In September, after the liberation of Aragon from Franco’s forces, Durruti was interviewed by Pierre van Paasen of the Toronto Star. In this interview he gives his views on Fascism, government and social revolution despite the fact that his remarks have only been reported in English-and were never actually written down by him in his native Spanish-they are worth repeating here.

“For us”, said Durruti, “it is a matter of crushing Fascism once and for all. Yes; and in spite of the Government”.

“No government in the world fights Fascism to the death. When the bourgeoisie sees power slipping from its grasp, it has recourse to Fascism to maintain itself. The Liberal Government of Spain could have rendered the Fascist elements powerless long ago. Instead it compromised and dallied. Even now at this moment, there are men in this Government who want to go easy on the rebels.”

And here Durruti laughed. “You can never tell, you know, the present Government might yet need these rebellious forces to crush the workers’ movement . . .”

“We know what we want. To us it means nothing that there is a Soviet Union somewhere in the world, for the sake of whose peace and tranquillity the workers of Germany and China were sacrificed to Fascist barbarians by Stalin. We want revolution here in Spain, right now, not maybe after the next European war. We are giving Hitler and Mussolini far more worry with our revolution than the whole Red Army of Russia. We are setting an example to the German and Italian working class on how to deal with Fascism.”

“I do not expect any help for a libertarian revolution from any Government in the world. . . . We expect no help, not even from our own Government, in the last analysis.”

“But”, interjected van Paasen, “You will be sitting on a pile of ruins.”

Durruti answered: “We have always lived in slums and holes in the wall. We will know how to accommodate ourselves for a time. For, you must not forget, we can also build. It is we the workers who built these palaces and cities here in Spain and in America and everywhere. We, the workers, can build others to take their place. And better ones! We are not in the least afraid of ruins. We are going to inherit the earth; there is not the slightest doubt about that. The bourgeoisie might blast and ruin its own world before it leaves the stage of history. We carry a new world here, in our hearts. That world is growing this minute.”

– reposted in its entirety, from Durruti’s interview with Pierre van Paasen

HEY EVERYONE!

THIS BLOG IS A WORK IN PROGRESS so expect changes. the first step was updating the look, so i picked this new theme , twenty fourteen.

i’m interested in feedback about the design and content, and am very keen on having anarchist media contacts in south asia and the pacific islands region. please leave links in the comments below or hit me up on twitter. @NotAfraidOfRuin

give me a few months to iron this sucker out and spiffy it up a bit. i’ve been practising. this may lead to more ambitious projects in the future. hopefully by the end of spring, this blog will be something worthwhile. for now, it is serving as a handy way of keeping up with international events from a left and anarchist perspective, with a heavy emphasis on the struggles of indigenous peoples for cultural autonomy and dignity as people.

my bio from Igniting a Revolution

Rob los Ricos, was born in the Texas Panhandle on the eve of the 1960’s. By the righteous (r)age of twelve, Rob began to work with various revolutionary organizations. He eventually left Pampa for the streets of Dallas, Texas, where he joined CISPES (the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador), worked with ACT UP, and KNON-FM, a people’s  radio station where he served as program director. In the early 90s, as Rob Thaxton began to fade into a memory, Rob los Ricos relocated to Austin, Texas, to engage in anarcho-specific activity such as Food not Bombs and Earth First!. In the late 90s, he lived in Portland, Oregon where he worked with an anarchist info shop.

On June 16, 1999, Rob Los Ricos traveled to Eugene, Oregon to attend an anarchist conference and a Reclaim the Streets festival. Arrested by police during a June 18 Reclaim the Streets demonstration-turned-police riot, Rob was accused of throwing a rock at a cop, and was subsequently beaten by police. He was ultimately charged with rioting, first degree assault, and second degree assault. Used as a Latino, out-of-towner, anarchist scapegoat example of what can happen to those who dare to rebel, Rob was given a nearly 8 year prison sentence.

my bio from this country must change:

rob los ricos is the beer-drinkingest, shopliftingest, controlled-substance-possessingest, riotingest, assaulting-a-cop-with-a-rockingest, rantingest, anarchist writer, wandering the streets and mountains of cascadia, to have come out of ot of the state of texas since albert parsons. believe that!