Modern Era
Buenaventura Durruti
1896–1936 · Anarcho-syndicalism
We are not afraid of ruins. We can build again.
In their words
“We are not afraid of ruins. We who built the palaces and the cities can build them again, and better.”
A metalworker who spent his life between strikes and prisons, Durruti helped organize the CNT union and then the militia columns that stopped the Nationalist advance on Madrid in 1936. In Aragon he backed the collectivization of farms and factories by the people working them. He was killed outside Madrid four months into the war, and the collectives he defended were dismantled by the Communists on his own side.
Why it matters for freedom
He proved that workers can run the factories and the war at the same time, without a state telling them how.
Who they stood against
the Spanish landlords, the Church, Franco's army, and the Stalinists who broke the revolution from within