The Spanish army reduced the Asturian Revolution. Under the orders of Generals Franco and Yague, African troops destroyed entire villages. Through shelling, looting, beatings and cold-blooded executions, nearly 2,000 people were killed and 30,000 arrested.

On 5 October it was at the origin of the entire revolutionary general strike called by the Socialists against the right-wing government. In Asturias the call had a great follow-up. The socialists and anarchists of the CNT joined and proclaimed the Socialist Republic.

People were organized and local workers' power was put into practice. But in the rest of the state the revolution failed and became isolated.

Joan recalls that in order to extinguish the fire in Asturias, 15,000 soldiers and 3,000 civil guards were sent, which in practice occupied Asturias militarily, starting a brutal repression. Thousands of arrests, robberies, the socialist Consistorial House and the workers’ toilets burned down, burned books and the public humiliations of revolutionaries and their families were the daily bread.