Durruti in the Spanish Revolution

AK Press has commissioned an elegant, new and unabridged translation of the definitive biography of Spanish revolutionary and military strategist, Buenaventura Durruti. But Abel Paz, who fought alongside Durruti in the Spanish Civil War, has given us much more than an account of a single man’s life. `Durruti in the Spanish Revolution’ is as much a biography of a nation and of a tumultuous historical era. Paz seamlessly weaves intimate biographical details of Durruti’s life—his progression from factory worker and father to bank robber, political exile and, eventually, revolutionary leader—with extensive historical background, behind-the-scenes governmental intrigue, and blow-by-blow accounts of major battles and urban guerrilla warfare. An amazing and exhaustive study of an incredible man and his life-long fight against fascism in both its capitalist and Stalinist forms. Includes Jose Luis Gutierres Molina’s afterword about Abel Paz’s life and the historiography of the Spanish Civil War. Abel Paz was born in 1921. At fifteen, he joined the Durruti Column, spend a short time on the front and took part in the May Days revolt(1937). After the revolution’s defeat, he became active in the anarchist underground against the Franco regime inside Spain and spent eleven years in prison. He lives in Barcelona, Spain.