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Ángel Pestaña

Ángel Pestaña
Pestanya01.jpg
Secretary General of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo
In office
1929–1929
Preceded by Juan Peiró
Succeeded by Juan López
In office
1930 – March 1932
Preceded by Progreso Alfarache
Succeeded by Manuel Rivas
Secretary General of the Syndicalist Party
In office
1932 – 11 December 1937
Member of the Congress of Deputies
In office
28 February 1936 – 11 December 1937
Constituency Cádiz
Personal details
Born Ángel Pestaña Núñez
(1886-02-14)February 14, 1886
Ponferrada, León, Spain
Died December 11, 1937(1937-12-11) (aged 51)
Begues, Barcelona, Spain
Citizenship Spanish
Political party Syndicalist Party
Occupation Syndicalist, Politician

Ángel Pestaña Nuñez (February 14, 1886, Ponferrada – December 11, 1937, Barcelona) was a Spanish Anarcho-syndicalist and later Syndicalist leader.

He came from an impoverished background, being forced to earn a living from a very early age and trained as a clockmaker. He was imprisoned in Sestao, Spain, following his participation in a political rally, when he was fifteen years old.

After travels in North Africa and France, Pestaña settled in Catalonia, and became active in local anarchist politics. He took part in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) Congress of 1918, being unanimously elected editor-in-chief of the group's newspaper Solidaridad Obrera. Under his direction, the paper mounted a violent campaign against the local police force, accusing its leader of being a hireling of Imperial Germany.

In April 1919, after Catalonia was shaken by the Canadenca protests, Pestaña was arrested and detained, and the paper banned. He left for Bolshevist Russia in 1920, in order to be present at the 2nd Comintern Congress and the preliminary sessions of the Profintern. There he met Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, and other Bolshevik leaders. Upon his return, he was yet again detained.

Together with his mentor Salvador Seguí, Pestaña opposed the paramilitary and terrorist actions advocated and carried out by other members of the CNT. In August 1922, he was the victim of an assassination attempt while giving a speech in Manresa, as part of the violent repression measures taken by the Spanish authorities. The indignation caused throughout Spain by news of this act brought the dismissal of several government officials, as well as an end to legislation that had made allowed for the murder of trade union activists.


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