Advertisement for Militiamen's Belts

“The militia, in their uniforms, stationed themselves around the speakers’ platform”, a platform presided over by the main speaker at that Socialist party rally in Oviedo on 15 June 1936, Francisco Largo Caballero. The reporter for El Sol described how the militias protected the platform, made up the first aid service and marched “behind their banners” when the meeting ended.

That same month, a sporting goods store in Madrid advertised militia belts (correajes) in Juventud, the daily paper of the Socialist Youth Federation. The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy defines correaje as “the set of belts that are part of the equipment of individuals in armed units”. It was also a common part of the uniforms of the paramilitary organizations that proliferated across Europe in the interwar years.

The Soviet example and the conviction that revolution was possible; the chain of economic crises that followed World War I; and the rise of fascist and fascist-style movements and their Street violence contributed to the radicalization of the militant youth of the European left. To this was added the conviction that both the institutions and the values such as parliaments or liberalism that they had inherited from their parents and grandparents were outdated and should be destroyed in order to build a new world.

Although the Socialist militias had initially served as security guards, in February 1932 the Socialist Youth Federation agreed to turn them into a paramilitary body. Renovación, the organization’s official publication at the time, affirmed that this was necessary in case “a violent and armed insurrection  that required the militarization of the shock units, authoritarian discipline from top to bottom, and weapons took place”. In February 1934, the “Ten Commandments of the Young Socialist” called on the militias to be prepared to mobilize rapidly at the orders of a leader, “salute with the raised fist”, and act “in a military manner” so that their actions would provoke an “atmosphere of fear and respect”.

Even though the development of the Socialist militias was uneven and depended on the strength of the local organization, by 1934 they had spread across the entire country and played an important role in the insurrectionary strike that took place in October of that year. Many Young militants would have their baptism of fire then, or in armed confrontations with radical right organizations in 1935 and 1936. The Socialists were not the only workers’ militias: the Communist party created its Work and Peasant Antifascist Militias in the spring of 1933 and, starting in that year, the FAI gave its “defence units” a militia-style look.

The immediate response of the militias to the military coup of 18 July is not at all surprising. They had been preparing to fight for months. All they need were enough weapons to fight a war.

MML