International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest

Extract

Juan Montseny Carret, an influential Spanish anarchist married to Soledad Gustavo (a.k.a. Teresa Mañé i Miravet) and father to Federica Montseny , wrote most frequently under the pseudonym of Federico Urales. A barrel-maker who became the secretary of their national union in 1888, Urales was nevertheless skeptical of class-based organizations except for the revolutionary possibilities of the general strike. He supported the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (Iberian Anarchist Federation, FAI) as a way to ensure an anarchist outlook in the anarchosyndicalist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Labor Confederation, CNT). A committed anti-clericalist and strong believer in scientific progress, he nonetheless looked more favorably on the peasant commune than on the urban industrial city. Both he and Gustavo, whom he married in 1891, worked as lay teachers, espousing an educational philosophy very similar to that of Francisco Ferrer i Guardia. Arrested in 1892 for protesting the repression in Jerez and then again in 1896 as part of the Montjuich repression, he and Gustavo spent 1897 in exile in England before returning clandestinely to Madrid. There, he worked with the Republican Alejandro Lerroux against the repression, continuing this campaign in the pages of the important journal he and Gustavo established, the Revista Blanca (White Review, 1898–1905 and 1923–36). ... log in or subscribe to read full text