchist writers, and circulation quickly doubled from two thousand
at its inception to four thousand.37 Articles stressed the need for a nonpolitical
revolutionary movement and the importance of a revolutionary organization,
reflecting Bakuninist principles. Inglán y Lafarga served as the paper’s first edi-
tor, and Prat, Juan Creaghe, E. G. Gilimón, and Julio Camba contributed articles.
Prominent Spanish anarchists Mella and Lorenzo also regularly contributed
articles. La Protesta Humana helped to transform the Argentine anarchist move-
ment into one of Latin America’s most powerful labor movements and for a
time into the most successful anarchist movement in the world.
On October 1, 1897, the editors of La Protesta Humana declared that they
represented groups that rejected political solutions in favor of direct action,
“recognizing that the goal of this struggle against Capital is the general strike.”38
Abad de Santillán reported that Argentina had forty thousand unemployed
workers by 1899.39 Strikes increased in 1899 and 1900, many of them success-
ful. Workers in the hat-making industry struck to protest reduced wages. In
September and October 1899, stonecutters in Buenos Aires and construction
workers in Mar del Plata struck for shorter hours. In January 1900, five thou-
sand Buenos Aires stevedores walked out and demanded an eight-hour day
and better wages. After two weeks, the strike paralyzed the port and spread to
Bahia Blanca.40
46
Inglán y Lafarga supported the idea of bringing together all these unions
in a common federation, a “formal organization of workers . . . from which
should come a significant and vigorous federation, called to accomplish great
actions in support of the improvement and the emancipation of the exploited
working class.”41 This call for Argentine unity reflected Spanish anarchists’ in-
creasing belief that their movement had been weakened by violence that had
separated them from the masses of workers.42 Still in contact with the Spanish
movement, immigrant anarchists overcame their particular differences to find
common ground on which to build a strong movement, just as anarchists in
Spain moved beyond the violence of the 1890s and internal divisions to meet
in Madrid in 1900 to establish the Federación de Sociedades Obreras de la
Región Española (Federation of Workers’ Societies of the Spanish Region).
Argentine anarchists attended an international conference in Paris in 1900
where the program included discussions on the concepts of the general strike,
sabotage and boycott, and the benefits of working within unions.43 By 1901,
anarchists were ready to establish a new labor federation and called for a con-
ference to begin on May 25, Argentina’s Independence Day. Fifty delegates
representing more than thirty anarchist and socialist labor organizations from
the capital and the interior met on May 25–26, with leaders of both movements
helping to organize and run the congress. Socialist Dardo Cúneo shared the
presidency with anarchist Francisco Ros, while socialist Adrián Patroni and
anarchist Ettore Mattei were elected to the administrative committee. Inglán
y Lafarga served as the secretary. Gori and Adrián Troitiño were among the
delegates chosen to study the issues presented. The congress voted to observe
May 1 as a holiday by refusing to work and using the day to advocate workers’
rights. The congress also voted to use general strikes, boycotts, and free schools
to further workers’ goals and demanded a reduction in rents. The delegates

named their new national group the Federación Obrera Argentina.44
Labor agitation intensified after the FOA’s creation. Later in 1901, the bak-
ers’ union went out on strike in Buenos Aires for higher pay and employed
tactics sanctioned by the FOA. Painters in Mar del Plata and port workers in
Buenos Aires also staged strikes for shorter working hours and higher pay. In
October 1901, police fired into a crowd of striking workers at the refinery in
Rosario, killing one. Argentina’s first general strike followed, as did a campaign
of meetings, marches, and attacks in the worker press.
The militancy of workers coincided with sharp increases in immigration to
Argentina as the economic downturn of the early 1890s eased (see table 1, pp.
24–25). Indeed, Roberto Korzeniewitz believes that the relative supply of la-
bor had a greater influence on militancy and strike activity than did ideology.45
47
Chapter 2
Workers’ cost of living was high, partly as a result of competition for housing.
Monthly income varied, increasing on average from forty-one to sixty-six pesos
per month for unskilled workers between 1896 and 1897 before finally dropping
to fifty-six pesos per month in 1904. Skilled laborers’ wages declined from ninety-
eight to ninety-four pesos per month between 1896 and 1897, but increased to
108 pesos per month in 1904.46 Working conditions were also difficult. In 1900,
Franchini and Dellacha, a millinery, lowered wages from one peso per hundred
hats to forty centavos per hundred. Female workers were required to make cash
deposits to cover fines, medical expenses, or quitting without sufficient notice.47
Mella’s articles in the March 1902 issue of La Protesta Humana about the
general strike in Barcelona and continued labor unrest also helped to radical-
ize Argentina’s working class.48 When the FOA called its second congress for
June 1902, anarchists and socialists vied for control of the organization. The first
day of the congress was marred by conflict over the vote to accept delegates
who were not members of the unions they represented. According to Abad de
Santillán, “Some delegates shouted to continue with the agenda, whereat the
minority erupted in anger. A deafening uproar ensued. All those delegates who
supported the seating of [socialist Alfredo J.] Torcelli rose from their seats,
shouting out their anger. They walked out of the congress amid yells, applause,
whistles, and all manner of reaction to the upheaval.”49
The FOA remained in the hands of the anarchists, whose supporters ac-
counted for more of the associated unions. The dissident members of the con-
gress met on June 22, 1902, and called for the creation of a socialist labor federa-
tion. On January 7, 1903, they established the Unión General de Trabajadores
(General Union of Workers), which worked closely with the Socialist Party for
legislative reforms and worker rights. The FOA continued to call for a militant
antipolitical labor movement that applied methods of direct action. Immigrant

workers from many countries joined both labor federations. Socialists eventu-
ally got some delegates elected to Argentina’s congress, but that congress and
the government in general remained suspicious of a labor movement with so
many foreign-born members and leaders. By the end of 1902, the Argentine
congress passed the first of several laws to deport immigrant agitators.
The pace of strikes and labor agitation quickened after the FOA’s June con-
ference. The bakers’ union in Buenos Aires struck in July and August. After
some strikebreakers were killed at La Princesa Bakery, the government arrested
union head Francisco Berri, an action that drew protests throughout the city.
The sense of crisis grew when stevedores in the port of Buenos Aires struck to
demand a reduction in the weight they were required to load from more than
one hundred kilos to below seventy kilos. Stevedores throughout Argentina
48
Fig u re 3. Immigrants’ Hotel, Buenos Aires, early twentieth century.

Source: Departamento de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General
de la Nación, Buenos Aires
joined the strike, threatening the country’s export economy. Finally, in No-
vember 1902, workers at Buenos Aires’s Central Fruit Market struck, crippling
the distribution of fruit and vegetables throughout the metropolitan area. The
government responded to the accumulating sense of urgency with a residency
law rushed through congress on November 22.
Senator Miguel Cané submitted the bill at 6:00 in the evening. After a brief
debate, the Senate passed the measure two hours later. The Chamber of Depu-
ties convened at 9:30 and approved the bill by 11:30. President Julio Roca signed
it into law before midnight.
Article 1 of the Ley de Residencia (Residency Law) stated that the execu-
tive branch had the authority to deport any foreigner who committed a com-
mon crime. Article 2 permitted the expulsion of foreigners whose conduct
compromised national security or disturbed public order. Article 3 allowed
the executive branch to deny entry to any foreigner whose background was
49
Chapter 2
covered by either of the previous articles. Finally, Article 4 declared that any
foreigner detained under the provisions of this law had to leave the country
within three days and could remain in detention until expelled.50 The govern-
ment also declared a state of siege on November 24. It remained in effect until
January 1903; after a brief interlude, it was reimposed on February 4.
The anarchist movement and press were affected immediately. La Protesta
Humana ceased publication after November 21, 1902, one of the first casualties
of the Residency Law. Its editor, Inglán y Lafarga, went into hiding. Publication
resumed on February 7, 1903, under the editorship of Argentine citizens Alcides
Valenzuela, Mariano Cortes, and Alfredo C. López plus Florencio Sánchez, a
Uruguayan. Inglán y Lafarga never returned to active participation in the anar-
chist movement. Other anarchist publications edited by immigrants subject to
deportation under the Residency Law also closed, some permanently. Alberto
Ghiraldo, an Argentine-born writer, continued publishing El Sol because he
was not subject to deportation.
The Residency Law represented more than an attempt to end the frequent
strikes, although crippling the labor movement by deporting its leaders was
one of the measure’s goal. The Argentine government promulgated the law in
response to the overwhelming number of recent immigrants: in Buenos Aires
alone, the population had grown from just under half a million in 1889 to nearly
nine hundred thousand in 1901, an increase of 80 percent in eleven years. Most
of that increase resulted from immigration. By 1900, approximately half of the
city’s population was foreign-born.51 The Argentine government used the Resi-
dency Law to shape the population and to control immigration. Anarchists,
socialists, and common criminals were deported to their countries of origin.
The arrival of immigrants to Argentina in the late nineteenth and early twen-
tieth century helped to populate the country, brought needed skills and labor,
and resulted in a society that combined ideas and people from many countries.
Some anarchists migrated from Spain because of the divisions among members
of the movement, especially over the violence perpetrated as Propaganda of the
Deed. Other anarchists fled repression by the Spanish government and came
to Argentina because comrades established there welcomed them. These im-
migrants from Spain, along with others from Italy and France, helped to make
Argentina’s emerging anarchist movement strong and unique that blended
ideas and experiences from several countries. The Argentine anarchist move-
ment became the preeminent champion of labor, and its unions formed a pow-
erful federation in 1901. Feeling threatened, government officials passed the
Residency Law and began deporting anarchists. Those who returned to Spain
brought experiences and knowledge that helped shape the anarchist movement
in their native land. The cycle of migration continued.
50
Chapter 3
Deportations and
Reverse Migration,
1902–1910
S pa n i s h a na r c h i st i m m ig r a n t s who moved to Argen-

tina followed a tradition of migration and return, voluntary or not, that reflected
the economic and political conditions in both countries. The continuing ex-
change of migrants between Spain and Argentina strengthened the connections
between the anarchist movements on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. The
1902 Residency Law led to an exchange of militants that helped reinvigorate
the moribund Spanish movement and brought somber critiques regarding the
relationship of syndicalism and anarchism. The first decade of the twentieth
century was a tumultuous period in Argentina, as upheavals in 1905, 1907, 1909,

and 1910 brought government repression and the deportation of hundreds of
Spanish anarchist immigrants. Many of those deported had families in Argen-
tina and returned surreptitiously. Those who remained in Spain took part in
debates, established themselves in critical posts, and brought their Argentine
perspective to bear on Spanish issues. This chapter analyzes the reverse flow
of migrants and their ideas to demonstrate the transnational nature of the an-
archist movement during this time.
In Argentina, the Residency Law had an impact on many anarchist immi-
grants. Some ended their active participation in the movement, and others
were deported back to Spain. Antonio Pellicer Paraire, the theoretician whose
writing had so effectively championed the need for both individual liberty and
organizational structure, ceased participating in the anarchist movement after
1902. Thereafter, he led a middle-class life as an artisan who was recognized for
Chapter 3
his leadership in the profession and who helped to establish the journal pub-
lished by the typesetters’ professional organization. According to one biogra-
pher, “Pellicer was not an activist.”1 Perhaps that is one reason Pellicer Paraire
did not participate in the founding conference of the FOA in 1901 and dropped
out entirely after passage of the Residency Law. Pellicer Paraire was proud of
his professional accomplishments. In a 1906 booklet published in honor of
his fifty-fifth birthday, Pellicer Paraire never mentioned his participation in
the anarchist movement.2 By the time of his death in 1916, the only obituary
that appeared in the anarchist press was in the Spanish newspaper, Tierra y
Libertad. In the 1920s, when Diego Abad de Santillán attempted to list Pellicer
Paraire’s anarchist activities, few anarchists remembered him. Gregorio Inglán
y Lafarga, one of the first editors of La Protesta Humana, went into hiding in
the day before the enactment of the Residency Law.
Other anarchists failed to avoid the authorities. Felix Basterra, Orestes Ris-
tori, and Arturo Montesano were arrested on November 23, 1902. Teodoro
Lupano was deported on December 2, and over the next few months Antonio
Navarro; José López Margarida; Juan B. Calvo González; Juan Casademont;
José Reguera and his son, Manuel; Orsini Bertani; Rómulo Ovidi; and Fer-
nando Ros were expelled from the country. José Reguera had fled Spain in
1889 as “one who was involved in the movement in Andalusia that culminated
in the persecutions in Jerez against the ‘mano negra.’”3 In Argentina, he had
published El Rebelde between 1899 and 1902. Twenty-year-old Ricardo Alfonsín
had arrived in Argentina in 1886 and become active in the bakers’ union. Police
reports subsequently listed him as an “agitator,” and he was deported. Another
baker, Calvo González, had arrived in Argentina in 1895 at age twenty-one and
was arrested during the 1902 bakers’ strike for the crime of coercion, a term
used by police to denote militancy. He, too, was sent back to Spain.4
Others who faced expulsion under the Residency Law included Ramón
Palau, who had come to Argentina as an eighteen-year-old in 1885. He joined
the bakers’ union and was arrested during a strike in 1902. Salvador Estrada, a
mechanic, was nineteen when he came to Argentina in 1888, but according to
police reports, he “hardly ever worked at his trade in order to dedicate himself
to the struggle of labor.”5 Also deported were Adrián Troitiño, Benjamín Gar-
cía, Julio Camba, Miguel Ríos, Manuel Lago, and Antonio Navarro. Troitiño
was born in Spain in 1860 and arrived in Argentina in 1880 as a stowaway. He
worked as a baker and activist before his deportation to Cádiz in 1903. He left
Spain again when Uruguayan workers paid his passage to Montevideo. There,
he became a leader in the anarchist movement and played an instrumental role
in helping deportees from Buenos Aires jump ship in Montevideo. Julio Camba
52
Deportations and Reverse Migration
Cell block in the National Penitentiary, 1923. Source: Departa-

F i g u re 4.
mento de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación,
Buenos Aires
was an anarchist writer and contributor to La Protesta who had immigrated to

Argentina as a teenager in 1898. After his deportation to Spain, he continued
his literary career, first in support of anarchist ideas and later in more general
writings. In one short story, Camba wrote, “Of every thousand Gallegos one
can say that at least nine hundred of them have been to Buenos Aires.”6 Though
Camba’s statement was hyperbole, it was also insightful: Argentina had more
immigrants from Galicia than from any other region.
53
Chapter 3
Camba also commented on how he felt when he returned to Spain: “The

first impression of Spain is one of confusion. At first we don’t exactly know
our country, and do not find it the same as we had remembered it. Did Spain
change? No, instead, we see it from a different perspective and with different
eyes from that with which we had seen it before.”7 Camba, like many Spanish
migrants, had changed; how much became apparent only when they returned,
often after many years. Juan Suriano refers to Camba as reflecting Spanish in-
dividualist anarchist ideas reconciled with those of collectivists in Argentina.8
Writing about the theoretical foundations of Spain’s anarchist movement in
Spain, José Álvarez Junco cites Camba as returning from Argentina and present-
ing a synthesis in his 1903–6 articles in El Rebelde between the individualistic
and collectivist anarchism that still divided the Spanish movement.9
Ramón Palau was deported to Spain and wrote back to Argentina from ex-
ile, giving a clearer picture of what these forced returns meant.10 After landing
in Barcelona, where comrades awaited him with open arms, Palau went to see
his parents. He described the visit as a joy after sixteen years’ separation and
thanked the state for paying for his passage.11 He did not regard his return as
permanent, however, and planned to go back to Argentina. Like many other im-
migrants there, Palau had not applied for citizenship despite his long residence.
Many immigrants found the process of becoming a citizen cumbersome, and,
since civic participation was almost meaningless in a fraudulent political system,
citizenship brought few benefits prior to the residency law. Even so, Palau and
other anarchists did not believe in the power of the state over the individual and
would not have sought citizenship as protection from deportation. Palau did
not detail his relationship with anarchists in Spain, and when he told his Span-
ish colleagues that conditions in Argentina could be difficult, this information
implied that resistance to authority in Spain was better than immigration and
encouraged Spanish anarchists, a consequence feared by Spanish authorities.12
Like many others who had been deported from Argentina, Ramón Palau
did not remain long in Spain. He traveled to Montevideo later in 1903, where
he was reunited with his compañera and five children. This cycle of deportation
and return continued throughout the first decade of the twentieth century,
increasing during the peak years of upheaval. Only anecdotal records exist to
show how many deportees remained and how many returned to Argentina,
but each time immigrants returned to Spain, they reinforced this link between
the two countries and their labor movements. This process became significant
as syndicalism emerged as an ally of anarchism. As the gap between the two
ideologies narrowed, subtle but important differences emerged, leading to con-
54
flict among anarchists within Argentina and Spain and between the anarchist
movements of the two countries.
Anarchism and Syndicalism
Spanish anarchist immigrants to Argentina were especially involved in conflicts

over ideology. Their experiences abroad distanced them from the day-to-day
struggles of Spanish workers. As a result, many Spanish anarchists in Argen-
tina continued to stress the need for ideological purity, while unions in Spain
struggled with organizational issues. José Prat spent a brief period in Buenos
Aires before returning to Spain in 1898. He was considered one of the most
important anarchist writers in Barcelona, although his views at times differed
from those of other Spanish anarchists because he opposed syndicalism. In a se-
ries of articles published between July and October 1908 in Solidaridad Obrera,
Prat wrote about the distinctive nature of socialism and syndicalism. Although
none of his writing focuses specifically on Argentina or his experience there
he was, according to J. Romero Maura, one of the few in the Spanish anarchist
movement who understood the “the full theoretical and strategic implications
of syndicalism before 1910.”13 Returning Spanish anarchists brought with them
the perspective of Argentine anarchists, who had been among the most vocal
in warning of the dangers of syndicalism within the labor movement unless it
was linked to truly revolutionary goals.14
Syndicalism had developed in France as a revolutionary working-class move-
ment not affiliated with any political party. It sought to create a working-class
organization capable of leading a general strike that would destroy the old
economic and political order. Syndicalism and anarchism shared a common
purpose in creating a new order through direct action and a rejection of the
state. Anarchists, however, differed from syndicalists in two important ways,
and these differences created tension between the two groups in Argentina.
The first and perhaps most important difference between syndicalists and
anarchists was the concept of individual liberty. The debate between individual-
ist anarchists and collectivists had only recently been resolved in Argentina in
favor of what would become known as anarcho-communism, which accepted
a degree of organization while preserving the liberty of each individual. Anto-
nio Pellicer Paraire had earlier tried to bridge these two groups by identifying
an organization that could not only protest, boycott, and strike but also rec-
ognize the importance of individual freedom among the workers. The anar-
chist federation’s 1904 Solidarity Pact reflected Pellicer Paraire’s views: “The
55
Chapter 3
historic evolution has been that of individual liberty, which is indispensable

for the establishment of social liberty; that this liberty will not be lost through
syndicalization with other workers; but first one must increase the degree and
magnitude of individual power; for humans are social animals and, therefore,
the liberty of each is not limited by that of the other, as is the bourgeois con-
cept; instead, the liberty of each is augmented by that of the others.”15
This concern for the individual had made many anarchists suspicious of
all organizations, even those comprising members of the working class. An-
archists feared that the need for solidarity would restrict the freedom of each
individual, notwithstanding Pellicer Paraire’s admonition that this idea was a
false dichotomy created by a bourgeois concept of liberty. Argentine anarchists
did not want a union bureaucracy and eschewed paid leadership positions
wherever possible. Syndicalists wanted unions to form the core of what would
become the new society, and as a practical matter, many anarchists agreed with
the importance of working-class organizations. Nevertheless, anarchists in
Argentina continuously raised concerns regarding the dangers of bureaucracy
and organization as goals in themselves.
One of Argentine anarchists’ principal fears was that labor organizations could
become affiliated with political parties, as could be seen by the anarchist FOA’s
rejection of ties to the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), a socialist labor
federation. Anarchists believed in direct action and did not directly support
any party or legislation. Indeed, anarchists vociferously objected to proposed
labor laws in 1904, even though the laws sought to improve working conditions
for laborers. Proposed by Joaquín V. González, the minister of justice, the laws
regulated working hours and conditions, an intrusion by the state that anar-
chists opposed. At its 1904 congress, the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina
(FORA), the successor confederation to the FOA, declared “that the proposed
Labor Law is an unprecedented attack on collective and individual liberties.”16
Anarchists in Argentina did not want unions to become partners with the
government in creating labor legislation that would affirm the state’s power.
Instead, anarchists wanted all unions to be focused on revolutionary goals that
would lead to a transformation of society. At the March 1907 unity congress,
sixty-nine anarchist unions, thirty socialist unions, and thirty-six autonomous
unions discussed measures that would bring them together. A spokesperson for
the anarchists announced that labor unions “should not limit themselves to a
purely economic struggle for small improvements but should seek to overthrow
the capitalist system.”17
Syndicalists in Argentina associated first with the UGT when it was formed
in 1902. Their belief in direct action, however, made syndicalism more compat-
56
ible with the anarchists, and unity talks in 1907 produced cooperation. But this
collaboration only exposed the UGT’s weakness, and the syndicalists created
the Confederación Obrera Regional Argentina (Workers’ Confederation of the
Argentine Region) in September 1909. The split between Argentine anarchists
(calling themselves anarcho-communists) and syndicalists continued into the
next decade, coming to a head in 1915. In Spain, the differences between an-
archists and syndicalists were less noticeable, as the Spanish movement was
sympathetic to the syndicalist approach. When Prat returned to Spain and
criticized syndicalism, he reflected more of an Argentine perspective. In 1904,
he spoke to the goal of social revolution rather than political or material ad-
vancements: “Men do not do battle for their Rights,” wrote Prat. “They struggle
for the possibility that these rights will become an accomplished Fact. And
this can be achieved only through the possession of society’s wealth, now so
unequally distributed among men.”18
Anarchists and syndicalists also differed in their approach to class. Syndical-
ists focused on the union as the incubator of a new society and as the leader of
a general strike that would attack the capitalist system and its government.19
Anarchists, especially those who emphasized the role of individual liberty,
did not seek an exclusively class-based revolution. Although many anarchists
believed in the necessity of class conflict, they did not exclude any individual
who sought liberty through anarchism. Anarchists welcomed writers and intel-
lectuals as well as workers, although Jorge Solomonoff points out that many of
the intellectual leaders of the Argentine movement were self-taught workers.20
In Spain, conversely, many important anarchist thinkers and writers were skilled
tradesmen or intellectuals not from the working class.21 Nevertheless, several
immigrant intellectuals had considerable influence on the Argentine anarchist
movement, most notably among them Rafael Barrett.

Barrett was the Spanish-born son of an English father and Spanish mother.
He was tall, and his brown hair, oval face, and large, clear eyes helped him stand
out among the well-to-do youth in Madrid at the turn of the century. Barrett’s
sense of honor—or perhaps his homophobia—rather than any ideological
predisposition led to his flight from Spain. After being publicly accused of
homosexuality, Barrett found his accuser at the theater and struck him with
a whip. Sanctioned by a Tribunal of Honor and disqualified as a gentleman,
Barrett traveled to Argentina in 1904 and began to write for the newspaper of
the Spanish community, El Diario Español. Barrett wrote scathing commentar-
ies on the extreme contrasts between wealth and poverty in Buenos Aires. He
soon moved on to Paraguay, where a company hired him to write a study of the
plantations producing yerba mate, a popular herbal tea. Much to the chagrin
57
Chapter 3
of the company, Barrett described the bestial exploitation of the workers and
the extreme cruelty of the overseers. He later moved to Asunción, where he
married and began writing for local periodicals. Barrett wrote honestly about
the terrible exploitation of the workers, publishing articles with such titles as
“The Pain of Paraguay,” and eventually espoused a pacifist village anarchism
akin to that of Russian writer Leo Tolstoy. Barrett participated in the local labor
movement, holding conferences in union halls and editing pamphlets. He also
sent articles to periodicals in Montevideo and Buenos Aires. In response to the
upheavals of 1910, Barrett published “Terror in Argentina.” Barrett contracted
tuberculosis and in 1910 left Paraguay for treatment in France, where he died at
age thirty-five. His legacy of denouncing injustice and sympathy for the plight
of the worker remained strong in South America, where he was considered an
eloquent spokesperson for libertarian ideas even though he was not a member
of the working class. Barrett represented the broad scope of anarchist sympa-
thies that included writers and artists who concerned themselves with an array
of issues faced by the working class.
Anarchists in Argentina did not limit their activities to questions of employ-
ment and criticized syndicalists’ exclusive focus on working conditions and
union organization. Anarchists were active regarding several social questions,
including the high cost of housing, which was in short supply in Buenos Aires
as a consequence of the massive influx of immigrants. By the beginning of the
twentieth century, housing costs had become an issue among many of the city’s
workers. In February 1905, a Tenants’ League formed. Though it disappeared
the following year, a new organization, the League against Rents and Taxes,
was established in October 1906. Anarchists, socialists, and some members
of the Radical Party supported this league. However, internal squabbles and
accusations that some members were police spies brought about the League’s
demise. The failure of these organizations pointed out the difficulties tenants
encountered in organizing regarding a topic that was not strictly a class issue.
In August 1907, landlords significantly raised rents in response to increased
property taxes, leading tenants to refuse to pay their rent. The action grew into
a six-month rent strike that eventually encompassed nearly one-tenth of the
city’s population.22
The strike ultimately failed to lower rents in Buenos Aires, but it gained
anarchists’ support. Abad de Santillán complained that the anarchists suffered
the most from poststrike government repression and reported that those de-
ported included Roberto D’Angió, Mariano Forcat (who served on the editorial
board of La Protesta), Ramón Antoñeda, José Pañeda, Guido Monachessi, José
Pérez, Alfonso García de la Mata, and Manuel Lourido. According to Abad de
58
F i g u re 5. Conventillo detail, Buenos Aires, 1910. Source: Departamento

de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires
Santillán, “Some of these returned to this country, remaining until the next
police repression; others left the movement, others remained active in their
respective countries.”23
Questions of housing and broader issues affecting members of the work-
ing class drew participants from anarchist and syndicalist unions. However,
Argentina’s anarchists rejected syndicalists’ political participation and focus
on worker benefits. Anarchists in Argentina accepted participation by writers,
and although most anarchists were workers organized in unions, the anarchists
exhibited greater support for the rent strike and issues that were not exclusively
class-based. Argentine anarchists believed in a revolutionary doctrine that re-
mained suspicious of organizations, even working-class ones, and kept their
59
Chapter 3
F i g u re 6. Conventillo patio at Piedras 1268, early twentieth century.

distance from syndicalists. In Spain, however, syndicalists gained influence,

and the labor movement looked increasingly to revolutionary syndicalism.

Spanish workers also took notice of Argentina’s syndicalist organization, the
CORA, whose founding principles and articles influenced Spanish labor lead-
ers’ organization of their new federation.24
Impact of Deportations on Spain
The deportation of Spanish immigrants from Argentina after the Residency Law
of 1902 and continuing Spanish immigration to Argentina helped to reinforce
the relationship between the anarchist movements in these two countries. Span-
ish immigration to Argentina increased from 95,264 in the period 1891–1895 to
505,884 in the period 1906–1910 (see table 2, p. 40). The anarchist press in both
countries helped to increase the connection between the two anarchist move-
60
ments, printing reports of activities in the other country. Several reporters also
wrote for newspapers in both countries. During 1906, La Protesta often printed
a “Crónica de España” column. On April 10, 1906, for example, La Protesta
reported on hunger in Spain, citing thirty-five thousand unemployed workers
and employers who were lowering wages. Such conditions led to an increase
in Spanish emigration. Between 1906 and 1910, 586,934 Spaniards departed for
the Americas, with 86 percent of them going to Argentina. Both of Spain’s anar-
chist newspapers, Tierra y Libertad and Solidaridad Obrera, reported regularly
on events in Argentina. Tierra y Libertad covered the 1907 rent strike and other
events through the post-1910 repression, and ran nearly daily columns headed
“Crónica de Buenos Aires” or “Desde la Argentina.” Yet despite the warnings
and the call to militancy in Spain, workers left in ever-increasing numbers,
hoping for a better future in Argentina. (See table 1, pp. 24–25.)
The greatest problems facing Spanish workers and encouraging emigration
in the first decade of the twentieth century were the threat of conscription be-
cause of the ongoing wars in Morocco between 1909 and 1926, unemployment,
and daily living expenses such as housing. Spain’s emigration policies had eased
with the 1900 reduction in the deposit required of men who wished to emigrate
before completing their military service. On December 21, 1907, Spain passed
a new emigration law that identified emigrants as “those Spaniards who pro-
pose to leave their native country, with third-class tickets purchased or given to
them.”25 This law eased some restrictions on young males and encouraged the
departure of many Spaniards, especially those who did not wish to complete
their compulsory military service. Indeed, Spanish immigration to Argentina
peaked in 1908, 1910, and 1912.
Poor economic conditions also led many Spaniards to emigrate. Barcelona
increased its population by 10 percent between 1910 and 1920, mostly as a re-
sult of new arrivals from the countryside. Some 3.6 million Spaniards left for
America between 1882 and 1935, with approximately 824,000 (29 percent of the
total) departing between 1901 and 1910.26 Of the 1.4 million Spaniards who emi-
grated from Spain to Argentina between 1871 and 1914, approximately 642,000
(just over 44 percent) came between 1901 and 1910 (see table 2). This outflow
of workers provided an alternative to class struggle, and anarchists on both
sides of the Atlantic wanted to reduce the number of immigrants. On February
3, 1910, Argentina’s La Protesta reported an “alarming increase” in emigration
from Spain, claiming that four thousand campesinos from Andalusia had aban-
doned their country for Argentina in the preceding fifteen days.27 Barcelona’s
anarchist newspaper, Tierra y Libertad, ran many stories about the brutality of
Argentine authorities and the lack of opportunities there. One article warned
61
Chapter 3
Tab l e 3. Spanish Immigration and Return from Latin America, 1882–1940

Spanish Returned Net Remaining
Years Immigration to Spain (%) Abroad (%)
1882–85 106,813 67,018 (62.7) 39,795 (37.3)
1886–90 262,420 101,139 (38.5) 161,281 (61.5)
1891–95 282,751 137,707 (48.7) 145,044 (51.3)
1896–1900 276,839 291,625 (105.3) –14,785 (–5.3)
1901–5 236,910 115,638 (48.8) 121,272 (51.2)
1906–10 586,934 213,542 (36.4) 373,392 (63.6)
1911–15 649,703 409,539 (63.0) 240,164 (37.0)
1916–20 421,069 283,503 (67.3) 137,566 (32.7)
1921–25 416,508 311,823 (74.9) 104,685 (25.1)
1926–30 302,725 248,067 (81.9) 54,658 (18.1)
1931–35 108,564 192,495 (173.3) –83,931 (–73.3)
1936–40 18,516 16,245 (87.7) 2,271 (12.3)
TOTALS 3,669,752 2,388,341 (65.1) 1,281,411 (34.9)
Source: Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz, “La emigración española a la América en medio milenio: Pautas
sociales,” Historia Social 42 (2002): 41–58.
potential immigrants about conditions, while another described how police

attacked strikers.28 And Spain’s Solidaridad Obrera compared the Argentine
government’s repression to that of Russia and Turkey.29 These reports painted
an image of repression and poverty in Argentina equal to that of Spain. The
message seemed to be that workers should remain in Spain and work to over-
turn the system through social revolution, a message that Spanish immigrants
returning from Argentina often enhanced.
In the first decade of the twentieth century, approximately three hundred

thousand individuals left Argentina for other lands, about half as many as ar-
rived during that period . Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz gives a similar picture of
Spaniards returning from the Americas, identifying 329,180 returnees (about
40 percent of those who departed) (see table 3). Argentina deported the most
active anarchists, those whose actions had brought them to the notice of the
authorities. Their experience with the anarchist movement in Argentina had
helped to shape their ideas.
Anarchists and the Labor Movement in Argentina
Government repression and deportations after the enactment of the Residency

Law removed many militants from Argentina’s anarchist ranks but did not
62
appreciably weaken the radical philosophy’s influence over workers. Despite

the anti-immigrant activities and increasing involvement of Argentine-born
radicals, migrations continued to develop the links between the Argentine
anarchist movement and Spain. Between June 6 and 8, 1903, the FOA held its
third congress. Only eighty delegates attended the Buenos Aires meeting, but
they agreed that the tactical efficiency of their strikes had provoked such a great
response from the government. This recognition led to many more strikes and
increased the anarchists’ importance among the country’s working class. One
representative at this congress, Alberto Ghiraldo, was born in the province of
Buenos Aires in 1875 to a well-connected family. In 1893, he began writing for
La Nación and met Rubén Darío, a famous Nicaraguan poet then in Argentina.
In 1896, Ghiraldo left La Nación to found and edit one of the first workers’
newspapers in Buenos Aires, El Obrero, which was published between Sep-
tember 22 and November 14 of that year. In 1899, he founded El Sol, a literary
and social magazine. He also edited La Protesta and was arrested briefly when
the paper was closed in November 1902. He supported libertarian causes and
defended the rights of the underclass. One biographer has described his ideas
as “ghiraldista”—that is, unique.30 Ghiraldo gained the respect of the revolu-
tionary proletariat. His career as an author united him with both Argentina’s
labor movement and its literary world. He went on to publish Ideas y Figuras
in Buenos Aires and become the president of the Argentine Association of Au-
thors. In 1903, Ghiraldo was focusing on the working class, and he represented
the longshoremen’s union at the anarchist congress. There, he witnessed a de-
bate over issues of Sunday rest, night work, and timely payment of wages. In
1917, Ghiraldo traveled to Spain, where he unsuccessfully attempted to unite
the Spanish and Argentine authors’ associations. He remained in Spain and
continued to publish Ideas y Figuras from Madrid, writing nostalgically about

the pampas and Buenos Aires. He moved back to Argentina in 1935 but left for
Chile one year later. He died there in 1946.
The first years of the twentieth century saw increasing labor conflict in Ar-
gentina. The longshoreman’s congress Ghiraldi attended opted for direct action,
authorizing both boycott and sabotage as weapons against the capitalists. Abad
de Santillán lists twelve strikes with fifty thousand participants between April
15 and July 15, 1903.31 Such militant activities brought recognition to the anar-
chists, and workers flocked to the movement. The police became increasingly
alarmed about the perceived anarchist threat. On May 1, 1904, the FOA held a
march from the plaza in front of Congress to the statue of Giuseppe Mazzini
on the Paseo de Julio in downtown Buenos Aires. Just as the speakers were
about to address the crowd, a gunshot rang out. The source was not clear, but
63
Chapter 3
police began shooting into the crowd, and several armed anarchists responded
in kind. More than twenty workers, including several women, were wounded,
and one man was killed.32
The weekly La Protesta Humana was one of the most important anarchist
organs during this period of conflict. The newspaper reopened in January un-
der the editorship of Juan ( John) Creaghe, an Irishman who had published El
Oprimido in Lujan, a small town in Buenos Aires province. He had folded his
publication to support La Protesta Humana when it came into being in 1897. The
police regularly arrested its editors, many of whom were deported. By 1904, so
many staff members had been arrested and deported that the paper appointed
a new editorial board. Its members included Antonio Loredo, Federico Gutiér-
rez, and J. Alberto Castro. In March 1904, the editors shortened the paper’s
name to La Protesta and made it a daily publication. It then became the most
successful anarchist newspaper in the world, continuing publication until the
1930s (despite occasional closings).
Between July 30 and August 2, 1904, the anarchist FOA held its fourth con-
gress in Buenos Aires, where the anarchists described their organization as a
federation of unions and its fundamental purpose as social justice.33 They identi-
fied general strikes as “schools of rebellion” and recommended that participants
make the walkouts as revolutionary as possible to provide an education in revo-
lution that would “become the preamble to the great event that energizes the
working class.”34 They also affirmed their support for mechanization when used
to improve the lives of workers. Discussion about the nature of anarchist orga-
nization led to the declaration that the FOA opposed all political participation:
“Our organization exists to reduce existing governments to purely economic
functions, creating in their place a free Federation of voluntary associations of
free workers.”35 This statement, according to Abad de Santillán, was taken di-
rectly from an 1881 document of the Federación de Trabajadores de la Región
Española (Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region) and indicates how
closely these two movements paralleled each other. Finally, the organization
voted to rename itself the Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (Workers’
Federation of the Argentine Region) to recognize its connection with the move-
ment in Spain, Europe, and the Americas. However, these links also included
syndicalism and socialism, as Spanish workers had encountered those ideas in
Spain and, as immigrants, brought them to Argentina. Tension arose among
unions over the appropriate orientation for the Argentine labor movement.
To resolve this tension, the FORA declared in 1905, “The Fifth Congress of
the FORA, in light of the principles which have given rise to the organization
of worker federations, declares: That the Congress approve and recommend
64
to all its member unions that it publicize and explain fully to inculcate workers
with the economic and philosophical principles of Anarcho-communism.”36
After much debate, the organization rejected the political process and accom-
modation to the capitalist economic system in favor of a revolutionary and
visionary goal that could be achieved only with the elimination of the state.
That year was revolutionary in Argentina. In early 1905, Hipólito Yrigoyen
and his Radical Party rebelled against the conservative government, which
responded by declaring a thirty-day state of siege on February 4 and closing
the offices of La Protesta. On August 11, an anarchist attempted to assassinate
President Manuel Quintana, prompting the government to arrest and deport
anarchists and to declare a ninety-day state of siege on October 3.37 The twenty-
three militants deported that year included Joaquín Hucha and Antonio Lo-
redo, both of whom were writers and editors of La Protesta and both of whom
returned to Buenos Aires through Montevideo.38 Both were subsequently ex-
pelled again.
In response to FORA’s strategy, 323 strikes occurred in 1906.39 The govern-
ment responded with many arrests: according to La Protesta, “The objective ap-
pears to be the jailing of every member of the Federal Committee of the Worker’s
Federation.”40 On March 31, the paper reported that the police had arrested one
of its editors, José de Maturana, and jailed him for twenty days on a charge of
carrying a weapon.41 So many anarchists were jailed in the national penitentiary
that prisoners began referring to it as the Montjuich Bonarense, comparing it to
the infamous Barcelona fortress that had held anarchist prisoners in the 1890s.42
Despite the government’s attempted crackdown, FORA continued to increase
in size and influence. By the time its sixth congress met in September 1906, more
than one hundred unions participated. Two of the most militant unions were
those of the bakers (panaderos) and teamsters (conductores de carros). Presid-

ing over the congress were teamsters Esteban Almada and Santos Montagnoli
and J. M. Acha, a baker. This congress opposed the residency law and voted to
support a tenant organization for a rent strike and to demand a six-hour work-
day. This stance encouraged events that led to a teamsters’ strike in Rosario in
1907 and a January 1907 general strike of nearly 150,000 workers for more than
forty-eight hours. Another August 1907 general strike occurred over the deaths
of striking workers in Bahía Blanca in the province of Buenos Aires.
The deportation of hundreds of anarchists in 1905–6 occurred while thou-
sands of new Spanish immigrants arrived in Argentina. (See Appendix B.)
Nervous as well as emboldened, FORA called for active resistance against the
Argentine state, both nationally and internationally. The organization pro-
posed recommending “to the Federal Council the convocation of a continental
65
Chapter 3
congress of South America, supporting and joining the international congress

initiated by the Workers’ Federation of the Spanish Region.”43 A delegate read
a note from the Spanish Federation in support of the proposal. And following
the Spanish anarchists in Barcelona, whose 1902 general strike exemplified the
power of a revolutionary movement to bring down the state and the entire
old order, Argentine anarchists began a series of strikes, many of them general
strikes designed not so much to gain demands as to encourage a total rejection
of the state and its economic system. Anarchists hoped that a mobilized prole-
tariat might act with such force that a general strike would bring the promised
revolution. A total of 254 strikes took place in 1907.44
One of the most powerful of the 1907 strikes was a rent strike that mobi-
lized 120,000 individuals through tenant committees, many of them headed by
women. Anarchists had encouraged exactly this type of direct action and gave
much support to the tenants. One of the leaders was Juana Rouco Buela, who
spoke at rallies for the tenants. Born in Madrid in 1889, Rouco Buela immigrated
to Argentina in 1900 when an aunt there sent money for her passage. She did
not attend school but went with her older brother to meetings and discussions
of anarchist workers. She was so taken with their ideas that she taught herself to
read and write. In 1904, she and three friends, Teresa Caporaletti, María Reyes,
and Elisa Leotar, participated in the May Day rally. When the police attacked
the crowd and killed a young man, the girls placed his body on a door from a
construction site and brought it to anarchist headquarters. Movement leaders
later asked Rouco Buela to recruit among female workers, and she helped to
found the Anarchist Women’s Center. Perhaps as a consequence of her highly
visible role in the rent strike, she was deported under the Residency Law in
January 1908.45
Authorities arrested and deported so many workers that anarchists called

for a general strike in opposition to deportations on January 13 and 14, 1908.
The effort did not attract the hoped-for support—police repression had been
effective. However, a little over a month later, on February 28, Solano Reljis
attempted to assassinate the Argentine president José Figueroa Alcorta. Reljis
explained his actions at his trial: “In view of the Law of Residence, which dis-
criminates against anarchists born abroad, I as a native-born anarchist unaf-
fected by the law, protest the deportations of my comrades.”46
Anarchist action culminated in a May 1909 strike that involved nearly three
hundred thousand workers and led to many deaths. The car and vehicle drivers’
unions decided to declare a general strike on May Day. About thirty thousand
anarchist workers gathered in a plaza to mark the day, and Colonel Ramón
Falcón, the chief of police, feared that greater disturbances would follow and
66
Fig u re 7. Meeting of the car drivers (chófers) union, 1911. Source: Departamento
de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires
sought to respond with enough force to halt the movement completely. The
police charged into the crowd, killing eight workers and wounding more than
one hundred. Anarchists charged that police gunfire had caused the casual-
ties. But instead of halting the planned general strike, Falcón’s action united
the anarchist FORA and the socialist UGT, and the strike began on May 2,
with leaders demanding that union halls be reopened. After nearly a week,
the government relented and released about eight hundred workers from jail.
Four months later, unions from various federations sought to overcome their
differences with a unity congress. The FORA refused to participate, fearing that
socialists and syndicalists would dominate the proceedings.
These labor squabbles and increasingly violent strikes in Argentina were only
a prelude to the fury that was unleashed after the Tragic Week in Barcelona,
when the Spanish government executed Francisco Ferrer, an anarchist educa-
67
Chapter 3
tor, on October 13, 1909. The September unity congress in Argentina had been
concerned about conditions in Spain and had passed a resolution condemning
the war in Morocco and proposing a boycott of Spanish goods.47 After Ferrer’s
execution, twenty thousand workers staged a protest strike in Buenos Aires,
and a nationwide general strike began on October 14 and lasted three days.
Then, on November 14, a young Ukrainian immigrant, Simón Radowitzky,
threw a bomb that killed Falcón and his secretary. Radowitzky claimed to have
acted because Falcón had “ordered the massacre of workers” at the May Day
rally.48 The government responded with a state of siege, thousands of arrests,
hundreds of deportations, and the closing of La Protesta and the jailing of its
editors.
The government also passed the Ley de Defensa Social (Law of Social De-
fense) to destroy FORA and the anarchist movement. Anarchists were pro-
hibited from entering the country, and their organizations were forbidden to
hold meetings. Those deported included well-known writer E. G. Gilimón,
Leonardo Jesús Garrido, Juan Carretero, Alberto Zamorano, Antonio Loredo,
A. Manresa Herrero, Antonio Fernández, Joaquín Hucha, Pablo Gil, José Tron-
coso, Francisco López, Salvador Garin, José Fonteche, Isaac B. González, José
López, and Evaristo Galea.49
Gilimón wrote for La Protesta and was eloquent in his defense of workers.
His deportation occurred even though he had a family in Argentina, and when
he arrived in Barcelona, he immediately began planning his return voyage.
While sailing west, Gilimón was speaking with another anarchist who had
voluntarily returned to Spain to see his family when the man nodded toward
a group of Spaniards headed for Argentina with high hopes: “See those?” the
man said. “They are your future anarchists.”50
Gilimón was again arrested and deported from Argentina. This time, Spanish
officials stripped him of his citizenship and paid his way to Montevideo. Gil-
imón’s experiences were fairly common, especially among those who had family
in Argentina. The Spanish government did not want Argentina’s troublemakers
and tried to ensure that these migrants would not become active in Spain and
thus reinforce the militancy of both Spanish and Argentine anarchists.
One deported Spaniard described the enthusiasm with which he and other
deportees had been received in the Spanish port city of Vigo, where anarchist
newspapers kept residents apprised of events in Argentina. The deportees then
toured Spain, denouncing the Argentine government everywhere they went.51
The governments of Spain and Argentina also communicated with each other
regarding the movements of anarchists. On March 21, 1903, Francisco Beasley,
the chief of police in Buenos Aires, confidentially wrote to the minister pleni-
68
potentiary of Spain, Don Julio de Arellano y Arrospide, to warn that anarchist

Manuel Rodríguez was traveling to Vigo on board the Cap Roca. The following
July 18, Beasley again wrote to the Spanish authorities, this time asking for in-
formation about Manuel Miguens from Pontevedra, Domingo Saragoicochea
of Bilbao, and Andrés Terra, also of Pontevedra.52
This communication between Argentine and Spanish authorities continued
throughout the first two decades of the twentieth century. Attempting to keep
track of anarchists, the Argentines informed Spanish authorities of those being
deported, their ships, and their destinations, often including detailed descrip-
tions of each deportee. For example, in 1903, Argentine authorities informed
their Spanish counterparts that Manuel Narvaez and Baldomero Ripoll were
sailing to Barcelona on the Reina María Cristina. Narvaez had come to Argen-
tina from Montevideo and Ripoll from Taragona. Narvaez, born on September
20, 1876, was about five feet, five inches tall, with black hair and green eyes. He
was single and worked as a barber. Ripoll, born on February 15, 1860, was five
feet, two inches tall, with dark brown hair and green eyes. He was a widower
and worked as a carpenter.53 The two governments were intent on keeping track
of anarchists as they traveled back and forth between Spain and Argentina.
Anarchists and the Labor Movement in Spain
Spanish anarchists faced a turbulent first decade of the twentieth century. Gov-
ernment repression in the face of anarchist terrorism caused many leaders to
flee the country and weakened the relationship between labor and the anar-
chists. José Prat returned from his brief stay in Argentina and argued against a
continuation of Propaganda of the Deed.54 After 1900, fewer acts of violence
occurred, and many of those were the work of foreigners.

Alfonso García, a twenty-five-year-old Argentine citizen born of Spanish
parents, traveled from Buenos Aires to Spain in 1902 to assassinate the king. He
found little support for his project. Instead, Spanish anarchists drew strength
from organizational principles of syndicalism in France and the encouragement
of anarchists in Argentina, who sent letters and copies of their periodicals.
Spanish anarchists met in October 1900 to form the Federación de Sociedades
Obreras de la Región Española (Federation of Workers’ Societies of the Spanish
Region). Although the organization never enlisted the majority of the region’s
workers, its contribution to the anarchist movement in Spain was the introduc-
tion of the general strike in February 1902 in Barcelona.
One of the reasons anarchists had difficulty organizing in and around Bar-
celona was the preponderance of textile mills, where many employees were
69
Chapter 3
women and children. Employers in the Ter Valley had begun to take advantage
of the new spinning machines to replace men with lower-paid employees.55 But
Catalonia’s labor unions were weakened by the region’s relatively small factory
sizes and large number of factories. In addition, differences existed among vari-
ous worker ideologies, as anarchists, socialists, and syndicalists disagreed on
goals. At the beginning of December 1901, when metallurgical workers walked
off the job and demanded an eight-hour day, their employers refused to give
in. The stalemate lasted for weeks, with other unions moving to support the
metallurgical workers. The Federation of Workers’ Societies of the Spanish Re-
gion in Barcelona called for a general strike on February 17, 1902. It lasted one
week and included many of the city’s workers, even those not affiliated with
the Federation. The metallurgical workers failed in their goal , but the general
strike demonstrated that thousands of workers could cooperate.
The Spanish labor movement subsequently began to use strikes as a class
weapon, but many of these strikes failed, and the labor movement in Barce-
lona declined from forty-five thousand to seven thousand members between
1902 and 1909. Police repression was fierce, and more than 350 militants were
jailed in 1903. The wave of strikes lasted through 1903 but subsided in 1904,
and the Federation of Workers’ Societies ceased to function by the following
year. J. Romero Maura suggests that these defeats may have led many workers
to look to the Radical Republican Party under Alejandro Lerroux and to a pe-
riod of withdrawal by anarchist militants: “Cut off from the working class, the
anarchists turned in on themselves, and from 1903 to 1907 they lived apart in
the inbred world of their threadbare centers and publications.”56 According to
Murray Bookchin, the decline of the labor movement after the general strike
of 1902 “shifted the center of conflict from the economic to the political arena.
In the next few years, the workers of Barcelona were to shift their allegiances
from the unions to Lerroux’s Radical Republican Party.”57
The left-wing Radical Republican Party drew much of its support from work-
ers in Barcelona who listened to Lerroux’s denunciations of the church and the
rich. Many Spanish anarchists opposed this turn toward political participation.
Pellicer Paraire remained in Argentina but “continued his correspondence with
friends in Barcelona, giving his opinions on men and events. He was, perhaps,
the first to realize how great a danger the alliance with Señor Lerroux would be
to the Catalan working-class organization.”58 This tension between anarchists
who abjured political action and Lerroux was only one of the reasons that the
labor movement remained lethargic through much of the first decade of the
twentieth century.
70
While the notion of a revolutionary general strike to unite the working class
originated in the French labor movement, the second influence on Spanish
anarchism in the early twentieth century came from a Spaniard who resided
in France. Francisco Ferrer y Guardia came from a Catalan family that owned
a vineyard. Francisco Ferrer, as he was commonly known, became radicalized
in his youth and joined the Republican movement. He later accepted libertar-
ian ideas after meeting Anselmo Lorenzo in Paris and becoming interested in
education. Anarchists stressed the need for education to prepare individuals
for the coming social revolution and to take the monopoly on education from
the church and the state. Ferrer returned to Spain after receiving a legacy from
a wealthy woman to whom he had taught Spanish. In September 1901, Ferrer
used the money to open Barcelona’s first Modern School, enrolling twelve girls
and eighteen boys. The concept caught on, and Modern Schools were opened
throughout Spain. Each followed the curriculum published by Ferrer. Students
were to be educated in a manner appropriate to anarchist principles. Teachers
were not to use corporal punishment but to allow students to pursue their own
interests. The structured curriculum stressed science and rational thought, but
there were no examinations or competitions.
These schools provided opportunities for workers as well as middle-class
youth to mix and spread anarchist ideas throughout the country. Ferrer took
no leadership role in the movement but remained active behind the scenes,
publishing and—according to the Spanish authorities who later arrested him—
encouraging terrorism.
Tomás Herreros, a worker and member of the anarchist movement who
favored syndicalism, wrote that Ferrer may have joined in the 1905 plot to assas-
sinate the king of Spain.59 Another attempt on the king’s life the following year
involved Matteo Morral, a member of Ferrer’s staff. Ferrer was not implicated
in the assassination attempt, but the authorities closed his Modern Schools and
he was jailed for one year. He never reopened his Barcelona school, but the
Modern Schools played an important role in sustaining the anarchist move-
ment in Spain as well as in many other countries, including Argentina.
Anarchist workers in Barcelona did not create another effective organiza-
tion until 1907, when the syndicalist Solidaridad Obrera (Worker Solidarity)
came into existence. The new group’s leaders declared that it was not under the
tutelage of either Marxism or anarchism.60 Herreros and others in Solidaridad
Obrera helped to fuse the two branches of socialism into anarcho-syndicalism,
although the editors of Tierra y Libertad believed that anarcho-syndicalists were
reformists.61 This tension among anarchists in Spain reflected that of anarchists
71
Chapter 3
in Argentina, who also faced unions that favored syndicalism. The leaders of
Solidaridad Obrera knew about Argentina’s FORA and the ongoing attempts
to create a united labor movement there through newspaper articles that cir-
culated throughout Catalonia.62 Spain’s anarchists quickly put aside their dif-
ferences after violent protests shook Barcelona between July 26 and August 1,
1909, which was dubbed Tragic Week.
Labor disputes in the Ter Valley in May had led to an employer lockout,
and Solidaridad Obrera called for a general strike. In early July, the Spanish
army suffered a terrible defeat in Morocco, and the government demanded
increased conscription of young Catalan men. The move angered workers, but
Solidaridad Obrera’s leaders did not agree on protest tactics. An insurrectionary
movement erupted almost spontaneously. As Anselmo Lorenzo wrote, “This is
amazing! A social revolution has broken out in Barcelona, initiated by an entity
so ill-defined, -understood, or -recognized that it is sometimes vilified as a mob
and other times hailed as The People. No one has instigated this revolution!
And no one directs it!”63 Workers erected barricades, the government called in
troops, and fighting ensued for the better part of a week—the Semana Trágica
(Tragic Week). According to some estimates, hundreds died. The government
responded by arresting nearly two thousand people, deporting many others,
and imposing the death sentence on five individuals, among them Ferrer, who
had nothing to do with the violence.
The Tragic Week and subsequent repression weakened but did not destroy
Spain’s anarchist movement. Solidaridad Obrera was closed for a time but re-
sumed publication with Prat’s call for anarchists to take action.64 Prat also pub-
lished his call in Tierra y Libertad.65 He, Ricardo Mella, and the aging Lorenzo
mounted a spirited defense of anarchist principles that continued until the
outbreak of war in 1914. Anarchists in the labor movement also rebounded. In

December 1909, Solidaridad Obrera held a meeting of unions as a way to rees-
tablish the federation, whose membership had declined from fifteen thousand
to about forty-five hundred.66 Only twenty-seven unions sent delegates, and
they seemed to have little enthusiasm for renewed activism. Bookchin attributes
the ascendance of more militant anarchists by 1910 to the withdrawal of mod-
erate leaders in the face of repression.67 But migration may have also played a
role. In 1910, the number of Spanish immigrants going to Argentina spiked to
131,466, nearly 60 percent higher than the 1909 figure of 86,798. Prior to World
War I, only 1912 would see more Spaniards migrate to Argentina (165,662).68
Emigration was one option for those concerned about government repression
in Spain, although there is no way to know whether the more militant or the
more timid were likely to be among these migrants. Conversely, government
72
repression in Argentina, especially with the 1910 Law of Social Defense rein-
forcing the Residency Law, resulted in the return of many Spanish anarchist
immigrants from Argentina at this critical moment.
Abad de Santillán estimates that about two thousand anarchists were ar-
rested in Argentina during the upheavals of 1909–10.69 That group included
twenty-eight Spaniards who were arrested after Falcón’s assassination and de-
ported via the Roland from Buenos Aires to Vigo at the end of 1909.70 Prior to
their deportation, the men spent a month imprisoned on another ship, the
Guardia Nacional, during which time they claimed to have been beaten with
the flat of machete blades.71 Three of the men jumped ship in Montevideo,
while the others were detained by Spanish authorities after landing in Vigo.
The deportees were later released without jobs or money, forcing them to find
family members with whom to stay.72
Anarchists’ movements across the Atlantic in response to periods of anar-
chist activity and government repression in Spain and Argentina resulted in an
exchange of militants that made them familiar with both countries’ movements.
This interrelationship affected the development of the anarchist movement
in Argentina, where Spanish immigrants helped build the largest and most
powerful labor confederation. Argentine labor unions modeled their strike
activity, in part, on the 1902 general strike in Barcelona that was a consequence
of syndicalist ideology. The influence of syndicalism then became a point of
contention within the labor movement and led to divisions in Argentina. In
response to the threat of strikes and labor’s increasing power, the Argentine
government passed the Residency Law. The resulting arrest and deportation
of hundreds of anarchist immigrants, many of them of Spanish origin, led to
an influx of confidence and an energy that helped reinvigorate the Spanish an-
archist movement. The Tragic Week forced many anarchists to flee Spain for
Argentina, only to be caught up in the repression that led to the Law of Social
Defense. The cycle of migration and return continued to bring anarchists eager
for new opportunities to a new shore, further intertwining the Spanish and
Argentine anarchist movements.
73
Chapter 4
The CNT and

the War Years
Anarchist Rivalries
and New Leadership
T h e s e c o n d d e c a d e of the twentieth century began with

calamities for both Spanish and Argentine anarchists and brought schisms that
weakened both movements. Many of the immigrant anarchists who were de-
ported from Argentina continued to work in Spain. The expanding influence of
anarchists in Spanish labor organizations enlarged the movement but brought
divergent ideas on tactics. In Argentina, the reduction in Spanish immigration
during World War I allowed younger anarchists to rise to prominence, with
Spanish immigrants Emilio López Arango and Diego Abad de Santillán the
most important of this group. These changes in leadership brought out per-
sonal rivalries as well as ideological differences between those who adhered to
anarcho-communism and the syndicalists. In this period, López Arango and
Abad de Santillán emerged as champions of a pure anarchism that challenged
the leadership of the Spanish movement over the influence of syndicalism.
These same rivalries between syndicalists and anarcho-communists split the
Argentine labor movement as well. Reaction by the state to revolution and
violent labor strife brought repression in Spain and Argentina after the war. Yet
throughout the decade, despite war and limited immigration, anarchists in both
countries remained aware of what each country’s movement was facing and how
it responded. This knowledge helped individuals decide whether to remain or
migrate, continuing the cycle that linked the two anarchist movements.
The CNT and the War Years
Fig u re 8. Shoemaker working in the conventillo patio, Buenos Aires, 1914.

Source: Departamento de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la
Nación, Buenos Aires
Some of the returning deportees from Argentina gave a negative picture of

life and opportunities there that contrasted sharply with the positive picture
painted by successful immigrants and with the promises made by Argentine

consuls encouraging immigration (in part because they received “a commission
from ship companies for every person they embarked”).1 Spanish anarchist and
syndicalist newspapers used deportees’ accounts to discourage emigration and
radicalize native workers. Emilio V. Santolaria cautioned his readers that the Ar-
gentine government wanted to exploit labor and mislead immigrants. He cited
Spanish peasants who went to Argentina to work in agriculture but received
lower wages than workers already there: “Comrade readers, you see how the
number of immigrants fleeing from the misery of their lives in their native land
to Argentina does not decrease, even though there they fall into the misery of
life in a new land. They do not understand that of those workers who live here
and dream of making money, few if any will realize their dreams. There is ter-
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rible misery throughout Argentina, just as there is in all other countries where
there is not enough work and too many workers. Many union members suffer
an exorbitant rate of unemployment.”2 Spanish anarchists spread the news that
emigration would not solve one’s problems and supported their claims with
news from Argentina and from those deported by the Argentine authorities.
Articles about labor unrest and government repression, along with tales by
anarchists who had been deported from Argentina, helped slow Spanish immi-
gration to Argentina from 131,466 in 1910 to 118,723 in 1911. Spanish immigration
to Argentina rose again in 1912 and 1913 but fell significantly the following year
with the outbreak of World War I.3 In Spain, the infusion of returning anar-
chists and the knowledge of events in Argentina stimulated workers, leading
to the creation of what would become Spain’s largest and most powerful labor
organization.
Founding of the CNT and Spanish

Anarchism after 1910
The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labor),

profoundly affected the nature of anarchist organization in Spain. Delegates
from local confederations from all over the country met in Barcelona at the
Palacio de Bellas Artes at the end of October 1910. The delegates agreed to cre-
ate a new national labor confederation, the CNT, and it held its first congress
eleven months later, again in Barcelona. The labor federation adhered to an-
archist principles, organizing from the bottom up, with representatives from
autonomous local and regional committees meeting in a national federation.
The CNT was committed to the principle of direct action but would have no
strike funds and only a few permanent officers. Dues were minimal but par-
ticipation was paramount, and worker committees managed most local-level
affairs. They organized classes, created libraries, held conferences, and tried to
carry out the members’ wishes.
The CNT fared poorly before World War I, in part because of the still undi-
gested mixture of anarchism and syndicalism. Later, however, the emergence of
anarcho-syndicalism enabled the federation to become a powerful force, albeit
one that led to ideological conflict with Argentine anarchists who opposed the
separate syndical organization. According to Murray Bookchin, “The CNT,
it must be emphasized at this point, was not homogeneous in its outlook.”4
These nuances led to a growing split between anarchists who stressed the goal
of more immediate improvements and those who wanted ultimately to destroy
the state through a social revolution.
76
In creating their new federation, Spanish anarchists looked closely at Ar-

gentina’s anarcho-communist FORA and the socialist-syndicalist CORA. On
February 19, 1910, Barcelona’s anarchist Solidaridad Obrera ran a front-page
story on the CORA and reprinted the entirety of its founding document. The
piece concludes, “As you can see, this is a document that is well thought-out and
well written, and in giving our congratulations to our comrades in Argentina,
we also recommend that our comrades of the Regional Confederation study
it well, so that they may make use of it at our next Workers’ Congress, which
will be held in September.”5 This conference established the CNT.
The CNT faced problems a few days after that congress when it called a
general strike to support workers who had walked off the job in Bilbao. The
general strike began in Saragossa on September 16 and spread to several other
cities. Barcelona’s police arrested many CNT leaders, and the government of
the Liberal Party, headed by José Canalejas, moved to crush the federation.
Canalejas had taken the reins of government in opposition to the Conservative
Party’s harsh repression after Tragic Week. Canalejas imposed martial law and
reacted harshly to the 1911 general strike. Five strike leaders were sentenced to
death, although the king later commuted their sentences to life imprisonment.
The CNT was forced underground, and its newspapers closed until 1914. These
were difficult years for Spanish workers. In 1912, Canalejas drafted twelve thou-
sand men into the army to avert a railroad strike, leading to his assassination the
following year by Miguel Pardiñas, a young anarchist. This atmosphere made it
difficult for the CNT to attract large numbers of workers, and its membership
totaled only about fifteen thousand at the beginning of World War I. However,
after the conflict began, the increasing demand for goods from neutral Spain
and rising prices brought benefits to workers and reinvigorated the CNT. It
regained its legal status, and Solidaridad Obrera resumed publication in 1915.
Both that daily and the weekly Tierra y Libertad exhorted Spanish workers not
to take sides in the war.
The editors of Tierra y Libertad included Antonio Loredo, who had been
deported from Argentina in 1905. Loredo took an active part in the events of
Tragic Week and was jailed for several months and then expelled from the
country. “You can deport me,” he told the police as they shipped him off to
Uruguay, “but I will return to Spain.”6 From Montevideo, Loredo moved back
to Buenos Aires, where he served on the editorial board of La Protesta before
being arrested and again deported from Argentina, thus fulfilling his promise
to return to Spain.
Loredo did not miss a beat as he continued his polemics through Tierra y
Libertad. He cautioned Spanish anarchists to avoid becoming sidetracked by
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Chapter 4
World War I and to adhere faithfully to their anarchist principles.7 He also ap-
peared at union halls to give talks supporting anarchist unions. On September
11, 1915, he spoke at the Sociedad de Albañiles (Bricklayers’ Union) on “Social
Problems in a Capitalist Society.”8 Letters to Tierra y Libertad demonstrate the
importance of Loredo’s presence to Spanish anarchists. The paper printed an
open letter to “My good comrade Antonio Loredo” as well as another missive
complaining that Loredo’s denunciation of the Spanish Committee for Social
Propaganda was unfair.9 Loredo became an important part of the Spanish anar-
chist movement. He helped to found the periodical Guerra Social (Social War)
in Elda in Alicante. Loredo also wrote in opposition to the death penalty and
traveled to Logroño to report on the strike there.10
Articles regarding Argentina regularly appeared in Tierra y Libertad. Regular
contributors included Joaquín Hucha, a Spaniard deported from Buenos Aires
to La Coruña before settling in Montevideo, and H. Grau, who also contributed
to La Protesta.11 On August 21, 1912, Tierra y Libertad congratulated La Protesta
on its good work.12 When the Argentine government closed La Protesta, Tierra
y Libertad reported under the headline “Contra la barbarie argentina” (Against
Argentine Barbarism).13 The periodical described problems faced by Spanish
workers during World War I as higher salaries failed to keep up with increas-
ing rents.14 Solidaridad Obrera also published many articles about events in
Argentina, explaining how much anarchists from the two countries assisted
each other. In reaction to the post–May 1910 repression in Argentina, Spanish
anarchists called for a protest against the Argentine president, Roque Sáenz
Peña, who visited later that year.
Jesús Vega Fernández was one of the most notorious examples of the con-
nection between Argentine deportees and Spanish anarchists. He was born in
Spain but immigrated to Argentina to find work. As a result of his participa-

tion in the labor movement, he was arrested and deported in 1913 under the
Residency Law. He arrived in Barcelona but could not find work because the
Spanish police notified prospective employers of his anarchist background. The
police apparently targeted Fernández, continuously following him and ques-
tioning him several times. The chief of police finally tried to recruit Fernández
as a police informer, giving him a gun and some money. Fernández resisted but
was told that he would never find a job and would be hounded incessantly if
he did not become an informer. After several confrontations, Fernández shot
and wounded the police chief. Fernández was immediately arrested, and his
situation became well known throughout Spain.15
The world war brought division among anarchists. Anselmo Lorenzo died
a few months after the outbreak of the war. He, José Prat, and Ricardo Mella
78
felt that Spanish anarchists and workers in general should not take sides in a
war among imperialist powers. As Loredo forcefully wrote in a manifesto for
Barcelona’s Ateneo Sindicalista, “Rather than war, revolution!”16 Yet when the
greatest living anarchist, Peter Kropotkin, came out in support of the war and
the Allied powers, some Spanish anarchists, including Mella, supported him.
Another point of contention among anarchists was whether to emphasize
worker salaries and working conditions. Salvador Seguí and Ángel Pestaña rep-
resented the syndicalist approach, believing that greater cooperation between
the CNT and the socialist labor federation, the Unión General de Trabajadores
(General Union of Workers), would help achieve improvements for Spanish
workers. Pestaña, an editor of Solidaridad Obrera, used that organ to press his
views, while Loredo, at Tierra y Libertad, continued to oppose cooperation
with the socialists. This debate continued throughout 1915 and into 1916 be-
fore culminating in the Pact of Saragossa, in which the two labor federations
pledged cooperation in urging the government to reduce the cost of living. In
December of that year, the two organizations cooperated in a twenty-four-hour
general strike to protest rising prices.17 This cooperation continued into 1917
before leading to catastrophic results.
Eduardo Dato, the newly appointed Spanish premier, reacted to mount-
ing labor unrest by dissolving the Cortes, Spain’s parliament, and suspending
constitutional guarantees in June 1917. Shortly thereafter, railroad workers in
Valencia went out on strike. When railroad management refused to reinstate
forty-three militants after the strike ended, workers struck again. At the same
time, nearly twenty-five thousand metallurgical workers walked off the job. On
August 13, the Unión General de Trabajadores declared a general strike with the
CNT’s support. Barricades went up in Barcelona, and heavy fighting broke out.
Martial law was declared throughout Spain. Seventy people were killed in the
fighting and approximately two thousand were arrested, making this a defeat
for the workers. The socialists led the general strike and suffered significantly.
Nevertheless, the CNT emerged with the realization that political pacts with
other labor organizations had not proved beneficial.
In addition to the urban anarcho-syndicalist movement of Barcelona and
northern Spain represented by the CNT, southern Spain, especially Andalusia,
had a rural anarchist tradition. In 1913, a congress in the city of Córdoba created
the Federación Nacional de Agricultores Españoles (National Federation of Span-
ish Agricultural Laborers). For nearly six years, the group fought for the rights
of rural workers, demanding “Land for those who work it.” At a 1918 conference
in Valencia, amid postwar hopes for revolution, it merged with the CNT. The
coordination among urban and rural anarchists created a national movement.
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Chapter 4
The story of Antonio Rosado illustrates the effects of this merger as well as
the continuing role of immigration in Spanish anarchism. Rosado was born in
1889 to illiterate parents in Morón de la Frontera. When he was nine, he joined
his father tending animals in the village. Two years later, Rosado’s father died,
preventing him from attending school. But a village workers’ organization es-
tablished a school for working-class children and adults along the lines of Fran-
cisco Ferrer’s secular Modern School. In 1905, authorities closed the school and
arrested Rosado’s maternal grandmother, who had hidden the teacher, Abelard
Saavedra, as well as an anarchist militant, Teresa Claramunt.
In 1912, Rosado was twenty-three years old and not a member of any workers’
association when he was asked to help supervise a bread cooperative run by a
local workers’ group. He began to hear about Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon,
and anarchist ideas, and he read the works of Julio Camba, a well-known Span-
ish writer who had spent four years in Argentina before being deported back
to Spain in 1902. Camba published stories and articles in Spain’s El Rebelde.
Rosaldo was called for military service in 1915 but discharged after writing an
antimilitary article that was published in the anarchist press. Four years later,
Rosado was arrested for organizing workers in Andalusia. In 1920, he was re-
leased while awaiting trial and decided to flee the country. He recalled, “My
reaction formed slowly but resolutely. I would reject the tribunal’s judgment
and send myself into exile for an indefinite period. I decided to go to South
America, where they spoke Spanish.”18
Rosado fled to Las Palmas and from there to Bahia, Brazil. He then stowed
away on board the Catalina and arrived in Buenos Aires in early 1922. He spent
two years in Argentina but returned to Spain after learning that dictator Miguel
Primo de Rivera had granted a general amnesty in 1924. He went back to his
family’s village and joined a labor organization created by the government. Ro-
sado joined the CNT near the end of the decade and continued his organizing
efforts until the civil war.
Rosado’s tale shows how emigration served as a safety valve for Spanish soci-
ety, providing an escape route both for militants threatened with arrest and for
laborers seeking better opportunities. Though anarchists had political and ideo-
logical motivations, they differed little from other temporary migrants. During
World War I, many Spaniards migrated to work in belligerent countries where
war industries provided higher incomes. By the end of the conflict, however,
economic pressures had reduced opportunities abroad and in Spain. The result
was increasing labor unrest, as evidenced by the 1917 general strike. Neverthe-
less, the CNT became Spain’s largest labor federation , with nearly one million
members. In June 1918, the Catalan regional organization adopted the sindicato
80
único (single union) rather than the craft union as the basis for organization.
This change allowed all workers in a factory or enterprise to become part of
the same union, increasing their strength when dealing with their employer.
According to Murray Bookchin, the single union concept showed the influence
of Andalusian anarchists.19 The subsequent incorporation of Federación Na-
cional de Agricultores Españoles into the CNT represented the reemergence
of a truly national federation, and the CNT developed a militancy that led to
increasing confrontations with the authorities throughout Spain. The most
important of these occurred in January 1917, when the Liberal premier, the
Count of Romanones, suspended constitutional guarantees in Catalonia and
arrested many CNT leaders. Instead of weakening the organization, however,
Romanones’s actions eventually led to one of the largest strikes of the era.
The foreign-owned hydroelectric company, Riegos y Fuerza del Ebro, was
popularly called La Canadiense as a consequence of its Anglo-Canadian origins.
Peter Lawton, the firm’s director, responded to union demands in January 1919
by firing eight workers. When the office staff walked off the job the following
month, police were called in. Finally, the entire workforce went out on strike.
When Romanones tried to draft all the striking workers into the military, the
graphic arts workers refused to allow anything to be printed in the region’s
newspapers. As the prime minister’s actions became known, railway and trolley
workers went out on strike, leaving the entire region in the throes of a general
strike. When the government finally allowed negotiations and announced a
settlement, the workers accepted, but a congress of the employers’ federations
in Barcelona did not, instituting a lockout and refusing to allow employees to
return to work.
In this critical situation, the CNT held a December 10, 1919, congress in Ma-
drid and adopted a revolutionary anarcho-communist stance that emphasized

the doctrine that had been overshadowed by syndicalism during the war years.
The national CNT also adopted the single union as the basis for its organization.
These dramatic measures signaled that the CNT was confident of its power to
threaten the authorities. In response, Spanish industrialists, backed by the gov-
ernment, resisted labor demands and hired gunmen (pistoleros) to kill anarchist
militants. In revenge, anarchists gunned down industrialists and their support-
ers. Several hundred persons were murdered during this period, including CNT
leader Salvador Seguí and the archbishop of Saragossa.20 This violence limited
the CNT’s effectiveness despite its increasing size and importance.
Another challenge to the CNT came from the success of the Russian Revo-
lution in 1917 and the subsequent overshadowing of the country’s anarchists by
the Bolsheviks. The CNT’s 1919 congress in Madrid gave provisional support to
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Chapter 4
the Communist Third International. Meeting in Lérida two years later, the CNT
authorized Andrés Nin and Joaquín Maurín as delegates to Russia; however,
a later congress in Logroño revoked their credentials. Ángel Pestaña went to
Russia to initiate the relationship between the CNT and the communists but
became disillusioned after speaking to Peter Kropotkin, Emma Goldman, and
Alexander Berkman.21 Vacillation over a response to events in Russia divided
the Spanish movement, as did persistent criticism of the Russian Revolution
by Argentine anarchists.22 After many years of mutual support, the Spanish and
Argentine movements entered an era of confrontation in the 1920s.
Anarchism in Argentina after 1910
The conflicts of 1909 and 1910 left Argentina’s anarchist movement weakened
through arrests, imprisonments, and deportations. These new circumstances
initiated struggles for personal and ideological control that divided the move-
ment. Conflicts among strong personalities occurred among both immigrant
and Argentine-born leaders. Most immigrants had come to Argentina before
World War I, and immigration practically ceased during the conflict.23 The end
of immigration and the deportations combined to produce a leadership vacuum
that allowed others, immigrant and native-born, to come to the movement’s
fore. Among these new leaders were Argentine natives Apolinario Barrera, Teo-
doro Antilli, and Rodolfo González Pacheco and Spanish immigrants Abad de
Santillán and López Arango. González Pacheco had joined the editorial board
of La Protesta in 1907 after editors Mariano Forcat and Roberto D’Angió were
deported in the wake of a Buenos Aires rent strike. In March 1910, González
Pacheco and Antilli took responsibility for the publication of a new afternoon
daily newspaper, La Batalla, but the government closed it after upheavals in

May of that year. González Pacheco returned to La Protesta and dominated its
editorial board until 1915.
Barrera also served on that board. According to Abad de Santillán, “Bar-
rera, at least since that week in May 1910, was one of the symbolic anchors of
the anarchist movement in Argentina. He was tall, imposing, valiant, yet self-
denying. He was not a writer; that was not his strength. But he was respected
and admired for his total involvement in the cause, which he made the center
of his life.”24
Barrera tried unsuccessfully to reopen La Protesta, publishing only a May 15,
1911, issue from Montevideo before moving on to a clandestine weekly with a
circulation of seven thousand. The government finally permitted La Protesta to
operate publicly again in June 1912, and Barrera and Antilli continued among
82
Prison, Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina, 1918. Source: Departa-

Fig u re 9.
mento de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires
its editorial staff. In 1913, the two men were arrested and jailed after publishing
an article about Simón Radowitsky, who had been imprisoned in Ushuaia for
assassinating the Buenos Aires chief of police in 1909. In jail, they met López
Arango, a young Spanish immigrant.

Emilio López Arango was born in 1893 in Oviedo, Spain, the son of a fish-
erman from Cudillero, a coastal village. He left for Cuba as a youth but later
returned. In 1910, he immigrated to Argentina, where he worked as a baker.
Antonio Pellicer Paraire, José Maria Montero, and many other anarchist im-
migrants had tried their luck in Cuba, Mexico, the United States, or Panama
before returning to Spain and then immigrating to Argentina. López Arango
became active in the bakers’ union and was jailed as a result of his strike activ-
ity. Meeting Barrera and Antilli sparked López Arango’s interest in writing,
and after his release from jail in 1916, he edited and published a newsletter, El
Obrero Panadero (The Bakery Worker) and contributed to La Protesta. López
Arango held strong views and expressed them forcefully. In a front-page article
in La Protesta, he confronted the government over Radowitzky, precisely the
83
Chapter 4
issue that had led to the earlier suspension of the newspaper. Marking Rad-
owitzky’s seventh year in jail in a far-off fortress in Argentina’s chilly Tierra del
Fuego, López Arango boldly began his piece, “The pages of history are written
in blood.”25 López Arango was not an intellectual. “He did not read much: in
the years of his active militancy, he read very little: but he knew how to extract
from everyday struggles his ideology, doctrine, and ideas.”26 By 1917 he had
become one the editors of La Protesta and an important anarchist leader.
Barrera and López Arango worked to make the anarchist daily newspa-
per successful financially as well as editorially but clashed with others on the
editorial board. After the split between rival factions of FORA in 1915, La Pro-
testa’s editorial board was purged, with Barrera taking control and González
Pacheco ousted. In early 1916, an argument arose over Barrera’s handling of
money. González Pacheco and Antilli started a rival newspaper, La Protesta
Humana, choosing a name that evoked La Protesta’s original title to stake a
claim to representing the true anarchist movement. Barrera and López Arango,
in turn, attempted to prove they held the moral high ground by announcing in
La Protesta in November 1916 that their policies had saved the newspaper from
bankruptcy and debt accrued by earlier editors. The rift persisted for years, and
González Pacheco eventually established La Antorcha in 1921.
Out of these personal rivalries also emerged Diego Abad de Santillán, who
had immigrated to Argentina with his family as a child but spent the war years
in Spain. He could not heal all of the divisions among Argentina’s anarchists,
but he did become a key player in Argentina’s postwar anarchist movement.
Abad de Santillán and the Argentine

Anarchist Movement
Diego Abad de Santillán (real name: Sinesio Baudilio García Fernández) was
born on May 20, 1897, in Reyero, a small village in Spain’s northwestern prov-
ince of León. In 1900, after the birth of his younger sister, his father, Donato
García Paniagua, immigrated to Argentina to stay with his brother and found
employment as an ironworker (herrero). He sent money back to his family, per-
haps planning to rejoin them, since he instructed the family to buy more land
in the village. Finally, when Abad de Santillán was eight, his father sent for the
whole family. They traveled third-class on a steamship and settled in Santa Fé,
Argentina, renting and farming fifty hectares outside the city. Though Abad de
Santillán spent more than half his life in Argentina, he always felt himself to be
rooted in the village of his birth, and he returned many times to Spain: “I have
84
F i g u r e 1 0 . Diego Abad de Santillán, mid-1920s.

Source: International Institute for Social History,
Amsterdam
known many countries and many different regions, but I will always remember
those first years, in that forgotten village, lost in the mountains of León.”27 He
thought of himself as both a Spaniard and an Argentine.
Once his family settled in Santa Fé, Abad de Santillán attended school for
only two years. After turning ten, he went to work to provide additional in-
come for his family, finding employment as a carpenter’s assistant, a bricklayer’s
helper, and finally building rail coaches. For about five years, Abad de Santillán
read books in his free time, and he began to quarrel with his father about con-
tinuing his education. Finally, with the help of his mother, Angela Fernández,
and largely ignoring the wrath of his father, Abad de Santillán left for Spain in
85
Chapter 4
1912, returning to his grandparents’ house in Reyero and seeking admission to

high school. He enrolled at the nearby Instituto de León and completed his
secondary studies over the next two and a half years.
To continue his education, Abad de Santillán did not consider returning to
Argentina but instead headed to Madrid in 1915 and matriculated at the Facultad
de Letras y Filosofía of the Universidad Central, surviving on funds earned by
his mother in Argentina. He studied classical literature and languages, thinking
more about the intellectual than the vocational aspects of his studies. His first
experience with writing and editing, which ultimately became his occupation
for much of his life, came in 1916 when he joined the staff of a magazine advo-
cating for the blind. Shortly thereafter he wrote his first political essay, calling
for a revolution in Spain. On the advice of a friend, he signed the article with
a pen name, Diego Abad de Santillán.
Abad de Santillán’s first political participation came during the 1917 general
strike. Arrested and jailed for one year, he met many political prisoners and
was most impressed by the anarchists. He recalled, “I did not become an anar-
chist by reading pamphlets or books by Kropotkin or other writers; I became
an anarchist because of the moral qualities of the workers whom I knew and
with whom I worked.”28 He explained, “It was not their ideas, which I thought
altruistic but naive, that attracted me.”29 This personal relationship that led
individuals to adopt anarchism was not unique to Abad de Santillán but was
instrumental in the movement’s spread. After his release from jail in 1918, Abad
de Santillán left Spain on a false passport to avoid military service, returning
to Santa Fé.
Abad de Santillán’s younger sister had also challenged their father’s desires
and had obtained a position as a schoolteacher. Two younger siblings, born
while Abad de Santillán was away, remained in school. Abad de Santillán rec-
ognized that his mother’s and sister’s employment, as well as his freedom to
travel abroad, did not accord with the traditional values that his father had
brought from Spain. The family that Abad de Santillán rejoined was “an im-
migrant family assimilated into the country of residence and developing a new
set of norms that were not traditional.”30 Such strains were often a part of the
immigrant experience and changed the family in unintended ways.
Abad de Santillán combined his interests in journalism and his experience
in Spain by publishing a short-lived magazine, La España Futura. The sixty-
seven-page first issue gives a picture of the ideas of this young man as well as a
sense of his personality.31 The journal has seven articles, all written by Abad de
Santillán, and was priced at 3.50 Argentine pesos or 10 Spanish pesetas, making
it available to residents in both countries. In “El impuesto de privilegio” (The
86
Price of Privilege), written in prison in Spain, Abad de Santillán traces the

history of the Spanish monarchy and calls for a revolution, although he does
not yet employ anarchist rhetoric. He criticizes the Spanish royal family and
refers to the king, Alfonso XIII, as the son of a tubercular and syphilitic man
(Alfonso XII had died of tuberculosis) and the grandson of a whore (Isabel
II was flagrant in her promiscuity). The back of the periodical features an an-
nouncement for “The Most Important Works of Diego Abad de Santillán”—El
derecho de España a la revolución (The Right of Spain to a Revolution), Psicologia
del pueblo español (Psychology of the Spanish People), and Discursos sobre los
grandes hombres y sobre la existencia de un redentor de España (Discussions of
Great Men and on the Existence of a Spanish Savior)—all of which could be
purchased at Madrid’s A. Rubinos Bookstore.
La España Futura shows that Abad de Santillán was already a prolific writer
at the age of twenty-one and was confident in himself. Both of these charac-
teristics served him well as he confronted many enemies and many difficult
circumstances. As a young man recently returned to Argentina, Abad de San-
tillán was making a public statement that he supported changes in Spain.
In Santa Fe, Abad de Santillán joined a libertarian library, Emilio Zola, and
began working for a libertarian magazine, La Campana, where he met anarchists
who had fled Buenos Aires following the violence of 1919 and government
repression. A friend later recalled meeting him for the first time: “Tall, thin,
pale, with a beard of at least fifteen days.”32 Abad de Santillán quickly became
an integral part of the anarchist movement and continued with La Protesta after
it reopened in Buenos Aires. There, he experienced the increasing acrimony
over tactics and ideology that pervaded the Argentine movement.
CORA had made little headway against the dominant FORA in the years
leading up to World War I, and in 1914, CORA voted to disband and join its
erstwhile rival to increase labor’s power through solidarity. However, at FORA’s
ninth congress, in 1915, the syndicalists broke with the anarchists and took
the name of FORA of the IX Congress (FORA IX), while the more doctri-
naire anarchists remained faithful to the call for anarcho-communism that had
been accepted at the fifth congress in 1905, taking the name FORA of the V
Congress (FORA V). Barrera and the editorial staff of La Protesta supported
FORA V, and Barrera represented the group at a meeting in São Paulo, Brazil,
in late 1915. The two organizations remained separate but cooperated through
the remainder of World War I as price increases made wage gains less signifi-
cant and real wages for workers declined.33 The 1917 Russian Revolution also
originally encouraged anarchists to cooperate with other labor organizations
in the hope that world revolution would become possible. After all, outbreaks
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Chapter 4
F i g u re 11. Prisoners on their way to cut timber, Tierra del Fuego, Argentina,
early twentieth century. Source: Departamento de Documentos Fotográficos,
Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires
of revolution in Bavaria and Hungary showed that support for revolution had
become widespread. However, when FORA V went out on a general strike in
support of railroad workers in July 1918, FORA IX did not support the action.
In addition, FORA V demonstrated its militancy with a daring attempt to free
Radowitsky from prison. Barrera obtained a small boat in southern Chile, and
Radowitsky left the jail grounds and met Barrera. They sailed off through the
Strait of Magellan, eluding Argentine authorities among the many islands of
that region. However, both men eventually were captured: Radowitsky was
sent back to Ushuaia, where he remained until 1930, and Barrera was jailed in
the Patagonian city of Río Gallegos for a year and a half.
Cooperation among the various organizations vanished after the end of
World War I, when labor demands led to increased strike activity. In 1916, Ar-
gentina experienced 80 strikes encompassing 24,000 workers. For 1917, those
88
numbers jumped to 138 strikes and 135,000 participants, and 1919 saw 397 walk-
outs involving more than 300,000 strikers.34 On January 7 of that year, Argentina
experienced its own Tragic Week, after police fired on strikers at the Vasena
Iron Works, killing four workers. FORA V immediately called for a general
strike, and on January 8, nearly 200,000 workers marched in the streets during
the funeral for those killed the previous day. Police again opened fire on the
crowd, killing fifty, and then arrested labor leaders. Workers rioted, the Vasena
factory burned, and gun battles broke out in the streets.
FORA IX, in contrast, sought to limit violence and obtain benefits for work-
ers by working with the government of Hipólito Yrigoyen and by seeking al-
lies among labor unions. Yrigoyen’s middle-class Radical Party had captured
the presidency in 1916, after four years of voting reforms that brought univer-
sal male suffrage. However, since many workers were immigrants and lacked
citizenship, the government did not count on labor support. Nevertheless, to
counter Socialist Party success in Buenos Aires, Yrigoyen had offered to have
the government arbitrate labor disputes, especially when foreign companies
were involved. FORA V rejected the offer in favor of direct action, but FORA
IX was willing to accept government intervention if doing so would benefit
members. In 1916, for example, FORA IX had accepted the Department of La-
bor’s mediation in a maritime strike. In 1919, the militancy of FORA V and the
restraint of FORA IX marked their different philosophical approaches. FORA
V later claimed that FORA IX had made a secret deal with the police and pulled
out of the strike.35 This split in labor’s ranks also encouraged the government
to end the strikes through repression.
The Patriotic League, a group that opposed immigration and the perceived
Bolshevik threat, joined government forces in opposing striking workers. On
one occasion, a search of working-class neighborhoods in Buenos Aires led to

hundreds of deaths, injuries, and arrests.36 Abad de Santillán later claimed that
more than fifty-five thousand workers were jailed as a result of government
repression.37
The Argentine government again sought to quell the unrest by closing anar-
chist newspapers and invoking the Residency Law to deport foreign workers.
Between July 30 and September 30, 1919, the government deported ninety-two
Spaniards. (See table 4.) More than one-third of those deported were from Gali-
cia and northwestern Spain, including fourteen from La Coruña, eleven from
Pontevedra, and eight from Orense.38 Most of the deportees were not young
and may have been longtime residents of Argentina. The average age of those
deported was thirty: the youngest was twenty and the oldest was forty-nine. The
fact that 40 percent of those deported were over thirty years of age indicates that
89
Chapter 4
Tab l e 4 . Ages of Spaniards Deported
from Argentina, July–September 1919

Ages Number Percentage
20s 55 60
30s 27 29
40s 10 11
Total 92 100
Source: “Españoles expulsados de Argentina,” Minis-
terio de Asuntos Exteriores, Box 9159, Archivo Gen-
eral de la Administración, Alcalá de Henares, Spain.
the deportations represented the Argentine government’s effort to get rid of any
perceived troublemaker, regardless of family ties or length of residency.
The number and scope of these deportations startled even the Spanish gov-
ernment. “You cannot calculate there,” wrote the Spanish minister of state to
the Argentine ambassador in Madrid, “the impression that so many and such
a large number of expulsions makes, not only on our working class, but on all
social classes, and the difficulties this presents for the advancement of good
relations we wish to promote with the Argentine government.”39 The letter indi-
cates that despite the reduction of immigration during the war years, anarchist
militants were still circulating between the two nations.
Strife continued to plague Argentina, most famously when strikes at La
Forestal in the Chaco region of the far north and in Patagonia in the far south
produced violent clashes and repression that subdued the country’s anarchist
movement for years. These events emphasized the divide among Argentine
anarchists, leading to further conflicts with Spanish anarchists.

La Protesta’s editors saw themselves as the official voice of FORA V and what
they termed the pure anarchist movement. In Abad de Santillán’s words, those
working at the newspaper were “taking their duties seriously and, in this, they
sacrificed everything; their lives, if necessary.”40 When La Protesta resumed
publication in 1920, its editors and the anarchist movement in general strongly
supported the rights of the Chaco and Patagonia workers, but the divisions
among anarchists brought frustration. One speaker at a 1921 May Day rally
said, “If it is true that no political or revolutionary entity can compare to the
anarchists in power, it is also true that today we are no nearer the revolution
than yesterday, because our forces are not arrayed in a common battle forma-
tion against our enemies, which would ensure the triumph of the proletariat.”41
The rural laborers at the Chaco facility operated by La Forestal, a large Eng-
lish company, struck to protest working conditions in April 1921. Police inter-
90
vention led to the deaths of many and the strike failed, a defeat Abad de Santillán
attributed to “the suicidal passivity of the Argentine proletariat, shackled in its
‘understandings’ resulting from recent congresses.” He also blamed the FORA
V leadership, which did not intervene to support the striking workers because
of an October 1920 solidarity pact between FORA V and FORA IX.42 Abad de
Santillán and other members of FORA V sought to end cooperation between
the two groups. An August 1921 regional meeting of FORA V led to a rejection
of “all plans for unification.”43
The other significant labor struggle erupted among agricultural laborers in
Patagonia in 1920.44 The strike lasted months, and President Yrigoyen called
in federal troops. For a time, the issues were settled and troops withdrew. But
the refusal of employers to carry out improvements led to another walkout,
and federal troops under Lieutenant Colonel Héctor Varela returned in 1921.
The army rounded up many of those involved in the strike and labor agitation,
and “both federal troops and the police killed [workers] for fun, by instinct,
as nothing and to rob their victims. All this was done with the approval of the
local ranchers and large companies.”45 Estimates of the number massacred by
the army and police reach into the thousands.46
La Protesta attempted to clarify the situation, but Patagonia was so far from
the capital that the paper had difficulty conveying the magnitude of the repres-
sion. Antonio López claims that the anarchists “did not have the desired collabo-
ration of the syndicalist federation, the FORA IX.”47 At this point, all semblance
of unity had been dropped and the unions of FORA IX met in March 1922 to
create a new syndicalist organization, the Unión Sindical Argentina (USA).
The differences between the anarcho-communist labor federation and the
syndicalist federation lay not only in their approaches toward government in-
tervention but also in the nature of their leadership. Earlier, Mikhail Bakunin
had supported the formation of leadership groups, not necessarily associated
with labor federations, to help maintain the purity of anarchist beliefs. The
syndicalist USA relied on the guidance of its labor union leaders, while FORA
(no longer identifying itself as FORA V) looked to the editors of La Protesta.
But in the early 1920s, FORA members split into factions based on support and
opposition to the editors of La Protesta.
González Pacheco claimed that a small group dominated La Protesta and did
not necessarily speak for all of FORA’s members. Personal conflicts between
González Pacheco and López Arango certainly fueled this break. Other Argen-
tines agreed. In May 1924, one group, the Ateneo Anarquista (Anarchist Athe-
naeum), denounced La Protesta on the grounds that it had cut off all unions that
sided with the Antorcha group.48 A 1924 broadsheet published by the Alianza
Libertaria Argentina (Argentine Libertarian Alliance) charged that La Pro-
91
Chapter 4
testa was too commercial and was “owned” by Barrera, who had been released
from jail and had returned to the newspaper’s staff.49 The Alianza Libertaria
Argentina associated itself with the USA, claiming to be made up of anarchist
militants and identifying the Antorcha group as mostly intellectuals. González
Pacheco, Antilli, and others believed La Protesta’s editors controlled FORA
and refused to accept criticism from anyone outside their group. According to
León Guerrero, the members of the Protesta group “seem to believe that only
they can properly license anarchists by means of their identification cards and
memberships.”50
The failures of the movement and the disagreements among its members
weighed heavily on Abad de Santillán and other Argentine anarchists. Abad
de Santillán recalled, “At the end of 1921 we had to confess that we had lost and
that we in the rest of the country had abandoned our brothers from the south
to their tragic destiny, to their death, without even a sign of protest, without
an adequate response.”51 The responses of Abad de Santillán and his German
roommate, Kurt Wilckens, however, demonstrate individual choices in actions
and the place of migration in the face of repression. Wilckens said little to Abad
de Santillán about the events in Patagonia but felt intense anger at the officer
responsible for the deaths of so many workers. In January 1923, Kurt Wilckens
threw a bomb at Varela, wounding him. Wilckens then pulled out a pistol and
shot the colonel dead, taking vengeance on a man hated by Argentine workers.
Wilckens was captured and imprisoned and was murdered while in custody.
Abad de Santillán, in contrast, chose to leave Argentina in 1922, traveling to
Berlin to study medicine. A friend later summed up Abad de Santillán’s emo-
tions, telling him, “You left here thinking to escape from the routine of La Pro-
testa and the useless repetition of propaganda to which it condemned you.”52
Abad de Santillán’s return to Europe reveals several aspects of migration. First,

any move may be temporary. He had returned to Argentina to escape the draft
in Spain, but when conditions in Argentina became more difficult, he left for
Berlin, which had become the hub of the strong German anarchist movement,
with refugees streaming in from Russia.
Second, individuals respond to pressures and circumstances in many ways.
Wilckens murdered a hated class enemy, while Abad de Santillán migrated. Just
as any migrant would forsake a country with minimal job prospects in favor
of one where conditions were better, Abad de Santillán took advantage of the
opportunities in Germany. He accepted La Protesta’s offer to be its correspon-
dent in Germany, writing about events in Europe, continuing his connection
to the Argentine anarchist movement.
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Chapter 5
The FORA
and the CNT
Transnational
Anarchist Rivalries
D i e g o A ba d d e Sa n t i l l á n left Argentina for Europe in

1922, ostensibly to study medicine at the University of Berlin. He was discour-
aged by Argentine anarchists’ inability to respond to the Patagonian massacres.
Abad de Santillán’s move reflected the lack of opportunity to pursue anarchist
goals in Argentina as well as the relative significance of Argentine anarchism
during the 1920s, as European anarchist movements faced increasing challenges
from dictatorships and from the communists as the Soviet Union emerged from
civil war. This chapter describes the transnational conflict between the Argen-
tine FORA and the Spanish CNT during the 1920s, when Abad de Santillán and
other Spanish immigrants to Argentina attempted to steer the Spanish move-
ment toward what the Argentines thought was their purer form of anarchism.
The Yrigoyen administration’s repression lessened, presenting opportunities
for Argentine anarchists, while Miguel Primo de Rivera’s Spanish dictatorship
repressed the movement there. Later in the decade, Abad de Santillán returned
to Argentina. But the creation of the International Workingmen’s Associa-
tion in 1922 gave Abad de Santillán a forum in which to present the American
emphasis on antipolitical anarchism and to oppose the reformist leadership
of Ángel Pestaña and Salvador Seguí in Spain. The creation of the Federación
Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) in 1927 resulted in part from the desire to create an
organization to oversee the purity of Spanish anarchism, much as the editorial
Chapter 5
F i g u r e 1 2 . Card identifying Diego Abad de Santillán as the

German correspondent for Argentina’s Argonauta publishing
house, mid-1920s. Source: International Institute for Social
History, Amsterdam
board of La Protesta had done in Buenos Aires under Abad de Santillán and
Emilio López Arango.
Abad de Santillán may have abandoned Argentina for Europe, but he was not
abandoning the anarchist movement. He agreed to serve as a reporter for the
Argentine newspaper La Protesta and as a representative of the Argonauta pub-
lishing house. On his way to Germany, Abad de Santillán stopped in the Spanish
port city of Vigo, where he met Ricardo Mella, a noted anarchist theoretician.
Abad de Santillán wanted to meet the elderly libertarian as well as commission
him to translate the last work of Peter Kropotkin, Ethics, for Argonauta. How-
ever, Abad de Santillán had an ulterior motive: healing a breach in the Spanish
movement. Mella had supported Kropotkin in opposing imperial Germany
in World War I, while the majority of Spanish anarchists favored neutrality.1
Mella and Abad de Santillán spoke about the current situation in Spain, where
94
The FORA and the CNT
the anarchist movement faced several serious problems. The deadly battle be-
tween right-wing and anarchist pistoleros (gunmen) resulted in the deaths of
230 persons over sixteen months in 1920 and 1921.2 The CNT’s members also
debated the Spanish movement’s response to events in the Soviet Union and
the increasing division between anarchists and syndicalists within the organiza-
tion. But Mella was unwilling to break his silence and enter the debate against
Pestaña and Seguí, who counseled greater political involvement for the Spanish
CNT to achieve gains for labor.
Abad de Santillán continued his voyage to Berlin, where he met Fritz Kater
and Rudolf Rocker. Kater, a construction worker, had been one of the founders
of Germany’s anarchist movement. He had assisted Gustav Kessler in separat-
ing syndicalists from the Social Democratic Party and steering them toward
anarcho-syndicalism. Kater had also represented the German movement Freie
Arbeiter Union Deutschland at the 1913 London conference. Rocker had been
enthralled with Spain as a youth and had lived for a time in London, where he
came to know Spanish anarchists who sought refuge there. Since Rocker spoke
Spanish, Abad de Santillán found him to be very helpful as he got accustomed
to life in Germany.
Abad de Santillán divided his time between his studies at the College of
Medicine at the University of Berlin and his participation in the anarchist move-
ment. He shared with Kater and other German anarchists a concern over those
imprisoned by the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.3 Soviet refugees came to
Germany, and Abad de Santillán prepared a Spanish-language edition of The
History of the Makhnovist Movement with the help of Russian anarchist Volin
(Vsevolod Mikhailovich Eikhenbaum).4
By 1922, Rocker was both a friend and a mentor to Abad de Santillán. Abad
de Santillán attended a series of lectures by Rocker on the history of the Spanish

anarchist movement, and “from that date I became interested in the history of
the Spanish movement,” wrote Abad de Santillán.5 But Kater became more than
a mentor. Abad de Santillán got to know the Kater family, particularly Kater’s
twenty-year-old daughter, Elisa, who became his compañera (companion); bore
him a son, Diego; and lived with him for nearly sixty years.
Abad de Santillán’s interest in Spanish anarchism brought him into a de-
bate that pitted the Argentine FORA against European anarchists, especially
the Spanish CNT. The Argentine federation claimed the mantle of apolitical
revolution and condemned any attempt to accommodate the state. Abad de
Santillán and López Arango took the leading role in trying to preserve what
they called pure anarchism. López Arango remained on La Protesta’s editorial
board in Buenos Aires, while Abad de Santillán supported the FORA’s positions
95
Chapter 5
from Europe. Both men attacked the Spanish CNT’s reformist tendencies. The
conflict encompassed anarchists on both sides of the Atlantic.
One of the issues that divided libertarians in the postwar years was the
place of unions and the labor movement. Syndicalists envisioned unions fed-
erated into a powerful working-class force that would provide the foundation
for the new libertarian society and favored general strikes as a class weapon.
The founders of the CORA and later the USA believed that workers should
influence the state to provide better working conditions and better pay and to
guarantee labor’s rights. They proposed defending workers’ material and pro-
fessional interests and struggling against all forms of exploitation and tyranny
until the complete emancipation of the proletariat and the abolition of wages
had been achieved.6
Anarcho-communists did not differ fundamentally in their support of syn-
dicalists’ goals but regarded the bureaucratic nature of any institution, even a
workers’ federation, with suspicion, questioning whether the libertarian revo-
lution should be restricted only to the proletariat or should encompass all per-
sons in a free society. In many respects, both factions reflected fundamental
anarchist beliefs in the goal of a libertarian society, but they differed in their
tactics and emphasis. Nevertheless, these differences were real and the polemic
heated. Not only did these arguments divide the anarchist movements within
Argentina and Spain, but the debate became multinational. “From 1915 until
1920, the anarchist press in Spain debated the conflict between revolutionary
syndicalists and the anarchist-inspired syndicalists, like those of the FORA in
Argentina. This conflict intensified during the years of the dictatorship of Primo
de Rivera, bringing out more strongly the influence of Argentine anarchism on
the Spanish movement.”7
In 1922, the International Workingmen’s Association (in Spanish, the Aso-

ciación Internacional de los Trabajadores [AIT]) established a new interna-
tional association of anarchist and syndicalist organizations at a congress in Ber-
lin. The meeting provided the opportunity for anarchist movements throughout
Europe and the Americas to assist each other and share information. But it also
brought out major differences over how to respond to the communist Red In-
ternational and how anarchists should participate in the state to achieve labor’s
goals. Delegates to the Berlin conference discussed the tactical advantages of
syndicalism. Abad de Santillán, representing the FORA, objected strenuously
to any political involvement, a stance that eventually led to a direct confronta-
tion with the Spanish CNT, which was struggling with the same issues.
Anarchist movements throughout Europe had suffered in the aftermath of
World War I, with opposition from fascists, socialists, and communists. Benito
Mussolini’s Italian regime presented labor with an alternate system of power and
96
repressed opponents, including anarchists. Camilo Berneri, Errico Malatesta,

and Luigi Fabbri found themselves without the strong support they had previ-
ously enjoyed among Italian workers. Socialists eclipsed the French anarchists,
while Bolsheviks attacked Russian anarchists. Spain’s anarchist movement was
the only one in Europe to emerge from World War I with greater influence than
before. But Spanish anarchists soon found that anarchists in Latin America,
especially Argentina, challenged their organization and their leadership.
The FORA-CNT Conflict
The hostility between the FORA and the CNT became apparent at the AIT’s
founding conference, but the underlying conflict between anarcho-communists
and syndicalists had been festering for several years on both sides of the At-
lantic. Immigrant anarchists in Argentina believed that their fusion of Spanish
and Italian anarchism represented a truer form of Bakuninism than the current
European movement, which was influenced by the socialists and a politically
oriented labor movement. Abad de Santillán and López Arango numbered
among the most vociferous proponents of this American-style anarchism.
López Arango wrote to Abad de Santillán on August 16, 1922, about the plans
for the Berlin conference and suggested that he represent the FORA since no
other representative would sail from Argentina. López Arango expressed his
doubts about the new organization, fearing that finding common ground with
the European organizations would require compromises with advocates of a
political role for unions. López Arango rejected compromise at the conference
in Berlin for the same reasons the FORA had rejected ties to the USA: fear of
involvement with political parties and of compromising anarchist principles.
He was also very critical of the Spanish CNT, which had met in Saragossa to
hear reports from representatives in Moscow and had joined the Red Inter-
national. López Arango denounced Pestaña and Seguí as chameleons for sup-
porting Moscow.8
On November 6, 1922, López Arango again wrote to tell Abad de Santillán
that Orlando Ángel would come from Argentina to attend the Berlin confer-
ence, warning, “With respect to the Berlin Conference, here we harbor few
illusions. Our European comrades maintain a mistaken position and we have
little interest in following them.” He recommended that Abad de Santillán
attack the Spanish representatives “to drive out those opportunists from the
CNT who want to go to Berlin.”9
In their book on anarchism, Abad de Santillán and López Arango wrote,
“The one thing that distinguishes Argentine anarchism is its preoccupation
with the anarchist movement in Europe.”10 They also suggested that Argen-
97
Chapter 5
tine anarchists needed to help those in areas where the movement was less
advanced and publicize the development of anarchist ideas in Argentina. They
opposed any political coalitions and stressed what they considered to be pure
anarchist ideals: “Anarchism, as a doctrine, can set no one free. Its mission is
to inculcate in all human beings the idea that redemption cannot be achieved
through magic or illusion, but must come from the efforts of each one of us.”11
They continued, “There are two countries supporting our thesis of the harmony
between anarchism and the organization of the masses, two countries in which
our ideas have always had more influence over the revolutionary proletariat:
Spain and Argentina.”12 But López Arango and Abad de Santillán believed that
the Spanish organization was in danger of sacrificing its revolutionary purity
in favor of short-term reforms.
The Argentine anarchists complained about the “deviations of Spanish syn-
dicalists.” Writing to Abad de Santillán on FORA letterhead, Luis Jorge Rey
wrote, “We are tired of playing games with the politics of the Red International
and being instruments of such detested diplomacy.”13 In addition, the Argen-
tines were suspicious of the new AIT. In May 1923, Rey again wrote to Abad de
Santillán to complain that European syndicalism was less advanced than that
of Argentina.14
Spanish anarchists, in turn, felt that the FORA’s criticism was misplaced.
According to José Peirats’s history of the CNT, the members of the Spanish
delegation to Moscow were jailed in Italy on their way home, so the organization
did not know about the conditions facing anarchists in the Soviet Union.15 As
a result, Peirats suggests, the CNT affiliated itself with the Red International in
1921. The CNT attempted to send a delegation to the AIT’s 1922 Berlin confer-
ence, but the representatives were detained in France. Had they reached Berlin,
the CNT likely would have joined with the French delegation’s proposal to
include the Soviet Red International. Argentine representatives strongly op-
posed the motion and spoke out against it: “The FORA has clearly signaled its
point of view for several years, and if it agreed to the creation of a new Inter-
national it was with the belief that revolutionary syndicalism throughout the
entire world had understood and appreciated its actions over the last several
years. In its decision to create a new International of revolutionary workers it
absolutely rejects political entities such as those of the Internationals of Am-
sterdam [Social Democrats] and Moscow [Communists].”16
Despite the Argentines’ objections, the Red International was admitted into
the AIT. The Argentines continued to oppose the communists’ inclusion. Abad
de Santillán believed that the FORA could steer the organization away from
political involvement and back toward revolutionary syndicalism at the AIT’s
98
second congress, to be held in Amsterdam in 1925.17 According to Abad de San-

tillán, “For us, these daily struggles have a revolutionary value; in the hands of
the reformers, these struggles only serve to take workers away from the goal of
revolution.”18 In January 1925, J. M. Hacha, a member of La Protesta’s editorial
board, told Abad de Santillán that copies of the paper had been sent to comrades
in Barcelona to oppose the work of Pestaña and his allies. Hacha charged Abad
de Santillán with the mission of “fighting these men whenever possible.”19
Argentina and Spain in the 1920s
The conflict between the Argentine FORA and the Spanish CNT reflected the
divergent political climates in the two countries. President Hipólito Yrigoyen
and the middle-class Radical Party (Unión Cívica Radical) had governed
Argentina since 1916, but the key to their success had been an electoral re-
form law enacted in 1912 under conservative president Roque Sáenz Peña.
That law guaranteed universal male suffrage and a secret ballot. Male citizens
who registered for military service not only became eligible to vote but were
required to vote. After the war, the sons of earlier immigrants began to vote
for the Radicals, but anarchists continued their antipolitical stance, refusing
to register for military service or seek citizenship. But Yrigoyen and his party
sought support from labor in an electoral coalition with the middle class and
in rivalry with the Socialists. The Radical Party established caudillos de bar-
rio (neighborhood bosses), who dispensed food and provided references for
renters. Yrigoyen also enlarged the Buenos Aires electorate and declared May
1 to be Labor Day. In 1918, reform laws regulated working hours, and in 1919,
arbitration and collective bargaining were permitted. The policies of Yrigoyen’s
government led some labor leaders to seek more improvements for workers
through legislation, although anarchists fiercely opposed plans for social se-
curity and minimum wage laws.
By the early 1920s, a split occurred within the Unión Cívica Radical, and
antipersonalists criticized Yrigoyen’s hold on the party and the government.
Marcelo T. de Alvear headed the antipersonalist wing of the party and won a
six-year term as president in 1922. Alvear’s administration did little to further
labor’s goals. Nevertheless, with Socialist deputies in Congress and labor laws
enacted by Radical administrations, anarchists in the FORA fought hard to
preserve their antipolitical position and saw syndicalists as collaborators with
the regime. The intense rhetoric within the anarchist movement in the early
and mid-1920s resulted partly from Argentina’s new political and economic
opportunities and affected both native and immigrant workers.
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Chapter 5
After several years of postwar increases, immigration to Argentina jumped

dramatically to nearly 130,000 in 1922 and almost 200,000 in 1923 . (See table 5.)
The increasing pool of laborers created tension among unions over social se-
curity legislation and arbitration boards. As the pace of immigration contin-
ued to rise, government representatives began to fear immigration as fuel for
revolution, leading to a backlash against the labor movement in general and
anarchists in particular. The 1919 Tragic Week was one result.
In the aftermath of Tragic Week, Argentine workers debated the role of vio-
lence. Several migrants became notorious for their violent escapades in the early
1920s. Buenaventura Durruti, born in Spain in 1896 to working-class parents,
learned the machinist trade as an apprentice. He joined the CNT during the
1917 general strike but soon left for Paris to avoid military service. In 1921, Dur-
ruti returned to Saragossa, Spain, where anarchist groups Via Libre (the Free
Way), El Comunista (the Communist), Los Justicieros (the Seekers of Justice),
Voluntad (Free Will), and Impulso (Impulse) met and organized a “national an-
archist federation of resolute courageous individuals.”20 Durruti was a member
of Los Justicieros, as were Francisco Ascaso, Rafael Torres Escartín, Gregorio
Suberviela, and Marcelino del Campo. They traveled to Barcelona in August
1922 and reestablished themselves as Crisol (the Crucible) and ultimately Los
Solidarios (Solidarity), one of Spain’s most famous anarchist groups. In 1923,
members of Los Solidarios retaliated for the death of CNT leader Salvador
Tab l e 5. Immigration to Argentina, 1915–1940

Year Number of Immigrants Year Number of Immigrants
1915 45,290 1928 129,047
1916 32,990 1929 140,086

1917 18,064 1930 157,104
1918 13,701 1931 97,424
1919 41,299 1932 63,669
1920 87,032 1933 56,765
1921 98,086 1934 n/a
1922 129,263 1935 65,875
1923 195,063 1936 72,146
1924 159,939 1937 77,175
1925 125,366 1938 74,785
1926 135,011 1939 56,667
1927 161,548 1940 48,230
Source: Graciela Swiderski and Jorge Luis Farjat, La Inmigración (Buenos Aires: Colección Arte y Memoria
Audiovisual, 1999), 189.
100
Seguí by assassinating the archbishop of Saragossa, Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y

Romero. The government quickly arrested and jailed Ascaso, but he escaped
and fled to France, where he joined Durruti. Authorities arrested or killed the
other members of Los Solidarios.
In 1924, Durruti and Ascaso sailed to Cuba, where they worked in the port of
Havana and became active in the city’s labor movement, earning the ire of Cu-
ban authorities. In 1925, they left for Mexico, where Gregorio Jover joined them.
The three men began to “liberate” funds from banks for use in the anarchist
movement. The men moved on to Chile and ultimately Argentina, committing
a daring robbery of Buenos Aires’s Banco San Martín in broad daylight. Wanted
by the Argentine authorities and under a death sentence, Durruti, Ascaso, and
Jover fled to Montevideo in 1926. From Montevideo they eventually returned
to France, which at the time was safer than either Argentina or Spain.
Spain had suffered from political instability throughout 1923. The monarch
had become frustrated with political coalitions that proved short-lived and
labor strife that degenerated into open warfare, with gunslingers roaming the
streets and assassinating labor leaders, government officials, and priests. The
Spanish army had been defeated in Morocco, prompting an investigation by
the Cortes (parliament), though the king blamed the army leadership. With
the king’s encouragement, General Miguel Primo de Rivera assumed control
of the government in September 1923 with a mandate to restore order, which
he did by eventually dismissing the Cortes and ruling as a dictator.
The CNT responded with a general strike, which was quickly suppressed.
Nevertheless, Primo de Rivera’s government refrained from a direct attack on
the CNT until May 1924, when an anarchist assassinated a police official in
Barcelona. The dictatorship then drove the CNT underground and many of
its members into exile. Repression continued through the end of the dictator-
ship in early 1930, although some restrictions were eased in 1925. The CNT
faced the question of anarchist cooperation with political opposition to the
dictatorship. The Socialists, who openly accommodated themselves to the dic-
tatorship, had gained thousands of adherents. Ángel Pestaña urged the CNT to
cooperate with the Socialist Party and its labor federation, the Unión General
de Trabajadores. These issues exacerbated divisions within the CNT and, in
the eyes of Argentine anarchists, weakened the Spanish federation’s resolve to
adhere to the truest form of revolutionary anarchism. Abad de Santillán, López
Arango, and their fellow editors at La Protesta criticized those who did not
remain steadfast in opposition to all government and in favor of an anarchist
revolution that would destroy the current system. Abad de Santillán and López
Arango felt that anarchists within the CNT were retreating from these goals
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and criticized them as well. Exhorted La Protesta, “Anarchists should not wait
for orders from proletarian and revolutionary organizations; each revolution-
ary group or collective should advance on its own initiative. . . . Do what you
can, however you can. But do something!”21
Eusebio C. Carbó was one of many anarchists forced to flee from Spain
to France during Primo de Rivera’s rule. Carbó had been a disciple of one of
the founding fathers of Spanish anarchism, Anselmo Lorenzo, and in 1919 had
signed a declaration at the Madrid Congress in the Comedia Theater that af-
firmed anarcho-communism as the CNT’s goal.22 Carbó could hardly have been
considered weak in his support of anarchist principles, yet he became one of
Abad de Santillán’s principal enemies among the CNT leaders. Some of the
animosity may have been personal. Carbó had written to Abad de Santillán say-
ing that the Spanish government had arrested him, imprisoned him for three
months, and then offered him a choice between remaining in jail or leaving the
country.23 Carbó left for France but found few opportunities for employment
as a consequence of what he called “his delicate health.” Carbó proposed that
he would write a series of articles for La Protesta.24 There is no evidence that
Abad de Santillán obliged Carbó with any opportunities. Abad de Santillán and
Carbó bitterly denounced each other at the AIT’s 1925 Amsterdam meeting.
Abad de Santillán later justified his actions, saying that he suspected Carbó of
compromising Spanish comrades during the Vera de Bidasoa incident.
In November 1924, a group of anarchist militants attacked the military bar-
racks in Barcelona, while a small armed group crossed the border from France
at Vera de Bidasoa. The attacks failed, and two anarchists were captured and
executed. Carbó claimed that he had done all he could to dissuade the anar-
chists in France, led by Durruti, from crossing the border into Spain. Abad de
Santillán, however, suggested that the Spanish authorities had been warned
and that he suspected Carbó of involvement. In hindsight, Abad de Santillán
admitted that he had been harsh: “However, the situation in which our friends
in the peninsula found themselves was such that we felt obligated to intervene
from afar to prevent the danger of deviations [from anarchist principles] we
felt were too important to ignore.”25
The Amsterdam Conference of the AIT
The personal and ideological conflict that erupted between Spanish and Ar-
gentine anarchists at the Amsterdam conference intensified as a consequence
of internecine struggles within each country’s movement. On May 16, 1925,
López Arango told Abad de Santillán that La Protesta had become an organ
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for the Spanish CNT faction opposing cooperation with the state.26 Prior to
his assassination in March 1923, Seguí criticized the CNT’s hard-line approach,
which had brought repression instead of benefits to Spanish workers. Pestaña,
who eventually split with the anarchists and created a syndicalist party, con-
curred. Pestaña also infuriated Abad de Santillán and supporters of the FORA
by supporting the rival USA. Writing to Abad de Santillán on May 30, 1924,
Enrique Nido criticized the “troublemaker, Pestaña in Barcelona, who has taken
sides with the USA.”27 Later that year, Abad de Santillán complained, “I just
read in the newspaper of the CNT in Spain the beginning of a long ‘historical’
study against La Protesta and against me; it was written by the Alianza Liber-
taria Argentina. This means a complete rupture with the Spanish.”28 Spanish
support for FORA’s rival continued through the AIT’s March 1925 meeting
in Amsterdam and sparked words between Abad de Santillán and Carbó. By
the Amsterdam conference, the Spanish dictatorship had relaxed some of its
constraints, and anarchist periodicals were being published. Nevertheless, the
CNT was still not permitted to operate legally, and it hoped to find interna-
tional support among comrades in the AIT. Abad de Santillán immediately
dashed those hopes by attacking the Spanish organization for failing to pay its
dues to the AIT. He also objected to Carbó’s placement on the commission
slated to discuss the conflict between the USA and FORA. A USA represen-
tative attended the conference and sought recognition as an official delegate.
Abad de Santillán objected, saying that such matters were internal questions
and should be handled among the Argentine organizations rather than by
an international congress. According to the conference minutes, “Santillán
noted that Carbó, as a representative of the CNT in Spain, could not remain
impartial due to the public and private polemic between the comrades of the
FORA and those of the CNT.”29 The two men traded accusations throughout
the conference. Carbó claimed that Abad de Santillán had misrepresented the
CNT’s position and insisted that he prove his statements.30 Abad de Santillán
countered by demanding that the CNT accept responsibility for newspaper
articles in Solidaridad Proletaria attacking FORA. Abad de Santillán claimed
to have letters as proof but refused to produce them.31 With the conference
disrupted by this conflict, there was little hope for international cooperation.
Rocker, who represented Brazil at the proceedings, gave the final address. He
stressed the need to recognize the wide range of ideas, using as examples of the
polar opposites among the member organizations “the purely anarchist unions
of Argentina and the syndicalist unions of some parts of Europe.”32 López
Arango and others in Argentina had criticized precisely this need to reconcile
the various European member organizations’ approaches. Abad de Santillán,
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living in Europe and friends with Rocker and Kater, had greater objectivity
though no less intensity about the issues. “Argentina did play some part in
the internal divisions,” he wrote to Max Nettlau, an Austrian historian of the
anarchist movement. “The proposal put forward by some to reconcile FORA
and the USA hurt us more than any other offense and instinctively provoked
in us attitudes and reactions that make it impossible to cooperate amicably
with [the Spanish] within the International.”33
Abad de Santillán became so embroiled in these polemics and in publishing
that he abandoned his medical studies in 1923.34 The following year, he finished
his translation of the Complete Works of Bakunin and turned to a collaborative
effort with López Arango on a study of the anarchist movement. In their book,
they opposed compromise with political regimes and described true revolution
as an affirmation of human liberty: “FORA also rejects placing the leadership
of the social revolution in the hands of an organization; human freedom does
not respond to the voice of command; if it is not expressed as the natural result
of the social life of the people themselves it will never occur. Liberty cannot be
legislated by a political or economic apparatus, it depends not on an external
institution but rather on the confirmation of the spirit.”35 The two men’s intran-
sigence was directed at their opponents both in Europe and in Argentina.
Internecine Strife among Anarchists in Argentina
Unlike Spain, where dictatorship had driven the CNT underground, FORA
remained legal in Argentina. Anarchists could operate openly throughout the
1920s as long as they did not directly threaten the government. Yet precisely
this openness brought out dissension and threatened the movement’s unity.
Personal and ideological conflicts had led to a split between Apolinario Bar-
rera and López Arango, editors of La Protesta, and Rodolfo Gonzáles Pacheco,
founder of Antorcha. On February 24, 1926, a colleague named Fontana wrote
to ask Abad de Santillán to return to Argentina, at least for a few months, to
resolve the serious conflict between these groups. Once these problems were
solved, Fontana assumed that Abad de Santillán could return to Europe. In an
aside, Fontana admonished, “Enough with your histories and games, we need
you here now more than ever.”36 Abad de Santillán was loath to leave Europe
and tried to bring the two sides together through correspondence. Finally, in
April, another of La Protesta’s editors, Mariano Torrente, wrote that Abad de
Santillán’s attempts to promote reconciliation from Europe had failed and that
José María Acha and López Arango opposed any compromise with the Antor-
cha group: “I spoke with Acha on one occasion, and he understood that it was
104
necessary to ‘move’ spiritually and in the pages of the newspaper. But Arango
does not see it that way, saying that writing the newspaper any other way would
cease to make it La Protesta. Arango is stuck in his routine; not only does he
not go out to the café, he doesn’t go to meetings or conferences. . . . One other
note: Acha, on his part, has a very violent temperament which puts him at odds
with everyone, especially those with tempers like his.”37 López Arango, too,
had a strong temper and defended his principles in an uncompromising way.38
Abad de Santillán knew how important personalities and personal differ-
ences could become in the movement. In a letter to Nettlau, Abad de Santillán
explained,
The chief editor of La Protesta, Arango, is a comrade who never went to
school. About six or seven years ago, he wrote with many spelling errors.
Frankly, there are those among the intellectual anarchists who look down
on him as an immigrant. González Pacheco will never recognize that Arango
has a mind as well organized as his own. I have known Arango since 1918;
he is the least egotistical and the most humble person there is. In July 1922
he was brought in [as chief editor of] La Protesta because he was the only
one who could handle all its problems. Since it is his point of view that is
generally reflected, he is silently hated by the priests of the many different
chapels who systematically criticize everything that comes out in La Protesta
because it comes from that “illiterate,” Arango.39
Abad de Santillán realized that he had to return to Argentina, where the
situation was going “from bad to worse.”40 He sided with La Protesta and not
Antorcha, but a failure to reconcile the two factions would undo years of work
and create rancor.
In May 1926, Abad de Santillán reluctantly left Germany and returned to

Argentina, leaving Elisa and their son behind in Germany for what he believed
would be a temporary sojourn in Argentina.41 The Argentine anarchist conflict
was greater and more violent than he had imagined, and he ultimately remained
in Argentina for more than four years, sending for his wife and child. This was
his fifth trip across the Atlantic, and in a sense, it represented a homecoming: “I
was not arriving in a foreign country,” he wrote, “nor did I feel like a foreigner.”
He continued, “Argentina was my second homeland, and I identified as much
with it as anyone born there. Without ever giving up my deep sense of being
Spanish, even a Spanish patriot, I was also Argentine and an Argentine patriot. I
felt simultaneously the sense of being both from the experiences and beliefs that
I held based on the fortunes of my life.”42 Each time Abad de Santillán crossed
the Atlantic, he had a purpose and a goal. But in 1926, he sailed into a whirlwind
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of conflict and death. When Abad de Santillán arrived in Buenos Aires, he met
with the members of La Protesta’s editorial board. He did not know them well,
having spent nearly four years abroad. But almost everyone trusted him. In July
1922, shortly after the twenty-five-year-old Abad de Santillán arrived in Europe,
José M. Fernández sent funds collected by Argentine anarchists to help com-
rades in Germany and in Russia. Fernández told Abad de Santillán, “There is
no one better than you to know how to interpret the ideas of your comrades in
Argentina.”43 Moreover, in 1924, the aging Nettlau became desperately short of
cash and contacted Abad de Santillán for help. Married to a wealthy woman,
Nettlau had devoted the better part of his life to research and writing about the
anarchist movement. But after his wife’s death, according to Argentine León
Guerrero, “Nettlau lives in dreadful misery. In one room two and a half meters
wide, he has an old bed, a table, a wooden chair, an ancient oil lamp, and papers
piled up to the ceiling. There he eats, sleeps, works . . . and relaxes.”44
Abad de Santillán attempted to help Nettlau negotiate the sale of his ex-
tensive library as quietly as possible to avoid embarrassment. When the sale
information was nevertheless publicized, upsetting Nettlau, Abad de Santillán
wrote to apologize to Nettlau and to accept responsibility for the error. At the
bottom of the letter, Nettlau wrote in English, “This is the letter of a gentle-
man.”45 Another factor that enabled Abad de Santillán to assume leadership
after returning to Argentina was the fact that he had been absent during the
most intense period of partisan squabbling and remained on good terms with
all sides, as the letters he received from Acha, López Arango, Nido, Barrera,
Sergio Varela, and Rey attest.46 As a seemingly disinterested party, at least while
abroad, Abad de Santillán maintained his authority as an anarchist rather than
as a partisan of one particular group, although everyone involved must have
known of his close ties to the La Protesta board.47 There is no evidence that
González Pacheco or any member of the Antorcha group contacted Abad de
Santillán directly at this time. For their part, the members of the La Protesta
staff accepted Abad de Santillán as a leader as a consequence of his role as an
international spokesperson for FORA and Argentine anarchism. He had been
present at the AIT’s creation in Berlin in 1922 and spearheaded opposition to
Spanish and French syndicalism. He had also been accredited by Mexico’s
Confederación General del Trabajo at the 1925 Amsterdam conference and
had written, “La Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores: Su historia, sus
ideas, su porvenir (The International Workingmen’s Association: Its History,
Its Ideas, Its Future).” Abad de Santillán’s comrades respected him, but when
it came to dealing with his best friend, López Arango, other editors would have
to push hard to get him to overcome his fondness for El Gallego. López Arango
106
offered to let his friend stay in the small home in Remedios de Escalada, on
the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where López Arango lived with his compañera,
Carmen, and their three small children. Every day, the two men rode the train
together to Constitution Station in the southern part of the city, near the La
Protesta offices.
Abad de Santillán began by shuffling the paper’s editorial board. He tried to
convince the current board to reduce the level of discord by taking a less strident
tone. López Arango accepted the directive, but Acha had difficulty refraining
from attacking other groups, and when Abad de Santillán pulled one of Acha’s
editorials in December 1926, Acha left La Protesta in anger. Abad de Santillán
was saddened and “did not want to remain in Argentina but longed to return to
Europe and to be closer to Spain.”48 His friendship with López Arango and the
development of the literary supplement to La Protesta finally convinced Abad
de Santillán to remain in Argentina. He sent for his wife and son and settled
into building a stronger publication.
For La Protesta, 1927 was a special year, marking the thirtieth anniversary
of its birth as a weekly in 1897. Abad de Santillán was excited by the transfor-
mation of the paper’s literary supplement from a weekly to a larger bimonthly
magazine dedicated to anarchist ideology and social history. By May, Abad de
Santillán had given up his position as editor of La Protesta to work full time on
the supplement.49 The literary supplement was becoming a forum for transla-
tions of theoretical works by anarchists from around the world as well as for
addressing issues related to women and family life.
Women in the Anarchist Movement in Argentina

The social questions on which Argentina’s anarchists took positions included

the role of women. Anarchists accepted the idea of individual equality in gen-
eral, but many male anarchists did not accept the full social equality of women.
Women anarchists and their supporters struggled to keep their concerns from
being subsumed within political and labor struggles. One of their greatest prob-
lems was gender and the question of family. Anarchist women called for the
freedom of women to choose family, children, and home life or to seek fulfill-
ment in other areas. Some spoke of free love, child care centers, and even the
right of women to live apart from sexual partners. These issues upset middle-
class society as well as some anarchist men. Consequently, anarchist women
had to argue both within the movement and in the larger society.
For one year beginning in January 1895, anarchist women in Buenos Aires
published La Voz de la Mujer (Voice of the Woman), a periodical that supported
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a distinctly feminist agenda. It expressed anarchist women’s desire for full

participation in the revolution to produce a new society. Many of the writers
for the periodical were Spanish immigrants. “Most of the signed articles bore
the names of women, and most were written in Spanish, with only occasional
items in Italian. Although the paper accepted articles in either language, the
names of the editors, collaborators, and contributors indicated the paper’s af-
filiations with Spanish anarchism and with the Spanish immigrant community.
This is not surprising as it was primarily from Spain that anarchist feminism
came to Argentina.”50
While Argentine anarchists had begun to debate what they called the “social
question,” some male anarchists regarded feminism as a diversion from the revo-
lution that would emancipate all people, women and men. Yet the discussion
highlighted women’s important role in the movement and the issues that con-
cerned them. In an analysis of thirty years’ worth of La Protesta articles about
women and love, Dora Barrancos found that the anarchist position subverted
accepted customs.51 Both men and women participated in this discussion. In
1910, the paper printed an article by Pierre Quiroule, a pseudonym for Joaquín
A. Falconnet, a well-known libertarian. In “How the Woman Will Conquer Her
Independence,” Quiroule criticized the notion of free love because it left the
woman vulnerable to abandonment. He noted that if a married woman were
abandoned by her husband, she had some legal recourse. In a free union, she had
none, and both she and her children would suffer. Instead, Quiroule believed
that each individual must have equal access to education, jobs, and material
goods so that he or she might maintain an independent life. “I also believe that
if one wishes to achieve complete happiness in love. . . . If we wish to see women
as free and independent as men. . . . If we wish to dispel this hateful and ugly
idea that men control women; if women, for their part, really want to stop being
the toys, the objects, momentary delights and slaves to men, married women
should live by themselves, masters of themselves, their actions and thoughts,
in absolute.”52 Quiroule began to distance the concept of free love from that
of a free union in which two individuals accepted a monogamous relationship
outside the authority of the state or church.53 Nevertheless, the question of
women’s independence remained unresolved throughout this period, as anar-
chist women struggled to maintain themselves when their immigrant husbands
were deported or arrested. Elisa Kater, Abad de Santillán’s compañera, was an
important part of his life and influenced his actions. In May 1925, he wrote to
Nettlau about a case of appendicitis that resulted in Kater’s hospitalization for
nine days. “Misfortunes do not come one at a time,” he admitted, seemingly
108
discouraged. He had recently had difficulties with the police at an international

meeting in Amsterdam, and now “there is the lack of money, this illness, and
who knows what next.”54 Abad de Santillán’s family was shaped by anarchist
principles: he did not marry Elisa, for that was a legal contract defined by church
and state. Abad de Santillán and López Arango entered into free unions with
their compañeras. For these men, free love meant stable long-term relation-
ships chosen by the participants rather than bestowed by external authority.55
But the question of love and family life was more complicated for women an-
archists. Was a woman’s role, even in an anarchist society, to be the producer
of new proletarians? “Any woman who refuses [her role] in procreation is less
acceptable than one who accepts,” wrote one author in 1918.56 Or was she free
to make love for her own enjoyment and refuse to become tied down to any
man or a nuclear family? Should children be raised communally by those who
wanted to devote themselves to child rearing, leaving the biological parents to
pursue their lives as they wished? Some anarchists argued that women, freed
from pregnancy through birth control, could achieve sexual equality with men:
“Men and women are guided by desire. If a man and a woman desire each other
they will lose all fear of social conventions. . . . All should interpret free love
as they wish.”57 Milly Witkop-Rocker wrote in support of family planning in
the literary supplement to La Protesta: “As long as women are degraded in the
form of becoming a birthing machine, we cannot think about their spiritual
emancipation. The first step to be taken is the right to birth control.”58
Many women anarchists struggled with the questions raised by the circum-
stances of their lives. In January 1919, Juana Rouco Buela, one of Argentina’s
leading women anarchists, participated in the burial of a demonstrator who
had been killed. She later recalled,
Arriving at Chacarita Cemetery, gunfire broke out and put an end to the
burial; there was a prolonged gun battle between the people and the police,
because the workers came well armed and ready to defend themselves and
their beliefs with force. Everywhere one heard the shouts of “La Protesta” and
“Bandera Roja” in those moments of fear and sadness. Badaracco, García de
la Mata and Rosales stood up and harangued the crowd with what was taking
place, showing how the people were reacting in this revolutionary moment.
We had to return from the cemetery on foot, and on the way, we encoun-
tered overturned trolleys and trucks formed into barricades. Workers at-
tacked arms depots to get guns for the people to defend themselves.
Arriving home, I encountered a comrade who was waiting for me. He
informed me that we needed to go and take care of comrade Santana, who
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had been gravely wounded. We found him where our comrades had taken
him and where Doctor Carulla, a trusted comrade, was attending him after
removing a bullet.59
In the 1920s, she traveled throughout Argentina and helped to encourage work-
ers in the interior of the country. As a woman, Rouco Buela felt the double
oppression of capitalism and a male-dominated society. As an anarchist, she
felt that the best way to overcome this oppression was to work for a libertarian
revolution. She did not separate her feminism from her anarchism, and much
like Emma Goldman in the United States and Federica Montseny in Spain, was
unflinching in her determination to achieve an anarchist revolution. Rouco Buela
expressed not only her desire for an anarchist revolution but also the special joy
of being a woman anarchist. She found happiness on November 24, 1921, when
she “established my home with a companion who was intelligent and involved
in the struggle. I was no longer alone. I had a valiant collaborator at my side.”60
A few months later, she and her companion moved to Necochea, in southern
Buenos Aires province, where Rouco Buela began her work with a women’s
group. The previous year she had promised the women of that port city that she
would return and help them establish their own anarchist newspaper. In January
1922, she met with Fidela Cuñado, Teresa Fernández, and María Fernández as
the newly established editorial board. They planned a weekly periodical, Nues-
tra Tribuna (Our Tribunal), which would be written and published entirely by
women. They formed the Center of Women’s Studies with twenty members.
Rouco Buela recalled, “Arriving in Necochea and making direct contact with
the women of the region, I came to realize that there were, although ignored
until then, a group of women of unquestionable value for whom encouragement
and direction were all that was lacking. They possessed a deep understanding
of [anarchist] ideology and a willingness to work.”61
Rouco Buela and the women of Necochea printed announcements and sent
them to anarchists all over the world. By the time they were ready to publish
their first issue in August 1922, they had subscriptions from the United States,
Germany, Spain, and Peru as well as throughout Argentina. They published
contributions from women around the world, including the compañera of Ri-
cardo Flores Magón, a Mexican anarchist jailed in the United States, and Milly
Witkop-Rocker, the compañera of German anarchist Rudolf Rocker. The editors
were soon sending fifteen hundred copies of each issue to the United States.
Rouco Buela’s companion, a printer by trade, helped proofread the newspaper
and make sure that it was printed properly. Rouco Buela and the other women
completed their work in ways most comfortable to them. “I was surrounded
110
by so many and such good friends and comrades. Each issue of the periodical
became a festive day. We, and our families all got together to complete our task,
and everyone worked; some prepared food, and we ate a veritable banquet with
all that was served. Others folded the pages or stuffed envelopes. Laughing and
singing, we put out Nuestra Tribuna.”62
Rouco Buela and the women who worked with her laid the groundwork for
an anarchist revolution, rejoicing in the friendship and communal participa-
tion the project afforded. But this approach did not make the periodical any
less revolutionary. Rouco Buela commented on the terrible atrocities taking
place in Patagonia, and when German immigrant Kurt Wilckens assassinated
Colonel Héctor Varela, Rouco Buela published a paean to Wilckens, “Song for
an Explosion.”
The law is an iron hammer and the government a monster that devours
without creating, the military is a hanging sword set to murder the people;
here is the trinity that went to Santa Cruz to sow the seeds of desolation
and spark the cry of fifteen hundred proletarian families! Here is the trinity
that created the song for an explosion! Kurt Wilckens! Song for an explo-
sion! Weapon for an ideal of love! Who made you strong, who made you
seek justice, who forged you like an iron spear, who made you so sensitive
to others’ pain? A woman! The death of one tyrant only clears the way for
another—said someone—and he was wrong, for the cowardly murderer
needs to be given his lesson in steel. Kurt Wilckens’s song for an explosion,
sword for the offense and foundation of the ideal. . . . And now weep you
puppets who indoctrinate and set upon the people with legalized robbery.
What did Varela do in Santa Cruz? Our reactionary press should answer. The
prevaricating judges should remember the deeds of Varela in the Argentine
Patagonia before imposing the clauses of the penal code. Kurt Wilckens!
Song for an explosion, son of our loving and nurturing strength. We are the
mothers, the girlfriends, and the sisters of the victims of Santa Cruz. Forever
engraved on our troubled hearts will be your holy name . . . and the song for
an explosion. You are our son, because you responded to a mother’s pain,
because you were the echo of a tragedy, a barbaric massacre. You are the
echo of this terrible tragedy, the pain of so many mothers, the hunger and
the weeping of children, which you transformed into a bomb . . . into the
song for an explosion of justice. Kurt Wilckens! Sensitive and noble brother!
We are your partners in captivity. Long life and anarchy!63
For Juana Rouco Buela, freedom meant not only revolutionary ideas but
also love and motherhood. In December 1923, she delivered a baby girl she
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named Poema, for “she was the poem of my life.”64 Rouco Buela’s activities in
Necochea had brought her to the notice of its police chief, the brother of the
assassinated Colonel Varela. Rouco Buela and her group found increasing dif-
ficulties in obtaining permits to mail their periodical, and authorities closed
the Center for Women’s Studies. In March 1924, she and her family moved to
Tandil, further in the interior of Buenos Aires province, where she continued
to publish Nuestra Tribuna. But with the lack of help and a child to raise, she
and her family soon moved back to Buenos Aires, where she gave birth to a
son in 1925. Motherhood changed Rouco Buela’s life in many ways: “I was no
longer the free woman, having acquired the responsibilities of child care and
education. Nevertheless, I continued to be active in whatever way possible.”65
Other anarchist women and men raised issues of marriage, sexuality, and
fairness. Writing in La Protesta in 1924, Italian anarchist Luiggi Fabbri said,
“Anarchism proposes the abolition of official marriage, the laws that regulate it,
and the economic slavery it imposes.”66 The idea that marriage enslaved women,
however, had to be balanced with the protection that marriage offered both
women and their children. Rouco Buela’s companion, for example, eventually
left her and their children, and he had no obligation to provide any support
or recognition. Fabbri counseled state-sanctioned marriage was acceptable
as long as no religious observances were present to “subject the spirit.”67 The
long-term goal, of course, was an anarchist society that treated women and men
as social and economic equals. In the interim, anarchist women differed both
from other feminists, who sought legislation that would give women the vote,
access to birth control, and equal legal status, and from anarchist men, who
often relegated women’s issues to a distant future after the revolution. La Pro-
testa and its literary supplement published information about venereal disease
and sexuality, taking a scientific and hygienic approach.68 Nevertheless, women

did have access to information about sexuality. Anarchist women, however, had
more difficulty overcoming the problem of fairness in a society where women
were subject to male control, legally through the state and informally in their
relationships with men. All the talk about free love, women’s economic equal-
ity, and an anarchist society where women and men were completely equal did
nothing to change the fact that women bore children and were responsible for
their care. Little was said about the abolition of the nuclear family, communal
responsibility for children, and the right of a woman to abandon her children
if she so chose. These social questions and the conflicts they created were very
much a part of the anarchist dialogue that Abad de Santillán addressed in the
literary supplement to La Protesta.
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Death of López Arango
Anarchists in Argentina during the 1920s faced many serious issues in addition
to women’s rights. It was a time of increasing labor violence, both in support
of anarchists in Spain and in response to internal rivalries. The dictatorship
of General Primo de Rivera and subsequent strikes opposing the regime in
Spain brought a response from Argentine anarchists, who formed the Argen-
tine Group in Support of Social Prisoners in Spain shortly after the coup and
raised money to help two of those arrested, Pedro Matheu and Luis Nicolau.
In late 1924, Argentine supporters of Matheu and Nicolau bombed the Spanish
consulates in La Plata, Córboba, and Río Cuarto.69 Violence also flared as ten-
sions increased among rival factions of the Argentine anarchist movement. On
August 8, 1924, assailants attacked the editorial offices of Pampa Libre, severely
injuring its editor, Jacobo Prince. But the most violent person associated with
the movement was an Italian immigrant, Severino Di Giovanni.
Di Giovanni’s 1923 arrival in Argentina led to further divisions among Argen-
tine anarchists. Di Giovanni was an individualist anarchist who participated in
a series of bombings of offices of the Italian government, theaters, and banks
in Buenos Aires. Di Giovanni became notorious for his cold-blooded, vicious
attacks. By 1928, he had become Argentina’s Public Enemy No. 1, and the La
Protesta group began to criticize the indiscriminate nature of this kind of vio-
lence fearing that his actions would justify the government’s repression of an-
archists. They also accused Di Giovanni of robbing banks for his own benefit
rather than as a method of raising funds for the anarchist movement.70
Some of the money Di Giovanni “liberated” helped to finance his own
newspaper, Cúlmine, which defended his position. The editors of La Protesta
criticized those who remained silent on the question of violence. As the con-
flict escalated, López Arango and Abad de Santillán received threats. Abad de
Santillán wrote to Nettlau in February 1929 that the threats “mean little to me.
They have threatened me with death . . . and my friends . . . tell me not to go
out at night and to be prepared.”71 A short time later, Miguel Ángel Roscigna,
a baker, asked López Arango and Abad de Santillán to tone down their criti-
cisms of Di Giovanni. For a time, the arguments remained verbal and in print.
But on the night of October 25, 1929, the thirty-four-year-old López Arango
was gunned down in his home by unknown assailants. At first, suspicion fell on
members of a bakers’ union, but Abad de Santillán felt that Di Giovanni played
a role.72 This murder capped a decade of increasing divisions among anarchists
in Argentina and, despite Abad de Santillán’s attempts to resolve the personal
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Chapter 5
and ideological differences, the weakened movement could not withstand the
onslaught by the state after the 1930 military coup.
The Creation of the FAI in Spain
Among those Spanish anarchists who sided with the Argentine FORA and its
concept of revolutionary anarcho-communism were those who met and cre-
ated the National Federation of Anarchist Groups in April 1923. This National
Federation and the Regional Committee in Catalonia helped lay the ground-
work for the foundation of the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anar-
chist Federation) in 1927 by establishing a relationship among small groups of
anarchist militant cells known as affinity groups. The concept of affinity groups
went back to the nineteenth century and the Alliance for Social Democracy
created by Mikhail Bakunin. He wanted these groups to provide leadership and
maintain ideological purity among anarchists. The affinity groups in Spain in the
1920s played a role similar to that of the editors of La Protesta in Argentina. As
Abad de Santillán explained, “The editorial group of La Protesta was not created
by or controlled by the vote of the affinity groups or unions that followed its
direction. It arose at a critical moment from a meeting of militants facing the
difficult circumstances of internal divisions, both economic and ideological.
From that time on, it was an autonomous group, taking action as it saw fit. It
evolved by itself, as there were no mechanisms to alter its makeup or to dis-
mantle it other than support or rejection by the readers of and subscribers to
its publications.”73 The similarity between these two groups became manifest
in the 1930s, when several Argentines, including Abad de Santillán, returned
to Spain and became FAI members and even leaders. Groups such as Durruti’s
Solidarios maintained ideological purity. At a 1922 regional plenum, Durruti’s

group met with others in Catalonia and established a commission that, with
changing members, “maintained the organized movement in Spain until 1927,
when the F.A.I. was established.”74 The fifty members of the various groups
pursued their goals separately, attacking symbols of the state by robbing banks
and assaulting “enemies of the people.” In 1923, after the assassination of the
CNT’s Salvador Seguí, Saragossa’s Via Libre group called for a national anar-
chist congress in Madrid. That meeting, held in March, created the National
Federation of Anarchist Groups, which was distinct from the CNT and was
not involved daily with labor organizations. The groups that formed the FAI
were composed of anarchist militants, but they were not elites in the sense that
they had significant power over the anarcho-syndicalist unions and the CNT.
Rather, like La Protesta’s editors, the FAI members saw themselves as guarding
114
“the essence of the Spanish libertarian movement” and “preventing the danger
of deviations which we faced.”75
One of the main reasons for the FAI’s formation was the increased influ-
ence of Pestaña and the moderates who dominated the CNT during these last
years of the dictatorship. Anarchist exiles who had fled to France formed the
Federation of Spanish-Language Anarchist Groups in 1924. They created the
Paris publishing house, the International Library, and the Revista International
Anarquista (International Anarchist Review). However, according to Juan Gó-
mez Casas, the influence of overseas publications, such as La Protesta in Buenos
Aires, “was greater than that of the anarchist exiles in France in 1926–1927.”76
After the arrest of members of the National Committees in Seville and Sara-
gossa necessitated the creation of a new committee in Barcelona, the National
Federation of Anarchist Groups was forced to meet clandestinely. Its members
organized family excursions to the beach, where they coordinated their op-
position to the dictatorship while their wives watched the children play in the
waves. They helped to orchestrate the attack on Vera de Bidasoa that failed so
spectacularly. Conflict arose with the underground CNT over the question of
the correct response to repression and dictatorship. The groups in the Anarchist
Federation wanted actively to attack the dictatorship, while Pestaña argued for
cooperation with other opposition groups, including political parties.
Abad de Santillán and the editors of La Protesta sided with the National Fed-
eration of Anarchist Groups. On April 5, 1927, they condemned Pestaña, Carbó,
and Juan Peiró as unfaithful to anarchist principles: “In Solidaridad Proletaria,
that flexible organ which is trying to transform the C.N.T. into a mongrel entity
open to all political changes and ready to accept all economic possibilities in its
platform—including governmental solutions—they have a school for neutral
unionism. Preachers like Pestaña, Carbó and Peiró, anarchists who have for-
gotten the most elementary rules of anarchism, are emphasizing the benefits
of adjustment and transformation by their frequent change of position.”77
Gómez Casas notes that this argument represents a discussion among an-
archists rather than one among those who follow the true path and those who
deviate. Abad de Santillán’s position is within the range of anarchist thinking,
though both the position and the thinking would change by 1936. Nevertheless,
this disagreement created tension among CNT leaders.
In 1927, Peiró criticized Pestaña for attempting to persuade the CNT to join
with other groups in political opposition to the dictatorship. “Federal con-
gresses can modify any of the principles of the CNT that they think need to be
changed. What no congress can do, far less any man, however much his ‘realistic
vision’ and ‘practical spirit,’ is deny the principles which are the foundation and
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Chapter 5
the very reason for the existence of the CNT: its apolitical stand and its belief
in direct action.”78 Nevertheless, these two moderates together continued to
oppose the violent tactics of anarchist affinity groups and support the role of
unions as the appropriate body to defend workers’ rights.
A regional plenum of the Federation of Anarchist Groups of Catalonia met
in March 1927 and helped organize what would become an international meet-
ing of Iberian anarchist groups in Valencia later that year. According to José
Peirats, “The idea of a peninsula-wide association was put forward by a number
of people such as [Manuel] Buenacasa and [ Jaime Rosquillas] Magriñá, and
from various places, among them Marseilles, Paris, Barcelona, and Seville. The
proposal for a peninsular organization arose because comrades from Portugal
attended our meetings, although we recognized that work across the frontier
would be very difficult.”79 At the July 1927 gathering, organizers created the FAI,
dedicated to preserving anarchist principles of antipolitical social revolution
and to opposing any attempt to collaborate with political parties of any ideol-
ogy.80 The FAI would preserve the affinity group structure but encourage all
its members to continue as members of the CNT to influence its policies. At-
tendees formed the Peninsular Committee but did not publish or make public
its proceedings. Its members opposed Pestaña, who “suggested that the dic-
tatorship’s ‘comités proletarios’ (workers’ committees) were compatible with
the CNT’s principles.”81
Groups within the CNT held a January 1928 national plenum in Madrid
where they accepted the concept of close ties with the FAI. In response, Pestaña
created Solidarity, which proposed a broad alliance of factions to re-create the
CNT within the legal system of the dictatorship but with strong anarchist
principles. Among Solidarity’s members were Peiró, Buenacasa, and Germinal
Souza. This was a curious mix: Pestaña and Peiró had long pushed for some
form of political participation by the CNT, even if only to oppose the dictator-
ship, while Buenacasa and Souza were members of the FAI Peninsular Commit-
tee and opposed any common action with political parties or their unions. The
growing distance between Peiró and Pestaña eventually divided the Solidarity
group, and it broke up.
In 1929, the FAI challenged the moderates to accept its leadership within
the CNT: “The CNT, if it truly desires that its actions be transcendent and
destructive of the old order, in the greatest sense of that phrase, must find the
correct relationship with that organization that coincides with its tactics and
concurs with its beliefs, without, of course, losing its own independence.”82 The
pressure from militant anarchists eventually forced the members of the CNT’s
National Committee to resign.
116
The polemic between Peiró and Pestaña became heated in 1929 after Peiró’s
resignation from the National Committee. Pestaña argued for “possibilism,”
claiming that the organization should do whatever possible to obtain ben-
efits for its members, while Peiró countered that the CNT should maintain its
anarchist principles and avoid compromising with the dictatorship.83 Carbó
echoed Peiró’s criticism, and the CNT did not seek legalization under the dic-
tatorship. By the time the dictatorship fell in January 1930, the FAI’s influence
had increased and the CNT leadership remained divided between moderates
and militants.
By the beginning of the 1930s, the anarchist movements in both Argentina
and Spain had experienced serious divisions among their members. The La
Protesta group in Buenos Aires, led by Abad de Santillán and López Arango, not
only fought with the syndicalists and dissidents within their own movement
but carried on a debate with Spanish anarchists. The CNT in Spain had suffered
from repression under the dictatorship and from internal divisions over the
best response to repression. Spain’s FAI played a role similar to that of the La
Protesta editorial board, as Spain and Argentina shared a transnational debate
over anarchism despite the unique events in each country. However, no one
was prepared for the dramatic changes that took place in 1930, when the Primo
de Rivera dictatorship fell and a republic emerged, bringing opportunities as
well as challenges to the CNT and the FAI. In Argentina, a military coup ended
elected government and resulted in a war against the anarchist movement.
Spaniards, immigrants, Argentines, and anarchists in both countries now had
to reevaluate their circumstances and adapt to the new reality.
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Chapter 6
Changing Political Climates

and Return Migration
Abad de Santillán
and the FAI in Spain
I n b o t h A r g e n t i na a n d S pa i n, leading anarchists and

immigrants reevaluated their circumstances during 1930. A September military
coup led by General José Félix Uriburu deposed Argentina’s Hipólito Yrigoyen,
creating a new political climate in which anarchists were hunted down, arrested,
and deported. In Spain, Miguel Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship ended in late
January; a little more than one year later, municipal elections demonstrated
that the king had lost the support of his people and the monarchy fell and was
replaced by a republic. Spanish immigration to Argentina declined as the world
economic situation deteriorated and anarchists in Argentina sought to escape

increased repression.
In response to these changing political and social climates, anarchists fled
from Argentina to Spain, becoming significant participants in the Spanish
movement. Diego Abad de Santillán was among those who made this journey
voluntarily, while the new Argentine government deported hundreds of other
Spaniards, most notably Manuel Villar, who became important in Spain’s an-
archist movement before and during that country’s civil war.
According to Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz, between 1931 and 1935, only 108,564
Spaniards emigrated, while 192,495 returned from the Americas.1 (See table 3,
p. 62.) Wrote Abad de Santillán, “My greatest desire at that time was like that
of peasants of old, who wanted a little bit of land for security and sustenance.
I had suffered too many deceptions in Argentina and wanted to recover for a
time from the recent disappointments and defeats, which were not easy to over-
come quickly.”2 The anarchist movement in Argentina was critically weakened
by the 1930 coup and subsequent repression, while Spanish anarchism grew
vigorously during the Second Republic.
Argentina experienced regime change for two reasons. First, the aging
Yrigoyen’s Radical Party administration could not protect Argentina and its
citizens from the effects of the world economic depression. As exports and
government revenue fell, he could no longer provide the patronage that brought
support through increased wages and a stable cost of living. Government work-
ers were laid off, the economy declined, and real wages fell precipitously in 1930.
Second, two years into his second term, Yrigoyen intervened unsuccessfully in
senatorial elections in the interior provinces. The Senate remained in the hands
of his conservative opponents, many of whom now turned to the military and
some of whom claimed that the president was senile. Mentally incompetent
or not, Yrigoyen had lost the support of unions, much of the middle class, and
the military. Nationalists, who aspired to a strong regime like that of Musso-
lini in Italy, openly negotiated with members of the military to overthrow the
president.
The coup came on September 6, 1930, when Uriburu led a column of military
cadets into the city, a move that surprised no one but found the government
unprepared. Almost without opposition, the troops marched to the Congress.
There, they met some resistance, as other units of the army did not immedi-
ately support Uriburu. Several soldiers died in the fighting in the plaza, but
the troops encountered little opposition as they marched down the Avenida
de Mayo to the Government House, where General Uriburu confronted Vice
President Enrique Martínez and General Severo Toranzo. They surrendered,
and other army units came over to Uriburu. By the end of the day, Yrigoyen
had been removed as president and Uriburu had taken over as head of state.
Many groups supported the military coup against Yrigoyen. However, Uri-
buru did not intend immediately to turn over the government to civilians.
Instead, he sought to create a corporate regime that changed the nature of
government in Argentina. Uriburu ruled Argentina until 1932 and seriously
weakened the anarchist movement through mass arrests and deportations. In
many ways, this period represented the coup de grâce for anarchist influence on
the Argentine labor movement. Anarchists opposed the newly formed Confed-
eración General del Trabajo (General Confederation of Labor), a merger of the
Argentine Confederation of Workers, independent unions, and the syndicalist
USA. Leaders of the CGT adopted a neutral stance toward the military regime
and sought to consolidate worker benefits through negotiation. In contrast,
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Chapter 6
F i g u re 13. General José Félix Uriburu, president of Argentina, 1930. Source:

Departamento de Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación,
Buenos Aires
Abad de Santillán and the anarchists in FORA tried unsuccessfully to unite

the working class to attack the military regime.
Soon after the coup, Abad de Santillán met with Rodolfo González Pacheco,
editor of La Protesta’s archrival anarchist publication, La Antorcha, and Juan
Antonio Morán of the port workers union, who agreed with the need to oppose
the military regime. The question they now asked of each other was how to do
so. The three men proposed a revolutionary general strike, hoping to stimulate
a nationwide revolt against the military regime. Abad de Santillán met with
railroad workers and the organization of state workers, trying to fuse together
a united opposition front. But when these groups demanded that FORA sign
a manifesto supporting this alliance, Abad de Santillán shook his head and said
that he “thought that would not be possible.” González Pacheco responded,
“Tell me where I can find the Central Committee of the FORA and I will go
120
to them, begging on my knees that they consider the situation and that they
not betray the Argentine people with their passivity.”3
The next morning, as Abad de Santillán was heading toward the meeting,
González Pacheco pulled up in a taxi and reported that the plot had been
discovered. The police would be waiting at the meeting site to arrest its par-
ticipants. Abad de Santillán went to the editorial offices of La Protesta, where
he found an anonymous note shoved under the door telling him to flee the
country. Abad de Santillán had been identified as one of the plotters, a crime
for which, under martial law, he would be sentenced to death.
Initially reluctant to leave the country, Abad de Santillán returned home,
determined to continue at the newspaper. But when he arrived at his office the
next morning, he had to hide nearby while police searched for him inside the
building. Finally, Abad de Santillán and his family took a ferryboat across the
Río de la Plata to Montevideo, where fellow anarchists concealed him.
Abad de Santillán wrote bitterly about Argentine anarchists’ inability to put
aside partisan feelings and cooperate in the face of such dangerous opponents:
“I needn’t explain the events in Buenos Aires nor describe our shameful defeat,
without a fight, without resistance. It is enough to say that despite everything I
did to encourage the unions and working-class organizations to mount a general
campaign against the dictatorship, I was unsuccessful and almost alone until
fleeing to escape being shot. That would have been a futile gesture in general
and fatal for me.”4
The repression devastated the anarchists. Government agents attacked La
Protesta’s office and closed the newspaper; FORA was declared illegal. In re-
sponse, Abad de Santillán and several others created Nervio (Nerve, Strength).
Published monthly, Nervio counseled opponents of the regime to work to-
gether. Foreshadowing the approach taken by Spanish anarchists facing Gen-

eral Francisco Franco’s 1936 military uprising, a 1933 article in Nervio said,
“This is how we got the Uriburu dictatorship. It was an unpleasant surprise
for comrades who lived peacefully on the moon, debating whether or not
human nature is good or bad, or whether Lombroso or Mella were correct.”5
The author characterized the lack of coordination among groups representing
workers and the divisions among various periodicals as a failure. He called for
ties with the CGT’s syndicalist groups and for the creation of armed neighbor-
hood squads that would replace affinity groups too involved with “juvenile”
discussions. Despite the courage of its editors, who were arrested in early 1933
when Nervio lost its franking privileges and suspended publication for several
months, the periodical and the anarchists were overwhelmed by the military
regime’s power.
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Chapter 6
The government passed a law declaring that anyone belonging to anarchist

or other organizations thought to be subversive would be arrested for “illicit
association.” The movement remained underground for several years, and many
of its leaders were arrested, deported, or forced to flee.6 Manuel Villar, another
of Nervio’s editors, also fled to Montevideo, where he worked with Abad de
Santillán to maintain contact with an underground in Argentina and to free
political prisoners. Villar later returned to Argentina by sailing on a cargo ship
through the Strait of Magellan to a port in Chile and then crossing the Andes
into Mendoza. From that border city he returned to his family’s home in Cha-
carita in Buenos Aires province. Authorities arrested him in 1932 for attempting
to publish La Protesta, and they deported him to Spain the following year.7 He
then became an editor for the CNT newspaper Solidaridad Obrera in Barcelona.
La Antorcha reported that deportations began almost immediately after
the coup.8 On February 4, 1932, La Protesta published a list of those deported.
Six anarchists were deported to Spain on the Cap Norte on October 12, 1930,
barely one month after the coup. Five others were deported to Spain on the
Baden on November 4, 1930. Three were from the car drivers’ union (chófers),
four from the graphic arts union (gráficos), and one each was a mechanic, a
port worker, a baker, and a car wash attendant. (See table 6.) According to La
Protesta, 123 anarchists were deported between October and December 1930.
Of these, 11 arrived in Spain and were arrested by Spanish authorities, 2 arrived
in Italy, and 6 escaped in Santos during the revolution in Brazil. The remaining
104 individuals escaped in Montevideo, largely with the help of Uruguayan
port workers. Abad de Santillán estimated that in January 1931, the regime had
deported 200 people and imprisoned 150 others, 50 of them on Martín García
Island in the Río de la Plata and the remainder in the Villa Devoto jail.9
Uriburu’s government wanted to destroy the anarchist movement. In one

extreme case, a young Spanish immigrant in Rosario, Joaquín Penina, was ar-
rested on September 10, 1930, just days after the coup, for putting up leaflets
calling for a strike against the military regime. Penina, a twenty-nine-year-old
bricklayer, had immigrated to Argentina from Ginronella, Spain. He became
active in the anarchist movement, holding various offices in the Federación
Obrera Local Rosario (Local Workers Federation of Rosario). One of his fa-
vorite pastimes was gathering anarchist literature. Instead of asking others for
money or soliciting funds from unions, he purchased books and pamphlets
with his own money and gave them away every afternoon after he left work.
On September 11, he was shot dead while in custody in the Rosario police
station. The anarchist press called it an execution and demanded an account-
ing, but the government never clearly explained Penina’s death.10 Martial law
122
Tab le 6. Spanish Anarchist Immigrants Deported, October–November 1930
Date
Last Name First Name Source deported Destination Ship Profession
Álvarez Nieto Manuel IWMA/Protesta Oct. 12 Spain Cap Norte driver
Cajido Ramón IWMA/Protesta Oct. 12 Spain Cap Norte graphic arts
Carballo Florentino IWMA/Protesta Oct. 12 Spain Cap Norte port worker
López Avelino Protesta Oct. 12 Spain Cap Norte driver
Rodríguez Jeronimo IWMA/Protesta Oct. 12 Spain Cap Norte driver
Vendrell Edmundo IWMA/Protesta Oct. 12 Spain Cap Norte graphic arts
Mancebo Pedro Protesta Nov. 4 Spain Baden graphic arts
Mancebo Benigno Protesta Nov. 4 Spain Baden graphic arts
Musgo Francisco R. Protesta Nov. 4 Spain Baden mechanic
Ondagaray Luis Protesta Nov. 4 Spain Baden
Orgay Felix Protesta Nov. 4 Spain Baden baker
Agra Silvestre IWMA [Nov. 1930]
Barbetti Lino IWMA
Borrego José IWMA
Britos Manuel IWMA
Cajide Ramón IWMA
Candamoni Tulio IWMA
Carballo Florentino IWMA
Carrasco Juan IWMA
Cervino Manuel IWMA
Díaz Francisco IWMA
Freire Tomás IWMA
González Manuel IWMA
Hernández Aurilio IWMA

Herrero Pablo IWMA
López Aurelino IWMA
López Rogelio IWMA
Martínez Telésforo IWMA
Mendez Ramiro IWMA
Menendez José IWMA
Ortega Manuel IWMA
Rodríguez Antonio IWMA
Sobrino Teofanes IWMA
Stefani Julio IWMA
Thomas García IWMA
Vázquez Eduardo IWMA
Vendrell Edmundo IWMA
Villalba Jorge Rey IWMA
Sources: IWMA = “Al proletario de América y del mundo: La dictadura militar en la Argentina,” [November 1930],
International Workingmen’s Association Archives, Folder 60, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam; Protesta
= La Protesta, February 4, 1932.
Chapter 6
meant that individuals could be arrested and executed without judicial review.
There is no evidence that the government shot opponents as a matter of of-
ficial policy, and Penina’s death appears to be unusual. However, paramilitary
groups such as the Patriotic League and the newly formed Civic Legion did
attack anarchists. The day after Morán, who had met with Abad de Santillán to
organize resistance to the regime, was let out of jail, his body was discovered
with a bullet in the back of the head.11 All told, the government arrested many
hundreds, perhaps thousands of anarchists in the early 1930s, disrupting the
movement and removing many of its most active members.
In one notorious September 1930 incident, officials arrested and condemned
to death Spanish immigrants José Santos Ares, Florindo Goyoso, and José María
Montero, all of whom were members of the car drivers’ union. According to
Montero’s account, the three men went out in a car one night to put up post-
ers denouncing the military regime and came across a burning automobile.
Although they had no part in any violent act, a police car happened by the
scene and chased them. When the police opened fire, the driver of Montero’s
car became nervous, lost control, and crashed.12 Officials charged them with
sedition for fleeing and resisting arrest. Ares, the youngest of the three, was
twenty-five years old. He had immigrated from La Coruña, working first as a
baker, then a car driver. Gayoso was from the province of Lugo in Galicia. He
was married and had three small children.
Montero exemplifies both the activist and the immigrant. He was born on
May 4, 1897, in San Salvador de Cecebre, in Galicia, one of fourteen children
born to humble workers and anarchists. As a youth, Montero refused to do his
obligatory military service and fled to Cuba, where he worked in a Havana café.
Through a friend who was a sailor, Montero then stowed away on board a ship
bound for New York, where friends got him a job as an elevator operator. He
lost his job in 1922 and became a prizefighter, participating in ten fights. After
traveling for some time, Montero went to Detroit and got a job with General
Motors. Like many migrants, Montero traveled to several countries, looking
for opportunities, and like many Gallegos, he missed his homeland.
In 1925, Montero returned to Spain to visit his family. He did not remain
long, however, and soon left for Argentina, where several of his brothers had
already emigrated. Montero got a job with General Motors, but when he helped
organize a FORA-affiliated union among the workers, he was fired. A ten-month
strike later broke out at the General Motors plant, after which Montero was re-
instated. He resigned shortly thereafter because of the factory’s hostile climate.
He then purchased an automobile and turned it into a taxi. This experience
with public transportation led Montero to become involved in creating Buenos
124
Aires’s colectivo bus system. When a strike against the foreign-owned bus com-
pany shut down the city’s transportation system, Montero and the car drivers’
union created a cooperative transport system that permanently replaced the
foreign bus companies by 1928. In 1930, he married a Gallega, Elena Fernández.
Later that year, he Ares, and Goyoso found themselves in trouble. After ini-
tially being condemned to death, the three men’s sentences were commuted to
life in prison at Ushuaia in remote Tierra del Fuego. The climate was harsh and
there was no chance of family visits. Prisoners were put to work in the scrub
forests, clearing soil and felling trees. Ares, Goyoso, and Montero spent two
years there before a new government reduced their sentences and permitted
them to return to Buenos Aires. Authorities continued to monitor their move-
ments, however, and in 1935 deported Ares and Montero to Spain. Ares quickly
returned to Argentina. Montero was sent to La Coruña, in his native Galicia,
where he made contact with CNT members. With their assistance, he stowed
away on an English ship bound for Argentina, using the name Ramón Galán
Lafuente, and reentered the country in disguise and got a job as a bus driver.
Goyoso was in and out of jail in the 1930s and deported to Spain in 1938 before
ultimately returning to Argentina.
The military regime also jailed native Argentines. When a young Argentine,
José Grunfeld, whose parents had emigrated from Bessarabia (Romania), was
arrested, he gave them his mother’s maiden name, Jasid, to identify himself.
The regime sent Grunfeld and hundreds of other arrested anarchists, socialists,
and communists to the Villa Devoto jail. Grunfeld told the authorities there
that he was a Romanian citizen and demanded to see the Romanian consul
in hopes that doing so would get him released. Authorities indeed called the
Romanian consul to identify Grunfeld, but they intended to deport rather
than release him. When the consul arrived and began speaking in Romanian,
Grunfeld could not understand a word. He remained imprisoned for nearly a
year.13
Benito Sak, another prisoner, described conditions in Villa Devoto jail after
his arrest in 1931:
They fed us twice a day. The first meal was at eleven o’clock in the morning
and the second at six in the afternoon. It was terrible food, old meat with a
lot of fat; we called it “the cadaver, ” and it had more fat than meat.
They woke us up at six o’clock in the morning, when they changed the
guard and called roll. We were all hungry because we had to wait from six in
the afternoon of one day until eleven the following morning for something
to eat.14
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Chapter 6
F i g u re 14. Villa Devoto Jail, Buenos Aires, 1939. Source: Departamento de

Documentos Fotográficos, Archivo General de la Nación, Buenos Aires
While Grunfeld remained at Villa Devoto, his brother, who had been ar-
rested separately, and others were sent to Ushuaia on board the transport ship
Chaco. Toward the end of 1931, the government began deporting anarchist
militants. Alarmed prisoners sent a letter to the minister of the interior, Octavio
Pico, announcing the beginning of a hunger strike on December 5, 1931.
This order of expulsion is unquestionably criminal if one realizes that the
provisional government has become an agent for countries like Italy, Poland,
Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, etc., whose brutality does not coincide with the ideals
of liberty. . . . We demand the immediate release of social prisoners and stu-
dents now incarcerated in this country’s jails and those confined in Ushuaia.15
The strike lasted six days and demonstrated prisoners’ solidarity. However, it
did not deter the government from pressing ahead with mass deportations.
On January 13, 1932, the minister of the navy, Vice Admiral Abel Renard, an-
126
nounced that foreign-born prisoners at Villa Devoto would be deported under

the 1902 residency law. According to a 1938 study of police files, between 1930
and 1938, the Argentine government deported 3,689 individuals, 365 of them
identified as anarchists.16
In one of the most notorious examples of mass deportations, the govern-
ment took eighty-nine prisoners out of the Villa Devoto jail at four o’clock on
the morning of February 10, 1932, and loaded them onto the Chaco. The ship
was not built to transport passengers, so the prisoners were housed in the hold.
The Chaco then lay at anchor outside the city for three days until it was cleared
to sail for Europe.
The Chaco left Buenos Aires with 150 prisoners on board. Ordinarily, its first
port of call would have been Montevideo, across the Río de la Plata. However,
sympathetic anarchist dockworkers there often helped deportees disembark
surreptitiously in Montevideo so that they could slip back into Argentina.17 The
Chaco consequently sailed past Montevideo and did not stop for eight days,
when it reached Salvador, in northern Brazil. According to Gonzalo Comeron,
one of the anarchists aboard, the Chaco spent two days in Salvador, during
which time the prisoners were not allowed to go up on deck, before sailing for
San Vicente in the Cape Verde Islands, where they again were not permitted
on deck. After stopping in Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, the Chaco arrived
in Cádiz, where enthusiastic crowds greeted the deportees. Comeron and his
companions were at sea for thirty-two days; as soon as they landed, Spanish
authorities took the Spaniards aboard into custody.18
Another prisoner, Nat Cohen, also penned an account of the voyage:
They took us out of Villa Devoto on the night of February 9 and trans-
ported us quietly—with a free helping of kicks and beatings with rifle butts
and swords—to the Chaco, which slipped out of the dock immediately and
dropped anchor in the river, waiting for the last of the paperwork for some
of the prisoners whose consuls did not want to accept them. Some of these
were returned to Villa Devoto.
After waiting what seemed like a century, the Chaco weighed anchor on
the 13th, a day with much sun and sorrow, and while the city awoke as if
ashamed of itself, our ship set out for the north with a cargo of proletarian
meat to be delivered to the vultures of the fascist dictators in Europe.
They put us all in the forward hold, separated by barbed wire. They sta-
tioned twelve soldiers as guards, one officer was armed to the teeth, and they
watched us like hawks. If we took the opportunity to talk in whispers with
each other, they immediately threatened us with their automatic weapons,
pointing them at us and ordering, “Everyone back into your bed.”
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F i g u re 15. The Chaco, a ship used to deport anarchists to Spain, 1930s.

On the first night, for amusement, our comrade Caganovich was beaten
by an officer in front of all of us. Imagine how we felt seeing them mistreat
one of our comrades without the power to stop it.

Two soldiers came to feed us; after giving us the food and on any pretext
whatever, they then beat us with their swords. You can’t imagine what physi-
cal and mental torture we have endured until now.
The ship’s crew, on the whole, are good fellows and we can talk to them.
The crew calls me “the Englishman.” I am very popular among them. The
crew hates the soldiers and calls them “dirty Indians.” They always try to
show us how different they are from these soldiers.
The crew asked me why I was being deported, and I explained that I am a
tailor and work for 7 pesos a day, that they reduced my wages due to the de-
pression, and I wanted to oppose the wage reduction. Then we talked about
the Chilean navy. You ought to see how these sailors listen to us, absorbing
with unusual interest our ideas.
128
Life in the hold is insupportable. We have four large buckets in which to

relieve ourselves. Since there are so many of us, you can imagine the terrible
smell.
Fortunately, they let us up on deck for half an hour in the sun. They even
let us “bathe” with a jar of fresh water, then shower in seawater. If we are not
fast enough, the soldiers hurry us along with blows.
After eight days at sea, we arrived at Bahia; took on fresh water, fuel, and
provisions; then continued northward. We crossed the equator in terrible
heat. Seven days later, we arrived in San Vicente, on the tropical African
coast, where we waited almost an entire day for fuel and water.
On Saturday, March 5th we arrived in Las Palmas, ignorant as to our fate
but with rumors abounding.
My health, taking into account all that has happened, is good. I hope to
recover when I reach London. Our spirits are high.19
In addition to Cohen, an English citizen, the prisoners on board included
citizens of Lithuania, Czechoslovakia, and Poland as well as Spain. The prison-
ers were not sure what to expect when they returned to their native countries.
Wrote one Spaniard after the ship’s arrival at Cádiz,
Yesterday at one in the afternoon we disembarked from that damned Chaco.
Only the Spanish got off, about 28 of us. So far, everything here has been
promises and pleasantries by the authorities, who say they will free us from
detention in a few days.
About 5,000 workers were waiting for us when we arrived in the port. They
clapped and cheered our revolutionary organizations. Our arrival had been
announced the night before, and they had waited until three in the morning.
Here, we have found that they will take care of us.20

Among those deported to Spain, seven left relatives in Argentina.21
As the Chaco sailed further north toward Italy, England, and then Danzig
in the Baltic, Argentine public opinion began to turn against the mass depor-
tations. Many observers feared that these deported anarchists, communists,
and socialists would receive harsh treatment in Mussolini’s Italy or in Eastern
Europe. Attorneys for FORA filed petitions to bring back the deportees, and
one congressional deputy introduced a bill to abrogate the residency law. The
Argentine government eventually allowed thirty-three of the prisoners, mostly
from Eastern Europe, to return to Argentina on board the Cabo San Agustín,
and they arrived in Buenos Aires on May 10, 1932.
In a belated response to the military coup, anarchists jailed in the Villa De-
voto attempted to overcome their internal differences as well as those between
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Chapter 6
anarchists and other opposition groups. According to Grunfeld, prisoners

worked “to analyze the problems faced by our movement.”22 They adopted
several motions, wrote them down, and smuggled them out of jail. In Septem-
ber 1932, anarchists held a conference in Rosario at which approximately fifty
delegates attempted to defend the concept of social revolution in the midst of
dictatorship. The gathering created the Comité Regional de Relaciones Anar-
quistas (Regional Committee of Anarchist Relations), and La Protesta tried
to put anarchism in perspective: “As a result of the ephemeral triumphs over
capitalism in the daily skirmishes of the social war, anarchist workers have
accomplished what is, in reality, their greatest and most lasting victory; the
value of organizing the efforts of the exploited as an expression of the dignity
of the individual, and of a clear and thoughtful class consciousness as an ef-
fective vehicle to achieve a truly free society.”23 Grunfeld felt the meeting rep-
resented a moral victory, since most anarchists continued to hold fast to their
beliefs, even though these ideas were beginning to marginalize the movement
in Argentina.24 By 1935, however, Grunfeld and others broke from the FORA,
establishing the Federación Anarco-Comunista Argentina (Argentine Anarcho-
Communist Federation). The 1930s proved to be the end of a powerful anarchist
movement in Argentina but the beginning of a period of promise for those in
Spain, including those who had been deported from Argentina. One deportee,
Bartolomé Lorda from the city of Mercedes in Buenos Aires province, later
became secretary of the CNT regional office in Andalusia.
Anarchism under the Second Republic in Spain
When the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera ended in Spain in 1930, King Alfonso
XIII hoped to establish a transitional government that would bring back consti-
tutional rule. But support for the monarchy had dwindled among a majority of
Spaniards. A block of liberals under Manuel Azaña and Niceto Alcalá Zamora
joined socialists Indalecio Prieto and Francisco Largo Caballero and the Radi-
cal Republican Party led by Alejandro Lerroux in calling for elections. The king
announced that municipal elections would take place on April 12, 1931, and they
became a referendum on the monarchy itself. Voter turnout of about 90 per-
cent brought returns that supported a new Republican government. On April
14, 1931, the Republican politicians proclaimed the Second Spanish Republic,
and Alfonso XIII went into exile. The following July, Spain held parliamentary
elections to create a new government under a liberal Republican-Socialist co-
alition. This Cortes contained a majority of Republican and Socialist deputies.
Although they represented a spectrum of political ideas that spanned from
130
the Lerroux’s Radical Republican Party on the right through Azaña’s Republi-
cans in the middle to Largo Caballero’s Socialists on the left, they agreed that
major reforms were necessary. Regional autonomy gave provinces a greater
measure of control. The Catholic Church was stripped of its official status, the
Society of Jesus in Spain (the Jesuits) was dissolved, and the clergy’s salaries
would no longer be paid by the state. Other measures reformed the military
and limited its role to professional duties. Public education was established,
and priests were no longer permitted to teach. Land reform was initiated. The
CNT regained its legal status, and restrictions on anarchist periodicals ended.
As minister of labor, Largo Caballero promulgated a law that established mixed
tribunals representing labor, employers, and representatives of the state. This
legislation effectively abolished the right to strike, since arbitration would be
required. While many of these reforms pleased Spanish anarchists, they did
not support the creation of the Spanish Republic and continued to push for
revolution. “Concerning the Constitution,” began a resolution passed at the
FAI’s June 1931 meeting in Madrid, “we are in open warfare with the state. It is
our sacred mission to educate the people so that they will see that they must
join us and help gain total emancipation through social revolution.”25
Two months later, thirty activists, led by Ángel Pestaña and Juan Peiró and
known as the Treintistas, challenged the FAI’s role within the CNT. The group
published the Manifesto of the Thirty, arguing against what they viewed as
an extremist position favored by the FAI and its supporters. “The revolution
cannot trust exclusively in the audacity of its militants but must concern itself
with the mobilization of the people en masse. . . . Opposed to the chaotic and
incoherent version of the revolution . . . we present a more ordered, planned,
and coherent concept.”26 Historian Juan Gómez Casas has claimed that this
document did not truly divide the anarchist movement but set forth an alter-
nate and equally anarcho-syndicalist, plan for revolutionary organization.27
Nevertheless, the Treintistas’ supporters were expelled from the CNT, and the
split among anarchists persisted. Gómez Casas also argues that the Manifesto
of the Thirty helped to create the “myth” that the FAI controlled the CNT,
with each side hurling accusations at the other.28 This hostility was reflected in
several anarchist periodicals. Tierra y Libertad excoriated the Treintistas until
Abad de Santillán became its editor in 1934. Manuel Villar also stopped pub-
lishing these personal attacks when he became editor of Solidaridad Obrera.
The return of two immigrants from Argentina finally helped to break the cycle
of vituperation among Spanish anarchists. Thus, during a critical period of
the Second Republic, the CNT and its members suffered from a lack of unity
among Spanish anarchists. In a regional plenary of CNT member unions held
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Chapter 6
at Sabadell, the unions of the local federation withdrew from the CNT. Also
withdrawing were the metal workers, woodworkers, and transportation unions
in the Levante. In part, these withdrawals explain the CNT’s ineffective and
inconsistent response to government policies during the early Republican pe-
riod. Many local uprisings occurred in 1932 and 1933 in uncoordinated efforts
to oppose the new government.
Reaction from monarchists, the church, some of the military, and conserva-
tive politicians showed that Spain was becoming polarized by liberal reforms
and anarchist pressure for greater change. General José Sanjurjo attempted an
August 1932 military coup in protest of the agrarian law and Catalan autonomy.29
Sanjurjo had become well known for his exploits in Morocco and was now in
charge of the Civil Guard. The insurgents gained control of Seville until the
combined forces of the government and anarchist workers defeated them. At
the same time, a monarchist uprising began in Madrid, with an attempted as-
sault on the Ministry of War and the Palace of Communications. With the re-
bellion’s failure, 157 conspirators were exiled to Spanish possessions in Africa.
As a final insult, the rebels’ property was confiscated and given to the Institute
of Agrarian Reform. This defeat bolstered the reputation of the Republican
government but did not signify anarchist acceptance of the regime. One pam-
phlet circulated in the summer of 1932 urged, “Workers! Soldiers! Surge forth,
united, to fight in the streets. The CNT calls you to the battle. Long live the
social war! To the revolution!”30
Anarchists later opposed the military coup but continued to challenge the
Republican government with a series of uprisings. Buenaventura Durruti and
his comrades in the Solidarity affinity group did not join the FAI but remained
active within the CNT in Catalonia, especially in the Textile Workers’ Union
in Barcelona. The Catalan regional committee of the CNT charged Solidarity

(now renamed Nosotros [We]) with receiving the delegates of international
anarchist groups who arrived in Barcelona for the 1931 May Day activities. In
early 1932, Nosotros sponsored an uprising in Alto Llobregat in Catalonia that
some anarchists hoped would unleash the great social revolution.31 “‘They will
die,’ said Federica Montseny, ‘perhaps many of us will die . . . What does it mat-
ter!’”32 In the wake of this revolt, officials arrested Durruti and Joaquín Ascaso
and summarily exiled them to Spanish Guinea. More than one hundred FAI
and CNT leaders also found themselves under arrest.
In July 1932, telephone workers went on strike, disrupting service in the
major cities. The government called out the Civil Guard to stop the strike, and
the result was much the same as under the monarchy—armed workers insti-
gated guerrilla action against the Civil Guard. Nearly two thousand anarchist
132
arrests resulted. Hardly noticed in that summer of upheaval was the death of
José Prat in Barcelona on July 17. He had long suffered from ill health and had
not played an active role in the anarchist movement for many years, but La
Protesta, the newspaper he had helped to create while in Argentina, neverthe-
less noted his passing.
In January 1933, Juan García Oliver led an armed insurgency in Barcelona
and Valencia, among other cities. While the insurgents ostensibly sought the
release of political prisoners, they merely created more. Churches often were
burned in these disturbances, and public disorder increased. In many rural
areas, villagers believed that the hoped-for revolution had begun, seizing land.
Perhaps the most notorious incident occurred in an Andalusian village,
Casas Viejas. There, an anarchist militant known as Six Fingers participated
in a 1933 uprising. Villagers took over the town. However, similar uprisings
in nearby towns failed, and the police and army imposed order. Some Casas
Viejas residents fled into the surrounding hills as the Assault Guards arrived
and searched each house. Six Fingers barricaded himself and his family in his
home and shot dead the first Assault Guard who attacked. More guards arrived
and positioned themselves around the house. They set up machine guns and
requested grenades. The siege continued all night until the guards decided to
burn the house down. In the dawn, as the house burned, one man ran from
the house but was cut down in a burst of machine gun fire. A woman followed
and was also shot dead. Everyone else in the house died in the fire.
The government defended its actions. The minister of war, Manuel Azaña,
declared, “Neither wounded nor prisoners—shoot them all.” He labeled ac-
cusations against the government “witches’ tales.”33 But the government came
under increasing criticism from both the left and the right, and the incident
led to a call for new elections.

Many CNT members criticized the FAI’s approach as extreme, although
the situation was complicated. The Nosotros group, with Durruti, Ascaso, and
García Oliver, did not join the FAI until 1933 and operated within a militant
wing of the CNT itself in what Gómez Casas called a “sort of super-F.A.I.”34
The violence and repression in 1932 and 1933 divided anarchists on tactics but
united them in opposition to the current government.
At a plenum of regional federations in Madrid in late January and early Feb-
ruary 1933, the CNT decided to initiate a series of strikes to demand amnesty for
members arrested in earlier disturbances. On May 7, the CNT called a general
strike. The anarchists hoped to force the government to recognize its power,
and they succeeded in a way: Azaña’s government used weapons to suppress the
strikes and jailed many of the movement’s most militant leaders. That spring,
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Chapter 6
the CNT and FAI recognized the national Revolutionary Committee, which
included Durruti, Isaac Puente, Cipriano Mera, and Joaquín Ascaso.
Azaña’s government fell during the incessant civil unrest that plagued Spain
during the summer of 1933. Azaña refused to grant amnesty to any political
prisoners, and the number of anarchists in jail continued to rise, reaching an
estimated nine thousand. Agitation continued, and a September rally in sup-
port of amnesty drew nearly sixty thousand people to the bullring in Barcelona
to demand the release of political prisoners. With new elections called for in
November, the anarchists decided to abstain from supporting any political
faction. The result of this strategy was a campaign to convince anarchists not
to vote. The campaign’s backers argued that by participating in the election
two years earlier, anarchists had helped to elect the left-wing coalition that
went on to repress anarchists. Durruti surmised that the likely election of a
more conservative government would actually help the anarchists’ cause: “If
the socialists were defeated, in the November election, this could enlarge the
revolutionary base for a revolutionary attempt.”35
A coalition of right-wing political groups emerged victorious from the No-
vember elections and began to disassemble its predecessor’s reforms. The “Black
Biennium” of the next two years further alienated anarchists, as repression in-
creased. Anarchists hoped to spark a social revolution with an armed uprising
in Saragossa on December 8 as well as violent outbreaks throughout Aragon
and La Rioja in northern Spain. Workers in various towns declared libertar-
ian communism, but only until Assault Guards and the army restored order.
A total of eighty-seven activists were killed, many more were wounded, and
about seven hundred were taken prisoner. The outbreaks of violence at the
beginning and end of 1933 showed that anarchists were unalterably opposed
to any government, whether led by Socialists or by the right wing. The enthu-
siasm for revolution by those involved was not noticeably dampened by the
repression, although many of the movement’s leaders were arrested and jailed.
A growing awareness of the government’s power and its opposition to the work-
ing class brought calls for reconciliation among diverse anarchist groups and
for cooperation between the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores and the
CNT. Several returnees from Argentina became key figures in these attempts
to promote greater harmony among factions, with Abad de Santillán again
playing a notable role.
Abad de Santillán and the FAI
As conditions changed, Abad de Santillán reevaluated his circumstances in the

Americas and his options elsewhere. After fleeing Buenos Aires, Abad de Santil-
134
lán took up residency in Montevideo, a close-by haven where he could remain

in contact with the movement in Argentina and surreptitiously travel to Santa
Fe to visit his family. He also traveled briefly to Spain as a FORA representative
in June and July 1931 to attend a CNT congress and an AIT meeting. The trip
was a disappointment, however, as Abad de Santillán found Spanish anarchists
divided about whether to accept the Republic as legitimate and work within the
system to build up the anarchist organization or to oppose the Republic and
pursue social revolution as the immediate goal. He was glad to leave Spain and
return to South America after witnessing the disarray among anarchists. Abad
de Santillán later wrote that remaining in America gave him the opportunity
to reflect dispassionately on events in Spain and guided his actions when he
returned in 1934: “If I had remained in Spain in 1931, most likely I would not
have come to the quiet reflections I was able to make and would have joined
with those who fought so enthusiastically and valiantly for economic, politi-
cal, and social change.”36
The period between 1930 and 1934 was critical in Abad de Santillán’s think-
ing. Throughout the 1920s, he had supported an anarchist doctrine that was
inflexible in its opposition to any political participation or cooperation with
nonanarchist groups. He had criticized the CNT for considering joining other
groups in opposing the Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship. But after the 1930 coup
in Argentina and the devastation it brought, he seems to have undergone a
personal and ideological transition. From Montevideo, Abad de Santillán now
wrote of the need for toleration and cooperation.37
Abad de Santillán attempted to work with Uruguayan anarchists, among
them Simón Radowitzky, who had famously assassinated Colonel Ramón Fal-
cón. After twenty years in jail in Ushuaia, Radowitzky had been released and
exiled to Uruguay. But Abad de Santillán felt that his place was in Argentina, so
he crossed the border with false documents and made his way to a small town
near Buenos Aires. There, he went to the family home of Manuel Villar, who
had earlier left Uruguay on a different path back to Argentina. The two talked
of the situation in Argentina and agreed that no matter what, they would have
the support of their families.38 The next day Abad de Santillán left for Santa
Fe to be with his family. He was greeted warmly by his sisters, brother, and
mother, but his father remained cool. Abad de Santillán spent a year in Santa
Fe, and although he failed to organize any significant threat to end the dictator-
ship in Argentina, he remained active, writing his book, La FORA: Ideología
y trayectoria del movimiento obrero revolucionario en la Argentina (The FORA:
Ideology and Course of the Revolutionary Movement in Argentina). With a
collaborator, Dr. Juan Lazarte, Abad de Santillán also wrote Reconstrucción
social: Nueva edificación económica argentina (Social Reconstruction: A New
135
Chapter 6
Economic Structure in Argentina), in which he began to formulate the ideas

on revolutionary economic organization that would guide the revolution in
Spain in 1936.
Finally, in 1932, when Uriburu’s dictatorship gave way to a conservative re-
gime elected with widespread fraud, Abad de Santillán decided to return to
Buenos Aires and risk reopening La Protesta. He met with Villar and, although
no funds were available, they decided to publish the newspaper after more
than a year’s hiatus. Martial law had been lifted, and the government no longer
persecuted labor organizations. Villar and Abad de Santillán brought Jacobo
Maguid, a young man from Santa Fe, onto the editorial board. Maguid, an
engineering student at La Plata, later joined Abad de Santillán and Villar in
Spain during the civil war to become the editor of the FAI’s newspaper, Tierra
y Libertad. When La Protesta returned to newsstands and its subscribers, the
government revoked the periodical’s franking privileges, and without the abil-
ity to mail copies, La Protesta could publish only biweekly, sending copies via
bus or railroad.
One of the prisoners returning from Ushuaia, José Berenguer, suggested
that La Protesta be incorporated as a business to give it legal status. Doing so
provided a basis for the newspaper to continue, and Abad de Santillán began
to feel that he had accomplished all that he could in Argentina and to think of
moving to Spain.
Since leaving Spain as a young child, Abad de Santillán had spent only a
small amount of time there. He spoke of Argentina as his adopted land and
criticized Spanish anarchists from an Argentine perspective. After returning to
Montevideo from a two-month visit to Spain in 1931, he wrote, “I attended the
first sessions of the Spanish [anarchist] congress. They are not very advanced.
But with a bit of intelligence and a better understanding of events, perhaps

Spain could be the beginning of a new moment in history.”39 He referred to
the Spanish as they and implied that he might be able to provide them with the
necessary knowledge and understanding. His time in Montevideo caused him
to think of himself as more of a Spaniard. He later wrote, “After that last stage of
repression in Argentina, the frustration of so much hope, and with the despair
after so many efforts to change the course of history in that country, which was
like a native land to me, I resolved to dedicate the rest of my life to Spain.”40
In July 1932, Abad de Santillán wrote, “I think it is worth the effort to do
something in a country like Spain, which offers better opportunities than in
Argentina.”41 In early 1934, he moved to Spain. Soon after arriving in Barcelona,
he met with Villar and other FORA members who had left Argentina. In need
of employment, Abad de Santillán went to see a man who had once offered
136
him equipment to set up his own periodical. He asked for a job “as a printer,
a page-turner, collator, proofreader, whatever.”42 Abad de Santillán needed a
period of transition between Argentina and Spain, which may explain why he
joined other returnees in living a hand-to-mouth existence in Barcelona. “In
Chinatown, cheap restaurants rented out pots, pans, fuel, and utensils for im-
provising meals of potatoes, vegetables, and a little bit of meat. It all came to a
couple of pesetas. That was how the Buenos Aires colony found something to
eat while we enjoyed the privilege of being free and in the street.”43
However, Abad de Santillán soon found himself confronting authorities
when he and Villar attempted to publish Solidaridad Obrera. The newspaper
had been shut down after the December 1933 upheavals, and many of its editors
had been jailed. Villar had escaped arrest in Barcelona, and with the arrival of
his friend and comrade, he pressed ahead with Solidaridad Obrera, “the same
way we had published La Protesta the day after General Justo had assumed
power as president” in Argentina.44 Three times they attempted to publish
Solidaridad Obrera. Three times they were arrested and the newspaper shut
down. Each time, they changed the name slightly—first to Solidaridad, then
to Soli—hoping to avoid the same fate. Abad de Santillán finally accepted a
position with Tierra y Libertad, enabling him to resume his writing. He turned
one of his articles for Tierra y Libertad into a book, El organismo económico de
la revolución (The Economic Organization of the Revolution), that would help
explain the structure of an anarchist-led revolution in Spain.
Abad de Santillán and others whom he had known in Argentina now be-
came part of the Spanish anarchist organization. He created an affinity group
within the FAI, Nervio, with Pedro Herrera, Orobón Fernández, Idelfonso
González, Fidel Miró, and Germinal de Souza.45 The group took its name from
a publication on which several members had worked in Argentina, reflecting a

conscious decision to link themselves, as Spanish anarchists, with Argentina.
Group members may also have chosen the name because it represented active
opposition to dictatorship as well as the need for anarchists to unite and work
with other groups, lessons they thought would benefit Spanish anarchists.
Abad de Santillán also joined the Graphic Arts Union affiliated with the
CNT so that he would be part of that federation in his capacity as a worker.
Almost all members of the FAI were also members of the CNT. Membership
not only provided a way to infiltrate each union but reflected the working-class
roots of FAI members. They were first and foremost laborers, distinguishing
themselves from paid bureaucrats in many socialist unions. They belonged in
their union, but they chose to become part of the FAI. Observers have debated
the FAI’s role in the Spanish labor movement, with some calling it elitist.46
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Chapter 6
Others, including Gómez Casas, have described the FAI simply as a continu-
ation of the affinity group concept that had long been a part of anarchism.47
Spanish anarchism was not controlled by any one group in the early 1930s but
instead remained divided among Treintistas, the FAI, and the CNT. Nosotros
positioned itself among the most militant of the affinity groups. They formed
the Revolutionary Committee that instigated the December 1933 uprisings and
criticized both the FAI and the CNT for their reluctance openly to challenge the
Republican government. In November 1933, Durruti told seventy-five thousand
people at a Barcelona rally, “Workers . . . if they told you that the Republic was
going to jail 9,000 working men, would you have voted?” The crowd roared
back, “No!”48
Anarchists and the Two

Black Years, 1933–1935
The new government elected in 1933 to lead the Spanish republic contrasted
starkly with the previous one. Azaña had created and tried to govern with a
center-left coalition. After the November elections, Lerroux and his Radical
Republican Party, the second-largest bloc in the new Cortes, with 110 seats,
created a center-right coalition with the Confederación Española de Derechas
Autónomas (Confederation of Autonomous Parties of the Right), the largest
group, with 110 deputies. Many Spaniards still regarded CEDA’s leader, José
María Gil Robles, as too conservative to head a government, so Lerroux be-
came prime minister. He immediately began to dismantle many of the previous
government’s reforms. The property confiscated from the church was returned,
Catholic schools reopened, and the clergy again received their salaries from
the state. Agrarian reform halted, and agricultural wages were reduced. These
actions did not go far enough to satisfy many on the right yet profoundly wor-
ried socialists and anarchists. In 1934, Lerroux was replaced as prime minister
by a fellow Radical, Ricardo Semper, largely as a result of the increasing op-
position from Catalan and Basque nationalists, who wanted greater autonomy.
Murray Bookchin puts the events of 1934 into perspective by pointing out
that socialists and anarchists had been decimated in Germany after Adolf Hit-
ler’s takeover in 1933. In Austria, where Engelbert Dollfuss had taken dictato-
rial powers, a socialist uprising in Vienna had been severely repressed. With
such warnings from abroad, Spanish anarchists and socialists were afraid that
a government dominated by the CEDA could bring fascism to their country.49
On October 1, 1934, when the Cortes opened, Gil Robles and the CEDA
demanded more seats in the government. This pressure led to the fall of Sem-
138
per’s government and heightened the concerns of the Left. Spanish president
Niceto Alcalá Zamora refused to allow Gil Robles to form a government but
instead called back Lerroux and instructed him to give the CEDA three min-
istries. These events pushed socialists to action. They had already been seeking
closer ties with other labor and left-wing groups in an alianza obrera (work-
ers’ alliance). The CNT remained suspicious of uncomfortably close ties with
socialists but did not object when regional anarchist unions cooperated. On
October 4, 1934, an uprising broke out in Madrid. Although a revolutionary
committee of Unión General de Trabajadores (socialist) unions and CNT
(anarchist) unions had been formed, the two groups had no effective leader-
ship. The insurrection in Madrid failed dismally. However, in Asturias, heavily
armed miners began a strike by attacking and occupying the Civil Guard and
Assault Guard barracks. They disarmed these guards and moved on to the
provincial capital at Oviedo, attacking the city with eight thousand workers
on October 6. For several days, these workers, most of them associated with
the Unión General de Trabajadores, occupied towns. Little coordination took
place between socialist and anarchist workers, and when government troops
assaulted the coastal towns of Avilés and Gijón, local anarchists did not have
the weapons to resist. The miners had used dynamite very effectively as their
principal weapon, but when government troops took the seaport towns, resis-
tance throughout Asturias began to crumble. By October 18, the government
had put down the uprising and begun a period of brutal repression that not
only had a great impact on workers but also led to criticism of the right-wing
government throughout Spain.
More than thirty thousand prisoners were taken; many were tortured, and
most of the leaders who were not shot on the spot were quickly sentenced to
death. The CNT sent Villar to investigate the insurrection in Asturias, and he
found that the greatest mistake had been a lack of coordination in Asturias and
at the national level. Anarchists in Catalonia rose in support of the Asturian
miners, but elsewhere in Spain, there was little more than a general strike.50
Under the pseudonym Ignotus, Villar later wrote about the repression after
the insurrection. He produced photographs and lists of those tortured and
executed. Perhaps as much as the repression that followed the uprising, the
government’s use of African troops to put down the insurrection galled many
Spaniards and brought mounting criticism of the government. In response,
Lerroux and President Alcalá Zamora stopped the executions of participants
who were only peripherally involved in the rebellion. The CEDA, in turn, ob-
jected and withdraw from the government in March 1935, creating a political
crisis. Gil Robles used the occasion to demand a CEDA-dominated govern-
139
Chapter 6
ment and created a CEDA-dominated cabinet. The Spanish Left’s worst fears
seemed about to be realized.
By 1935, both Argentina and Spain had undergone political transformations
that altered their political landscape and forced anarchists and immigrants
to determine where their best opportunities lay. The military dominated the
government in Argentina, and the Concordancia, a coalition of military and
conservative politicians, began a decade of electoral fraud and attacks on an-
archists that decimated the movement and forced many to return to Spain.
Spain’s new Republican government initially offered hope and freedom, but
those hopes were dashed by 1933, when the conservative government over-
turned its predecessor’s reforms. Failed uprisings and increasingly harsh repri-
sals further exacerbated the divisions between the Left and the Right, resulting
in what the Left referred to as the Two Black Years.
Spain’s increasing turmoil brought to the fore the need for cooperation
among anarchists, who remained divided over the Manifesto of the Thirty. In
1935, Abad de Santillán, Villar, and González, all recently returned from Argen-
tina, became leaders in the anarchist movement, trying to put into practice the
lessons they had learned about the need for unity. Their influence helped to
shape the course of events leading up to the outbreak of the civil war in Spain
and the resultant anarchist revolution in Catalonia.
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Chapter 7
Abad de Santillán
and the Anarchist
Revolution in Spain
T h e fat e of t h e Spanish Republic hinged on decisions made

by anarchists, political parties, and the military as the February 1936 elections
approached. Among the anarchists who influenced the CNT’s response were
two returning immigrants, Diego Abad de Santillán and Manuel Villar. Their
argument on behalf of participation in the elections influenced the CNT’s
stance and prompted workers to vote for the Popular Front, whose election led
to a military rebellion. In addition, as workers fought rebel soldiers in Barce-
lona, anarchists unleashed a spontaneous revolution whose structure had been
recently outlined in a book by Abad de Santillán. His pivotal role in Spain was
shaped by events in Argentina.
The Spanish Republic remained unstable as political parties on both the left
and the right prepared for the elections. The leftist parties sought an electoral
alliance that could challenge the current government, while those on the right
hoped to increase their hold on power. And the election’s outcome was impor-
tant enough that the real possibility of an uprising existed no matter which
side lost. In January 1936, a coalition of left-wing parties and groups created
the Popular Front, which unified the Socialist Party and the Unión General
de Trabajadores with the Left Republicans, the Communist Party, and several
smaller groups. The Syndicalist Party, created by Ángel Pestaña when he finally
split with the anarchists, also joined. José María Gil Robles and the right-wing
CEDA vowed that a victory by the leftist coalition would lead to an uprising
Chapter 7
by conservative forces, while the Left was no less sure that a right-wing victory
would ignite a mass revolution.
One of the most important questions asked at the time involved the CNT’s
stance. In 1931, the CNT had officially ignored elections, while many of its fol-
lowers voted for a reformist Republican government. In 1933, the CNT had
come out against electoral participation, and the lack of worker support for the
liberal Republican government helped the right-wing government win. Since
late 1935, the CNT had explored the possibility of joint action with the Unión
General de Trabajadores and seemed willing to support the Popular Front.
Federico Urales, an important anarchist and the father of militant Federica
Montseny, said, “I would consider it a great error on the part of the anarchists
if, as a consequence of their action during the electoral period, the rightists
triumphed over the leftists.”1
Juan García Oliver openly advocated seizure of power by anarchists who
would initiate a social revolution.2 Many of the FAI’s affinity groups opposed
this stance, including the Nervio group, which had been designated as the
Peninsular Committee of the FAI in 1935.3 Abad de Santillán struggled with
the question of participation in elections in 1936. He called a meeting of his
closest comrades and some of the most important Spanish anarchists, among
them Tomás Herreros, Francisco Ascaso, Pedro Herrera, Buenaventura Durruti,
and Manuel Villar, two of whom had recently returned from many years in Ar-
gentina.4 Abad de Santillán explained that the anarchists could expect nothing
from a victory of the Right. Nor would a victory by the Left be welcomed, even
though the Popular Front promised an amnesty for political prisoners, many
of them anarchists. “The outlook was clear, very clear,” wrote Abad de Santil-
lán. “We held the key to victory in the elections. Our abstention would surely
have brought the triumph of the fascists or the fascist sympathizers; with our
possible participation, we would give power to the Left, with whom we had
no contact. They had not even attempted to enter into a dialogue with us.”5
He saw nothing good coming from the triumph of either side, but in light
of the 1933 elections, Abad de Santillán believed that the Popular Front had to
win the election and that a policy of abstention by anarchists would be coun-
terproductive.6 According to Frank Mintz, Abad de Santillán remembered the
consequences of Argentine anarchists’ inability to cooperate with other groups
after the 1930 military coup.7 Abad de Santillán later recounted that some of
Spain’s anarchist leaders did not agree with his ideas. Eusebio C. Carbó and
Juanel ( Juan Manuel Molina) opposed the FAI plan to participate in the 1936
elections. Yet at a CNT plenum in Catalonia, two thousand delegates approved
the plan, including Durruti and Ascaso.8
142
Abad de Santillán and the Anarchist Revolution
Fig u re 16. Manuel Villar, Spain, 1936. Source: International Institute for Social
History, Amsterdam
The FAI did not control the CNT, but all of the FAI’s members were also
members of unions federated with the CNT and therefore were part of that
organization. The FAI was not a monolithic bloc that directed the CNT. In-
stead, members of the FAI were among the most respected anarchists, so their
opinions carried great weight. The CNT was already wavering on the issue of
the election, and the FAI’s unwillingness to abstain from participating helped
influence the role of anarchists in the coming elections.
Most historians of the period have written that the CNT did not encour-
age its members to abstain from voting as it had done in 1933 because so many
anarchists were in jail and the Popular Front would be more likely to declare
an amnesty.9 However, a look at the role of Abad de Santillán and the Nervio
group suggests that their experience in Argentina was also a part of that deci-
sion. The Popular Front victory was a momentous event. “What turned the
balance,” in Gerald Brenan’s view, “was the Anarcho-Syndicalists’ vote.”10
The Popular Front victory made a right-wing coup inevitable, and all sides
spent the spring of 1936 preparing for some kind of confrontation. Moderates
simply hoped for the best. The new Cortes dismissed President Niceto Alcalá
Zamora and replaced him with Manuel Azaña, who seemed to be a stronger
143
Chapter 7
leader. But Azaña governed with only moderate Republican parties, as the
Socialists had refused to enter the government. He was unable to halt the in-
creasing polarization within Spain.
The Socialists split into two groups. One, under Francisco Largo Caballero,
became more radical and called for a dictatorship of the proletariat. The other,
under Indalecio Prieto, was unwilling to advocate such a step. The Commu-
nists remained a small group compared to the Socialists and anarchists but
encouraged Largo Caballero and sought alliances with his Unión General de
Trabajadores unions.
Right-wing groups were also divided. José Calvo Sotelo, recently returned
from exile, challenged Gil Robles and the CEDA. Calvo Sotelo, head of the
Nationalist Bloc, became one of the most outspoken critics of the government.
Another party, the Spanish Falange, was founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo
de Rivera, son of the late dictator. The Falange espoused a mixture of fascism
and Spanish nationalism. No single leader or party united the Right. The army
would have to step in and lead the attack on the Spanish government.
The Spanish army mistrusted the Republic. Some generals were monarchists,
while others, including Francisco Franco, were “accidentalists” who “cared little
for political forms, provided they maintained ‘order.’”11 The government feared
these generals and transferred them to remote regions. General Manuel Goded,
for example, went to the Balearic Islands and General Franco was sent to the
Canary Islands. These generals bided their time while the government faced
increasing opposition from both the Left and the Right during the spring of
1936. Gunfights and revenge killings took place among political factions. Strikes
by workers in Madrid and peasant demands for land redistribution threatened
the economic order. Spaniards of every persuasion looked at these events with
a mixture of horror and hope. Finally, after the July 17, 1936, murder of Calvo
Sotelo, the generals acted. A military insurrection broke out in Morocco on July
17, spreading to Spain by the next day. The long-anticipated conflict had begun.
The Ingenuous Revolution
Spanish anarchists now had the opportunity they had sought for many years,
and anarchists from many lands came to join them. Among the arrivals were
Spaniards returning from Argentina as well as Argentine anarchists, and despite
their relatively small numbers, they played many important roles during the
revolution and civil war.
The anarchist-inspired revolution that erupted in Spain in July 1936 was
unique in modern history. It began in Catalonia as a spontaneous response
144
to a military rebellion that challenged the Republican government but went

on to establish a libertarian society based on anarchist principles of voluntary
association without the coercive power of the state. Earlier twentieth-century
revolutions in Mexico and Russia had destroyed old regimes and replaced them
with new institutions and leadership, revealing the power of a people aroused
by injustice and oppression. But they also demonstrated the state’s ability to
retain control under new leadership. Diego Abad de Santillán addressed the
question of revolution and the state: “The suppression of the State cannot be a
slow process of withering away: it must be suppressed in the revolution itself.
Either the revolution gives the wealth of the society to the producers or it does
not. If the wealth goes to the people, who organize themselves to produce and
distribute goods effectively, then the State serves no purpose. If the wealth does
not go to the people, then the revolution has been a lie, and the State endures.”12
The anarchists were one of Spain’s most powerful working-class groups at
the outbreak of the civil war. Catalan workers armed themselves and put down
the military rebellion that triumphed over much of the rest of the country. For
the next year, Catalonia constituted one of the most revolutionary parts of the
Spanish republic, and anarchist workers led a transformation of the region’s
economy. This opportunity for change arose in response to Franco’s rebellion
against the Republican government. But the anarchist movement had for years
nurtured the sentiment, spirit, and organization shown by workers in taking
over factories and businesses. These events provide one of the best examples
of the act of revolution in its most ingenuous form—direct, natural, and genu-
ine—yet planned, organized, and intentional.
One anonymous worker expressed the prevailing revolutionary idealism:
There are fundamental changes to be made in our factory. Some here still
act as if we were under the old management [but] we are no longer simply
workers who do something in a factory; we are workers who are fighting for
the triumph of our cause, for revolution. . . . We must bring about this revolu-
tion through our daily work. We must make this revolution with our ham-
mers, our shovels, at the forge, with the plow. We must work with tangible
things . . . and strive with all the dedication and enthusiasm we have to give.13
But as this “Dear Comrade” letter from the workers’ committee that managed
the telephone company illustrates, a contradictory need for order and control
also existed:
In checking over our paid-up accounts, we do not find your name, although
our collectors have visited your home twice and we have telephoned you
various times recommending payment.
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Chapter 7
As a last resort, we have had to disconnect your phone. However, it is not

possible under present circumstances to permit cancellations of service by
subscribers without the best of reasons. Such action could be interpreted
as a move to obstruct the progress of the revolution, so we invite you to come
to this office within forty-eight hours to pay your bill and continue among our
subscribers.
In the event this advice is not heeded, we shall see ourselves obliged,
although it would grieve us deeply, to resort to those extreme measures
which present circumstances make advisable for the protection of such an
important public service as the telephone. Those measures to which we refer
have been given publicity in the daily press accounts of treatment accorded
to counterrevolutionaries.
Assured that it will receive the cooperation for which the present situation
calls, the Central Committee of the Workers of the Telephone Company
salutes you.14
The collapse of government in Barcelona and the outbreak of civil war cre-
ated paradoxical circumstances. Some anarchists saw a choice between creating
the social revolution for which they had long dreamed and planned and domi-
nating the institutions of the state to unite the disparate groups opposing the
military rebellion. Many observers have judged the anarchists’ refusal to grab
political power when armed workers took control of Barcelona as a failure of
resolve or a naive unwillingness to maintain a governmental organization that
could defeat the military rebels.
The spontaneity of this upheaval, anarchists believed, reflected human free-
dom. The anarchist movement refused power because, as Herbert Read says,
“the exercise of power is the denial of spontaneity.”15 Apparently changing his
mind about an anarchist takeover, García Oliver reflected that the choice in-
volved “either libertarian communism, which is equal to anarchist dictatorship,
or democracy, which means collaboration.”16 The anarchist leaders joined a
coalition that sought to coordinate an armed response to the military, while
anarchist workers throughout Catalonia took control of businesses and indus-
tries without regard to political compromise. This quixotic response made little
sense to those who did not share the anarchists’ goals—the Republicans and
Communist Party members who sought first to shore up a failing republic to
fight the fascist attack.
The literature on the Spanish Civil War is extensive. Participants from both
sides have written memoirs, justifications, and explanations of positions and ac-
tions taken. The partisan nature of these histories is difficult to overcome. Many
historians and participants who focus on Barcelona’s 1936 anarchist revolution
146
dismiss it as impractical, especially in wartime.17 Anarchist apologists counter

that the communists and the central government destroyed the revolution,
and the debate has continued for decades.18 Yet subsequent research on Spain,
Spanish workers, and the circumstances surrounding the civil war show a much
more nuanced situation.
Michael Seidman has shown that many Spanish workers who belonged to
anarchist unions were far from ideologues infused with enthusiasm for revo-
lutionary change.19 Instead, they ranged from those who reluctantly endured
to those who subverted revolutionary gains with obstructionism, stealing, or
malingering. In addition, Temma Kaplan has shown that the anarchist revolu-
tion in Spain did not materially change the role of women in society, despite
revolutionary rhetoric and the participation of women in revolutionary orga-
nizations such as Mujeres Libres (Free Women).20 However, a brief review of
the opening days of the civil war and revolution demonstrates the important
role played by returning immigrants.
Spain’s anarchists put into practice their goal of worker participation. In
Barcelona, throughout Catalonia, in Asturias, and in parts of Valencia and
Andalusia, anarchist workers and peasants implemented the ideas they had
debated. Two documents help explain these goals. One was a definition of
libertarian communism by Isaac Puente delivered at the CNT’s May meeting
in Saragossa. The other was Abad de Santillán’s book, El organismo económico
de la revolución (The Economic Organization of the Revolution).
Outline of the Anarchist Revolution
A national congress of the CNT met in Saragossa in May 1936 to attempt to

resolve serious splits among the factions within the confederation. A total of
650 delegates representing more than half a million members met at Iris Park
for ten days, addressing divisive issues as well as questions about libertarian
communism. The Treintistas and the unions they represented reconciled with
the CNT at the congress. The interplay of ideas among anarchists in Spain and
Argentina helped form the concepts that shaped the revolution.
Puente presented a detailed proposal for building the revolutionary process
on the twin pillars of the individual and the union while recognizing individual
sovereignty. Puente, a medical doctor from Rioja and an intellectual who sup-
ported a working-class revolution, had taken part in the 1933 Saragossa uprising.
“The revolution begins,” he wrote, “the moment the individual understands the
difference between his beliefs and the organization of society and, by instinct
or analysis, is forced to rebel against that society.”
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Chapter 7
ORGANIZATION OF THE NEW SOCIETY AFTER THE REVOLU-

TIONARY ACT. As soon as the violence of the revolution is over, the follow-
ing will be abolished: private property; the state; the principle of authority
and, therefore, economic and social classes that divide men into exploiters
and exploited, oppressors and oppressed. . . . Once resources are socialized,
organizations of producers, now free, will be in charge of the direct admin-
istration of production and consumption. A new social order will operate
when the libertarian commune has been established in each town.
PLAN FOR THE ORGANIZATION OF PRODUCERS. Whatever form
the national economy assumes, it will be organized under the principles of
socialism and directly administered by the representatives of the workers
elected through their unions and subject to their control. . . . The worker in
the shop or factory, in the union, the commune, in all organizations of the
new society will be, individually and as a member of a group, the cornerstone
of all social, economic, and moral achievements.
LIBERTARIAN COMMUNES AND THEIR ORGANIZATION. The
political beliefs of our revolution are based on the following: THE INDI-
VIDUAL, THE COMMUNE, AND THE FEDERATION. . . . The organi-
zation of the peninsular economy will be entirely communal in character.
. . . The basis of all organization will be the commune. These communes will
be autonomous and will be federated regionally and nationally. The right of
autonomy, however, does not exclude the duty of the completion of neces-
sary collective agreements that are assigned for good reasons and should
be accepted completely as the political and administrative entity. . . . These
communes will federate by district and region, voluntarily establishing their
geographic boundaries. When convenient, several small towns or villages
will unite in one commune. The sum of these communes will constitute the
Iberian Confederation of Autonomous Libertarian Communes.

COORDINATION AND EXCHANGE OF PRODUCTS. The inhabit-
ants of the commune will discuss their own affairs among themselves: pro-
duction, consumption, education, hygiene, and whatever else is necessary for
the moral and economic development of the commune. . . . If the matter is
regional in scope, the regional federation will carry out the agreements that
represent the sovereign will of the inhabitants of the region. We begin with
the individual, then the commune, next the federation, and finally arrive at
the confederation. . . . Exchanges of products between communes will be
conducted through the Confederal Council of Production and Distribution.
Within the commune, the producer’s card, issued by factory and shop coun-
cils, will be necessary for a member to meet his needs. . . . The communal
council will issue cards to those who do not work.
148
DUTIES OF THE INDIVIDUAL IN THE COMMUNE AND THE

CONCEPT OF DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. Libertarian communism is
totally incompatible with all penal systems. That would mean the end of
the present system of justice and all its instruments of punishment, such as
jails, penitentiaries, etc. . . . This committee believes that society causes the
so-called crimes we have today. Once the causes of these crimes disappear,
the crimes, in most cases, will cease. . . . We believe that when a man does
not fulfill his duties, either socially or economically, the popular assemblies
should find a solution.
THE FAMILY AND SEXUAL REVOLUTION. The revolution should
not violently change the family except in those cases where it is living in an
unhealthy way and will recognize and aid in its change. . . . The first measure
of the libertarian revolution will be to assure the economic independence
of all, without regard to gender.
THE QUESTION OF RELIGION. Religion is a purely subjective mani-
festation of the human being and will be recognized as long as it remains a
matter of conscience. It will not be tolerated in any public demonstration or
as morally or intellectually coercive. . . . The individual will be free to believe
in whatever code of ethics he chooses, but all religious rites will disappear.
ON EDUCATION, ART, SCIENCE, AND FREE EXPERIMENTA-
TION. Education, as the mission of creating a new humanity, will be free,
scientific, and equal for both sexes. The school will also give attention to sex
education as an important function in the continuance of the species. All
punishment and rewards will be excluded within the educational system of
libertarian communism, as they are the bases of inequalities. In the liber-
tarian communist society, producers will not be divided into manual and
intellectual workers but will be both. Access to the arts and science will be
free. The time a man spends in these areas belongs to him as an individual
and brings him out of his role as a producer after work.
THE DEFENSE OF THE REVOLUTION. We realize the need to defend
the achievements of the revolution. Therefore, until the social revolution has
triumphed in other countries, necessary measures will have to be adopted to
defend the new regime against either the danger of foreign capitalist invasion
or counterrevolution within the country. . . . The armed people will be the
greatest guarantee against all attempts to restore the old regime by forces
from within or without. Both sexes capable of fighting will be called up in
this general mobilization and will perform all combat duties.
CLOSING REMARKS. We will close here without placing any definite
proposals before this congress, for we believe that our thoughts should be
used as a guide in the constructive actions of the revolutionary proletariat.
149
Chapter 7
We hope that our work will be improved on by all those with the intelligence,
spirit, and capacity to do so.21
Puente’s stirring language seems odd decades after the heat of the moment
and outside the environment of crisis. Nevertheless, his explanation provides
a sense that the workers were building something that at least in its basic con-
cepts had been discussed and planned. Not all workers shared this vision, and
Seidman points out that many more were interested in their own circumstances
rather than the general good.22 But this experiment in worker control succeeded
for a time as a consequence of the detailed outline of how such a revolution
could be organized.
Abad de Santillán’s El organismo económico de la revolución, translated into
English in 1937 as After the Revolution, explained the structure and benefits of
the anticipated revolution. In the matter of housing, which was expensive and
in short supply, Abad de Santillán stressed the practical nature of the postrevo-
lutionary order. After the revolution, housing problems would be addressed
rationally through planning, and the outcome would benefit the people, not
a corporation’s profits. Moving on from that specific example, the book de-
scribed how each industrial activity would be organized by committees of work-
ers. However, Abad de Santillán recognized that these problems could not be
solved ahead of time but would require a structure that permitted flexibility. The
outline called for economic councils at the local, regional, and federal levels.
Local economic councils would represent the labor force and the consumers
in a given locality, replacing the municipal political organization. These local
councils would comprise representatives from each branch of industry: food
supplies, textile, agriculture, transportation, communication, publishing, credit,
sanitation, industrial, and cultural activities. They would have no administrative

functions; they would be coordinating councils. The system would depend on
the voluntary participation of men and women. Social coercion would come
from peer pressure rather than force. This distinction would set anarchist so-
ciety apart from the bourgeois or proletarian state, although Abad de Santil-
lán recognized the absence of any inherent guarantee that the council would
use its authority for good in all cases. He did not prescribe limitations on the
councils’ powers of coercion, assuming that humans were likely to act for the
good of society when the goal was cooperation rather than self-interest.
Economic coordination would continue at the regional level through eco-
nomic councils made up of representatives from the local councils. Abad de
Santillán anticipated a Balearic Economic Council, a Catalan Economic Coun-
cil, and a Navarre-Basque Economic Council, among others. These regions
150
would have complete autonomy but would be economically interdependent.

He recognized that effective economic activity could not occur in isolation but
thought that local solutions to the unique circumstances of each region would
be more effective than a national program. This idea recognized the power of
Spanish regionalism, which the Republican government had not adequately
addressed, and may also have constituted an attempt to garner support from
regionalists sympathetic to the labor movement.
Finally, the regional economic councils would send delegates to a federal
economic council that would coordinate economic activity throughout the
country. This council would collect information about all aspects of the econ-
omy, encourage adoption of modern methods of production, and create centers
for learning and research with the ultimate goal of producing more goods and
distributing them more effectively.
Puente’s proposal and Abad de Santillán’s book provided specific plans for
the factory takeovers, building committees, and industry coordination that oc-
curred after the defeat of the military insurrection in Barcelona and throughout
much of Catalonia just two months after the Saragossa congress. The revolu-
tion did not result simply from spontaneous actions of workers caught up in
the spirit of revolution; rather, it was based on ideas presented, studied, and
debated in advance.
The Military Uprising in Barcelona
By July 18, 1936, rumors of a military insurrection in Morocco spread throughout

Barcelona, making residents nervous. Union leaders demanded arms. Workers
were ready to defend the Republic, and they needed to defend themselves. On
July 17, Lluís Companys, president of the government of Catalonia, the Gen-
eralidad, had refused to issue arms to a delegation of worker representatives
that included Aurelio Fernández, Durruti, Abad de Santillán, José Ansens,
and García Oliver. That night, the workers of the CNT’s port transportation
local boarded four ships in Barcelona Harbor and took guns and ammunition.
Catalan authorities learned of the raid and surrounded the transportation lo-
cal, demanding that they surrender their arms. The workers refused, and the
situation became tense until the authorities agreed to accept a token surrender,
leaving workers with most of the weapons.
The CNT’s National Committee in Madrid broadcast a call for a revolution-
ary general strike. It ordered workers to arm themselves and maintain contact
with their locals. As news arrived of the revolt in Morocco, workers prepared to
defend Barcelona, posting guards at union locals and around the Generalidad.
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Chapter 7
Companys left the Generalidad after receiving assurances from Francisco

Llano de la Encomienda, the general in charge of a division of troops in Bar-
celona and a loyal Republican, that all was quiet in the barracks. But at four
o’clock on the morning of July 19, the troops left their barracks, heading for the
Plaza de Cataluña. General Goded, a supporter of General Franco’s rebellion,
arrived from Majorca by midmorning and imprisoned Llano de la Encomienda.
The army captured such key points in the city as the Plaza España, the Univer-
sidad de Cataluña, major hotels, and the telephone exchange. Troops from the
Atarazanas and La Maestranza barracks occupied the port from the post office
to the Paralelo, but the detachments could not link up as a consequence of the
furious resistance by the people of Barcelona.
Armed workers resisted as best they could. The unions organized a coun-
terattack. Scrawled everywhere were the letters CNT-FAI—on buildings, cars,
and artillery. The anarchists were the most visible leaders of the resistance to
the military uprising. The counterattack began at noon on July 20, and work-
ers retook many parts of the city. Loyal government troops, Assault Guards,
and Civil Guards joined workers and surrounded rebel troops in the Plaza de
Cataluña. Reinforcements from rebel units at San Andrés and the port were
unable to break through and turned back. Rebel military resistance was over-
come in fierce, hand-to-hand combat. At times, rebel soldiers discarded their
uniforms and fled or joined workers.
The Plaza de Cataluña and the streets around it were littered with the dead.
Workers captured weapons from fallen soldiers; the initiative passed to the
people. With captured artillery trained on General Goded’s headquarters, he
surrendered. Only the Atarazanas fort remained in rebel hands, and it proved
difficult to take. Loyalist air force planes bombed the fort, and workers launched
an assault that resulted in many deaths, including that of Ascaso. The workers
were exhausted from the fighting. Many had gone forty hours or more without
food or rest. Now, as the fighting subsided, Companys called anarchist lead-
ers to the Generalidad for what would prove to be one of the most important
decisions they would make in the war. According to García Oliver, “We went
armed to the teeth: rifles, machine guns, pistols. Shirtless, dirty from the dust
and the smoke. ‘We are the representatives of the CNT and the FAI whom
Companys has called,’ we told the palace guard.”23
Companys told the anarchists, “Today you are the rulers of the city and of
Catalonia, because you alone have defeated the fascist military.”24 He would
defer to their wishes and put himself at their disposal should they want him to
continue in his office and work with them against the military insurrection.25
Companys then proposed collaboration among all antifascist political parties
and trade unions. This idea presented the anarchists with a dilemma. If they
152
took control of Catalonia to create libertarian communism, they would have

done so not through social revolution by the masses but by conquest. That
approach ran counter to anarchist principles. But if they chose to collaborate,
they would become a part of the same state structure they opposed.
Companys told García Oliver that a decision was needed immediately, as
the representatives of other political groups were waiting in the other room.
Companys acted as if pressure would persuade the anarchists, forcing the issue
before they had time to consider all the ramifications. The anarchists agreed to
work with other groups, forming the Antifascist Militias Committee as Cata-
lonia’s true government. The Central Committee of the Antifascist Militias
comprised ten representatives from workers’ organizations, five Republicans,
and four members of the Generalidad. The central committee established tech-
nical committees of war, health and provisions, transportation, economy, and
security, all of them chaired by respected political and labor leaders. Henri Ra-
basseire, a German eyewitness to many of these events, suggested that political
naïveté kept the members of the Antifascist Militias Committee from breaking
with the government in Madrid and establishing the committee as the de jure
as well as de facto government.26 Committee members thought they could use
Companys to intercede with foreign governments and firms and believed that
Madrid would be unable to regain control. Eventually, however, the anarchists
lost power to government officials from Catalonia and Madrid whose primary
objective was to win the war and end the social revolution. Long after 1936,
anarchists still debated the decision not to impose a revolutionary system by
force. Nevertheless, even Abad de Santillán, who served as an economic coun-
selor in the Antifascist Militias Committee, felt that the anarchists really had
no other choice given the circumstances.27
As of July 22, the Antifascist Militias Committee became the virtual govern-
ment of Catalonia. As volunteer columns of anarchist troops marched off to
the front in Asturias, a revolutionary regime was set up in Catalonia. Its first
communiqué read,
The Committee of Antifascist Militias of Catalonia, in accordance with the
decree published by the government of the Generalidad in the Boletín Oficial
today, has taken the following steps that all citizens are obliged to fulfill:
1) A revolutionary regime is established and all member organizations of
the Committee have promised to maintain it.
2) The Committee has named patrols necessary for control and vigilance
and to ensure the rigorous obedience to the orders that will emanate
from the Committee. Therefore, the patrols will carry identifying cre-
dentials.
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3) These patrols will be the only ones accredited by the Committee. Any
other groups will be considered rebels and will be dealt with as the
Committee advises.
4) The night patrol will act rigorously against any who disturb the revolu-
tionary order.
5) Between the hours of one and five in the morning, only the following
will be allowed to be abroad:
a) All who are accredited members of any of the groups that make
up the Committee of Militias.
b) Persons who are accompanied by one of the above whose char-
acter is vouched for by his companions.
c) Those who can prove an extreme emergency that obliges them
to go out.
6) To recruit for the antifascist militias, the organizations that comprise
the Committee are authorized to open enlistment and recruitment
centers. The conditions of recruitment will be detailed in separate
regulations.
7) The Committee hopes that, given the necessity to establish a revo-
lutionary order to face the fascist centers, it will not be necessary to
revert to disciplinary measures to achieve obedience.28
However, the social and economic revolution quickly overwhelmed the An-
tifascist Militias Committee’s coalition of Republican, socialist, and anarchist
leaders. In revolutionary Barcelona, power belonged to the workers’ commit-
tees, at least for the moment. Committees of workers took over and ran the
industrial and commercial firms whose owners had disappeared or fled. In the
words of Burnett Bolloten, “Where the Anarchosyndicalists were in almost

unchecked ascendancy during the first months of the revolution, collectiviza-
tion in many towns was carried out so thoroughly that it embraced not only
the large factories but the least important branches of handicraft.”29 Although
these takeovers were spontaneous and each occurrence was unique, they fol-
lowed a pattern that had been established in anarchist thought.30
The revolutionary economy was to be based on collectives for both produc-
tion and consumption. Locally and regionally elected committees ran these
establishments. Shop and factory committees controlled production. Raw ma-
terials were provided, and a hierarchy of committees coordinated production
and distribution. Economic councils would be established in each locality,
zone, and region to coordinate efforts among all industries within their areas
and to see to the population’s needs. The revolution had been planned; now it
154
was being put into place, but with the serious complication of a military upris-
ing that had turned into a civil war. The Antifascist Militias Committee took
on all the functions of government: public order and safety, food distribution,
economic planning and coordination, and control of the militias. But the work-
ers ran most of Barcelona by themselves.
Worker Control in Barcelona
In July 1936, many anarchists found themselves struggling with the question
of whether the war came before the revolution. Participants and later histori-
ans frequently believed that government control from Madrid and Barcelona
was necessary for the successful prosecution of the war. Anarchist militants
believed that their political enemies were using the war as an opportunity to
destroy libertarian communism.31 The anarchists defended their actions and
claimed that the anarchist revolution helped the war effort, especially in 1936,
when the Republican government was most vulnerable to the military upris-
ing. The revolutionary events evolved in four stages.
First, the workers, flush from the fighting and victory, turned their effective
control over events to control over their place of employment. This focus was
natural because workers were organized by and fought as part of their unions
and because anarcho-syndicalists thought economic activity was the basis of
the new revolutionary order. Workers understood that they were finally putting
their principles into action by taking over their factories and offices.
For example, trolley workers found only the company lawyer in the office
when they went to take over. He attempted to negotiate with the workers, led by
a man named Sánchez. The same lawyer had previously sent Sánchez to prison
for seventeen years for participating in a lengthy strike. The lawyer now called
him “Señor” and tried to resist the worker takeover. He was finally forced to
concede, and faced with workers who wanted to execute him on the spot, the
lawyer asked for safe passage. He was never seen again.
Workers on the Madrid-Zaragoza-Alicante railroad line called for a meeting
with management while the fighting still raged in Barcelona on July 20. These
workers had previously met with management in the administrative offices
to negotiate for their union. Now, when management arrived, they found the
workers sitting in armchairs, backed by armed workers, and making demands:
“‘We have called you here to demand your resignations,’ they said, ‘both of your
positions and of all rights you have received in the company.’”32
Several ways to take over a company existed. The construction industry
in Barcelona had its property transferred to the city. The workers’ committee
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Chapter 7
contracted with the former owner of a glass factory to operate the business. The
gas and water companies and communications industries were expropriated.
Consequently, making generalizations about the takeovers is difficult. Never-
theless, in 1936 the workers of Barcelona, through their committees, controlled
most economic activity.
In the second phase, workers established committees to run the businesses
they now controlled. In some cases, this happened immediately. On July 20,
before the fighting had ceased, a group of armed workers broke into the offices
of the largely Belgian-owned Compañía General de Tranvías. The trolleys had
not been functioning during the fighting, and some were used as barricades.
The local union appointed a seven-man committee to occupy the administra-
tive offices, while other groups were sent out to inspect damage to the system
and report on the repairs needed.
Later in the day, delegates from the electric plant, cable, repair shop, traffic
control, ticket taker, storage, accounting, office, and administrative sections
met to approve the takeover. The workers agreed to reestablish services on
the following day. Since sixty-five hundred of the company’s seven thousand
workers were CNT members, there was little disagreement.33
The railroads were expropriated, and railroad workers elected the twelve-
man Revolutionary Central Committee. The anarchist CNT and socialist Unión
General de Trabajadores each had six delegates. Ten technical sections were
created: commerce, operations, electrical services, accounting, repair shop,
freight, health services, rail beds, legal services, and administration. Each sta-
tion elected a delegate to a coordinating committee, which met monthly. On
November 5, 1936, the committee announced,
The enormous socioeconomic transformation occurring in our country

obliges us to seek new ways of operating the railroads. To do so, we must
develop new activities and gather together all information that will aid us
in a detailed study of the process of production and consumption, which
is closely allied to the railroads wherever lines exist, so the collective can
receive the benefits.
Therefore, the workers in general and the station committees in particular
should reaffirm their desire for progress and a constructive spirit by submit-
ting to this committee as soon as possible a report covering the following
points:
1) The inhabitants of the areas around each station.
2) The regional zone of influence of the railroad.
156
3) Means of communication between this station and the towns along the
perimeter of the zone of influence.
4) Industrial and agricultural production of the area and the locations
where excess production is consumed.
5) General means of transport of goods.
6) If goods are not shipped by rail, the reasons for this and suggestions for
a solution to this problem.
7) Whether rail and truck service is coordinated, and in what way.
8) If rail and truck service is not coordinated, suggestions for establishing
coordinated service.
We do not believe it is necessary to repeat how important this information
is. This committee hopes that the station committees will appreciate this
importance and will give us complete cooperation in obtaining the most
reliable information possible.34
Railroad traffic suffered from a loss of markets due to the war, insufficient
spare parts, and a lack of coal, which came from parts of Spain occupied by the
enemy. Nevertheless, rates for passengers and cargo were not raised at the be-
ginning of the war, and more than 25 percent of the Madrid-Zaragoza-Alicante
line’s income was given to aid other Catalan lines.
In the water, gas, and electricity industries, worker control was not complete
until August. A transition period allowed the continuation of the “capitalist”
organization without expropriation. In August, however, a worker coordinating
committee took control of operations in the Catalan provinces of Barcelona,
Tarragona, Lérida, and Gerona. A technical section of fifteen members in each
shop or building formed the basis for plant organization. Each section elected
two representatives, a technician, who became a member of the factory com-

mittee, and a worker, who became the section’s foreman.
Overall operations in each building were run by a three- or four-person
building committee composed of one worker, one technician, one adminis-
trator, and an additional worker if socialist and anarchist unions needed to be
represented separately. In the textile industry, the Committee of Control was
to “know the following: a) existence and type of machinery and its value in
pesetas; b) amount of raw material used weekly; c) weekly production figures
on type and quantity; d) where raw materials necessary for production came
from and their price.”35
The third phase of worker control came as individuals began to feel a sense of
ownership in the company. While this was initially expressed as revolutionary
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Chapter 7
fervor, in some cases it eventually led to a kind of factory capitalism. Barcelona’s

lumber workers opposed collectivization for this reason. They began to create
a “socialized” industry that linked all timber cutting, hauling, and distribution.
Throughout the summer and fall of 1936, enthusiasm remained high. Workers
continued to focus on their individual businesses. Many employees worked
overtime and made improvements, often without cost to the company.
Five days after the fighting ended, seven hundred trolleys operated in Bar-
celona. Laboring night and day, workers repaired one hundred cars that the
previous management had scrapped as unserviceable. In addition, workers
removed poles and rehung overhead wires to improve traffic. They installed a
new signal and safety system. They used the money earned via these improve-
ments to purchase new capital equipment. Ticket prices were reduced, and
ridership increased by about 28 percent. The trolley system was being run as
a revolutionary enterprise. Workers toiled overtime and Sundays for no addi-
tional income. Wages increased to cover rising cost of living, but administrative
salaries were minimal. Workers and their families received health benefits, and
absence due to illness was reduced. Those absent without an excuse were fined
one week’s pay, whereas those who were sick received full pay.
At the water and gas works, employees saved 240,000 pesetas by abolish-
ing high salaries and useless posts.36 Most of the directors had been foreigners,
and they received salaries of up to 33,000 pesetas per month, while laborers
received 250 pesetas per month.37 Money saved in this way went toward system
improvements. Technicians resolved to dissolve their union and merge with
the union of manual laborers into the Technical Section of the CNT’s local
industrial union.
According to a German refugee, Henry Patcher, writing under the name
Henri Rabasseire, “The workers were especially happy about the improvements
in working conditions, which was achieved through collectivization. Work-
ers who had previously protested the use of modern machinery outdid one
another in advocating its use once they had lost their fear of losing their jobs.
A rational organization of work progressed marvelously under the direction
of committees that wanted to ease the burdens of their comrades and achieve
more efficient methods of production.”38
There were also disappointments. One worker in the trolley shop was caught
stealing and selling copper. The factory committee fired the worker, but agreed
to reassign him when his wife begged them to reconsider for the sake of the
couple’s child.39
The fourth phase of the anarchist revolution entailed economic integration.
At the beginning of the revolution, the CNT in Barcelona had created the
158
Committee of Industrial Coordination. On August 11, the Antifascist Militias

Committee created the Economic Council, comprising three members of the
Catalan left political party, one member representing small farmers, one from
the Trotskyite Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (Unified Marxist Work-
ers’ Party), one communist, two anarchists, and three representatives from the
socialist and anarchist unions. The council sought worker control of banking
leading to nationalization, union control of all private industries, increased
agricultural production, the creation of industries to produce goods difficult
to import, and the complete electrification of the railroads.
A December 1936 plan said, “It is of the utmost importance to organize
administrative councils to ensure the smooth operation of production and
distribution. These councils will also serve as a revolutionary orientation to the
new economic and social structure, which will exploit the natural resources,
both artistic and intellectual, of the Iberian people for the common good.”40
Layers of coordinating councils were established. Workers in the trolley in-
dustry were organized by section, each led by an engineer and a union repre-
sentative. These delegates formed the local committee of trolley workers, which
was empowered to operate the company. Eventually, general councils of industry
within an economic area and local economic councils among industries in a
town or region operated to coordinate production, distribution, and consump-
tion. At the local level, this structure enabled one business to assist others. Trol-
ley workers received help from the Union of Water, Gas, and Electricity Workers,
which installed new transformers in better locations and built new lines. Trolley
workers, in turn, aided other worker-controlled businesses, providing the bus
company with 865,212 pesetas, the subways with 400,000 pesetas, and the port
transport company with 100,000 pesetas by the end of 1936.41
The enthusiasm, success, and coordination peaked with the publication of

the Collectivization Decree in Catalonia in October 1936. The decree, published
by the resurgent Generalidad, did little to further the revolutionary process
but rather summarized what had been accomplished to date. It also marked
the beginning of the decline of worker control. The Collectivization Decree
recognized two types of worker participation: Those industries where workers’
industrial or factory councils existed were deemed collectivized, while indus-
tries operated by owners or managers in collaboration with a workers’ control
committee were considered private (Article 1). This provision effectively halted
further takeovers and ultimately led toward an imposition of government con-
trol because of the continuing civil war.
Barcelona’s anarchist workers responded to the July 1936 insurrection by
opposing the military revolt and taking steps to implement their revolution
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Chapter 7
as expounded by Abad de Santillán and Puente. Workers in Barcelona turned

from the fighting to their places of employment, taking over offices and factories
and setting up committees of control. Workers serving on committees put in
a full day’s work before attending to committee matters and received no extra
pay or prestige. This approach worked in some industries, such as the trolley
lines, where workers’ technical skills were sufficient to overcome immediate
problems, but not in large, interregional operations such as the railroads. These
realities forced the anarchists to change some of their theories and accept paid
technical leaders.
The events of the summer and fall of 1936 showed anarchists not only oppor-
tunities for implementing their revolution but also the problems inherent in do-
ing so. Military and political events forced the anarchists to make compromises
that ran counter to their basic antipolitical philosophy. The militarization of the
militias and the resurgence of the Catalan government with the Collectivization
Decree marked a shift that eventually overwhelmed the anarchists. They were
sometimes naive, as in agreeing to share power when they had taken control
of the streets of Barcelona and in believing that enthusiasm could overcome
technical and economic problems. Anarchists refused to see that politics meant
much more than the formal parties and alliances they had eschewed. It meant
understanding how to maintain power. Anarchists had offered workers the
chance to make the kind of world of which they had heretofore only dreamed.
They could not create the perfect world they had envisioned because, as the
workers came to see, they were not perfect. Among the staunchest supporters
of this anarchist revolution were anarchists who had returned from Argentina
and three representatives of the Federación Anarco-Comunista Argentina. In
1937, this revolution was threatened, not just by the military revolt but by other
groups defending the Republic.
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Chapter 8
Argentine and Spanish

Anarchists in the
Spanish Civil War
T h e a na r c h i st r e vo lu t io n that began in reaction to the

military uprising by General Francisco Franco brought many Spaniards home
from abroad. They saw their native land as a crucible for change and wanted to
participate both as anarchists and as Spaniards. Anarchists in Argentina sup-
ported the CNT and the FAI in their revolutionary activities, raising money,
helping refugees, and authorizing representatives to go to Spain to assist the
anarchist movement there. Several Argentines played important roles in the
Spanish movement during the civil war, and although sympathetic individuals
came from many countries and fought in the International Brigades, few were
as significant in leadership positions as these Argentines. The long association
between the Spanish and Argentine anarchist movements gave these outsiders
undue influence at a critical moment in Spanish history. By far, the most im-
portant link between the anarchists of Spain and Argentina was Diego Abad de
Santillán. In addition, several Argentine groups aided the anarchist revolution
in Spain and assisted refugees, demonstrating Argentine anarchists’ general
support for the war effort.
Participation by Spaniards Returning from Argentina
Many Spanish immigrants in Argentina were members of the anarchist move-

ment, which had been weakened through arrests, deportations, and divisions
Chapter 8
after the 1930 coup by General José Félix Uriburu. They saw the anarchist revo-
lution emerging in Catalonia as the fulfillment of their desires for social and
economic change, and many returned to Spain to participate. Antonio Casanova
was born June 7, 1898, in Betanzos, Spain. He migrated to Argentina without
documentation and joined FORA. Because he had no passport, he assumed
the identity of a friend who had been arrested in 1932 by the Argentine military
regime.1 Casanova returned to Spain under the name Manuel Freire, edited
Solidaridad Obrera, and fought on the Aragon front.
Another Spanish immigrant to Argentina, José María Montero, returned in
February 1937 to join the revolution. Montero had previously been deported
by the Argentine dictatorship but returned. His 1937 journey to Spain began
in the port city of Rosario, Argentina, where colleagues slipped him on board
a ship bound for Spain. On the high seas, the crew mutinied against the cap-
tain, accusing him of failing to support the Republican government. The ship
continued to North Africa, where Montero took a French ship to Marseilles.
He traveled on to Barcelona and joined the Republican forces, fighting under
the command of Francisco Galán.
Manuel Villar, who had returned to Spain from Argentina in 1932, remained
active throughout the civil war, first editing Solidaridad Obrera in Barcelona,
then in Madrid, where he edited the newspaper CNT. Later in the war, when
Madrid was under siege, he moved to Valencia and edited Fragua Social (Soci-
ety’s Forge). Villar was well respected by Spanish anarchists, and his opinions
mattered. When the civil war broke out and several anarchists joined the Catalan
government, Villar wrote, “The CNT was compelled to participate in the gov-
ernment for the specific purpose of . . . preventing an attack on the conquests
of the workers and peasants . . . , of preventing the war from being conducted
in a sectarian manner and the army from being transformed into an instrument
of a single party, of eliminating the danger of dictatorship, and of preventing
totalitarian tendencies in every aspect of our economic and social life.”2
Campio Carpio (Campio Pérez Pérez) was born in Vigo, Spain, in 1902, and
arrived in Argentina when he was seventeen. He joined the anarchist move-
ment in Buenos Aires before returning to Spain in 1936 to fight against Franco’s
forces. Several other immigrants from Galicia returned to fight in the civil war.3
David Rodríguez, for one, left Argentina in 1936, fought in Spain with other Gal-
legos, and was jailed and tortured after the war. Jéronimo Rodríguez Sánchez,
who worked as a shoemaker and a driver, joined the anarchist movement in
Argentina in the second decade of the twentieth century. He was deported by
the Uriburu dictatorship and fought in Spain until 1939, when he escaped to
France and then to Argentina. Other returning Spanish anarchist immigrants
162
Argentine and Spanish Anarchists
during the civil war included Bartolomé Lorda, José Fernández, and Laureano
Riera Díaz.4
FACA and Argentine Support

for Anarchists in Spain
Anarchists in Argentina closely followed events in Spain and were excited about
the possibility of an anarchist revolution, particularly since the Argentine an-
archist movement had been decimated by the military government and its
successor during the 1930s, the Concordancia (see chapter 6). In addition,
Argentine anarchists were disappointed that other working-class organiza-
tions had refused to fight against the military. The Confederación General del
Trabajo (General Confederation of Labor) was willing to accept government
oversight in return for improved working conditions. Anarchists and FORA
opposed this organization. On September 13, 1932, Rosario hosted a meeting
of fifty-three delegates representing thirty different anarchist organizations
who were disappointed with FORA’s anemic response after the deportations
and arrests of many of its leaders. The gathering was difficult because the older
FORA comrades disagreed fundamentally with suggestions that the organi-
zation represent industrial unions as well as distinct anarchist groups.5 They
argued against what they called specificism and in favor of a strong central
organization structured by craft, which had been FORA’s role for several de-
cades prior to 1930. They feared that quasi-autonomous groups would engage in
political alliances with nonaffiliated unions or other labor organizations.6 José
Grunfeld and the younger members of the anarchist movement had created the
Provincial Workers’ Federation, which contained sixty unions, only twelve of
which were affiliated with FORA. He believed the new era called for new tactics
and that the older FORA leaders did not understand the need for cooperation.
Divisions within FORA led to the creation of a new group, the Comité
Regional de Relaciones Anarquistas (Regional Committee of Anarchist Rela-
tions), with its national headquarters in Buenos Aires. The leadership group
included Jacobo Maguid, Ángel Geracci, Natalio Saltarelli, Arón Cupit, and
Enrique Balbuena. The CRRA sent Grunfeld and Alberto Balbuena on a na-
tionwide tour to meet with and interest comrades in creating groups “to spread
the ideals of anarchism and participate in working-class activities, modernizing
the language of propaganda and increasing the range of activities to include all
the problems faced by these communities.”7 Their efforts met with some suc-
cess, as the original six area committees grew to sixteen by 1933 and eventually
reached thirty.8 When the next regional FORA congress met in Rosario in
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September 1934, FORA leaders and those representing the CRRA could not
reconcile their differences. The critical issue was whether to maintain a purely
apolitical stance at the risk of becoming marginalized within the Argentine
labor movement or to accept trade union organization that was not wholly
anarchist but work within the unions as anarchists.
The CRRA continued its campaign to make inroads within the labor move-
ment and fostered close relations with Spanish anarchists. The Spanish national
organization, the CNT, organized workers by trades, with the FAI focusing
on ideological issues. In 1934, CRRA officials corresponded with FAI leaders,
requesting information about the FAI and its structure for use in creating a
new organization in Argentina. The CRRA also said that Abad de Santillán
should be considered its representative in Spain, recognizing him as a link be-
tween the two movements.9 In October 1935, the CRRA became the Federación
Anarco-Comunista Argentina (Argentine Anarcho-Communist Federation)
and formally separated from FORA. FACA members included many of those
associated with La Protesta and continued its close ties to Abad de Santillán
in Spain. In 1936, FACA sent several members to Spain to participate in the
revolution and civil war. The following year, these members mailed a seven-
page document to the FAI indicating their support for the FAI/CNT struggle
in Spain. Jacobo Prince, Grunfeld, and Maguid signed the document as leading
FACA members. Also signing were Riera Díaz, Antonio Casanova, Nita Nahuel,
Aldo Aguzzi, Pedro Di Césare, and Adolfo Laina.10 According to Grunfeld,
Many libertarians came from Argentina: Engineer Jacobo Maguid, Prof. José
María Lunazzi (La Plata), Laureano Riera Díaz (Cap. Federal); Arturo Tomás
García (C. Fed.); Jacobo Prinzman (Prince); Villamor, I can’t remember
his first name (Rosario); Dr. Anita Piacenza (my wife from Rosario); Ro-
dolfo González Pacheco (playwright, Cap. Federal), there were others, but
I don’t remember their names. Of those listed, J. Maguid, J. Prince, Villamor,
Grunfeld, and A. T. García stayed until the end, some in Catalonia and the
others in the south-central. . . . Lunazzi, González Pacheco, and others only
stayed a few weeks. Anita Piacenza returned to Argentina in 1938 due to heart
problems. Laureano Riera Díaz arrived much later than the rest of us. I am
forgetting another compañero, Casanova, Antonio Casanova Picado, who
was born in Galicia but lived a long time in Argentina. The same was true of
Riera, who arrived in Argentina as a child.11
Jacobo Prince (Prinzman) had edited Pampa Libre in Argentina during the
1920s. In 1924, anarchists from a rival group broke into his office and shot him,
wounding him severely. In the 1930s, he belonged to FACA and was one of the
164
three representatives the organization sent to Spain. Prince took responsibility

for sending CNT/FAI information to Argentina for distribution.12 Prince also
joined the FAI and represented it at several important meetings in 1938. In May
of that year, Prince joined Germinal de Sousa, secretary of the FAI’s Peninsu-
lar Committee, at a meeting of the CNT’s National Committee in Barcelona.
Members of the CNT pressured the FAI to join the Popular Front.13 This was
a delicate and important moment for the Spanish anarchist movement, and
the inclusion of an Argentine in these decisions demonstrates the influence of
Argentine anarchism in Spain. Argentine José Grunfeld also held important
posts during the Spanish Civil War.
In 1924, when Grunfeld was seventeen, Argentina held many rallies to protest
the convictions of Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, two Italian anarchists
who were sentenced to death in Massachusetts for murder and armed robbery.
The evidence for their guilt was unclear, and the verdict had much to do with
Americans’ anti-immigrant and antiradical feelings. Grunfeld became active in
the movement and was first jailed in 1926. “Thereafter, I was active in the paint-
ers’ organization, part of the commercial employees union. But I left Rosario
because I did not want to do my obligatory military service.”14 He fled to live
with the uncle of one of the activists who had introduced him to the anarchist
movement. Throughout the 1920s, Grunfeld worked as a linyero, traveled from
town to town via freight train to bring the message of social revolution. After
the 1930 coup, Grunfeld was arrested and sent to the Villa Devoto jail with
many other militants.
FACA authorized Grunfeld, Prince, and Maguid to go to Spain in the fall of
1936. Their ship stopped in Montevideo, Uruguay; Santos, Rio de Janeiro, and
Recife, Brazil; Dakar, Senegal; and Gibraltar, before they finally disembarked
at Marseilles and boarded a train for Barcelona. Their arrival in revolutionary

Catalonia thrilled them: “At last, we were living the long-awaited revolution,
in whose cause we were so immersed.”15
Grunfeld was taken to the Hotel Oriente, where he met other foreign an-
archists, among them French-born Gastón Leval, who had lived many years
in Rosario. “We did not form a separate group,” Grunfeld recalled. “We were
integrated with the Spanish in various anarchist groups in Barcelona. My com-
pañera and I belonged to ‘Grupo C’ [of the FAI]. I joined the construction
union, painters’ section, of the CNT in Barcelona.”16 Leval immediately took
Grunfeld to the CNT-FAI’s regional offices in Catalonia, and on his first eve-
ning in Barcelona, he was appointed the city’s provisional secretary of the FAI.
Grunfeld was surprised at his quick incorporation into the leadership of the
Spanish anarchist movement.17 Another foreign militant who identified himself
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only as Pablo, complained to the FAI that the Peninsular Committee had not
answered his letters and he felt isolated. He mentioned that Grunfeld would
be meeting with him later that week, as if this meeting would help his integra-
tion into the Spanish movement.18 Grunfeld’s immediate acceptance into the
Spanish movement resulted from his close association with Abad de Santillán,
Leval, Villar, and other militants who had returned from Argentina. Grunfeld
continued as the FAI’s Barcelona secretary for several months before being re-
placed by a returned Spanish militant. In early 1937, Grunfeld was chosen, again
at Leval’s insistence, as one of the members of the CNT-FAI’s newly formed
Secretariat of Defense for the Catalonia region. The secretariat also included
Domingo Ascaso and representatives of the CNT and the FAI. Since the three
men had many other duties, Grunfeld was designated secretary, responsible
principally for overseeing the provisioning and support of troops and coordi-
nating volunteers, publicity, and record keeping for the Aragon front in what
was called the War Commission. One observer commented that Grunfeld was
“admirable in his work habits, with the regularity and calmness of a machine.
He is a serious compañero who has no time for anything other than completing
his assignment. However, he is lacking in two areas: sufficient understanding
of many antecedents and small details, so that an allusion or misinformation
can make him misunderstand the issue. . . . Second, he lacks the energy to
impose himself at times, or better said, to give himself sufficient importance,
something necessary in this screwed-up world where people are judged more
by appearances than by more important qualities.”19 Grunfeld continued in this
post throughout the war, resigning in 1939 as a result of a disagreement with
Juan García Oliver over foreign volunteers that made Grunfeld feel that he was
becoming isolated from his Spanish comrades. He transferred to the peninsular
subcommittee in Valencia to coordinate relations among regional committees.

This tension between a universal anarchist ideal and a Spanish movement rarely
occurred among Argentine anarchists in Spain. The most significant incident
occurred in February 1939 when Juan Negrín, then head of the Republican
government, asked to meet with representatives of the anarchist movement.
Juan López represented the CNT, Lorenzo Iñigo represented the Libertarian
Youth, and Grunfeld represented the FAI. According to Grunfeld, “We were
received by Negrín in a standard-sized room. I was the last to shake his hand,
and just as we were about to begin the discussion, which was the point of our
visit, he asked me my nationality. I replied that I was a citizen of Argentina but
that I had come as the representative of the FAI. As if it was something that he
had planned, Negrín told me that he could not discuss matters of state with
a foreigner and that I should leave the room.”20 Negrín’s reaction may have
166
resulted from Grunfeld’s role as an anarchist, his foreign birth, or his Jewish
heritage. Abad de Santillán, in contrast, was not singled out as a foreigner,
although he had lived most of his life in Argentina. Grunfeld allowed his col-
leagues to continue with the meeting, although Negrín did not accomplish his
goal of gaining strong support from the anarchists.
This issue of foreigners in Spain had many aspects. The International Bri-
gades under Emilio Kléber (Lazar Stern), who took command in 1936, were
often identified with communists. Anarchists posted along the international
border with France tried to reduce communist influence by preventing for-
eigners from crossing the Pyrenees to join the International Brigades.21 Span-
ish anarchists welcomed anarchists from Russia, Italy, Germany, and South
America but regarded them with some suspicion.22 Only Argentine foreigners
achieved positions of authority: Grunfeld and Prince in the FAI and Maguid
as the editor of Tierra y Libertad.
Jacobo Maguid was one of eight children of Ukrainian immigrants to Ar-
gentina. Born in Santa Fe on October 9, 1907, he went on to study engineering
at the Universidad Nacional de La Plata. There, he came to know anarchist
militants including Grunfeld and was jailed by the dictatorship in 1931. After
being jailed with other anarchists at Villa Devoto, Maguid was released in Feb-
ruary 1932. He returned to Rosario, where he worked with Abad de Santillán
and became an editor of La Protesta until authorities closed it again near the
end of 1932. He participated in the creation of the CRRA. In between speaking
trips, Maguid earned his diploma as an engineer in 1934. He then resumed his
travels, speaking throughout the country on behalf of imprisoned anarchists
until 1936, when he went to Spain.
Like Grunfeld, Maguid was greeted in Spain by friends from Argentina.
Abad de Santillán put up Maguid in a home commandeered from a wealthy

businessman who had fled. Maguid marveled at the original paintings and
artwork, covered by Abad de Santillán to avoid damage: “‘Now,’ Santillán said,
‘they belong to the people.’”23 In Barcelona, a surprised Maguid learned that he
had already been chosen to edit Tierra y Libertad and to serve as a member of
the FAI’s Catalan regional committee. Maguid had assumed that he would have
no leadership role in Spain and had spent his time sailing across the Atlantic
brushing up on his engineering skills so that he could contribute in a technical
capacity to Spain’s rebuilding effort.24 He might have been less surprised by his
appointment as editor, however, if he had known that one of the men he would
be joining was Adolfo Verde, a Spaniard with whom Maguid had worked on
La Protesta. Despite his personal connections, Maguid’s new assignment did
not go unremarked: colleagues nicknamed him the Argentine. Maguid seemed
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to take the moniker as a challenge and drew heavily on Spanish thinkers and
writers in his first series of articles, winning over his new comrades.25
Maguid’s newspaper columns continuously supported the cause of Spanish
anarchism and counseled against divisions that could weaken the movement.
This theme commonly appeared among the Argentines and Spaniards who
had returned from Argentina. Other anarchists, including Emma Goldman,
with whom Maguid met, were more critical of cooperation with other groups
in Spain.26 “We must make judgments calmly and put aside preconceptions,”
Maguid wrote.27 He also suggested that Tierra y Libertad should focus on the
fundamentals of anarchism in addition to war news.28 Maguid joined the FAI’s
Nervio group and lived with Grunfeld, who also worked for Tierra y Libertad,
and Jacobo Prince, the editor of Solidaridad Obrera. All three of them were
Argentines and had known each other for years, and they perhaps still felt a
bit distant from their Spanish colleagues.
Maguid continued as the editor of Tierra y Libertad from late 1936 through
1938, traveling widely around Republican territory and meeting many distin-
guished foreigners, including Camilo Berneri. As divisions within the move-
ment intensified, Maguid, who sided with the FAI militants against the more
labor-oriented CNT, resigned to avoid becoming embroiled in these battles.
He then took on the assignment of collecting and organizing the CNT-FAI’s
archives. He was still working on these documents in January 1939 when Bar-
celona fell and he and tens of thousands of others fled into France.
Grunfeld, Maguid, and Prince served as FACA’s representatives in Spain but
also held positions of trust and authority in the Spanish movement, an integra-
tion of Argentine and Spanish anarchism that worked for the success of the
anarchist revolution in Spain. Even more important, however, was the work of
Abad de Santillán and Villar, who were not identified as foreigners even though
they had been among the most vocal Argentine critics of the Spanish move-
ment. They were not considered Argentines even though their group, Nervio,
reflected the ideals of Argentine anarchism and included Argentines as well
as Spanish immigrants who had lived for many years in the South American
country. Militants of both countries had united, and they focused their ener-
gies on the difficult task of making the anarchist revolution in Spain a success.
Bloody Days in May: Barcelona, 1937
Within Spain, the enthusiasm for revolution was tempered by the realities of
war. Leaders of the Spanish anarchist movement constantly had to balance
their goal of an anarchist society with the need to work with other groups to
168
maintain the war effort. This led to anarchist participation in government, first
in Catalonia, then in Madrid. During the fall of 1936, events in Catalonia and the
militias’ success in Aragon helped bolster the anarchists. But Abad de Santillán
and the anarchists recognized that the October 1936 Collectivization Decree
constituted an attempt to limit the effects of the revolution in Catalonia and
in other parts of Republican-controlled Spain. “I was an enemy of the Decree
because I thought it premature,” wrote Abad de Santillán.29 He had resigned his
position as an economic counselor in the Catalan government, the Generali-
dad, on October 1, 1936, citing his “disagreement with the actions of comrade
Fábregas” regarding the decree.30 Although another member of the anarchist
movement continued as an economic counselor and anarchists served in the
national government, anarchist enthusiasm and influence began to wane in the
fall of 1936. The Collectivization Decree recognized the extent of collectiviza-
tion that had occurred at the outbreak of the revolution but limited workers’
and peasants’ ability to continue to take over properties and businesses and
gave the government more control over the economy. Other groups opposed
to anarchism, especially the communists, slowly began to use their influence
in the government to limit the anarchist revolution in the name of winning
the war. As part of this shift from ad hoc measures to a more powerful central
authority, the anarchist-dominated militias were brought under government
control. Though they had fought bravely in the civil war, they were perceived as
undisciplined and ineffective compared to trained soldiers under military com-
mand.31 Nevertheless, the Republican government, supported by communists,
began to pressure anarchists to submit to military discipline. By March 1937
the government in Valencia demanded that Catalan militias submit to federal
control and issued militarization decrees. Many anarchist militias accepted
military discipline as long as their commanders were anarchists deemed accept-

able by the CNT, but their influence within the Republican army decreased.
While anarchists continued to exert some influence throughout the civil war
and were active until the very end, their power to create a new world through
anarchism waned.
Francisco Iglesias, the CNT’s representative in the Generalidad, resigned to
protest the militarization decrees, creating a cabinet crisis. One interim govern-
ment held power from April 3 to April 16, when a new cabinet was established,
with four of the eleven members representing the CNT. Nevertheless, a bloody
May 1937 incident in Barcelona dramatically shifted power toward the commu-
nists, who continued to wield influence until the end of the civil war in 1939.
As the communists—in reality, Spanish Stalinists—became increasingly
powerful in the Republican government, they challenged the role of the Par-
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tido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (Unified Marxist Workers’ Party) and

finally the anarchists. The communist-controlled Partido Socialista Unificado
de Cataluña (Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia) gained influence when the
Soviet Union alone responded with military aid for the Republican govern-
ment. The party closely followed Moscow’s line by supporting the United Front
government against the anarchists and their revolution, increasing tensions
between working-class factions throughout Catalonia. At the end of April
1937, the murders of party member Roldán Cortada and of Antonio Martín
and several other anarchists signaled the beginning of the violence. The ten-
sion in Barcelona was great, leading the government to cancel the May Day
celebrations.
On May 3, Barcelona’s chief of police, Eusebio Rodríguez Salas, a member
of the Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña, led the Assault Guard and the
National Republican Guard in an assault on the central telephone exchange in
the Plaza Cataluña. The building and its equipment belonged to the Compañía
Telefónica Nacional de España, a subsidiary of International Telephone and
Telegraph, and had been taken over by its workers during the fighting on July
19. These workers had formed a committee to run the company, comprised of
both anarchist CNT members and Socialist UGT members. After the Col-
lectivization Decree, the Generalidad appointed one delegate to the commit-
tee, but the workers effectively ran the company. Control of the telephone
company enabled anarchists to listen in on all telephone conversations, even
those of the head of the Generalidad and the president of the Republic, Manuel
Azaña, who had fled Madrid for Barcelona. The attack resulted from this power.
The Guards stormed into the building and occupied the first floor. Telephone
workers blocked the invaders from taking over the rest of the building, while
anarchist workers took up arms and stationed themselves throughout the city,
ready to fight the police. Catalan government forces also responded, and the
city divided into two armed camps. The streets were deserted, and cars that
ventured out came under fire. Two Italian anarchists living in Barcelona, Camilo
Berneri and Francesco Barbieri, were murdered on May 5; the Red Cross later
found their bullet-riddled bodies dumped on the street.
One anarchist group in particular, the Friends of Durruti, expressed out-
rage at the attack on the telephone exchange and on anarchist influence in
general. The Friends of Durruti had been militiamen at the Aragon front who
quit when their units were mobilized as part of the government army under
the militarization decrees. They returned to Barcelona and published a news-
paper, The Friend of the People, which called for a complete social revolution.
The Friends of Durruti had no direct part in the May Days, as these days of
170
violence in Barcelona came to be called, but they helped to crystallize some

anarchists’ growing discomfort with the movement’s participation in the re-
gional and national governments. Jamie Balius and Félix Martínez, the leaders
of the Friends of Durruti, had not previously been active members of the CNT.
Robert Alexander also mentions two other leaders of the Friends of Durruti,
Pablo Ruiz and Francisco Carreño, an Argentine who had met Buenaventura
Durruti when he, Gregorio Jover, and Domingo Ascaso were in Argentina in
the late 1920s.32 Carreño had returned to Spain with Durruti, fought with him,
and now joined the Friends of Durruti. Carreño spoke at a large April 18, 1837,
meeting, at the Poliorama Theater, on the timely topic of “Trade Union Unity
and Political Collaboration.” According to an account in La Noche, Carreño,
“like the rest of the speakers, was very warmly applauded” by the four to five
thousand listeners.33 The FAI did not accept the Friends of Durruti as an affinity
group, but the radical anarchist group provided an alternate voice at the time
when both the FAI and the CNT leadership continued to accept collaboration
with political parties and the Republican government.
Fighting in the streets of Barcelona continued for several days. Anarchists
threw up street barricades and called on workers to defend the revolution, while
the Catalan government’s Assault and National Republican Guards attempted
to impose order on the city. Abad de Santillán and the CNT-FAI leadership
in Barcelona appealed for calm and tried to arrange a cease-fire, demanding
that Salas be dismissed. The Friends of Durruti did not want to compromise,
and violence continued. Lluís Companys, head of the Generalidad, asked for
troops from the government in Valencia. But in exchange, the Republican gov-
ernment wanted full control of security in Catalonia, effectively ending the
region’s autonomy since the beginning of the civil war. Eventually, Companys
accepted the government’s demands. Two anarchist members of the Republican

government, García Oliver and Frederica Montseny, came to Barcelona to try
to calm the anarchists. For the anarchist rank and file this confrontation was
about control of the revolution, and they did not want to be outmaneuvered
politically if they still had the power in the streets. Abad de Santillán and Pedro
Herrera met with Companys in the Generalidad to urge a local resolution to
the conflict. During the meeting, Companys heard that anarchists had captured
eight Catalan guards. He then demanded that Abad de Santillán and Herrera
guarantee the guards’ safety and announced that if any guards were harmed,
Abad de Santillán and Herrera might be subject to reprisals by guards in the
Generalidad. With that, Herrera called the fort at Montjuich, which was oc-
cupied by anarchist forces with artillery. “Hold your fire, we are here,” he said.
“But call back regularly, and if we do not respond, fire at will.”34 That ended
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the personal threat to Abad de Santillán and Herrera, but it did not stop the
Republican government from taking greater control in Catalonia.
By May 7, the fighting had stopped, with neither side completely victorious.
Approximately five hundred people died in street battles, and more than one
thousand were wounded.35 The anarchists maintained control of the telephone
exchange. But government forces had established greater control in Catalonia,
and with communist influence increasing in the government in Valencia, the
anarchist revolution was further curtailed. Anarchists continued to fight in the
war, and anarchist collectives continued to operate in industry, in services, and
in the countryside. Notable successes occurred, especially in the war industries,
and anarchist workers continued to create the society to which they aspired.
But their enthusiasm for the war weakened when they realized that the Repub-
lican government, their ally, was also an enemy of their revolution. By the end
of June, anarchist participation in the Catalan government ended. And with
Francisco Largo Caballero’s ouster from the Republican government in 1937,
anarchist participation at the national level ended as well.
May 1937 was a watershed for the anarchist revolution in Spain and for Abad
de Santillán personally. His attempts to end the fighting and maintain the al-
liance of anarchists with Catalan political parties reflected his belief that the
goals of the anarchist revolution could be achieved only with the Spanish repub-
lic’s victory over General Franco and the military. Yet this approach gradually
seemed to become fruitless as Abad de Santillán watched the Collectivization
Decree and the militarization decrees take power away from anarchist work-
ers and soldiers. The machinations of Spain’s communists and the collusion of
other parties eventually led him to revert to his ideological beliefs and become
critical of political maneuvers. Abad de Santillán disengaged from direct in-
volvement in the war and government and began to concentrate on ideologi-

cal issues. He and several colleagues founded a new periodical, Timón: Síntesis
de Orientación Político-Social (Rudder: Synthesis on Political-Social Perspec-
tives). The title suggested that the Spanish movement needed guidance. Two
of the most frequent contributors were Abad de Santillán and Maguid, who
had resigned his position as Tierra y Libertad’s editor in response to increased
internecine fighting among the FAI and the CNT over collaboration with Re-
publican political parties and the government. Abad de Santillán cautioned
anarchists about taking positions in the government during the war, arguing
that people, not government institutions, endure.36 He also devoted several is-
sues to a bibliography of Argentine anarchism. Maguid criticized the AIT for
not being powerful enough to influence its member countries’ governments’
nonintervention policies, which hurt the Spanish cause. He also wrote about
172
the ideas of Errico Malatesta and Mikhail Bakunin, while Abad de Santillán
penned a tribute to Buenaventura Durruti. This focus on ideology did not rep-
resent a disengagement from active participation in events in Spain by either of
these two individuals. Instead, it signaled a recognition that the revolution and
civil war represented a truly unique moment and that Maguid’s and Abad de
Santillán’s experiences resisting General Uriburu’s Argentine military dictator-
ship no longer applied. They would have to return to their basic principles of
anarchism, recognizing that neither a Republican nor a military victory would
ensure the success of an anarchist revolution. Abad de Santillán wrote an elo-
quent defense of anarchist ideals in the December 1938 issue of Timón:
We have brought our ideas of what is a greater and better vision to the press,
to the courts, into conversation, into books and pamphlets. In a word, when
we thought it necessary to propose a correction or amplification of our ide-
ology, we have done so publicly. We have presented these ideas to all our
members, giving them the freedom to decide what they think is right. We
have always moved ahead when the truth was on our side. . . . What we are
saying is that there is no committee, no plenum, no part of this libertarian
movement that has the power to change its tactics and ideological direc-
tion, that has characterized us, without the express wishes of each one of its
active members. [Today] we are on the wrong path, and we cannot recover
until we reclaim the sense of revolutionary solidarity of our struggle and
our organization. . . .
A period of distancing ourselves from all state functions would be an ex-
cellent cure and great remedy for many of us. Only by working every day in
the trenches or in the factories to achieve what we planned before July 1936
will we restore our true identity and see things for what they really are.37
Timón, true to its spirit of open dialogue, published an article by Horacio

Prieto, former secretary of the CNT national committee, in which he suggested
that Spain’s libertarian movement needed to become more, not less, political.
In his view, the movement “needs a unifying force, a party, which will assume
political representation for it.”38 This was an extreme statement for most an-
archists, but Abad de Santillán believed that the idea needed to be debated.
A regional plenum of the libertarian movement met in Barcelona on October
16–30, 1938, to discuss many of the issues that had arisen. Represented were
the three major organizations that formed the libertarian movement: the CNT,
the FAI, and Libertarian Youth. As a sign of the international importance of
this meeting, those present included Emma Goldman, representing the AIT,
as well as a representative of the Portuguese labor confederation, the União
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Geral do Trabalho. Prieto reaffirmed his position that “the FAI ought to be the
‘political organ of the movement and the CNT ought to limit itself to economic
issues.’”39 A long and “very crude” debate followed, with the FAI’s Peninsular
Committee and the CNT’s National Committee exchanging recriminations.40
In Burnett Bolloten’s words, “No debate among the upper echelons of the CNT
and the FAI, such as occurred at the plenum of the libertarian movement in
October 1938, could have illustrated more dramatically the contradictions and
unbridgeable divisions that had developed within the libertarian movement
since the beginning of the Civil War and Anarchism’s insoluble dilemma that
in order to survive it must compete for power, yet by so doing it must negate
hallowed principles.”41
Abad de Santillán and the Nervio affinity group sided with the FAI in this
debate. On December 7, 1938, Juan Negrín, head of the Republican government,
asked for a meeting with leaders of the Popular Front. Mariano Vázquez, current
secretary of the CNT’s National Committee, and Horacio Prieto, its former
secretary, represented that organization, while Pedro Herrera and Abad de
Santillán represented the FAI. They listened to Negrín explain that the recent
losses in the Ebro Valley, which most observers recognized as the last hope to
save Barcelona, were not so desperate and that all groups should unite behind
the government. After leaving this meeting, the two anarchist groups adopted
very different tactics. The CNT demanded participation in the Catalan govern-
ment, while Herrera and Abad de Santillán met with Manuel Azaña, president
of the Republic, to discuss the possibilities for staging a coup against Negrín.42
Azaña heard them out but responded that it was too late for such measures.43
Barcelona fell to the Nationalist army on January 29, 1939.
International Support for Spanish Anarchists

and the Course of the War
The international anarcho-syndicalist organization, the AIT, supported the

Spanish Revolution and called on its member organizations to prepare for
international general strikes in support of Spanish workers.44 However, it also
criticized Spanish anarchists for joining the government in Madrid: García
Oliver was minister of justice, Federica Montseny was minister of health, Juan
Peiró was minister of Industry, and Juan López Sánchez was minister of com-
merce. Participation in the government had become a contentious issue among
Spanish anarchists, some of whom completely disagreed with the decision to
join. A report by A. Schapiro lamented the divisions among Spanish anarchists
despite the fact that the FAI provided ideological support to the CNT.45 After
174
the events of May, the AIT called an Extraordinary Congress in Paris in June
1937 and issued a statement: “While leading a revolutionary war and a simulta-
neous transformation of society, the CNT should reject all direct participation
and all indirect pacts with the governments of Barcelona and Valencia. This
means the complete abandonment by the CNT of all political, economic, and
doctrinal concessions granted to these governments. While these were made
with the intent of maintaining intact the so-called antifascist front, it contains
groups who negotiate with our class enemies to put an end to the war and
strangle the revolution.”46 This particular criticism soon became moot, as the
cabinets of the governments in both Valencia and in Barcelona excluded CNT
anarchists by the middle of 1937.
On the other side of the front, Franco headed a military junta and directed
the war against the Republican government. When armed resistance defeated
the military in Barcelona, Madrid, and other cities, General Franco began to
receive massive assistance from Mussolini’s Italian army and Hitler’s air force.
Great Britain, France, and the United States chose not to intervene in Spain,
eventually creating the Nonintervention Committee. Although those three
countries continued to regard the Republic as Spain’s official government, the
only major power assisting the Spanish Republic was the Soviet Union. Franco,
conversely, benefited from Italian and German troops, arms, and other assis-
tance throughout the war. In January 1938, Franco formally assumed the posi-
tion of supreme commander and generalissimo and became head of state for
a government in the city of Burgos, although neither Great Britain nor France
recognized his government until February 1939, after the fall of Barcelona. The
international situation always remained uppermost in world leaders’ minds, and
for them, Spain was a sideshow. For Spaniards, especially anarchists, however,
the war and revolution were everything.

Those anarchists who joined the government did so to further the war effort.
Those who opposed participation believed that anarchists would be more effec-
tive as a fighting force without government constraints. Still others, including
Maguid, urged a greater focus on the fundamentals of anarchism.47 The anarchist
realized that the revolution they had begun would fail if the war were lost. How-
ever, cooperation with other groups supporting the Republican government
jeopardized the anarchist revolution even if the war were won. Throughout the
war, anarchist workers continued to operate factories, shops, and farms, and
anarchist soldiers continued to fight in the ranks. Spanish anarchists supported
the revolution even as news from the front became more discouraging.
In July 1936, the Republican government controlled approximately 50 per-
cent of Spain, including most of the Mediterranean coast, Madrid and La Man-
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cha in the center, and Asturias in the north. General Franco and the army
controlled parts of the south and a swath from Vigo in the northwest to the
Pyrenees along the French border. In the early stages of the war, Madrid was
the prize and the November 1936 battle for the city was intense. Franco’s army
was supported by German airplanes and an Italian army, but his forces failed to
break through the defenses of the International Brigades, the militias, and the
Republican army. The Republican government evacuated Madrid and left for
Valencia, but its defenses held until 1939. Instead, Franco’s army concentrated
on taking the mineral-rich north, which was cut off from the rest of Republican
territory, and consolidated its hold on the south in Andalusia. By October 1937,
the Republican government controlled a little more than one-third of Spain,
although working-class morale remained high, especially in areas transformed
by the anarchists.48
Anarchist militias had marched off to the Aragon front in northeastern Spain
in the summer of 1936 and with great enthusiasm but little training had managed
to hold that front. Durruti’s death in Madrid on November 20, 1936, was a great
blow, but Jover continued to lead anarchist troops. Although the militarization
of the army weakened some worker-soldiers’ enthusiasm, anarchist troops
continued to fight in defense of their revolution and incidentally the Republic.
Abad de Santillán supported the idea of a guerrilla attack on Zaragoza by fifteen
hundred troops from the CNT’s Aragon, Rioja, and Navarre confederation. The
Republican government considered the idea but did not follow through.49 The
Republic did register some military successes: in February 1937, Republican
forces counterattacked at Jarama and maintained control of the Valencia road.
The following month, Republican forces stopped an attack on Guadalajara by
Italian troops attempting to encircle Madrid. Although neither of these battles
constituted a clear Republican victory, the army’s strength gave heart to those
fighting fascism.
Hugh Thomas calls the period between December 1937 and November 1938
the War of Attrition.50 The Soviet Union was the Republic’s only major ally
and source of war materiel, but that support came with a price—Spain’s gold
reserves were sent to the Soviet Union for safekeeping. The Republican air
force challenged German airplanes over Spain for a time but could not stop
the Nationalists without replacement planes and parts. In December 1937, Re-
publican forces attacked the town of Teruel in southern Aragon, hoping to
take the offensive. Franco’s forces counterattacked on December 29, but the
town fell to the Republican army on January 8. The victory was short-lived and
fighting continued until Franco’s army retook Teruel by the end of February.
The corpses of ten thousand Republican soldiers were discovered in the city.51
176
Over the next several months, the Republican army lost much of Aragon, and
Barcelona became cut off from the rest of the Republic in the south. The next
major series of battles took place along the Ebro River between Barcelona and
Valencia from July through October 1938. Republican forces attempted to break
through and reunite Barcelona with the Republic. The death toll was great,
especially on the Republican side, but Republican forces gained territory over
the summer, and hope flickered.
On October 30, 1938, however, Franco’s forces struck along the Ebro. With
air support and better equipment, the Nationalists pushed back Republican
forces all along the line. Republican forces gradually ceded territory until they
lost seventy thousand men and eventually the battle. Franco then focused on
capturing Catalonia and its industries in Barcelona. His forces continuously
bombed the city until it fell in January 1939, sending hundreds of thousands
of refugees fleeing north toward France. All that remained of the Republic was
the Levante along the Mediterranean, including the capital in Valencia and La
Mancha and Old Castile in the center; Madrid was still threatened. With these
events, the Republic’s leaders knew that they had lost the war, and many in the
region, especially those most closely associated with the anarchist revolution,
knew they had to flee.
Refugees and the End of the War
During the war, a variety of groups sprang into existence on both sides of the
Atlantic to raise money to help anarchists fighting in Spain; after the Republic’s
defeat, these organizations shifted their focus to assisting refugees. In Spain,
anarchists created Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (International An-
tifascist Solidarity) “to assemble and disburse humanitarian aid both to the
anarchist troops at the front and to civilians behind the Loyalist lines.”52 Affili-
ated groups were established in France, Great Britain, and the United States.
Sections opened in Buenos Aires, probably in April 1938, and in Rosario, Ar-
gentina, the following July.53 In Argentina, the SIA was associated with FACA
and attempted to coordinate aid to Spanish refugees. The Comisión de Ayuda
a Exiliados Antifascistas (Commission to Assist Antifascist Exiles) was created
in Buenos Aires in September 1939 to assist refugees in France who wished to
leave for Latin America. Riera Díaz, a Spanish immigrant who had returned to
Spain during the war and was now back in Argentina, served as its secretary.
It was allied with and subject to the SIA. Another Argentine organization,
the Patronato Español de Ayuda a las Víctimas de Agresión (Office to Assist
Spanish Victims of Aggression), was founded by a Spanish anarchist, Orencio
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Conesa, who had immigrated to Argentina in 1925, and worked independently

from the SIA.54 In August 1939, Patronato Español de Ayuda a las Víctimas de
Agresión secured the release of Juan José Villamor, an anarchist militant, from
a French concentration camp. He traveled to Argentina on board the Formosa,
arriving on August 19.55
A document dated August 3, 1939, outlined the assistance that the Comisión
de Ayuda a Exiliados Antifascistas provided to refugees:
a) Refugees will be welcomed at the port
b) Each one will have a file created
c) Attention will be focused on those still incarcerated in Europe
d) Housing, food, and medical assistance will be provided
e) Refugees will be referred to local unions for jobs
f) Refugees will have access to the press
g) Refugees will receive help with government forms, documentation,
and family assistance56
The SIA also contacted its counterpart in France, remarking on the disturb-
ing news that the French government had ceased repatriating Argentines as a
consequence of lack of funds. The Argentine SIA suggested a campaign to push
for more French government funds and for French unions to provide money to
assist Argentine refugees.57 The organization’s other activities included assisting
Spanish refugees petitioning the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for legal residency
and locating refugees for friends and relatives in Argentina.58
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Exile and Homecoming
Spa i n was devastat e d by the civil war. Two hundred thou-

sand Spaniards died in the fighting, and another 200,000 were murdered or
executed during the conflict. Many more died of disease or starvation, mak-
ing a total of at least 500,000 dead. In addition, more than 450,000 refugees
fled the country, and many found themselves trapped in France when World
War II began. Some later returned to Spain, while others fled abroad. In Spain,
General Francisco Franco imprisoned 2,000,000, shot tens of thousands, and
created a regime where no opponent could threaten his power. Spain did not
return to its prewar economic levels until the 1950s, as the bombing of cities
destroyed homes and factories. And in the aftermath of war, Diego Abad de
Santillán and other anarchist refugees again crossed the Atlantic Ocean.
Nearly four decades later, as Argentina began its worst period of military
dictatorships, Franco died. Spain slowly became safe for many aging exiles.
Abad de Santillán’s decision to return to Spain near the end of his life was emo-
tional, ideological, and practical. After World War II, anarchists’ influence on
the labor movement in both countries deteriorated, with the charismatic Juan
Perón dominating Argentina’s largest labor organization, the Confederación
General del Trabajo (CGT), and Franco’s repressive regime securely entrenched
in Spain. The Argentine movement that had emerged from the FORA V to
become the FACA was now the Federación Libertaria Argentina (Argentine
Libertarian Federation). Its members opposed Perón, and it became a small
Chapter 9
organization dedicated to human rights. The Spanish labor organization re-

mained underground through most of the Franco era, finally emerging after
his death as a significant representative of Spanish labor. But the ties between
Spanish and Argentine anarchism through migration and return effectively
ended with Abad de Santillán’s death in 1983.
Anarchism and the Franco Regime
For practical purposes, the Spanish anarchist movement ceased to exist with
the fall of Barcelona and the end of the Spanish Republic. Manuel Villar and a
few other anarchists remained in Spain, determined to resist, but many others
fled to France, taking with them the records maintained by Jacobo Maguid and
hoping to use France as a base from which to mount opposition to the Franco
regime. But divisions among the members of the CNT and the outbreak of
World War II made that goal impossible in most cases. Eventually, Spanish
exiles spread through Europe and the Americas, while the CNT continued
clandestinely in Spain. In the 1940s, Mexico City became the capital of the
Spanish anarchist movement. After the war, representatives of the libertarian
movement and the CNT met in France, but the persistence of disagreements
about leadership meant that anarchists remained divided. The movement held
its first international conference in 1947 in Toulouse, as ever-hopeful anarchist
immigrants returned from the Americas to debate the familiar issues that sepa-
rated them. Gradually, however, these anarchists died off.
Villar was arrested and sent to the Albatera concentration camp in Alicante
along with tens of thousands of other prisoners. He remained there until Oc-
tober 1939, when the camp closed. He then spent a year and a half in Madrid’s
Modelo Prison before being paroled in 1941. Villar continued to work against
the regime, clandestinely rebuilding the CNT. He was arrested again and im-
prisoned for eighteen years. Upon his release in the 1960s, Villar moved to Ar-
gentina to be with his family. There, he worked for a publishing company and
continued his contacts with the Spanish opposition until his death in 1972.
Spain’s repressive policies led to its rejection as a member of the United Na-
tions in 1945, and the U.S. Marshall Plan, which provided millions of dollars
for the reconstruction of war-torn Europe, refused to give funds to Franco’s
government. Loans and shipments of food from the Perón regime in Argentina
helped Franco through these difficult years. Franco responded to pressure by
slowly reducing the fascist-inspired Falange Party’s importance in government.
Nevertheless, he continued to rule Spain autocratically as the generalissimo
and regent for an absent monarchy. Franco quarreled with the son of the exiled
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Alfonso XIII, Spain’s last king, but in 1969 accepted Alfonso’s grandson, Juan
Carlos de Borbón, as heir to the throne.
Exile and Migration
Diego Abad de Santillán left Barcelona for France in February 1939. José Grun-
feld, Pedro Herrera, Germinal de Sousa, and Jacobo Maguid also escaped,
along with Republican soldiers fleeing the advancing forces of the Nationalist
Army as it conquered Catalonia. Hundreds of thousands of Spanish refugees
headed for the French border, overwhelming authorities there. The French set
up camps to house the refugees, and Abad de Santillán was sent to the camp at
Saint-Cyprien, along the Mediterranean coast just north of the Spanish border.
Originally meant as a temporary shelter, these camps were little more than
open beaches. French authorities were worried that refugees might use the
camps to launch raids into Spain, so the camps became detention centers. As
refugees continued to arrive throughout 1939, the French facilities could not
keep up, especially after World War II began in September. After France fell to
German troops in 1940, southern France retained some autonomy under the
Vichy government, which began to send captured Belgians, Jews, and others
to the camps, further swelling their populations.
The camp at Saint-Cyprien was nothing but a deserted stretch of beach with
barbed wire keeping the refugees from escaping. The Spanish had to dig holes
in the beach to provide some protection from the elements. Describing his first
sight of what became a concentration camp for tens of thousands of Spanish
refugees, Lluís Ferrán de Pol said of Saint-Cyprien, “Our only welcome was
the distant sight of an immense beach, darkened by the crowd of first arrivals.
Suddenly, we are in front of a barbed-wire fence that encloses the beach. . . .
We are just prisoners and will have to get used to the idea.”1 Abad de Santillán
wrote little about this period and his experiences, but according to another
prisoner, “The barbed wire closed in on us. But about 60 meters further down,
another fence ran parallel to the first one. Behind this there were the tents and
the guard posts that they kept separate from the lake and the fields of freedom,
that led to cities with homes, to movie theaters, with restaurants, all full of life!
And they built an avenue in the concentration camp. It was dangerous to keep
the men shut up in their huts, always forced to walk in shifting, sinking sand.”2
Spanish refugees, especially those without documents, and Republican sol-
diers had difficulty obtaining visas to emigrate. Mexico was among the most
welcoming American countries; some Spanish refugees obtained visas, and a
few escaped, but many were interned throughout World War II. Abad de San-
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tillán was among those who escaped. He traveled to Chile, where he began
editing a new version of the periodical Timón, publishing seven issues before
leaving for Uruguay. The border crossings between Uruguay and Argentina
were lightly guarded and poorly monitored, so he crossed the Río de la Plata
by ferry to Buenos Aires in 1940 and made his way back into Argentina. He
recalled, “At first everything was very difficult; every door was closed to me,
for fear of whatever. It was a bad time for me.”3
The Concordancia, the military-civilian alliance that governed the country
from 1932 to 1943, was not sympathetic to those who had fought for the Spanish
Republic. During that “Infamous Decade,” governments continued the policy
of deporting foreign-born opponents and activists. Indeed, the residency law
remained in effect until Arturo Frondizi’s administration in the late 1950s. Such
an atmosphere had a chilling effect on migrations of anarchists, although many
Spaniards with family and friends in Argentina returned, migrating as changing
conditions dictated.
The threat of arrest and execution by the Franco regime led Antonio Casa-
nova to flee into France, where he was imprisoned in a concentration camp. He
escaped, joined the French resistance, and later participated in the liberation
of Paris. After World War II, Casanova remained in France and served with
the exiled CNT as editor of Solidaridad Obrera. Casanova finally returned to
Argentina, where his son resided, and worked as a baker. He remained active in
the anarchist movement, translating, speaking, and defending workers’ rights
until his death at age sixty-eight on July 8, 1966, in Buenos Aires.
José María Montero escaped to a French refugee camp. From there, he went
to Paris and then to Mexico, where he owned and operated a small meatpack-
ing plant. He remained there for most of the rest of his life and did not return
to activism in the exile community or the anarchist movement. He ultimately

returned to his native village in Spain and died there.
Jacobo Maguid and José Grunfeld eventually wrote about their experiences
and the circumstances that led many anarchists to migrate at the end of the
Civil War. Maguid lived in Barcelona throughout the war and in January 1939
went to the CNT-FAI offices to find a means to escape from Spain, but he was
too late—a truck filled with men, including Simón Radowitzky, departed just
as he arrived. He went home and burned any documents that might prove in-
criminating. On January 26, however, he received transport on another vehicle
as far as Girona, on the road to France. He took a train north to the town of
Figueras, where he got off and boarded another train to take him closer to the
border. He attempted to walk across, but the Senegalese soldiers guarding the
French border were admitting only the wounded. Maguid then attempted to
182
enter surreptitiously via the Pyrenees Mountains but fell from the path and was
knocked unconscious. He was found and loaded onto an ambulance, and since
he was now wounded, he was permitted to enter France. Maguid recovered and
after failing to get help from the SIA was interned in the concentration camp at
Argelés sur Mer, just north of the Spanish border. Maguid worked with other
anarchists in the camp to plan his escape. Maguid secured an armband that
permitted him to leave the camp to get water from the nearby village and then
was picked up by a car that took him to Marseilles. There he was reunited with
other anarchist leaders, among them Pedro Herrera. Maguid began working
with a clandestine organization preparing false documents to enable Spanish
anarchists to leave France. However, the injuries to his arm sustained in the
fall in the Pyrenees did not heal, and others persuaded Maguid to leave France
and return to Argentina. He received money from Buenos Aires to pay for his
voyage, and with a new passport from the Argentine consulate, he set sail from
Cherbourg, returning to Buenos Aires after more than two years in Spain.
Maguid found that his reputation as a participant in the Spanish Civil War
made him suspect in Argentina, and he had difficulty finding work before finally
gaining a position as a civil engineer.4 He remained active with FACA and its
successor, the Federación Libertaria Argentina; wrote for Acción Libertaria and
Solidaridad Obrera; and worked in opposition to the military government after
1943 and to Juan Perón’s regime after 1946. Maguid was in constant contact with
Jacobo Prince, Abad de Santillán, Casanova, and Grunfeld, and wrote tributes
for the first three when each of them died. Maguid himself died in Buenos Aires
in 1997.
Grunfeld was one of the last anarchist militants to leave Madrid, heading for
Valencia by car with a colleague. They found that the port of Alicante, already
crowded with fifteen thousand militants, was their best hope for escape from
Spain. As they drove south along the coast they stopped in the town of Gandía
when they heard that a British warship lay off the coast and was prepared to take
on refugees. Grunfeld boarded the vessel and was taken to Marseilles, where
the English Committee to Aid Refugees put him on a train for Paris. Grunfeld
continued on to the English Channel, crossed to Dover, and finally reached
London. There, he met with colleagues from the local SIA and received some
money from the British. After a short stay in Britain, Grunfeld returned to Paris,
working with Spanish exiles to help Maguid and others interned in Argelés.
Grunfeld returned to Argentina at the end of July 1939.
The police in Argentina were curious about his proposed activities, but
Grunfeld assured them that “for the moment,” he would rest and recover his
health after his arduous activities in Europe.5 Once he had found a job and be-
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came settled, Grunfeld resumed his activities with the FACA. He was jailed for
a year in the mid-1940s for his activities against the military regime and after his
release collaborated with Abad de Santillán on a book project. Grunfeld kept in
contact with other FACA members who had served in Spain and maintained
his core beliefs in individual liberty throughout his life. He opposed Perón’s
regime and subsequent military governments, writing to protest government
control over the CGT. He remained active until his death in 2005.
As Argentine citizens, Maguid and Grunfeld had an advantage over Spanish
anarchists. Other refugees, such as those arriving in Chile on the Winnipeg, were
also lucky.6 Some anarchists complained that Pablo Neruda, the famous poet
serving as the Chilean ambassador to France, was a communist sympathizer and
tried to assist communist refugees rather than anarchist refugees.7 Tens of thou-
sands of refugees settled in Latin America, while 140,000 remained in France.8
Abad de Santillán in Argentina
When Abad de Santillán returned to Argentina in 1940, he was vulnerable and

under police surveillance, as were many anarchists who had returned from
Spain. Grunfeld later recalled, “I had to go to the Central Police Headquarters
(where I had been held years before) to indicate my intentions as an anarchist
militant.”9 According to Maguid, “As I stepped off the boat, two police officers
took me to headquarters. Police Chief Morano interrogated me the next day,
holding a large notebook” of police files.” For the most part, Abad de Santillán
remained largely above local political events during and after World War II.
However, several issues caught his attention. The first was an effort to procure
the release of the three imprisoned anarchists, the “Prisoners of Bragado.” In
1931, the daughter and sister-in-law of powerful Buenos Aires politician José
M. Blanch were killed by a package bomb delivered to their home. The police
rounded up anarchists Pascual Vuotto, Santiago Mainini, and Reclus de Diago
and quickly condemned the three to life in prison based on flimsy evidence.
Justicia, a FACA publication, led the call for the men’s release, and FACA orga-
nized meetings and rallies to protest the injustice of their continued imprison-
ment. The effort continued throughout the 1930s, and Abad de Santillán joined
in after returning to Argentina. Continued pressure on the government finally
led the Supreme Court to release the three prisoners in 1942.
The other local issue that brought Abad de Santillán into active participation
with the FACA was the rise of Colonel Juan D. Perón. A coup toppled Ramón
Castillo’s discredited government in 1943, and Perón headed the Labor De-
partment in the military government that followed. Perón used his position to
184
curry favor with and to control organized labor, much to the disgust of FACA’s
anarchists.10 In 1945, Perón was elected president. FACA and Argentina’s anar-
chist movement continued their criticism of the populist colonel, particularly
through the pages of a new periodical, Reconstruir.11 In 1946, the government
arrested some of Perón’s opponents and suspended Reconstruir’s publication.
Abad de Santillán joined in this opposition and played a key role in organizing
another anti-Peronist periodical, Americalee, in the mid-1940s. In 1947, Prince
edited a FACA pamphlet, One Year of Peronism, that criticized the regime.12
While continuing to support FACA, Abad de Santillán focused more on
writing than militancy, publishing Por qué perdimos la guerra (Why We Lost
the War), a 1940 analysis of the Spanish Civil War and the anarchists’ role. He
focused on his experiences in Spain and the defeat of the anarchist revolution
there. He maintained membership in several exile associations, among them
Movimiento Popular de Resistencia, Comité Nacional de la CNT en el Exilio,
and Centro Republicano Español.13 On November 29, 1941, he attended a meet-
ing of the subdelegation of the Spanish CNT in Argentina.14
During this time, Abad de Santillán wrote works of political theory and
economics such as 1944’s El pensamiento político de Roosevelt (The Political
Thought of Roosevelt) and 1945’s Los fundamentos de la geografía económica
de América (The Fundamentals of American Economic Geography). He also
wrote about the anarchist movement and its ideas in La crisis del capitalismo
(The Crisis of Capitalism), Mensaje acerca de la situación actual el movimiento
libertario español (Message Pertaining to the Current Situation of the Spanish
Libertarian Movement), both published in 1946, and Historia y significado del
movimiento confederal español (History and Significance of the Spanish Con-
federal [Labor] Movement), released the following year. His major works were
on Argentina and required many years of research and writing. The Gran En-
ciclopedia Argentina (Complete Encyclopedia of Argentina) was published in
nine volumes between 1957 and 1964, and the five-volume Historia Argentina
(History of Argentina) was published between 1965 and 1971.
Abad de Santillán’s interests continued to affirm his sense of being both
Argentine and Spaniard, although he apparently was not completely satisfied
with his life in Argentina. In 1952, he contacted Florida’s Live Oaks Farm seek-
ing employment. He received a response indicating that the farm needed an
agricultural manager and was willing to pay a salary of one hundred dollars per
week. Abad de Santillán did not follow up on the offer.15
Abad de Santillán maintained correspondence with many individuals,
among them Spanish exiles living in Mexico and people writing about the lib-
ertarian movements in various countries. Abad de Santillán received a letter
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from Ethel Duffy Turner, who was preparing a manuscript on Ricardo Flores
Magón, an early twentieth-century Mexican libertarian and precursor of the
Mexican Revolution. Abad de Santillán had written a book on Flores Magón
in 1925, and Turner identified herself as Flores Magón’s secretary and asked
for advice.16 He also continued to work with members of FACA and later the
Federación Libertaria Argentina, including his longtime colleagues Grunfeld
and Maguid. According to Grunfeld, Abad de Santillán “achieved an impres-
sive intellectual contribution” to the anarchist movement, “accompanied by an
extraordinary moral compass.”17 Maguid, for his part, remembered that Abad
de Santillán frequently received visits from young scholars seeking informa-
tion or clarification on a variety of topics, receiving all of them and patiently
answering their questions.18
From the 1950s through the 1970s, Abad de Santillán devoted the majority
of his time to writing. Between 1962 and 1971, he published the three volumes
of his Contribución a la historia del movimiento obrero español (Contribution to
the History of the Spanish Labor Movement). His simultaneous studies on
Argentina and Spain reflected his life in two worlds separated by the Atlantic
Ocean but united by his peregrinations.
In the aftermath of the Argentine military’s 1955 “Liberating Revolution,”
Argentina’s government began a period of truncated democracy. The military
withdrew from power in 1958, bringing many Argentines hope that the politi-
cal system would function democratically. However, the military vetoed any
attempt to integrate the Peronist movement into the political system. In 1962,
when President Frondizi made overtures to the Peronists despite the generals’
disapproval, he was overthrown and the military returned to power. Another
new president was elected in 1963, with all Peronists proscribed from open
participation in the political process. Arturo Illia remained in office until 1966,
when he, too, was overthrown by the military, which remained in power through
the rest of the decade. The military finally stepped aside in 1972 and allowed an
open election in which Peronists were permitted to vote for their candidate, a
stand-in for the aging Perón, still living in exile.
Throughout this period Abad de Santillán and most of his colleagues re-
mained critical of both the military regimes and the Peronist opposition. The
antagonism between the two groups, however, made it almost impossible for
anyone to govern Argentina effectively. Abad de Santillán continued work-
ing on his books, publishing Juan Lazarte: Militante social, médico, humanista
( Juan Lazarte: Social Activist, Medical Doctor, Humanist) in 1964 about one
of his colleagues in the anarchist movement. He also wrote Historia institutional
argentina (Institutional History of Argentina) in 1966 and Estudios sobre la
186
Argentina (hasta el fin del peronismo en 1955) (A study of Argentina to the end
of Peronism in 1955), published in 1967. His political interests, however, seem
increasingly to have involved Spain, especially in the 1970s as the country pre-
pared for the end of Franco’s rule. Abad de Santillán and his colleagues, many
of them exiled from Spain since 1939, were anxious to see an end to the era and
curious about the fate of the country’s remaining anarchist movement. Abad de
Santillán demonstrated his interest in Spanish history by publishing Historia del
movimiento obrero español (History of the Spanish Labor Movement) in 1967
and De Alfonso XIII a Franco: Apuntes de historia pólitica de la España Moderna
(From Alfonso XIII to Franco: Notes on the Political History of Modern Spain)
in 1974. He published El anarquismo y la revolución en España (Anarchism and
the Revolution in Spain) in 1976 and Alfonso XIII, la segunda república, Francisco
Franco (Alfonso XIII, the Second Republic, Francisco Franco) three years later.
Abad de Santillán remained in contact with other Spanish anarchist exiles—
including some with whom he had previously disagreed—for more than thirty
years after the civil war. The CNT had subdelegations not only in Argentina
but also in the United States, Great Britain, Mexico, Chile, and the Domini-
can Republic.19 These militants were not ready to give up on changing Spain
and continued to believe that the anarchist movement could play a role in the
country’s future. In 1967, Juan López, a CNT leader who in the 1920s had tried
to gain official recognition from Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera and
who was a proponent of syndicalism, wrote to Abad de Santillán, “I am thank-
ful that you were one of those who encouraged me to return to Spain” after
twenty-six years of exile in Mexico.20 Abad de Santillán had encouraged López
to return but nevertheless seemed to harbor revolutionary notions regarding
Franco: in 1968, Carmen Pastor wrote to Abad de Santillán arguing that the best
way to destroy Franco was not by launching a guerrilla war but by educating
the masses.21
By the mid-1970s Argentina was descending into political and economic
chaos, while Spain remained in limbo pending Franco’s death. Argentine elec-
tions in 1972 elevated a Peronist, Héctor Campora, to the presidency. Campora
almost immediately issued a decree allowing Juan Perón to return to Argentina
from his exile in Spain and run for office. Campora then resigned and called
for new elections, which Perón won. The seventy-eight-year-old returned to
the presidency in October but died the following July. His vice president was
his third wife, María Estela (Isabel) de Perón, and she took over the office,
though she lacked the skills to hold the nation together. Increasing inflation
and economic problems were overshadowed by a violent upsurge in commu-
nist guerrilla groups that kidnapped wealthy industrialists and attacked army
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depots. In 1976, the generals removed Isabel Perón from office and initiated a
military regime that lasted until 1983. This regime waged a brutal “Dirty War”
against suspected leftists, killing tens of thousands.
In 1975, Abad de Santillán traveled to Mexico to do research for yet another
book, Historia de la revolución mexicana (History of the Mexican Revolution),
which was published in 1976. While he was in Mexico, Franco died, prompt-
ing Abad de Santillán to write to a colleague, “You will understand that for me
there is a moral obligation to be present in Spain at this hour.”22
Abad de Santillán had refused to go back to Spain as long as Franco was alive
but returned in 1977. He was disappointed that colleagues did not greet him
warmly, harboring resentment about his collaboration with the government
during the civil war.23 Abad de Santillán attempted to publish Timón in Spain,
just as he had forty years earlier. The effort failed, and Abad de Santillán became
discouraged, returning to Argentina after a year. His health deteriorated over
the next few years, though he remained active. In 1982, Abad de Santillán and
his compañera, Elisa, moved back to Spain to live in a retirement community
near their son. Abad de Santillán died in Barcelona on October 18, 1983.
Conclusion
Migrations of anarchists between Spain and Argentina changed anarchist ide-

ology and influenced organizations on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean. Since
circumstances frequently change, migrants must continually evaluate their
opportunities and move as necessary, establishing transnational networks to
support them in both countries. These supranational connections are affected
by national events but are not limited to national boundaries. The national an-
archist federations—FORA in Argentina and the CNT in Spain—were part of

the International Workingmen’s Association, and their members supported or
argued with each other regarding tactics and regarding the best applications of
anarchist principles to their nation. Argentine anarchist periodicals circulated
in Spain, while Spanish periodicals were available in Argentina. And some
contributors published in both sets of papers. Spaniards who left Spain be-
came important members of the anarchist movement in Argentina and helped
to shape the organization of labor federations, bringing skills and ideas from
Spain but often merging them with ideas brought by other immigrant groups.
Many of them subsequently returned to Spain—voluntarily or not—demon-
strating not only an attachment to their native land but also a desire to further
the goals of anarchism worldwide: transnational ties did not eliminate a sense
of national identity.
188
The transnational aspects of migration mean that Spanish immigrants

brought to Argentina ideas and attitudes, developed them further, and then
transferred that synthesis back to Spain. Antonio Pellicer Paraire, José Prat,
and Gregorio Inglán y Lafarga helped to create a bond between the anarchist
movements of Spain and Argentina. They left Spain at the end of the nine-
teenth century when repression weakened the Spanish anarchist movement.
They traveled to Argentina because the other side of the Atlantic Ocean of-
fered more opportunities to express their ideological beliefs. In Argentina,
Spanish anarchists continued the debates over individualism and collectivism
that had often divided them in Spain. But they also met anarchist immigrants
from Italy, among them Pietro Gori and Errico Malatesta, whose emphasis on
organization helped to create a fusion of ideas that led to the establishment of
FOA and later FORA, the most powerful labor organization in Argentina in
the early twentieth century. Pellicer Paraire drew on his Spanish experiences
to bring together individualists and collectivists in Argentina. Inglán y Lafarga
became an editor of La Protesta. Prat, however, returned to Spain and remained
involved in the anarchist movement. Other Spanish immigrants such as Antonio
Loredo and Ramón Palau played important roles in the Argentine anarchist
movement until their deportations after passage of the 1902 Residency Law.
Palau eventually returned to Argentina because he had family and more ex-
tensive prospects there, while Loredo remained in Spain, serving among the
leaders of the growing anarchist movement. The labor organizations created
through these immigrant connections in both countries combined a rejection
of political participation that distinguished them from socialists, revolutionary
goals that aimed for a total reshaping of society and the economy rather than
immediate improvements sought by syndicalists, and effective organization
that that brought large numbers of workers together within the broad outlines
of anarchist ideology.
The anarchist movements in Spain and Argentina are intertwined and cannot
be separated into discrete national narratives because their memberships and
ideologies were based on a constant flow of people and ideas between these two
countries. The prosopography of individuals over many decades shows how
anarchists’ experiences in Spain influenced their participation in the anarchist
movement in Argentina, and vice versa. Taking a transnational perspective
provides new insight into the development of anarchist movements in Spain
and Argentina through social, organizational, and ideological networks.
Diego Abad de Santillán epitomizes the transnational nature of anarchism.
Abad de Santillán was born and died a Spaniard but spent most of his life in
Argentina, and he saw no distinction between being a Spaniard and being an
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Argentine because he believed that Latin America was shaped by Spain. In

1967, he wrote, “Any time is a good time to speak of Spain and the Spanish
legacy, especially in Latin America, which is always Spain and always Spanish,
despite the attributes brought by other people.”24 However, Abad de Santillán
also believed that the fundamental problems of modern society were not re-
stricted by national boundaries. By serving on the editorial board of La Protesta
in Argentina and as an important member of the FAI in Spain, Abad de Santil-
lán helped to shape the histories of two countries. Abad de Santillán’s life also
demonstrates one aspect of transnational migration that needs further study:
his devotion to his homeland and his identity as a Spaniard and his concurrent
Argentine identity.
An interdisciplinary focus on institutions, ideology, and labor movements
helps link the various aspects of these networks in ways that transcend national
boundaries. The formation of the AIT gave Abad de Santillán the opportunity
to express what he claimed was a purer form of anarchism than existed in Euro-
pean movements, which had blended syndicalist emphasis on union benefits
for workers with direct action toward a revolutionary goal. The CNT in Spain
was struggling with the same issues, and Abad de Santillán’s sometimes harsh
criticisms ironically made him seem more of an integral part of the Spanish
movement than a foreigner. This status had profound implications when Abad
de Santillán returned to Spain a decade later and allowed him immediately to
become an important participant in the Spanish movement in the critical years
of the Republic and civil war.
The Argentine military coup in 1930 demonstrated to Abad de Santillán
how devastating anarchist squabbles had become to the movement, prevent-
ing activists from organizing resistance to Uriburu’s regime. When Abad de
Santillán returned to Spain, he changed his attitude about ideological purity

and advocated unity among the various sections of anarchists. His decision not
to oppose the election of a leftist government in 1936 was one of the reasons
many anarchists supported the Popular Front. The reaction by conservatives,
monarchists, and the military quickly led to the uprising that brought civil war
to Spain and altered the country’s history. Abad de Santillán alone certainly did
not create all these circumstances. But his experience with the coup in Argen-
tina, his return to Spain, his stature among the anarchists, and his desire that
Spanish anarchists not face the repression that had forced him out of Argentina
contributed to the course of these events.
In 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, a popular revolution oc-
curred in Barcelona and in much of Catalonia and in parts of Aragon. Spanish
anarchists viewed this revolution as the culmination of decades of prepara-
190
tion and planning, some of which had been presented in Abad de Santillán’s
book, After the Revolution. Enthusiasm for this revolution drew anarchists from
abroad, including some from Argentina who quickly assumed key roles in the
FAI, uniting the two worlds. Some tensions arose between native Spaniards and
Argentine anarchists, demonstrating the persistence of a sense of nationality
mixed with the transnational aspects of anarchism.
By 1937, however, many anarchists concluded that the civil war was more
important than the anarchist revolution, which continued only with local ef-
forts and some worker-controlled factories and collective farms. When the
Nationalists won the war in 1939, the revolution and the anarchist movement
in Spain ceased. Those who could flee left Spain, many for Latin America.
Those who went to Argentina reinvigorated the movement there. For the
rest of the twentieth century, the FACA and its successor, the Federación Lib-
ertaria Argentina, supported civil, political, and human rights. Anarchist tradi-
tions came to influence other contemporary Argentine groups, perhaps most
notably the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, who championed the cause of the
disappeared in the 1980s. As Marguerite Guzmán Bouvard has noted, “What
characterizes the Mothers as anarchists is their rebelliousness and their aim of
a complete transformation of Argentine society” through direct action.25 The
Argentine protesters who took to the streets in late 2001 to denounce the gov-
ernment’s role in the economic implosion also exemplified anarchist practices
and principles. While the anarchist movement in Argentina reached a low point
in the 1930s, it did not disappear.
In Spain, the repression of the Franco years made resistance difficult, and
Spanish anarchists had to re-create their organizations in exile. Diego Abad de
Santillán returned to Spain after Franco’s death hoping to see anarchist prin-
ciples retake their place at the forefront of the labor movement but instead
discovered that the organizations claiming the legacy of anarchism had adapted
to new realities. Many anarchists who had been involved in the civil war either
were dead or had lost touch with the working-class movement, and the CNT
never regained its preeminent place as a labor federation. However, its perspec-
tive differs from that of the Socialist Unión General de Trabajadores regarding
union relationships with government agencies and speaks vaguely of a social
revolution, echoing the days when Spanish and Argentine anarchists dominated
the labor movements in their respective countries.
Spain and Argentina were no longer connected by the transnational ties of
anarchist ideas and immigrant networks. Each country proceeded on its own
trajectory with regard to the working class. Abad de Santillán’s death repre-
sented the severing of the final thread connecting the two worlds.
191
Appendix A
List of Spanish Refugees

aboard the Winnipeg
These refugees arrived in Argentina on August 19, 1939, and were helped by the SIA—
specifically, the Comisión de Ayuda a Exiliados Antifascistas. The first ten people on the
list were met at the port, while the others were picked up from relatives on Isla Demarchi.
They received food and a place to stay, and then all except Carlota Asensio and Rafaela
Fernández and her daughters were passed to the Patronato Español de Ayuda a las Víc-
timas de Agresión. As a result of a misunderstanding, a donation from the Comisión de
Ayuda of the Federación Obreros y Empleados Telefónicos (Committee of Assistance
of the Federation of Telephone Workers and Employees) was not available to help these
repatriated individuals.
Number Name Information

1 González, Florencio Age: 41, compañero, repatriated
2 Collado, Francisca Age: 41, wife
3 González, Miguel Age: 16, child, Spanish
4 González, Florencio Age: 13, child, Spanish
5 González, Josefina Age: 13, child, Spanish
6 Casanovas, Francisco Age: 48, compañero, Spanish
7 Vilanova, Victoria N. Age: 44, wife
8 Casanovas, Enrique Age: 16, child, Argentine
9 Casanovas, Angelita Age: 14, child, Argentine
10 M., Carlota Asensio Age: 62, Argentine
11 Fernández, Rafaela Age: 27
Appendix A

12 Two daughters, ages 4 and 2
13
14 Gómez, Armando Age: 30, compañero, repatriated
15 Llas, Jaime R. Age: 26, compañero, Argentine
16 Villamor, Juan José Age: 26, compañero, Argentine
17 Urra, Hector Age: 26
18 Tolmes, A. Daura Age: 26
19 B., Magin Vendrell Age: 26
20 Molto, Antonio Age: 26
21 N., Gatel Age: 44
Source: L. Riera Díaz to Junta Ejecutiva Nacional of the SIA, September 10, 1939, Feder-
ación Libertaria Argentina Archives, Buenos Aires
These refugees arrived in Chile on the Winnipeg.

1 Sánchez, Felix Plaza Farmworker, 1 family member
2 Meiz, Ramón Malla Farmworker, 1 family member
3 Salvado, Fructuoso Rebull Farmworker, 3 family members
4 Castelli, Palmiro Rebull Farmworker
5 Martí, Francisco Nogués Farmworker, 4 family members
6 Carseller, Candido Espada Farmworker
7 Font, Juan Tes Farmworker, 2 family members
8 Odeono, Antonio Caldere Farmworker
9 Rodríguez, Juan Peña Farmworker
10 Sánchez, Manuel Soto Farmworker

11 Alonso, Jesús Méndez Farmworker
12 Rodríguez, Urbano Rodríguez Farmworker
13 Sevilla, Secundino Luis Farmworker
14 De Gracia, Jorge Farmworker, 2 family members
15 Pean, Alfonso González Farmworker
16 Rios, Diego José Farmworker
17 San Martín, José Urricelgui Farmworker
18 Vázquez, José Arias Farmworker
19 Olavarra, Eugenio Carrera Distribution and Administration,
2 family members
20 Mateu, Manuel Barcacel Distribution and Administration
21 Riera, Carlos Ribas Distribution and Administration
22 Andreu, José Coma Distribution and Administration
194
Spanish Refugees aboard the Winnipeg

23 Olivia, Floreal Amor Distribution and Administration
24 Pulido, Manuel García Metalworker
25 Álvarez, José Pérez Metalworker, 4 family members
26 Paz, Manuel Álvarez Metalworker
27 Amor, Joaquín Solsona Metalworker
28 Fernández, Felipe Vázquez Metalworker
29 López, Rosendo Mendez Metalworker
30 Buendia, Juan García Metalworker
31 Ramos, Geronimo Martín Metalworker, 4 family members
32 Hernández, Jesús Méndez Metalworker
33 Méndez, Antonio Montalvet Metalworker
34 González, Aurelio Díaz Metalworker
35 Menchaca, Esteban Benito Metalworker
36 Palacio, Fernando González Metalworker
37 del Amo, Filemón Espinaco Metalworker, battalion chief
38 Fernández, Francisco Menéndez Metalworker
39 Aznar, Emeterio Metalworker
40 González, Salvador Álvarez Metalworker
41 García, Florencio Esteban Metalworker
42 Rodríguez, Servando Fernández Metalworker
43 Lorca, José Antonio Metalworker, 3 family members
44 González, Ovidio Diez Metalworker
45 Gonzalo, Victor Álvaro Metalworker, 4 family members
46 Abestegui, Guillermo Elduayen Metalworker, 3 family members
47 Abatt, Antonio Metalworker
48 Redondo, Benito Abad Metalworker
49 Royo, Roque Barberán Bricklayer

50 Martín, Roberto Barberán Mason
51 Gevera, Alfredo Romero Mason, 1 family member
52 Carmona, Antonio Sola Mason
53 Gual, Francisco Alberto Mason, 2 family members
54 Subiza, Joaquín Fernández Carpenter
55 Lobato, Tomás Infesta Carpenter, 1 family member
56 Velazco, Francisco Alonso Heating
57 Sancho, José Tudela Carpenter
58 López, José Palacio Mason
59 Anton, Francisco Madrid Carpenter
60 Aguilar, Antonio Lunio Mosaic maker
61 Martí, José Company Mason
62 Gil, Ángel Pablo Cabinetmaker
195
Appendix A

63 Morales, José Barueto Cabinetmaker, 5 family members
64 Naso, César Flores Day laborer
65 G., Francisco Bellido Mason
66 Lostal, Gregorio Vayes Mason
67 López, Manuel Martín Plumber
68 Balluria, Luis Yoldi Painter
69 Forneilles, José Dequieros Painter
70 Monje, Felix Day laborer
71 Díaz, Estanislao Rubio Mason
72 Llopis, Miguel Hoyenert Mason
73 Raino, Manuel Ragenjo Fisherman
74 Gómez, Antonio Otero Fisherman
75 Armada, Vicente Pita Fisherman
76 Armada, José Pita Fisherman
77 Armada, Manuel Pita Fisherman
78 Pena, Vicente Pérez Fisherman, 1 family member
79 Breijo, Manuel Onal Fisherman
80 Cacadel, Manuel Otero Fisherman
81 Villaverde, José Riva Sailor
82 Calvino, Manuel Donsion Sailor
83 Álvarez, Leanardo Fernández Sailor
84 Esposito, Guillermo López Sailor
85 Sánchez, Juan Castro Sailor
86 Pérez, Manuel Tinico Sailor
87 Rodríguez, Ernesto Fernández Sailor
88 Fernández, Ramón Gómez Sailor
89 Seijo, José González Driver

90 Ruiz, Valentin Herrans Sailor
91 González, Manuel Souza Sailor
92 Rojas, Octavio Sailor, 1 family member
93 Blanco, Raymundo Sailor
94 Ruiz, Francisco Molina Sailor, 4 family members
95 López, Manuel Baleanisel Sailor
96 Muñoz, Santiago López Journalist
97 Urreselgui, José Various crafts
98 Mosota, Luis Gay Various crafts
99 Buen Dia, Juan García Various crafts, 1 family member
100 Gault, Dolores Albert Various crafts
101 Oliver, Juan Gausch Various crafts
102 Sola, Joaquín Starli Various crafts
196
Spanish Refugees aboard the Winnipeg

103 Rey, Luis Campo Various crafts, 2 family members
104 Rodríguez, Ángel Various crafts, 3 family members
105 Rondino, Fe Fernández Various crafts
106 Espert, Rafael Puyol Various crafts, 4 family members
107 Blanco, José Gutiérrez Various crafts
108 S., Maximo Quiniellas Various crafts
109 Cueto, Geronimo Martí Various crafts
110 Castillo, Benjamin Various crafts
111 Tobias, Maria Tervel Various crafts
112 Barcia, Manuel del Río Various crafts
113 Tort, Narciso Various crafts
114 García, Conrado Trigo Various crafts
115 Ruiz, Francisco Herrero Various crafts
116 Gómez, Domingo Crescenero Various crafts
117 Rodríguez, Salvador Fernández Various crafts
118 Palacio, Fernando Solano Various crafts
119 Nieto, Manuel Fernández Various crafts
120 Castelo, Francisco García Various crafts
Source: SIA–Comisión de Ayuda a Exiliados Antifascistas, Consejo Nacional, Circular
Informativa, no. 3, September 9, 1939, Archives of the Federación Libertaria Argentina,
Buenos Aires.
197
Appendix B
La Protesta
Prisoners in or Deported
from Argentina, 1905–1906
Acuna, Evaristo Camilo, Francisco Conde, Rosarino

Agara, Luis Campana, Victorio Costa, Mario
Aldatti, Honorio Campos, Antonio Costa, Vicente
Álvarez, Ramiro Campos, Luis Cox, Eduardo
Andrade, Julio Capanelli, Roque Cruz, Juan
Arena, Miguel Carneiro, Segundo Cura, José
Barros, Castro Caro, Francisco Curia, Rafael
Baudraco, Lorenzo Carregado, Evaristo Dávila, Segundo
Baudraco, Miguel Carreras, Segundo de la Cruz, Juan

Benedetti, Antonio Carreras, Tómas Delarosa, Juan
Bernard, Luis Casares, Carlos de la Rosa, Pedro
Bernardoni, A. Casares, Juan del Costa, José
Bevuzzi, Luis Casot, Adolfo de Luca, Miguel
Biagiotti, Gabriel Castilla, Gerónimo de Maturana, José
Bianchi, Juan Castro, Antonio Desiderio, N.
Biondi, Atilio Catanino, Antonio Dubuch, Luis
Blanco, Ángel E. Ciminaghi, Juan Eredia, Alfonso
Bonilla, Pedro Cisneros, Alfredo Esnal, José
Bossio, Bartolomé Coch, José Esquirre, Juan
Buonafalce, Adolfo Colmidio, Vicente Esquivel, Pedro
Cabrera, Zenón Colmos, Juan Exposito, Francisco
Cames, Manuel Colombo, Luis Faccio, Juan
Appendix B
Farina, Juan Jardín, Narciso Nimos, José

Federico, Constanzo Lafera, Carlos Nobile, Ángel
Fernández, Ángel Ledesma, Teodoro Nope, Fermín
Fernández, Manuel Lencio, Antonio Noya, M.
Fernández, Miguel Lescano, Felipe Orsini, Beltran
Fernández, N. López, Andrés Ortega, Juan
Fernández, Pedro López, Antonio Otano, Pedro
Ferrer, José Rosario López, Cosme Otero, Carmelo
Ferreyra, Pedro A. López, Francisco Ovidi, Romulo
Fonseca, José López, Hermenegildo Paez, Nicolás
Fuente, José A. López, José Paganelli, Aurelio
Fussatti, Juan López, Juan Parravicini, C.
Galán, Alfonso López, Manuel Pauletti, Juan
García, Andrés López, Zenón Pera, Alejandro
García, Enrique Loubet, Alberto Peralta, Andelón
García, Jesús Ludzon, Carlos Peralta, J.
García, José Luna, Francisco Perrota, Juan
García de la Mata, A. Madeyra, Martin Petroch, Antonio
Gil, Enrique Magrassi, Luis Pineyro, Juan C.
Gil, José Maloni, Mario Piot, Ernesto
Gil, Pablo Mantouani, Atila Pizarro, Manuel
Gilimón, Eduardo Marino, José Pomes, Francisco
Gimenez, Ramón Marrey, Amilcar Posatti, Juan
Giraldo, Leopoldo A. Martínez, Enrique Puentes, José M.
Gómez, Eduardo Matturo, José Quiruga, Zacarías
Gómez, Juan Meda, Juan Raffetón, Guillermo
Gómez, Luis M. Mesa, Irineo Rejas, Santiago
Gómez, Pedro Mirando, Faustino Rodríguez, Antonio
Gondín, Antonio Moleche, Horacio Rodríguez, Ramón

González, Almancio Molina, Diego Romero, Jesús
González, Dalmacio Moncamps, Daniel Rosales, Benjamín
González, Ismael Moncamps, Francisco Roselli, Juan
González, Ramón Mondaine, Eduardo Rosinola, José
González, Salvador Montagnoli, Santos Ross, Jaime
Gotin, J. Montero, Juan Russo, Carmelo
Griani, Pascual Moscaro, Manuel Salerno, Francisco J.
Guasone, Carlos Motta, Juan Salud, Joaquín
Guevara, Benito Muñoz, Ramón Sanao, José
Gutiérrez, Domingo A. Muruba, E. Gomez Sánchez, Abelardo
Hiriani, José Navarro, Francisco Sánchez, Manuel
Inglán, Gregorio Niancuchi, Francisco Santeros, Carlos
Jaquet, Francisco Niex, Federico Seijo, Manuel
200
Prisoners in or Deported from Argentina
Serantoni, Fortunato Trabulsi, Elian Villagán, Germán Fernández

Suárez, Emilio V. Urdes, Juan Villanueva, Francisco
Tacella, José Vázquez, Saturnino Viola, Vicente
Tiboldi, Andrés Ventura, Mariano Yazulo, Antonio
Torres, Marcelino
201
Notes
Introduction
1. Deacon, Russell, and Woollacott, Transnational Lives, 2.

2. Berry and Bantman, New Perspectives. Berry and Bantman emphasize the transna-
tional links among French, English, Swedish, Polish, and Spanish anarchists at the turn
of the twentieth century and describe how the relationship between British and French
revolutionary syndicalism affected the labor movements in both countries.
3. Hatton and Williamson, “What Drove the Mass Migrations?”
4. For a detailed analysis of immigration theories over time, see Massey et al., “Theo-
ries of International Migration.” The authors do not attempt to prove that one approach
is correct. Instead, they counsel that each theory, with its assumptions, has implications,
and that policymakers need to understand that solutions to problems raised by popula-
tion movements are complex.
5. Sánchez-Alonso, “Those Who Left.”
6. Argentine rates of return can be found in Bourdé, Buenos Aires, 132. For return rates
for different ethnic groups in the United States, see Wyman, Round-Trip to America, 10,
11 (ranging from 5 to 89 percent).
7. Thistlethwaite, “Migration from Europe,” 73–74.
8. Wyman, Round-Trip to America.
9. Gregory, “Algunas observaciones,” 184.
10. Iriye, Global Community, 8.
11. Tilly, “Trust Networks.”
12. Ibid., 5.
Notes to Introduction and Chapter 1
13. Moretti, “Social Networks and Migrations,” 640.

14. Turcato, “Italian Anarchism.”
15. Tarrow, New Transnational Activism, 51, 53.
16. Bookchin, Spanish Anarchists; Gómez Casas, Historia; Morato, Líderes.
17. Smith, Anarchism, Revolution, and Reaction.
18. Ealham, Anarchism and the City.
19. Casanova, Tierra y Libertad, 98. Loredo cautioned Spanish anarchists to avoid be-
coming sidetracked by World War I and to adhere faithfully to their anarchist principles
(Tierra y Libertad, August 18, 1915).
20. See Zaragoza, Anarquismo argentino; López, FORA; Penelas, Gallegos anarquistas;
Abad de Santillán, FORA.
21. Moya, Cousins and Strangers.
22. Anderson, Under Three Flags. See also Ealham, Anarchism and the City, 45.
23. Hirsch and van der Walt, Anarchism and Syndicalism, xxxii.
24. Gabaccia, “Is Everywhere Nowhere?”
Chapter 1. Origins of the Spanish Anarchist Movement
1. Vincent, Spain, 23.

2. Joll, Anarchists, 42.
3. Quoted in Avrich, Anarchist Portraits, 11.
4. See Nikolaevskij and Maenchen-Helfen, Karl Marx, 288.
5. Quoted in Morato, Líderes, 84. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are by the
author.
6. Bookchin, Spanish Anarchists, 41.
7. Quoted in Joll, Anarchists, 226.
8. Carr, Spain, 311.
10. Ibid., 46–47.
11. Quoted in Morato, Lideres, 164.
12. Ibid., 165.
13. Information from Pellicer Paraire’s obituary in Tierra y Libertad, May 31, 1916.
15. Brenan, Spanish Labyrinth, 145n.
16. Ibid., 3.
18. Moya, Cousins and Strangers, chapter 1.
19. Ibid.; for a discussion of the impact of railroads on Spanish emigration, see 41–43.
20. Statistics from Scobie, Argentina, table 3, 277.
21. See Rama, Historia, 162–63.
22. Sánchez-Alonso, “Those Who Left,” 732.
23. Quoted in Historia general, 1:264.
204
Notes to Chapters 1 and 2
24. Ibid., 239. The other 15 percent was not reported.

25. La Protesta, August 12, 1932 (“Obreros perseguidos en Francia, Italia y España tra-
jeron a estas tierras la semilla de la revolución y desde hace sesenta años no dejado ger-
minar”).
26. Quoted in Quesada, Argentine Anarchism, 9.
27. Nettlau, Contribution, 1.
28. La Protesta, August 12, 1932.
29. Brenan, Spanish Labyrinth, 157.
31. Zaragoza, “Antonio Pellicer,” 102.
Chapter 2. Anarchists and Immigration from Spain
1. Brenan, Spanish Labyrinth, 152–63. Brenan mentions that the term libertarian was
invented in 1898 by Sebastien Faure as a way to describe anarchist ideas, which were
proscribed (162n).
4. Romero Maura, “Terrorism in Barcelona.”
5. Esenwein, Anarchist Ideology, 189.
6. See Zaragoza, Anarquismo argentino, 112.
7. Tierra y Libertad, May 31, 1916.
8. Abad de Santillán, FORA, 119–20.
9. Ibid., chapter 2.
10. Boyd, “Anarchists and Education,” 149.
12. For a discussion of “stepping stones in stage migration,” see Moya, Cousins and
Strangers, 33.
13. Memoria de relaciones (1892), 704

14. Historia general.
15. Memoria de relaciones (1897–98). The consul claims that passenger lists compiled
by the shipping companies showed 9,179 Spaniards had immigrated to Argentina in 1897.
However, 18,316 Spaniards actually arrived in Argentina and were processed through
the Hotel de Inmigrantes. That means 50 percent of Spaniards left Spain without being
recorded officially that year.
16. Memoria de relaciones (1900), 273–74.
17. Memoria de relaciones (1893), 267.
18. García López, Remesas, 122, table 16.
19. Ibid., 95.
20. Historia general, 1:180. Figures for 1882–1930 show that 48.36 percent of Spaniards
going to the Americas went to Argentina, 33.93 percent went to Cuba, 7 percent went to
Brazil, 2.5 percent went to Uruguay, and 8.1 percent went to other countries.
205
Notes to Chapter 2
21. Memoria de relaciones (1892), 561–62. See also November 26, 1891: Real Orden sobre
auxilios a la emigración a Cuba (Royal Order Concerning Assistance for Emigration to
Cuba), Historia general.
22. Richmond, Carlos Pellegrini, 39.
23. See Oved, “Influencia.”
24. República Argentina, Tercer Censo Nacional, vol. 10, “La Inmigración,” 399.
25. Nido, Informe general.
26. Abad de Santillán Archives, File 12, Institute for Social History, Amsterdam.
27. Zaragoza, “Anarquistas españoles,” 112.
28. Ibid., 114. Zaragoza also mentions the fusion of Italian and Spanish anarchism in
Argentina.
29. Zaragoza, Anarquismo argentino, 112.
30. Abad de Santillán, FORA, 53.
31. Ibid., 54.
32. Ibid., 55.
33. Zaragoza, Anarquismo argentino, 80–81.
34. Zaragoza, “Anarquistas españoles.”
35. Solomonoff, Ideologías, 193–94.
36. Ibid., 198.
37. Yerrill and Rosser, Revolutionary Unionism, 14.
38. La Protesta Humana, October 1, 1897, quoted in Abad de Santillán, FORA, 49.
39. Ibid., 47.
40. Yerrill and Rosser, Revolutionary Unionism, 16.
41. La Protesta Humana, March 23, 1901, quoted in Abad de Santillán, FORA, 67.
42. Mella and Prat (returned from Argentina) declared that Spanish anarchists had
lost the sympathy of the workers and should reject the violence of “propaganda of the
deed” (Romero Maura, “Terrorism in Barcelona,” 133). When Alfonso García, an Argen-
tine born to Spanish immigrant parents, came back to Spain in early 1900s to assassinate
the king, he found little support among Spanish anarchists. By 1904, a new period of
violence had begun.
43. Abad de Santillán Archives, File 12.
44. Abad de Santillán, FORA, chapter 3.
45. Korzeniewicz, “Labor Unrest.”
46. Baer, “Tenant Contention,” 47, table 7, 47.
48. Abad de Santillán, Movimiento anarquista, 86.
49. Abad de Santillán, FORA, 82; chapter 4 has a complete summary of the proceedings.
50. Abad de Santillán, Movimiento anarquista, 95–96.
51. Moya, Cousins and Strangers, 149, table 14, “Total and Spanish-Born Population in
Buenos Aires, 1855–1936.”
206
Notes to Chapter 3
Chapter 3. Deportations and Reverse Migration
1. Zaragoza, “Antonio Pellicer,” 104.

2. Pellicer, Memorándum.
3. La Protesta, August 17, 1932; Zaragoza, “Anarquistas españoles.”
4. I thank Professor José Moya for providing me with a list of anarchists from police
records in Buenos Aires.
5. Information about these individual anarchists comes from lists in Abad de Santillán,
FORA, and from information compiled by José Moya.
6. Camba, Rana viajera, 65.
7. Ibid., 11.
8. For a discussion of ideological differences among anarchists and the role of Camba,
see Suriano, Anarquistas. According to Suriano, the anti-organizational El Rebelde ceased
publication in 1903, after Camba and many other Spanish anarchists were deported (66).
9. Álvarez Junco, Ideología política, 151.
10. La Protesta Humana, March 28, 1903.
11. Ibid.
12. Epifanio Portela, ambassador to Spain, to José A. Terry, Ministro de Relaciones
Exteriores y Culto, April 8, 1904, wrote that the Argentine socialist Adrian Patroni was in
Spain giving talks to workers on conditions in Argentina to discourage Spanish immigra-
tion. Spanish authorities prohibited these lectures. See Memoria de relaciones (1904), 429.
13. Romero Maura, “Terrorism in Barcelona,” 156.
14. See E. G. Gilimón, “Los sindicalistas,” in López, FORA, 191–94. Gilimón links Argen-
tine syndicalists with the Socialist Party and accuses them of attacking anarchist principles.
16. Quoted in ibid., 113.
17. Ibid., 157.
18. Álvarez Junco, Ideología política, 20.
19. For a discussion of syndicalist unions, their relationship with the state, and the role
of the port workers, see Adelman, “State and Labour.”
20. “In reality, almost all the influential leaders of the working class were originally
from that socio-economic group. The political orientation of these militants was pre-
dominantly self-taught, since many of them had only become literate as adults” (Solo-
monoff, Ideologías, 202).
21. Ricardo Mella, one of the most notable Spanish anarchist thinkers, was an engi-
neer, José Prat was a writer, Antonio Pellicer Paraire was a typographer, and Tarrida de
Marmol, who coined the phrase “anarchism without adjectives,” was an engineer. In
the twentieth century, the CNT’s leaders were workers, but few of them ever emerged
as writers or theoreticians analogous to such self-educated laborers as Manuel Villar or
Emilio López Arango in Argentina.
22. See Baer, “Tenant Mobilization,” 343–68; Suriano, Huelga.
207
Notes to Chapter 3

24. Solidaridad Obrera, February 19, 1910. A front-page article on the creation of the
CORA comments on its founding document: “Como veis, es un documento meditado
y bien escrito, y al dar nuestra enhorabuena a los compañeros de la Argentina, reco-
mendamos a todos los compañeros de nuestra Confederación Regional lo estudien de-
tenidamente, por si quieren aprovechar algo para el próximo Congreso Obrero que se
celebrará en septiembre [As you can see, this is a thoughtful and well-written document.
We congratulate our Argentine comrades and recommend to all our comrades in the
Regional Confederation that they carefully study this document if they wish to accom-
plish something in the Workers’ Congress that will meet in September].” That congress
created the CNT.
25. Rodríguez Galdo, “Cruzando el Atlántico.” Rodríguez Galdo indicates that statistics
from passenger lists are very incomplete; they do not identify Spaniards who emigrated
from French ports or illegal immigrants.
26. Sánchez-Albornoz, “Emigración española.”
27. La Protesta, February 3, 1910.
28. Tierra y Libertad, March 19, 1908, July 25, 1907.
29. Solidaridad Obrera, August 12, 1910.
30. Rey, Estampas bravas, 32.
32. Ibid., 108.
33. See López, FORA. The appendixes list resolutions and documents from the FORA
congresses.
35. Ibid., 120.
36. Quoted in López, FORA, 88.
37. Registro Nacional, 1:681 (February), 3:575 (October).
38. Abad de Santillán, Movimiento anarquista, 176.

40. La Protesta, March 18, 1906.
41. Ibid., March 31, 1906.
42. Ibid., April 3, 1906.
44. Ibid., 165.
45. Rouco Buela, Historia.
46. Quoted in Yerrill and Rosser, Revolutionary Unionism, 22.
47. “Haciendose solidario con los compañeros encarcelados por el reciente movimiento
revolucionario español, por su actitud enérgica con motivo de la Guerra de Marruecos,
proponiéndose desplegar todas las fuerzas que están al su alcance a fin de hacer práctico
el boicot a los productos procedencia española” (quoted in Abad de Santillán, FORA, 181).
48. Quoted in Yerrill and Rosser, Revolutionary Unionism, 23.
49. Abad de Santillán, FORA, 198–99. Abad de Santillán states that deportations “in-
208
creased considerably in succeeding years, when such expulsions became the order of the
day” (199). La Protesta, January 20, 1910, listed eight anarchists recently deported; four
more were listed on January 22, 1910.
50. Gilimón, Hechos y comentarios, 103–4.
51. La Protesta, March 17, 1910.
52. Topografía 54/Asuntos Exteriores, No. 11.
53. Ibid., February 3, 1903.
54. Romero Maura, “Terrorism in Barcelona,” 133.
55. See quote by Teresa Claramunt that Spanish women should not help employers by
taking jobs from men in Smith, Anarchism, Revolution, and Reaction, 121.
56. Romero Maura, “Terrorism in Barcelona,” 153–54.
58. Morato, Líderes, 168.
59. Romero Maura, “Terrorism in Barcelona.”
61. For a discussion of the fusion of the syndicalist-supported general strike with the
Bakuninist view of insurrection, see Smith, Anarchism, Revolution, and Reaction, 129.
62. See Ernesto P. Piot, “Propositos del Sindicalismo,” Solidaridad Obrera, April 16,
1909. Piot was a member of the Union Obrera in Buenos Aires.
63. Quoted in Montseny, Precursores, Anselmo Lorenzo, 30.
64. Solidaridad Obrera, February 12, 1910.
65. Tierra y Libertad, February 24, 1910.
67. Ibid., 144.
70. The Argentine government sent a list to the Spanish Embassy in Buenos Aires
on January 3, 1910, giving the names of all those deported. See Ministerio de Asuntos
Exteriores, Box 9116.

71. “Argentine Barbarism for the World to See,” Solidaridad Obrera, February 12, 1910.
72. Ibid.
Chapter 4. The CNT and the War Years
1. Moya, Cousins and Strangers, 61.

2. Solidaridad Obrera, October 21, 1910.
5. Solidaridad Obrera, February 19, 1910.
6. Tierra y Libertad, March 29, 1916.
7. Ibid., August 18, 1915.
8. Ibid., September 8, 1915.
209
Notes to Chapter 4
9. Ibid., October 20, 1915.

10. For Loredo’s article on the death penalty, see Tierra y Libertad, December 1, 1915;
his reports on events in Logroño began on March 22, 1916. Loredo died after suddenly
becoming ill while in Logroño.
11. Hucha must have returned to Argentina from Montevideo because his name is
reported among those deported from Argentina on board the Cap Finisterre in August
1913 (Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Box 9129, Dispatch 241).
12. “La Protesta de Buenos Aires,” Tierra y Libertad, August 21, 1912.
13. Ibid., March 14, 1914.
14. Ibid., May 17, 1916.
15. See Solidaridad Obrera, May 27, 1915.
16. Quoted in Bookchin, Spanish Anarchists, 148.
17. On May 17, 1916, Tierra y Libertad published a front-page article, “The Problem of
Housing and Rent in Spain,” that suggested that tenants should press their landlords for
rent reductions and that labor unions should lead the movement.
18. Rosado, Tierra y Libertad, 46.
20. Brenan sets the number of political assassinations in Catalonia between 1919 and
1923 at seven hundred (Spanish Labyrinth, 74n).
21. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:30n. Peirats explains that Pestaña was imprisoned in Italy on his
return to Spain, implying that the adherence by the CNT to the Third International con-
tinued only as long as its members remained ignorant of events in Russia and did not
signal approval of the communist state.
22. Historia general, 1:329.
23. In 1913, Argentina received 364,271 immigrants. In 1914, that number dropped by
about half, to 182,292 (República Argentina, Tercer Censo Nacional, vol. 10, “La Inmi-
gración,” 399).
24. Abad de Santillán, Memorias, 49. Abad de Santillán describes an incident during
the 1910 May Day riots when a group of workers were threatened by gun-wielding po-
lice. Barrera yelled “Halt! Put down your rifles!” in a commanding voice that reflected
his service as a naval officer. Abad de Santillán believed that Barrera probably saved the
workers from being shot on the spot.
25. La Protesta, November 14, 1916.
26. Abad de Santillán quoted in La Continental Obrera, December 1929–January 1930.
27. Abad de Santillán, Memorias, 16.
28. Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos, 8.
30. Ibid., 48.
31. Abad de Santillán donated this issue as well as the rest of his private library to the
Biblioteca Pública Arús in Barcelona.
32. Laureano Riera to Diego Abad de Santillán, May 5, 1962, Abad de Santillán Ar-
chives, File 11.
210
33. Baily, Labor, Nationalism, and Politics, 31, table I.

34. Rotondaro, Realidad y cambio, 98.
35. López, FORA, 51–52.
36. Baily, Labor, Nationalism, and Politics, 38.
38. “Españoles expulsados de Argentina,” Ministerio de Asuntos Exteriores, Box 9159.
39. Letter, June 24, 1919, in ibid. This letter was written before the July–September
1919 wave of deportations, indicating that significant numbers of earlier expulsions must
have occurred.
42. Ibid., 256.
43. López, FORA, 54.
44. See Bayer, Patagonia.
45. Union Sindical, April 8, 1922, quoted in Penelas, Gallegos anarquistas, 152.
46. See Spalding, Organized Labor, 69; Abad de Santillán, FORA, 259.
47. López, FORA, 56.
49. Ibid.
50. León J. Guerrero to Diego Abad de Santillán, February 23, 1923, in ibid., File 11.
52. León J. Guerrero to Diego Abad de Santillán, September 26, 1922, Abad de Santil-
lán Archives, File 11.
Chapter 5. The FORA and the CNT

3. Fritz Kater, “Joint Committee for the Defense of Revolutionists Imprisoned in Rus-
sia,” Abad de Santillán Archives, File 3, Folder 4.
5. Ibid., 83.
7. Historia general, 1:329.
8. Emilio López Arango to Diego Abad de Santillán, August 16, 1922, Abad de Santil-
lán Archives, File 11.
9. Ibid., November 6, 1922.
10. López Arango and Abad de Santillán, Anarquismo, 5.
11. Ibid., 124.
12. Ibid., 158.
13. Luis Jorge Rey to Diego Abad de Santillán, February 3, 1923, Abad de Santillán
Archives, File 11.
211
Notes to Chapter 5
14. Ibid., May 1923 (“Como ser imposible que esté a nuestra altura el sindicalismo
europeo”).
15. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:30.
16. Quoted from an attached “Addendum” to the “Estatuos de la Asociación Interna-
cional de los Trabajadores” of the 1922 Berlin Conference, International Workingmen’s
Association Archives, Folder 37.
17. Abad de Santillán, “Asociación internacional.”
18. Ibid., 132.
19. J. M. Hacha to Diego Abad de Santillán, January 1925, Abad de Santillán Archives,
File 37.
20. Gómez Casas, Anarchist Organisation, 62.
22. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:28.
23. Eusebio C. Carbó to Diego Abad de Santillán, March 31, 1924, Abad de Santillán
Archives, File 10.
24. Ibid., February 5, 1924.
26. Emilio López Arango to Diego Abad de Santillán, May 16, 1925, Abad de Santillán
Archives, File 10.
27. Enrique Nido to Diego Abad de Santillán, May 30, 1924, in ibid.
28. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, October 30, 1924, Max Nettlau Archives,
File 122.
29. Minutes, Amsterdam conference of the AIT, March 21, 1925, Abad de Santillán
Archives, File 4.
30. Ibid., March 25, 1925.
31. Ibid., March 27, 1925.
32. Ibid.
33. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, April 15, 1925, Max Nettlau Archives, File
122.
34. Julia García Fernández to Diego Abad de Santillán, March 2, 1924, Abad de Santil-
lán Archives, File 10; for transcripts showing courses he took in Berlin in 1922 and 1923
but none for 1924, see File 3.
35. López Arango and Abad de Santillán, Anarquismo, 114.
36. Fontana to Diego Abad de Santillán, February 24, 1926, Abad de Santillán Archives,
File 8.
37. Mariano Torrente to Diego Abad de Santillán (on La Protesta letterhead), April
24, 1926, in ibid.
38. Enrique Nido described how a hoped-for reconciliation between the La Protesta
group and that of La Antorcha under González Pacheco failed because López Arango and
Acha rebuffed the Antorcha group so strongly that all hope was lost (Enrique Nido to
Diego Abad de Santillán, December 5, 1925, Abad de Santillán Archives, File 7).
212
Notes to Chapter 5
39. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, April 9, 1924, Max Nettlau Archives, File
122.
40. Ibid., November 20, 1924.
41. Ibid., July 1925.
43. José M. Fernández to Diego Abad de Santillán, July 8, 1922, Abad de Santillán
Archives, File 11.
44. León Guerrero to Diego Abad de Santillán, December 18, 1923, in ibid.
45. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, August 6, 1924, Max Nettlau Archives,
File 122.
46. Abad de Santillán Archives.
47. In a note to Fritz Kater, representatives of the Alianza Libertaria Argentina com-
plained that Abad de Santillán only represented the FORA at the AIT conference in
Berlin rather than the Alianza Libertaria Argentina, who were also Argentine anarchists
(February 1, 1924, Abad de Santillán Archives).
49. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, May 22, 1927, Max Nettlau Archives, File
122.
50. Molyneux, “No God, No Boss, No Husband,” 131.
51. Barrancos, “Anarquismo y sexualidad,” 15–37.
52. La Protesta, February 19, 1910.
53. See Barrancos, “Anarquismo y sexualidad.”
54. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, May 13, 1925, Max Nettlau Archives, File
122.
55. See DeWeerdt, “Free Love = Free Marriage?”
56. Barrancos, “Anarquismo y sexualidad,” 31.
57. Ibid., 20.
58. Ibid., 32.
59. Rouco Buela, Historia, 58.

60. Ibid., 79.
61. Ibid., 74.
62. Ibid., 85.
63. Ibid., 86, 87.
64. Ibid., 91.
65. Ibid., 94.
66. Quoted in Barrancos, “Anarquismo y sexualidad,” 29.
67. Ibid.
68. Barrancos lists several publications in the 1920s: “La vida sexual y las enfermidades
venéras,” by Dr. Erhard Rieke; “La higiene de la vida sexual,” by Dr. Max Gruber; “La
vida sexual contemporánea,” by Dr. Irwin Bloch; and “La guía de la salud,” by Dr. Werner
Fisher-Defogy.
213
69. Sergio Varela to Diego Abad de Santillán, January 14, 1925, Abad de Santillán Ar-
chives, File 12.
71. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, February 12, 1929, Max Nettlau Archives,
File 122.
72. Abad de Santillán, Memorias, 133–34.
73. Ibid., 106.
75. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:41.
78. Quoted in Peirats, C.N.T., 1:40.
79. Quoted in Gómez Casas, Anarchist Organisation, 94.
80. For a version of the program and a report of the meeting, see Gómez Casas, An-
archist Organisation, 107–12.
82. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:42.
83. Gómez Casas, Anarchist Organisation, 116, 117.
Chapter 6. Changing Political Climates
1. Sánchez-Albornoz, “La emigración española.”

3. Ibid., 140.
4. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, September 18, 1930, Max Nettlau Archives,
File 122.
5. Nervio, October 1933, 26.
6. On July 15, 1932, La Protesta reported the arrests of hundreds of individuals the
previous day and seventy more that day. On November 29, 1932, the paper reported that
President General Augustín Pedro Justo had signed a decree authorizing the deportation
of ninety-three undesirables.
7. Abad de Santillán wrote hopefully to Max Nettlau that Villar would be able to con-
tinue editorship of La Protesta (Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, July 4, 1932,
Max Nettlau Archives, File 122).
8. La Antorcha, October 25, 1930, lists forty workers who were deported. Those on the
Cap Arcona on October 10, 1930, were taken directly to Spain. Those on board the French
ship Campana managed to get off in Montevideo. The Spanish ship Cabo Palos took six
deportees to Spain on October 15. Deportees on board the German ship Wertemburgo,
which sailed on October 16, also disembarked in Montevideo, but Argentine government
ordered the German ship Belgrano, which sailed on October 20, not to stop at Monte-
video so that no deportees could get off. A report to the AIT in Amsterdam recorded
214
Notes to Chapter 6
the names of twenty-nine of these deportees (International Workingmen’s Association

Archive, Folder 60).
9. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, January 25, 1931. Max Nettlau Archives,
File 122.
10. Manzanares, Vidas anarquistas, 77, claims that Jorge Rodríguez, a Rosario police
officer, witnessed Penina’s killing and that he was summarily executed by the police.
11. Penelas, Gallegos anarquistas, 95.
12. Ibid., 252–53.
13. José Grunfeld, interview by the author, Buenos Aires, July 25, 2000.
14. Quoted in Mendoza and Scandizzo, “Crucero,” 60.
15. La Vanguardia, December 5, 1931.
16. The study was done by Dr. Miguel Jantus of the University of Buenos Aires Law
School, 1938. I thank Hernán Scandizzo for providing me with this information. Other
categories of deportees included communists (338), mafiosos (326), thieves (728), and
ruffians (397).
17. I thank Hernán Scandizzo for generously sharing his research on the Chaco with me.
18. La Protesta, April 6, 1932.
19. Bandera Roja, April 1, 1932.
20. Ibid., May 4, 1932.
21. La Vanguardia, February 11, 13, 1932.
22. Grunfeld, Memorias, 121.
23. La Protesta, July 8, 1932.
24. Grunfeld, Memorias; for details of the 1932 conference in Rosario, see chapter 9.
26. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:62.
27. Gómez Casas, Anarchist Organisation, 125–26.
28. Ibid., 134.
30. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:69.

31. Gómez Casas cited Abad de Santillán and Juan Manuel Molina as his sources (An-
archist Organisation, 137).
33. Ibid., 71.
34. Ibid., 137.
35. Ibid., 150.
37. “We proposed the idea of toleration among all revolutionary parties and the pos-
sibility of working together with all the strength we had, and of free choice, if necessary,
among all economic and social plans, which naturally implied the recognition among
anarchists of the widest possible variety of economic undertakings” (Diego Abad de
Santillán to Max Nettlau, October 12, 1931, Max Nettlau Archives, File 122).
215

39. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, June 12, 1931, Max Nettlau Archives, File 122.
41. Diego Abad de Santillán to Max Nettlau, July 4, 1932, Max Nettlau Archives, File 122.
43. Ibid., 182.
44. Ibid.
45. According to Abad de Santillán, González had been involved with the anarchist
press in Argentina since his youth and had been deported after returning to Buenos Aires
from exile in Montevideo. Miró was the youngest member of the group but had been ac-
tive in the Caribbean before returning to Spain. In Abad de Santillán’s words, “We made a
perfect affinity group, each one with absolute confidence in the other and each one able
to think for himself ” (Memorias, 185).
46. Payne, Spanish Revolution, 19. “Henceforth, such direction by a special anarchist
elite became characteristic of the syndicalist movement in Spain, and was continued by
the regional anarchist groups of the next generation and the organized Iberian Anarchist
Federation (FAI) of 1927, which dominated the syndicalist movement of the 1930s.”
47. Gómez Casas, Anarchist Organisation.
49. Ibid., 242.
50. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:97. Peirats based his account of the uprising on Villar’s book, writ-
ten under the pseudonym Ignotus, Anarquismo.
Chapter 7. Abad de Santillán and the Anarchist Revolution
1. Quoted in Bookchin, Spanish Anarchists, 257.

2. In mid-1935, Ricardo Mestre met at Soli’s offices with Abad de Santillán, Pedro Her-
rera, Juanel, and García Oliver. García Oliver proposed a plan to take over the govern-
ment and declare libertarian communism. Mestre “awaited an immediate response from
Santillán to that astounding proposition, so opposed to libertarian ideas. I thought he
was the most knowledgeable and experienced one to reply to García Oliver and reject
his proposal.” When Abad de Santillán did not give an immediate reply, Mestre said that
García Oliver sounded like a communist. At that point Abad de Santillán “spoke up, bril-
liantly crushing the proposition with irrefutable arguments” (Ricardo Mestre to Jacinto
Torhyo, July 29, 1975, Diego Abad de Santillán Archives, File 11).
3. Alexander, Anarchists, 1:87.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid.
7. Frank Mintz, a French academic and student of the Spanish anarchist movement,
suggests that Abad de Santillán’s shift from “pure” anarchism in the 1920s in Argentina to
216
Notes to Chapter 7
anarcho-syndicalism in the 1930s in Spain resulted from his inability to motivate disparate
groups to oppose the military dictatorship after September 6, 1930 (“Pensamiento”).
8. Diego Abad de Santillán to Juan López, March 20, 1968, Abad de Santillán Archives,
Addendum, Folio B.
9. See Bolloten, Grand Camouflage; Alexander, Anarchists; Brenan, Spanish Labyrinth;
Thomas, Spanish Civil War; Bookchin, Spanish Anarchists.
12. Abad de Santillán, Organismo económico, 180–81.
13. Quoted in Salas Viu, Primeras jornadas, 49.
14. Quoted in H. Edward Knoblaugh, Correspondent in Spain, 149–50.
15. Ibid., 17.
17. Jackson, Spanish Republic, is an excellent liberal account of the period and favors
the socialists and Republicans over the scheming communists and idealistic anarchists.
See also Payne, Spanish Revolution. James Joll says, “The inconvenience and inefficiency
of an economy run by independent committees became increasingly apparent” (Anar-
chists, 259).
18. For an anarchist perspective, see Abad de Santillán, Por qué perdimos. George Orwell
fought for a communist splinter group, the Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista; see
Orwell, Homage. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, offers criticism of the revolution.
19. Seidman, “Individualisms.”
20. Kaplan, “Spanish Anarchism.”
21. Quoted in Peirats, C.N.T., 1:125–33.
22. Seidman, Republic of Egos.
23. De julio a julio: Un año de lucha (Barcelona: Editorial Tierra y Libertad, 1937), quoted
in Peirats, C.N.T., 1:159.
24. Ibid.
25. Ibid.
26. Rabasseire, España, 136–37.
27. Abad de Santillán, interview by author. I asked Abad de Santillán how he could
have collaborated with a government. He replied that at the time, he felt that a revolution
imposed by force would not be a libertarian one. A true revolution emanated from the
people. In July 1936, the exigencies of war overwhelmed everything else.
29. Bolloten, Grand Camouflage, 48–49.
30. Abad de Santillán, Organismo económico, provides a detailed account of the Congress
of Saragossa, where the revolutionary economy had been devised.
31. Grunfeld, interview by author.
32. Laval, Colectividades, 2:37.
33. Ibid., 37.
217
34. Ibid., 58–59.
35. Peirats, C.N.T., 1:319–20.
36. Spanish Revolution, September 5, 1936.
38. Rabasseire, España, 157.
40. Ibid., appendix.
41. Ibid., 44.
Chapter 8. Argentine and Spanish Anarchists
1. Penelas, Gallegos anarquistas, 74.

2. Quoted in Bolloten, Spanish Civil War, 210. Villar explained anarchists’ participation
as a means of defending the revolution (324).
3. See Penelas, Gallegos anarquistas.
4. Grunfeld, interview by author.
6. For a defense of FORA, see López, FORA, 77–78. For comments on these differ-
ences, see Solomonoff, Ideologías, 194.
8. See Pérez, “Anarchist Movement.”
9. CRRA to FAI Secretariat, May 8, 1934, Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular
Committee, Archives, Microfilm 154, Packet 20.
10. Document included in Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular Committee, Ar-
chives, Propaganda, November 1937, File 239.
11. José Grunfeld to author, April 27, 1992.
12. Jacobo Prince to secretary of the Peninsular Committee of the FAI (on FACA let-
terhead), October 8, 1937, Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular Committee, Archives,
File 239, indicates that FACA had distributed FAI information in Argentina.
13. Peirats, C.N.T., 3:97.
14. José Grunfeld to author, February 18, 1991.
16. José Grunfeld to author, April 27, 1992.
18. Letter No. 3, Valencia, September 11, 1938, Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular
Committee, Archives, Microfilm 150, Packet 15, No. 6B3.
19. Letter No. 1, August 9, 1938, in ibid.
21. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 387–88 n. 2.
22. For animosity against Grunfeld and other foreigners, see Pablo [?], letter, Novem-
ber 8, 1938, Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular Committee, Archives, Microfilm
150, Packet 15, No. 6B3.
218
Notes to Chapter 8
23. Cimazo, Recuerdos, 42.

24. Cimazo, Revolución, 132.
26. According to Maguid, he met Goldman when she visited Tierra y Libertad’s offices:
“The dialogue began in English, in which I could barely jabber, stringing together poorly
worded sentences. I found the solution when I suggested that we speak in Yiddish, a lan-
guage she understood quite well and one I could manage passably” (ibid., 48).
27. Cimazo, Revolución, 118.
28. Jacobo Maguid to the Peninsular Committee of the FAI, February 1937, Federación
Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular Committee, Archives, Microfilm 213, Packet 48, No. 4A.
29. Diego Abad de Santillán to Alberto Pérez Baró quoted in Alexander, Anarchists,
1:505.
30. Diego Abad de Santillán, resignation letter, October 1, 1936, Federación Anarquista
Ibérica, Peninsular Committee, Archives, Microfilm 207, Packet 46, No. A.
31. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 340–42. Alexander, Anarchists, 1:167–71, has challenged
this long-held view, suggesting that anarchist troops fought well and effectively.
33. La Noche, April 19, 1937, quoted in “The Friends of Durruti Group from Its Incep-
tion up to the May Events,” chapter 5, n. 9, http://www.spunk.org/library/places/spain/
sp001780/chap5.html (accessed August 7, 2003); Bolloten, Spanish Civil War, 640.
34. Quoted in Abad de Santillán, De Alfonso XIII a Franco, 469.
35. Peirats, C.N.T., 2:156.
36. Timón, September 1938.
37. “En voz baja,” Timón, December 1938, reprinted in Suplementos 36 ( January 1993):
85–88.
38. “Estudio polémico,” Timón, September 1938, in Peirats, C.N.T., 3:255–56.
39. Quoted in ibid., 3:243.
40. Ibid., 247.
41. Bolloten, Spanish Civil War, 626.

42. The CNT’s demands as expressed in an article in Solidaridad Obrera, can be found
in Peirats, C.N.T., 3:261.
44. Declaration by the Extraordinary Congress of the AIT, Paris, June 1937, in Peirats,
C.N.T., 2:235.
45. “Confidential Report on the CNT in Spain,” February 1937, International Working-
men’s Association Archives, Folder 19.
47. Federación Anarquista Ibérica, Peninsular Committee, Archives, February 1937,
Microfilm 213, Packet 48, No. A4.
48. See González, “Politics of Betrayal.”
50. Thomas, Spanish Civil War, 633.
219
51. Ibid., 649.
52. Alexander, Anarchists, 1:98–99.
53. “Informe de la Comisión Organizadora Nacional,” José María Lunazzi, letter, July
16, 1938, both in Federación Libertaria Argentina Archives, Buenos Aires.
54. Letter, July 17, 1939, in ibid.
55. “Relación con el patronato español,” August 21, 1939, in ibid.
56. Laureano Riera Díaz to Manuel Martín Fernández, August 3, 1939, in ibid.
57. Laureano Riera Díaz to the French Section of the SIA, August 17, 1939, in ibid.
58. Laureano Riera Díaz to the Secretary of the Local Committee of the SIA in Rosa-
rio, August 15, 1939 (indicating assistance to Marcelino Fernández and Leonor González
with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs); SIA, Comisión de Ayuda a Exiliados Antifascistas
in Argentina to Compañera Matilde, delegate to the SIA in France, August 11, 1939, both
in ibid. (“Family members are looking for Manuel Tur, who has disappeared. . . . Señora
Monserrat Avis de Gelaver is searching for Anita Imbers Gelaver, single woman from
Catalonia, who is a kindergarten teacher.”)
Chapter 9. Exile and Homecoming
1. Quoted in Cate-Arries, Spanish Culture, 146.

2. Ibid., 139.
3. “Diego Abad de Santillán,” 22 (“Los primeros tiempos fueron muy duros; todas las
puertas se me cerraban, por temor a no sé qué. Lo pasé mal”).
4. Cimazo, Recuerdos, 60–61.
6. For a list of those arriving on the Winnipeg and receiving assistance from the SIA,
see appendix A.
7. See Grunfeld, Memorias, 233–34; Peirats, Appendix, 3.
8. The countries in the Americas with the greatest number of Spanish refugees were
Mexico (30,000), the Dominican Republic (5,000), Venezuela (5,000), Chile (3,500),
and Argentina (10,000).
9. Grunfeld, Memorias, 240 (“Mientras tanto, tuve que concurrir al Departamento
Central de Policía (yo lo había conocido años atrás) para verificar cuáles eran mis inten-
ciones militantes”).
10. “El clima político creado por Perón motiva alarma por sus actitudes amenazantes,”
Reconstruir 20 (August 1947).
12. See Grunfeld, Memorias, 279.
13. de la Rosa and de Pelosi, “Vientos de cambio.”
14. Abad de Santillán Archives, File 15, No. 20. The group claimed to have fifty mem-
bers in 1941.
15. Manager at Live Oak Farm to Diego Abad de Santillán, July 1952, Abad de Santillán
Archives, Addendum, Folder 1.
220
Notes to Chapter 9
16. Ethel Duffy Turner to Diego Abad de Santillán, December 31, 1955, Abad de Santil-
lán Archives, Addendum, Folio B.
17. José Grunfeld to author, February 18, 1991.
18. Noted in Maguid, “Diego Abad de Santillán,” 68–70.
20. Juan López to Diego Abad de Santillán, October 21, 1967, Abad de Santillán Ar-
chives, Addendum, Folio B.
21. Carmen Pastor to Diego Abad de Santillán, March 19, 1968, in ibid.
22. Abad de Santillán to J. M. Cajica, November 25, 1975, in ibid. (“Ud comprenderá que
para mí es una obligación moral estar presente en España en esta hora y voy a procurar
que el asunto no se dilate demasiado”).
23. Cappelletti, “Vida e ideario,” 14.
24. “Cualquier oportunidad es buena para hablar de España, y de lo español, y sobre
todo en América, en la América hispánica, que es siempre España y siempre española, a
pesar de los aportes llegados de otros pueblos” (Comunidad Ibérica 29–30 [ July–October
1967], quoted in Antropos 36 [ January 1993]: 161).
25. Bouvard, Revolutionizing Motherhood, 226.
221
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230
Index
Italic page numbers refer to illustrations. Acracia, 31, 44

affinity coalitions and groups, anarchist, 114,
Abad, Gabriel, 45 137–38
Abad de Santillán, Diego, 1, 6, 7, 8, 9, 46, 52, Aguzzi, Aldo, 164
74, 84, 140, 167; AIT Amsterdam Con- Alcalá Zamora, Niceto, 130, 139, 143
ference and, 102–4; attempts to solve Alem, Leandro, 43
conflicts between anarchists, 104–7; Alfonsín, Ricardo, 52
conflict between CNT and FORA and, Alfonso XII, King, 18, 24, 87
97–99; correspondence with other exiles, Alfonso XIII, King, 33, 87, 130, 181
185–86, 187; death of, 188; on divisions Alianza Libertaria Argentina, 91–92
between the labor movement and anar- Alliance for Social Democracy, 114
chists, 48; FAI and, 134–38; on failures Almada, Esteban, 65
of anarchist movement, 92; FORA and, Amadeo of Savoy, King, 22
87–91, 95–96; in Germany, 92, 93, 94–95; Americalee, 185
on government repression, 58–59; mili- Anarchist Organization of the Spanish Re-
tary coup in Argentina and, 120–21; El gion, 33–34
organismo económico de la revolución, 137, anarchists, 1–2; arrests of, 73; conferences,
147, 150; on political participation, 64; re- 47, 64–65, 81, 87–88, 102–4, 116; in Ger-
turn to Argentina, 105–6, 184–88; return many, 92, 95; of industrial cities versus
to Spain in 1932, 136–37; after the Spanish countryside, 29; leadership, 48, 64, 74,
Civil War, 179; Spanish Civil War and, 77–78, 82–84, 115–17; militant, 34–35,
145, 147, 150–51, 169, 171–74, 176, 190–91; 47–49, 64–65, 70, 72, 81, 92, 132–34; po-
transnationalism of, 189–90 lice repression of, 10, 35, 66–67; rural,
Acción Libertaria, 183 79–80, 90–91; social networks, 6; syndi-
Acha, José María, 65, 104, 106, 107 calism and, 9, 10, 55–60, 71–72, 74, 79, 96,
Index
189; transnationalism and, 5–11, 73, 74–75, Bakunin, Mikhail, 2, 15, 16–17, 18, 91, 114, 173;
188–90; women, 2–3, 6, 66, 107–12; World interpretation of anarchism, 46; Kropot-
War I and, 78–79 kin and, 29–30; rift with Marx, 21
anarcho-communists, 96 Bakuninist International Workers’ Associa-
anarcho-syndicalism, 71–72, 143 tion, 28
Angiolillo, Michele, 10, 35 Balbuena, Enrique, 163
Ansens, José, 151 Balius, Jamie, 171
Antifascist Militias Committee, 153–55 Barbarie gobernamental en España, La, 37
Antilli, Teodoro, 82–83 Barbieri, Francesco, 170
Antoñeda, Ramón, 4, 58 Barcelona: bloody days of May, 1937, 168–
Antorcha, La, 120, 122 74; military uprising of 1936 in, 151–55;
Antorcha group, 91–92, 104, 106 worker control in, 155–60
Ares, José Santos, 124, 125 Barrancos, Dora, 108
Argentina: anarchism after 1910, 82–84; Barrera, Apolinario, 82–83, 104–7
communications with Spain about an- Barrett, Rafael, 57–58
archists, 68–69; divisions among anar- Basterra, Felix, 52
chists in, 32–33; economic reasons for Batalla, La, 82
migration to, 38–40, 61–62; growth of Beasley, Francisco, 68–69
anarchist movement in, 42–50; interne- Berenguer, José, 136
cine strife among anarchists in, 104–7; Berkman, Alexander, 82
military coup in, 118–21, 190; in the 1920s, Berneri, Camilo, 97, 168, 170
99–102; Partido Autonomista Nacional Berri, Francisco, 48
(PAN) in, 42–43; under Juan Perón, 179, Bertani, Orsini, 52
180, 184–85, 186, 187; police repression Black Hand, the, 34
in, 10, 89, 122, 124; population growth Blanch, José M., 184
through immigration, 27–28, 39, 61–62, Bolsheviks, 81–82, 89, 95, 97
100; requirements for immigration to, 39;
Spanish Civil War and, 163–68. See also Calvo González, Juan B., 52
government of Argentina Calvo Sotelo, José, 144
Argentine Association of Authors, 63 Camba, Julio, 2, 3, 4, 33–35, 46, 52–54, 80
Argentine Confederation of Workers, 119 Campana, La, 87
Argentine Group in Support of Social Pris- Campora, Héctor, 187
oners, 113 Canadiense, La, 81

Argentine Workers’ Federation, 33 Canalejas, José, 77
Argonauta publishing house, 94 Cané, Miguel, 49
Ascaso, Domingo, 171 Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio, 10, 24, 33
Ascaso, Francisco, 100–101, 142 cantonalist uprisings, 22–23
Ascaso, Joaquín, 132 Caporaletti, Teresa, 66
Asociación Internacional de los Traba- Carbó, Eusebio C., 102, 103, 115, 142
jadores (AIT), 96, 97–99, 102, 173, 174–75, Carlists, 18–19, 22
190; Amsterdam Conference, 102–4 Carpio, Campio, 162–63
Assault Guards, Spain, 133–34, 139, 170 Carreño, Francisco, 171
Ateneo de la Clase Obrera, 23 Carretero, Juan, 68
Athenaeum of the Working Class, 23 Casademont, Juan, 52
Austria, 138 Casanova, Antonio, 162, 164, 182
Avellaneda, Nicolás, 26 Casanova, Julián, 9
Azaña, Manuel, 130–31, 133–34, 143–44, 170, Casas, Juan Gómez, 9
174 Castelar, Emilio, 23
232
Index
Castillo, Ramón, 184 Creaghe, John, 10, 45, 46, 64

Castro, J. Alberto, 64 Crónica de los Trabajadores, La, 31
Catholic Church, 131 Cuadrado, Indalecio, 3, 35, 43, 44
Celman, Juárez, 43 Cuba, 40, 83, 101, 124
Center for Workers’ Propaganda, 28 Cúlmine, 113
Centro Republicano Español, 185 Cúneo, Dardo, 47
Chaco (ship), 127–29 Cupit, Arón, 163
civil war. See Spanish Civil War of 1936
Claramunt, Teresa, 35, 80 D’Angió, Roberto, 58, 82
Cohen, Nat, 127–29 Darío, Rubén, 63
collectivist anarchism, 2, 30, 32–33 Dato, Eduardo, 79
Collectivization Decree of 1936, 159–60, 169, de Alvear, Marcelo T., 99
170, 172 de Arellano y Arrospide, Julio, 69
Comeron, Gonzalo, 127 de Borbón, Juan Carlos, 181
Comisión de Ayuda a Exiliados Antifascis- del Campo, Marcelino, 100
tas, 177, 178 del Castillo, Cánovas, 35
Comité Nacional de la CNT en el Exilio, 185 Deleuze, Gilles, 11
Comité Regional de Relaciones Anarquis- deportations from Argentina, 4–5, 8–10,
tas (CRRA), 163–64, 167 52–55, 68; on the Chaco, 127–29; FORA
Committee of Industrial Coordination, 159 and, 129–30; impact on Spain, 60–62;
communists, 81–82, 87, 93, 146–47, 159; during 1919, 89–90; of prisoners, 126–30;
Spanish Civil War and, 169–70 Spanish anarchism after 1910 and, 77–82;
Compañía General de Tranvías, 156 Spanish Civil War and, 161–64; under
Companys, Lluís, 151–55 Uriburu, 121–22, 123
Concordancia, 140, 163, 182 Descamisado, El, 29
Conesa, Orencio, 177–78 de Sousa, Germinal, 116, 137, 181
Confederación Española de Derechas Diario Español, El, 57
Autónomas (CEDA), 138–40 Di Césare, Pedro, 164
Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), Di Giovanni, Severino, 113
Argentina, 119, 121, 163, 179, 184 Dollfuss, Engelbert, 138
Confederación General del Trabajo (CGT), Durruti, Buenaventura, 100–101, 102, 114,
Mexico, 106 132, 138; death of, 176; Popular Front and,
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo 142; revolution of 1936 and, 151; Second
(CNT), 10, 76–82, 161, 190; after the civil Republic in Spain and, 133–34
war, 180; conflict with FORA, 97–99, 103;
FAI and, 114–16; military uprising in Bar- Eikhenbaum, Vsevolod Mikhailovich, 95
celona and, 151–52; political involvement, emigration cycle, 3
95, 101–2; Popular Front and, 140–44; English Committee to Aid Refugees, 183
Second Republic in Spain and, 131–34; Esteve, Pedro, 3, 35
socialists and, 139; Spanish Civil War Estrada, Salvador, 52
and, 164–66, 169, 171, 173–75
Confederación Obrera Regional Argentina Fabbri, Luigi, 97, 112
(CORA), 57, 77, 87–88 Falcón, Ramón, 66–67, 73, 135
Congreso Obrero de Barcelona, 45 Falconnet, Joaquín A., 108
Constituent Cortes, 19 Fanelli, Giuseppe, 15, 17
Cortada, Roldán, 170 Farga Pellicer, Rafael, 17–18, 21; cantonalist
Cortes, Mariano, 50 uprisings and, 23
Count of Romanones, 81 fascism, 96–97
233
Index
Federación Anarco-Communista Argentina Friend of the People, The, 170

(FACA), 130, 164–65, 179–80, 184–85, 191 Friends of Durruti, 170–71
Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), 10–11,
93, 114–17, 131–34, 161; Spanish Civil War Galán, Francisco, 162
and, 171, 173–74 Galán Lafuente, Ramón, 125
Federación de Sociedades Obreras de la Galea, Evaristo, 68
Región Española, 47, 69 García, Alfonso, 69
Federación Libertaria Argentina, 191 García, Arturo Tomás, 164
Federación Nacional de Agricultores Es- García, Benjamín, 4, 52
pañoles, 79, 81; Spanish Civil War and, García de la Mata, Alfonso, 5, 58
163–64 García López, José Ramón, 40
Federación Obrera, La, 45 García Oliver, Juan, 133, 142, 146, 151–54, 166,
Federación Obrera Argentina (FOA), 3, 174; Spanish Civil War and, 171
46–48, 56, 63–65 García Paniagua, Donato, 84
Federación Obrera Regional Argentina García Viñas, José, 18
(FORA), 10, 30, 33, 37, 56, 64, 67, 77; Garin, Salvador, 68
conflict with CNT, 97–99, 103; deportees Garrido, Leonardo Jesús, 68
and, 129–30; after 1910, 87–91; Spanish General Motors, 124
Civil War and, 163–66 Geracci, Ángel, 163
Federación Regional Española, 8, 20–24, Germany, 92, 93, 94–95, 105, 138, 174
24–25 Ghiraldo, Alberto, 50, 63
Federal Commission of the Workers’ Fed- Gil, Pablo, 68
eration, 31 Gilimón, E. G., 46, 68
federalism, 18–19 Gil Robles, José María, 138–40; Popular
Federation of Anarchist Groups of Catalo- Front and, 141–42, 144
nia, 116 Goded, Manuel, 144, 152
feminism, 108–10 Godwin, William, 15–16
Fernández, Angela, 85 Goldman, Emma, 82, 110, 168, 173
Fernández, Antonio, 68 golondrinas, 7
Fernández, Aurelio, 151 González, Calvo, 52
Fernández, Elena, 125 González, Idelfonso, 8, 137, 140
Fernández, José M., 106, 163 González, Isaac B., 68
Fernández, Orobón, 137 González, Joaquín V., 56

Ferrer, Francisco, 37, 67–68, 71 González Meneses, Antonio, 18
Figuras, Estanislao, 22 González Morago, Tomás, 23
First International, 15, 28. See also Interna- González Pacheco, Rodolfo, 91, 106, 120;
tional Workingmen’s Association conflicts with other anarchists, 104;
Flores Magón, Ricardo, 110, 186 military coup in Argentina and, 120–21;
Fo, Francisco, 44 Spanish Civil War and, 164
Fonteche, José, 68 Gori, Pietro, 33, 42, 46, 47, 189
Forcat, Mariano, 58, 82 government of Argentina, 42–43, 136; deci-
Forestal, La, 90–91 sion to deport immigrant agitators, 48;
Fragua Social, 162 Law of Social Defense, 68, 73; regulation
France, 178, 179; revolution, 15–16; Spanish of immigration by, 2, 33, 39; repression of
refugees in, 180, 181–84 anarchists by, 10, 35, 58–59, 66–67, 72–73;
Franco, Francisco, 2, 144, 152; death of, 187, Residency Law, 2, 33, 49–50, 51–52, 60–62
188; regime, 180–81, 191; Spanish Civil government of Spain, 72–73, 77, 118; bloody
War and, 161, 172, 174–77, 179 days of May, 1937, 168–74; Civil Guard,
234
Index
132–33, 139, 152; military uprising in Bar- Jockey Club, 43

celona in 1936 and, 151–55; in the 1920s, Jover, Gregorio, 101, 171
99–102; Radical Party and, 19, 43, 64–65, Justicia, 184
89, 99, 119. See also Spanish Civil War of Justicia Humana, La, 31
1936
Goyoso, Florindo, 124, 125 Kater, Elisa, 95, 104, 105, 108–9, 188
Graphic Arts Union, 137 Kater, Fritz, 95
Grau, H., 5, 78 Kléber, Emilio, 167
Grunfeld, José, 125–26, 130, 186; after the Kropotkin, Peter, 2, 29–30, 82, 86, 93; inter-
Spanish Civil War, 182, 183–84; Spanish pretation of anarchism, 46; World War
Civil War and, 163–67 I and, 79
Guattari, Félix, 11
Guerra Social, 78 labor movement in Argentina, and anar-
Guerrero, León, 92, 106 chists, 62–69; articles about, 44, 48; con-
Gustavo, Soledad, 35 flict with anarchism, 23–24, 43, 45–46;
Gutiérrez, Federico, 64 control in Barcelona, 1936, 155–60; FAI
and, 137–38; housing costs and, 58–59,
Hacha, J. M., 99 66; May Day rallies, 66, 68, 90, 132; mili-
Haymarket affair, 1886, 29 tancy, 47–49, 64–65; Residency Law and,
Herrera, Pedro, 137, 142, 171–72, 181, 183 49–50; revolution of 1936 and, 145–46;
Herreros, Tomás, 71, 142 rural workers and, 79–80; during the
Hitler, Adolf, 138, 174 Second Republic in Spain, 130–34; single
housing, 58–59, 66 union concept, 81; in Spain and anar-
Hucha, Joaquín, 5, 65, 68, 78 chists, 69–73, 78–82; Spanish Civil War
and, 163–64; strikes, 67–68, 70, 79, 81,
Ideas y Figuras, 63 89–91; syndicalism and, 56–57
Illia, Arturo, 186 Lafargue, Paul, 21
immigration from Spain to Argentina, 1–11, Lago, Manuel, 4, 52
24, 24–25, 26–29, 100, 118–19, 188–89; de- Laina, Adolfo, 164
portations to Spain, 52–55, 60–62, 74–76, Largo Caballero, Francisco, 130–31, 144, 172
121–22, 123, 125–30; economic reasons Law of Social Defense, 68, 73
for, 38–40, 61–62; regulation of, 2, 33, 39; Lawton, Peter, 81
Residency Law and, 2, 33, 49–50, 60–62, Lazarte, Juan, 135

64, 89–90 leadership, anarchist, 48, 64, 82, 115–17; after
individualist anarchism, 2, 30, 43–44 1910, 77–78, 82–84
industrialization, 69–70 League against Rents and Taxes, 58
Inglán y Lafarga, Gregorio, 3, 35, 37, 43, 50, legal requirements for migration to Argen-
52, 189; labor movement strikes and, tina, 2, 33, 39
46–47; Residency Law and, 52 Leotar, Elisa, 66
Institute of Agrarian Reform, 132 Lerroux, Alejandro, 70, 130–31, 138
International Alliance of Socialist Democ- Leval, Gastón, 165–66
racy, 17, 21; cantonalists and, 23 Ley de Defensa Social, 68
International Brotherhood, 16–17, 18 libertarians, 96, 110, 164
International Workingmen’s Association, Libertarian Youth, 173
5–6, 8, 17, 93, 96. See also First Interna- Llano de la Encomienda, Francisco, 152
tional Llumanera, La, 21
Isabella II, Queen, 18–19, 24, 87 López, Alfredo C., 50
Italy, 96–97, 119, 129, 174 López, Antonio, 91
235
Index
López, Francisco, 68 Molina, Juan Manuel, 142

López, José, 68 Monachessi, Guido, 5, 58
López, Juan, 166, 187 monarchy, Spanish, 18–19, 24, 33, 87
López Arango, Emilio, 8, 74, 82, 83–84, Montagnoli, Santos, 65
91–92, 94; AIT and, 97, 102–3; conflict Montero, José María, 3, 8, 83, 124–25, 162; in
between FORA and CNT and, 97–99; France, 182
conflict with Apolinario Barrera, 104–7; Montesano, Arturo, 52
death of, 113–14 Montjuich Affair, 35
López Margarida, José, 52 Montseny, Federica, 3, 110, 132, 142, 174;
Lorda, Bartolomé, 130, 163 Spanish Civil War and, 171
Loredo, Antonio, 1, 5, 9, 64, 65, 68; return to Morales, Francisco, 28, 45
Spain, 77–78; World War I and, 79 Morán, Juan Antonio, 120
Lorenzo, Anselmo, 3, 17, 35, 36, 37, 46, 71, 72; Morocco, 151–52
death of, 78–79 Morral, Matteo, 71
Lourido, Manuel, 5, 58 Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, 191
Lupano, Teodoro, 52 Movimiento Popular de Resistencia, 185
Mussolini, Benito, 96–97, 119, 129, 174
Maguid, Jacobo, 8, 136; Franco regime and,
181, 182–83; Spanish Civil War and, 163– Nación, La, 63
65, 167–68, 172, 173 Nahuel, Nita, 164
Mainini, Santiago, 184 Narvaez, Manuel, 69
Malatesta, Errico, 29, 33, 42, 97, 173, 189 National Federation of Anarchist Groups,
Manifesto of the Thirty, 131, 140 114–15
Mano Negra, La, 34 Nationalist Bloc, 144
Manresa Herrero, A., 68 National Republic Guard, 170
María Christina, regent, 15 Navarro, Antonio, 4, 52
marriage, 108–9, 112 Negrín, Juan, 166–67, 174
Martín, Antonio, 170 Neruda, Pablo, 184
Martínez, Enrique, 119 Nervio group, 121–22, 137, 142, 143, 174
Martínez, Félix, 171 Nettlau, Max, 28, 104–5, 106, 108
Martínez Campos, Arsenio, 23–24, 34 Nicolau, Luis, 113
Marx, Karl, 15, 17, 18; rift with Bakunin, 21 Nido, Enrique, 8, 103, 106
Mateo Sagasta, Práxedes, 22 Nin, Andrés, 82

Matheu, Pedro, 113 Noche, La, 171
Mattei, Ettore, 10, 42, 45, 47 nomadology, 11
Maturana, José de, 65 Nosotros, 133, 138
Maurín, Joaquín, 82 Nuestra Tribuna, 110–11, 112
May Day rallies, 66, 68, 90, 132, 170–71
Mazzini, Giuseppe, 63 Obrero Panadero, El, 45, 63, 83
Mella, Ricardo, 3, 18, 37, 46, 72, 94; World Oliva Moncusí, Juan, 24
War I and, 78–79; writing of, 48 Oprimido, El, 45, 64
Mexico, 180, 181, 185–86, 188 Organización Anarquista de la Región Es-
Miguens, Manuel, 69 pañola, 33–34
militant anarchists, 34–35, 47–49, 64–65, 70, Ovidi, Rómulo, 52
72, 81, 92, 132–34
Miró, Fidel, 8, 137 Pacto de Unión y Solidaridad de la Región
Mitre, Bartolomé, 26, 42–43 Española, 33–34
Modern School, 71, 80 Pact of Saragossa, 79
236
Index
Palau, Ramón, 52, 54 Prat, José, 3, 5, 35, 37, 41, 43–44, 46, 72, 189;
Pallas, Paulino, 34 death of, 133; opposition to syndicalism,
Pampa Libre, 113, 164 55, 57; on Propaganda of the Deed, 69;
Pañeda, José, 4–5, 58 World War I and, 78–79
Partido Autonomista Nacional (PAN), Prieto, Horacio, 173–74
42–43 Prieto, Indalecio, 130, 144
Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, Prim, Juan, 19
169–70 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 144, 187
Partido Socialista Unificado de Cataluña, Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 10, 80, 93, 101–2,
170 118, 130, 135
Pastor, Carmen, 187 Prince, Jacob, 113, 164–65, 168
Patcher, Henry, 158 prisoners, in Argentina, 83, 84, 88, 122, 165,
Patriotic League, 89 198–200; deportation of, 126–30; World
Patroni, Adrián, 47 War II and, 184
Pavía, Manuel, 23 prisoners, Spanish, 180
Peiró, Juan, 115–17, 131, 174 Productor, El, 31, 43, 44
Pellicer, José Luis, 17 Propaganda of the Deed, 33–35, 45, 69
Pellicer, Rafael Farga, 17 Protesta, La, 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 33, 45, 52, 53, 58, 63,
Pellicer Paraire, Antonio, 6, 17, 21, 33, 41, 189; 99, 102, 122, 133, 167, 189, 190; on Argen-
in Cuba, 83; departure for Argentina, 32, tina’s immigrants, 28; on deportations,
35–36; disconnection from the anarchist 61; on Severino Di Giovanni, 113; FORA
movement, 51–52; on the labor move- V and, 90–91; importance to anarchist
ment, 44; on Alejandro Lerroux, 70; movement, 46, 64; internecine strife
opposition to individualists, 44; Span- among anarchists and, 104–7, 117; on the
ish anarchist movement and, 28, 30–31; labor movement, 44, 48; leadership, 82,
Spanish Regional Federation and, 21–22; 91–92; listing of prisoners, 198–200; liter-
syndicalism and, 55–56; Typographers’ ary supplement, 107; Antonio Loredo
Section and, 29; writing of, 30–31, 36–37, and, 77; on marriage, 112; publication
42, 43 cessation, 50; Radical Party and, 65; re-
Penina, Joaquín, 122, 124 opened in 1911, 82–83; reopened in 1932,
Pérez, José, 5, 58 136; Spanish Civil War and, 164
Pérez Pérez, Campio, 162–63 Protesta Humana, La (1916), 52
Perón, Juan D., 179, 180, 184–85, 186, 187 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph, 16, 18
Perón, María Estela (Isabel), 187–88 publications, anarchist, 28–29, 31, 33, 37,
Perseguido, El, 43, 45 42, 46, 68, 82–84, 121–22, 167–68; after
Pestaña, Ángel, 8, 82, 101, 103; CNT and, 1910, 86–87; in the 1930s, 136; Residency
79, 115–17; opposition to, 93; Syndicalist Law effect on, 50, 64; in Spain, 1, 55, 61,
Party and, 141; Treintistas and, 131 62, 71–72, 77–78; Spanish Civil War and,
Piacenza, Anita, 164 164–65, 172–73; women’s, 107–8. See also
Pico, Octavio, 126 La Protesta Humana
Piette, Emilio, 10, 45 Puente, Isaac, 147, 150, 151
Pi y Margall, Francisco, 18, 19, 22, 23
Po, Fernando, 3 Questione Sociale, La, 42
police repression, 10, 35, 58–59, 66–67, 70, Quintana, Manuel, 65
124; arrests of editors and, 137; Second Quiroule, Pierre, 108
Republic in Spain and, 132–33; Tragic
Week and, 67, 72, 73, 77, 89, 100 Rabassa, Zacarias, 28, 45
Popular Front, 140–44, 165, 174 Radical Party, 43, 64–65, 89, 99, 119
237
Index
Radical Republican Party, 70, 130–31, 138 Ros, Francisco, 35, 43, 47, 52
Radowitzky, Simón, 68, 83–84, 88 Rosado, Antonio, 3, 7, 80
railroads, 26–27, 79, 155, 156–57 Roscigna, Miguel Ángel, 113
Rebelde, El, 52, 54, 80 Rouco Buela, Juana, 2–3, 6, 66, 109–11
Reconstruir, 185 Ruiz, Pablo, 171
Red International, 98 Ruiz Zorrilla, Manuel, 22
refugees: end of the Spanish Civil War and, rural anarchists, 79–80, 90–91
177–78, 179, 181–84; aboard the Winnipeg, Russell, Penny, 2
193–97 Russian Revolution of 1917, 81–82, 87
regional economic councils, 150–51
Reguera, José, 52 Saavedra, Abelard, 80
Reguera, Manuel, 52 Sacco, Nicola, 165
regulation of immigration to Argentina, 2, Sáenz Escerton, Eduard, 39
33, 39 Sáenz Peña, Roque, 78
Renard, Abel, 126–27 Sak, Benito, 125
Republican Army, Spain, 174–77 Salmerón, Nicolás, 23
Residency Law, 2, 33, 64; impact on anar- Saltarelli, Natalio, 163
chism, 49–50, 51–52; impact on Spain, salt-water curtain, 4
60–62; after World War I, 89–90 Salvador, Santiago, 35
Revista International Anarquista, 115 Sánchez, Bernardo, 43
Revista Social, 31 Sánchez, Florencio, 50
Revolución Social, La, 46 San José, Victoriano, 10, 43, 45
Revolutionaire, Le, 29 Sanjurjo, José, 132
Revolutionary Central Committee, 156 Santolaria, Emilio V., 6, 75
Revolutionary Committee, 138 Saragoicochea, Domingo, 69, 97
revolution of 1868, 19 Schapiro, A., 174
revolution of 1936. See Spanish Civil War Second Republic in Spain, 130–34
of 1936 Seguí, Salvador, 79, 93, 100–101, 103, 114
Rey, Feliciano, 28, 45 Semper, Ricardo, 138
Rey, Lou, 106 Sentiñon, Gaspar, 18
Rey, Luis Jorge, 98 Serantoni, Fortunato, 42
Reyes, E., 9 Serrano, Francisco, 19, 22
Reyes, María, 66 Six Fingers, 133

Riegos y Fuerza del Ebro, 81 Socialista, Il, 29
Riera Díaz, Laureano, 163, 164, 177 Socialist Party/socialists, 48, 89, 99, 101, 159;
Ríos, Miguel, 4, 52 coalitions with other groups, 141; Popu-
Ripoll, Baldomero, 69 lar Front and, 141–44; Second Republic
Ristori, Orestes, 52 in Spain and, 130–31; Spanish Civil War
Robespierre, Maximilien, 16 and, 170; Two Black Years and, 138–39
Roca, Julio, 49 social networks of anarchists, 6
Roca, Rafael, 3, 32, 43 Sociedad de Albañiles, 78
Rocker, Rudolf, 95, 104, 110 Society of Jesus, 131
Rodríguez, David, 162 Sol, El, 50, 63
Rodríguez, Manuel, 69 Soldevilla y Romero, Juan, 101
Rodríguez Salas, Eusebio, 170 Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista
Rodríguez Sánchez, Jéronimo, 162 (SIA), 177–78, 183
Romanones, Count of, 81 Solidaridad Obrera, 1, 55, 122, 131, 162, 168;
Romero Maura, J., 35, 55, 70 anarcho-syndicalism and, 71–72; arrests
238
Index
over publishing of, 137; on the CORA, syndicalism, 9, 10, 55–60, 71–72, 74, 96, 189;
77; reporting on Argentina, 61, 62; after housing and, 58–59; in Spain after 1910,
World War II, 182 79; Unión Sindical Argentina (USA)
Solidaridad Proletaria, 103, 115 and, 91–92, 96, 97, 103–4
Solidarios, Los, 100–101 Syndicalist Party, 141
Soriano, Trinidad, 18
Soviet Union, 93, 95, 98, 170, 176 Tarrida del Mármol, Fernando, 10
Spain: anarchism under the Second Repub- terrorism, 16, 34, 71
lic in, 130–34; anarchist movement, 1870s textile mills, 69–70, 132
and 1880s, 29–31; anarchist movement af- Tierra del Fuego prison, 83, 84, 88, 125
ter 1910, 10, 76–82; anarchist publications Tierra y Libertad, 10, 31–32, 35, 43, 52, 61,
in, 1, 55, 61, 62, 71–72, 77–78; creation of 136; Abad de Santillán and, 137; Antonio
FAI in, 114–17; diplomatic relations treaty Loredo and, 77–78; Spanish anarchist
with Argentina in 1864, 27; economic movement and, 67, 71, 77; Spanish Civil
stagnation in, 38–40; federalism in, War and, 167, 168, 172; on the Treintis-
18–19; government repression in, 72–73, tas, 131
77; growth of anarchism in, 15–18; impact Timón: Síntesis de Orientación Político-Social,
of deportations on, 60–62; International- 172, 173, 182
ists, 19–20; in the late nineteenth century, Tolstoy, Leo, 58
18–20; migrants to Argentina from, 1–11, Toranzo, Severo, 119
24–29, 35–41; monarchy, 18–19, 24, 33, Torcelli, Alfredo J., 48
87; in the 1920s, 99–102; persecutions of Torrente, Mariano, 104
Catalan adherents in, 43–44; police re- Torres Escartín, Rafael, 100
pression in, 70; regional anarchist organi- Tragic Week, Argentina, 89, 100
zations, 33–34; rural anarchists in, 79–80; Tragic Week, Barcelona, 67, 72, 73, 77
World War I and, 78–79; during World transnationalism, 5–11, 73, 74–75; national
War II, 180–84. See also government of identity and, 188–90; nomadology and, 11
Spain; Spanish Civil War of 1936 treaties, 27
Spanish-American War, 39 Treintistas, 131, 147
Spanish Civil War of 1936, 144–47, 161, 190– Troitiño, Adrián, 4, 47, 52
91; anarchist factions and, 147–51; bloody Troncoso, José, 68
days of May, 1937, 168–74; devastation trust networks, 6
of, 179; FACA and Argentine support Turner, Ethel Duffy, 186
for anarchists during, 163–68; interna- Two Black Years, 1933–35, 138–40
tional support for anarchists and, 174–77; Typographers’ Section, 29
military uprising in Barcelona in 1936,
151–55; participation by Spaniards return- União Geral do Trabalho, 173–74
ing from Argentina, 161–64; refugees and Unión Cívica Radical. See Radical Party
the end of, 177–78, 179; Spain after the, Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), 48,
179–80; worker control in Barcelona and, 56–57, 79, 141, 142, 191; worker control in
155–60. See also government of Spain; Barcelona and, 156
Spain Unión Gremial, La, 45
Spanish Falange, 144 Unión Obrera, La, 45
Spanish Regional Federation, 8, 20–24, unions. See labor movement
24–25 Unión Sindical Argentina (USA), 91–92, 96,
Stalinists, 169–70 97, 103–4, 119
Stern, Lazar, 167 Urales, Federico, 35, 142
Suberviela, Gregorio, 100 Uriburu, José Félix, 118–20, 136, 162, 173, 190;
239
Index
arrests of anarchists, 122, 124; deporta- Voz de la Mujer, La, 107–8

tions under, 121–22, 123; military coup Voz del Obrero, La, 28
and, 118–21 Vuotto, Pascual, 184
Valenzuela, Alcides, 50 War of Attrition, 176–77

Vanzetti, Bartolomeo, 165 Wilckens, Kurt, 92, 111
Varela, Héctor, 91, 111, 112 Winnipeg, 193–97
Varela, Sergio, 106 Witkop-Rocker, Milly, 109
Vásquez, Mariano, 174 women anarchists, 2–3, 6, 66, 107–12
Vega Fernández, Jesús, 78 worker control in Barcelona, 156, 158–59
Vera de Bidasoa incident, 102, 115 Workers’ Federation of the Argentine Re-
Verde, Adolfo, 167 gion, 45
Villa Devoto jail, 126–27, 129–30, 165 Workers’ Federation of the Spanish Region,
Villamor, Juan José, 178 28, 30, 31, 45, 66
Villar, Manuel, 1, 5, 9, 118, 122, 135–36, 140; World War I, 78–79
arrests of, 137; Franco regime and, 180; World War II, 179, 180, 181–84
insurrection in Asturias and, 139; Popular
Front victory and, 140–43; Spanish Civil Yrigoyen, Hipólito, 65, 89, 91, 99, 118, 119
War and, 162, 166; Treintistas and, 131
violence by anarchists, 34–35, 47–49, 70, 72, Zamboni, Antonio, 10
81, 92; Radical Party and, 64–65; during Zamorano, Alberto, 68
the Second Republic, 132–34 Zola, Emilio, 87
240
is a professor of history at Northern
Ja m e s A . B a e r
Virginia Community College and Senior Research Fellow
at the Council on Hemispheric Affairs in Washington, D.C.
The University of Illinois Press
is a founding member of the
Association of American University Presses.
Composed in 10.75/13 Arno Pro

with Clarendon display
by Jim Proefrock
at the University of Illinois Press
Manufactured by Sheridan Books, Inc.
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Anarchist

University of Illinois Press

© 2015 by the Board of Trustees

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015931457

C h a p t e r 1. Origins of the Spanish Anarchist Movement

A p p e n di x B . La Protesta: Prisoners in or Deported from

6. Conventillo patio at Piedras 1268, early

T h i s st u dy b e ga n when I immigrated to Argentina in the

tonino assisted with interviews of individuals and obtaining research materials

Abad de Santillán, Diego (1897–1983): Born in Spain and arrived in Argentina

Camba, Julio (1882–1962): Born in Spain. Arrived in Argentina in 1898. De-

Inglán y Lafarga, Gregorio (1876–1929): Born in Spain. Immigrated to Ar-

AIT Asociación Internacional de los Trabajadores; anarcho-

CORA Confederación Obrera Regional Argentina; Argentine

SIA Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista; international agency

A n t o n i o L o r e d o , Diego Abad de Santillán, and Manuel

movements that have preceded, transcended or exceeded national boundaries.”1

from Spain; she developed into a passionate supporter of anarchists. At age

Blanca Sánchez-Alonso focuses specifically on the significance of Spanish

in Montevideo. When he was deported to Cadiz, Uruguayan workers helped

he and his fellow deportees received an enthusiastic reception in Barcelona.

When political conditions in Spain changed, some migrants returned, others

transnationalism from an international relations perspective. He recounts his

pression in both countries, and Spain’s execution of educator Francisco Fer-

Ángel Pestaña as an anarcho-syndicalist ignores the events within the anarchist

Argentina with tales of police repression and unemployment. In 1910, Antonio

Connections across continents enabled these activists to influence events on

Ibérica (FAI), a coalition of affinity groups that proposed strengthening the

Organization of the Book

Yrigoyen in Argentina presented opportunities for anarchists but the dictator-

migration studies as well as Spanish and Argentine history. Population move-

Origins of the Spanish

N i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u ry S pa i n experienced sporadic out-

Growth of Anarchism in Spain

Several currents of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century thought merged in

he created the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy but agreed to

Spain in the Late Nineteenth Century

Several strains of federalism emerged from the individualism in Andalusia, the

country with the theoretical background for republican ideas on federalism. Pi

themselves from this government. The Internationalists represented a mixture

Creation of the Spanish Regional Federation

to allow individuals to choose whether to participate. However, according to

was emigration. Spanish workers might find excitement as well as economic

Pellicer Paraire’s experience as an immigrant brought out four aspects of

Most supporters of these cantonalist uprisings were regionalist factions that

Arsenio Martínez Campos led to the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy

Tab l e 1. Spanish Immigration to Argentina, 1871–1914

Year Total Immigration Spanish Immigration Percentage

1903 112,671 21,917 19.5

Immigration from Spain to Argentina

Steam-powered transportation dramatically changed the way people trav-

sprung from the happenstance of immigration. According to anarchist histo-

Le Revolutionaire (1875) and El Descamisado (1879). Italian anarchist Errico

Anarchist Movement in Spain

In 1875, Pellicer Paraire returned to Barcelona to a nearly moribund anarchist

overthrowing existing society and improving workers’ lives. These divisions

Federal Commission of the Workers’ Federation, and he edited the Barcelona

national organization disintegrated. Only sixteen delegates came to the third

W h e n A n t o n io P e l l ic e r Pa r a i r e left Spain for Argen-

the dynamics of internecine conflict came to Argentina with the immigrants,

sion complicated anarchists’ efforts to oppose organizing by rival Argentine

“Propaganda of the Deed” in Spain and Repression

gaining the sympathy of many Barcelona intellectuals. “The desire to shake by

Spanish Immigration to Argentina