Joan Peiró
Spanish politician and sindicalist (1887-1942)
Joan Peiró i Belis (sometimes Juan Peiró: 18 February 1887 – 24 July 1942) was a Catalan anarchist activist, writer, editor of the anarchist newspaper Solidaridad Obrera, two-time General Secretary of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Labour, CNT) and Minister of Industry of the Spanish government during the Spanish Civil War.
Life
Though he was born in the Sants neighbourhood of Barcelona, Peiró spent a large portion of his life in Mataró, just outside Barcelona, where he worked as a glass worker all his life in the cooperative glass factory Cristalleries de Mataró .
Contrary to most anarchists' principles, in 1930, during the reign of Alfonso XIII of Spain, Peiró signed the "Manifesto of the Catalan Intelligentsia", which called for the establishment of a republic. A short time later, Peiró was stripped of his position of speaking for the CNT at a rally in Barcelona, but Peiró announced that he had removed his signature from the manifesto, and held his faith in anarcho-syndicalism. Later, in 1931, Peiró signed Ángel Pestaña's Manifiesto de los Treinta ("Manifesto of the Thirty"), which was critical of the more radical Federación Anarquista Ibérica influence on the CNT, which would have him temporarily removed from the CNT.
On 4 November 1936 Peiró, and three other members of the CNT leadership, were appointed to ministerial positions in the Spanish government by Largo Caballero. In 1937, he drafted a piece of legislation that would have collectivized all of Spain's industries, but after several redrafts, the final legislation provided virtually nothing of the original intent. Peiró was removed from his position on 17 May 1937 but returned to the government under Juan Negrín as Commissioner of Electricity.
Following the fall of the republic in 1939, Peiró fled to France, where he was turned over to Nazi Germany by the Vichy Regime in France. He was executed after the Gestapo turned him over to the Franco government in Spain.
Legacy
In Barcelona, a plaza adjacent to the main transportation terminal was named for Peiró.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Joan Peiró” as spanish politician and sindicalist (1887-1942). Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3054042. VIAF identifies the subject as 102369233. The Library of Congress control number is n79043892. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1887, 1942, 1930 and 1931.
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