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Paul Sharkey the Friends of Durruti --- a Chronology Editorial Crisol • Paul Sharkey The Friends of Durruti --- A Chronology J 6 rnl.ulIo flUe cl 1.9 de Julio 10' ttab~illl(.ore. fie, ~lor(eJo"a ..... r~h~l"rf)" contra. el fallcienlo ne:glo. el 9 de rfayo I ... hicleron c:on~ra 148 c:onJura,()ione. c 1;.."lq .... de 109 partido. PC'l"ci\oNblrquele. ",lIad.,. con cl capU all ..no Inlernadonal Editorial Crisol, Tokyo, Japan May 1984, the first impression of the first edition Spain postage only Japan donation needed the rest US $1 or its eqpivalent (including surface mail postage) (air mail postage extra) Preface My hope is that the chronology I'lhich follows may go some of the way towards shedding some light upon the facts about the FoD group. Editorial Crisol, Tokyo, Japan, is a one-man publishing Because the fact is that, although nearly every textbook on the Spanish Revolution feels obliged to mention the group in connection collective whose aims are as follows; , ( ) t ublish Paul Sharkey, The Friends of Durrut1 --- with the May Events of 1937, the scrupulous reader will be confused rather than informed by the wide variety of assertions encountered. a A ~h~Onology, 1984, in English. , Even historians who mieht be expected to be scrupulously dili"ent in (b) to publish the Ja~anese version of HaC1a una nueva their research have penned remarks that can easily be refuted or revolucion, 1985. f h h can't be sustained by evidence. One of the earliest misrepresentations Crisol is composed of only one rnant' and tre~~s~~:e ~f ~~y of the FoD group Came in a pamphlet on the subject of the !.In.y Days t ' cessary fund, translate, ype an which was published by Ediciones Ebro. In reply, the FoD (in El Amigo o~h~~l~rs~~llaneous business so as to attain the above del Pueblo, no.7, 31 August 1937) accused the authors of ' ••• slipshod worlc, poor documentation or an attempt to excuse the I'larped attitude Obj~~;She has been putting Hacia into Japanese: He takfes adopted by the committees concerning our intervention in those days much. encouragernen t from materials, about the Fr1ends 0 of fighting.' 'rhose features are readily dis covered even in more D rruti which are sent to h1m. recent authors. u B the way during the Spani~~ h Revolution, some Jananese The principal allegation against the PoD croup is that, with its wereYinvolved'in the actual battles . Only one pekrsS~nh~s , ized He was Jac 1ral talk of a 'Revolutionary Junta' it was flirting with Bolshevism, Lenin identity has already been rec)gn • 'st who died at the ism, Marxism. Some n.cwe seen presumption in the eetablislunent of (aliaS s~rait' S~~Iayil~r f~~~: Ab~U~o~~~ls e~ next matter. such a Junta. Yet, it was never set up, and a readin/,: of the Fon Brune t e ron, ' .', N York manifesto 'Tol'lards a Fresh Revolution' will show why. The Junta was (a) The Volunteers by Steve Ne 1 son' ,ew , 1953 • 8 to be elected by and accountable to the union rank and file. (b) The Book of the XV Brigade, ~ndrld, ,193 • 'sited [<'unctions were to be rotated and members hip if limited duration. According to a certain Japanese Journalls~"who ~lin Repeatedly authors refer to manifestos C),nnouncing the formi'\tion of S ain those days, several more Japanc ~e pa~t1C1pate But as the Junta. According to the FoD newspaner and to Jaime Balius, it WM', Poth the Republican camps and, the Nat10nallst camps • b never formed. This fact alone makes nonsense of the further cl8im b , th ' ames nor d01ngs h ave een a matter of regx'et, ne1 ther elr n the FoD wanted a Junta to which the FOUM Vlould be admitted. One known down to date., t ' author* has sugeested that ' ••• the Junta ',~nuld aElsuredly have had to If a body has informat10n, documents or tes 1monles comprise the POUM and the "Friends of Durruti"', though he f,oes on to concern~~g the above mentioned Japanese, ple~se sen~dt~:m admit ' ••• though this is not stated; it cannot be otherwise.' A re~din to him. They, even though trivial or uncerta1n, wou of the final, lengthy s:l;atement from the FoD might have explained to him that it could indeed have been otherwise. appreciated invaluably. many tidings in not distant Hopefully, he could get Others.* have perceived in the statements of Jaime Dalius and the future. FoD group the impact of Marxist activists, such as Hans Freud-!·oulin. Publisher Yet one has only to compare the record of such as rablo TIui ,' , J:dme Balius and Francisco Carreno with that of the youthful Moulin, or to contact; ISOYA Takero read the admission by those very same authors that they themselves clo Tokiwa-so needed an interpreter in Spain and that :0 oulin had despaired of the Minami-kase 2516 Bolshevik-Leninists' factionalism, and review Balius's consistent Saiwai-ku outlook from 1936 onwards to realise that such as ~bulin were Kawasaki-shi influenced by the FoD and not vice versa. 211 JAPAN Hh.,'lt of the propriety of anarchists Cill) inl': for a revolutionary Junta? Some of the harshest criticisms hC'.ve come from the leading lights of the CN'r-FAI,and their apologists. Before entering the republican goverment in November 1936, the CN'r .had been callinl;. for a National Defence Council. ~rom May 1937 on the FoD were cnlling for Revolutionary Junta. In their brochure of mid-1938 the FoD described this as ' ••. a Revolutionary Junta or National Defence vouncil.' So 1 \~ho had departed from CN'i' policy? The FoD spoke of seizing power and ** Pavel and Clara Thalmann Combats pour la _L_i berte; ~;os cou­ have been condemned for it. Yet Solidaridad Obrera (13 July 1937) Madrid-Paris, Quimperle, 1983. ' approvingly quotes Camillo Berneri as saying; 'Anarchists accept the use of political-power by the proletariat, but they take that political power to be the ensemble of communist management systems, KU Letter t~ Union (;ommuniste, dated 17 November 1937 (quoted in H. corporative organisms, communal, regional and national institutions, ~hnze, ChrgnlQue de la Revolution Espanole, Ed. Srartacus, Paris freely constituted outside of and against the political monopoly of ,9 79). In esar M. Lorenzo's Los Anarquistas ~spanoles y el rOde~, one pE.rty and vIi th a view to minimal concentration of administration.' Inris, 1972, 1orenzo speaks of Union vommuniste speaking on behalf of Read the FoD brochure and Balius's articles in 1936 - 37 and spot the FoD, the POUM and some elements of the Libertarian Youth and the difference between what he advocated and the words of Berneri. ~alling f?r the formation' of these groUP!! . into a unit for_the Where, the,n, did the FoD err? Not in departing from accepted lab)oratlon 0: th~ progamme of the proletarian revolution.' (p.219 libertarian objectives and practices but in clinging stubbornly to ~.32 ~orenzo lS mlsleading here. He ought to know that Union ' them, in refusing to be seduced by 'circumstances!~ They believed, ,(;O mmunlste ~as ,a small group which had grown out of the Ligue with Evelio G. Fontaura that 'To invoke the CN'r or even the FAI is ~rots~s teoln vrance and was urging this amalgamation rather than not enough, if actions turn out to be equidistant from the por~l ng It, and also that the manifesto he quoted was a handbill revolutionary trajectory which the letters in question stand for' ( distr1~uted at a meeting in the Velodrome d'Hiver, Paris, 18 June Ideas, 14 January 1937). Even in the matter of their expulsion the 'FoD 1937! lts purpose ° beinG to expose and embar o, ss the speakers, Garcia ha'dOccasion to remind the CN'l'-FAl 'leadership' of the accepted norms Oliv1er an~ Feder1ca Montseny, who had 'pacified' the anarchists in of their organisations and that sovereignty resided with the rank and Barcelona 1n May i937. file. Andre Prudhommeaux regarded the FoD's policies as approximate to the views advanced by Bakunin after the battle of Sedan in 1670***. 'rhe chief fault of the Foll. appears to have been their too stead­ fast revolutionism. They refused to yield to the argument of 'circumstance'. They refused to be bullied by their own organisation. 'rhey were not deceived by the Stalin of the Populc>,r Front era, nor by the Moscow trials. Nor were they afraid to acknowledge the revolutionary credentials of Marxists. Yet they sorely resented the description marxist when applied to themselves. In short, they were unlucky enough to have held that anarchism was and had been and still *** *** *** *** *** would be their goal. In El Amigo del Pueblo, no.3 (12 June 1937) Ada Marti paid tribute to a POUM member, Francisco Jorda Montana, who had nroven her revolutionary credentials by her actions. l"ittingly, it The Friends of Durruti --- A Chronology was Ada ~1arti, writing elsewhere who encapsulated what the FoD were so painfully to discover throughout their existence and in their dealings with the CNT's 'circumstancialists'. 'And I tell you thisj there are no friends in high places. Fear of losing their "dignity" makes them strike majestic poses which distance them from remembrance of their friends.' (Esfuerzo, Baroelona, 7 October 1937) Paul Sharkey April 1984 8.9.36. that 'The ~~!!!n~fi~h!o~!~:ri~ad Obrer:,Jaime Baliuq gives his opinion * Helmut Ruediger, El Anarcosindicalismo en la Revolucion B en war mus be borne by the bou ° Espanola, Barcelona 1938, p.32. Elsewhere (p.29) Ruediger attempts ut in addition to moneys seized from the enemy we must imrgeo1S ••• to explain away the emergence of a disaffected libertarian press ~~~pulhasory charge ~n every township.
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