Women of the POUM

The content of this article is an extract of the book Spagna’36. Voci dal POUM. Aracne Edizione, Roma, and and emphasizes the role of played by the POUM women during the Spanish Civil War, either as political activists or as feminists. This is an article about women who have experienced the “double militancy” and have fought against those who wanted wives, mothers, rather than revolutionary and party activists due to the fact that the gender difference, today, as then, is transverse to class and race. These women, whose work has been largely unrecognized by history, were members of a party which was pursued by the Stalinists and ascists and, moreover, they experienced repression, exile and returning home, as well as the difficulties of organizing themselves their personal and political life. As it is read here, those who anticipate a revolutionary line which would continue in full force in the seventies worldwide were the women of the POUM and the anarchists and anti-fascists who fought during the Spanish civil war, the expectations of a revolutionary line and claims that it will continue in full force in the seventies worldwide. The political activism of these women, as evidenced by the actions of recruitment in the women’s section of the POUM from the creation of women’s Secretariat of the Party, the medical assistance offered by the organization “Socorro Rojo”, the literacy classes, the struggle against prostitution, the fight for equal salaries, the creation of popular nurseries and kitchens, training courses, marked the beginning of the awareness of the conscience about their own rights as revolutionary and women. The article concludes with witnesses of women in exile and women who returned after the death of the dictator, those who the writter has had the opportunity to interview and meet in person, at the rate of this book about historical memory.