Today marks the 77th anniversary of the birth of Salvador Puig Antich, a militant of the revolutionary communist group MIL-GAC [Iberian Movement of Liberation – Autonomous Combat Groups] who at the tender age of 25, tragically earned the international fame of being one of the last people executed by garrotte by the hands of the the spanish State on the 2nd of March, 1974.
Though it was in fact quite small, the MIL-GAC was probably the most theoretically advanced revolutionary group in the peninsula at that time. While their political positions were informed by the historical dutch-german and italian Communist Left, they were also in close proximity and collaboration with the french “ultra-left” milieu grouped around La Vieille Taupe, and made ample use of fresh propaganda tactics such as detournement popularized by the Situationist International.
Their practice of armed agitation, bank robberies and hold-ups, etc. was carried out with the aim of supporting workers’ struggles such as wildcat strikes, as well as funding the publication and distribution of both historical and original theoretical texts and revolutionary balances of the contemporary struggles in the region, under the name Ed. Mayo ‘37.
Sadly, although Salvador is commemorated each year as a victim of the Francoist regime by various groups, ranging from bourgeois Catalan nationalists and democratic liberals to anarcho-syndicalists, the militant revolutionary positions he died for have been woefully glossed over, neglected, obfuscated, or distorted. His image is used shamefully to promote the very ideologies that the MIL frontally opposed with unrelenting ruthless critique.
For this reason, we have decided to return from a long hiatus in order to publish the first english translation of the pamphlet “Las 1000 y una del 1000” originally published in 1984, recompiling texts from the MIL-GAC and its immediate milieu.
The texts speak for themselves. Though over 50 years have passed since their original publication, their sharp insights and radical postures are just as applicable under the conditions of today, and we hope that this contribution will help to inform and inspire new generations of revolutionaries to take up the arm of critique and the armed critique, in the measure of which the conditions of the class struggle demand.
screen reading – booklet imposed