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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

Anti-Fascist Action

The People Armed

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.

The July Uprising

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.

In the Front Line

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.

Mujeres Libres

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.

Secciones de Trabajo

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.

Education

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.

Family & Healthcare

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.

Sexual Equality

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.

Propaganda

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.

Nationalist Repression

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."