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Title: The People Armed Author: Anti-Fascist Action Date: 1998 Language: en Topics: Mujeres Libres, anarcha-feminism, armed struggle, Spanish Revolution Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20120312172657/http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spain/women_afa.html
The events of 1936 - 1939 brought massive upheavals to the daily lives
of Spanish people. Working class women, in particular, participated in
and witnessed great changes as the old order of Church and domestic
culture were swept away by social revolution and war. Thousands of
ordinary women were propelled by necessity into revolutionary events,
from front line fighting and organising community defence to
collectivising and running farmland and factories. When the revolution
was crushed in 1939, the memories and bonds formed in the revolutionary
period sustained them through long years of the Fascist dictatorship, in
prison, exile, or continuing the struggle in the resistance movements.
Much has been written about the war and the political organisations
during this period. References to ordinary women and their activities
are scarce. We have used first hand and eye witness accounts as much as
possible because these stories are best told by those who lived them.
Workers, unions, and working class communities were swift to react to
the Fascist's attempted coup on 17/18 July 1936. Men and women in
Barcelona slept in union halls during the week before the uprising,
expecting a call to arms. In Catalonia, Madrid, and Asturias, men and
women both young and old stormed the armouries to grab the weapons that
the government had refused to provide them with. Cristina Piera entered
the armoury at San Andreas at dawn on the 19th with her son and his
friends in the FIJL (libertarian youth organisation) and was caught up
in the excitement : "I woke up in the morning and heard that people were
in the armoury...so I went there...everybody went...I took a pistol and
two ramrods (for rifles) what I could carry. They had gunpowder there
too...Even me, with the little I knew, and could do, I was there. People
took arms and ammunition, and I took what I could."
Enriqueta Rovira, a young woman of 20 , jumped the first train back to
Barcelona when she heard the news : "Most of the action was in the
centre of Barcelona. I had a pistol...and I was prepared to use it. But
they soon said no...I didn't know how to use it and there were
companeros without arms. So they sent me - and all the women, all
families - to build barricades. We also took care of provisions. Women
in each barrio (district) organised that, to make sure that there would
be food for the men...Everyone did something." Women were at a
disadvantage in having no experience of weapons handling. In the heat of
the battle and with limited arms it was only logical that guns went to
those who already knew how to use them. But in building the barricades
women continued to play a vital role. A group of five or six militant
women set about fortifying one of the city's most elegant buildings,
"...when the (CNT) companeros returned - victorious, of course - (from
storming the military barracks at Atarazanas, at the foot of the
Ramblas) and saw how beautiful it was, they took it over as the casa
CNT-FAI." (Soleded Estorach). Other women took to the rooftops with
loudspeakers, calling on the soldiers to take off their uniforms (!) and
join the people.
The Fascist uprising was crushed in Barcelona, but the workers knew that
this was only the beginning. While the government urged people to stay
at home rather than actively defend the city and rely upon the notorious
Guardia Civil (who later used their rifle butts to disperse
demonstrations of Barcelona women against rising food prices), Miguel
Garcia and others were involved in efforts to organise a people's army:
"...But by this time every man and woman in Barcelona knew that we had
stormed the heavens. The generals would never forgive us for what we had
done. We had humiliated and defeated the Army, we - an 'unorganised,
indisciplined rabble.' We had altered the course of history. If Fascism
won, we knew that we would not be spared. Mothers trembled for their
small children. When the news came from the South that the invading
rebels were using Moorish troops to put whole towns to the sword, many
of these women, even elderly ones, struggled and fought to obtain a
rifle so that they could take part in the defence of their homes.
Indomitable, inscrutable, they sat together in pairs, chatting among
cronies, with a rifle across their lap, ready for Franco and his Moors
'and if Hitler comes, him too'."
Garcia goes on to describe how old scores were settled as women
discovered new freedoms : "In Barcelona, down in the slum quarters of
the Barrio Chino, the whores were carried away by the general
enthusiasm. They made short work of the ponces and pistoleros who had
preyed upon them for so long. 'Away with this life, we will fight on the
side of the people!' they cried. It was a great joke to the foreign
journalists, who regarded the unfortunate women as less than human and
anything they did ridiculous of itself....In fact, they volunteered to
fight in the front lines. Later, this proved an embarrassment. Gradually
their units were disbanded...!" Some say that they inflicted more damage
than enemy bullets at the front line, as companeros succumbed to a
variety of interesting diseases !
While some women headed for the front with the newly formed militia
columns, others were widely involved in the social revolution back home,
requisitioning buildings for communal eating halls, schools, or
hospitals, or collecting and distributing food and other supplies. Women
took manufactured goods to barter with farmers in rural areas in
exchange for food. Taxis and trams were repainted with revolutionary
insignia as communities brought local services back under their control.
"The feelings we had then were very special. It was very beautiful.
There was a feeling of - how shall I say it ? - of power, not in the
sense of domination, but in the sense of things being under our control,
if under anyone's. Of possibility. A feeling that we could together
really do something." (Enriqueta Rovira).
"We took the first steps...towards emancipation...we couldn't take the
'giant steps' because of the war and the exile, which cut our struggle
short... Our children have to be the pacesetters for the future...But
our memories, such beautiful memories, of that struggle so hard and so
pure... (Azucena Barba).
Other commentators noted the self-assurance of Barcelona women in August
1936, previously unusual for Spanish women in public. There were also
conspicuous changes in Madrid. Young working class women took to the
streets in their hundreds, collecting money for the war effort, enjoying
their new found liberty to walk up and down the streets, talking without
inhibitions to passers by, foreigners, and militia men. This contrasts
strongly with accounts of nationalist areas. For example, in Vigo, under
nationalist occupation, it was unusual to even see a woman out on the
streets.
Despite traditional disadvantages women continued to take part in actual
combat against the Fascists. Mujeres Libres supported them in Madrid by
setting up a shooting range and target practice for women "disposed to
defend the capital" while the Catalonia group's "War Sports" section
offered: "preliminary preparation for women so that, if it should be
necessary, they could intervene effectively, even on the battlefield."
It was.
Armed women were always most noticeable in urban defense, when the
Fascists threatened cities like Madrid. But during the first year of the
war women also served as front line combatants with the militia columns,
in addition to nursing and, in the usual militia system, working
alongside the rural population to ensure a common food supply. Their
bravery at the front cannot be over-stated because, if captured alive,
they inevitably faced rape, mutilation and death. It was only after the
battle of Guadalajara, in May 1937, that women were asked to leave the
front, as the government demanded incorporation of the militia into
regular army units.
Donald Renton, an English volunteer with the International Brigades in
Figueras in November 1936 recalls the impact of seeing militia women:
"While we had often talked about the role to be played by women in the
general struggle, there for the first time we saw the militia women,
comrades who like ourselves were either going to have or already had
had, first line experience in the battle against the fascist enemy.
These were wonderful comrades, people who had - so far as I was
concerned at least - a very, very powerful inspirational effect on
arriving inside Spain itself."
Foreign women also served in the international sections of the columns.
Abel Paz refers to four women "nurses" in the "International Group" of
the Durruti Column. They were captured by Moors in a fierce encounter at
Perdiguera. As prisoners of the fascists they were as good as dead:
"Georgette, militant of the Revue Anarchiste, Gertrude, a young German
woman of the POUM who liked to fight with the anarchists, and two young
girls whose names haven't been recorded in the war chronicles. Durruti
was very close to all of them....and he was deeply moved by these
deaths. The death of Georgette, who was a sort of mascot of the Column,
filled the militiamen with rage, particularly the "Sons of Night". She
had carried out many surprise attacks on the enemy rearguard with the
latter. They vowed to avenge her and during a number of nights made
fierce attacks against the Francoists." The "Sons of the Night" were a
specialised group operating behind enemy lines - women were not just at
the front as nurses.
In the defence of Madrid in early November 1936, women were also
prominent in the fighting. The Women's Battalion fought before Segovia
Bridge. At Gestafe, in the centre of the Northern Front, women were
under fire all morning and were among the last to leave. Fighting with
the Italians of the International Column in Madrid was a 16 year old
girl from Ciudad Real, who had joined up after her father and brother
were killed. She had the same duties as the men, shared their way of
life, and was said to be a crack shot.
Back in Madrid itself, women were organising in defence of the city,
building barricades, providing communication services, and organising,
through local committees, the distribution of food and ammunition to the
barricades and throughout the city. Collective meals, cr ches, and
laundry facilities were set up. Women also played a major role in
anti-aircraft observation and surveillance of suspected fascist
sympathisers.
An International Brigade volunteer, Walter Gregory, who fought in Madrid
in July 1937 recalls that: " A frequent sight in the area of Las Cibeles
was of the Women's Militia coming on and off duty. In twos and threes
they would make their way down the Gran Via which ultimately led to the
University City and the Madrid front line. The Gran Via was too often
shelled to be used by vehicles, nor would the women have risked marching
down its length in formation. In small groups and chattering away to
each other , they looked very like women the world over, and only their
dishevelled khaki uniforms after several nights in the trenches marked
them out as being something special. These brave girls were such a
common sight that they did not attract comment, nor did they appear to
want to. Yet Madrid remained the only place in Spain where I saw women
in the front line, although it must be remembered that the first British
subject killed in the war was Felicia Brown, who died on the Aragon
Front as early as 25/8/1936." Felicia was caught by machine gun fire
while attempting to blow up a Fascist munitions train.
During the bitter battle at Jarama in 1937, another International
Brigader Tom Clarke, described the courage of a small group of Spanish
women: "I remember there was a bit of a retreat. There was a rumour went
round... and they started retreating. We'd gone back a bit, and some of
them were actually running. And here we came across three women who were
sitting behind a machine gun just past where we were, Spanish women. I
saw them looking at us. I don't know whether it shamed us or what. But
these women - they sat there... We sort of stabilised the line."
They were certainly an eye-opener for foreign men! Borkenau describes a
lone militia woman serving with a POUM column:"She was not from
Barcelona, but a native of Galicia (who had)...followed her lover to the
Front. She was very good looking but no special attention was given to
her by the militia men, for all of them knew that she was bound to her
lover by a link which is regarded among the revolutionaries as equal to
marriage. Every single militia man, however, was visibly proud of her
for the courage she seems to have displayed in staying in an advanced
position under fire with only two companions. 'Was it an unpleasant
experience?' I asked. 'No, solo me da el enthusiasmo' ( to me it is only
inspiring ) replied the girl with shining eyes, and from her whole
bearing I believed her. There was nothing awkward about her position
among the men. One of them, who was playing an accordion, started la
Cucaracha, and she immediately began the movements of the dance, the
others joining in the song. When this interlude was over, she was again
just a comrade amongst them."
By late December 1937 there were still women serving in the militias,
but their numbers were diminishing fast. Orwell noticed that, by this
time, ( male) attitudes towards women had changed, citing an example of
militia men having to be kept out of the way while women were doing
weapons drill, because they tended to laugh at the women and put them
off. However, if women were becoming less active on the front line, this
was not the case elsewhere.
There were a number of womens' journals and groups in revolutionary
Spain, including Anarchist, Socialist, and Communist organisations,
which also had their own women's and youth sections. Because of the
information available concerning its role, this article concentrates on
the activities of the anarchist Mujeres Libres.
In the years prior to the revolution, women active in the
anarcho-syndicalist movement had begun organising and meeting, preparing
the groundwork for Mujeres Libres (Free Women) - a local, regional, and
national network of women which grew to over 20,000 strong. It played a
vital role, not only in the war against Fascism, but in building the
foundations of the new libertarian society which its members hoped to
create.
Anarchist women had been actively organising and promoting a women's
network since 1934. Despite their involvement with and commitment to the
existing networks of unions, ateneos (storefront schools / cultural
centres), and youth groups, women were finding themselves always in a
minority and without the full equality and respect which they demanded
from their (male) comrades.
In late 1934 a group of Barcelona women met to overcome these problems
and encourage greater activism among existing CNT women: "What would
happen is that women would come once, maybe even join. But they would
never be seen again. So many companeras came to the conclusion that it
might be a good idea to start a separate group for these women...we got
concerned about all the women we were losing...In 1935, we sent out a
call to all women in the libertarian movement." (Soleded Estorach). They
organised guarderias volantes (flying day-care centres), offering
childcare to women wanting to serve as union delegates and attend
evening meetings.
Meanwhile, Madrid women, calling themselves Mujeres Libres ,were trying
to develop women's' social consciences, skills, and creative abilities.
Towards the end of 1936, the two groups merged as Agrupacion Mujeres
Libres. The initiative was met with enthusiasm but there was also
scepticism. Was this a "separatist" group? Would they encourage women to
see liberation in terms of access to education and professional jobs,
like middle-class Spanish "feminists"? Far from it. "The intention that
underlay our activities was much broader: to serve a doctrine, not a
party, to empower women to make of themselves individuals capable of
contributing to the structuring of the future society, individuals who
have learned to be self-determining, not to follow blindly the dictates
of any organisation" . (Federacion National (M.L.) Barcelona 1938)
Responding to some middle class American feminists' attempts to claim
Mujeres Libres as their political ancestors, or to criticise them for
failing to achieve "sexual equality", Suceso Portales, (a CNT and FIJL
activist who joined Mujeres Libres in central Spain in 1936), states
their position: "We are not - and we were not then - feminists. We were
not fighting against men. We did not want to substitute a feminist
hierarchy for a masculine one. Its necessary to work, struggle together
because if we don't, we'll never have a social revolution. But we needed
our own organisation to struggle for ourselves."
These were women who had as their goal a complete social and political
revolution. Their means of achieving this was to ensure that women were
included and preparing to be included at every step. By July 1936, a
network of anarchist women activists had been established for some time,
ready and able to participate in the July events, and encourage other
women to take part in creating the new society.
Mujeres Libres ran training programmes for new workers in co-operation
with the local unions. Their Secciones de Trabajo developed
apprenticeship programmes, bringing women into traditionally male
factories and workplaces, improving skills and participation, and
equalising pay levels to increase women's independence. "The secciones
de trabajo (labour sections) were probably the most important
activities. We started in that area immediately, because it was
essential to get women out of the home. Eventually there were Mujeres
Libres groups in almost all the factories." (Soledad Estorach)
Labour sections were organised specific to trades or industries at
local, regional, and national levels, with the co-operation of the
relevant CNT unions. From July 1936 onwards, women rushed to fill new
factory jobs in the chemical and metallurgical industries. By September
1936 Mujeres Libres had 7 labour Sections. In Madrid and Barcelona women
ran much of the public transport system. Pura Prez Arcos described her
elation at being one of the first group of women licensed to drive trams
in Barcelona : "They (the Transport Workers Union) took people on as
apprentices, mechanics, and drivers, and really taught us what to do. If
you could only have seen the faces of the passengers (when women began
serving as drivers), I think the companeros on transport, who were so
kind and co-operative towards us, really got a kick out of that". In the
Aragon collectives the first delegates to the village committees were
women. Here women were running the villages on a day to day basis
anyway, since the village men were often away tending the flocks (no
change there then!).
The secciones also set up childcare facilities at workplaces, arguing
that the responsibility for children belonged to the community as a
whole. They encouraged this as a widespread practice and produced
booklets explaining how to set these up in other areas.
In Catalonia union organisations collectivised virtually all production,
drawing on a long history of workers' organisation and struggle.
Industries and workplaces were reorganised to reflect the needs of the
people who worked in them. Recreation centres for workers and their
families were built by timber and construction workers ; churches were
requisitioned to provide day-care centres and schools for children. The
mostly female textile industries were collectivised, abolishing
piecework, while the CNT was active in organising homeworkers, bringing
them back into the factories to receive a daily wage.
However, years of tradition and inexperience of workplace or political
activism would not disappear overnight. Mujeres Libres saw one of its
major tasks as developing women's confidence and skills to speak at
meetings, take full part in discussions and debates in village
committees, factories, etc., and put themselves forward as delegates.
Programmes developed and implemented included basic literacy and
numeracy, mechanics, business, sewing, agriculture, childcare , health,
typing, languages, history, union organisation, general culture, and
economics. Mujeres Libres set up farm schools for women who had left
rural areas to enter domestic service in the cities, to enable them, if
they wanted to, to return to their villages and participate in
collectivised farming. They operated on both a city-wide basis, and in
individual districts, running day and night classes for all age groups,
also encouraging women who studied to take their new skills with them to
hospitals, battlefronts, and other areas and pass these on to others.
Members also set up libertarian schools and universities in buildings
requisitioned from or abandoned by the Church and bourgeoisie.
Responsibility for nursing, healthcare, and child education had
traditionally been held by the Church. Mujeres Libres were committed to
bringing these back into community control, developing libertarian
practices, and distributing information about contraception, pregnancy,
child development, and parenting through their journals and a range of
pamphlets. Their attempts to meet health care needs and educate women
for motherhood went beyond the written word. Within the first days of
the revolution, Terrassa activists set up a nurses' school and an
emergency medical clinic to treat those injured in the fighting, later
creating Terrassa's first maternity clinic. Barcelona MLs ran a lying-in
hospital with birth and postnatal care for women and babies, and its own
health education programmes.
Spanish anarchists - both men and women - had promoted sexual liberation
for many years prior to the revolution. Now they were active in
distributing information on sex and sexuality, contraception, sexual
freedom, and the replacement of legal and religious marriages with "free
love" - voluntary relationships which could be terminated at will by
either partner. Legal marriage ceremonies continued on many collectives,
because people enjoyed it as a festive occasion. Comrades went through
the procedures, later destroying the documentary proof as part of the
celebration! The revolution enabled thousands to experience some degree
of liberation in their personal relationships. Women felt able to refuse
offers of marriage without causing offence to male friends or their
families. It was a time of openness and experimentation. The double
standard, of course, did not disappear, let alone vanish overnight. Many
men used "free love" as a license to extend their sexual conquests,
while more puritanical elements labelled women who openly enjoyed their
sex lives with several partners as "mujeres liebres" (rabbits)!
Modern feminist criticism of Spanish womens' "lack" of achievement in
these areas ignores both the traditional stranglehold of the Church and
the fact that people were effectively running their communities and
fighting a war on several fronts. The women involved felt justly proud
that they were in charge of supplying food and clothing to barricades
and battlefields, and caring for the sick and wounded. "Traditional" as
these roles were , they were vital to the continuation of the war and
revolution.
Consciousness raising and support for these activities was spread by
means of literature, including booklets, the "Mujeres Libres" journal,
exhibitions, posters, and cross-country tours, especially to rural
areas. There are many accounts of urban companeras visiting rural
collectives and exchanging ideas, information, etc. (and vice versa).
Produced entirely by and for women, the paper Mujeres Libres grew to
national circulation and, by all accounts, was popular with both rural
and urban working class women. Each issue encouraged its readers to
develop a libertarian vision, and to participate fully in the events
around them; the paper consistently spelled out the "revolution and war"
position of the movement.
The nationalists were well aware of the opposition they faced from
women. General Quiepo de Llano, in his radio broadcasts from Seville,
raved against and threatened the "wives of anarchists and communists".
As they consolidated their power, the Fascists wasted no time in
reversing the liberalisation of divorce and introducing strict dress
codes for women - including the banning of bare legs! The Repression, of
course, was much more terrible, with up to a third of Spain's population
ending up behind bars, and countless men, women, and children massacred
in fascist reprisals. In 1945, there were still eight jails for women
political prisoners in Madrid alone. A Falange newspaper reports a
baptism ceremony in Madrid in 1940 for 280 children born in prison. Many
Spanish women fled to the French refugee camps, where they pooled food
and established communal kitchens. Others joined the Resistance.
In their struggle against fascism and for a radical political and social
alternative the "Free Women" of Spain provide an example that is still
relevant today: "To be an anti-fascist is too little; one is an
anti-fascist because one is already something else. We have an
affirmation to set up against this negation...the rational organisation
of life on the basis of work, equality, and social justice. If it
weren't for this, anti-fascism would be, for us, a meaningless word."