to recruit people who are ready to go through with the revolution. Workers, syndicalists, anarchists, communists if necessary; any Spanish expatriate with enough courage to drop everything and take up arms.”
“Sounds like the Committee has finally given in to your messianic gifts,” Pablo says sarcastically. “And have you managed to win anyone over?”
“A few, yes.”
“And what do you say to them?”
“‘Brothers,’” Robinsón begins reciting, projecting his voice theatrically, “‘the time has come to overthrow the dictatorship. In Spain, the unions and workers’ associations have been shut down, and the jails are filled with prisoners from among our ranks. We cannot close our eyes. Revolution is the only choice. We are preparing an insurrection at the border that will inspire the rest of the country to rise up. When we finally enter Spain, the people will unite with us and an extreme left government will take power. Anyone who enlists will receive some money and a train ticket; you will receive your arms at the border, so they won’t get seized by the French police during the trip—’”
“I can’t believe you managed to recruit anybody with such a sloppy pitch,” Pablo interrupts.
And although Robinsón says nothing in return, the truth is that in his role as Pied Piper he has already recruited a few dozen collaborators, many of them from the Renault auto factory where Durruti works, where his evangelism was quite effective among those workers most dissatisfied with their situation in France. In the union locals as well he has rounded up some malcontents ready to enlist in the mission, as well as at the Community House and the labor exchange. Even in the Spanish Theatrical Lyric Group he managed to seduce a few volunteers at the end of the show, with the priceless help of Felipe Sandoval, a member of the Committee and a regular at the theater who got up on stage to rally the attendees and to reassure them that the revolution would bring amnesty to prisoners and exiles, to deserters and all those who had to leave Spain to save their necks. His passionate speech ended with the crowd chanting “¡Viva la revolución!” Furthermore, Robinsón plans next week to tour the neighborhoods with the highest concentration of Spanish exiles, such as Saint-Denis or Ménilmontant, and the bars and cafés most frequented by anarchists and syndicalists, such as the Café Floréal on Avenue Parmentier, and those on Avenue Gambetta and Rue de Bretagne.
“Of course,” says Robinsón hesitantly, “at the Point Du Jour there were a few interested people, and for a moment I had the impression that your Argentine buddy was going to tell me that he wanted to get on board.”
Pablo says nothing, but something stirs in his guts.
“And since I eat every day at the vegetarian restaurant on Rue Mathis, I have also been able to light a fire in two or three of the Spanish regulars there. There’s a Galician who is rather convinced that he wants to enlist, a guy with an intellectual look, who gives talks in Esperanto on naturism and free love. I suppose that’s why he’s called ‘El Maestro.’You should come eat with me one of these days, I’ll introduce you to him.”
But the recruiting work they have assigned Robinsón is only one part of the array of activities going into the revolutionary plan. As he explains to Pablo while they go down Rue Faubourg du Temple, the group works in a collective manner, although in practice the main ideologues of the operation are Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso. The two men complement each other perfectly: Durruti is a man of action, the charismatic leader who knows how to inspire the masses with his drive and his words; Ascaso provides reflection and calculation, cold logic and strategy. Both have the same idea of what revolution and anarchist struggle should be; an idea that is of course rather far from Robinsón’s, who, whenever someone asks him what anarchism is, responds: “Anarchism? It’s the doctrine of universal love,” and leaves it at that.
Apart from Robinsón as lead recruiter, Durruti and Ascaso have appointed various trusted individuals to more specific tasks. Pedro Massoni has been chosen as manager of finances; he is a man with good contacts, accustomed to working with numbers and money since Bravo Portillo’s henchmen left him one-eyed and limping in Barcelona in 1919. His first initiative was to organize an internal pool to buy weapons: thirty francs per head, which could be recuperated by selling a few “Pro-Liberation of Spain” stamps to sympathizers.
Miguel García Vivancos, one of the members of Los Solidarios who participated in the attack on the Bank of Gijón, is the man responsible for obtaining weapons, for which he has three open fronts: first, the Russian Bolsheviks living in France, always ready to provide top quality materiel for their communist comrades, but more hesitant to negotiate with anarchists; secondly, the arms traffickers of the Moroccan War, although they already have a reliable market and are reluctant to make deals with Spanish exiles hoping to overthrow the regime that is giving them fat benefits; and finally, and this appears to be the most economical and feasible way, are the small groups of French smugglers who root around in the old battlefields of the Great War looking for abandoned arsenals and selling any weapons they find in working condition.
Ramón Recasens (also known as Bonaparte, since he has a Napoleonic streak, with his short stature and his knack for military strategy) and Luís Naveira (a smart type who was a nurse or doctor at Santiago de Compostela and who is known as “El Portugués,” even though he is in fact Galician) are those responsible for counterfeiting the documents and passports for the members of the Group of Thirty, since many of them have police records and could endanger the expedition if they were to travel under their real names.
Gregorio Jover, nicknamed “El Chino,” another former member of Los Solidarios who escaped a few months ago from a commissariat in Barcelona by jumping out a window, has been designated as Committee representative and is taking care of communications with the various groups involved in the movement, both those from the south of France, who have the mission of drafting new participants who will unite with the groups coming from Paris, and those inside Spain, contact with whom is more difficult and dangerous.
Finally, Mariano Pérez Jordán, alias “Teixidó,” the man with the raspy voice and an affinity for snuff, has been chosen as the manager of propaganda, which is why he approached Pablo the other night after Blasco Ibáñez’s meeting, as publishing the broadsides is one of his main missions. No one in particular is responsible for the rest of the activities; those are being doled out as the project proceeds.
“And what’s the plan for the expedition?” Pablo asks as they cross Place de la République.
“I’ll tell you later,” Robinsón whispers as he notices a squad of policemen emerging from a side street.
But we can skip ahead a few minutes as the two friends walk in silence through the intricate streets of the third arrondissement. The idea is that two large groups will leave from Paris for the border, one heading to the west end of the Pyrenees and the other to the east end. The first will amass in Saint-Jean-de-Luz until the order comes to liberate Spain, attacking the border posts and taking Irún, finally to reach San Sebastián, where some sectors of the army appear ready to rise up; the second will set up in Perpignan, to cross the border at Portbou, head toward Figueres to liberate the comrades being held in prison and then to advance on Barcelona, where the definitive uprising should take place with the support of social movements and sympathetic members of the military from the Atarazanas barracks. In order for the plan to work, both expeditions need to be perfectly coordinated, both between each other and with the revolutionary movements on the interior, whose mission is to attack the barracks and set up barricades, putting the squeeze on the security forces and inciting the rest of the civil population to rebel against the dictatorship, with the consent of the more progressive elements of the armed forces and liberal-leaning politicians. According to some rumors, it is also possible that, to the west and south of the Iberian Peninsula, other revolutionary groups will come in, made up of Spanish exiles in Portugal, Algeria, and Latin America, as well as some rebel factions from among the ranks of military stationed in Morocco, tired of a war that they consider absurd and unnecessary. Of course, Durruti and Ascaso are aware that the success of the operation depends on the revolution taking hold simultaneously throughout the whole country, as if it were a kettle placed on a flame, in which all the drops of water must start boiling at