Chapter Two: From the street Living Anarchism José Peirats and the Spanish Anarcho-syndicalist gangs of Barcelona to the Movement anarchist groups (1923–30) Chris Ealham I am a modest writer who emerged from the fired clay of an oven. —José Peirats 2.1 The forging of a revolutionary During the seven years of the dictatorship, Peirats was transformed from a fifteen-year-old child labourer into an enlightened brickmaker, becoming, what was known in working-class circles, ‘un obrero consciente’ (literally, a conscious worker). This conversion, if inexorable, was nonetheless gradual. From age nine onwards, he had assimi- lated the ‘rough’ culture of the brickmakers, so the teenage cenetista was motivated by adolescent male concerns with sex, hedonism, and football. In keeping with patterns of masculine sociability, Peirats was part of a gang of young brickmakers, the leader of which was tattooed – something which, in the 1920s, was not as mainstream as it is today. They frequented the rowdy bars of Collblanc-La Torrassa and Barcelona’s notorious red-light district, the ‘Barrio Chino’ (Chinatown), in search of diversion and nocturnal pleasures.1 1 MI T. 1, L. II, 38–9; for the ‘Barrio Chino’, see Chris Ealham, ‘An 2015 “Imagined Geography”: Ideology, Urban Space and Protest in the Creation 52 long periods in the union office, the nerve centre of the strike. As union resources became stretched, the brickmakers were increasingly fighting a rearguard action. When the union ruled that single males could work in brick- works outside Barcelona, where there was no dispute with em- ployers, José, still just fifteen, was sent with other cenetistas to work in Castellar del Vallès, twenty-five kilometres from home, returning at weekends to divide up his wages between his fam- ily and the union strike fund.113 But by September 1923, af- ter seven months, the strike was collapsing, only to be killed off by the military coup launched by General Miguel Primode Rivera on 13 September. The brickworkers returned to work in defeat, demoralised and embittered; the employers, however, were jubilant. The owners of Barcelona’s brickworks thanked their military saviour for bringing ‘social and political sani- tation’ to their city and to Spain.114 The advent of dictator- ship marked the end of a cycle of protest that had gathered pace during the world war. For José, however, this marked a new beginning, a time of reflection, clandestine activism, and consciousness-raising that equipped him with the ideas and be- liefs that shaped the course of his life. 113 Peirats, Figuras, pp. 68–9. 114 La Vanguardia, 12–14 and 23 September 1923. 51 Barcelona CNT’s Sociedad de Ladrilleros (Brickmakers’ Soci- ety). Its parent union, the Sindicato de la Construcción (Con- struction Union), was the most militant of all the city’s unions, which encadred thousands of migrant workers. This coincided with a union recruitment drive ahead of a planned strike action Contents intended to improve the lot of the brickmakers. Ironically, for all the influence of his milieu and his uncle Nelo and cousin Vicente, José was a reluctant cenetista: he was bluntly ordered Selected List of Acronyms 7 to join the union by his workplace delegate or be declared a ‘scab’, ‘and then you’ll find out what happens!’110 Yet, once Dedication 9 a trade unionist, he immersed himself in CNT activities, regu- Introduction 10 larly attending the union office in Sants after work, wherehe Acknowledgements . 16 met and socialised with other activists and perused newspapers and books in the reading room. Chapter One: A rebel youth 20 Peirats was radicalised by the great brickmakers’ strike of 1.1 La Vall d’Uixó .................... 20 1923. Beginning on 28 February, the union sought to establish 1.2 Barcelona ...................... 25 a stable wage system and suppress piecework, which workers 1.3 Collblanc ...................... 43 viewed as a denigrating and inhumane system based on the payment of a set ‘rate’ for the number of ‘pieces’ produced. Chapter Two: From the street gangs of Barcelona Since employers and subcontractors could manipulate the to the anarchist groups (1923–30) 52 ‘rate’ to suit their circumstances, they found this form of 2.1 The forging of a revolutionary . 52 remuneration extremely beneficial. For the brickmakers, it 2.2. The affinity group . 62 brought insecurity and unexpected fluctuations in their wages when the ‘rate’ was lowered, whereupon they found them- Chapter Three: The Second Republic: The splitin selves working longer and producing more simply to secure the anarchist movement and ‘revolutionary the earlier level of remuneration. The strike was bitterly gymnastics’ (1931–33) 72 contested and dragged on throughout spring into summer. 3.1 The short republican honeymoon . 72 There were frequent violent episodes, including attacks on 3.2 ‘The university of La Torrassa’ . 78 strike-breakers and workshops.111 While too young to play a 3.3 Radicalisation: The ‘man of action’ in the streets 86 role in the ‘combat commandos [that] settled scores with scab 3.4 The cycle of insurrections’: Internal schism and traitors’,112 José was fully involved in the conflict, spending demoralisation . 93 Chapter Four: The revolutionary writer (1934–36) 109 110 MI T. 1, L. II, 33–4. 4.1 Public Enemy Number One . 113 111 La Vanguardia, 3 August 1923. 112 MI T. 1, L. II, 34. 4.2 His ‘golden age’ at Solidaridad Obrera . 118 50 3 4.3 Anti-fascism, the Popular Front, and dissidence . 123 At a neighbourhood level, Collblanc-La Torrassa was in a 4.4 The May 1936 Zaragoza Congress . 128 state of effervescence. If the dreams of immigrant labourers 4.5 The revolutionary: The military coup and revolu- for a better life were destroyed by the nightmarish urban cri- tion from below . 130 sis, the alternative offered by the CNT provided renewed hope. The CNT was arguably the most important structure in thebar- Chapter Five: A revolution consumed by war rio. Building on and refining bonds of kinship, reciprocity, and (1936–39) 136 mutual aid, it forged a community of resistance in the struggle 5.1 The dissident anarchist . 142 to ameliorate the manifold inequalities of everyday life. For 5.2 Censure: The triumph of the CNT-FAI leadership 153 the authorities and men of order, whose grip over this densely- 5.3 The war and defeat . 168 populated area was weak, Collblanc-La Torrassa was a space of fear, ‘the city without law’,107 described by La Voz de Hospi- Chapter Six: Exiled: The anarchist nomad in talet as ‘a focus of civic disease’ and home to ‘the detritus of French concentration camps and the Americas the city’.108 (1939–47) 177 The anarchists, meanwhile, were determined to reshape the 6.1 The Vernet d’Ariège concentration camp . 178 local environment and create a social infrastructure of unions, 6.2 Penury and exile in the Americas . 185 schools, and cooperatives for the ‘new’ proletariat, which, still in formation in the immediate post-war years, would emerge Chapter Seven: Exile in France and the struggle as the decisive revolutionary actor in the 1930s, converting the against anarchist bureaucracy (1947–65) 198 district into what Peirats described as ‘an anarchist fortress’.109 7.1 Chief of the ‘Toulouse school of terrorism’ . 204 This was the setting for José’s first militancy and the neighbour- 7.2 The brickmaker becomes a historian . 212 hood moulded his perspectives. Living among people deprived 7.3 ‘The head of the CNT’ jailed and tortured . 217 of all but the most basic aspects of modern life, he was acutely 7.4 Love and family in exile . 225 conscious of their suffering and developed a faith in their es- 7.5 The fight for culture and the unity of theCNT . 228 sential goodness. It was here that his imagination conceived 7.6 Reunification and division . 237 of a world in which the love of humanity and justice could be- Chapter Eight: The limits of the ‘New anarchism’ come the moral core of a new order. (1965–75) 247 In late 1922, aged fourteen, and having completed his ‘ap- 8.1 The Grupos de Presencia Confederal and the New prenticeship’ as a brickmaker, José became a member of the Left . 250 8.2 The inexorable decline of the CNT in exile . 261 107 José del Castillo and Santiago Álvarez, Barcelona, Objetivo Cubierto, 8.3 A restless pen confronts the deep condescension Barcelona, 1958, p. 32. For an elitist commentary on the district, see Carles Sentís, Viatge en Transmiserià: Crònica viscuda de la primera gran emigració towards the past . 271 a Catalunya, Barcelona, 1994. 108 La Voz de Hospitalet, 16 March 1929, cited in Camós i Cabecerán, L’Hospitalet, p. 120. 109 Peirats, ‘Una experiencia histórica…’, p. 13. 4 49 L’Hospitalet or collected wild vegetables. These trips provided Chapter Nine: The return of the ‘democratic dan- José with his first real experience of repressive policing, as ger’ (1975–89): The rise, splintering, and decline the Guardia Civil (Civil Guard) cavalry pursued ‘the peaceful of the CNT after Franco 286 botanists with their sabres’.104 The intensifying class struggle 9.1 Hope . 286 directly impacted on his life – one of his co-workers was 9.2 Disillusionment . 295 assassinated by Free Unions gunmen and his workplace was 9.3 The return to his roots: La Vall d’Uixó (II) . 318 full of talk of the CNT and of its newspaper, Solidaridad Obrera (commonly known as La Soli). At home, developments Conclusion: An indispensable life 324 were regularly discussed at the dining table, which the family shared with their lodgers: a communist by the name of Bibliography 331 Gonzalo and two relatives, José’s socialist uncle Benjamín Primary Sources .