directed by the Generalitat; and the transition from the workers expropriations and workers control in the factories to a centralized economy, controlled and directed by the Generalitat.

The Decree ordering the militarization of the Popular Militias aroused a great deal of discontent among the anarchist militiamen of the Durutti Column, stationed at the Aragón Front. After long and bitter debates, in March 1937, several hundred volunteer militiamen, posted in the Gelsa sector, resolved to abandon the front and return to the rearguard. It was agreed that the replacement of the militiamen opposed to militarization would be carried out over a period of fifteen days. They abandoned the front, taking their weapons with them. When they arrived in Barcelona, together with other anarchists (defenders of the continuity and intensification ofthe July revolution, and opponents of confederal collaborationism with the government), the militiamen of Gelsa (Zaragoza) decided to constitute an anarchist organization, distinct from the FAI, the CNT and the Libertarian Youth, whose mission would be to guide the acratic movement by the revolutionary path. The new Group was formally constituted in March 1937, after a long period of incubation that lasted for several months beginning in October 1936. The directive Junta chose to call the organization “The Friends of Durruti Group”, a name that was chosen partly with reference to the common origin of the former militiamen of the Durruti Column, and which, as Balius pointed out, was not adopted with reference to the ideas of Durruti, but rather in the light the popular mythology that had