CNT-FAI Barricade Poster

La Barricada by Toni Vidal and Juan Vera ("Esbelt"), 1937. Produced by the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the Spanish anarchist trade union - National Confederation of Labour (which was affiliated to the Federación Anarquista Ibérica (FAI) - the Iberian Anarchist Federation), celebrating the victory over the attempted coup in July 1936 and the start of the revolution. Antonio Vidal Torruella was born in 1909. He was a book illustrator – including the front cover portrait on the 1936 Spanish edition of Rudolf Rocker’s ‘Nationalism’, and the front cover of the published music and lyrics of the CNT’s anthem ‘A Las Barricadas’. He was also a writer and poet. He died in 1946 after being imprisoned in the Model and Montjuic prisons in Barcelona. 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 wa