Diego Abad de Santillán

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Diego Abad de Santillán
Minister of Economy of Catalonia
In office
17 December 1936 – 3 April 1937
PresidentLluís Companys
Preceded byJoan Porqueras i Fàbregas
Succeeded byJosep Juan i Domènech
Personal details
Born
Sinesio Baudillo García Fernández

(1897-05-20)20 May 1897
Iberian Anarchist Federation
Alma materUniversity of Madrid
Occupation
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Sinesio Baudillo García Fernández (20 May 1897 – 18 October 1983), commonly known by his pseudonym Diego Abad de Santillán, was a

Minister of Economy. After the war, he returned to Argentina and largely ceased political activities, going back to Spain only after the Spanish transition to democracy
.

Biography

In 1897, Santillán was born Sinesio Baudillo García Fernández in Reyero, a small, isolated town in the region of León.[1] His father was from a Leonese family of blacksmiths and his mother was from an Andalucian family of miners.[2] In 1905,[1] the family moved to Argentina,[3] settling in Santa Fe.[1]

After working a number of jobs,[4] in 1913, the young Sinesio returned to León and earned his bachelor's degree at a local university. After some travels around Catalonia and the Basque Country, in 1915,[2] he enrolled at the University of Madrid,[4] where he studied the humanities,[2] graduating as a Doctor of Philosophy.[5] In the Spanish capital, he began to live a bohemian lifestyle,[2] taking the pseudonym Diego Abad de Santillán while writing for dissident journals.[6]

Santillán participated in the

Sacco & Vanzetti defense campaign and wrote a history of anarchism in Argentina.[5] In the wake of the 1930 Argentine coup d'état,[4] he was sentenced to death for sedition,[5] but managed to escape into exile in the newly-established Spanish Republic.[4]

In Spain, Santillán joined the

Minister of Economy in the Catalan government.[7] In the wake of the May Days, he took a critical line against the government of Juan Negrín and the Communist Party of Spain (PCE),[5] publishing After the Revolution, which outlined a program for workers' self-management under anarcho-syndicalism.[8] In the program, Santillán invoked British utilitarian philosopher John Stuart Mill in his attacks against capitalism
, declaring:

Stuart Mill is right. We believe that such a society has no right to existence and we desire its total transformation. We want a socialized economy in which the land, the factories, the homes, the means of transport cease to be the monopoly of private ownership and become the collective property of the entire community.

When the Republic was defeated, Santillán fled into exile in France, before finally returning to Argentina. There he continued his historical work and contributed to dictionaries and encyclopedias,[9] notably writing Why We Lost the War, which his son Luis later adapted into film. He largely ceased political activities and gravitated increasingly towards reformism, defending anarchist collaboration with the Republican government during the war, while also coming to prioritise the abolition of the state over the abolition of capitalism.[10]

During the Spanish transition to democracy, Santillán finally returned to Spain, settling in Barcelona, where he died in 1983.[11]

Selected works

See also

References

  1. ^ a b c Casanova 2004, p. 129; Tavera García 2000, p. 26.
  2. ^ a b c d e Tavera García 2000, p. 26.
  3. ^ Casanova 2004, p. 129; Lee 2009, p. 1; Tavera García 2000, p. 26.
  4. ^ a b c d e f Lee 2009, p. 1; Tavera García 2000, p. 26.
  5. ^ a b c d e Lee 2009, p. 1.
  6. ^ Casanova 2004, p. 129n1; Tavera García 2000, p. 26.
  7. ^ Lee 2009, p. 1; Tavera García 2000, pp. 26–27.
  8. ^ Lee 2009, p. 1; Spannos 2012, p. 45.
  9. ^ Lee 2009, pp. 1–2; Tavera García 2000, p. 27.
  10. ^ a b Lee 2009, pp. 1–2.
  11. ^ Lee 2009, p. 2; Tavera García 2000, p. 27.
  12. ^ Lee 2009, p. 1; Spannos 2012, pp. 45, 61n9.

Bibliography

  • Casanova, Julián (2004). "Diego Abad de Santillán: memoria y propaganda anarquista". Historia Social (in Spanish) (48): 129–147.
    JSTOR 40340897
    . Retrieved 4 June 2022.
  • Christl, Robert (April 2023). "Anarchism in One Country: Diego Abad de Santillán and the Invention of Participatory National Economic Planning in Interwar Anarchism". Journal of the History of Ideas. 84 (2).
    S2CID 258056754
    .
  • Lee, Andrew H. (2009). "Abad de Santillán, Diego (1897–1983)". In Ness, Immanuel (ed.). The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest. pp. 1–2.
    ISBN 9781405198073
    .
  • Spannos, Chris (2012). "Examining the History of Anarchist Economics to See the Future". In Shannon, Deric; Nocella II, Anthony; Asimakopoulos, John (eds.). The Accumulation of Freedom.
    LCCN 2011936250
    .
  • Tavera García, Susanna (2000). "Abad de Santillán, Diego»". In Martínez de Sas, María Teresa (ed.). Diccionari biogràfic del moviment obrer als països catalans (in Catalan). L'Abadia de Montserrat. pp. 26–27.
    ISBN 84-8415-243-X
    .

Further reading

External links
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