From Defence Cadres to Popular Militias -Agustin Guillamon

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[BCBMB[BCPPLTwww.zaba lazabooks.net

Knowledge is the key to be free!

A short article summarizing the history

and transformation of the CNTs Defence

Committees in Barcelona during the 1930s

from their origins as street ghting units to

their reorganisation as integrated combat/

intelligence formations, to their suppression

by the Republic after the working class defeatof May 1937.


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Bibliography

Marcos Alcn, Recordando el 19 de Julio de 1936. Intuicin de lamilitancia annima,Espoir, July 20, 1975.

AIT, Rapport sur lactivit de la CNT dEspagne (16 dcembre 1932-26 fvrier 1933). A report written by A. Shapiro, with the assistanceof E. Carb. Introduction and notes by Frank Mintz. Fondation PierreBesnard (2005).

Sara Berenguer, Correspondence with A. Guillamn (2009).

Sara Berenguer, Entre el sol y la tormenta, Seuba ediciones, Calella,1988.

Comit Nacional de los Comits de defensa,Ponencia sobre la constitucin

de los Comits de Defensa, October 11, 1934.Chris Ealham,La lucha por Barcelona. Clase, cultura y conicto 1898-

1937, Alianza Editorial, Madrid, 2005.

Franois Godicheau,La Guerre dEspagne. Rpublique et rvolution enCatalogne (1936-1939), Odile Jacob, Paris, 2004.

Grupos anarquistas Indomables, Nervio, Nosotros, Tierra Libre yGermen. Comit Local de Preparacin Revolucionaria, Ponencia,presentada a la Federacin Local de Grupos Anarquista de Barcelona,

January 1935.

Agustn Guillamn, Barricadas en Barcelona, Ediciones EspartacoInternacional, Barcelona, 2007.

Translated from the Spanish original in October 2013.

Spanish original obtained online (in October 2013) at:http://www.lahaine.org/index.php?p=44663

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FromDefence Cadresto

Popular Militias

Augustn Guillamn

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armoured vehicles, an entire arsenal of machine guns and hand grenades.The resistance of Los Escolapios, however, did not yield to the force ofarms, but to the evacuation orders issued by the Regional Committee.

From then on the Defence Committees disguised themselves underthe name of Sections of Co-ordination and Information of the CNT,

and were exclusively devoted to clandestine tasks of intelligence andinformation, as they were prior to July 19; but now (1938) in a decidedlycounterrevolutionary situation.

Augustn Guillamn(Undatedsome time in 2009 or later) The defence cadres were formed shortly after the

proclamation of the Republic, and were a continuation

of the armed defence groups of the years ofpistolerismo.

From Shapiros report to the Presentationof October 1934

A condential report distributed to a limited number of people, writtenby Alexander Shapiro, the secretary of the AIT, during his stay in Spain in1932-1933, outlined the nature and function of the Defence Committees,

organised exclusively for instances of insurrectionary combat, such as theclashes of January 1933, which Shapiro had witnessed rst-hand. Thisreport by Shapiro concerning the Defence Committees was written at thesame time that a full-scale polemic was underway between FAIstas andTreintistas regarding the question of whether or not there was any chanceto implement the tactic of immediate, permanent insurrection at the levelof the localities. Shapiros report, which beneted from the invaluablesupport of Eusebio Carb, described the defence cadres that existed in1933 as follows: These Defence Committees, which have already existedfor some time, were exclusively concerned with preparing the weaponsthat would be necessary in case of insurrection, organising the combatgroups in various popular neighbourhoods, organising the resistance ofthe soldiers in the barracks, etc.

Already during the course of the Asturian insurrection, the NationalCommittee of Defence Committees (CNCD) conrmed, in a conferencepresentation, the failure of the insurrectionary tactic, popularly knownas revolutionary gymnastics, to which it attributed the CNTs lack of

preparedness to intervene, at the national level, in the insurrection of

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From Defence Cadres to Popular Militias -Agustin Guillamon