A las Barricadas

The story

"A las Barricadas" ("To the Barricades") is a Spanish anarchist anthem. The Spanish anarchist writer Valeriano Orobón Fernández wrote the words in the early 1930s, basing them on a German translation of the Polish revolutionary song known as the Warszawianka, whose Polish words Wacław Święcicki had written in the early 1880s and whose music Józef Pławiński had composed.

By 1936 the song was the official anthem of the National Confederation of Labour (CNT), the anarcho-syndicalist trade union confederation. In the Spanish Civil War it became one of the main anarchist anthems, together with "Hijos del Pueblo", and was often featured in the CNT's propaganda films. The Durruti Column sang it when it left Barcelona for the Aragon front. The composer Pablo Sorozábal recalled that when his orchestra played it, the anarchists and syndicalists stood and gave the anarchist salute, hands locked together over their heads, while the socialists and communists stayed seated, and that the reverse happened when the orchestra played "The Internationale".

In the second half of the 20th century the song entered the international repertoire of left-wing music, beside other songs of the Spanish Civil War such as "¡Ay Carmela!", the Italian "Bella ciao" and the Russian "Katyusha". It was taken up by the French Confédération nationale du travail (CNT-F) in Paris, has been recorded by singers and bands in several countries, among them Victor Manuel and Ana Belén as a duet, and is played by anarcho-punk bands with electric guitars. It remains in use among anarchists today.

What it says

A militant anthem calling working people to revolutionary struggle against their oppressors. Its mood is urgent and defiant.

The words

The words of this song are still in copyright, so they are not printed here. “What it says” above gives their theme in our own words.