fierce resistance thanks to a strategically placed machine gun. The news spread rapidly. Barricades were immediately erected throughout the city. One must not speak of a spontaneous reaction on the part of the Barcelona working class, because the general strike, the armed confrontations with the police forces and the barricades were the outcome of the initiative taken by the Investigation Committee of the CNT-FAI and the Defense Committees, which was rapidly supported thanks to the existence of enormous generalized discontent, the increasing economic hardships occasioned by the rising cost of living, long queues and rationing, as well the tension that existed among the rank and file militants that pitted collaborationists against revolutionaries. The street battles were initiated by and directed from the Neighborhood Defense Committees (and only partiallyand secondarily by certain elements in the control patrols). The fact that there was no order from the superior Committees of the CNT, whose members were busy acting as Ministers in Valencia, or from any other organization, to build barricades throughout the city, does not mean that the movement was purely spontaneous, but that it was a result of directives issued by the Defense Committees.

In April 1937, Pedro Herrera, the “conseller” (Minister) of Health in the second government of Tarradellas, and Manuel Escorza, were the CNT officials who were carrying out negotiations with Lluis Companys (president of the Generalitat) to resolve the government crisis that had reached a high point at the beginning of March 1937 due to the resignation of the “conseller” of Defense, the CNT’s Francisco