La Barbarie Organizada

"La Barbarie Organizada" (Organized Barbarism), published posthumously in 1931, is a powerful "novela del Tercio" (novel of the Legion) written by Fermín Galán (1899-1930), a Spanish military officer and republican hero executed for leading the Jaca uprising. Written between 1925 and 1926, this novel transcends the typical glorification of military exploits found in the legionary literature of the time. Instead, it offers a stark, "new objective" account of the colonial war in Morocco, functioning as a profound anti-war statement and a critique of the "organized barbarism" of civilization itself.

Structured as a *Bildungsroman* (novel of formation), the narrative follows a protagonist who, driven by hunger and lack of work, enlists in the Spanish Legion. Through his eyes, we witness not heroic feats, but a sequence of brutal episodes that dismantle the myths of military glory, virility, and the "civilizing mission." Galán exposes the dark underbelly of the colonial enterprise: desertions, suicides, corruption, and unspeakable acts of violence, including sodomy and rape, often ignored by other writers.

Galán's prose is austere and direct, rejecting rhetorical ornamentation in favor of a cumulative, factual style that aligns with the "New Objectivity" movement. The novel refrains from explicit moralizing, allowing the sheer accumulation of horrific events to lead the reader to a radical critique of the social and political structures that sustain war. It is a text that bridges the gap between the individual experience of the soldier and a broader, systemic condemnation of a society in crisis.

This Stockcero edition, edited by César de Vicente Hernando, provides a comprehensive introduction that situates the novel within the historical context of the Moroccan War, the rise of the "Africanist" military faction, and the intellectual currents of the "New Romanticism" generation. It reveals Galán not just as a martyr of the Republic, but as a significant literary voice who dared to expose the "civilized slaughter" of his time.