Diego Abad de Santillán

Diego Abad de Santillán (1897–1983), born Sinesio Vaudilio García Fernández, was an author, economist and leading figure in the Spanish and Argentinian anarchist movement.

Early Years

Born in Reyero, a village in the province of León in northwestern Spain, on 20 May 1897, de Santillán emigrated at the age of eight with his parents to Argentina. He returned to Spain in 1912, entering the University of Madrid in 1915 to study Philosophy and Literature. After the General Strike of 1917 he was imprisoned for a year, and then returned to Argentina in 1918, working as an activist for the anarcho-syndicalist Federación Obrera Regional Argentina (FORA), and editing its newspaper ‘La Protesta’.

Activism in Germany, Mexico, Argentina and Spain

In 1922 de Santillán represented FORA at the formation of the anarcho-syndicalist International Workingmen’s Association (IWMA) in Berlin; while there he began to study Medicine, and came to know Elise Kater, who was to become his wife. The first of many works on the history and theory of anarchism were published at this time – ‘Ricardo Flores Magón: Apostle of the Mexican Social Revolution’, and ‘Anarchism in the Labour Movement’ [‘El anarquismo en el movimiento Obrero’] (with E. Lopez Arango) both appeared in 1925.

In 1926 de Santillán interrupted his studies to travel to Mexico, where he assisted the Confederación General de Trabajadores (CGT). Returning to Argentina, he continued his work for ‘La Protesta’, as well as for a new journal, ‘The Torch’, and completed ‘The Anarchist Movement in Argentina: From Its Beginnings to 1910’ (Buenos Aires, 1930). When, in 1930, he was condemned to death for sedition, de Santillán escaped to Uruguay. From there he travelled to Spain on the proclamation of the Republic in 1931, before returning to Argentina in secrecy to continue his militant activities and writing, including ‘The Ideology of FORA and Trajectory of the Revolutionary Labour Movement in Argentina’, ‘Social Reconstruction: Foundations for a New Economic Structure in Argentina’ [‘Reconstrucción social: Bases para una nueva edificación económica argentina’] (1933) and ‘The Bankruptcy of the Capitalist Economic and Political System’ [‘La bancarrota del sistema económico y político del capitalismo’]. But by the end of 1933, he had returned again at last to his home country, settling down in Barcelona.

The Spanish Revolution

The following year, de Santillán began work for the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI), becoming, in 1935, secretary to its Peninsular Committee, and editor of ‘Working Solidarity’ and ‘Tierra y Libertad’; he also founded three new journals during this period: ‘Tiempos Nuevos’, ‘Butlletí de la Conselleria d’Economia’ and ‘Timón’. After the Revolution in July 1936, he represented the FAI on the Comité de Milícies Antifeixistes de Catalunya, which co-ordinated the various militias in Catalonia – and, in the name of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), published ‘The Economic Organism of the Revolution’ [‘El organismo económico de la revolución’]

Between December 1936 and April 1937 he served as Minister of the Economy [Conseller de Economía] for the Generalitat of Catalonia, while apparently maintaining anarchist principles of free participation in politics. He was especially critical of the government and person of Juan Negrín, and denounced the crimes of the Czechs and PCE (the Spanish Communist Party) in the Civil War. At this point he was also editor of ‘The Rudder’ – and more books appeared: ‘After the Revolution’ (1937), ‘The Revolution and the War in Spain’ (1938) and a bibliography of Argentinian anarchist writings (1938). In April 1938, de Santillán joined the National Committee of the Antifascist Popular Front, which formed from the union of the anarchist CNT and the socialist UGT – but with the defeat of the Republic by Francoist forces in 1939, returned to Argentina.

Return to Argentina

From this point on, de Santillán lived rather more obscurely, founding several more journals, and continuing his scholarly work, including collaboration on the Gran Enciclopedia Argentina, and critical analyses of the labour movement and Peronism: ‘How We Lost the War’ [‘Por qué perdimos la guerra’] (1940) – later made into a film by his son – ‘The Crisis of Capitalism and the Mission of the Proletariat’ [‘La crisis del capitalismo y la misión del proletariado’] (1946), the section on Argentina in ‘The Labour Movement: Anarchism and Socialism’ Vol. III (1965), ‘Contributions to a History of the Spanish Labour Movement’ [‘Contribución a la historia del movimiento obrero español’] (1962-1971), and ‘Strategy and Tactics: Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow’ [‘Estrategia y Táctica’] (1971). Further unpublished works, ‘Ideas and Suggestions for a New Revolutionary Strategy’ [‘Ideas y suggestiones para una nueva estrategía revolutionaria’] and ‘Political Criminality’ [‘Delincuencia política’], along with the rest of his extensive archives, are held in Amsterdam at the International Institute of Social History.

Final Years

In 1977, at the age of 80, de Santillán returned to post-Franco Spain, settling once again in Barcelona, and producing a final memoir, ‘Memorias 1897-1936’ (1977). He died in Barcelona on 18 October 1983.

Literature

• "After the Revolution" by Diego Abad de Santillan Published 1937 by Greenberg Publisher

• "Estrategia y Táctica" published in Mexico, 1971

External links

• Diego Abad de Santillán Page at the Daily Bleed’s Anarchist Encyclopedia