Dolores Ibárruri

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Dolores Ibárruri Gómez (9 December 1895 – 12 November 1989), known more famously as "La Pasionaria" (passion flower) was a Spanish Republican leader of the Spanish Civil War and communist politician of Basque origin, perhaps best known for her defense of the Republic with the famous slogan ¡No Pasarán! ("They Shall Not Pass"), during the Battle of Madrid.

She grew up in Gallarta, the daughter of a local Basque miner and a Castillian mother. Upon her marriage to the revolutionary Socialist miner Julián Ruiz Gabiña, Ibarruri moved to Somorrosto (Bizkaia). It was here, during the 1920s, that the once Carlist Catholic young woman became a revolutionary militant activist and one of the first members of the Spanish Communist Party (PCE) when it was founded in 1921. In the 1930s, she became a writer for the PCE publication Mundo Obrero, and was elected to the Cortes as a PCE deputy for Asturias in February 1936 during the Second Republic. After the end of the Spanish Civil War and her exile from Spain, she was appointed General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Spain, a position she held from 1942 to 1960, when she was made President of the PCE. She would hold this position as Party President from 1960 until her death in 1989. Upon her return to Spain in 1977, she was reelected as a deputy to the Cortes (Spanish Parliament) for the same region she had once represented during the Second Republic. She is usually regarded as being one of the greatest public speakers of the twentieth century^[1].

Contents 1 Biography 2 Notes 3 List of works 4 See also 5 External links

[edit] Biography

Born into a poor Carlist and Catholic mining family^[2] in the town of Gallarta (municipality Abanto Zierbena),Vizcaya province, in the Basque Country of Spain, Ibárruri was the eighth of eleven children of Antonio Ibárruri and Juliana Gómez who was originally from Soria. She wanted to teach, but her family could not afford to pay for her schooling.^[3] In 1916, at the age of twenty, she married Julián Ruiz, a miner and political activist. She had six children, but four died before adulthood, due in part to their extreme poverty.^{[citation needed]}

After his participation in the general strike of 1917, Ruiz was imprisoned, which exacerbated the family's financial hardship. Ibárruri studied the writings of Karl Marx and joined the Communist Party (PCE). She wrote articles for El Minero Vizcaíno, the miners' newspaper, under the pseudonym of La Pasionaria, passion flower.

In 1920, she was elected to the Provincial Committee of the Basque Communist Party. She gained respect and popularity,^{[citation needed]} and in 1930 she was elected to the Central Committee of the Spanish Communist Party.

With the advent of the Second Republic in 1931 she moved to Madrid, where she became editor of the left-wing newspaper, Mundo Obrero. She worked for the improvement of conditions for women. Later she was elevated to the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Party. Due to her activities, she was arrested and imprisoned several times. Her speaking abilities made her one of the chief representatives of the PCE. She was a delegate to the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow in 1933.

Communist Party of Spain

Spanish Civil War Popular Front

PCE federations PSUC- UJCE Mundo Obrero - CC.OO. United Left European Left

Dolores Ibárruri Enrique Líster Santiago Carrillo Julio Anguita Francisco Frutos

Politics of Spain Political parties in Spain Elections in Spain

Communism Eurocommunism World Communist Movement

She was elected to the Spanish Congress of Deputies in 1936, and campaigned for improved working, housing, and health conditions.^{[citation needed]} With the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War she raised her voice in defense of the Republic with the famous slogan ¡No Pasarán! ("They Shall Not Pass"), during the Battle of Madrid. Her speeches rallied a large part of the Republican population, particularly women, to the anti-fascist cause. She took part in different committees with personages like Palmiro Togliatti to win aid for the Republican cause. Nevertheless, after three bloody years, in April 1939, with the capture of Madrid, the Nationalist forces prevailed. Ibárruri went into exile in the USSR, where she continued her political activity. Her only son, Rubén, joined the Red Army, and perished in the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942.

Enrique Líster accused Dolores Ibarruri of ordering (with Santiago Carrillo) in 1945 the killing in an internal purge of the old PCE militant Gabriel León Trilla ^[4].

In 1942 she became General Secretary of the PCE, a position she held until 1960, when she took over the title President of the PCE which she held until her death. In the early 1960s she was granted Soviet citizenship. Her political work was recognized during these years by the Soviet Union and she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Moscow. In addition she received the Lenin Peace Prize (1964) and the Order of Lenin (1965). Her autobiography, No Pasarán (They Shall Not Pass), was published in 1966.

After the death of Francisco Franco in 1975, she returned to her native land. She was elected a deputy to the Cortes in June 1977, representing Asturias region in the first elections after the restoration of democracy.

Ibárruri died of pneumonia at the age of 93 in Madrid. Ernest Hemingway wrote of La Pasionaria in his famous novel about the Spanish Civil War, For Whom the Bell Tolls.

A statue of La Pasionaria stands on Clyde Street in Glasgow in tribute to the men of Scotland who went to Spain to fight Fascism.

[edit] Notes

[edit] List of works

• Dolores Ibárruri: Speeches & Articles 1936-1938, New York, 1938.
• El único camino, Moscow, 1963.
• Memorias de Dolores Ibarruri, Pasionaria: la lucha y la vida, Barcelona, 1985.
• They Shall Not Pass: The Autobiography of La Pasionaria, New York, 1966.
• Memorias de Pasionaria, 1939-1977: Me faltaba Espana, Barcelona, 1984.

Preceded by Position created

President of the Communist Party of Spain 1960-1989

Succeeded by Position abolished

Preceded by José Díaz

General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain 1942-1960

Succeeded by Santiago Carrillo

[edit] See also

• Jorge Semprún

[edit] External links

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Dolores Ibárruri

• Dolores Ibárruri Archive at marxists.org
• Spartacus International article on Dolores Ibárruri
• ¡No Pasarán! Speech Dolores Ibárruri's No Pasaran Speech translated to English