Spanish Libertarian Movement

[2] The dominance of the MLE national council was reinforced with the resignation of Horacio Martínez Prieto, defender of "collaborationism" or "reformism," and the death of Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez, whose post as secretary general was occupied by Germinal Esgleas.

[4] One of the people who was released thanks to these documents was Esteve Pallarols i Xirgu, who immediately contacted three libertarian leaders who were hiding in Valencia — José Cervera Bermell, Luis Úbeda Canero and Leoncio Sánchez Cardete.

The task of creating links in Catalonia and the south of France was entrusted to Génesis López and Manuel Salas, both recently released from the Albatera camp, who made contact with leaders of the Libertarian Movement in Nimes.

In the founding manifesto of the so-called National Alliance of Democratic Forces (ANFD) the "accidentalism" of the libertarians on the form of government was resolved by resorting to the expression "republican order" to refer to the Second Republic.

[12] To lead the ANFD, a national council was created chaired by the republican Régulo Martínez, who had been released from prison a few months before, and which also included the socialist Juan Gómez Egido and the libertarian Sigfrido Catalá.

[13] In the last months of 1944 the three members of the ANFD national committee began negotiations with the monarchist generals Antonio Aranda, Alfredo Kindelán, Andrés Saliquet and Alfonso de Orleáns y Borbón in which they discussed what type of regime would replace the Spanish State, which they were convinced would not survive the imminent Allied victory.

[14] The generals wanted the ANFD to accept the restoration of the monarchy without first going through intermediate formulas and without a referendum on the form of government, something that libertarians could assume but republicans and socialists could not, which led to a dead end.

[15] However, the Libertarian Movement quickly recovered from the coup that led to the arrest of Siegfried Catalá, since a new national committee had already been formed in April headed by Ramón Rufat Llop and José Exposito Leiva.

[16] The Libertarian Movement in exile experienced a serious crisis in the spring of 1942, when latent tensions erupted between the "collaborationists" led by Juan García Oliver and Aurelio Fernández, and the "apoliticals" who supported the Paris-based national council headed by Germinal Esgleas and Federica Montseny.