Introduction

Visual Index (Entire Poster Collection)

Catalogue

Chronology of the War

Acknowledgements

Lists of References

Afterword: Herbert R. Southworth Collection

Gráfic del moviment facciós a Barcelona. 19 de Juliol del 1939. L'esforá del poble guanyá la primera batalla en els carrers de Barcelona. La £ltima la guanyarem treballant i lluitant el máxim possible. El major esforá per a guanyar la guerra

[Diagram of the insurgent movement in Barcelona. July 19, 1936. The people's effort wins the first battle in the streets of Barcelona. The last we will win by working and fighting to the limit. The maximum effort to win the war]. . Dibujantes C.N.T. Sindicato Profesiones Liberales. Edicions del Comissariat de Propaganda de la Generalitat de Catalunya - Mod. 23. Imp. Elzeviriana i Llib. Camí, E.C., Barcelona. Offset, 4 colors; 87 x 67 cm.

This poster commemorates the successful resistance of the city of Barcelona to the military insurgency that initiated the Spanish Civil War. It shows a map of the city with a diagram of the movement of forces that participated in the fighting. The military uprising reached Barcelona the early morning of July 19, when General Fernández Burriel seized some key areas in the city for the rebellion. General Goded, one of the leading military figures in Spain at the time, was then invited to fly in from Majorca to take command of Catalonia for the insurgents. During the next day, a bloody fight took place in the streets of Barcelona, with the resistance to the uprising led by workers from the anarchist trade union CNT, the heterodox Marxist party Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista (POUM), and Loyalist assault guard companies and civil guards. By the evening of July 19, the military rebellion had failed. The isolated pockets of resistance that remained finally surrendered in the morning of July 20. It would take the insurgent troops more than two long years of war, until January 1939, to finally be able to march triumphantly into Barcelona.

This poster must date from shortly after the events of July 19, 1936, when the successful resistance to the military uprising could best be used as a weapon of propaganda. The inscription at the bottom of the poster indicates that it was issued by the Generalitat de Catalunya, the autonomous government of Catalonia. At the outbreak of the war, the Generalitat was presided over by Lluis Companys, and dominated by his primarily middle-class party, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Left Republican Party of Catalonia). Companys's power was reduced considerably after the events of July 19. Even though his government had succeeded in defeating the uprising, the leading role played in the fighting by revolutionary workers' organizations meant that the power was now primarily in the streets. The revolutionary fervor that followed the failure of the coup is reflected in the terms used in this poster to identify contending sides, which are referred to as forces feixistes (fascist forces) and forces proletöries (forces of the proletariat). Also, even though the poster was issued by the Generalitat, it was designed by Anarchists from the CNT (as shown by the inscription below the lower left corner of the map), the organization that emerged from the victory of July 19 as the main power in the city.