Buenaventura Durruti is dead
Worker, anarchist, revolutionary, father
Figurehead and integration figure of the anarchist militias in the Spanish Civil War.
Born on July 14, 1896 in León
Murdered in Madrid on November 20, 1936
Not even at the front.
Was it a fascist sniper?
Was it a sneak assassination attempt by a Republican soldier?
Even a communist’s bullet?
Left against left, again?
Or was it one of his own people?
It will never be known.
A clean shot through the chest.
He didn’t stand a chance.
Buenaventura means “the good future”.
He would have brought that to the workers
the dispossessed smallholders,
freed from the yoke of the bourgeoisie and the Church.
Finally, they had a future.
Easier still, a life
free and self-determined.
But then this bullet hit him
that nobody knows
nobody wanted to know
where itcame from.
A man died.
Tens of thousands died in this ill-fated war.
One dead among countless others.
Nameless warriors against fascism.
But with him
whose first name means “the good future”,
would have brought these
and she died with him.
This civil war continued until 1939,
but actually he was lost
on this November 20, 1936 in Madrid.
In the territories conquered by the anarchists,
they brought liberation.
The people were allowed to taste it
but after he died
the anarchist militias disintegrated,
were blown up and forced to their knees
through the left brothers and sisters,
the newly liberated people
forced back into the yoke.
And when the fascists finally reigned in the country,
the last traces were erased.
It wasn’t allowed to be talked about.
Not even from the fascist purges.
It couldn’t be remembered.
It wasn’t forgotten.
Buenaventura Durruti is dead.
It has been underground for 87 years.
It’s time to dare.
Remembering a man of action
a man whose integrity was the measure of all others,
a man in whom all hopes and dreams were united.
They believed in him.
To what he exemplified, pretended, was.
Worker, anarchist, revolutionary, father
Nothing more and yet the connection.
It’s time to remember him.
So that he didn’t die in vain.
It’s time to remember his deeds.
And with remembering
although he died
but never dead.
Buenaventura Durruti has died.
And nevertheless,
Buenaventura Durruti is not dead.
He lives in hope
which he gave in freedom
which he made possible in the ideals,
that he embodied
in the trust in the community,
free among free,
equals among equals.
Buenaventura Durruti died but not dead.