Spanish Anarchism And Women's Liberation

Spanish Women's

Anarchism

and

Liberation

Temma E. Kaplan One of the chief ideologicaldisputes between the Spanish anarchists and communistsduring the Civil War was the anarchists' insistencethat social revolutionshould not be postponeduntil the war was won; without the social revolution(by which they meant the defeat of authoritarianism and the transformationof all social and economic relations and institutions to permit maximum individual freedom, self-expression, and spontaneity), the war would be just anotherchangingof the guard,so familiarin Spanish history. Historically,Spanishanarchistshadbeen concernedwithchanges in educationand marriagerelationshipsas meansof social change. They opposed the authoritarian,patriarchalfamily, arguingthat it was based on privateproperty,on the father'sownershipof his wife and children.1They hoped to end the oppressionof Spanish working-classwomen by ending formalmarriageand substituting free alliances of individuals, and to eliminate prostitution by providingtrainingprogrammes,medicalfacilities,and housingfor the former prostitutes.2In towns where the anarchistsgained control, even for short periods, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries,they immediatelyattemptedto abolish legal marriage,among other things.3 Again, in the first year of the Civil War, from July 1936 to the late spring of 1937, anarchistswere able to put some of their theoretical ideas into practice. Visitors to anarchist collectives remarkedon the efficiencyof the communes.What most struck observers was the initial absence of oppressive bureaucracyin 1 Anselmo Lorenzo, El Proletariado Militante, Origen del Sindicalismo (Toulouse, 1946), 214-17. 2 H-E. Kaminski, Ceux de Barcelone (Paris, 1937), 70. 3 Juan Diaz del Moral, Historia de las Agitaciones Campesinas Andaluzas (Madrid, I967), 205, 224. IOI

CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

cities such as Barcelona,and the sense of communitythroughout the loyalistsector.There aremanyaccountsof the jubilationwhich followed the assumptionof control by men and women of the factoriesor of landwherethey had formerlybeen employed.4But a socialrevolution,accordingto Spanishanarchisttheory,also transforms personaland social relationshipsand engenders 'a certain level of culture, consciousnessof power, and capacity for selfgovernment',in all membersof the community,includingwomen. Yet, althoughwe might expect it to have been otherwise,the condition and treatmentof women in the anarchistareas continued much as it had before the Civil War.5 This paperis concernedwith anarchistattemptsto aid workingclass women in the period between the end of the first world war and the close of the Civil War, years in which the Spanish anarchists assimilatedsyndicalistideas, built more effectiveorganizations, and won far-reachingif short-livedvictories;it will attempt to showthat,in spiteof theirawarenessof the exploitationof women in capitalistsociety, they did not developa programmeto prevent similarexploitationin revolutionarysociety. There is no reasonto believe that the condition of Spanish women would have been fundamentallychanged if the anarchistshad won the war. Unwilling to deal with conceptsof classor representativeinstitutions, they refused to make special provisions for particularinterest groups.This inhibitionwas a crucialreasonwhy the socialreforms achievedby anarchistsafter I918 and duringthe social revolution of 1936-37 did not attempt to transformthe lives of Spanish working-classwomen. Anarchist women took little or no part in the women's rights movement of the early twenties, which was primarilyconcerned with the admissionof women into the professions.6Except for the 4 Franz Borkenau, The Spanish Cockpit (I937); Gerald Brenan, The Spanish Labyrinth (I943); George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (1938); Pierre Broue and Emile Temine, La Revolution et la Guerre d'Espagne (Paris, I96I). For an interesting re-interpretation of the anarchists' ideas see Noam Chomsky, 'Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship', American Power and the New Mandarins (New York, 1967). 5 D.A. de Santillan, After the Revolution: Economic Reconstruction in Spain Today (New York, I937), 95. Kaminski mentions that in industrial collectives he visited women even had separate dining rooms (70). 6 Maria Laffitte, Condesa de Campo Angel, La Mujer en Espala: Cien Aiios de su Historia, I860-1960 (Madrid I963), 215. I02

SPANISH ANARCHISM AND WOMEN'S LIBERATION

Socialist, MargaritaNelkin, who stood aside from the feminist movement as such, no one on the left spoke about the need for speciallegislationfor workingwomen.7 The anarchistNational Confederationof Labour, the CNT, foundedin I911, had no minimalpoliticalprogramme,but placed its hopes on a generalstrikethat would topple the governmentand begin a social revolution.Anarchistwomen at first had no provisionaldemands,such as those raisedlaterin the war: child-care centres in the factoriesand the ruralcommunitiesto care for the children of workingmothers; liberalizationof the paternitylaws andlaws governingprostitution,whichwouldmakefathersassume some responsibilityfor their children;and regulationof the needle trades,in which the workwas done mainlyby women at home. The greatestadvancein laws governingwomen workerscame under the dictatorshipof Primo de Rivera, when the CNT was outlawed. In the late twenties, legislationwas passed which required paid maternity leave for pregnant women for six weeks before and after confinement,and providedfor one hour release from work each day for a mother to nurse her child. Only this second part of the law was ever enforced. Legislationpassed in I927 prohibitednight work for women in factories, workshops, and hospitalsbetween the hours of 9 p.m. and 5 a.m.; but since employersjuggledshifts, and the law specificallyexcludedhomework(the sweatedtrades)and domesticservice,the legislationwas of negligible value. Even laws passed under the Republic, such as that on compulsorymaternityinsurance(26 May I93I) and the decree of i July I93I which establishedthe eight-hourday, did little to change the condition of workingwomen, most of whom were engaged in domestic service and homework.8Despite the inadequaciesof these laws, anarchistwomen did not campaignfor greater legal protection because, like the men, they were committed to social revolutionratherthan to politicalreforms. The anarcho-syndicalistCNT made no effort to organizethe industries in which women workerspredominated,such as lace and cigarmanufacturing,or the smalltextile establishmentswhich 7 Margarita Nelkin's works include La Condicidn Social de la Mujer en Espana (Barcelona, 1922), and La Mujer ante las Cortes Constituyentes (Madrid, I93I). 8 International Labour Office: Studies and Reports, series I, Women's Work under Labour Law: A Survey of Protective Legislation (1932), 84-85, 146-7; The Law and Women's Work (I934), I67.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

gavepiece workto womenwho workedin theirown homes,usually in execrablehealth conditions,with bad lighting and ventilation. A I918 report claimed that of the 2,500 female workers in Bar-

celona who had typhoid, I,600 were seamstresses.Among female workers,pulmonarytuberculosiswas increasingas a result of bad and unhygienic domestic working conditions. The women who workedat home in the sweatedtradesdid not fall underthe supervision of even the minimal laws which regulatedfactorywork in Spain.9Women workerswere paid lower wages than men and did not receive even the small benefits given to male workers,even when they were the sole support of their families. This did not trouble the anarchist trade unions, many of whose members a readysourceof cheap viewedwomenas potentialstrike-breakers, labour. Blinded sometimes by anticlericalism,many anarchists were hostile to women workerswho were dependenton religious and charitableinstitutions, which alone provided social services to the poor. The Republic passed few laws dealing with the problems of women. Issues of speciallabourprotection,the provisionof childcare facilitiesin factoriesemployingwomen, illegitimatechildren, prostitution,and sex educationwere seldom raisedin the Cortes. The divorce law was passed by a vote of 260 to 23, with 177 ab-

stentions; the law againstprostitutionwas opposedby the liberals but was passed over their objections on 28 June I935.10 While it

abolished prostitution,it made no provision for alternativeemployment for prostitutes, nor did it set up hostels where these women could live and supporttheir children.Ostensiblya law for women, it was really a punitive action against the most abject among them. The real changein the attitudetowardsthe specialneeds and role of women came only with the outbreakof the Civil War, with the increasingneed for the labour of women in the factoriesand in agriculturaland industrial collectives. After November I936, when anarchistsentered the national Republican Government, after years of standing aloof from political involvement of any 9 'Preparaci6n de un proyecto de la ley sobre el trabajo a domicilio', Instituto de Reformas Sociales: Secciones tecnico-administrativas (Madrid, 1918); Nelkin, La Mujer ante las Cortes Constituyentes, 84-85. 10 Laffitte, 218-20.

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kind, the special situationof women became a politicalissue as a result of the activities of the anarchistMinister of Health and Social Service, Federica Montseny, and of the women's group, MujeresLibres(Free Women). As more and more women entered the labour force, anarchist newspapers, which had previously paid little or no attention to women workers, began devoting special columns to their activities and organizations.They dealt with acts of individualheroism,but also coveredthe more mundanejobs womenwere doing in employmentrangingfromnursing to workin heavy industry.11 In the spring of 1936, Mujeres Libres, a women's group in Madrid which had been meeting regularly for some months, beganto publisha periodicalcalledMujeresLibres.12Led by Lucia Sanchez Saornil,MercedesComaposada,and Dr AmparoPoch y Gascon, the group was composed of illiterateas well as collegeeducated women. They set up a school to teach working-class womento readand do skilledwork.The FeminineCultureGroup (Centrode CulturaFeminina)of Barcelona,composedof workingand middle-class women, many of whom belonged to anarchosyndicalistorganizations,heard of the Madrid women, affiliated with them, and constitutedthemselvesa branchof MujeresLibres. By the summerof 1938, the organizationhadgrownto be a federation of 30,000 women.13By the end of the war, a small group which had been formed to carryon educationalwork and to investigate the problems of working women had become a mass organizationdevoted to the principle of women's right to work, their need to develop skills, and their right to social services. For the women of Mujeres Libres, the Civil War became synonymouswith the struggleof women's liberationfrom menial jobs, from ignorance,from exploitationat work, and from unjust treatmentby fathersand husbands.They believedthat the rights they had won as a result of wartimelabour shortagescould be maintainedand extendedonly throughcontinuedsocialrevolution. Furthermore,they arguedthat to complete the social revolution, women had to be freed from oppressionby men as well as by 11 See Tierra y Libertad, Solidaridad Obrera, Frente Libertario, and CN T for the period from July I936 through April I939; see also the five undated issues of Mujeres Libres in the collection of the Institute for Social History, Amsterdam. 12 M. Comaposada, 'Origen y Actividades de la Agrupaci6n "Mujeres Libres"', Tierra y Libertad, 27 March I937, 8. 13 Ibid., 30 July I938, 4.

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CONTEMPORARY HISTORY

capitalists.According to an article published in MujeresLibres, writtenby Emma Goldman,the Americananarchist,'It is certain that there can be no real emancipationwhile one individualcontinues to dominateanotheror while one class oppressesanother. Still less possibleis the emancipationof the humanracewhile one sex dominatesthe other.'14 Under the direction of Lucia Sanchez Saornil, an activist in anarchist causes, the Mujeres Libres group developed as a nationalfederationwith local, regional,and nationalcommittees. At their national conference, held in Valencia in August I937, it was announcedthat there were alreadyforty-threebranchesin Catalonia,twenty in Aragon,twenty-fivein Guadalajara,fifteenin the Levant, and others in Castile and Andalucia.15Although nominallydirectedby Lucia Sanchezin Madrid,Mujeres Libres was a federal,decentralizedorganizationwhich enteredinto local alliances with other anarchistgroups. At the beginning of the Civil War it was the best organizedwomen's group on the left, but it was not the only women's organizationin Spain. Catholic leagues organizedwomen agriculturaland industrialworkers,and both the Carlistsand the Falangehad importantwomen's unions. Womenon the right playedactiveroles in the Civil Waras nurses, laundresses,and as cooks at the front.16Communistand socialist women also took jobs in the factories,on farms,in hospitals,or in the civil service.17On both sides women served in the armiesand militias.

MujeresLibreswas uniquein thatit was also concernedwith the personal,ethical, and economic emancipationof Spanish women as well as with their wartimeservices.Many womenwho had been interested in the organizationand its publicationsas means of developingtheir own consciousnessbegan to organizefor the war effort. Women who had not worked outside their homes before went to workin the factoriesandon the collectives.Whereverwork was to be done, MujeresLibres set up divisionsto accomplishthe job. In Madrid,the organizationhad transport,sanitation,manu14 Mujeres Libres, 2I semanas despues de la guerra [c. I2 December I936], 8. 15 Tierra y Libertad, 21 May I938, 4.

16 Victorino Feliz, Jovenes Campesinas de Accion Catdlica y Social (Madrid, I933), 28-34; 'Seccion Feminina de Falange Espafiola Tradicionalista y de las Jons, 1936', Agenda, I940, I8. 17 Mundo Obrero, October I936,4-5; Margarita Nelkin, 'Para una campafiera', Mundo Obrero, I5 January I937, I; El Socialista, I8 March I927, 2.

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SPANISH ANARCHISM AND WOMEN'S LIBERATION

facturing,metallurgical,and public service divisions, in addition to mobilebrigadeswhich went wherevertherewas a jobto be done. In Barcelonathey set up communalkitchens in all districts, organized the collectionof food and of medical supplies for nurses and midwives.MujeresLibrestook a majorstep forwardin March I937, when the Barcelonaand Madrid branchesstarted a trade union for the I5,000 women working in food services and in public transport.18One of its most importantand revolutionary achievementswas the establishmentof child-care centres in the factories and on the agricultural collectives. Although some people in Spain may have seen these as a threat to the nuclear family,anarchistshad no such fears,for they had long viewedlegal marriageand the nuclearfamily as perniciousinstitutions.While they acceptedthe notionof groupchild care,especiallyin wartime, no men were employedin the nurseries,not even those too old or too young to fight or to workin the factories. In Spain, as in other nations at war, women were drawninto new professionsand trades simply because there was a shortage of manpower. Women of all political affiliationsacquired new vocations,and this was especiallytrue of those who weretrainedin the Mujeres Libres' technical and professionalschools. Special technicalschoolsfor women were establishedeven in remoterural areas. More important numericallywere the women who were persuaded to work in the garment factories which had been collectivizedand convertedto productionof uniformsand clothing for the men at the front. On the land, too, women found new occupations.Dr Amparo Poch y Gascon, one of the foundersof MujeresLibres, travelled to variouswomen'sagriculturalbrigadesto teachadvancedfirstaid and to train more women as midwives. Informationabout activities in ruralareasis sparse,but we do knowthatin CiudadReal,the members of Mujeres Libres virtually organized the Herencia agriculturalcollective and started elementaryschools for adults and children. In their technical and professionalschools they trainedwomen in the most advancedpracticesof viticultureand stock breeding.19They believed that the skills which they taught would providewomen with the means for their own social liberation as well as help the war effort. They hoped to change men's 18 Comaposada, 8. 19 Tierra y Libertad, I9 February I938, 3.

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attitudes to women and to persuadethem that, in order to fight authoritarianism,they had to examine their own authorityover their wives and daughters.20 FedericaMontseny, daughterof a famousanarchistfamily, was interested in many of the issues raised by Mujeres Libres. As Ministerof Healthand Social Service,she draftedan abortionlaw, argued in favour of birth-controlinstruction,and fought for the reform of the laws governing prostitution.Her first act in office was to legalize abortion. This was followed by a similar law enacted in the autonomousregion of Catalonia,authorizinglegal abortionsin hospitals, clinics, and sanatoriaestablishedfor this specificpurpose.Therapeutic,eugenic,and ethicalreasonswereall acceptableas groundsfor abortion,providedthat the womanherself authorizedthe operation,that it took placenot morethanthree monthsfollowingconception,and that no womancould havemore than one abortiona year.21Montseny was also interestedin the disseminationof birth-controlinformation,a concern shared by Mujeres Libres, which gave instruction in birth control to the women with whom they worked.22 Both the MujeresLibresand FedericaMontsenytook up strong positionson the questionof prostitutionand on the government's policy towardsits existence and control. Many reformerswanted prostitutionabolished,as it had been in 1935,with severepenalties against prostitutes who continued to practise their profession. Othersfavouredlegalizationand regulationof prostitutionso that steps could be taken to prevent the spread of venereal disease. Montseny, who viewed the issue as an integral part of social welfareand public health, believed that it could not be ended by decree: 'Prostitutionpresentsa problemof moral, economic,and social characterwhich cannot be resolvedjuridically.Prostitution will be abolished when sexual relations are liberalized; when Christianandbourgeoismoralityis transformed;whenwomenhave professionsand social opportunitiesto secure their livelihoodand that of their children; when society is establishedin such a way that no one remainsat the margin;when society can be organized to secure life and rights for all human beings.'23 20 Ibid., 21 May I938, 4; 30 July 1938, 4. 21 Solidaridad Obrera (Barcelona), 2I April 1937, 2. 22 Tierra y Libertad, 24 December I938, 3. 23 Federica Montseny, Mi experiencia en el Ministerio de Sanidady Assistencia Social, I937, 27.

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SPANISH ANARCHISM AND WOMEN'S LIBERATION

Montseny established refuges open to all women, including prostitutesand unwed mothersin need of treatment,as partof the drive to introduce therapeuticmedicine and to establish public health services. Mujeres Libres ran training courses to educate women who might otherwise. become prostitutes. Mercedes Comaposada,editorof MujeresLibres,arguedthat one of the tasks of the revolutionwas to change men and women, and that it was impossible for men to transformtheir lives while they kept a portionof mankindin prostitution.'As long as any womanis kept as an object and is prevented from developing her personality, prostitution,in fact, continuesto exist.'24 Despite these efforts and aspirations,the traditionalrelationship between men and women was carried over into revolutionary Spain. In the unions and collectives dominated by the CNT, womencontinuedto performthe samework- homemaking,baking, and washing- that they had performedbefore the revolution.A 'MujeresLibres Column' was organizedto wash and iron at the front; neither men nor women raised the issue of sharing unpleasanttasks.No groupexceptthe MujeresLibreseverchallenged the old division of labour and role assignment.And, except by example, even Mujeres Libres never assertedthat the creativity, underdevelopedtalents, and leadershipabilities of women might be useful to the revolution. The question remains why the anarchistsdid not pay more attentionto the special needs of women. The CNT found many men who were illiterateand untrained,and tried to educatethem and elevate them to positions of responsibility;yet they seldom did the samefor women. One answeris that the womenthemselves failed to confront the issue of the authoritarianismof their own husbands and fathers, to make it a subject of debate. Mujeres Libres trainedwomen and tried to integratethem into the social services,but did not challengethe idea of masculinesupremacyand authorityin all fields. Occasionally,in an anarchistpaper,an angry letter or article might appear which argued that women were essentiallyas oppressedsince the establishmentof the Republic and since the outbreakof the Civil Waras before.25But these were exceptionsto the generalpattern. 24 25

Tierra y Libertad, 2 January I937, 8. Ibid., 26 December I936, 8.

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Convinced by Popular Front ideology that no real change in theirpersonallives was possiblebeforevictorywas won in the war, women anarchists organized themselves to help the war effort and subordinatedtheir own demandsto the task of winning the war. Anarchists as a body did not believe that the social and economicrevolutionhad to be postponeduntil militaryvictorywas achieved. In fact, they believed exactly the opposite, which was a major source of their conflict with the Communist Party. Yet womenanarchistswere convincedthat theirliberationhad to await the end of the war; that, while the authorityof the capitalistover his worker,and of the landlordoverhis tenantcouldbe challenged, that of man over woman could not be attackeduntil militaryvictory was assured.Most were persuadedor convincedthemselves that afterthe war was over, afterthe revolutionhad triumphed,at some time in the future, without a struggle,the lives of Spanish women would be transformed.

Becauseof the interruptionin postal services,contributorsto this issue were unable to send their correctedproofs to the

Journal. The editors regret the consequent omission of any

changesthey mayhavewishedto make.

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