Los Solidarios

Los Solidarios (English: Solidarity;[2] or The Solidaristic[3]) was a Spanish anarchist militant group, established in 1922 to combat the rise of pistolerismo and yellow syndicalism, which represented the interests of business owners.

In 1923, Los Solidarios assassinated pistolero leader Ramón Laguía, the former governor of Biscay Fernando González Regueral, and the Archbishop of Zaragoza Juan Soldevila.

The group robbed a branch of the Bank of Spain in Xixón and used the money to buy rifles, but were ultimately unable to stop the 1923 Spanish coup d'état, which resulted in the establishment of the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera.

This was staunchly opposed by Francesc Cambó, the leader of the Regionalist League of Catalonia (LRC), who prevented the proposal from passing through parliament and consequently caused the collapse of the government of Álvaro de Figueroa.

[12] In 1919, one of the CNT's most prominent agitators, Manuel Buenacasa, travelled from Barcelona to the Basque city of Donostia, where he organised migrant workers who were constructing the Kursaal casino.

[20] In this environment, Catalan anarchist groups had closed ranks, distancing themselves from others and concentrating on large actions, including the assassination of prime minister Eduardo Dato.

Maura attempted to win over Catalan business owners by intensifying political repression against the workers' movement, but after he refused to hand the Ministry of Finance over to the LRC, his government collapsed in March 1922.

The Wood Workers' Union called an assembly at Barcelona's Victoria Theatre, which was opened by the anarchist journalist Liberto Callejas [es] reading out the names of the 107 activists who had been murdered by the pistoleros.

In response to the letter, in August 1922, five members of Los Justicieros (Buenaventura Durruti, Francisco Ascaso, Rafael Torres Escartín, Gregorio Suberviola and Marcelino del Campo) moved to Barcelona.

[37] They believed that the Spanish Army, with the support of the clergy and landowning aristocracy, would attempt to establish a military dictatorship; they thus called on anarchist groups to accelerate their revolutionary activities.

[41] Los Solidarios members formed the centre of the commission:[45] Francisco Ascaso was appointed as general secretary,[46] a position from which he built alliances with other regional anarchist groups;[47] Durruti was tasked with acquiring weapons and explosives;[46] and Aurelio Fernández Sánchez was dispatched to join the army, within which he won over several non-commissioned officers and established a number of Anti-militarist Committees.

Among the list were Martínez Anido and Arlegui, as well as former interior ministers Rafael Coello [es] and Gabino Bugallal, the governor of Biscay Fernando González Regueral, and the Archbishop of Zaragoza Juan Soldevila.

Los Solidarios knew this and observed the road from a café, waiting to spot Martínez Anido; Torres Escartín was surprised to come face-to-face with him at the cafe.

While tracing the assassins' path of escape, police found an unloaded pistol with the mark of Alkartasuna [es], a Basque weapons manufacturer based in Gernika.

The government and the Catholic Church pushed for further arrests of anarchists, with police even taking a woman sick with tuberculosis as hostage to force her son Esteban Euterio Salamero Bernard to turn himself in.

At this time, Liberal prime minister Manuel García Prieto received documents outlining Alfonso XIII's responsibility for the military disaster at Annual, which would cause a political scandal once they were made public.

[82] Los Solidarios responded to the reports of an imminent coup by proposing a revolutionary general strike, which would require the revival of repressed trade unions and money for weaponry.

[36] They also found out that, on 13 June, the anarchist activists Inocencio Pina, Luis Muñoz and Antonio Mur had been arrested after a shootout with the police, under the command of Santiago Martín Báguenas [es].

[49] Instead of going to Llanera as planned, the Solidarios split up: Miguel García Vivancos and Fernández Sánchez went over the mountains to Bilbao in order to purchase the rifles, slipping through the Civil Guard security cordon; Durruti, Brau, Torres Escartín and Suberviola hid out in a mountainside cabin.

[100] Alfonso XIII and Primo de Rivera brought forward the date for the coup, in order to prevent the presentation of documents outlining the king's responsibility for the Annual disaster to the Congress of Deputies.

[101] On 13 September 1923, Primo de Rivera called the press to his office and presented them with a manifesto, in which he announced the creation of a military junta to take control of the country.

[115] Upon arrival, Ascaso and Durruti immediately went to the ACU offices on rue Petit [fr] in the 19th arrondissement of Paris, where they met with the administrator Séverin Férandel and his companion Berthe Fabert.

[127] By the end of the raids against Los Solidarios, Domingo Ascaso, Fernández Sánchez, Joan Garcia Oliver, Gregorio Jover, Alfonso Miguel and Ricardo Sanz still had not been captured.

[127] By the time of his arrival in Paris, Domingo Ascaso had put together a plan for an insurrection: guerrillas were to cross the Pyrenees into Catalonia and break hundreds of anarchists out of prison in Figueres; meanwhile, Los Solidarios were to finally seize the rifles they had bought in Eibar from the port of Barcelona, and with the support of soldiers in the Drassanes barracks, carry out an uprising.

[130] While the Paris cell was making progress, in Barcelona, plans for the insurrection were already falling apart: the soldiers of Drassanes were losing interest, Los Solidarios had been unable to get the Eibar rifles from the port, and some activists were sceptical about whether workers would join them in an uprising.

[131] Soon after, the liberal intellectuals Miguel de Unamuno and Rodrigo Soriano [es] escaped to Paris and began publishing criticisms of the dictatorship in Le Quotidien.

They met with a local guide, who was supposed to take them towards Figueres to carry out the prison break, but he informed them that several artillery and machine gun regiments were waiting for them at the border.

[141] As the militant group Los Errantes,[142] Ascaso, Durruti and Gregorio Jover carried out a series of robberies in Latin America, before escaping back to Europe.

[147] Durruti, Ascaso, Liberto Callejas and Joaquín Cortés returned from their Belgian exile;[148] Aurelio Fernández, Garcia Oliver and Torres Escartín were later released from prison.

[152] In May 1931, after an International Workers' Day demonstration was suppressed by the newly established Catalan government, anarchist groups in Barcelona called a meeting to discuss how to respond.