Juan García Oliver
Joan Garcia i Oliver | |
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Manuel de Irujo y Ollo | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | January 20, 1901 Reus, Baix Camp, Spain |
| Died | July 13, 1980 (aged 79) Guadalajara, 1980 |
| Political party |  CNT |
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| Syndicalism |
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Joan Garcia i Oliver (1901–1980) was a
Career
Childhood and family
Joan Garcia i Oliver was born on January 20, 1901, in Reus, Baix Camp, into a working class family. He was the son of Antònia Oliver i Figueras, a native of Reus, and José Garcia i Alba, a native of Xàtiva. At that time, the family lived at 32 Carrer Sant Elias in the old town of Reus. Joan was the son of his father's second marriage, after being widowed, and he had four siblings, Elvira, Mercè, Pere and Antònia, and three half-siblings, Josep, Dídac and Lluïsa; but their step-siblings did not live with them, instead they lived in Cambrils.[1]
His brother Pere died of meningitis at the age of 7, when Joan was still very young. As a result the family had to go into debt and their mother had to start working on the street. When he was 7 years old, he was able to receive primary education for a few months. But, as a result of the birth of his sister Antònia and the beginning of a strike at the Vapor Nou where his father worked, he was forced to temporarily leave his studies and start working. He worked as a boy, earning one real a day in a small bag factory.[1] In spite of everything, Joan was able to resume his primary studies at the age of 8 in the school of the republican teacher Grau, after passing an entrance exam. His primary schooling finished when he turned 11 years old.[1]
As a young man, Joan Garcia worked in the wine trading house of Lluís Quer's widow, earning 5
Social awareness
In Barcelona, the young Garcia Oliver was in a time of great social unrest and intense union struggle. Garcia Oliver experienced the general strike of 1917 as an observer; it was his second experience in a social conflict. Tired of his job as a waiter at the Hotel Jardín, he left and started working at the Las Palmeras bar-restaurant in the Boqueria market. He took a seasonal job as a waiter at the Colònia Puig de Montserrat in the spring of 1918 and, after completing it, at the Hotel Restaurant La Española in Carrer de la Boqueria, where he apprenticed as a cook. In this last job he began to attend the conferences of the Society of Waiters Alliance, that took place in the Cabanyes street.[2]
Anarcho-syndicalism
In 1919 he first joined the Society of Waiters L'Aliança, a member of the UGT, but later participated in the formation of the Union of the Hospitality Industry, Restaurants, Cafes and Annexes which was integrated into the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Garcia i Oliver later organized workers in Reus, led the CNT's provincial committee and was jailed during a strike action.
In 1922, he took part in the formation of the
In 1932 he took part in the
On November 4, 1936, the CNT decided to join the war government of Francisco Largo Caballero, with Garcia i Oliver acting as the Minister of Justice. He began organizing the "People's War Schools" and set up work camps for political detainees. In his tenure as minister, court fees were abolished and criminal records destroyed. In Barcelona there were a series of confrontations between revolutionary groups and the republican government, known as the May Days. Garcia i Oliver urged the Barcelona CNT to abandon the struggle that had broken out in the streets, and called for a ceasefire. With the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939, he settled in Sweden, Venezuela and finally Mexico. In 1978, two years before his death, Garcia Oliver published his autobiography, El eco de los pasos.[4]
References
- ^ a b c d Alegret 2008, pp. 37–44.
- ^ Alegret 2008, pp. 45–57.
- ISBN 8484153975.
- ISBN 978-0-8108-8009-2.
Bibliography
- Abbate, Fulvio (2004). Il Ministro anarchico: Juan García Oliver un eroe della rivoluzione spagnola. Romanzi e racconti (in Italian). ISBN 9788884906144.
- Alegret, Lluís (2008). Joan Garcia Oliver: retrat d'un revolucionari anarcosindicalista. Testimonis (in Catalan). ISBN 978-8498090499.
- Amorós, Miguel (2006). Durruti en el laberinto (in Spanish). ISBN 9788496044739.
- García Oliver, Juan (1978). El eco de los pasos (PDF) (in Spanish). Barcelona: Ibérica de Ediciones y Publicaciones. ISBN 84-85361-06-7. Archived from the original(PDF) on October 5, 2011.
- My Revolutionary Life: Juan Garcia Oliver interviewed by Freddy Gomez. Anarchist Library series #19. Translated by Paul Sharkey. ISBN 978-1-873605-72-1.
- Peirats, Jose (2011). Ealham, Chris (ed.). The CNT in the Spanish Revolution. Vol. 1. OCLC 761890305.
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