Cipriano Damiano González (Comares, 22 September 1916 – Sabadell, 17 April 1986) was a prominent leader in Spanish anarcho-syndicalism, an outstanding fighter in the resistance against Franco's dictatorship and a noted editor of political publications.
He was 14 when he enrolled in the CNT Trade Union (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo) after learning about the Jaca uprising of December 1930 and was deeply moved by captains' Fermín Galán and Ángel García Hernández executions by firing squad.
For a while he was able to combine his duties in the direction of the Libertarian Youth Provincial Committee with the management and public relations work at Faro and with sporadic visits to the frontline, until the fall of Málaga on 6 February 1937, when he had to flee northbound.
Back in Andalusia, he enrolled with the Maroto Brigade where he cofounded with Santana Calero and Antonio Morales Guzmán the magazine Nervio to educate the soldiers and provide a means of expression for the Brigade.After the defeat of the Republican forces by Franco's Army (supported by Hitler and Mussolini) he managed to arrive to the port of Alicante but was captured and sent to the concentration camps of Los Almendros and Albatera, first, then to Porta Coeli prison in Valencia and after that to Gardeny Castle in the city of Lerida, where he was assigned to the Forced Working Battalion number 26 with which he went through Ibars de Urgel, Tudela de Duero and Valladolid, from where he managed to arrive to Málaga and get into Gibraltar.
[1] His popularity stemmed from his clandestine activities: under a false identity he gained a bureaucratic position in the Technical Commission for the Southern Coast Fortifications, with authority over all the area covering Algeciras, Tarifa, Barbate, Cadiz and Jerez, in Seville, and acted as a liaison to José Piñero for whom he provided contacts with the National Committee and Gibraltar,[2] as well as official papers and vehicles.
In Barcelona he continued working underground with Catalan activists and creates with other democratic leaders the group Renacer (Rebirth) in the effort to rebuild the shattered CNT first in Catalonia and later on in Levante and Andalusia.
Throughout his life he used many pseudonyms, war-names and pen-names, like Segundo Canillo, El Niño, Cigadón, Devenir, Paco, León, Antonio González or Yayo and a dozen false identities to the point he was called "Man With A Thousand Faces" for his ability to disguise and go undercover.