JOAN PEIRÓ BELIS

JOAN PEIRÓ BELIS

     The following brief biography was originally published at the website of the CNT of Puerto Real in Spanish. The original Spanish version can be found there under their 'Biografias' section.

     Joan Peiró, glass worker, anarcho-syndicalist intellectual, and Minister of Industry during the second Spanish republic, was executed by firing squad on July 24, 1942 at Paterna (Huerta Oeste, Valencia). He was born on February 18 in the working class district of Sants in Barcelona. He began work in a Barcelona glass factory at the age of 8 an d didn't learn to read and write until he was 22. He continued to work in the glass sector and along with other compañeros founded the Glass Cooperative of Mataró, a thing he never abandoned.

     In 1907 he married Mercedes Olives, a textile worker, with whom he had three sons (Juan, José, Llibert) and four daughters (Aurora, Aurelia, Guillermina, Merced). As he explained his union militancy began in 1906, and he began to hold positions of responsibility from 1915 to 1920 as Secretary General of the Spanish Federation of Glaziers and Crystal Workers and director of La Colmena Obrero (organ of the unions of Badalona) and El Vidrio (publication of the federation of glassworkers).

     Because of his intellectual acuity he later became editor of the newspaper Solidaridad Obrero (1930) and the daily Catalonia (1937). Very influenced by French revolutionary unionism he began taking on positions of responsibility in the CNT after the Sants (1918) Catalan Regional Congress. Thanks to his capacity for work, organizing skills and prestige he held the highest offices in this organization.

     At the Congreso de La Comedia (1919) he defended industrial union federations which were rejected at the time (in favour of geographical federations...mm). During the 1920s he suffered the repression unleased by the state and the employers and was arrested and imprisoned inSoria and Vicoria. In 1922 he was elected General Secretary of the CNT. During his term the Conference of Zaragossa was held where the resignation of the CNT from the Red Internation Federation of Unions was approved and membership in the reconstituted AIT/IWA was accepted.

     At this same Congress, along with Salvador Segui, Angel Pestaña, and José Viadiu, Peiró defended the "political motion" which was widely criticized by the more orthodox sections of the organization. He settled in Mataró in in 1922, and in 1925 he guided the establishment of the glass workers' cooperative that he had previously intended to organize. Under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera the CNT was outlawed, their offices closed and their press suspended. Many militants were arrested and Pieró was imprisoned in 1925, 1927 and 1928. In the last year he was again elected Secretary General of the CNT.

     He criticized the UGT for their advocacy of  "mixed commissions" during the dictatorship and also Pestaña with whom, however, he agreed on other matters. He also criticized the more anarchist union sector, and despite the fact that he joined the FAI he was never militant in it. On the contrary he defended a more syndicalist mass organization and opposed the action groups that a minority of militants controlled. In 1930 he signed the "Republican Intelligencia" manifesto and received much interal criticism which led him to withdraw his signature. He defended industrial federations up to the 1931 CNT Congress in Madrid where he won mass support against the FAI theses.

     At this Congress he supported the presentation of the "Position of the CNT Towards the Constituent Cortez" proposal which defended the idea that the proclamation of a republic could mean an advance for the working class. The proposal was adopted with some modifications despite the opposition of some FAI sectors who saw it as support for bourgeois political machinations. Also in 1931, along with 29 other prominant CNTistas among them Angel Pestaña, he signed the Treintista Manifesto which analyzed the social and economic situation of Spain and criticized both the republican government and the more radical sectors of the CNT.

     The reaction to this led to the expulsion of Pestaña from his position on the national committee of the norganization and the schism of the Sabadell unions. These later gathered others who formed a bloc called the "Opposition Unions". Although Peiró participated in this split he had no outstanding responsibility, and he tried to build bridges to avoid the final rupture.

     Reunification occured in 1936. After the fascist military rising Peiró served as vicepresident of the Antifascist Committee of Mataró, sending his sons to the front. He defended the entry of the CNT into the governments of Catalonia and Spain and proposed a state form of a federal social republic when the war ended. Along with Garcia Oliver, Federica Monteny and Juan Lopez he was one of the four "anarchist" (my emphasis-mm) ministers in the government of Largo Caballero where he was Minister of Industry.

     In this position he drafted the decree of expropriation and intervention in industry and designed an Industrial Credit Bank. Many of these projects were annuled or diluted by Negrin. With the fall of the Caballero government he returned to Mataró and the Glass Cooperative. He also dedicated himself to giving lectures on his steps in government and publishing hard articles against the PCE for its actions against the POUM.

     In 1938 he re-entered the government now headed by Negrin although not with the rank of Minister but rather as Comissioner of Electric Energy. He upheld an "anti-defeatist" attitude and proposed a certain revision of anarchosyndicalism in light of the development of the revolution and the war. He crossed the French border on February 5, 1939, and was briefly held in Perpignon from where he went to Narbonne to reunite withy his family. Later he moved to Paris to represent the CNT on the Coalition for Spanish Refugees with a mission to free Spanish CNTistas fromFrench concentration camps and facilitate their transfer to México.

     He tried to flee after the Nazi invasion but was arrested when he went to Narbonne. e was returned to Paris where the French authorities issued a deportation order so as to remove him from Gestapo action and thereby go to the unoccupied zone and from there to México. He was, however, arrested again by nazi troops and taken to Trier (Germany). In January of 1941 the Francoist Ministry of Foreign Affairs  requested his extradition. This happened on February 19 of the same year in Irún, violating French and international law. He was transfered to the custody of the Security General in Madrid where he was interrogated and suffered maltreatment (he lost some teeth).

     The start of the trial was exceptionally delayed, and he was transfered to Valencia in April 1941. In December of that year a summary trial opened at which Peiró had statements in his favour from institutions and people of the new regime (military, falangists, clergy, judges, prison officials, businesmen, rightists and even a future minister under Franco, Francisco Ruiz Jarabo).

     Even so his repeated refusal of the government proposal to be head of the Francoist unions determined his sentence. In May of 1942 the prosecuter presented his charges. A month later Peiró was assigned a defence lawyer by the military. On July 21 the death sentence was pronounced. On July 24, 1942 he was shot along with six other CNTistas at the firing range of Paterna. Some of his published works include The Path of the National Confederation of Labour (1925), Ideas About Syndicalism and Anarchism (1930), Danger in the Rearguard (1936) and From The Glass Factory of Mataró To The Minister Of Industry (1937) and Problemas y Cintarazos (1938).

    

    

    

HISTORY:

TODAY IN HISTORY- THE SPANISH REVOLUTION BEGINS:

It was not a dark and stormy night, but the atmosphere in the streets of Barcelona was just as electric. On July 14, 1936 General Mola had summoned military commanders to his headquarters in northern Spain to finalize the details of a military coup against the Popular Front government. On July 17 General Franco flew to Morocco where the military uprising had already begun. The Spanish government dithered and proclaimed the situation "under control". The government censored a notice in the CNT's paper Solidaridad Obrera warning the workers of the impending coup, but the anarchists considered it important enough to reprint and distribute by hand. The local government of Catalonia refused to turn over arms to the CNT's Defence Committees, and anarchist longshoremen stormed ships carrying arms on the night of the 17th and turned them over the the CNT. The government tried to recover the arms but failed. Throughout the 18th the workers in Barcelona obtained what arms they could while the government issued paper decrees in the absence of any real authority.

At 4:45 am on the 19th members of the Assault Guards of Barcelona began to turn their weapons over to crowds of workers who were demanding arms. Factory sirens sounded throughout the city. The Spanish Revolution had begun. Through the course of the day a back and forth struggle raged in the streets of Barcelona, and at the end of the day the Army was defeated. The workers were in control.

Over the course of the next three years Spain witnessed the most profound and inspiring revolution of modern times. Steeled and educated by decades of anarchist propaganda, agitation and organization the Spanish people knew instinctively what to do. Throughout half the country the military was beaten back and enterprises and land were socialized under real local control. The pace of the Revolution far outstripped what the leaders in the anarchist organizations could comprehend, let alone direct, but the instinctive methods of the Spanish revolutionaries- a people in arms- were based on a long period of instruction in organization.

At its height most of the economy of Republican Spain ran on collective lines, either workers' control via the syndicates (unions) or the free communes of the rural areas. This revolution certainly had its failings, not the least of which was the desire to make common cause with the Communists who eventually destroyed the revolutionary institutions that the Spanish people had built. In the end the fascists ,under Franco, received far more aid -for free or for vague promises- than the Republicans did in exchange for sending Spain's gold reserves into Stalin's sweaty hands. The Spanish anarchists were well skilled in organization, but their internal disputes had marginalized the very people who could have negotiated a more successful path through the maze of compromise.

All that being said the Spanish Revolution is a standing example of an obvious fact. Yes...anarchism can work. It worked very well in much of the Republican Zone for years, despite the pressures of both war and Communist treachery. Anarchism is not an utopian dream. It has happened and can happen again.

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The historiography of the Spanish Revolution is vast, and each side of the dispute has its own axe to grind. Classical fascism is pretty well a thing of the past nowadays, but the historical record contains a wealth of apologetics for the actions of the coalition that formed around Franco, more clerical conservative than fascist. Today one has to search the byways of the 'Catholic Right' to find echoes of the lies that were commonplace amongst conservatives of the mid-30s. Speaking of dead horses and lies...the Communist press spread probably more of these than the fascists did at the time, and they continued to distort the historical record up to the demise of the Soviet Empire. The Trotskyists had their own point of view, often more a matter of absurd "recommendations" and exaggerations of the importance of the POUM (not Trotskyist-more left communist than anything else) and their own infinitesimal group of Spanish supporters. To say the least one can take little from Trotskyist sites other than the fact that they slot all events into the category of "things that would go better if they were in control".

The unbiased academic studies such as that of Hugh Thomas "generally" support the anarchist view in most important points. They confirm both the efficiency of the collectives that the Spanish people formed and the role of Communist treachery in the defeat of the Revolution. They may point out the anarchist atrocities in the early stages of the Revolution (which anarchist sources generally gloss over) which were soon ended by the actions of the anarchist organizations themselves. They may be doubtful (this is often an understatement) of the military efficiency of the anarchist "militia" idea of waging war. But in the important points, as I said, they confirm the anarchist version.

Here's a little collection of anarchist sources on the Spanish Revolution. It is hardly complete, and there is a wealth of anarchist writing on what is the "high noon" of anarchism in the 20th century. Molly suggests that the reader look at these things at the same time as they read a general academic history such as that of Thomas.

Overview:

The Spanish Revolution on Wikipedia.

Movies:

Land and Freedom

Libertarias (en español)-A story of women in the Spanish Revolution

Images:

Images From the Spanish Revolution

Writings:

Statistical Information on Socialization in the Spanish Revolution

1936-1939:The Spanish Civil War and Revolution

Collectives in the Spanish Revolution-Gaston Leval

To Remember Spain- Murray Bookchin

Militant Anarchism and the Revolution in Spain-Federica Montseny

For further information consult the LibCom site under their history section and also the Anarchist Archives. What may be most valuable for the unbiased reader are the writings of George Orwell on the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. His works are available at George Orwell.Org. Orwell was not an anarchist(though he was a leftist who was disgusted by the left,just as Molly is), and it is instructive to see his take on the treachery of the Communists as well as his unbiased description of the anarchist polity he met when he fought during the Spanish Civil War.

Homage to Catalonia

Looking Back on the Spanish War

Spilling the Spanish Beans

PEOPLE:

IN SEARCH OF THE LAST ANARCHIST:

Here's one right out of a B. Traven novel. The following interview/story from the BBC tells the story of a meeting with the last survivor of the Durruti Column, resident for many long years in the Bolivian jungle. Antonia Garcia Baron settled there after spending time in a Nazi concentration camp during the Second World War. He wanted to find as isolated a place as possible "where you have civilization you have priests". Here's the story.

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Meeting Spain's last anarchist
By Alfonso Daniels

San Buenaventura, Bolivia
Hours after flying on a rickety 19-seater propeller plane and landing on a dirt strip, you get to the village of San Buenaventura in the heart of the Bolivian Amazon.

Antonio Garcia Baron spent time in the Mauthausen concentration camp. Here, in a simple one-storey brick house next to a row of wooden shacks, is the home of Antonio Garcia Baron.

He is the only survivor still alive of the anarchist Durruti column which held Francoist forces at bay in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the founder of an anarchist community in the heart of the jungle.

Mr Baron, 87, was wearing a hat and heavy dark glasses. He later explained that they were to protect his eyes, which were damaged when he drank a cup of coffee containing poison nine years ago.

It was, he said, the last of more than 100 attempts on his life, which began in Paris, where he moved in 1945 after five years in the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp, and continued in Bolivia, his home since the early 1950s.
Stateless
He was keen to share his views on 20th Century Spanish history with a wider audience.

"The Spanish press has covered up that the (Catholic) Church masterminded the death of two million Republicans during the civil war, not one million as they maintain," Mr Baron said before launching into one of his many anecdotes.

"I told Himmler (the head of the Nazi SS) when he visited the Mauthausen quarry on 27 April, 1941, what a great couple the (Nazis) made with the Church.

"He replied that it was true, but that after the war I would see all the cardinals with the Pope marching there, pointing at the chimney of the crematorium."

On the walls of Mr Baron's house is a picture of him taken in the camp. Next to it is a blue triangle with the number 3422 and letter S inside, marking the prisoners considered stateless.

"Spain took away my nationality when I entered Mauthausen, they wanted the Nazis to exterminate us in silence. The Spanish government has offered to return my nationality but why should I request something that was stolen from me and 150,000 others?" he said angrily.

Mr Baron wanted to be as far from modern life as possible
Mr Baron arrived in Bolivia on the advice of his friend, the French anarchist writer Gaston Leval.

"I asked him for a sparsely populated place, without services like water and electricity, where people lived like 100 years ago - because where you have civilisation you'll find priests."

Some 400 people, mostly Guarani Indians, lived there at the time, but in fact also a German priest.

"He was a tough nut to crack. He learnt of my arrival and told everyone that I was a criminal. They fled and made the sign of the cross whenever they saw me, but two months later I started speaking and they realised I was a good person, so it backfired on him."

Convinced that the priest still spied on him, a few years later he decided to leave and create a mini-anarchist state in the middle of the jungle, 60km (37 miles) and three hours by boat from San Buenaventura along the Quiquibey River.

With him was his Bolivian wife Irma, now 71.

They raised chicken, ducks and pigs and grew corn and rice which they took twice a year to the village in exchange for other products, always rejecting money.
Dunkirk
Life was tough and a few years ago Mr Baron lost his right hand while hunting a jaguar.

For the first five years, until they began having children, they were alone. Later a group of some 30 nomadic Indians arrived and decided to stay, hunting and fishing for a living, also never using money.

"We enjoyed freedom in all of its senses, no-one asked us for anything or told us not to do this or that," he recounted as his wife smiled, sitting in a chair at the back of the room.

Recently they moved back to the village for health reasons and to be closer to their children. They live with a daughter, 47, while their other three children, Violeta, 52, Iris, 31, and 27-year-old Marco Antonio work in Spain.

Paintings of scenes from the camp are a visual reminder of his past. They also share the few simple rooms arranged around an internal patio with three Cuban doctors who are part of a contingent sent to help provide medical care in Bolivia.

The hours passed and it was time to take the small plane back to La Paz before the torrential rain isolated the area again.

Only then, as time was running out, did Mr Baron begin speaking in detail about Mauthausen and the war - as if wishing to fulfil a promise to fallen comrades.

How the Nazis threw prisoners from a cliff, how some of them clung to the mesh wire to avoid their inevitable death, how the Jews were targeted for harsh treatment and did not survive long.

His memory also took him to Dunkirk where he had arrived in 1940, before he was caught and imprisoned in Mauthausen.

"I arrived in the morning but the British fleet was some 6km from the coast. I asked a young English soldier if it would return.

"I saw that he was eating with a spoon in one hand and firing an anti-aircraft gun with the other," he laughed.

"'Eat if you wish', I told him. 'Do you know how to use it?' he asked since I didn't have military uniform and was very young.

"'Don't worry,' I said. I grabbed the gun and shot down two planes. He was dumbstruck.

"I'll never forget the determination of the British fighting stranded on the beach."

WHY I AM NOT A REVOLUTIONIST: PART 1: THE SPANISH CASE:

The Spanish Revolution is a "test case" amongst anarchists. More than the temporary accommodations of the Makhnovists in Russia this is a "real time" survey of how anarchism can exist in the real world. The generally accepted view is that anarchist methods of production and coordination were equal to the demands of a society at war. People may go to the original sources for this matter. What I want to emphasize here is the difference between the ideas of social organization that had been instilled by anarchist propaganda over several decades and the ideas of "revolution" that had been instilled by the same efforts. The "social ideal" was actually separate from the "means of achievement" ie "The Revolution" of myth, but the two tended to be conflated. The Spanish anarchists were confronted with a situation where they represented a large minority in most of Spain and a slight majority in some areas. How should one behave in such situations ? What I would say is that the "intransigent anarchist" policy left the anarchists helpless when they were confronted with the reality of collaboration while the "realist" policy of the 'Treintistas' offered a much more realistic way to play a "political game" with the other parties of the popular front. The "intransigent" factions of the people who had come to control the FAI bowed over to a large extent because they had no idea of "bargaining" which the Treintista section of the CNT very much had- no matter how much they might have been defeated by the FAI.

More on this matter later,

Molly

MOLLY'S ANARCHISM :

WHY I AM NOT A REVOLUTIONIST PART 3

I have alluded to my reasoning against "revolution" in the previous part of this post to the "special cases" of the Russian and Spanish Revolutions. Both of these revolutions had significant libertarian input, greater in the case of the Spanish one, but both failed. In the Spanish case it failed via military defeat at the hands of "the friends of the Revolution" ie the Communist controlled left even before it failed in military defeat against the fascists/traditionalists of Franco. Let's consider the Russian case first. The astute reader may notice that I hold to a modification of the "circulation of elites" position "supposedly" first laid out by the Italian sociologists Pareto and Mosca. This only partially true. I hold that this sort of result is almost inevitable under "revolutionary conditions" but that it can be avoided during a long reformist march towards a libertarian society. Russia is a case in point.

Though few leftists would admit it the trajectory of Russia would have been significantly better should the Bolsheviks never have come to power. At the time of their coup d'etat Russia was the most rapidly developing nation in the world. Russia would have achieved a far greater economic development under practically any regime, from the coalition of socialist parties that I might favour to any regime short of restoration of absolutism. Under any of these possible regimes Russia would never have had to pay the price in human blood- far greater than Hitler extracted- than Stalin parlayed into his version of economic development.

Russia gives a clear example of two different types of revolution, one that was inevitable and if left to continue along its normal course would have resulted in the sort of routine "circulation of elites" that revolutions usually produce. This revolution was relatively bloodless. It was the first revolution of 1917, the overthrow of the Tsar and the institution of a parliamentary regime. During this revolution the working class and the peasantry seized their opportunity to encroach on the power of the capitalists and the landlords. Left to develop on its own this revolution, supported as it was by the vast majority of the Russian population and embodying itself in parties such as the SRs and, to a smaller degree, the Mensheviks, would probably have attempted to reduce the gains made by the working class. The revolution in the countryside, however, would have been an unstoppable fait d'acompli long before a stable situation had been achieved and, besides, the SRs depended upon just this vast peasant majority of Russia for their support. The end result, a probable return of most of industry to the capitalists, with a larger nationalized sector and a reduction or even elimination of the gains of the working class.

As it happened, however, this first inevitable revolution was seized upon by professional revolutionaries who promised the moon but delivered a much greater defeat to the aspirations of the working class. The Bolshevik Revolution didn't simply turn the clock back a few years. They turned it back by centuries to a time of barbarism enforced by mass terror. Under the USSR the working class had far fewer rights than they would have had under the moderate socialists such as the SRs and the Mensheviks. They basically had no rights.

The great mistake of the majority of Russian revolutionary parties was the continuation of the war in an obviously war weary country. This may have been a matter of timing. Put their revolution a little later and the military situation would have been entirely different when American entry into WW1 would be pressing the German Empire much harder. But the Revolution occurred when it had to occur, and the decision of the Right SRs in particular to continue the war gave the Bosheviks the only opportunity they would ever have. They took it. The mistake of the anti-war socialists such as the Left SRs, the Maximalists and the Anarchists was to enter into coalition with a party of the Leninist type. That can easily be forgiven as the true nature of Leninism was hardly apparent at the time. After the better part of a century of tyranny and mass murder the nature of the beast is plain for all to see. There should be no illusions today.

The utopian dream turned into a totalitarian nightmare. The peasant Mir, so beloved of the SRs, was drowned in the blood of mass collectivization. The illusions that anarchists, mensheviks and SRs had about the libertarian potential of the Soviets were dissolved far more rapidly through electoral manipulation, control of the police and the army and the simple expedient of controlling the actual executive while the Soviets became nothing but forums for speeches. The Bolsheviks were far more realistic than their erstwhile allies.

A circulation of elites did indeed occur, though those with dreamy eyed visions of this time hardly know how many of the old ruling class found position and privilege in the new one. But the opening up of careers in a bloated state apparatus also led to "corruption from below". If the country was war weary so were the new bosses who flocked to the Bolshevik banner. They easily saw their own rise to power as evidence of the illusion that the working class ruled in Russia. Actually ex-workers ruled to a very large extent. Far better to accept a good salary, good rations and a modicum of power than to dream about some abstract ideal of "workers' control". It's far easier to imagine that the control of ex-workers is such a thing.

This is one of the problems with revolution. It always has and always will attract careerists to its banner. By opening up new continents of new ways of exercising power it is actually far more dismal in this regard than gradual reform. Reformism generates careerism as it institutionalizes slowly, but revolution opens the floodgates to a tidal wave of such things. This sort of tidal wave carries bigger and uglier things than the gradual building of institutions does. It attracts a type of person who is far less moral and far more brutal than the institutionalization of reform does.

Ah but, my anarchist comrades may say, we envisage no such thing as this type of revolution. We want a "libertarian revolution" where there will be no such new positions of power. All that I can say to this is that the Russian Revolution is the prime example of how the conditions of revolution modify the goals of the revolutionists. One can make a case that Lenin was a completely cynical liar when he laid out his more or less "libertarian" ideals in 'State and Revolution'. One can make out a case that both Trotsky and Stalin were vicious thugs who always believed in dictatorial power. One cannot make that case for the majority of the Bolshevik Party. They actually believed their own horseshit and they had no idea of the road they were going down.

Revolutions make their own conditions separate from the ideals of the revolutionists. They demand quick and effective action even if such action is detrimental in the long term. Peasant and worker cooperatives, as advocated by Kropotkin in his letters to Lenin, would have been an obviously economically superior way of ordering production under the sort of slow evolution that Russia might have taken under a non-Bolshevik socialist government. Under the conditions of civil war and foreign invasion forced requisition, with all that entails in the long term, was the only course open to the Bolsheviks. When food stock are down to a week's worth of starvation rations you don't have time for patient organization of distribution by voluntary agreement. THIS, I believe, is the worm in the apple of all anarchist belief in achieving anarchy by revolutionary methods. The disorder and chaos of a revolution makes quick and decisive action imperative, but this action leads to undesirable consequences. In 'The Conquest of Bread' Kropotkin recognized this fact, and he tried to lay out the need for as quick an attention to basic survival needs of the population as would be possible. The Conquest of Bread, however, was written in the 19th century, before history had laid out examples of just how disruptive revolutions can be and long before modern societies had become as intricately interconnected as they are now.

No, the Russian Revolution was the opening page in a book showing that it is impossible to achieve libertarian goals by revolutionary methods. It was, however, only page one. I'll continue the story later. Next time...the Spanish case.

Molly

Today in History: Sept 26th
1919: Anarchist Makhnovist army counterattacks the forces of White Army General Denekin near the village of Peregonovka, routing the forces arrayed against them. The Makhnovischina goes on to cut the supply lines of Denekin's forces driving towards Moscow, forcing him to abandon the advance. The Bolsheviks repay this kindness by betrayal of their anarchist allies on more than one occasion. For more on Nestor Makhno see the 'Nestor Makhno Archive' at http://www.nestormakhno.info
1936: Oops !!! Three anarchists, Juan Domenech, Juan Fabregas and Antonio Garcia Birian compromise and betray anarchist principles by joining the government of the Catalan Generalidad. This is the first move in a series of depressing compromises that the Spanish anarchists make in the name of "anti-fascist unity". The main beneficiary of these compromises is the previously insignificant PCE - The Spanish Communist Party. This Stalinist party-of course- goes on to betray its allies, anarchist and otherwise. Do we see a pattern here ? Finally the great and glorious bastion of the working class against fascism forms a "temporary, eternal friendship" with guess who on the signing of the Hitler Stalin pact.
For more on some of the anarchist opposition to the collaborationist policies of the CNT-FAI see 'The Friends of Durruti Group:1937-1939' (Agustin Guillamin) at http://www.spunk.org/library/places/spain/sp001780 .
1969: Eighth Conference of the Situationalist International held in Venice. The SI lasted until 1972 when it dissolved at the point when it had only two members. Most of the internal activity of the group consisted of the search for grounds for expulsion. Hence the fact that it rarely had more than 10 or 15 members at a time. You might say that heresy hunting was a "matter of everyday life" for them. Despite admirable bursts of creativity the SI remained a basically incoherent group. There was thus always good grounds for expulsions. Should it have continued until only Debord remained the combination of incoherence and megalomania would possibly have led him to expel himself. But that would be expecting a little too much from someone fantastically convinced of his own importance.
Anyways see the Wikipedia article on the SI at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Situationalist
. You can also access the actual texts of the SI at the 'Situationalist International Online' at http://www.cddc.vt.edu/sionline .
All being said the SI was more than a slight cut above some of its progeny.
That's about it for today. Sorry about the slim picking.
Molly.