I have wondered for more than a year whether to tell this story. I have hesitated and delayed, always with good reason. Two weeks ago, when my wife lay in my arms for what may have been the last time, I nearly told her. But I held back. And now I am glad I did. She should be spared the danger of knowing what I know. So should any Spaniard. It is why I am writing this now. Because only a foreigner can decide rationally what to do with such information. And among the foreigners whose ranks I now fight in there is at least one I think I can trust to do that.
All my life I have known no quarter would be given by those who seek to suppress the working class of this country. I became an anarchist because I believed only violence would enable us to throw off our shackles. I was born in Barcelona in 1905 and grew to manhood under the governership of General Martinez Anido, who would pay a bounty to any pistolero who killed an anarchist but would arrest any anarchist who defended himself and then have him shot while trying to escape. I remember the fate of Salvador Segui and the midnight knock of the Somaten. I remember the machine-gunning of strikers in the Calle de Mercaders and the burning alive of the besieged anarchists in Casas Viejas. And I remember also Bueneventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso. I salute their memory. I applaud their deeds. I mourn for no archbishop. I yearn for no king. Yet the black-and-red flag will not be my shroud. At the end I will call for no priest of this country’s church. But neither will I cry ‘¡Viva la Anarquía!’, for I would choke on the words.
It is less than two years since I heard the factory hooters sound across Barcelona on a Sunday morning and knew the military rising had begun, but 19 July 1936 seems now like a date from pre-history. For I believed then. I was a man whose faith was still alive. I swapped my CNT card for a rifle and joined the assault in the Plaça de Catalunya. I was one of those who danced and sang in the streets when the military surrendered. And I was a member of the Durruti column when it marched out to capture Saragossa and spread the revolution throughout Aragon. But Saragossa was never to fall. Nor was the revolution to take root. Ahead lay only death and disillusionment.
I see now there was only one hope for us in this war. It was at the very beginning, when we should have attacked society, not Franco’s army. We should have altered Spain out of his reach. We should have swept away the Church and every other prop of feudalism. We should have imposed the revolution as we went. Instead, we tried to fight a military campaign on Franco’s terms. We dug in and organized. We flouted our own principles because we thought victory was worth any number of compromises. But we were wrong. We could only have won by refusing to compromise. We could only have achieved what we wanted by insisting upon it from the outset.
The acceptance of Russian aid was the key to our defeat. It seems perverse to say so, does it not? Hitler and Mussolini were equipping Franco with men, guns and planes. Was it not therefore logical to seek help from Stalin when nobody else would come to our aid? My answer is no. It only seemed logical. For Stalin is as big an enemy of the working class as Franco. I see that now, as do others. Too late, of course. Always too late.
I have another more personal reason for cursing the day Russia intervened in Spain. It became known in early October, 1936, that Stalin had agreed to send arms to the Republic. Enough tanks, armoured cars, artillery, fighter planes and bombers, together with the personnel to use them, for us to overwhelm Franco. Or so we hoped. I was as grateful as everybody else. I will not pretend I saw then what it would lead to. The arms were to arrive at Cartagena on the Murcian coast and the Russians were to set up bases in the vicinity. A great deal of unloading and transporting was bound to be involved. As an experienced driver and mechanic, I was asked to join the Republican reception force in Cartagena. I went gladly. I went not knowing what would happen to me there.
We were kept busy at Cartagena, I and my friend from Barcelona who had come with me, Pedro Molano. After the equipment had arrived, we and the other driving crews would ferry it out by lorry to the Russian bases at Archena and Alcantarilla. The only interruption to the routine was when we helped move a trainload of boxed cargo from the railyard to a large, well-guarded cave just outside the city. We were not told what the cargo was. There was an air of secrecy about its arrival and its ultimate destination. One suggestion was that it contained the art treasures of the Prado, sent from Madrid for safe-keeping. I did not believe it. But I would not have believed the truth either.
Pedro and I were billeted with a butcher’s family in Cartagena. We drank at a nearby bar most evenings and exchanged the rumours we had heard about how the war was going. One night we fell in with an Andulusian anarchist called Jaime Bilotra. He was a big bluff amiable fellow who saw things just as we did – or claimed to. What he was doing in Cartagena he did not say, until we had met him several times and counted him as a friend. Then he asked us to take a walk with him down by the docks, so he could talk without being overheard. We went. There seemed no harm in it.
Bilotra told us he was working undercover for the FAI, the militant federation of anarchist groups. An informant in the Finance Ministry in Madrid, Luis Cardozo, had warned the FAI of a plan to ship the entire national gold reserve to Russia to prevent the Fascists laying hands on it in the event of them capturing the city and to cover the cost of present and future arms supplies. This was the secret cargo we had handled. Cardozo was among the civil servants who had accompanied it to Cartagena in order to supervise its shipment to Russia, which was now imminent.
We were horrified. We had assumed Stalin had offered to help the Republic for ideological reasons, but it appeared he was no different from any other arms dealer. He was worse in some ways, since, as Bilotra pointed out, once the gold was in his hands, he would be able to dictate policy to the Republican government. And he was no friend of anarchism. That was certain. Already, in the militarization of the CNT militias, his brand of communism was beginning to make itself felt. Eventually, anarchism would be crushed. That too was certain.
What could we do? Nothing, it seemed to us. But Bilotra had a scheme. True, if the government insisted on such folly, we were helpless to prevent it. Yet we could divert a small proportion of the gold – which would still constitute a considerable treasury – and send it to Barcelona, for the FAI to spend on independently equipping the militias. Pedro and I would drive one of the lorries when the gold was moved from its present location to the docks for loading. Cardozo could simply omit our lorry-loads from the official count. We would then be free to deliver them to a large lock-up garage Bilotra had rented for the purpose. They could be moved later to a safer place before being transported to Barcelona. The question was: would we do it? Without us, Bilotra was powerless to prevent the surrender of Spain’s most valuable asset: something approaching two billion pesetas in gold bullion. With us, some of it might be saved to take the anarchist struggle forward. He needed our reply within twenty-four hours. We could not seek the approval or opinion of anybody else without imperilling both Bilotra and Cardozo. He was trusting us to do what we knew was right. He was placing the future of anarchism in our hands.
We agreed. It sounds absurdly naïve as I write these words, but neither Pedro nor I doubted Bilotra’s honesty. In those early months of the war, there was an innocence in the hearts of those who fought for the revolution that made one forget greed and corruption. Moreover, what he had said made sense. We could not turn our backs on such an opportunity to aid our cause. And secrecy clearly was imperative. So, without hesitation, we agreed to play our part.
The following night, Bilotra brought Cardozo to meet us. He was a nervous young man, a civil servant to his fingertips. But he professed to be as sincere an anarchist as us and he was prepared to take just as many risks. We visited the lock-up garage and discussed what we would do in more detail. Cardozo said the gold was to be moved in the course of three successive nights prior to shipment on 25 October. We would probably make three or four trips per night, but he suggested we should risk diverting no more than one lorry-load each night. Bilotra pressed for mo
re, but Cardozo insisted this was as much as he could safely lose on paper. So, it was agreed.
The scheme worked perfectly. With Cartagena blacked out in case of bombing, there was nobody to see us divert to the lock-up with one lorry-load per night. It was much closer to the storage cave than the docks and we spent the time saved on the journey unloading the boxes with Bilotra’s assistance. In the end, about 150 boxes were crammed into the garage.
The Russian steamers sailed for Odessa on Sunday 25 October. Pedro and I watched them go, two of very few people in Cartagena who knew what they contained. The despatch of the gold to Russia seemed to us then – and still seems to me now – like criminal lunacy. But the common citizenry of Spain is accustomed to such conduct on the part of its governments. It is one of the reasons why we have torn each other apart in a civil war. And it is one of the reasons why we will lose whatever the outcome.
The lorry crews were given forty-eight hours’ leave at the conclusion of the operation, leaving Pedro and me free to assist Bilotra in the next stage of his plan. He had hired a heavy lorry from a nearby quarry, large enough to hold half the cache of boxes, and had located a suitable hiding-place in the mountains about fifty kilometres north-west of Cartagena. It was, in fact, a long abandoned copper mine, accessible from a rough but passable track. We transported half the gold there the night following the departure of the Russian steamers and half the next night. The loading and unloading was back-breaking work but, between us, we managed it. Bilotra navigated during the journeys. In the dark, Pedro and I had only the vaguest idea of where we were. On the second night, Bilotra brought some dynamite along, which he used to set off a small explosion, caving in the entrance to the mine. It would ensure, he said, that the gold would be safe until we arranged its collection.
Halfway back to Cartagena, in the early hours of Tuesday 27 October, Bilotra asked us to stop the lorry and pull off the road. We were in the middle of nowhere. I assumed he wanted to relieve himself and complied without really thinking. Then he pulled a gun on us and told us to climb out. His demeanour had changed completely. It was obvious he had deceived us all along. And it was equally obvious, when he led us away from the lorry, that he meant to kill us. We demanded to know why, but he did not reply. Then, as if he wanted to goad us before the end, he said: ‘The gold will go to Franco.’
Anger at the thought of that drove out our fear. We made a rush at him. He fired and Pedro fell. But, before he could fire again, I wrenched the gun from his grasp. Pedro was dead and I would have killed Bilotra instantly if it had not been for the realization that only he knew where the gold was. In his pocket he had a map he had drawn, showing its exact location. I made him hand it over. Then he said something which amazed and appalled me. ‘I lied about Franco. Cardozo thinks the gold is destined for the Fascists, but it isn’t. They know nothing about it. Nobody does, except the Nationalist officer Cardozo is in contact with, Colonel Delgado. He sent me here to procure what I could for our personal use, after the war is over. But I’m not unreasonable. You could share in the wealth too, Vicente. We’ve hidden something like thirty million pesetas in gold bullion in that mine. Only you and I know where it is. I’m due to meet Cardozo at nine o’clock tomorrow night. Why don’t we put a bullet through his head and hope one of your lot puts one through Delgado’s before this madness is over? Then you and I can live like kings. We can win while everybody else loses. What do you say, Vicente?’
What did I say? Nothing. There was nothing to say, when my friend lay dead beside me and our foolish attempt to aid the anarchist cause amounted only to blood and betrayal and bribery. I shot Bilotra where he stood. I put a bullet through his head. And then I tried to think. If I went to the authorities, it would turn out badly for me. The FAI knew nothing about it and would probably disown me, while the government would want to prevent the Russians learning they had been tricked out of some of the gold. I would be an embarrassment to everybody. And from there it is a short step to being denounced as a traitor and dealt with accordingly. No, it was vital my part in the affair should not become known. Indeed, it was vital the affair itself should not become known.
I took the map and the gun and I walked away, leaving Pedro and Bilotra dead beside the lorry. There was nothing I could do for Pedro without risking discovery. And there was nothing I wanted to do for Bilotra.
I reached Cartagena around dawn. When I reported for duty that morning at the end of forty-eight hours’ leave, I told my superiors Pedro was missing. They were not greatly interested, expecting he would show up before the day was out. Otherwise, he would be posted as a deserter. How long it would be before the lorry was found and the bodies beside it identified – if they were identified – I did not know. But I had to see Cardozo before that happened. Bilotra had said he was to meet him at nine p.m. and I guessed they had agreed to use the same rendezvous as before. I was right. Cardozo was waiting there when I arrived.
When I told him what had happened, he refused to believe me. I could understand why. The turn of events was as disastrous for him as it was for me. I had to threaten to shoot him before he agreed to tell me the truth. He was a Carlist sympathizer of traditional views who hated everything the Republic stood for. He had been passing information to his contact in Burgos, Colonel Marcelino Delgado, since the outbreak of the Civil War. Delgado had instructed him to help Bilotra in any way he could. This he had done. Bilotra had suggested they pose as anarchists in order to persuade Pedro and me to come in with them. Cardozo admitted playing his part in duping us, but he was incredulous at the thought that he too had been duped. He simply could not bring himself to believe it.
I should have shot him there and then. The secret would have been safe and so would I. But I was no longer angry. I did not despise him as I had despised Bilotra. In a strange way, I felt sorry for him. He believed in his version of Spain as much as I believed in mine. He had acted according to his principles just as I had. And even now he could not accept that we had both been deceived, that our faith in the opposing ideals we stood for had been betrayed.
I hesitated. I lowered the gun. He saw then he had a chance and he took it. He ran and I let him go. Fool that I was, I let him live. I regretted it almost instantly. I still regret it now, though sometimes I am glad I did not add his murder to Bilotra’s execution.
Next morning, I was questioned about Pedro’s disappearance. When I asked why they were suddenly so interested, they said there had been a coincidental disappearance of a civil servant who was visiting the area with a delegation from the Ministry of Finance. It was Cardozo. He had decided to flee. But where to? Burgos was my guess, either to denounce Delgado, or, if he still thought I was lying, to report what had happened to him. Whichever was the case, as the possessor of Bilotra’s map and the only living soul who knew where the gold was hidden, I was perilously placed. I could not inform the Republican authorities without being arrested – and probably shot – as a traitor. If I were captured by the Nationalists and my identity became known, the same fate would await me, albeit after the location of the gold had been tortured out of me. I was caught between two grindstones and knew instinctively there was no way to escape.
My predicament became more acute when, a few days later, I heard the government had been re-formed to include anarchist representatives, with Catalonia’s own Garcia Oliver as Minister of Justice. It was a total contradiction of everything we anarchists thought we stood for, a fatal dilution of our revolutionary principles. And it blasted any slim chance I had of convincing the FAI I had acted in their best interests. My fate was sealed.
For the moment, however, I could still hope to avoid it. The Nationalists launched their assault on Madrid in early November and I was recalled to the Durruti column, which was standing by in Aragon to help defend the city. Enquiries into the disappearances of a civil servant and an anarchist lorry-driver’s mate in Cartagena were soon overtaken by more momentous events. Whether Pedro’s body was ever found and given a decent burial I do
not know. I hope so. As for Bilotra, I hope the flies consumed what the rats left of him.
Madrid did not fall. I am proud of what we and my fellow anarchists did to save it, even at the cost of our commander’s life. But I am not proud of the squabbling feuding chaos into which the anarchist movement descended during the following winter. I am glad Durruti did not live to see that. I only regret now I could not have died with him and been spared the confirmation of all my worst fears.
I have neither the time nor the heart to describe the insidious way in which Russia, working through its puppet, the PSUC, moved to suppress the revolution we thought the events of July 1936 had set in motion. The most dismal aspect of the affair was the failure of the CNT to ally itself with the only independent communist group, the POUM. Instead, they were at loggerheads with them throughout the spring of 1937. Even when both groups took to the streets of Barcelona in early May, the CNT still held itself aloof. United and concerted action was the only way to preserve the revolution. But of that the CNT was incapable. I was stationed with what was left of the Durruti column at Barbastro. Many of us favoured marching into Barcelona and confronting the forces of reaction. But Garcia Oliver forbade it and Ricardo Sanz, our commanding officer, complied. We stayed where we were. The POUM was crushed. And later, in Stalin’s good time, the CNT was neutralized.
The failure of anarchism as an instrument of revolution was the end for me. I went to Sanz and told him I could no longer fight under its banner. He offered me a transfer to the International Brigades, where reinforcements were badly needed. I accepted. And so, since June 1937, I have served not with my fellow Catalans but with foreigners who volunteered to defend Spanish socialism without knowing what a sham and a fraud it has become. I have made some good friends among these British lovers of liberty. I propose to entrust this account to one of them when I judge the moment is right. He is Tristram Abberley, the poet, and I hope he will be able to use his public reputation to ensure the truth about what happened in Cartagena in October 1936 becomes widely known.
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