Zaragoza Bound

On July 24, 1936, one week after the Spanish working class took up arms against General Franco’s fascist coup, an armed column–comprised primarily of partisans from the CNT, the anarchist trade union–left Barcelona. Leading this militia was José Buenaventura Durruti, the most famous anarchist in Spain. A week prior, Durruti and his compatriots had participated in the street fighting that temporarily defeated the military uprising. Now they were heading to Zaragoza, an important CNT stronghold whose liberation would represent a decisive advance for the war and the revolution. On the way, the Column would help establish free communes outside the control of the brittle Republic, while confronting the fascist advance. The six thousand members of the column were organized without traditional military hierarchy, thus establishing a true anarchist military formation based on solidarity and common purpose. Zaragoza Bound chronicles the column’s battles, membership, and organization. From its creation to its dissolution and integration into the Popular Army of the Republic in 1937, heroic episodes of the Column are recounted without shying away from hardship and controversies.