Abel Paz

Abel Paz (August 12, 1921 – April 13, 2009) was a Spanish anarchist and historian who fought in the Spanish Civil War. He wrote multiple volumes on anarchist history, including a biography of Buenaventura Durruti, an influential anarchist during the war. He kept the anarchist tradition throughout his life, including a decade in Francoist Spain's jails and multiple decades in exile in France.

Abel Paz
Abel Paz (2007)
Born	Diego Camacho Escámez (1921-08-12)August 12, 1921 Almería, Andalusia, Spain
Died	April 13, 2009(2009-04-13) (aged 87) Barcelona, Spain
Other names	Abel Paz
Occupation(s)	Anarchist, writer, historian
Known for	Spanish anarchist, anti-fascist, biographer of Durruti

Background

Abel Paz was born Diego Camacho Escámez^[1] on August 12, 1921, in Almería, southeastern Andalusia, Spain. When he was six years old, he moved in with his Barcelonan uncle, who was a member of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist labor union. Before his teens, Paz had joined the libertarian Ferrerist school Escuela Natura in Barcelona's El Clot working class district. He moved back briefly to Almería, where his mother was, too, a CNT member and subscribed to the Libertarian Youth in 1935.^[2]

Career

Spanish Civil War

By February 1936, Paz had returned to Barcelona just before the start of the Spanish Revolution and Civil War. He participated in the resistance after Francisco Franco's 1936 pronunciamento.^[3] He joined the CNT-FAI (allied with the Federación Anarquista Ibérica, founded as a group that fought the CNT-FAI's moderate policies, and fought for the working class and anarchists. Following his 1937 arrest in a clash with Stalinists, he worked in a farm collective, wrote for the FAI's Tierra y Libertad periodical, and fought on the Catalan front.^{[citation needed]}

Exile

After his release in 1952, Paz returned to the resistance and became the underground organization's delegate to the 1953 International Congress.^[2]

Paz remained exiled in France, where he traveled and participated in anti-Francoist, CNT, and Libertarian Youth groups. His partner Antònia Fontanillas (also of anarchist lineage) traveled with him through 1958. Over the next decade, Paz wrote multiple history books, including a biography of CNT figure Buenaventura Durruti, known as the most comprehensive account as of the late 2000s. His work covering Durruti covered an explanation of the failure of Durruti's militia to take Zaragoza after the capture of Bujaraloz.^[1]

Personal and death

Paz at his Barcelonan apartment, 2006

Paz's life partner was Antònia Fontanillas.^{[citation needed]}

He died age 87 on April 13, 2009, in Barcelona.^{[citation needed]}

Selected works

Buenaventura Durruti during the Spanish Civil War.

• La Barcelona Rebelde: Guía De Una Ciudad Silenciada Octaedro, 2003. ISBN 978-84-8063-628-5
• Durruti en la Revolución Española. Fundación Anselmo Lorenzo, 1996.
• Durruti in the Spanish Revolution. AK Press, 2006. ISBN 978-1-904859-50-5. Translated by Chuck W. Morse.^[4][5][6][7]
• Durruti: the people armed. Black Rose, 1976. ISBN 978-0-919618-74-9 (pbk.) ISBN 978-0-919618-73-2 (hbk.)^[8]
• The Spanish civil war. Hazan, 1997. ISBN 978-2-85025-532-8
• The Story of the Iron Column: Militant Anarchism in the Spanish Civil War. AK Press and Kate Sharpley Library, 2011. ISBN 978-1-84935-064-8. Translated by Paul Sharkey.^[9]

See also

• Anarchism in Spain