ABSTRACT
If Madrid, the Spanish capital, remains for many the enduring symbol of the historic resistance to fascism, Barcelona, alternatively, stands as the historic capital of the Spanish revolution. Throughout the century, in fact, Barcelona was not only Spain's major industrial center and its cosmopolitan port city on the Mediterranean but also a mecca for unconventional revolutionary groups. Elsewhere in Europe socialism and Marxism were significant influences and, in some cases, were represented by major political parties. In Spain, uniquely, the radical Left was represented most powerfully by anarchism, concentrated especially in the province of Catalonia. Catalonia's capital, Barcelona, had perhaps 350,000 anarchists when the war opened. Their ultimate aims included the complete overthrow of the modern, centralized state. It was that revolutionary change, in part, that the Catalonian anarchists sought to realize in the latter half of 1936. Appropriately then, our Barcelona chapter opens with letters by Carl Marzani, an American who served not in the International Brigades but in the anarchist Durruti column at Bujaraloz. For Marzani, it was a return trip to Europe; he was born in Rome in 1912 and came to the United States in 1924.
