formalizing the connection with the FAI, the Presentation concluded with an appeal to the members of the CNT to consider the importance of consolidating, extending and perfecting a clandestine military apparatus of the CNT, “to confront the military and police leviathan of the state and the fascist or Marxist militias”.

The defense cadres were mostly trade union members. After July 19-20 some of these trade union cadres formed centuries of the Popular Militias, which immediately departed to fight against fascism on the Aragón front. This is why, within the various confederal columns, one spoke of the century of the metal workers, or the century of the woodworkers, or of the construction workers, formed of militants from the same trade union.

The Defense Committees had two essential functions:

1) Acquisition, maintenance, storageand training in the use of weapons. The authority of the Defense Committees was based on their character as armed organizations. Their power was the power of the workers in arms.

2) Logistical responsibilities in the fullest sense of the term, from the provision of supplies and managing popular kitchens to the creation and operation of hospitals, schools, social centers … or even, during the first days after the popular victory, recruiting militiamen and supplying the columns that were departing for the front.

The old defense cadres were formed shortly after the proclamation of the Republic, and could be considered as the continuation, reorganization and extension of the armed defense groups of the period of pistolerismo (1919-1923).

During the thirties the unemployed were enrolled in the defense cadres for rotating terms