Dolores Ibárruri facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Dolores Ibárruri
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Dolores Ibárruri in 1978
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| General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain | |
| In office March 1942 – 3 July 1960 |
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| Preceded by | José Díaz |
| Succeeded by | Santiago Carrillo |
| Member of the Cortes Generales | |
| In office 13 July 1977 – 2 January 1979 |
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| Constituency | Asturias |
| In office 26 February 1936 – 2 February 1939 |
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| Constituency | Asturias |
| Personal details | |
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Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez
9 December 1895 Gallarta, Biscay, Spain |
| Died | 12 November 1989 (aged 93) Madrid, Spain |
| Political party | Communist Party of Spain |
Dolores Ibárruri (born Isidora Dolores Ibárruri Gómez; 9 December 1895 – 12 November 1989) was an important Spanish politician. She was a key figure during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and a communist leader. She is famous for her powerful slogan ¡No Pasarán! ("They shall not pass!"), which she used during the Battle for Madrid in November 1936.
Ibárruri joined the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) when it was first created in 1920. In the 1930s, she became a writer for the PCE newspaper Mundo Obrero. In February 1936, she was elected to the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales) as a representative for Asturias. When the Civil War ended in 1939, she had to leave Spain. She became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of Spain from 1942 to 1960. After that, the Party made her its honorary president for the rest of her life. She returned to Spain in 1977 and was re-elected to Parliament for Asturias, the same area she had represented before the war.
Contents
A Young Activist: Dolores Ibárruri's Early Life
Dolores Ibárruri was born in 1895. She was the eighth of nine children. Her father was a Basque miner, and her mother was Castilian. She grew up in Gallarta, a town near a large iron mine in Spain.
Dolores left school at 15 because her family could not afford more education. She first worked as a seamstress and then as a housemaid. Later, she became a waitress. There, she met Julián Ruiz Gabiña, who was a union activist. They married in 1915.
The young couple took part in a big workers' strike in 1917. During this time, Dolores started reading books by Karl Marx and other thinkers. These books were about workers' rights and changing society.
How "Pasionaria" Got Her Name
In 1918, Dolores wrote her first article for a miners' newspaper called El Minero Vizcaíno. The article was published during Holy Week and talked about religious hypocrisy. Because of the article's topic and the time it was published, she signed it with the pen name Pasionaria. This name means "Passionflower" in English, referring to the Passion of Christ.
In 1920, Ibárruri and her workers' group joined the new Communist Party of Spain (PCE). She quickly became an important member of the party. By 1930, she was appointed to the Central Committee of the PCE.
Dolores had six children. Sadly, four of her five daughters died very young. Her son, Rubén, died at age 22 fighting in the Battle of Stalingrad during World War II. Her last child, Amaya, lived a long life.
Dolores in Madrid: A Rising Political Voice (1931–1936)
When the Second Spanish Republic began in 1931, Dolores Ibárruri moved to Madrid. She became the editor of the PCE newspaper Mundo Obrero. She was arrested several times for her political activities. While in jail, she encouraged other prisoners to go on a hunger strike to demand freedom for political prisoners. She also wrote articles from prison.
In 1933, she started an organization for women called Mujeres Antifascistas (Anti-Fascist Women). This group was against fascism and war. A cool fact: in April 1933, a Soviet astronomer discovered an asteroid and named it "Dolores" after her!
In November 1933, she traveled to Moscow as a delegate for an important meeting of communist parties. The meeting discussed the danger of fascism and war. She was very impressed by Moscow, seeing it as a place where "the construction of socialism was being managed."
In 1934, she attended a worldwide meeting of women against war and fascism in Paris. Later that year, she led a brave mission to rescue over a hundred starving children from the mining region of Asturias. Their parents had been jailed after a failed workers' uprising. She succeeded, but was briefly detained. To protect her own children, she sent them to the Soviet Union in 1935.
The Popular Front and Election to Parliament
In 1935, Ibárruri secretly went to Moscow again for another major Communist meeting. At this meeting, leaders discussed forming alliances with other groups against fascists. This idea led to the creation of the Popular Front in France and Spain. The Popular Front was a group of left-wing parties working together.
In 1936, she was jailed again in Madrid. After her release, she went to Asturias to campaign for the PCE in the general elections. She won enough votes to become a member of Parliament. One of the Popular Front's main promises was to release political prisoners, and Dolores immediately worked to free those held in Oviedo.
In the months leading up to the Spanish Civil War, she supported striking miners and poor families facing eviction. Around this time, the famous poet Federico García Lorca met her and was so moved by her strength that he wanted to write a poem about her. Sadly, he was killed by Nationalists before he could finish it.
The Spanish Civil War: "They Shall Not Pass!" (1936–1939)
During the Spanish Civil War, Dolores Ibárruri gave many powerful speeches, some broadcast on the radio from Madrid. Her speeches encouraged people to fight for the Republic. She used famous phrases like "Danger! To arms!" and "Better to die standing up than to live kneeling down!" Her most famous slogan, "Fascism shall not pass!" (¡No Pasarán!), became a symbol of resistance.
The war became very brutal. Cities were bombed, and Dolores demanded that the government respond strongly. There were also serious disagreements and conflicts between different groups fighting against Franco's Nationalists, even within the Republican side. Dolores and the Communist Party believed that some of these groups were working against the Republic from within.
On April 30, 1938, the Soviet leader Stalin proposed a military alliance with France and Britain, which meant less support for the Spanish Republic.
Life in Exile: A New Chapter (1939–1977)
On March 6, 1939, as the Civil War ended, Dolores Ibárruri flew out of Spain to Oran, Algeria. From there, she traveled to Marseille, France, and then to Moscow. She was reunited with her children, Amaya and Rubén, who had also escaped.
The Soviet Union welcomed the Spanish refugees. Dolores was given an apartment and a chauffeur. She enjoyed going to the Bolshoi Theatre and reading. She also liked seeing how Russian women were becoming more independent. She helped other Spanish families settle into their new lives.
Ibárruri worked at the Communist International Headquarters, where she helped evaluate the progress of communism outside the Soviet Union. The Communist Party of Spain generally supported the Soviet Union's policies.
Radio España Independiente: "La Pirenaica"
Dolores was asked to manage a new short-wave radio station called Radio España Independiente. It broadcast news and opinions to people in Francoist Spain. In Spain, it was nicknamed "La Pirenaica" because people thought it was located in the Pyrenees mountains. The station started broadcasting on July 22, 1941, shortly after Germany invaded the Soviet Union.
Many Spanish refugees volunteered to fight alongside the Russians in World War II. Dolores said that over 200 of them died in battle. On October 13, 1941, as German forces approached Moscow, Dolores and other leaders were evacuated to Ufa. Radio España Independiente continued to broadcast from there.
In September 1942, Dolores's son, Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri, bravely died fighting at Stalingrad. An asteroid, 2423 Ibarruri, is named after him.
In 1943, Dolores agreed with the decision to dissolve the Third International, which gave more independence to national Communist parties.
After World War II, Dolores traveled to different countries. She tried to meet with the last president of the Spanish Republic, Juan Negrín, to plan a strategy against Franco, but she arrived too late.
In 1960, at the age of 65, Dolores Ibárruri stepped down as General Secretary of the PCE. She became the honorary president instead. She then wrote her first memoir, El Unico Camino (The Only Way).
Awards and Later Years in Exile
In 1961, she received an honorary doctorate from Moscow State University for her contributions to Marxist theory. She believed that the struggle between different social classes drives history. In 1962, she attended a meeting in Rome where she met Italian politicians and even some church representatives. She told the clerics, "We are not as wicked as you think, and we are not as good as we probably think we are."
In 1963, she tried to save the life of Julián Grimau, a Communist leader who was sentenced to death in Spain. She also received the Lenin Peace Prize in 1964. In 1965, she flew to Dubrovnik to apologize to Josip Broz Tito, the leader of Yugoslavia. Years earlier, she had criticized him, but now she understood the situation better. Tito told her not to worry, saying he knew how things worked back then. Later that year, she received the Order of Lenin medal, a very high Soviet award.
Dolores also led the team that wrote a four-volume book about the Spanish Civil War from the PCE's point of view.
In 1975, the Spanish dictator Franco died. Dolores famously commented, "May the earth rest light upon him." In December 1975, many communist leaders from around the world gathered in Rome to honor her.
Return to Spain: A Hero's Welcome (1977–1989)
In January 1977, a terrible event happened in Madrid: neo-Fascists shot and killed several Communist lawyers. On February 16, Dolores Ibárruri asked Spanish authorities in Moscow to let her return to Spain. She wanted to travel freely to her home country. The Spanish government legalized the PCE on April 9, but at first, they denied Dolores a visa. However, they changed their minds, and she was allowed to return.
On May 13, 1977, Dolores Ibárruri landed at Barajas Airport in Madrid. Even though the PCE didn't organize an official welcome, about 500 party members and supporters showed up at the airport, waving flags and cheering. She officially changed her name from Isidora to Dolores.
Campaigning and Parliament
Dolores's first campaign rally was in Bilbao, where 30,000 to 50,000 people came to see her. She spoke about how workers could live well without capitalism. She also spoke in other cities like Avilés and Oviedo, drawing huge crowds. People remembered the "explosion of joy" when she spoke.
In the general elections of June 15, Dolores Ibárruri won a seat in Parliament for Asturias. On July 13, she entered the chamber of Congress, the same place she had left 41 years before. She even sat in the vice-presidential chair for the first session. The next day, Radio España Independiente, "La Pirenaica," aired its last broadcast.
On August 4, her estranged husband, Julián Ruiz, died, and Dolores attended his funeral. Her health was not good, and she was hospitalized several times. Despite calls for her retirement, the party believed her presence was important. On October 31, 1978, she voted "Yes" for the new Spanish Constitution. She was not a candidate in the next elections in 1979.
In her final years, Dolores attended feminist rallies and political meetings. She celebrated her 90th birthday with a big party in Madrid, attended by thousands of well-wishers. In October 1987, she asked Congress for financial help because she had no pension. Congress granted her a monthly payment.
Dolores Ibárruri died on November 12, 1989, at the age of 93, after a battle with pneumonia. Thousands of people paid their respects, including veterans of the Civil War and ambassadors from various countries. Her body was carried from the PCE headquarters to the Plaza of Columbus, where speeches were given. She was buried in Almudena Cemetery. Thousands attended her funeral, chanting her famous slogan, "They shall not pass!"
Monuments and Memorials
Dolores Ibárruri inspired artist Arthur Dooley to create a monument in Glasgow, Scotland. This statue, created in 1974, honors the 2,100 British volunteers who fought for the Republic in the Spanish Civil War. The monument is dedicated to the 534 volunteers who died, including 65 from Glasgow.
The statue was paid for by money raised by trade unionists and labor supporters. It shows a stylized female figure, representing Dolores Ibárruri, with her arms raised. On the base, Dooley carved her famous slogan: "better to die on your feet than live forever on your knees." This phrase was first used by Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata, but Ibárruri gave it new meaning when she used it during a miners' strike in Asturias in 1934.
Over time, the statue became damaged. A restoration project was completed in 2010, and the monument was rededicated. In 2017, some groups called for a street named after her to be renamed because of her role in the Civil War and her connection to Stalin.
See also
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.
