different parts of the city. Several hundred barricades were built, and police units occupied roofs and church towers. The PSUC and the government controlled the urban sectors situated at the east side of the Ramblas. Anarchists dominated the western sectors and all the suburbs. In the city centre, where the headquarters of trade unions and political parties (installed in requisitioned buildings and hotels) were relatively close, shooting began, and cars circulating were machine-gunned. In the Telefónica building, a truce was agreed to, and telephone communications, which were essential for war operations, were not interrupted. The police, installed on the first floor, even sent bocadillos to the anarchists, who occupied the upper floors. However, from the rooftops, various grenades blew up several police cars. Early in the evening, the leaders of the POUM proposed to the Barcelona anarchist leaders the formation of an alliance against the communists and the government. The anarchists refused immediately. 4 May On 4 May, Barcelona was a city plunged into silence, interrupted only by the fire of rifles and machine guns. Shops and buildings were covered by barricades. Anarchist armed groups attacked the barracks of the Assault Guards and government buildings. The government and communist militias responded fire. Most of the Barcelona proletariat supported the anarcho-syndicalists, and fears started over a Civil War inside the Civil War. At eleven o'clock, the delegates of the CNT met and agreed to do everything possible to restore calm. Meanwhile, the anarchists Joan García Oliver and Federica Montseny launched an appeal on the radio to ask their followers to lay down their weapons and return to their jobs. Jacinto Toryho, the director of the CNT newspaper Solidaridad Obrera, expressed the same sentiment. Anarchist ministers arrived in Barcelona, and with them were Mariano Rodríguez Vázquez "Marianet" (secretary of the national committee of the CNT), Pascual Tomás and Carlos Hernández (from the executive committee of the UGT). None of them wanted a confrontation with the communists, and President Francisco Largo Caballero had no desire to use force against the anarchists. Federica Montseny later said that the news of the riots had caught her and the other anarchist ministers totally unprepared. On the Aragon front, units of the 26th Anarchist Division (former Durruti Column) under the command of Gregorio Jover, gathered in Barbastro to march on Barcelona. However, upon hearing the García Oliver radio broadcast, they remained in their positions. Meanwhile, the 28th