Today in Labor History November 20, 1936: Buenaventura Durruti, Spanish anarchist militant, was shot dead during the Battle of Madrid. His body was buried in Barcelona, in a ceremony attended by over 200,000 people. Durruti was a member of the anarchosyndicalist CNT labor union and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). In 1920, along with several Basque anarchists, he formed the paramilitary group Los Justicieros, who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the king. After this, he went to Barcelona, to help organize workers with the CNT. There he formed one of Spain’s most famous affinity groups, Los Solidarios. In 1923, the group was implicated in the assassination of Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romero, as a reprisal for the killing of an anarcho-syndicalist union activist Salvador Seguí. After this, Durruti went in hiding in South America, where he robbed banks to raise money for the cause. He returned to Spain in the 1930s, where he formed the Durruti Column, which won numerous battles during the Civil War.
Add comment