| Unit Name: | Land and Freedom Column |
| Native Name: | Columna Tierra y Libertad |
| Dates: | 1936–1937 |
| Country: | Spanish Republic |
| Allegiance: | CNT-FAI |
| Branch: | Confederal militias |
| Type: | Militia |
| Size: | 2,000 |
| Colours: | --> |
| Colours Label: | --> |
| Battles: | Spanish Civil War |
| Notable Commanders: | Germinal de Souza |
The Land and Freedom Column was a militia column organized by the CNT-FAI from the regions of Berguedà and Bages as well as from Barcelona. The column was sent to the Central front in mid-September 1936 to reinforce the republican line against a nationalist force. It had around 1,500 militiamen in its beginnings. The column integrated into the Rosal Column and later fought on the Serra de Montsant front. After the militarization that occurred in the spring of 1937, the column became the 153rd Mixed Brigade.
The column first named itself the "Red and Black" however when they arrived in Barcelona they found that there was already another column with the same name. So they changed it to "Land and Freedom", a classic motto of Spanish anarchism. In Barcelona several more centuries were added to the column, which received military training in the barracks controlled by the CNT-FAI. On September 7 they departed for Madrid by train. Flores, Pedro. Memòries, p. 161 They were sent as Catalan aid to the central front, the Freedom column of the PSUC and the UGT was also sent in October and the Durruti Column in November. In Madrid the column had about 1,500 militiamen, since several centuries with local militiamen had also attached to it. The column had an artillery battery with two 105 mm guns, named Sacco and Vanzetti, in honor of two Italian-American anarchists executed in 1927.[1]
The militarization took place in June 1937. The Land and Freedom Column became the 153rd Mixed Brigade, commanded by Antonio Sabas Amorós and commissioned by Francisco Señer Martínz, both from the CNT. Battalions 609, 610, 611 and 612 were commanded respectively by Antonio Ferrándiz García, Feliciano Llach Bou, Francisco Fausto Nitti and Víctor Gómez Goiri. Their journal was called "New Era". The brigade was attached to the 24th Division. One of the column's soldiers, Pedro Flores, said this on the militarization:
During the militarization process they were stationed in Binéfar and Monzón. There they were caught up in the Barcelona May Days, participating in the events by taking the revolutionary side, in favor of going to Barcelona to take control. Because of this, the Ulysses battalion (610) joined the 127th Brigade, led by the CNT militant Máximo Franco, and they went to Lérida, where they stayed to avoid a breakdown of the Republican side and an eventual "civil war within of the civil war ".[2]
During the collapse of the Aragon front in the spring of 1938, the 153rd Mixed Brigade was caught right in the middle of the Francoist assault and was defeated, retreating to the Segre river. The remains regrouped in Valdomá and on 19 April the brigade was attached to the 30th Division, under communist command, which carried out political maneuvers within the brigade to assassinate and detain libertarian or socialist commanders.[3]
Àngels Casanovas described the brigade's military operations from the Battle of the Ebro to the end of 1938, narrating the circumstances surrounding Miquel Carreras Costajussà's death.[4] Historian José Peirats describes the fate of the Land and Freedom Column:
Finally, during the Catalonia Offensive, the brigade defended Juncosa first, then the Serra de Montsant, then afterwards in Igualada and finally in Santa Coloma de Queralt. The last news from the brigade was received during the defense of Vich on 26 January 1939[5] Afterwards, most of its fighters ended up in internment camps in southern France. While the majority of republican units dissolved in the last minute chaos, the battalion made up of the former Land and Freedom Column arrived in France united with some 400 fighters.[6]
In 2001, a cultural association called Columna Terra i Llibertat was founded in Berga, which took over the Center for Libertarian Studies from Josep Ester i Borrás, a member of the column. An annex on the premises of the Study Center was opened to the association, which received the name Ateneu Columna Terra i Llibertat .[7]