A Geek History of Time - Episode 377 - Louis Mercier Vega's Rejecting the Legend Part 1

Episode Date: July 10, 2026

You know, the thing is, you have reached farther for less good. To be blunt, the money in tabletop games isn't great. We have to wind up with the Church of England because obvi, I'll start. I mean, you're here to be the expert, but in the pale. That one oddly doesn't make me angry. Because you know who's the boss. You know what? I'm going to keep my head down offensive as I can to everybody possible.

and that's it. You want to fight? I'm going to dry hump your leg until we're friends. Of course, reminded me of that one woman that I went on a single date with who said, you know, the downside about my job is that we don't show kids drowning anymore. A geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California.

And this week, I'm still working on my master's. and my assignment for the week is writing a book review. And I spent a whole lot of the week stuck in top dead center or stuck on top of top dead center, just not able to start working on it. Not because the book was difficult, but just because I could not figure out how to elaborate past this is his thesis and like this is what he says to prove it. and I'm done. And, yeah, the fatigue was my program is real at this point. But I figured it out, and I'm almost done with it.

So the paper that is not my program. So anyway, that's what I have going on. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a U.S. history and government teacher up here in the Northern California area at the high school level. and today I went down to producer George's house for barbecue and he smoked some delicious beef ribs. So you missed out. I really did.

I was really sad that I had to say we weren't going to be able to make it. Yeah. But it was it was lovely and delicious and we met all kinds of fun people there. Cool. And he kept parading me around or bringing people by and saying, outside of my in-laws, this is the only other person that's here who was at my wedding. kidding. Okay. Yeah. Well, there you go. And just also outside of his in-laws, I'm the person who's known him and producer George's wife, Stacy, the longest. So it's kind of, you know, a little bit of local notoriety, I suppose.

Yeah. There you go. It works. All righty. Very cool. What do you know about the Spanish? Civil War. Oh, man, I was hoping you were going to say the Spanish Inquisition. No. Everyone expects that.

Oh, well done. Well, done. I was going to say, well, their first weapon is fear. The Spanish Civil War. I know that it was kind of treated by the Nazis and the Italian fascists as a test bed for a lot of their military hardware. Okay. Yeah. I know that George Orwell famously served on the not-fascist side.

I remember reading his writings about his experience in the Civil War. Good, good. I remember that there were a large number of Americans. There were a number of Americans. I don't know if large is a fair thing to say who went over there as part of the Lincoln Brigade. Yeah, we actually, the United States government passed a law forbidding that afterwards. Yeah.

Yeah. Which is a hell of way to say you're picking sides. Yeah. So. Isn't it, though? And I know that, in the end, Franco and the, in the authoritarian, fascists, one. Okay. Um, beyond that, I, I have done reading on it, but it's been years since I did. And I'm afraid a lot of the details have evaporated from my memory.

Would it be fair to say that what you know of it is in the context of typically other things? Yes, that would be very fair to say. Yeah. So do you know that prior to the Spanish Civil War, there was a Spanish Revolution? I do remember that, yes. Okay. Now that you bring it up. Yeah, it's one of those things, yeah, as I fill things in. All right, so there was this guy, Louis Merciie Vega.

Okay. How'd I do? Pretty well. Louis, is it L-U-I-S? L-O-U-I-S. Oh, okay, yeah, okay. So, Louis, what was the middle one? Mercier, M-E-R-C-I-E-R.

Okay, yeah, Mercier-V-V-V-V-V-E-G. Okay. That's an interesting combination of Latin names there. Well, it is a pseudonym, so it kind of makes some sense. He wrote an essay in the 1950s called Rejecting the Legend, and James Stout, who is a journalist, who's not gotten back to me, he's a journalist and an historian, I think he has a PhD in history, and he does journalism as well. Anyway, he translated the entirety of the essay. And I basically took that translation plus another and I annotated it. Okay.

It seemed appropriate. It seems especially appropriate. I'm not going to date this too terribly much, but given how quickly a community rose up and said, yes, we believe our women. and this dude is fucking canceled, and the movement is way more important than the person, and that's why it's okay to have canceled them, right? Yeah, yeah. This essay kind of gives a 1950s background of the same.

It's called projecting the legend. Okay. And so I'm going to read it to you, but I'm also going to annotate it. So it's going to be at least two episodes, if not. Oh, wow. All right. So we'll start with Louis Merci A Vega.

He went by so, so many names. In his own words, he lived under a, quote, Federation of pseudonyms. I love that turn of phrase. I do, that's nice. A Federation of pseudonyms. That's wonderful. So he, let's see, he was born in Brussels as Charles Cort-V-R-I-N-T. Okay.

in May of 1914. So he comes out in May and then what, like three months later? June July, August. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So his mother was from Chile and his father was French.

So he's all sorts of identities mixed in. Okay, wait, hold on. So his father was French. Yes. His mother's Chilean. Yes. And he was born in Brussels. Brussels.

Yes. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's, he's got a lot going on. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

And he was born at the outset of World War I. Yes. Yeah. Okay. Kind of reminds me a little bit of the guy who did the Smurfs. A little bit. Yeah. Yeah.

His name is literally escaping my brain right now. It wasn't parvo. Pao. Pao. Pao. Jesus Christ. It was heartworm. You remember that famous artist

Shlamadaya But But Okay so When Charles who later is going to be called Louis was 16 So this is 1930

Charles whom we know is Louis Was actively participating in the anarchist movement in Belgium Okay At 16 It's post-war, right? It's interwar, but he didn't know that yet. He wrote for something called Revelle Syndicaliste. Okay, syndicalist.

I'm pretty sure you got right, but is it R-E-V-E-I-L-L-E? I-E-L. I-E-L. Okay, yeah. Reveal. Yeah, all right, remarkably. Yeah. Syndicalist, which was edited by several syndicalist action groups.

Okay. Now, I'm going to need you, if you can, to clarify for me the fine distinction between anarchism and syndicalism. Because I know anarchism, I'm less up on my syndicalism. Syndicalism is that, okay, so anarchism is soda. Syndicalism is the different flavors of the soda. Okay. So there were some who were like, I want to be on my own and live off in my own little woods and, you know, do that. And there were others who said, we are a local community.

We decide things for ourselves as a community. And we all listen to each other. And if we don't like it, we can leave. And then there were others where we are a community. We advocate for ourselves as a community. We change our ideas. And we all meet, you know, it's basically the beginning of old woman, man. Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like what he's described. Like there's a whole bunch of different versions. So one thing they can all agree on. We're an anarcho syndicalist commune. Right. Okay. One thing they can all agree on is fuck the fascists.

Right. So he wrote for them. And in 1931, so he's 16, right? And he's writing for this group. He's part of active groups. I'm not sure what his parents were doing. I found nothing about them getting in his way or him rejecting them in any way. So I don't know.

His parents are kind of lost to history for me. But in 1931, the 17-year-old Louis moved to France because he refused to serve in the Belgian military. So that tells me that the Belgian military had some sort of selective service. And he refused. And while refusing, Louis still trained to organized anarchist blocks amongst the soldiers who did serve. Okay. So no, I'm not going to join. And also, hey, guys, I'm going to hang out in this cafe where I know you frequent.

Let me tell you about anarchism. Got it. Okay. And again, he's 17. Wow. Okay. That's a remarkably driven mind there. Yes.

Like the precocity of the writing ability, number one, being 16 years old. And, yeah. And, I mean, admittedly, I don't know what the editorial level of reveal syndic least was. But, you know, it still says something that he's, you know, writing, honest to God, articles for some kind of periodical. Yeah. And then having the, I don't know what the word is I'm looking for, savvy determination. I don't know, but, you know, Hutzpah and, and, like, presence of mind at 17 to be like, yeah, okay, you know what, I'm not, I'm going to, I'm going to resist the draft.

Right. But I'm also going to not only do that, but actively work to turn, you know, recruit from those who I know are getting that training. Right. Like, wow. Okay. We have a genuine movement guy here. Yeah. Wow. It's impressive. It's crazy. So from 1931 to 1933, Louis, who was called Charles, Merci A Vega, he was active with the anarchist union in France and was even a delegate to their Congress in Orleans. How did I do? Yeah, good job.

Thank you. In Orlando in 1933. So now he's about 20, no, 19. Yeah, 19. He's not quite 20. Yeah. He's working his way up. Right.

Now, so 31 to 33, remind me where we are on the timeline, just like on the opposite, on the opposite side of the Overton window. In Germany, 31 to 33 because I because I mean we we can't talk about this guy's stuff without talking about the fascist yeah and so yeah so the fascists have taken power in Italy um by the time you get to 33 the Nazis have been put into power right okay and are starting their 50 day four day uh binge and purge right

right um and uh yeah um okay so Spain is fracturing we're going to get there The Croix de Fu, the Cross of Fire, is still about three years off in France. Right. Okay. So, all right. I'm asking that just to see, like, at the time that he is doing all of this, that he's moving up the ranks within this anarchist movement, this is at a time when they are actively seeing the fascists in. positions of power. And so this is the, you know, active movement toward resistance of that. So got it. Yeah. It's an enervating factor. Right. I'd say. Yeah. So, okay, so he is a delegate at a

National Congress. By the way, we've interviewed Dr. Mona Siegel before. Her first book was a book titled The Moral Disarmament of France. And in that, she talks about how history teachers after World War I, basically decided to teach history in a very different way so that a war like this would never happen again. So there is a huge anti-war sentiment running through France, at least in the beginning of the 1920s. I'm not sure where that's landed by the 1930s

because I've forgotten because I read that book a long time ago. Okay. But so the specific group that he was a part of at that time was called the, oh boy, the moon, Lé-A-Ga-Ga-F-R-E-S. Okay, M-O-L-E-S. Okay, A with an accent, but the accent is pointing back toward the word Mou-A. Okay.

L-A-A-A-A-A-O-F-F-R-E. Go-F-R-R-E. Sure. You were, you were right there. I was getting there. Yeah. Yeah. It's the waffle irons.

Okay, yeah, and I get it. I get it. And the waffle irons were a part of a larger group, a larger organization called the Communist Anarchist Youth. Okay. All right. So around this time, he seems to have changed his name to Louis-Mercier Vega. Just as, like, is this a, you know, I'm doing this in order to avoid.

could be to avoid the draft, could be to separate himself because I'm in a new place doing a new thing. I don't quite know why. Okay. Yeah. So, but he did that. And what you were going to? Yeah, he's changed his name. He backs a group trying to create an anarcho-communist project, and he was trying to get the libertarian movement off the ground.

Wow. Now, the libertarian movement, as he... conceived of it was not what we think of with Boba Fett. It's much more the leave me alone and don't send government folk to bother me variety, not the I'm going to take over a place because I'm the dime you. Right. Essentially, individual rights and personal freedoms were guaranteed by civil liberties and rights, and thus any kind of authority was not recognized if it interfered with personal freedom. However, they recognized that communities were necessary and foundational to these efforts. And so they handled things far better than, and communities would handle things far better

than structured government, because structured government was all about guarantee and enforcement. So there is a community, but there's also an understanding of, of, of autonomy, I guess is a good way to put it. So we're all stronger together, but because we choose to be together. And the best example I can come up with is honestly the resistance in Minneapolis. Yeah. So people came out the way they knew how, the way they could, and that made them harder to predict by the gendarmes who were trying to oppress them. Yeah.

So there is a lot of usefulness to that approach. There's a lot of just tactical intelligence to that approach. But also as a fundamental understanding. of yes, I'm part of a community, but nobody in the community has the right to tell me what to do with myself or my efforts. Yeah. Yeah. No, I can, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, you see the, the consistency there. I, I, I definitely see the consistency of it. And I definitely see the utility of that as a paradigm for activism or resistance. Sure. what I am interested in seeing, okay, how does this play out later?

Is, you know, if you wind up with somebody in the community who is just a dickbag, how does the community under this philosophy deal with the individual who is not following the social contract if that makes sense they would I almost feel like they would reform away from that person

like you keep doing that but we're going to go over here and do this thing now and you don't get to be a part of us instead of we're going to kick you out although maybe they would have kicked them out I'm not sure because there are other things that let me to lead me to think that maybe they would kick folks out

yeah like this this is this is my version of when we do the, you know, who would win matchups. And you're like, no, no, I want to get super granular with this. Yeah. Oh, my trolley is. This is the kind of philosophical. Yeah. Yeah, this is the kind of philosophical question that, that, you know, gets, gets me going in that same way.

It's like, okay, well, you know, this is all great, you know, when we're talking about this, this idea, you know, as a concept. And that's awesome. And I can see how it's useful here. But, like, in, in the humdrum, you know, We got to, you know, we have to get along long term. We're trying to have a community here. Yeah, we're trying to have a community here. Like, you know, where do you have to compromise on each side in order to maintain the balance between them?

I think one of two things. You either quit that community and reform somewhere else away from the person. And it's like, okay, this is your space now. We don't want you in ours Or you just straight out Like there's more of us than there are of you Fuck off When you decide to change your behavior

You can join us again Yeah I think those are kind of the two ways To deal with it Yeah Yeah So because we do see something like that In the Spanish Revolution

Okay Where landlords are like Hey you want to work the fields with us We're happy to have you along But you don't get to own this shit anymore Right, right, right. So if you want to own this shit, there's the road. But if you want to work this shit with us and sharing all the profits that you used to keep just for yourself, feel free to join us.

Right. So anyway, Merciie and his fellow waffle irons were trying to create an anarchy communist community, and they were very active in factory work. And as such, they were working toward the same goals as the popular front in France, which in May through June of 3rd. participated in a general strike, which led to a huge legislative reshuffling in France. Okay. The popular front in France was made up of the French Communist Party, also known as the PCF, the French section of the Workers International, or the SFO, and the radical socialist Republican Party, which apparently did not have an acronym. They, as a group, gained electoral power in the May 3rd.

36 legislative election in France, which incidentally were the last elections in France before World War II broke out. Okay. Now, this election saw the coalition that was the popular front in control of the government with more than 57% of the seats in the chamber of deputies. This is a coalition government, though. No one philosophy won the way, but a general we need to go this way did. Yeah. A general... what's the word I'm looking for? Not a referendum leftward.

Yeah, but what I'm collectivist, generally collectivist. Yes. Generally worker focused. Worker focused. Yeah. Labor, you know, rather than capital. Yes. Yeah, that's a good way to put it.

And labor rather than tradition, too, right? Okay, okay. So socially radical. or socially I would say radical progressive Okay Okay

The Oh go ahead What I I just have to say That you know The moment you said Popular Front The very first thing

I thought of was Splitter Sure And then you mentioned All the groups That are part of The Popular Front And and you know

Like All I could think of Is all of their names Sound like They ought to basically Be believing The same shit So why are there

So many parties of them. Yeah, splitters. There's that autonomy though, right? Yeah. I think that many of them would say, yes, we all chose to band together, but we are not the same and that is okay. Yeah. So. 100%. Yeah. I, anyway, just through the lens of the research I was doing. Yes.

You know, for the last. But I would also point out that my brain got bent. Through the lens of like French traditional politics and certainly American understanding of politics, well, if you guys are all. basically going the same way, why don't you get under one banner? And they're like, no, because there will be things that we disagree on, and that is okay. Them being okay with not being in lockstep with each other is a different kind of strength than Americans certainly think about. Oh, yeah. Because Democrats are Democrats or Democrats are Democrats and Republicans or Republicans or Republicans.

Except in the 30s, you did have different kinds of Democrats and you did have different kinds of Republicans. Yeah. So that might be much more of a presentist thing where we have just. gotten that much fucking dumber and that much less likely to understand nuance and partnership and collaboration and instead we value lockstep ideology and purity tests? I think I think lockstep ideology and purity test is part of it. I think in my own defense, the lockstep ideology stuff has been the American paradigm as longer than you and I have both been alive.

so as much as it is presentest, it's, you know, it's difficult for us not to be presentist in that kind of context. I would, I'm trying to think of like what election does it go back to. But I think I'm going to go out on limb. I'm going to say probably 32. See, I disagree. Two or 36? Because there were Democrats. I think it's when the great shift happened.

I think it's when Johnson abandoned Democrats who wanted to stay racist. Okay. Because then it was their racism that turned them Republicans. And you see the South as a solid block basically from there on with a few tiny exceptions. I think once people are forced to confront that they don't get to have their white supremacy, then they care more about that than they care about, you know, pork barrel stuff. Right. You used to have New York Democrats sometimes disagreed vehemently with West Coast Democrats and Southern Democrats.

They were different kinds of Democrats. So you did have coalition. Same thing with Republicans, right? Yeah. But I think after- Regionalism was a bigger thing within parties. Yeah. But I think after Johnson basically talked.

told his former mentor God, what was his name? It'll come to me later. George Wallace. No, it's not George Wallace. That is not who it was. Okay. No, it's another guy from Georgia, though. Yeah.

George Wallace was from Alabama. But anyway, he's got it on the tip of my brain. But Johnson, there's that famous picture of him leaning over the guy. Okay. And it's him telling the guy, you're either going to go this way, or the party is going to leave you behind. And a whole lot of Dixiecrats changed Republican. Right.

So anyway, the Popular Front wins. The election sees this coalition in charge of the government with more than 57% of the seats, like I said. The French Communist Party got 72 of the seats. The French section of the Workers International got 149 seats and the radical socialist got 111 seats. The Socialist Republican Union, got 29 seats and other miscellaneous leftist groups got a total of 28 seats.

Okay. The turnout for that election was above 85% of registered voters. Oh, wow. So it was absolutely a referendum and an opprobrium on the way things used to go. Wow. So, well, because this is the Depression. Right. And so Richard Russell, that was the fucker's name.

Okay. Okay. God. I knew it was like, is Richard something, but okay, anyway, I'm sorry. All right, no worries. It was the depression. It was the depression. So, you know, the massive economic downturn and, you know, everything would tend to lead to a swing like that anyway.

And so, I mean, in context, you know, people who had seen the, you know, people who had seen the, the previous government, which I'm assuming was some brand of conservative. Yeah, some brand of capital. Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's the point at which they're like, well, okay, look, you know, fuck you. What you've been doing hadn't been working. These guys at least have an idea.

And what they're saying sounds pretty good to me. So screw you. I'm going with them. Yeah. And higher turnout. you know, when when you can see that

you know, shit's fucked, you know, to borrow from idiocracy. When you look around and you see that, you know,

the world is, is fucked up. It's, if you were otherwise going to be apathetic, one of the things that can happen is it can make you

less apathetic. Like, yes. So, yeah. I mean, at that time, you know, with everything that was going on globally, that makes sense.

Yep. Absolutely. Now, three months earlier, okay, so that was the election in May. So three months before May would have been February. The Spanish Popular Front had held strong and kept a narrow lead over the opposition in an election that saw a turnout of just under 73%. So still, lots of people turning out. Right. However, their lead over the main rightist parties, the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right, also known as CEDA or CEDA or CEDA or CEDA, grew.

So it was considered a victory. So even though their lead narrowed, it was their lead narrowed to more centrist and center-left and their lead over rightists grew. Okay. So the rightists basically lost to more leftists. Okay, got it. So on either side of the Pyrenees Mountains, electoral victories were the norm for the left. Right. Now, in Spain, that election went through three phases because of how contentious the results were.

And usually when I talk about contentious results, that means one group doesn't like that they lost. So they're trying to fuck it up and, you know, rig it, right? Right. Now, current studies, including by one of my favorite authors on fascism, Stanley G. Payne, have reframed the election. as not so much about legitimacy, but about irregularity. And to me, that kind of tells the tale. Where there exists irregularity, regardless of its impact, there will exist doubt. Right.

It's why we don't use stucco for our countertops. Yeah, yeah. I like the metaphor there. So anyhow, big doings on the, by the way, I haven't even started reading the essay. big doings on the left in France and in Spain in 1936. Both leftist coalitions in both places defeated National Front coalitions. And it seemed that the mid-1930s would be the rise of the left in both countries. Okay.

I mean, I can't imagine seeing anything other than that, right, in 1936, being like, yes, okay. The rightists keep getting defeated. We've got massive turnout and people keep coming out for us. We are ascendant, baby. here we go. Yeah, if only. Yeah, it would be like, okay,

the secretary of state is running for president. She's the most qualified candidate we've ever had on paper. She is amazing. And look at this clown show that is running against her. Like, this is going to be a fucking walk.

The next generation is good. The future is female. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, why do you have to hurt me like that, man? Why? I did nothing to you. Why do you have to bring that up at this painful time?

Yeah. Yeah, no, it's 100%. And that's why I'm hearing you say, yeah, baby, we're ascendant. Yeah. It's like, you know what's coming. As if. Yeah. So anyway, at some point during these elections,

Marciel or Mercier Vega, seems to have changed his name again to Charles Riddell. Okay. I think because he was a fan of Greece. Now, because... Well, That one should piss me off, but it doesn't. All right.

That's some narrow casting right there. That really is. So when the Spanish Conservative Party and monarchist generals refused to accept the will of the people, they impose their own will through a coup, two things happened immediately that drew Charles Riddell to Spain. First, the Spanish Revolution,

which was a reaction to the coup attempt on July 17th, 1936. Yeah, now I'm remembering this stuff. Okay. Now, this means, okay, so you have a coup attempt, and then the Spanish left is like, fuck that, and they start a revolution.

Right. Right. Normally, revolutions are reactions to group when they're rightest, right? reactionary right but this was in response to the monarchists and the uh the generals who were like no no no we we don't like that the people chose this right um you know i i wonder if this didn't inspire um uh what's his face later uh kissinger uh when he said i don't see why we should let chile go communist just because it's people were your uh

were irresponsible. Whether it inspired him or not, it's definitely the same mindset at work. Yes. You know, I think we know better. Yeah, there's, there's an inherent paternalism, an inherent class superiority. Yes. So, you know, Kissinger, Kissinger would probably like to try to. argue that, well, you know, those of us, it's, it's about, you know, being educated,

but no, it's about, it's, it's about class. It's about you, you have arrogated to yourself the concept that you are smarter and better. Yes. And fuck that. And anybody who is left is clearly too dumb. Too dumb or they're brilliant and they are manipulating the people for their own greed. you know, the different versions of that narrative. But yeah, it's the same shit with a different paint job.

Right. So the first thing that happened was a Spanish Revolution on July, or in reaction to the coup. The second Spanish Republic fell the day after the coup. And on July 18th, okay, that's when the second Spanish Republic fell. Right. And then after that, there were four successive governments declared in the vacuum that it left. Right.

So you know how the Romans had like the year of four emperors? Yeah. This was one day of four governments. Wow. So by July 19th, the next day. Okay. 1936, the Spanish Revolution had begun and workers called a general strike

from July 19th to July 23rd in response to all this. Wow. Workers rose up in Catalonia specifically, and they were armed. And they eventually defeated the military there. And this began what was known as the summer of anarchy, which lasted from July through September of 1936. And what I really like here is that it actually does follow the calendar of what a summer is.

Because the summer ends in September. Anyway, anarchists and anarchy syndicalists linked up in different districts. the Iberian anarchist federation, known as FAI, and the National Confederation of Labor, the CNT, and the General Union of Workers, UGT, who were historically linked with the Spanish Socialist Workers Party, the PSOE, all moved to link up with the Trintismo, the more moderate CNTers,

in order to grow a larger and broader popular front, which would then eventually become known as the popular anti-factual. Front or FPA. This basically was the foundational framework for the anarchist effort that would end up fighting the fascist in the Spanish, the fascist front in the Spanish Civil War. So all these groups link up, but they do not all fly under the same banner. And specifically, they reject when people try to say, oh, we're all in the same. It's like, no, we're all on the same side. This reminds me of the Battle of the Five Armies.

Very much. There's two sets of dwarves. Yeah. You know, it's that kind of thing. Yeah. Now, the thing about all these groups is that they absolutely remained local in their approach, but they remained broad in the fact that they knew that they were fighting for the political soul of their country and their region. But they absolutely were all about autonomy of local, and they made for a really solid base against fascists.

So again, the fascists are one united group. these guys are an alliance, if you will. And different ones had different approaches, and none of them really listened if anybody tried to overlay, okay, you're going to do it like we're doing it because I'm more in charge. It's like, no, you handle your shit

and we'll support you and we'll handle our shit and you'll support us if you can. And that's basically how it went. And the thing was, like this was really effective because you can't decapitate an army that doesn't have a single head. Right. Right.

So it was this summer that attracted Riddell, who used to be Vega, who was born Cordfant, to Spain, along with his fellow Waffle Iron Charles Carpentier. So Charles Carpentier, yeah, Carpentier. Yeah, Carpentier. It's likely that Riddell and Carpentier took the trains and then also walked while in the Pyrenees, taking advantage of their last paycheck. in France. Okay.

Now local committees, again, this was a highly localized thing. But it was, again, I think back to Star Wars. I think back to like the Rebel Alliance and how different groups had different things. And I think to like the legends, what is now known as legends and how they also kind of addressed this, that there were different groups resisting in different ways. Right. You know. Now local committees already in charge. due to the Spanish Revolution,

controlled the border crossings where they were. So you could cross into one area, and it's going to be run by this local anarchist group. You cross into another area, it's going to be run by that anarchist group. And while they both broadly agree on things, they're going to have their own local autonomy, and that's something that you're going to have to deal with.

Right. So the odds of Riddell and Carpentier running into trouble are vanishing rare, because anarchists are controlling the border, and anarchists don't really like borders. This is true. Yeah. And because they all recognized the fight,

they knew that a whole bunch of French leftists would be coming their way. So wherever Carpentier and Riddell crossed, and remember, Radell is the author, Riddell, who was Merci A Vega, was born courtvent, Redell and Carpentier, wherever they crossed, they would have been ushered to, collectivized transport that would have taken them to Barcelona, where all the other international volunteers were gathering into militias.

Okay. So they had a way locally, here's how you do it, but we're all kind of putting you in the same direction to get to Barcelona, and you're going to gather into international militias that are organized by different leaders. Thank you for joining us, you know, and, and, and, you're going to. here's here's your hat here's your gun um oh you brought your own that's wonderful you know that kind of thing so redell joined the sebastian fowrace centuria and the deroti column which was of the derroti column i apologize um so there was about a hundred french speaking

anarchists uh made up this centuria in this three thousand person column so the deroti column was three thousand men and women and he was part of the Sebastian Faray Centuria of this column. And that was 100 French speakers, which makes sense to organize people by their language, right? Yeah. Now, this column was named such by the fact that this column was organized by a guy named Jose Buenaventura Doroti, Dumange, a Spanish anarchy syndicalist militant.

Okay. He was a major player in the CNT. and if you remember the C&T is the National Confederation of Labor Right And he had been an anarchist since the 1920s At the very least Duroti was

And I found two different spellings It's kind of like when you look back and you find That Romania used to be spelled with a U Instead of an O So sometimes it's Duruti Sometimes it's Duroti But Duroti was part of a bank robbing group that used the stolen monies

That they robbed banks to fund their anarchist Revolutionary activities So what you're saying here is he was Saw Guerrera Uh-huh Like, no, no, I'm a real fucking revolutionary Yes I'm, yeah, okay, yeah Damn

And this also included, speaking of Saw Guerrara This also included murdering people Who were seen to be holding down the working class Mm-hmm And as a result I feel way more confident in my metaphor there Yeah As a result, he was exiled multiple times

times. Now, by 1931, Duroti was one of the main organizers of the CNT's insurrectionist wing. Because, of course, he was. Yeah. And I love the fact that they had an insurrectionist wing. Exactly. Like, wow. Okay. I get such a kick out of people like, oh, anarchists. I mean, what kind of an anarchist organization organizes? Don't they understand an anarchy? It's like, no, dude, like seriously? They're better at it than you are. Yeah, they're organization. of choice. So everybody, oh, kitty, everybody, which one is that? That's Luna. Ah. So everybody has buy-in. Nobody's malingering, you know? That's true. And, oh, you don't want to be a part of us? All right, fine. Fuck off. Yeah, not even fuck off. I hope you find somewhere else down

the line that works better for you. Yeah, I meant it as kind of a passive fuck-off. Yeah, but yeah, you know. But Duruti was one of the main people in a leadership position who helped to defeat the July 1936 Barcelona nationalist uprising. So nationalists were uprising in all kinds of places. And Deruti's column, or it wasn't his column yet. But Derruti helped to defeat these nationalists who tried to rise up and take over in Barcelona. And he's like, not in our fucking town.

And again, these were anarchists who were no. And it was after this that Derutti organized the Derruti column, which was crucial along what was known as the Aragon front. Okay. Or Aragon. No. Aragon. Aragon.

Yeah. Catherine of Aragon. Not Strider. Not, not, yeah. Not king of Arnor and Yondor. Right. And not only did they fight the fascists, but they lived their anarcho-sindicalist ideals, too. So, Derootie helped to implement their ideals in territories that was held by libertarian

communists. to huge success at the local level. Again, your idea of libertarian is not. I know, I know, I know. And I recognize that it's entirely my American lens causing me to go, wait, what? And I remember. Yeah. I remember this is where I'm now remembering Orwell.

Because a big part of what he wrote about was how much, how refreshing is, it was to be in these areas that were that were now, you know, undergoing this, this radical social kind of revolution. They were living in their ideals. Yeah. Yeah. Where you went into a, you went into a store for anything. And the, you know, previously the, the model of customer service had been very obsequious

and very formal. And you walk in and, you know, the guys in the store address you using two. instead of Ustead. And, you know, everything is much more, uh, you know, egalitarian and everything. And then when, you know, in October, when, when everything had fallen apart, uh, he talked about his, his, uh, sadness at the obsequiousness. I remember that was the thing that, that, that struck him and, and, and made him. angry was the obsequiousness and the in the and the and the groveling yeah uh of the class distinction that was that was re-inserted uh after the fascist victory yeah so uh sorry spoilers yeah it's fine um

so uh redell joins this group the derutic column right and he's part of the sebastian way too many fucking words um group uh the yeah yeah um um um um um um um um um um um um um um um the um the um the um I'm trying to find the Sebastian Fauri Centuria. Okay. And is everything in me to call it the Kenturia, but I know it's Centuria. Yeah. Anyway, Redell joins this group, and he fights along the Aragon Front. In July of 36, Redel, who used to be Merci Avega, who used to be Courthvent,

was part of the force that went to liberate Zaragoza from the military. Okay. While there, Riddell fought and lived alongside anarchists of multiple nationalities under Durruti. And at a place called Perry Dugera, Riddell and Carpentier were the only two from their unit to survive. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's war. Yeah. Now, because of this, Riddell was sent back from the front lines, and then he ends up back in France.

And he launches the propaganda arm to recruit more anarchists and communists to the cause. after all, they just lost 98 out of 100 French speakers. And so he wanted to restore the Spanish Republic and or carry forward the Spanish Revolution. And so that's how he's using his propaganda in France. Now, in September of 36, he's back in France and he's publishing under the name Charles Redell now. Okay. Which I found interesting because I figured he would change his name back to Louis Merci de Vega when he went back to France. It's like, that's my France name. That's my Spain name. That's my Belden. No. He kept Riddell. And I think it was

because he took his names more about the purpose that he was serving. Okay. But there might have a name for a cause rather than that. Exactly. Okay. I mean, there's also the practical. Yeah, the practical consideration that like, okay, well, all of my all of my documentation right now has this name on it. So rather than have to, you know, rummage around in the drawers to find my last identity. Right. Well, and also, if you get arrested in France for doing stuff for Spain under Charles Riddell, they might not connect you to being Louis-Mercier Vega. That's true. So now, during his time in France, Radell noted that Spain's anarchists were attracting more and more to militant practices and keening rightward. Too much for his preference.

Okay. Women who had previously fought on the front line with him were being taken off the front line. and soldiers who previously did not salute their leaders, now were being required to salute their leaders. And generally this movement was leaning or was leaving the working people who made up the movements behind. So was it becoming more bourgeois? Yeah, it was becoming more traditionalist military.

Like we have to fight them with military power. Right. I would imagine this is kind of why Saugherrera was the way, he was. Yeah. Like, no, what are you doing pitch battles for? Are you fucking crazy?

You know, that kind of thing. Yeah. Yeah. Additionally, three of the CNT's members entered into the Popular Front government, which signaled to Riddell that they were more interested in replacing the government

than the cause, than carrying forward the cause of anarcho-syndicalism and similar movements. So he was there for the revolution and the cause. He was not there for restoring the Republic to its former troubled existence. Okay.

Radell also noted that the Soviet Union was more and more influencing their movement and because, largely because it was one of the only countries, there were just a few countries that were willing to sell munitions to the anarchists. So we're paying the money, you dance our tune. Right. So further, in May of 37, in Barton, Salona, assault guards who were backed by, so assault guards is a different kind of a name. They were backed by Soviet advisors.

They tried to gain entry into the workers collectivized telephone exchange, which I just love that. Yeah. And they were met with workers barricading themselves in. So now there's internistine. Not only internecine fighting between factions. But there's one group that's trying to take over another group. It's not even like, we want to go left, we want to go right. It's we're going to take over the community.

communications. And it's like, no, you don't. You don't get to do that. And they barricaded themselves in. And it was this event, this incident that basically killed the revolution in Barcelona because the fighting that broke out between the two groups represented such a schism between those who wanted to continue the revolution during the Civil War and those who wanted to get the Civil War one and then work on the revolution. Right. So this should kind of sound like animal farm in a lot of ways. a whole lot of ways, yes. Yeah. So, of course, the Soviets are the Napoleon style, right? Right. The pig Napoleon, not the Frenchman.

But several anarchists died in this fight, and the Duruti column got more and more militant, which was problematic for Riddell. The Franco-aligned rightists continue to get supplied and funded by Germany and Italy, like you had said earlier. The anarchists were without a respected place. in the increasingly militarist Deruti column and the C&T led left. So what's happening is

while it was working great to be separate fingers on the same hand, there were some that were starting to kind of group up and then trying to make a fist of the same kind and get your ass in line, what are you doing? And there were people who are like,

there goes my fucking buy-in. Like I was here for this revolution and we could have won this war by living our revolution and they were showing that they could. But you over here want to be this asshole who's in charge of everything, and I don't want to be a part of that. And so there's a lot of things happening.

And the C&T saw an opportunity to revitalize the government and take over as like the legitimate government of Spain. And wouldn't that be better since we're left leaning? And they were. Yeah. But it's one of those. You're betraying the movement for the power. and they're sitting there going like the whole point of this is so that we can then have the movement.

We have to defeat the fascist first. And there's huge schisms there. What are you going to say? Well, just the analogy that comes to mind is hurting cats. And what's interesting, what occurs to me in the way that you're describing that is the cats were all perfectly fine acting as a pod before. Yeah. Like, you know, feral cats in the wild form community. that are, by their nature, kind of syndicalist.

Yes. Like, you know, yeah, we're all going to live here. And, you know, and feminist, by the way, because the oldest female cats are the ones that kind of, you know. Right. Set the rules. We're going to timeshare this area. Yeah. And the minute you try to go in and get them all to move in one direction, that's when they go, fuck that I'm out.

And, you know. So it's, it's not quantum. it's like Schroedinger's movement control you know the moment you try to pin it down it fucks off you start destroying it yeah yeah quite so

um so uh like I said the the Derutti column is getting more and more militant the Franco aligned uh rightus are getting supplied the the CNT is trying to be the main

player to stand against the Frank aligned rightists and the result of that is that you know that means that they if they do that then they get more Soviet dollars and munitions so in many ways this place fran uh spain becomes kind of the proxy war between the Nazis and the communists but they're not really communist they're Stalinists yeah but there you go right yeah um according to redell the cn t was increasingly intoxicated by their own he this is his quote increasingly quote intoxicated by their own speechifying, admiring themselves in the mirror in their general's outfit. Okay.

That's a very pointed kind of description. Yeah. So they've lost the thread. They've lost the, what do the kids say? They've lost the plot. Yes. By November of 1937. Okay, so he's been in France for a while.

He's going back by the name Merci A Vega. And he had quit the anarchist union over the, the, the, the, the, French anarchist union over the role that factory workers would and should play in a revolution. So split as, but also like, you know, principal, right? Right. Now, Merci A Vega continued robbing banks at this time. And by, oh, okay. Yeah.

So he learned from his mentor in Spain, apparently. Yes. Yes. And by 1939, the police were after. him for these crimes in France. After multiple attempts to flee France, Mercier Vega ends up in Chile and Argentina. But then the war breaks out for the French, and Mercia Vega felt pulled to fight the growing fascist influence in France. So he then claims a birthplace of Chile, which makes sense because that's where my mama was born. Yeah. He then

went back via French Africa to fight fascism as a part of the free French army, this time as simply Louis Mercier. Okay. After the war ended, Mercier-Vegro went to work in Grenoble for the newspaper Le Dauphine Liberé? Okay, Liber.

Libert. Fuck. This means he's in Grenoble, France. Right. Do you know what's coming? Uh, oh, I know that I should. Yeah. So this is post-war. So this is 45-46.

Oh, uh, de Gaulle is what's. coming. I'm sure he is, yeah. But more importantly, he's writing in Grenoble at the same time and in the same place that Andre René Rusimov was born. Okay. Andre René Rusimov, also known as Andre the Giant. Got it. Yeah. And there we are. All right. Mark it. All right. He also, uh... Time stamp it. He also wrote for Les Libertaire. I mean, it looks kind of. L-E. L-E?

So Le L-E. Lebertere. Yeah, probably L-A-I-R-E. It's like Voltaire, but, okay. Yeah, Lebertere. Lebertair. Leibre. He wrote under the pseudonyms there of Damasque and Santiago Perrane.

Okay. In his recollections of the Spanish Civil War and the Spanish Revolution, Merci A Vega insisted on honoring his friends who died for the cause, despite the narrative changing to favor those who'd held power on the left. He insisted on learning from the failings of that movement, hence the essay I'm going to annotate now. So he basically wrote this essay so as to honor the regular folks who did the work instead of, oh, these men's were titans of the left and they did this.

He's like, no, no, no, no, no. This revolution was almost successful because of these guys. Right. So. Now, James Stout is an adjunct professor of world history. I couldn't find where he's adjuncting right now, but he's also an investigative journalist from England who speaks at least four languages.

He's written for the National Geographic, the Wall Street Journal, the Esquire, Smithsonian, Lapham's Quarterly, and many, many more. Stout also wrote a book called The Popular Front and the Barcelona-1936 Popular Olympics, as well as another book called Against the State, anarchists and comrades at war in Spain, Myanmar, and Rojava.

Wow. He translated this essay. Got it. So that's the intro. I think we should stop there, actually. And I think so. Yeah, because I'm just looking at the annotations of the very first paragraph, and that's at least half an hour's worth of work.

Holy crap. Okay. So anyway, that's Louis Mercier-Vega. What have you gleaned so far? That the popular perception in the United States and in, I think in Britain as well, of the factionalism within the left is very heavily colored by. a misunderstanding of the ideologies involved and of the historical record regarding how those ideologies have interacted.

So like what you were saying about, you know, we don't want to wind up under one banner because there are going to be things where we have differences of opinion. and we're all on the same side. The characterization of that, when we talked about Monty Python and the life of Brian, you know, the, you know, the only people we hate more than the Romans

are the Judean people's front. We're the people's front of Judea, right? That, that satire of, of, these groups, I think is fundamentally rooted in the basically farther to the right

Overton window that is just kind of the standard in politics or was at the time and continues to be now. The kind of where the Overton window is in

American society and British society as opposed to where it was in France and Spain and other parts of Europe, where these movements had more history. Yeah. And had had the opportunity to attain a greater level of philosophical and political legitimacy, if that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think that also, as I'm kind of meandering about this in my own head, talking about it, I think the nature of our particular parliamentary system, because we don't, our republic, the government, the representative portion of our federal government does not lend itself to coalition. I agree. Because of the way our elections work, because of the way our founders basically said, we're not going to say anything about political parties. And by not saying anything about political parties, they almost guaranteed that we would wind up having a two-party system. Yeah. If that, you know, and that's a massive oversimplification. But in a place where you have a true parliamentary system like France after the revolution. like the Spanish Republic

there's more room for nuance and there's more room for a variety of movements and political points of view to to flourish for lack of a better word yeah yeah and and you know listening to all of the groups that like you know

yes we are the popular front but the popular front is an umbrella term. And, you know, it's made up of all of these groups that to an outsider like me, you know, the difference between the workers international and the communists. I'm like, isn't it workers international part of like the international communist party? Like, wait, hold on, you know. But like obviously in Spain, there was some level of, well, okay, like we broadly agree on most everything, but there's. There's these couple of things that, like, we want to maintain our autonomy to continue pursuing whatever. And, you know, the validity of that is, is a, there is a paradigm in which that is valid.

And there is a paradigm in which that seems, I don't want to say contemptible, but, but mockable. If that makes sense. And the paradigm under which we as Americans are indoctrinated into how politics works is the latter one. And it's eye-opening to see the way that that worked. Yeah. Like the fact that that autonomy, that lack of lockstep was the strength. Yeah. Whereas, you know, it's, um, yeah.

It's this reminds me of 5E fighters Okay Or 5E barbarians Okay The best way to build one of them is to have this specific weapon Because it does the most damage And if you don't do that

Then you're suboptimizing And you're hurting your group and blah blah blah So now we all have the same vanilla flavor Of this kind of thing And then 2024 rules were like Now here's weapon masteries So you could do cool shit now And it's like, oh, I have a fighter who can have a flail.

And it doesn't, I don't get the side eye from my group. Yeah. You know, that kind of thing. And having that autonomy built in as a strength. And again, just that whole like, if you're the purity testing. Right. That exists in our system. I would say that it's an interesting, it's an interesting artifact of our system is that you

used to have greater coalitions when we had regionalism, but I don't think regionalism was better for us. You know? No, no, I wholeheartedly agree. But you had more coalitions there, too. You had more coalitions, and I think there's also something to be said for the fact that, you know, the environment, like the, the alkylals. level of the soil of our politics is such that if you are leftist, there is kind of a scarcity pressure being exerted on on beyond leftism in the United States. By centrist.

Yes, by. Who want power. Who want power. Because they want to deny power to the rightists. and less them for that, but it's like... But it's, you're not, you're not doing this right. Right. And the thing that strikes me about it is, so what you wind, the cultural impact of that is,

is like I'm a, say I'm a Maoist, for example. Sure. I'm going to be particularly bitter and angry at Marxists or Leninists, almost more than I am at MAGA because there's only so many spaces in the dialogue. There's only so much room in the dialogue for anybody of any leftist stripe.

And so if I want to have my voice be heard, I've got to shut you the fuck up, if that makes sense. No, yeah. Like you said, it's that scarcity. Yeah. And if we could find a way to unfuck that, Yeah, well, like, just again, see coalitions as a strength, see differentiation as a strength, see it as, what do you call it?

Like, you know, it's a good thing that we have 10 different versions of this. Because it'll all sharpen each other. Yeah. Instead of like, you know, I need this space and you're taking it. Right. You know, because you want the fascist to win? All right. I guess you're going to get to talk more.

you know, that kind of thing. And instead of like, oh, no, no, we all want that. And we all want that in different ways. Let's find the ways that blend. Yeah. Here, have the mic for a minute. Yeah. Because we all want them nowhere near the levers of government.

So, you know, hey. Yeah. And then there's also, of course, the kind of low-hanging fruit to compare the factional differences within the left to denomination. differences within any organized religion, you know, but like Eastern Orthodox Christians and Catholic Christians basically agree on 99% of theology. Yeah. But there's, there's, you know, the Pope's role and icons.

And those two things are basically like, no, we're just, we're not going to unify. Right. Because nuts to that. Right. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's kind of the same thing. And yeah. So there's, there's my, my reflection, I guess.

Okay. At this point in the, in the conversation. Okay. What are you recommending to people to read or watch or listen to? I am going to recommend actually the book that I have struggled all week to write a review of. Because the sad part about it is I struggle to write the review, but I, love the book and I wish I could actually read it in a leisurely manner. It's race and reunion, the Civil War in American American Memory by David W. Blight.

Oh, yeah. You're familiar with it? In my master's program, yeah. Yeah, unsurprising. Okay. There's some that are classics and seminal works, you know? Yeah, and this was, he wrote it in 2001. And it is, it's an amazing historiograph.

of the way that the national memory of the Civil War was formed. Yeah. And his principal thesis is that a desire for reconciliation allowed white supremacy to enter into the way that the narrative got told and kicked out or excluded. emancipation from the popular and dominant mainstream culture memory of the civil war

yeah there was at that time the 2000s the idea of memory and public memory was really entering into the storyography in a major way it was kind of like the next new paradigm as it were because there was also a book about World War I

it was called like war I don't think it's war in remembrance. I think that's the Time Life series. But it had to do with memory and the Great War. And it's the same kind of idea of like, let's look at how people remembered something. Right. In our historiography, which I found fascinating. Oh, yeah.

It's one of the ways that postmodernism has influenced history that I don't immediately look at and want to, you know, make the sign of the cross and start throwing holy water. I have. It's an important paradigmatic shift. It really is. It is. It really is. And honestly, it's good for us because everybody else is already taken up all the other good stuff.

So because it fractures everything, you can dig into your own little thing and be like, well, I'm using this paradigm. Yeah. Okay, fair. But yeah, I get you. Yeah. Like, you know, I will admit that my, my, my, my, my, my, exposure to, you know, postmodernist writing has has skewed toward the really, really esoteric. I'm going to work real hard not to be pejorative in the language that I use.

But there's an element of huffing their own farts in a lot of the stuff that I've read. And it's just like, oh, my God. But I will say the fact that it led to the meta idea of. you know, the development of memory as a historiographical thing. It's amazing. And David W. Blight is amazing, like, as a writer. And if you have the opportunity, well, no, you know what? I'm going to save that from my recommendation next time.

So what about you? I'm going to actually recommend one of James Stout's book books because I'm talking about this thing happening in Spain. So the Popular Front and the Barcelona 1936 Popular Olympics I think that that is a By James Stout I think that's a worthwhile read Considering what we're going over

So essentially the Olympics that were held in Munich In 36 This is a reaction to that on some levels It's an alternative to that and be like No here's the Popular Front Olympics So Nice, I like it So

Well cool Where can they find us? We can be found on the Apple podcast app on the Amazon podcast app, sorry, on Spotify and on YouTube now. And of course

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