glimpses of an alternative society

an encounter with the spanish anarchists
(part three)

This is the last of three extracts from Werner Droescher's Towards an Alternative Society dealing with the author's experiences in Spain during the Revolution and Civil War of 1936-9. In the last episode, Droescher was sent to the front, where he had his first real encounter with the anarchists.

One day some of our POUM group visited the Durruti column and were so greatly impressed by its efficient organization and spirit that they decided to join up with it. Thus our group fell to pieces. It had been indeed an incongruous group with the individuals holding divergent ideas about politics, a situation which one often finds in left-left splinter groups. There was a lot of talk about "revolution". Particularly the Hungarians and Italians were obsessed by the word. It must have been the heritage of Bakunin, who had been the apostle of revolution in those countries.

However, in spite of the difference of opinion we got on reasonably well, although sometimes in our mini-meetings the discussions - held in a variety of broken French - became rather heated so that I, as the elected delegate of the group, found it difficult to impede physical confrontation. Our quarters were in the stable and house of an elderly couple, who lived there with their grown-up son. I often wondered what they might have thought when they watched out heated discussions. The food was supplied to us every day, which we cooked on an open fire on the yard. There was a comical incident when we were given a live goose, but none of the bloodthirsty revolutionaries was prepared to kill it. We were in the middle of a lengthy palaver when, without saying a word, the Swiss grabbed the goose and chopped its head off.

My wife G. [Greville Texidor], or rather, "companera", which was the usual name for a life-companion among the Anarchists, had meanwhile enrolled in the militia, and had joined me after tremendous difficulties in finding our location. We became part of one of the Anarchist Centurias in La Zaida after the other members of the original POUM group had departed. The Centuria was called "Aguiluchos de las Corts", "Eagles of las Corts", which consisted mainly of workers, tram drivers and conductors of the tram depot of Las Corts, a suburb of Barcelona, who had formed the two centurias spontaneously when the streetfighting in Barcelona was over. They had set out towards Zaragoza to liberate comrades there.

CONTENTS

neo-liberal globalisation and
the tino rangatiratanga
movement

mayday 2001

water bill payment strike

direct action gets results!

glimpses of an alternative
society (part 3)

pga aotearoa

waterfront dispute continues

wage

They were kind-hearted men and had little preparation or inclination for military life as it was then developing. They were - like most Anarchists - competent urban guerrilla-fighters and had contributed to the victory in Barcelona, but found it difficult to adapt themselves to their present situation and military exigencies. The French comrades of the POUM group, who had all done their military service, had instructed me in some of the basic military skills - how to manipulate a rifle and the heavy Hotchkiss machine gun, which was a standard weapon of the Spanish Army, of which we had a number. The "loyal" Captain Zamora, who was in charge of the artillery battery in the neighbouring village, sometimes came to give us all further instructions. Thus I acquired the rudiments of a military training.

With several centurias from neighbouring villages, we feigned an attack on Quinto, probably to find out whether we could operate as a battalion. We gave cover to an artillery bombardment of Quinto, and got into the middle of the counter-fire. Otherwise we stood guard, constructed defensive trenches. In the evenings we tried to persuade the peasants of the village to form an agricultural collective. We bathed in the Ebro, naked, as the Anarchists were against all sexual prudishness, and they respected the honour of the "companeras", who could likewise bathe naked without being molested.

One day an elderly woman appeared in La Zaida, to whom we were introduced, being the only English-speaking comrades. It was Emma Goldman, the legendary fighter for Anarchism, who took part in the struggle with great enthusiasm although she was then in her sixty-seventh year. We met this dynamic person again in Barcelona and later, after the war, in London, where she endeavoured to rescue as many comrades from the concentration camps in France as she could, and to bring them to England. We were very impressed by her personality, her untiring work for the cause.

As I was experiencing the communal life of the Anarchists, I reached more and more the conclusion that a communal life free from authoritarian direction was possible, even if the group was large. This was corroborated when we were sent to Barcelona to be part of a larger militia unit which was assembled there. It was organised by the brothers Roselli and Italian Anarchists. The brothers Roselli were Italian academics who had fled from Mussolini's Fascist regime, and who were in sympathy with Anarchism. They were later murdered by the Italian Secret Service while travelling in the South of France.