A very brief biography of leading Spanish anarcho-syndicalist militant, Francisco Ascaso, who was killed on the dawn of the Spanish revolution.
Ascaso, left, with his brother on the Ramblas, Barcelona, on July 20, 1936 20 min before he was shot and killed
An important figure in both the Spanish anarchosyndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Labor Confederation, CNT) and the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anarchist Federation, FAI) from 1922 until his death, Ascaso Abadía is associated with Buenaventura Durruti and Juan García Oliver, fellow members of the group Solidarity (Los Solidarios, later Nosotros [We]), who were together nicknamed “the three musketeers.”
Imprisoned in 1923 for the assassination of Zaragoza's archbishop, Ascaso escaped, joining Durruti in France and traveling to the Americas.
Ascaso, right, with Durruti, left, and friends in Paris, 1926
They returned to Europe by April 1926, and by 1931 Ascaso was back in Spain as one of the leading radicals of the movement.
Deported to Africa in 1932, he returned with enhanced prestige, battling moderate forces both as an editor of Solidaridad Obrera (Workers' Solidarity) and as secretary of the Catalan CNT during 1934–5.
Critical of the policies of the Asturian CNT, he opposed alliances with political organizations. Ascaso supported the formation of armed militia from CNT members and was at the forefront of the street battles in the 1936 Spanish revolution; he died on July 20 during the struggle for Barcelona's Atarazanas Barracks.
Taken and very slightly edited by libcom.org from the International Encyclopaedia of Revolution and Protest
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