During the war of independence from Spain, anarchists joined others in the labor movement in distributing propaganda to Spanish soldiers, urging them not to oppose the separatists, and to join the anarchist cause. A few years previously, anarchists had embraced the ideas espoused by Spanish anarchists of organizing not just in unions, but also forming specifically anarchist groups to educate people and commit violent anti-state acts known as "propaganda of the deed", which carried on into the war of independence. Anarchists placed bombs that blew up bridges and gas pipelines, and contributed to the failed separatist attempt to assassinate the colonial head Captain General Valeriano Weyler in 1896. This led to the government further repressing of anarchists, closing the "Sociedad General de Trabajadores" (which grew out of the "Círculo"), mass deportations of activists, and even the forbidding of the "lectura" in the workplace.