Los Errantes
Los Errantes was a Spanish anarchist militant group, which carried out a series of bank robberies in Latin America during the 1920s. Exiled from Spain by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso moved to Cuba, where they organised trade unions and participated in strike actions. After assassinating one of their employers, they fled the country to Mexico, where they were joined by Gregorio Jover and carried out robberies to finance the activities of the General Confederation of Workers. They then carried out a bank robbery in Valparaíso before heading on to the Argentine capital of Buenos Aires. As the Argentine anarchist movement was divided over the issue of robberies and assassinations, the group held off for some months. After a series of botched robberies of train stations by Spanish men in Buenos Aires, the group's identities were provided to the Argentine police. They then carried out a bank robbery in San Martín, before escaping the continent back to Europe.
In Paris, Los Errantes plotted the assassination of Spanish King Alfonso XIII, but they were arrested before they could carry it out. Following a trial, extradition proceedings were initiated against them by the Argentine government, with the backing of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. Defence campaigns in France and Argentina ultimately resulted in the French government passing a new extradition law, which set terms for the fulfilment of extradition requests. Under these terms, with the Argentine government facing social unrest and the French government facing removal, Los Errantes were released.
Background
During the early 1920s, the rising influence of organised anarcho-syndicalism in Spain, and an internal conflict within the Spanish government over the conduct of the Rif War, had provoked the preparation of a military coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera. To resist the coming coup, the anarchist group Los Solidarios planned to rob a branch of the Bank of Spain in Xixón and use the money to purchase weaponry. On 1 September 1923, the group made off with 650,000 pesetas. Some of their members took the money to Bilbao, where they purchased rifles, while others hid out in the mountains. When their position was attacked by the Civil Guard, some managed to escape, while others were arrested or killed.Following the 1923 Spanish coup d'état and the establishment of the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the group broke some of its members out of prison and dispatched its two most wanted members - Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso - to Paris. In the French capital, they used the remaining funds from the Xixón heist to establish a publishing house. In March 1924, the dictatorship arrested and killed a number of the groups members, including participants in the Xixón heist. Domingo Ascaso managed to escape to France, where he plotted an insurrection to overthrow the dictatorship. After the defeat of the attempted insurrection in November 1924, many Spanish anarchist militants fled into exile in Latin America. Seeking to gain support for further revolutionary actions against the dictatorship, in December 1924, Buenaventura Durruti and Francisco Ascaso set off to the Americas.
Cuba
After a brief stop in New York, Ascaso and Durruti went to Havana. At the time, the Republic of Cuba was ruled by a United States-backed government, which had overseen a deterioration of living conditions for the working class. The two Spaniards stayed at the home of a young Cuban anarchist, but quickly came to disagree on issues of strategy. Cuban anarchists largely focused on education and opposed the revolutionary tactics of the Spanish anarchists; their host warned them that they would be expelled or imprisoned if they attempted any agitation. The two insisted that, while propaganda was important, it needed to be accompanied by direct action and strong organisation.The two were not deterred by the pessimism of the Cuban anarchists. They had been inspired by the Cuban War of Independence and wished to see economic independence from American capitalism added to the country's prior achievement of political independence. They believed that anarchists in Cuba ought to propagate their ideas to workers and transform theory into direct action. The two found jobs as dockworkers and were quickly exposed to the poor living and working conditions of the trade. Having been disappointed by their union representatives and the suppression of past strike actions, Cuban dockers had become fatalistic and no longer expected a remedy to their situation. Still undeterred, the two responded that the workers were right to distrust politicians and union leaders, while also cautioning against individual rebellion. They called for the creation of a rank-and-file trade union, which could drive collective action towards the fulfilment of their demands. Using plain language, they communicated the need for self-organisation without hierarchy, an idea which soon took hold. Before long, the dockworkers had formed a union and federated it together with unions in the tobacco and food industries. But their union organising also drew the attention of the police, forcing Ascaso and Durruti to leave Havana.
The two were guided by a young Cuban to Santa Clara Province, where they found new jobs harvesting sugarcane on an estate near Palmira and Cruces. Not long after their arrived, the estate owner reduced the workers' wages, provoking a sitdown strike. The striking workers were subsequently surrounded by foremen, who arrested three workers that the owner blamed for instigating the strike and beat them severely. The strike was broken up and the workers forced to return to work. Durruti and Ascaso decided to take revenge against the estate owner. He was discovered dead the following morning, his body was full of stab wounds and had a note pinned to it, attributing the murder to Los Errantes. By the time the police began their search, Ascaso and Durruti were already in Camagüey Province. Newspapers reported that Los Errantes were a Spanish gang and alleged that they had already executed half a dozen employers for mistreating their workers. The police carried out mass raids, beat peasants and burned down houses, in an attempt to intimidate anyone that may have sympathised with Los Errantes. As the search continued, the murder of a foreman in Holguín Province was attributed to Los Errantes, which made the police unsure about the location of the culprits and intimidated employers into fortifying their estates.
Ascaso and Durruti realised they would not be able to stay in Cuba. They went to Havana, where they rented a cutter, which they used to hijack a fishing vessel. They forced the skipper to take the boat into the sea, where they demanded the boat be sailed to Mexico.
Mexico
Los Errantes disembarked at Yucatán, where they paid the Cuban sailors for their trouble. They were immediately noticed by officers of the Mexican Treasury, who suspected them of being smugglers. They were arrested and taken towards Progreso, but on the way Durruti bribed the agents for their release. With directions from the agents, they headed to Mérida, then Progreso, before finally making their way to Veracruz.They were greeted there by a Mexican anarchist called Miño, who brought them to Mexico City. There they met Rafael Quintero, the leader of the General Confederation of Workers and a Zapatista veteran of the Mexican Revolution. Quintero secured them a place to stay at the CGT's publishing house, and after he informed them of their financial difficulties in sustaining their publication, the two immediately donated 40 pesos. They were saddened to hear about the struggles of the Mexican anarcho-syndicalist movement, which was only being kept alive by the legacy of the Revolution. Most Mexican anarcho-syndicalists had either died or joined the government; only the Magonistas continued to oppose the post-revolutionary government.
In March 1925, Los Errantes were joined in Mexico by Alejandro Ascaso and Gregorio Jover. At Quintero's suggestion, they found residence at a farm in Tecomán, where they linked up with the local anarchist group led by Román Delgado, Nicolás Bernal and Herminia Cortés. In April 1925, the group robbed the office of a fabric factory and donated the money to the CGT, which used it to sustain its publication and to establish rationalist schools according to the model of Francisco Ferrer. Mexican police soon began searching for Los Errantes, so they decided to leave the country. Having been living in a luxury hotel, registered under the assumed identity of a wealthy Peruvian mine owner named "Mendoza", they packed their bags and left without paying the bill.
Chile
By May 1925, Los Errantes had sold most of their belongings to finance their trip to Cuba. But as the country was still not safe for them, they only stayed there briefly. After robbing a bank in Havana, they immediately set sail on a steamship to Valparaíso, in Chile. They arrived in the city on 9 June 1925, and spent the subsequent month working as handymen. At the boarding house where they stayed, they were often heard speaking openly about their plans to finance the revolutionary movement against the Spanish monarchy.On 16 July 1925, Los Errantes robbed a branch of the Bank of Chile, taking 46,923 Chilean pesos and escaping in a car. According to a police report, they shot a bank employee that attempted to stop their car from leaving. While Durruti, the Ascaso brothers and Jover remained in Chile, their accomplice Antonio Rodríguez took the money back to Spain to finance the underground movement against the dictatorship. The rest of Los Errantes continued working in the city until August 1925, when they departed for Buenos Aires, the capital of Argentina.