Dolores Ibárruri

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General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain
Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, La Pasionaria

In office 1944 – 1960
Preceded by	José Díaz
Succeeded by	Santiago Carrillo
Chairwoman of the Communist Party of Spain
In office 1960 – 1989
Preceded by	Position Created
Succeeded by	Position Suppressed

Born	December 9, 1895(1895-12-09) Gallarta, Biscay, Basque Country, Spain
Died	November 12, 1989 (aged 94) Madrid, Spain
Nationality	Spanish
Children	5

Dolores Ibárruri Gómez, also known as La Pasionaria (the passion flower) (December 9, 1895–November 12, 1989), was a Spanish political leader. She was Secretary General of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) (1944–1960), President of the Communist Party of Spain (1960–1989), and a member of the Cortes (1936 and 1977–1979).

1 Biography
2 Notes
3 List of works
4 External links

[edit] Biography

Born into a poor Carlist and Catholic mining family^{[citation needed]} 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.^{[citation needed]} She was involved in social struggles from her youth.^{[citation needed]} 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 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.

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 population, particularly the women, to the anti-fascist cause.^{[citation needed]} She took part in different committees with personages like Palmiro Togliatti to win aid for the Republican cause. Nevertheless, after three bloody years, in 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 purgue of the old PCE militant Gabriel León Trilla ^[1].

In May 1944 she became Secretary General 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 Sixties 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, in the first elections after the restoration of democracy.

She was also the co-founder of so-called Eurocommunism, since the Communist Party of Spain was the first communist party that removed Leninism from its programme, thereby asserting its independence^{[citation needed]} from the Soviet Union.

Ibárruri died of pneumonia at the age of 94 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 Passionara stands on Clyde Street in Glasgow in tribute to the men of Scotland who went to Spain to fight Fascism.

[edit] Notes

^ Enrique Líster. "¡Basta!", published in 1971 in Paris and in 1978 in Madrid. Cited by Ricardo de la Cierva in Carillo Miente. 156 documentos contra 103 falsedades, 1994. ISBN 8488787830. Page 302.