Nuestras Costas Seran Defendidas Por Nuestros Bravos Marinos

Our Coasts Will be Defended by our Brave Sailors by Vicente Ballester Marco, 1936

Produced by the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the Spanish anarchist trade union - National Confederation of Labour. 

Vicente Ballester Marco was born in Valencia in 1887. He was a graphic designer, illustrator and a prolific poster artist working for the CNT. He was a member of the Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals in Valencia. He signed his posters V Ballester Marco to distinguish them from those created by his brother, Arturo who also produced lots of posters for the CNT. His other posters included: ‘La Unión del Proletario Exterminará a la Reacción’.

After the war he remained in Spain, designing postcards and teaching painting. He died in 1980.

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The CNT was founded in November 1910, with a membership of 26,000 at a conference of workers societies in Barcelona and had its first national congress the following year. A general strike was immediately called in Barcelona and the CNT was declared illegal.

By 1919 there were 700,000 members. As the CNT grew, employers became more worried and hired armed thugs (pistoleros) to intimidate or assassinate union members.

The CNT took part in revolutionary strikes and uprisings throughout the period leading up to the 1936 Revolution and Civil War, including uprisings in Catalonia, Asturias and Andalusia. By 1937 the CNT had 1.5 million members.

From the start of the attempted coup in 1936, the CNT had a decisive role in events - pushing revolutionary land and factory collectivisation, but by May 1937 the Republican Government, under the influence of the Stalinist Spanish Communist Party (PCE), was reversing its achievements, suppressing the collectives, forcing militias to join the regular army or be disbanded and arresting militants.

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At the start of the attempted coup, the Fascists sent messages advising the senior officers commanding the ships of the Spanish navy that the coup had started, but they failed to encode them. The messages were intercepted and leaked by radio operators. As a result, most crews were able to overwhelm their officers and take control of the ships.

Many of the most experienced commanders were imprisoned or defected, which left the Republican navy significantly weakened.

The Fascists were able to secure the crossing to Southern Spain from North Africa and transport massed troops and supplies across to Spain. They were able to do this with the air support provided by Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy, while the British blocked the Republicans from using the harbour at Gibraltar (allowing the Fascists to use the port to move provisions and fuel for the Nazi German transport plane crews in Spanish Morocco).

At the end of the war, most of the remaining ships of the Republican navy were ordered to evacuate and headed for North Africa, where they were impounded by French authorities in Tunisia. The crews were interned in a concentration camp.