Gaston Leval (born ''Pierre Robert Piller''; October 20, 1895 – April 8, 1978; Saint-Denis, France) was an

anarcho-syndicalist Anarcho-syndicalism is a political philosophy and anarchist school of thought that views revolutionary industrial unionism or syndicalism as a method for workers in capitalist society to gain control of an economy and thus control influence in b ...

, combatant and historian of the Spanish Revolution. Leval was the son of a French

Communard The Communards () were members and supporters of the short-lived 1871 Paris Commune formed in the wake of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. After the suppression of the Commune by the French Army in May 1871, 43,000 Communards ...

. He escaped to Spain in 1915 to avoid

conscription Conscription (also called the draft in the United States) is the state-mandated enlistment of people in a national service, mainly a military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and it continues in some countries to the present day un ...

during the

First World War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. In Spain he joined the anarcho-syndicalist

Confederación Nacional del Trabajo The Confederación Nacional del Trabajo ( en, National Confederation of Labor; CNT) is a Spanish confederation of anarcho-syndicalist labor unions, which was long affiliated with the International Workers' Association (AIT). When working wi ...

trade union A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...

. Leval left for Argentina during the dictatorship of

Primo de Rivera Primo de Rivera is a Spanish family prominent in politics of the 19th and 20th centuries: *Fernando Primo de Rivera (1831–1921), Spanish politician and soldier *Miguel Primo de Rivera (1870–1930), nephew of Fernando, military officer and dictat ...

where he would live from 1923 to 1936. He returned to Spain and became a fighter in the

Confederal militias The confederal militias were a movement of people's militia organized during the Spanish civil war by the dominant organizations of anarchism in Spain: the National Confederation of Labor (CNT) and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). These ...

in the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, lin ...

. Additionally, he documented the revolution and the urban and rural

anarchist Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not neces ...

collective A collective is a group of entities that share or are motivated by at least one common issue or interest, or work together to achieve a common objective. Collectives can differ from cooperatives in that they are not necessarily focused upon an ...

Bibliography

* Gaston Leval, "Anarchists Behind Bars", Summer 1921 * Gaston Leval, "Collectives in Aragon", London, 1938 * Gaston Leval, "Social Reconstruction in Spain: Spain and the World", London, 1938 * Gaston Leval, "Collectives in Spain",

Freedom Press Freedom Press is an anarchist publishing house and bookseller in Whitechapel, London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1886, it is the largest anarchist publishing house in the country and the oldest of its kind in the English speaking world. It is bas ...

, London, 194
online
* Gaston Leval, "Ne Franco Ne Stalin", Milan, 1952 * Gaston Leval, "Collectives in the Spanish Revolution", Freedom Press, London, 1975 (originally in French, "Espagne Libertaire (1936 - 1939)", Editions du Cercle, 1971)

References

External links

1895 births 1978 deaths French anarchists French people of the Spanish Civil War Historians of anarchism Anarcho-syndicalists {{Anarchism-stub