‘Lluís Companys: contra la guerra’

ICIP and Angle Editorial have just released a new issue of the book collection ‘Classics of Peace and Nonviolence’ entitled Lluís Companys: contra la guerra (‘Lluís Companys: against war’), edited by Josep M. Figueres and with a prologue by Professor Antoni Segura.
It consists of a compilation of writings and speeches in Parliament of Lluís Companys, former President of the Generalitat, against the Spanish presence and military intervention in Morocco, which has become a clear demonstration of his active antimilitarism and of his critical voice against this particular war. Indeed, between 1921 and 1932, Lluís Companys fought incessantly against the Spanish military intervention in Morocco: as a Catalan politician, he organized many rallies; and as a journalist, he wrote numerous articles in newspapers and magazines.
A great expert on Companys, Josep M. Figueras has selected and edited his writings and speeches in Parliament against this war in this volume. Companys holds General Berenguer and the King responsible for the war and demands an immediate withdrawal from Morocco.
The antimilitarist activism of Companys was part of the ideology of Republicanism and left-wing Catalan nationalism, and connected with the discontent of the working class. As Antoni Segura states in the prologue, antimilitarism was ‘a tool in the struggle against an establishment – monarchy, landowners, financiers, armed forces – that was decrepit and willing to sacrifice young lives at the altar of imperial vanities. In this respect, it was an antimilitarism with modern characteristics that connects perfectly well with the more recent antiwar protest movements’.
Josep Maria Figueres
A historian and Professor of History of Journalism at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, he has specialized in the study of political Catalan nationalism. He has focused on court-martials and, especially, on the Catalan press, on which he has done extensive research and published a number of research papers, manuals, etc. Among the most important are La Renaixensa (1981), Diari Català (1999), Premsa i nacionalisme (2002), Veus de l’exili (2005) and Entrevista a la guerra (2007). His latest publications include the complete works of Valentí Almirall (2009-2012), Les cròniques de Guerra de Lluís Capdevila (2011), El periodismo catalán. Prensa e identidad (2012) and La Veu de Catalunya (2013).