Friends of Durruti Group
Friends of Durruti Group
The Friends of Durruti Group (Agrupación de los Amigos de Durruti) was a small Spanish anarchist group named after Buenaventura Durruti. It was started in Barcelona on 15 March 1937 by Félix Martínez and Jaume Balius i Mir, who were unhappy with the CNT-FAI leadership. They tied themselves to libertarian ideas, with some influence from platformist and attributed Trotskyist currents.
During the May Days in Barcelona in 1937, they pushed for a revolutionary junta to take power and called for disarming the state's forces and dissolving opposing political parties. They worked with Trotskyist-aligned groups and with POUM, spreading leaflets at barricades and seeking a CNT-FAI-POUM government. The group’s proposals were controversial, and they were accused by CNT-FAI leaders of being provocateurs. After the fighting ended, they were expelled from CNT-FAI.
In 1937–38 the group began publishing El Amigo del Pueblo, a clandestine newspaper that accused CNT-FAI of “collaborationism.” In 1938 they released a pamphlet, Towards a Fresh Revolution, which argued for a revolutionary junta to direct the war and revolution. This pamphlet circulated widely and is seen as an influential text within platformist anarchism, though opinions about its significance vary. The Friends of Durruti claimed thousands of members and tens of thousands of pamphlet copies, but their impact remained limited.
By the end of the Spanish Civil War, the group had faded and effectively dissolved around 1939. They were seen by some as an example of ideological confusion or even as a Trotskyist-front influence, while others viewed their work as a bold but ultimately marginal attempt to push anarchism toward a more centralized, Marxist-influenced strategy.
Key facts:
- Headquarters: Barcelona
- Newspaper: El Amigo del Pueblo
- Ideology: libertarian communism with platformist tendencies
- Founded: 15 March 1937
- Dissolved: around 1939
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 16:52 (CET).