The conspirators intended to declare the total independence of Catalonia as a state neutral in the Spanish Civil War, and to marginalize all non-aligned political groupings, especially the Anarchists.

Since the late 19th century along traditional political groupings – Conservatives, Liberals, Carlists, Republicans – there were new currents emerging in Catalonia: Socialists, Communists, Anarchists and Catalan nationalists.

The Anarchists, who by default boycotted any electoral action, focused rather on expansion of their nationwide trade union, Confederación Nacional de Trabajo (CNT).

[4] During the general elections of February 1936 the Anarchists hesitantly decided to support the Popular Front alliance, which included ERC, but soon truce gave way to tension.

[5] Estat Català was a Catalan nationalist organization which emerged in the early 1920s, distinct from other Catalanist groupings due to its extreme anti-establishment position and left-wing social outlook.

Since the early 1930s EC was getting increasingly radical and adopted a militant stand; its uniformed paramilitary militia, the Escamots, were outlawed following a series of violent episodes.

[c] Representatives of EC joined numerous inter-party bodies competing for power, especially Comitè de Milícies Antifeixistes; however, the party did not enter the coalition Generalitat government.

In August the CNT commando tried to plunder the main EC office and their representatives in the government demanded that Dencàs, along the murdered Badia blamed for anti-Anarchist violence of 1934, be detained.

[8] During the fall first MP sub-units indeed started to take over control points on the Pyrenean border with France; not in few locations skirmishes with local Anarchist units, so far manning the posts, ensued.

[13] The own EC party initiative was raising a large, 700-men battalion Columna Volant Catalana; it was originally to be sent to the Aragon front, but did not enter into action; its sub-units were stationed across various locations of the Lleida province.

[15] The second-in-command person in the autonomous Catalan structures, the prime minister and the parliament speaker Joan Casanovas, was more tractable; the EC member in the 1920s, later he remained in the ERC mainstream.

[15] Historians assume that since early October 1936 the EC leaders started to discuss a violent takeover of power in autonomous Catalonia, possibly by means of a coup d'etat.

Their key asset were armed units controlled by the party, including the militia, the forces of Columna Volant and the MP battalions; some were supposed to enter into action in Barcelona, and some were expected to seize power in other cities and towns of the region.

[17] The conspirators assumed that the Generalitat security would at least remain passive; since early October the Commissar of Public Order, the de facto police chief in Catalonia,[19] was a former EC militant Andreu Revertés.

[f][g] The EC envoys Josep Maria Batista i Roca and Nicolau Rubió i Serralach sounded the French and British diplomats in Spain about would-be recognition of independent Catalonia; outcome of these conversations is not clear.

To much surprise, one of their meetings hosted Casanovas; in belligerent tone he declared that the time for bold action was near and spoke with contempt about the Catalan parliament, the body he still presided.

[27] A transport of arms and munitions entered the country from France; it was organized by Revertés, who ensured that the Generalitat money is used to finance the delivery, though none of high government officials was aware of it.

[28] The train was directed at a depot station on the Barcelona suburbs;[28] distribution of hundreds of rifles and grenades among specific EC-controlled units was discussed at a meeting of 22 November, attended by Revertés, Casanovas, Torres-Picart, Xammar and Cornudella.

[23] Some Anarchist groups intended to set up a makeshift tribunal and bring before it those charged with crime against state, but in unclear circumstances the plan was abandoned; the CNT militia ransacked Diari de Barcelona offices and the EC headquarters.

[20][l] Casanovas as a high state official was quietly allowed to leave the country,[23] while investigation launched by the Court of Appeal of Catalonia was eventually closed with no charges advanced.

Remnants of émigré Estat Catalá structures languished for decades until the party was registered in Spain in 1977; now it is a rather marginal grouping, even though the Catalan independence movement is at its heyday.

As except the Anarchists none of the parties involved banked on the November 1936 episode propaganda-wise, it soon went into oblivion; in public memory it was almost totally eclipsed by the May 1937 struggle for power in the Republican Barcelona.

The Generalitat archives documented the repressive action rather than the plot itself; most EC papers have gone missing, while memoirs and other accounts provided by the protagonists were trapped in conflicting versions, inconsistencies, and political bias.

[55] A multi-angle joint analysis of the issue was published in 2012, but many of the authors remain extremely cautious, adhere to hypothetical narrative and suggest that their conclusions should be approached as preliminary.