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 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 localpolice 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 permitted the murder of trade union activists. After Seguí fell victim to an assassination, Pestaña remained the main figure of the moderate CNT. This position allowed him to oppose, together with Joan Peiró, all attempts by the 1927-founded Federación Anarquista Ibérica at assuming control of the CNT during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera.
Split with the CNT
After the proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, the conflict between Pestaña's group and FAI deepened: Pestaña initiated the issue of Manifiesto de los Treinta/Manifest dels Trenta, a clear condemnation of the Federación's tactics, one which got him expelled from the CNT in August. He went on to found his own Syndicalist Party in the closing months of 1932. The Party adhered to the Popular Front, and Pestaña was elected to the Cortes on a Front platform in 1936, as one of the two Party representatives. In October, with the start of the Spanish Civil War, he was appointed general subcommisioner for War, but had to resign due to bad health in December. He died soon after, and the Syndicalist Party did not survive the end of the conflict. He is interred in the Montjuïc Cemetery in Barcelona.
Quotes
The trade-unionists will act lawfully as long as the law is respected.
