the Local Committee for revolutionary preparedness that we are currently proposing.” This committee would be composed of four members: two would be appointed by the Local Federation of the CNT, and the other two by the Local Federation of Anarchist Groups. These four persons would in addition organize an auxiliary commission. The principal mission of this Local Committee for Revolutionary Preparedness was “to study the ways and means of struggle, the tactics that should be employed and the deployment of the organic insurrectionary forces”. There was a clear difference between the old combat cadres, from prior to October 1934, and the new defense cadres: “Just as the Defense Committees up until now have been above all street fighting groups, they must from now on be institutions capable ofgroups of Barcelona, in January 1935, insisted on a new structure for the defense cadres, discarding their former status as mere street fighting groups in order to transform them into defense cadres for a rigorous revolutionary preparation, addressing problems of information, armaments, tactics and investigation prior to the outbreak of a long civil war. From the street fighting groups of the period prior to 1934, the step had been taken to the cadres of information and combat.

July 1936: the Revolutionary Committees and the militias

On July 19-20, 1936, in the midst of the fighting in the streets of Barcelona, when the rebel military units had been defeated, the members of the Defense Committees began to call themselves and were known as “the militiamen”. Without any formal transition, the defense