José Peiró Olives

José Peiró Olives was born in Badalona on 26 December 1917. He was the son of Juan Peiró Belis and Mercè Olives Bonastre. He lived there and in Barcelona before the family relocated to Mataró in 1923. He attended the Glassmakers’ Cooperative’s rationalist school up until the age of 14, at which point he started work for the cooperative (where his father was also employed) and trained as a glass-maker.

From a very young age he was active in the CNT. During the civil war he signed on as a volunteer with the Ascaso Brigade and served on the Aragon front: later he was his father’s official driver when he was the republican government’s Electricity commissioner.

In exile in France, where he moved with his family, he endured the vicissitudes of war and the insecurity and fought in the resistance against the Nazi occupation, right through to the Liberation. Among the decorations he was awarded was the Defence of Paris Medal with palm, plus French and Polish resistance medals.

Later he was consistently active in the CNT, serving as secretary of the Libertarian Youth’s peninsular committee as well as being general secretary of the CNT’s Local Federation in Paris. He contributed to a host of CNT and libertarian publications. He backed a number of initiatives (such as the Alliance for the Republic) intended to bring about the end of Francoist rule and restore civil liberties in Spain. Only after the death of the dictator Franco did he return to Catalonia, to visit family in Mataró.

In 1978 he published Juan Peiró. Teórico y militante del anarcosindicalismo español (Editorial Foil, Barcelona). In the years thereafter he carried on researching his father’s journey through life. His father was indisputably one of the most significant and crucial activists in terms of organization and theory during the early decades of the 20th century and he remains an example of coherence and an inspiration for upcoming generations. The reissue of that book is the product of that massive undertaking. 

He married Olga Álvarez Palomo and they had a daughter, Amapola. Juan died in Paris on 23 October 2005. His remains were laid to rest beside those of his beloved mother and father in the Caputxins cemetery in Mataró.

Jose’s book is “Joan Peiro mi padre. Una vida ejemplar” (FSS Ediciones) ISBN 9788487218378

From Rojo y Negro  No 402, July-August 2025 https://cgt.es/wp-content/uploads/2025/07/402-ryn-julio-agosto.pdf cc-by-nc-sa licence

Translated by: Paul Sharkey.