They Had A Dream

The Telefònica building, plaça Catalunya.

THE BARCELONA MAY DAYS

On the 3rd of May 1937 the chief of police (a communist)
attempted to take control of the headquarters of the Barcelona
Telephone Company from the CNT FAI.

The previous day, an anarchist operator had allegedly interrupted
a conversation between the President of the Republic and the
President of the Generalitat (the Catalonian government) saying
they needed the lines for more important things.

Depending on the nature of their conversation, this may, of course,
have been true.

The communists had been waiting for an excuse to supplant the
anarchists' powerful position. But the libertarians had no intention
of giving up the ground they had gained, their opportunity for a social
revolution.

Land and freedom.

Fighting began and the barricades went up again all over the city.

Four days' fighting with hundreds dead and over a thousand injured.

The communist purge of the anarchists and especially of the
anti-Stalinist POUM had begun.



One coincidence: ITT, the International Telegraph and Telephone
Company, owned the Spanish telephone system before the war.