People of the Revolution and the USSR

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) Anarchists 1896–1936 ✕ Killed in action

The anarchist metalworker who broke the rising in Barcelona and led the column that carried his name

Reported from an interview with the Canadian journalist Pierre van Paassen in Barcelona in 1936: “We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth. The bourgeoisie may blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world, here, in our hearts.” The words are famous, though the exact wording of the interview is disputed.

A metalworker born into a railwayman''s family in León. Sacked after the general strike of 1917, he fled to France and became an anarchist, and through Los Solidarios and Los Errantes he passed from bank expropriations and an attempt on the king''s life to prisons across Europe and Latin America. In July 1936 he led the workers who stormed the Atarazanas barracks and broke the military rising in Catalonia, losing his old comrade Francisco Ascaso in the fight. He then raised the six-thousand-strong Durruti Column, took it to the Aragon front and pressed the collectivization of land and factories in the liberated zone. In November he joined the defence of Madrid, was shot at the Casa de Campo front on the 19th and died the next day; whether the bullet came from the enemy, from his own side or from his own malfunctioning weapon is still argued. Hundreds of thousands followed his coffin through Barcelona.

Spanish Republic Anarchists 1897–1975 ○ Died

The anarchist IV Army Corps commander who saved Casado's Madrid coup from Communist counter-attack

'I was aghast at donning a military uniform, but I could see no other option. From here on my conduct will bear witness to my integrity.'

A Madrid bricklayer who led the CNT construction union and was jailed on the eve of the war, he was freed when the rising began and organized a column that crushed the revolt in Guadalajara and Cuenca. Rising to command the 14th Division and then the IV Army Corps, he routed the Italian CTV at the Battle of Guadalajara and became one of the Republic's most prominent anarchist commanders. In March 1939 he backed Casado's coup against the Negrín government's Communist dependence, and when Communist forces were closing in on Madrid, Mera's IV Corps reserves entered the city and crushed the resistance in three days, sealing the path by which the war would end.

Spanish Republic Anarchists 1905–1994

Spanish anarchist who served in the Republican government

In November 1936 she accepted a cabinet post. Her dispute with Emma Goldman over government participation exposed strategic differences among anarchists supporting the same revolution.

Spanish anarchist and writer associated with the CNT. She served as minister of Health and Public Assistance from November 1936 to May 1937. Her participation in the Republican government raised a difficult question for an anti-statist movement: could taking state office defend the revolution without compromising its principles? Her exchanges with Emma Goldman reveal disagreements over the relationship between anti-fascist war and social revolution.