the intersection of Las Ramblas and Hospital Street, under an enormous portrait of Durruti draped over the façade of a building in which the Group had its headquarters, a barricade was erected where the Group’s center of operations was established. The Group’s absolute control over Hospital Street provided access to the headquarters of the Confederal Defense Committee (the central barracks of the Defense Committees), at Los Escolapios on the Ronda San Pablo, and from there to the Brecha de San Pablo, which had been secured by about forty militiamen from the Rojinegra [Red and Black] Column, who, under the command of the Durrutista Máximo Franco had “dropped in on Barcelona” for purposes of “observation and intelligence”, after both the Rojinegra Column as well as the Lenin Column (ofthe POUM), commanded by Rovira, had yielded to pressure to return to the front, pressure that came from Abad de Santillán and Molina, that is, from the CNT officials who were giving orders from the Department of Defense of the Generalitat in the absence of Isgleas.

The confederal masses, disoriented by the appeals issued by their leaders to leave the barricades—the same leaders they had on July 19!—finally chose to abandon the struggle, although at first they had scoffed at the appeals from the CNT leaders for concord in order to preserve anti-fascist unity.

The final dissolution of the Defense Committees

The Revolutionary Neighborhood Committees of Barcelona, which had arisen during the days of July 19-20, 1936, lasted until at least June 7, 1937, when the restored forces of public order