Facerias; Urban Guerrilla Warfare(1939-1957)

Anarchist urban guerrilla and member of the Iberian Federation of Libertarian Youth (FIJL) since 1936, José Lluis Facerías fought on the Aragón front during the Spanish Civil War, where he was taken prisoner and held until 1945. Following his release he rejoined the clandestine anarcho-syndicalist trade union, the CNT, and dedicated himself to the armed struggle against the Francoist dictatorship. From March 1946 until his death in a police ambush in 1957, Facerias was the driving force behind the anarchist defence groups operating in Barcelona. Facerías was born in Barcelona on 6 January 1920. When the Spanish army mutinied in July 1936, Facerias, a member of the Woodworkers’ Union of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) and of the ‘Faros’ Libertarian Youth, promptly enlisted in the Ascaso Column (the Popular Front’s 28th Division) and joined the militia columns fighting against the fascist uprising on the Aragón front. Two and a half years later, in the last stages of the fighting in Catalonia, Facerías was taken prisoner and passed through a number of concentration camps and labour battalions. On his release, in late 1945, Facerias rejoined the underground CNT’s Printing Trades Union, and devoted all his spare time —and some of his working hours — to clandestine activities. From March 1946 onwards he became the driving force behind the union confederation’s Defence Groups in Barcelona’s central district. In July 1947, after a brief period of imprisonment, he formed his urban guerrilla group and launched the first of many major actions: armed robberies at the Hispano-Olivetti factory and the Spanish Credit Bank in the Calle Mallorca, a robbery which netted the union over 400,000 pesetas. Facerias believed that armed struggle was the fastest way to obtain money to support the union, its gaoled members and their desperately needy families.