Women in Partido Comunista de España in Francoist Spain faced many challenges. Partido Comunista de España (PCE) had been made illegal by the new regime, which banned all political parties and trade unions. In the final days of the Civil War and during the first days of Francoist Spain, women were imprisoned just for being related to "reds". They were also investigated, harassed, imprisoned and executed for expressing sympathy for Republicans or belonging to any leftist organization. Many women in PCE were caught up in this. PCE women's organization Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas survived the war, and shifted their priorities to assisting political prisoners in Francost jails.
PCE itself emerged as the dominant clandestine political organization in Spain. Women would find getting involved difficult as the Communist party became very patriarchial, with women being locked out of leadership positions, locked out of guerilla organizations, not allowed to attend political training, and told that any Communist activism they did could not interfere with their role as housewife. More militant involvement was viewed as morally unacceptable.
The situation for women only began to change in PCE during the 1960s, with more women's Communist groups being created. Women faced new challenges, including pressure to have sex with male membership to prove they were liberated. Barcelona founded Movimiento Democrático de Mujeres became the dominant Communist women's organization in this period, holding on to this position up until the death of Franco in 1975.
PCE was legalized in 1977. This change brought in a generational shift. While PCE announced itself as "the party of the liberation of women", it did little to follow up on this. They were abandoned by many feminists and women more generally. They began to fade into political obscurity by the 1982 Spanish general elections.
Political context
Francoist Spain was a pseudo-fascist state whose ideology rejected what it considered the inorganic democracy of the Second Republic. It was an embrace of organic democracy, defined as a reassertion of traditional Spanish Roman Catholic values that served as a counterpoint to the Communism of the Soviet Union during the same period. It came into exist in 1939 following the end of the Spanish Civil War. Misogyny and heteronormativity where linchpins of fascism in Spain, where the philosophy revolved around patria and fixed gender roles that praised the role of strong male leadership.
In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War started with a military coup attempt launched from the Spanish enclave of Melilla. In October of that same year, Franco took over as the Generalissimo and Chief of State in Nationalist zones. On 19 April 1937, Catholic and Falangist parties were merged, making Falange Española Tradicionalista the official state party behind Nationalist lines. On 30 January 1938, the first National State Cabinet meeting was held, with the Spanish Civil War formally coming to an end on 1 April 1939 and an official government formalized on 8 August 1939.
The Franco regime banned all political parties and trade unions. The only permissible type organization was Falange, founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1933. An election was held in 1966, where people were given the option to affirm or deny Franco's leadership. With more voters than electors, Franco was affirmed as Head of State. Prince Juan Carlos was appointed as Franco's official successor in 1970, with Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco being the unofficial successor. Carrero Blanco was assassinated in 1973 by ETA. Franco died in November 1975.
History
1937 - 1955 (economic crisis) In the first days of the Francoist period, it was a crime for a mother, daughter, sister or wife of a "red", and this could be punished with long prison sentences or death. In the Basque Country, following the Nationalist seizing control of the area, women found themselves being investigated by the new regime. In Biscay, over 300 different women were investigated in this period. Many were also imprisoned. They were subject to scrutiny because people accused them of being involved with or having sympathies for groups like Partido Comunista de España, Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE), Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV), and Emakume Abertzaleen Batzak.
The PCE aligned Agrupación de Mujeres Antifascistas survived the war, managing to organize on the local level in the interior though their numbers and capabilities were very much depleted. Most of their activities were devoted to supporting PCE affiliated political prisoners in Francoist jails. This contrasted with the CNT aligned women's group, Mujeres Libres, whose leaders generally fled abroad to exile with the notable exception of Lucía Sánchez Saomil who went into internal exile. Mujeres Libres disappeared from the scene during the early Francoist period.
Partido Comunista de España became the dominant clandestine political organization in Spain following the end of the Civil War. It would retain this position until the death of Franco saw PSOE replace it. During their rebuilding process after the war, many people, including guerrilla fighters, were caught by the regime and executed. Rosa Estruch Espinós, Asunción Pérez Pérez, Amalia Estela Alama, Adelaida de la Cruz Ramón Tormo, Ángela Sempere and Remedios Montero were some of the communist women imprisoned during the Franco regime as a result of her involvement with the party during the Civil War. Women were involved with the party, helping to organize covert armed resistance by serving in leadership roles and assisting in linking up political leaders in exile with those active on the ground in Spain. During the later parts of the war and at its conclusion, some women from POUM were coerced into making false confessions in Moscow courtrooms, and then sent to Soviet prisons. Their major crime was being Trotskyites.
Women in PCE were not valued. They were not recognized. They were not given political training. They did not have access to male PCE leadership. They were not allowed to attend cadre schools. They had almost no rights inside the party. Some of these women were upset by this as they believed in the cause. Women were generally not part of the founding of guerrilla groups operating in the 1940s. They were brought in later, as part of a disaffected class, through personal and political contacts. Almost all women involved with guerrilla groups were from rural areas and had family involved. This differed from the previous period, where many fighters came from the middle class and urban areas.
During the Spanish Civil War, PCE adapted the slogan, "Men to front, women to the rearguard." (). This gender divided thinking continued in the Francoist period as PCE rebuilt. Women were to be organized separately from male guerrilla groups, both in the interior and the exterior. With this thinking, Unión de Mujeres Españolas was created by the PCE, and renamed Unión de Mujeres Antifascistas Españolas (UMAE) in 1947. Republican mothers abroad addressed the problem of specifically being targeted by Franco's regime by in their own way. Spanish Communist women in exile suggested mothers in this period should fade into the background, serving in roles that supported single women and men who could be more visible in the struggle against Franco. Communists emphasized a traditional view of motherhood espoused by Franco.
UMAE attracted large numbers of Spanish exiles in France in the immediate post-war period. It faced more challenges recruiting members in the interior. The group published a magazine in France called “Noticias del interior”, which discussed the activities of UMAE women working in the interior and manifestos written by these militants.
While for men, the PCE resistance efforts were called “Operación Reconquista de España”, for women the call was different "Help our heroic guerrillas!" () This differentiation in gender roles imposed by PCE was made explicit in their writings, including in a 1944 edition of PCE magazine "Reconquista de España" which said, "Six years have passed and [...] every day we see closer that long-awaited moment to return, but we must not expect that it is only our guerrillas who liberate it. As women we have to help them achieve liberty, we do not want them to one day have the ability to boast of being the only ones who have freed our Mother; we have to work more and more every day to contribute to the Reconquest of Spain. We must make ourselves worthy of calling ourselves Spanish, worthy of our guerrillas. They have their place in Guerrillas, we in the Feminine Sections of National Union."
Dolores Ibarrurí was the president of UMAE. As its leader, she defined the organization, the role of women in PCE, what women should be doing in the interior and in exile, and how PCE involved women could resolve their militancy with their ability to be a good housewife and mother. She explained how to do this in one PCE magazine, saying, "I have had six children and a miserable salary, and my political training has not been easy, I have done the most humble tasks: from cleaning the Casa del Pueblo to selling the newspaper, making the arrangement of my house and my children compatible With the attendance at the meetings and the collaboration in the workers' newspapers, how did I find time for it? Early in the morning and [...] without pretending that you all do the same, I am convinced that with a little interest in your part, you will always find the necessary time to dedicate it to the organization."
In Galicia and León, women took to the mountain to participate in clandestine resistance against the regime with PCE affiliated guerrilla groups in the early 1940s. Their continued presence was a result of PCE having less control over its groups in these areas. Adoración Campo Cañedo was the first woman from this region to head for the bush, joining guerrillas in 1940. She was followed by Alida González, sisters Antonia y Consuelo Rodríguez Montes, Alberta Viñales Martínez, Alpidia Moral Alonso and Asunción Macías Fernández. Alpidia Moral Alonso and Asunción Macías Fernández both died in the bush as a result of their combat activities.
In 1942, Spanish Republican groups in exile met in Mexico, forming the Unión Democrática Española (UDE). Participants included PSOE, UGT, Izquierda Republicana (IR), Unión Republicana (UR), Partido Republicano Federal (PRF), Unió de Rabassaires and Aliança Nacional de Catalunya (ANC). Partido Comunista Española (PCE) was excluded as communists were out of favor following the end of the Spanish Civil War. The goal of the meeting was to establish an alternative Juan Negrín led government abroad in opposition to Franco. PCE had similar goals but by December 1942, their writings excluded all possibility of joining with other Republican forces.Heine, Hartmut (1983). La oposición política al franquismo. De 1939 a 1952. Barcelona: Crítica. .
Neus Catalá and Irene Falcón were both involved in PCE in the exterior in the 1940s. In Paris in the mid-1940s, UMAE took pains to make clear that women could be involved with the organization while keeping up with all their domestic work. PCE did not want to scare away more traditional women by making the organization to focused on male militant activities. Further, they also wanted to broaden their support base to include traditionalists and Catholic women who firmly supported traditional Spanish gender roles. Activities for women included supporting prisoners, fund-raising, protecting children, acquiring clothing for distribution to other exiles in need and providing snacks for PCE party events.