Anarcho-syndicalist of Los Solidarios who became the Republic's Minister of Justice in the Civil War
Born to a working-class family in Reus, he worked as a waiter and entered the CNT union movement in 1919. In 1922 he formed the direct-action group Los Solidarios with Durruti and others, and after the Republic was proclaimed he called in the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) for immediate revolution and led the insurrections of 1932–33. After the Barcelona street fighting of July 1936 he headed the war department of the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias for the CNT, and in November became Minister of Justice in Largo Caballero's government. During the May Days of 1937 he urged CNT workers to stop fighting. After the war he went into exile in Mexico, where he died.
Activities and affiliations
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1919–1939
Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT)Main
Social movements and organizing -
1936
Spanish Republic state institutionsHead of the war department, Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias
Military command -
1936–1937
Spanish Republic state institutionsMinister of Justice
Law and justice
Career Timeline
- 1901.01.20Born to a working-class family in Reus.
- 1919Joined the waiters' society, then helped form the CNT hospitality union.
- 1922Formed the direct-action group Los Solidarios with Durruti, Ascaso and others.
- 1924–1931Arrested in Manresa; imprisoned in Burgos and Pamplona.
- 1931Joined the FAI and called at the CNT congress for revolution without waiting.
- 1933.01Led the January insurrection and was jailed again.
- 1936.07Headed the war department of the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias for the CNT.
- 1936.11.04–1937.05Minister of Justice in the Largo Caballero government.
- 1937.05Called on the Barcelona CNT to cease fire during the May Days.
- 1939Went into exile in Sweden, Venezuela and finally Mexico.
- 1978Published his memoirs, El eco de los pasos.
- 1980.07.13Died in Guadalajara, Mexico.
An anarchist Minister of Justice, 1936–1937
After the military rising was defeated in Barcelona in July 1936, García Oliver and the Baix Llobregat district proposed at a plenary of local groups on 23 July that libertarian communism be proclaimed, but the meeting rejected it unanimously. Instead of taking power, the CNT entered the Central Committee of Anti-Fascist Militias alongside the Generalitat. García Oliver promoted the committee, organised a column for the Aragon front, and was then called back to Barcelona to head the committee's war department for the CNT.
On 4 November the CNT decided to join Francisco Largo Caballero's war cabinet, and García Oliver, with no legal training or judicial experience, became Minister of Justice: a militant of a movement that rejected the state had become a minister of the state. He organised "People's War Schools" and set up work camps for political detainees, abolished court fees and had criminal records destroyed. After the government moved to Valencia, his ministry signed the decree of 4 February 1937 declaring that "sex does not give rise to any difference in the scope and exercise of civil capacity", the first full civil equality of men and women in Spanish history.
In May 1937, when Republican security forces tried to take over the Barcelona telephone exchange held by the CNT and street fighting broke out between the CNT, FAI and POUM and the government side, he joined other CNT ministers in calling on Barcelona's workers to stop fighting, arguing that unity against fascism and winning the war came first. Some saw him as a traitor to Spanish anarchism for joining the government; others held that such concessions were needed to defeat Franco. He left office when the Largo Caballero government fell after the May Days.