The Iron Column was one of the legendary anarchist fighting units in the Spanish Revolution, famed because it was partly made up of ex-convicts and because of its ferocious military abilities and anarchist revolutionary fervor.
This account first appeared in Nosotros, the daily newspaper of the Iron Column in March 1937, on the eve of its militarization. It serves as not only a moving personal account from one of its members but as a justification and defense of the Column and its reputation.
"And History will say that the Iron Column was perhaps the only column in Spain that had a clear vision of what our Revolution ought to be. It will also say that of all the columns, ours offered the greatest resistance to militarization, and that there were times when, because of that resistance, it was completely abandoned to its fate..."