Salvador Seguí

Memorial plaque for Salvador Seguí at the site of the attack in El Raval

Salvador Seguí i Rubinat (born December 23, 1886 in Tornabous , † March 10, 1923 in Barcelona ), also known by the nickname El noi del sucre ( Catalan for The Sugar Boy ), was a Spanish anarchist and syndicalist .

Life

Salvador Seguí left school at the age of twelve. He then completed an apprenticeship as a painter. He was a supporter of the Escuela Moderna by Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia and referred to authors such as Pjotr Alexejewitsch Kropotkin , Elisée Reclus or Christiaan Cornelissen . Seguí advocated the formation of the working class in the trade unions, intellectual, cultural and technical training as a revolutionary weapon for the workers. He was chairman of the Ateneo Sindicalista on Calle de Poniente in El Raval . There he founded his library in 1915, which became a study center for the syndicalist and anarchist movement.

In 1907 Seguí was one of the initiators for the establishment of the anarcho-syndicalist union Solidaridad Obrera , from which the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) emerged in 1910 . In 1916, Seguí was elected Secretary of the Catalan Regional Federation of the CNT. Together with Juan Peiró and Ángel Pestaña , he spoke out against the use of maximalist forms of action by the CNT. In 1922 Seguí, Peiró and Pestaña achieved the withdrawal of the CNT from the Third International and their entry into the International Workers' Association (IAA). In view of the increasing repression on the part of the state and the employers' associations, he pleaded for alliances with the socialist and republican organizations, for which he was sharply criticized by the purist wing of the CNT.

In 1916 he initiated negotiations for a unit of action between the CNT and the Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), as a united front of the Spanish labor movement . In 1917 there was a 24-hour general strike against increases in food prices, which turned into an indefinite general strike to wrest basic political rights and the guarantee of a minimum standard of living from the Spanish government. Seguí also played a prominent role in 1919 during a general strike by the CNT in Catalonia, which took on the form of a social revolution ( huelga de La Canadiense ). It is one of the most successful labor struggles in the history of the Spanish labor movement. Wage increases, the reinstatement of laid-off workers, the release of thousands of imprisoned strikers and, above all, the eight-hour day were enforced . Seguí was also criticized in this context by the purist wing of the CNT, as he finally spoke out in favor of ending the strike through an agreement with the government.

Gravestone of Salvador Seguí in the Montjuïc cemetery

He was imprisoned several times for his anarchist and syndicalist activities, for example in 1902, 1907, 1916, 1917, 1919 during the general strike in Catalonia and in November 1920 together with Lluís Companys , the trade unionist Martí Barrera and up to 36 other people in the fortress of La Mola in Maó on the island of Menorca . He was assassinated in 1919 and 1920. On March 10, 1923, Seguí was shot in Barcelona at the intersection of Calle de la Cadena and Calle de San Rafael in the El Raval district by pistoleros who worked for the employers' associations. The anarcho-syndicalist Francisco Comes was also killed in this attack. Salvador Seguí was buried on the Cementiri de Montjuïc .

The Confederación General del Trabajo Foundation bears his name.

Web links

Commons : Salvador Seguí - Collection of Images

Remarks

↑ Spanish street name at that time; Current Catalan name: Carrer de Joaquín Costa ( Joaquín Costa Street )
↑ Spanish street names at that time; today's Catalan names: Rambla del Raval / Carrer de Sant Rafael . Cadena Street was temporarily also called Calle Salvador Seguí in honor of the murdered man .

literature

Miguel Ìñiguez: Esbozo de una Enciclopedia histórica del anarquismo español . FAL, Madrid 2001, p. 564. ISBN 84-86864-45-3 .

swell

↑ Walther L. Bernecker : Anarchism and Civil War , Verlag Graswurzelrevolution, Nettersheim, new edition from 2006, ISBN 3-93904-503-9 , page 22.

personal data
SURNAME	Seguí, Salvador
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Seguí i Rubinat, Salvador (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	Spanish anarchist
DATE OF BIRTH	December 23, 1886
PLACE OF BIRTH	Tornabous
DATE OF DEATH	March 10, 1923
Place of death	Barcelona

[1] Spanish street name at that time; Current Catalan name: Carrer de Joaquín Costa ( Joaquín Costa Street )

[3] Spanish street names at that time; today's Catalan names: Rambla del Raval / Carrer de Sant Rafael . Cadena Street was temporarily also called Calle Salvador Seguí in honor of the murdered man .

[2] Walther L. Bernecker : Anarchism and Civil War , Verlag Graswurzelrevolution, Nettersheim, new edition from 2006, ISBN 3-93904-503-9 , page 22.