Buenaventura Durruti
14th July, 1896
Britain is a funny old place at the best of times. As colonial mega-empires go, it was right up there with the ‘best’. For 250 years, Britain ruled the waves, and a sizeable chunk of the planet, bringing progress and education to people who hadn’t asked for it. Since then, America has had a brief go (and still thinks it’s running the show) and now it’s China (who is running the show) but before that, it was Rule Britannia all the way, with a little bit of a cheeky interlude from those pesky Frenchies and Spaniards.
When looking back at the British Empire, it’s possible to draw up a ‘positive’ column of all the effects it had, and it’s possible to draw up a ‘negative’ column, too. Whilst trains and roads and big engineery looking things all go in the hypothetical positive column, the fact that these things were being done to people who hadn’t asked that it be done to them automatically also places them in the negative column. Doing things to people who haven’t asked you to do it is almost always a bad thing. No matter how wonderful you might find the outcome, that doesn’t give you the right to progress the living fuck out of people just because you think it will do them some good.
All this tea drinking jackbootery came to an end with World War II, of course, which Britain lost by winning. Victory over Nazi Germany allowed Nazi Germany to press the reset button and spend the next 80 years reforming itself into a progressive and idealistic European supernation, whilst Britain was left licking its Pyrrhic wounds, desperately trying to live off former glories and, like a drunk at a bar, staggering about asking ‘WHO’S NEXT!?’
Defeating fascism became all of Britain’s personality almost instantly and it still hasn’t moved on. Without even a shred of irony, the people in Britain most ‘proud’ of someone else having defeated Hitler decades before they were born, are also the ones who now most closely model the nationalistic jingoism that Hitler fostered. Grown men in football shirts, drunk on Stella Artois and raging with cocaine, invoke the spirit of Winston Churchill to fight back against the tyranny of a European Union that Winston Churchill came up with the idea for.
Growing up in Wales in the 1980s, the evidence of Britain’s fight against fascism was seeped into the landscape around us. In America, where I now live, World War II was something that happened over there and in Britain, although it wasn’t the front line, it was over there and the evidence was, and still is, there to be seen.
Ten minutes from where I grew up, in Middle Earth deep, mirkiest, wild West Wales, was a POW camp for Italians who spent part of their perfect isolation there building a staggering renaissance chapel out of old corned beef tins. It’s still there and you can visit it. It’s wonderous. Dotted around the landscape at strategic transport points are great concrete bunkers called ‘pill boxes’ that were to be manned should the Nazis land and used to slow their progress. Long marches of giant concrete anti-tank traps stride across the uplands. There are countless airstrips where, 80 years ago, fighter crews scrambled to intercept incoming bomber raids, or sorties struck out across the Atlantic to hunt for submarines.
The mossy ghost of Britain’s defense against Hitler still haunts the countryside, and psyche, of Great Britain. One day, hopefully, the country will move on. The archaeological legacy must remain.
In the recent election, Britain resoundingly voted to reject a right-wing party that lurched at times dangerously close to language and symbolic idealism that resembled that of 1930s fascism at its worst. In painting ‘the other’ (immigrants, normally, but Drag Queens if necessary) as a menacing swarm trying to destroy the purity of British society, direct parallels between Tory rhetoric and Goebbels propaganda can be drawn. Whilst Britain has nominally rejected those notions and, regardless of what you think about their politics, some adults seem to be back in charge now, the election also threw up a sizeable vote, if not actual seats in government, for an even more extreme right-wing hate mongering bunch of millionaire former investment bankers, football hooligans, media barons, Russian oligarchs and other self-proclaimed ‘men of the people’.
Which is annoying because Britian has always been at the front of the queue when it comes to fighting fascists. If there is any lasting legacy of the British Empire, it might be that at its very end, what Churchill called their finest hour, it went down swinging at every Nazi fucker it could see, sleeves rolled up, standing on a barricade in Cable Street, London, with its fists bloodied and Sir Oswald Moseley of the Union of Fascists sitting on his arse in a puddle wishing he’d never come outside now.
We’ll do you, Mosely, you bastard. And then we’ll do you, Mussolini, you son of a bitch. And then we’ll do you, Hitler, you prick. And then we’ll do you, Franco….
…oh wait. No we won’t. We won’t do Franco.
For some reason.
My grandparents fought Hitler. Well, ok, they didn’t. Both of my grandfathers were in ‘reserved occupations’ and weren’t allowed to go and fight Hitler. They worked in engineering; designing and building engines for machines that were used to fight Hitler. My parents think they fought Hitler, because they’re Boomers, but all their ‘war effort’ amounted to was eating jam sandwiches for tea until 1952 and then buying records by The Kinks. And all my generation, Generation X (although I didn’t know I was a Gen X until I was about 35) did was be alarmed by David Bowie’s trousers and played Dungeons & Dragons.
But we lived in the shadow of the Cold War, with terrifying TV infomercials telling us what to do when the Soviets dropped nukes on us (hide behind a mattress, apparently) and we lived in a world where all we had ever known was a Berlin divided by a great concrete wall. When it came down, we were staggered.
But, unbelievably looking back on it, I also lived in a world in which a major European country still lived under the regime of one of the 1930s prime fascist tyrants. World War II, for all the ghosts of it around us, seemed like centuries ago to anyone born in the 1970s.
And yet, in Spain, Franco the Fascist had only just died. Spain was to come out of his regime a brilliant country, monarchy and democracy restored, a reborn nation forging its way into a new century. And it still amazes me to this day that I not only lived at a time when Franco the Fascist was still in charge, but that we - and by ‘we’ I mean ‘the world’ - officially at least, took the decision in the 1930s to do nothing about him.
But Buenaventura Durruti did something about him.
Do you like how we got there? I bet you thought this was going nowhere. I don’t just throw this nonsense together, you know!?
Buenaventura Durruti, born on July 14, 1896, in León, Spain, was a prominent anarcho-syndicalist and revolutionary figure. He was the second of eight children in a working-class family. His father, a socialist railway worker, influenced Durruti’s early political views. At 14, Durruti left school to become a mechanic in the railway yard, joining the socialist Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) and participating in the 1917 general strike. The brutal suppression of the strike by the Spanish Army, which resulted in numerous deaths and imprisonments, profoundly impacted Durruti, leading him to flee to France.
In France, Durruti connected with exiled anarchists, which solidified his commitment to anarchism. Returning to Spain in 1920, he became involved with the anarchist paramilitary group Los Justicieros and later Los Solidarios. These groups aimed to combat the oppressive Spanish state and capitalist system through direct action, including bank robberies to fund their activities and support imprisoned comrades.
Durruti’s activities made him a target for the authorities, leading to multiple arrests and periods of exile. Despite this, he remained a dedicated militant, contributing significantly to the anarchist movement in Spain and abroad. In 1931, following the fall of the Spanish monarchy, Durruti moved to Barcelona, where he joined the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) and formed the radical group Nosotros within the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT).
With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Durruti emerged as a key leader in the fight against fascism. He organized and led the Durruti Column, a militia that played a crucial role in the defense of Madrid and other key battles. The Durruti Column, with about 6,000 members, was the largest anarchist military unit formed during the war. It became a symbol of the Spanish anarchist movement and its struggle to create an egalitarian society.
The Durruti Column was instrumental in several key engagements during the Spanish Civil War. One of their first major actions was the defense of Barcelona against the forces of General Goded. Durruti and his comrades successfully repelled the fascist forces, securing the city for the Republic. This victory was a significant morale boost for the anti-fascist forces and established Durruti as a formidable military leader.
Following the defense of Barcelona, the Durruti Column advanced towards Zaragoza, a city controlled by General Emilio Mola. They fought their first battle in Caspe, a city located about 100 kilometers southeast of Zaragoza. Despite facing well-equipped and organized fascist forces, the Durruti Column managed to hold their ground, demonstrating their resilience and determination.
Durruti’s leadership style was characterized by his commitment to egalitarian principles. He believed in leading by example and often fought alongside his men on the front lines. His charisma and dedication inspired many, and he became a symbol of the anarchist struggle against fascism. Durruti’s ability to unite various factions within the anarchist movement was crucial in maintaining the cohesion and effectiveness of the Durruti Column.
In November 1936, Durruti and his column were called to Madrid to help defend the city against a major fascist offensive. The Battle of Madrid was one of the most critical engagements of the Spanish Civil War. Durruti’s presence in Madrid was seen as a significant boost to the city’s defenses. Tragically, on November 19, 1936, Durruti was shot under mysterious circumstances while defending Madrid. He succumbed to his injuries the following day, on November 20, 1936.
Durruti’s death was a significant blow to the anarchist movement and the anti-fascist cause. However, his legacy endured. He is remembered as a hero of the Spanish Revolution, a symbol of resistance against oppression, and a martyr for the anarchist cause. His life and actions continue to inspire those who fight for social justice and equality.