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The Asturian Strike

In 1962, a wave of strikes swept through Spain, starting from the Asturian mines and spreading into 28 provinces. The impact of these clashes not only extended as far as the government, which attempted to stifle them using every means, they also engendered huge international solidarity, as well as support from the underground and exiled opposition, the student movement and Spain’s intelligentsia. 
Among such figures were Estampa Popular artists, who showed their support for the strikers through their artworks and by signing letters, in some instances resulting in the imprisonment of their members. The movement denotes a major landmark in opposition to Francoism and the re-birth of the workers’ movement.

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Credits

Octavio Monserrat, Rubén Vega and Francisco G. Orejas, Hay una luz en Asturias... Testigos de las huelgas de 1962 (There Is a Light in Asturias, Witnesses of the 1962 Strikes), 2003. Juan Muñiz Zapico Foundation and the programme producer from the Principality of Asturias.

 

International Solidarity

The photos circulating in Spain demonstrate, through their success, the extent to which a love for freedom and freedom in love continue to define the revolutionary spirit in places where prohibition and different imitations unequivocally define the regime of oppression.
In denouncing the holy union of clerical hypocrisy and Franco’s dictatorship, this type of propaganda reminded — humour does not exclude opportunity — those leading the following insurrections that no change can exist that is not total, that does not cover daily life in its entirety.
Certain details of oppression cannot be suppressed. Rather, oppression as a whole must be suppressed. It is not about changing owner or employer, as leaders and specialist politicians from socialist, communist, Christian, progressive and Trotskyist parties tend to believe. It is about changing a way of life, becoming the owners of ourselves. It is the direct imposition of power that makes the revolutionary masses, willing to end Francoism, fight spontaneously. The situationists know perfectly well this type of propaganda, this progression.

Published by Situationist International

July, 1964

Imagen

The Asturian Strike 

Guy Debord

 

Guy Debord, La Grève asturienne (The Asturian Strike). In Correspondance, Septembre 1960 – décembre 1964. © Librairie Arthème Fayard, 2001

Download text (in Spanish)

 

Situationist International (Eastern European Region), España en el corazón (Spain at Heart), 1964. Holdings of the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía Documentation Centre (RESERVA 3605)

"Spain at Heart"

spanish today

Imagen
Spain today, Paris: Ruedo Ibérico, 1963. Cover illustration, Antonio Saura. Funds of the Documentation Center of the Reina Sofía National Art Center Museum (RESERVE 4746)

Article on the Strike in Asturias included in one of the publications of the Ruedo Ibérico publishing house, Paris.

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