Talking about a revolution: Federica Montseny and Emma Goldman during the Spanish Civil War - Catarina von Wedemeyer

For the anarchists, the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War signifed the long-awaited realization of a worldwide revolution. In this regard, the Russian-Lithuanian-American-English anarchist and activist Emma Goldman (1869–1940) and Spanish anarchist and politician Federica Montseny (1905–94) agreed. The story of their intra-anarchist controversy, however, is yet to be told. The two comrades had been in touch ever since Max Nettlau introduced them during Goldman’s frst trip to Spain (December 1928–January 1929), but they disagreed on too many points to establish a friendship. One disagreement was the ideological impossibility of political collaboration: Goldman judged Montseny for serving as Minister of Health in the Republican government (November 1936–May 1937), while Montseny condemned Goldman for being too detached from the reality of the Spanish Civil War.

Unlike Sueiro Seoane’s work (unpublished),1 which mainly draws biographical parallels between the two women, this chapter focuses on both writers’ publications dedicated to the Spanish Revolution. These works have never been subject to a comparative reading, but they are all the more compelling when read together, since both authors explored specifc questions of the Spanish Revolution, such as the militarization of the formerly pacifst anarchist movement, while also engaging with more general issues, such as anarchist feminism or carceral abolitionism.2

While Montseny’s oeuvre has not yet been systematically edited, Goldman’s encounters with Spanish anarchists have been researched by Robert Kern, and a selection of Goldman’s publications during the Spanish Civil War has been edited by David Porter.3 This chapter begins with an insight into Goldman’s publications in the English journal Spain and the World and then ofers a parallel reading of Goldman and Montseny’s writings, focusing specifcally on Montseny’s article “El anarquismo militante y la realidad española” from March 1937 and Goldman’s “Address to the International Working Men’s Association Congress” (dated 1937–38).

As Sueiro Seoane points out, both anarchists refused to be called feminists, because they associated this term with the nineteenth-century bourgeoisie.4 Neither Goldman nor Montseny supported the sufragette movement. For Goldman specifcally, the issue was not the electoral system but the existence of a government per se. Both women rejected marriage and considered the feminist movement too elitist, because the vocabulary was still tied to upperclass women who understood their feminism more in terms of patronage and charity. The Mujeres Libres were an exception to this rule, since they were an association of female workers and therefore embodied the ideal combination of an intersectional consciousness of gender and class.5 However, since Montseny wanted to focus on the question of class only, she decided not to join the Mujeres Libres, while Goldman published with them and actively supported the related Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA).6

Goldman had considered herself an anarchist ever since the age of thirteen, when she was forced to drop out of school and work in a corset shop in Saint Petersburg. In 1885, Goldman and her sister moved to Rochester, New York, where Emma worked as a seamstress.7 She soon befriended a group of local anarchists, began editing the review “Mother Earth,” and lived out a concept of free love with Alexander Berkman and Ben Reitman, among others. Goldman and Berkman were arrested several times until they were deported to Russia in 1919, where their excitement about the Russian Revolution would turn into disappointment. Since the FBI considered her the “most dangerous woman in America,”8 Goldman would live in European exile from then on.

Federica Montseny, on the other hand, never had to work factory jobs, despite having been raised by anarchist parents who were both editors of La Revista Blanca. In comparison to Goldman’s atheism, bisexuality,9 and decision for a child-free life, Montseny seems surprisingly heteronormative with her use of religious metaphors, homophobia, and belief in women’s fulfllment through motherhood.10 Montseny published her frst novellas at the age of ffteen (1920),11 and she would go on to write over ffty books of fction and essays throughout her life. As a member of the CNT, the anarchist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, during the Spanish Civil War, she became the frst female minister of Spain, serving as Minister of Health from November 1936 until May 1937. So while Montseny collaborated with the Republican government and argued for a unifcation of all antifascist parties in order to defeat Franco, Goldman strictly disapproved of all kinds of governmental structures and was extremely skeptical of the rapprochement between the CNT-FAI (Federación Anarquista Ibérica) and the communist Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT).12 In a 1936 letter to Rudolf Rocker, Goldman comments on the circumstances:

Well, dear Rudolf, I wish I could be more enthusiastic. It is not that I am of faint heart. It is that I cannot possibly believe in politicians no matter if they call themselves CNT-FAI. And some of them are that. Federica for instance. She has gone to the Right and she has a great infuence here. She has become Minister of Health. What great achievement? It is all so sad.13

Emma Goldman: Madrid, the Wonder of Centuries

In July 1936, at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Goldman was mourning the loss of Alexander “Sasha” Berkman, who had shot himself a month earlier. After two months, she found new hope in the Spanish Revolution.14 On September 15, 1936, Goldman traveled to Barcelona and from there to the Aragon front, Valencia, and Madrid. By then, almost 75 percent of the Catalonian economy was under anarchist administration.15  Farms and factories had been collectivized and turned into libertarian communes; hotels, restaurants, and the public transport were organized by worker committees.

In October 1936, one month before the anarchist Buenaventura Durruti was shot dead, Goldman visited him at the front in Pina de Ebro, Aragón. In the obituary “Durruti Is Dead, Yet Living,”16 Goldman quotes him speaking to a worker volunteering in his column: “Don’t you see comrade, the war you and I are waging is to safeguard our Revolution and the Revolution is to do away with the misery and sufering of the poor.” In the beginning, Goldman’s war reports are flled with this same optimistic enthusiasm. Her contributions in the bi-weekly English anarchist review Spain and the World17 range from observations, accounts, and homages to the courage of Spanish workers at the start of the confict to fundraising petitions and motivational manifestos toward the end of the war.

During the war, Goldman would undertake three trips to Spain, each lasting several weeks. During her frst visit in 1936 (September 15–December 23), Goldman witnessed the anarchist endeavors in Catalonia and the euphoria of a possible new world, but then the events of May events took place as the leftist parties suddenly confronted each other. The Republicans and the Communists fought against the anarchists and the Marxists, resulting in devastating losses on all sides.18 Consequently, the Largo Caballero government was overturned, and the four anarchist ministers (Federica Montseny, Joan García Oliver, Joan Peiró, and Juan López) were dismissed from their posts. The Communist infuence over the Republican government had become obvious: under Negrín most revolutionary achievements were revoked, and the infuence of the Generalitat de Catalunya was severely limited.19 During her second visit in autumn of 1937 (September 16–November 5, 1937), Goldman already noticed a weakened anarchist spirit. Another year later, Goldman’s third visit (September 15–October 29) coincided with the disastrous Battle of the Ebro, from which the Republican army would not recover.

Within the Republican zone, Goldman traveled not only with Federica Montseny but also with Lucía Sánchez Saornil, the founder of the Mujeres Libres,20 and her partner América Barroso; in 1938, she also traveled with Lola Iturbe.21 Goldman actively supported the CNT-FAI by editing their Boletín de información22 and by responding to English letters.
23 She wished to stay in Spain each year: “A thousand times would I have rather remained in Spain to risk my life in their struggle than returned to the so-called safety in England.”24 However, since she did not speak Spanish, Goldman spent most of the time in London to support the Spanish Civil War by organizing publicity campaigns and screenings of the propaganda documentary Fury over Spain (1936). In collaboration with Mujeres Libres, Goldman showed tireless dedication in raising funds for Spanish refugee women and children and wrote fervent appeals for support of the Solidaridad Internacional Antifascista (SIA), which were also published in Spain and the World. The review continued the tradition of the Freedom Paper, but during the Spanish Civil War, it also openly competed with supporters of the Soviet movements in Spain, creating the ideal platform for Goldman.25

During the frst half of the war, Goldman’s publications in Spain and the World shared the optimism of what Enzensberger called “anarchy’s brief summer.”26 Goldman’s article from September 1937 reads like a personal letter to the English comrades:

You will be impatient with me that I have written so little since I got to Spain. The events are too overwhelming for letters. . . . Madrid is the wonder of centuries for there is nothing like it in fortitude and epic grandeur.27

Soon Goldman had convinced a considerable number of intellectuals to support the SIA, among them George Orwell and her friend Ethel Mannin. The latter participated in the fundraising campaigns, addressing people individually: “Sympathy is not enough. The children need food. Your help should come quickly. Need I say more?”28 Goldman’s appeal for support of the SIA from March 1938 is written in the same tone:

We want membership and anything you can give out of the fullness of your heart to the SIA. . . . We beseech you comrades and friends to do your utmost in your eforts for the SIA. Fraternally, EMMA GOLDMAN.29

During her last trip in autumn 1938, instead of writing articles or letters, Goldman sent overviews of the latest events that the editors of Spain and the World organized as lists of topics. A contribution from November 1938, for example, begins with a passage titled “Eye Witness Account of P.O.U.M. Trials.” As a former political prisoner herself, Goldman sympathized with the Marxist workers30 :

Even in the face of a possible death sentence Comrade Goldman reports that all the prisoners were unfinchingly brave. . . . Even the appallingly heavy sentences were met with raised heads and hands clenched in the Workers’ salute.31

On “the collectives,” Goldman reports:

In spite of every discouraging element the workers’ collectives still continue and some new ones have been started, one new clothing factory collective has been formed—almost entirely stafed by women, which operates at night, since more electric current is available at night, when other factories are closed down.32

And in “Front Line Trenches,” we read:

E.G. paid a visit to two Fronts and inspected the Division under our Comrade Roveres. Defeatism is non-existent, Fortitude and Courage are dominant. The civilian population refuses to be frightened by bombardment—although air attacks occur several times daily in some parts.33

Even toward the end of the war, Goldman insisted on focusing on morally uplifting news. At the same time, the list conveys a sense of urgency and fragmentation. Emma Goldman’s contributions for Spain and the World overall demonstrate her strong personal commitment to the cause of the Spanish Revolution. To maintain English solidarity with the Spanish anarchists, she refrains as much as possible from publicly sharing her criticism about their collaborations with the Socialists, the Communists, and the government.

Federica Montseny: A United Front

Already in September 1936, Goldman seemed to have foreseen Montseny’s political career. In a private letter, she wrote, “I saw and talked to Federica Montseny. She is the ‘Lenin’ in skirts. She is idolized here. She is certainly very capable and brilliant but I am afraid she has something of the politician in her.”34 Only two months later, Montseny would fll said position as Minister of Health, and while Goldman despaired over the coalition between the anarchist CNT-FAI and the socialist UGT, Montseny would do everything to preserve it.35 In the same letter to Rudolf Rocker (from September 1936), Goldman comments on Montseny’s political decisions as follows:

She it was who helped to pass through the formation of the new Council which is replacing the Generalidad. It is really only another name for the same thing. Let us hope the CNT will have no reasons to regret having entered into the Council as a governing body. However, I am very glad to see that Federica is such an intellectual, and organizing force. She works like a dog, 18 hours of 24.36

Another ambivalent note is included in a letter by Goldman to Mark Mratchny from August 2, 1937:

The address of Montseny is also very illuminating, though I rather found her a bit too self-satisfed, and uncritical. I don’t say that in any sense of condemnation. One whose whole life was spent in one sphere must be even more insular than most of the Spanish comrades who have lived in exile. Naturally she would see everything in roseate colors. Nevertheless, she is among the ablest of our people, and certainly the bravest.37

In contrast to the international anarchists, who held on to their vision of an anti-hierarchical society, the Spanish anarchist ministers Federica Montseny and Joan Garcia Oliver found themselves amid the civil war and were constantly forced to make urgent decisions. To overcome the ideological differences within the left and to create a sense of unity between all workers, Montseny, for example, always addressed all leftist parties and often referred to the French Revolution:

Esta es la bandera de la libertad, la bandera de la igualdad, la bandera de la justicia, levantada por el pueblo de Francia, por el pueblo de París, que supo vivir para dar un ideal al mundo. . . . Camaradas: amigos todos, socialistas, comunistas, anarquistas, republicanos: a la lucha para vencer, a la lucha para vencer, aun cuando nos cueste la vida, para el triunfo fnal, porque esta victoria y este triunfo son la causa y el porvenir del mundo.38

In her speech “El anarquismo militante y la realidad española”39 from March 1937, Montseny defends her position by referring to the specifc circumstances of the Spanish Civil War. She praises the Spanish revolution and insists on the anarchists taking credit for the initial success: “No hubiera habido revolución si no hubiésemos nosotros preparado al pueblo. Es este nuestro triunfo y el galardón más preciado que tenemos los anarquistas.”40 But Montseny then reveals her willingness to compromise, which directly opposes Goldman’s principles: “Sin que la flosofía anarquista haya sido rectifcada, hemos sabido adaptarnos a las circunstancias.” Montseny defends the coalitions as necessary for a united antifascist front and celebrates the anarchist-socialist achievements in a way that Goldman deemed “self-satisfed”41 :

Se necesitaba un verdadero frente único . . . para oponer un valladar infranqueable al fascismo internacional, . . . ahora este pueblo que va venciendo a los fascistas, avanza socialmente creando un nuevo concepto de la vida, una nueva sociedad. Decidme si no es grande lo que estamos haciendo? Cuando contemplemos las horas que estamos viviendo nos asombraremos de nosostros mismos.42

Like Goldman, Montseny warns about a repetition of the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, where the anarchist movement was shattered into pieces.43 She reminds her readers of the bigger motivation to create an equal society, of which the antifascist struggle of the Spanish Civil War is only one element:

El pueblo español, al luchar contra el fascismo, lucha al mismo tiempo contra las desigualdades sociales. . . . No se trata de una guerra civil. Es la guerra del pueblo, de los trabajadores contra el señorito, contra el militar, contra el parásito.44

So while both Goldman and Montseny criticized the Stalinists, Montseny, unlike Goldman, was still willing to collaborate with the Communists in Spain. Goldman spent 1919–21 in Russia and viewed the Communists as traitors to the cause ever since.45

Despite disagreeing in their political views, Goldman and Montseny did coincide in their grief over the loss of Durruti, and both helped to convert Durruti’s legacy from that of a so-called troublemaker to a revolutionary hero. Montseny’s obituary for Durruti is six pages long, and with its many repetitions, anaphors, parallelisms, and metaphors, it reads almost poetically:

Durruti era un hijo del pueblo. . . . Durruti ha muerto, Durruti era más que un hombre, era ya algo legendario, Durruti ha muerto. Ha muerto en el frente luchando en esta tierra de Madrid a la que ha venido a ofrendar su vida. . . . Durruti dormía en el suelo como dormían todos. Este era Durruti, el que tantas veces he defnido diciendo que era un cuerpo de gigante con un alma de niño. . . . Durruti será el símbolo de todos. . . . Durruti no es Durruti. Durruti no es un hombre. Durruti somos todos nosotros. . . . Antifascistas de todas las tendencias, es la hora de la unidad sagrada.46

The Betrayal of the Spanish Revolution

Goldman, on the other hand, refrained from religious comparisons. Even when she talked about betrayal, she remained strictly in the political realm. In her article “Political Persecution in Republican Spain,”47 published in December 1937, Goldman expresses her disdain for the Communists. According to her, the Communists used “fagwagging, speeches, music and demonstrations” to manipulate the masses48 instead of constructively working toward a diferent society, like the anarchists.49 When Goldman compares the Communist- led Cheka prison Montjuich with anarchist-led Modelo prison, she describes the first as “terrifying”50 and the latter as “decent and just,”51 “as far as prison conditions can be humane.” She complains that instead of abolishing prisons, anarchists and revolutionaries would fnd themselves imprisoned,52 sometimes even without charges. To prove her anti-communist case, Goldman writes about the Stalinist murderers of anarchists Camillo Berneri and Francesco Barbieri:

The report of the foul murder of . . . Berneri and . . . Barbieri, was followed by wholesale arrests, mutilation and death. . . . I decided to go back to Spain to see for myself how far the new-found freedom of the Spanish masses had been annihilated by Stalin’s henchmen.53

Goldman ends her article by calling out dictatorships in general, referring both to “red and black,” that is, Stalinism and fascism: “Since the world slaughter and the continued horror under dictatorship, red and black, human sensibilities have been atrophied; but there must be a few left who still have a sense of justice.” Her argument against the Communist Party culminates in this comparison.

In addition to calling out Stalinist violence, the Russian methods of torture, and the assassination of individual anarchists, in her “Address to the International Working Men’s Association Congress” (1937–38), Goldman also explains that if there were communist solidarity, the Russians would have given their weapons for free instead of selling them too late and for exaggerated prices.54 She again compares fascism and Soviet Communism: “it does not seem worthwhile to sacrifce one ideal in the struggle against Fascism, if it only means to make room for Soviet Communism. . . . [T]here is no diference between them.”55 Hannah Arendt would later describe the diferences between Stalinism and national-socialist fascism, but Goldman seems to have already identifed the comparable traits of totalitarianism during their very implementation.56

Since the Spanish Revolution could be considered a failure by the time of this publication (late 1937/early 1938), Goldman tried to defend the CNT, at least concerning its moral stance. The evidence she gives for this statement include a higher volume of anarchist papers in comparison to the communist ones and higher meeting attendance. She also mentions Montseny: “I went to Allecante [sic] with comrade Federica Montseney [sic] and although the meeting was held in the forenoon, and rain came down in a downpour, the hall was nevertheless packed to capacity.”57

To avoid undermining the Spanish anarchists further, despite her clear stance against communism, Goldman found herself forced to publicly justify the rapprochement between the Spanish anarchists and Communists.58 Her “Address” documents this ideological struggle. Goldman starts by criticizing the Spanish anarchists:

[O]ur comrades in Spain are plunging head foremost into the abyss of compromise that will lead them far away from their revolutionary aim. . . . The participation of the CNT-FAI in the government, and concessions to the insatiable monster in Moscow, have certainly not benefted the Spanish Revolution, or even the anti-Fascist struggle.59

However, just like Federica Montseny a year earlier, Goldman now also tries to explain their collaboration with the immediate threat of the Francoists.60 As Porter puts it, “[f]or Goldman, the pact [with the UGT] is a nightmare and poisons her daily existence.”61 After all, it was her life’s work that was at stake.62 Containing her expressions of frustration to private letters, publicly, she maintained intra-anarchist solidarity: “Comrades, the CNT-FAI are in a burning house; . . . it seems to me a breach of solidarity to pour the acid of your criticism on their burned fesh.”63 The formerly committed pacifst Goldman again ends up using the same explanations as Montseny when justifying military training for Spanish civilians:

True, the tacit consent to militarization on the part of our Spanish comrades was a violent break with their Anarchist past. But grave as this was, it must also be considered in the light of their utter military inexperience. I still feel the same abhorrence of militarism, its dehumanization, its brutality and its power to turn men into automatons. But my contact with our comrades . . . convinced me that some training was certainly needed if our militias were not to be sacrifced like newborn children on the altar of war. . . . We had always condemned war as serving capitalism and no other purpose; but . . . Airplanes bombarding towns and villages and all the other monster mechanisms cannot be stopped by spiritual values.64

Instead of dwelling on the intra-anarchist disagreements, Goldman finally focuses on insults that concern the English and Spanish anarchists equally, such as the comparison of anarchists and Communists, which she disputes vehemently: “I fail to see even the remotest similarity. Lenin aimed at a formidable State machine, a deadly dictatorship. . . . [T]he CNT-FAI not only aimed at, but actually gave life to, libertarian economic reconstructions.”65 In contrast to the Russian Bolshevik Revolution, where the war came “from within,” Goldman argues that the Spanish also had to fight Hitler and Mussolini in addition to Franco’s fascism.66 In Goldman’s understanding, the Spanish Revolution failed because nobody trusted the anarchists—not the bourgeoisie, democrats, Marxists, or liberals: “In point of truth the Spanish revolution was betrayed by the whole world.”67

Goldman almost excuses Federica Montseny and the other Spanish anarchists who had served in the Largo Caballero government when she calls their entry into the ministries “the least ofensive.” But she goes back and forth between her principles and a defense of the Spanish comrades:

No, I have not changed my attitude toward government as an evil. As all through my life, I still hold that the State is a cold monster, and that it devours everyone within its reach. . . . But with Franco at the gate of Madrid, I could hardly blame the CNT-FAI for choosing a lesser evil—participation in the government rather than dictatorship, the most deadly evil.68

She ultimately fnds conciliatory words, reminding her comrades of their past bravery and evoking a glorious future:

know the CNT-FAI have gone far afeld from their and our ideology. But that cannot make me forget their glorious revolutionary traditions of seventy years. Their gallant struggle—always haunted, always driven at bay, always in prison and exile.69

Goldman’s fnal judgment here seems like a review of her own lifetime, her own seventy years, her own struggle, and her own time in prison and exile. But despite the concessions she made in defense of the Spanish comrades, her essays bare so many visionary ideas that they transcend the genre of war reports. Goldman’s way of balancing pacifsm against military training is just as topical today, much like her ideas on carceral abolitionism or her arguments for abortion70 and LGBTQI rights.71 Federica Montseny’s willingness to compromise is exactly what made her a good politician. Emma Goldman, on the other hand, was neither a politician nor a war reporter in today’s sense of the word. She remained what she always was: a timeless visionary activist who wanted to “do away with the misery and sufering of the poor.”72

• 1 Susana Sueiro Seoane, “Federica Montseny y Emma Goldman: Dos visiones anarquistas sobre la emancipación de la mujer” (unpublished manuscript, 2011), 5.
• 2See Catarina von Wedemeyer, “Anarchism and Prison Abolitionism—Goldman and Montseny on Women in Prison” (paper, Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War: International Workshop III, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, February 21, 2023).
• 3Robert W. Kern, “Anarchist Principles and Spanish Reality: Emma Goldman as a Participant in the Civil War 1936–39,” in “Confict and Compromise: Socialists and Socialism in the Twentieth Century,” special issue, Journal of Contemporary History 11, no. 2/3 (July 1976): 237–59. David Porter, ed. Vision on Fire. Emma Goldman on the Spanish Revolution, 2nd ed. (Edinburgh and Oakland, WV: AK Press, 2006; frst published 1983).
• 4Ambas rehusaron explícitamente defnirse como “feministas” y denunciaron el movimiento feminista como elitista y excluyente de la clase obrera, que para ambas era la víctima real de la sociedad. Consideraban que el activismo de esas mujeres de clase media no hacía sino perpetuar las odiosas instituciones que tenían encadenada a la humanidad: el Estado, la Iglesia y la familia. (Sueiro Seoane, “Federica Montseny y Emma Goldman,” 6) See also Nuria Cruz-Cámara, La Mujer Moderna En Los Escritos de Federica Montseny (Woodbridge: Tamesis, 2015), 13–38, 151–66.
• 5See Vera Bianchi ed., Mujeres Libres. Libertäre Kämpferinnen, trans. Renée Steenbock and Vera Bianchi (Bodenburg: Verlag Edition AV, 2019).
• 6Goldman published several articles in Mujeres Libres. One example is her text “Situación social de la mujer” (1936), originally published in Mujeres Libres Semana 21 de la Revolución. In Mary Nash, ed., Mujeres Libres: España 1936– 1939(Barcelona: Tusquets Editor, 1977), 127–31. See also Sueiro Seoane, “Federica Montseny y Emma Goldman,” 31: Goldman ofreció encantada su colaboración a Mujeres Libres cuando se la pidieron porque, al contrario que Montseny, creía necesario que las mujeres luchasen contra la opresión específca que sufrían por el hecho de serlo. Por supuesto que, en tanto que anarquista, consideraba que la lucha central debía ser contra la opresión económica de toda la clase obrera, pero no por ello creía que debía descuidarse la lucha contra la discriminación femenina en una sociedad patriarcal.
• 7Alice Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile: From the Russian Revolution to the Spanish Civil War (Boston: Beacon Press, 1989), 30.
• 8The FBI fles on Emma Goldman have been digitally accessible since January 2023, including an FBI collection of newspaper articles on Emma Goldman. See von Wedemeyer, “Anarchism and Prison Abolitionism.”
• 9See the letters by Almeda Sperry, for example, in: Jonathan Ned Katz, “Almeda Sperry to Emma Goldman: 1912,” OutHistory, republished May 1, 2015; and Vivian Gornick, Emma Goldman: Revolution as a Way of Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011).
• 10See Gloria Espigado Tocino, “Las Mujeres En El Anarquismo Español (1869– 1939),” Ayer 45 (2002): 64, n. 69: “Federica Montseny encontraba en la maternidad la realisación casi artística, por elevada, de la mujer, llegando a expresar en algun momento que una mujer sin hijos era ‘arbol sin frutos, rosal sin rosas.’” In June 1977, the journal Andalán included an interview with Montseny in which she considers her post as minister her “biggest error” and also reveals her homophobia:

  Yo respeto la libertad de todo el mundo, lo que me disgusta es que estos seres, los gay, se crean superiores a los demás. . . . La homosexualidad, a mi entender, es un símbolo de debilidad, de decadencia social.

  In Ramón Rovira, “Federica Montseny: ‘ser ministro fue mi mayor error’,” Andalán 118 (June 17–24, 1977): 12. See also Federica Montseny, “La mujer, problema del hombre,” La Revista Blanca 97 (June 1927). In contrast, compare to Emma Goldman, “Louise Michel. Letter to Magnus Hirschfeld,” trans. James Steakley = id., “Ofener Brief an den Herausgeber der Jahrbücher über Louise Michel,” Jahrbuch für sexuelle Zwischenstufen (1923): 70.

• 11In 1920 alone, Montseny published eleven texts: Horas Trágicas (1920), Amor de un día (1920), Ana María (1920), El amor nuevo (1920), El juego del amor y de la vida (1920), La mujer que huía del amor (1920), La vida que empieza (1920), Los caminos del mundo (1920), María Magda (1920), Maternidad (1920), Vampiresa (1920).
• 12For a comparison of anarchist versus communist interpretations of the Spanish Revolution, see Walther L. Bernecker, “El anarquismo en la guerra civil española. Estado de la cuestión,” Cuadernos de Historia Contemporánea 14 (1992): 93–95.
• 13Emma Goldman, letter to Rudolf Rocker (November 3, 1936), in Porter, Vision on Fire, 52–53.
• 14See Richard Drinnon, Rebel in Paradise: A Biography of Emma Goldman (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961) 301–02: Goldman describes the consolation in a letter to her niece: “the crushing weight that was pressing down on my heart since Sasha’s death left me as by magic.” Kern quotes the same letter (“Anarchist Principles and Spanish Reality,” 238).
• 15Alejandro Andreassi, Libertad también se escribe en minúscula (Barcelona: Editorial Hacer, 1996), 86.
• 16Durruti (July 14, 1896–November 20, 1936). Emma Goldman, “Durruti Is Dead, Yet Living,” 1936.
• 17Emma Goldman, “Our comrade E.G.,” Spain and the World 2, no. 44 (November 12, 1938); Emma Goldman in Spain and the World 1, no. 14 (June 11, 1937).
• 18See von Catarina von Wedemeyer, “Broadcasting the Revolution: Federica Montseny, Emma Goldman and Buenaventura Durruti in the Radio CNT-FAI” (paper, Untold Stories of the Spanish Civil War: International workshop II, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv, September 12–13, 2022).
• 19 See Rubén Caravaca Fernández, “La radio de la CNT y cómo la República silenció la voz de la revolución,” interview with Ferrán Aisa, El asombrario, January 27, 2018.
• 20Lucía Sánchez Saornil co-founded Mujeres Libres, together with Mercedes Comaposada and Amparo Poch y Gascón. Sánchez Saornil (1901–1970) wrote with masculine pseudonyms such as Luciano de San-Saor, Un Confederado, El Observador. On diferent anarchist positions on feminism see Mary Nash, “Dos intelectuales anarquistas frente al problema de la mujer: Federica Montseny y Lucía Sánchez Saornil,” Convivium 44–45 (1975).
• 21Iturbe also collaborated with Mujeres Libres.
• 22See examples of the bulletin at Warwick Digital Collection: “Freedom. Spain: Information bulletin of the C.N.T. and F.A.I.,” no. 1; as well as: “Information bulletin. No. 60.”
• 23

  Wexler, Emma Goldman in Exile, 205.

  I am so full of it all I cannot concentrate on any one impression or say what is more inspiring than the other. More than even last year I wish I could remain with our people right here in this heroic city and share in their struggle and their aspirations. But again I will have to leave much sooner than I want. . . . I only wish all our comrades so ready to judge could come to Spain to see for themselves that whatever the mistakes made they are as nothing compared with the gigantic work already achieved. Whatever happens this [the defense of Madrid in September 1937, cvw] will remain a lasting monument to the valor and the constructive genius of our comrades.

  (Emma Goldman, “Madrid Is the Wonder of Centuries,” Spain in the World, September 23, 1937)

• 24But since that could not be, I mean to strain every muscle and every nerve to make known, in as far as my pen and voice can reach, the great moral and organizational force of the CNT-FAI and the velour and heroism of our Spanish comrades. (Emma Goldman, “Address to the International Working Men’s Association Congress,” 1937–38, Emma Goldman Papers, Manuscripts and Archives Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations)
• 25See Donald Rooum, “Freedom, Freedom Press and Freedom Bookshop. A Short History of Freedom Press,” Information for Social Change 27 (Summer 2008).
• 26Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Der kurze Sommer der Anarchie. Buenaventura Durrutis Leben und Tod (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977).
• 27One had to see it to realise its tremendous courage and spirit regardless of the danger surrounding it, regardless of what the city and the people have already endured at the hands of fascism. Greater still is the faith of our people who go on building, creating and labouring not for the hour but for all times. One can not help but set aside all doubts and all superfcial criticism in the face of such wonderful manifestation of human endurance and determination to win come what may. (Emma Goldman, “Madrid Is the Wonder of Centuries,” Spain and the World, September 23, 1937)
• 28Ethel Mannin, Letter, Warwick Digital Collection, October 1938.
• 29Emma Goldman, “To the Comrades of Spain and the World,” Spain and the World, March 18, 1938. An overview of fnances and activities is followed by a direct plea:

  We want membership and anything you can give out of the fullness of your heart to the SIA. If you do not yet know we wish to inform you that the SIA is covering tremendous ramifcation in the way of succour and support to the thousands of thousands of refugee women and children, and to the care of our heroic fghters at the front and to the wounded at the rear. Surely a commendable undertaking. Will you respond? If so please send us contributions to the English section of the SIA. We beseech you comrades and friends to do your utmost in your eforts for the SIA. Fraternally, Emma Goldman.

• 30George Orwell, Homage to Catalonia (London: Secker and Warburg, 1938), ch. 5 (n.p.):

  So, roughly speaking, the alignment of forces was this. On the one side the C.N.T.-F.A.I., the P.O.U.M., and a section of the Socialists, standing for workers’ control: on the other side the Right-wing Socialists, Liberals, and Communists, standing for centralized government and a militarized army.

• 31Spain and the World. Vol. 2, no. 44, p. 3, November 12, 1938.
• 32Spain and the World. Vol. 2, no. 44, p. 4, November 12, 1938.
• 33Spain and the World. Vol. 2, no. 44, p. 4, November 12, 1938.
• 34Emma Goldman, letter to Rudolf Rocker (September 1936) in: Porter, Vision on Fire, 52.
• 35

  To Milly and Rudolf Rocker, Goldman restates her critique of Montseny. Ironically, this letter is written on the very day (5/4/37) when, in the midst of Barcelona clashes between anarchists and their statist “allies”, Montseny herself gave a radio appeal to anarchists to lay down their arms to preserve the coalition. Porter then quotes said letter (5/4/37) by Goldman to Rocker:

  Only blind zealotry will deny that [Federica Montseny] among all the comrades is the most willing to compromise. I hope you understand, dear Rudolf, that I have no personal reason to say that Federica has gone more to the Right than any of the leading CNT-FAI members. Not only that but she is as dogmatic against any critical expression on the part of comrades in the FAI as anyone else.

  (Emma Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 53)

  You condemn me for not being critical of our comrades in Spain, and Nettlau condemns me for having dared in my statement published in the Fr. Arb. St. 54.

  (Emma Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 115).

• 36Emma Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 52.
• 37Porter, Vision on Fire, 53.
• 38Federica Montseny, “Alocución para toda España desde Radio Madrid” (November 11, 1936), in Ferrán Aisa, ECN 1 Radio CNT-FAI Barcelona. La voz de la Revolución (Barcelona: Entre Ambos, 2017), 444–45.
• 39In the Boletín de Información C.N.T. i F.A.I., March 4, 1937.
• 40

  There would have been no revolution if we had not prepared the people. This is our triumph and the most precious prize that we anarchists have. . . . Without the anarchist philosophy having been rectifed, we have been able to adapt ourselves to the circumstances.

  (Author’s translation; Federica Montseny, “El anarquismo militante y la realidad española,” Boletín de Información C.N.T. i F.A.I., March 4, 1937)

• 41Emma Goldman, letter to Mark Mratchny (2/8/37), in Porter, Vision on Fire, 53.
• 42

  A true united front was needed . . . to oppose an insurmountable barrier to international fascism, . . . now this people that is defeating the fascists, is advancing socially, creating a new concept of life, a new society. Tell me if what we are doing is not great? Once we contemplate the hours we are living, we will be astonished at ourselves.

  (Author’s translation; Montseny, “El anarquismo militante y la realidad española”)

  She argues against the socialist centralism:

  Federalistas hemos de ser todos. Federalistas han de ser los socialistas, a pesar de su tendencia centralista, que ha tenido como consecuencia el espíritu autoritario de Marx, que ha de ser rectifcado. . . . Hasta hoy España es una cabeza monstruosa con un cuerpo raquítico. A Madrid afuye toda la riqueza del país.

• 43

  Nosotros, los anarquistas españoles, . . . hemos seguido una linea de conducta, cuya fnalidad tendía a que no se repitiera lo que ocurrió en Rusia, donde el anarquismo, a pesar de su potencialidad, fué desplazado de la dirección de la revolución por una organización minoritaria.

  (Montseny, “El anarquismo militante y la realidad española”)

  See Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971), 234–36.

• 44

  The Spanish people, in fghting against fascism, fght at the same time against social inequalities. . . . It is not a civil war. It is the war of the people, of the workers against the lordly, against the military, against the parasite.

  (Author’s translation; Montseny, “El anarquismo militante y la realidad española”)

  Montseny emphasizes the proletarian future, aiming toward an abolition of authority in general, and argues for decentralization, federalism, and liberty:

  Si en España no se ha podido destruir la autoridad en absoluto, se van mermando sus prerrogativas con federalismo primero, y después enseñando al hombre a vivir sin que nadie le mande para el cumplimiento de sus deberes, creando en él el sentimiento de la libertad dentro de los principios anarquistas que continúan siendo las esencias del liberalismo.

• 45

  It was only after the Communist Party, together with other reactionary forces, had well-nigh brought about the collapse of the anti-Fascist forces that it fnally realized the necessity which the CNT had propagated for eighteen months. Particularly was this the case after the c. P. had penetrated into the UGT, had bored from within and had fltered through this organization by its own Communistic venom against the CNT. Now it has come forward with a number of propositions as stated in the negotiations published in Spain and the World. The readers will be able to judge for themselves how far the present state of the UGT can be called revolutionary, communist or truly democratic.

  (Emma Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 128–29)

• 46Federica Montseny, “Recuerdo póstumo al camarada Durruti,” November 1936,
  in Aisa, ECN 1 Radio CNT-FAI Barcelona, La voz de la Revolución, 470–76.
• 47Emma Goldman, “Political Persecution in Republican Spain,” Spain and the World, December 10, 1937, 5, in Porter, Vision on Fire, 154.
• 48

  It seemed to me then that the Spanish comrades had little understanding of mass psychology which needs fagwagging, speeches, music and demonstrations—that while the CNT-FAI, however, were concentrated on their constructive tasks, and fghting on the various fronts, their Communist allies made hay while the sun shone. They have since proved that they knew what they were about.

  (Emma Goldman, “Political Persecution in Republican Spain,” 5, in Porter, Vision on Fire, 154)

• 49

  On my first visit to Spain in September 1936, nothing surprised me so much as the amount of political freedom I found everywhere. True it did not extend to Fascists; but outside of these deliberate enemies of the Revolution and the emancipation of the workers in Spain, everyone of the antifascist front enjoyed political freedom which hardly existed in any of the so-called European democracies.

  (Emma Goldman, “Political Persecution in Republican Spain,” 5, in Porter, Vision on Fire, 154)

• 50Goldman gives a description of individual prisoners and their charges, including handing money from the churches to the Catalonian Generalitat—which in the anarchist logic is the opposite of a crime. She comments, “It takes the perverted Communist mind to hold a man in prison because in 1922 he had illegally left Russia” (Emma Goldman, “Political Persecution in Republican Spain,” in Porter, Vision on Fire, 156). While, according to Goldman, the prisoners did enjoy basic political privileges in the Modelo, the Cheka prisons showed the communists’ true face:

  As far as prison conditions can be humane, the Modelo is certainly superior to the Cheka prisons introduced in Spain by the Stalinists according to the best party examples of Soviet Russia. The Modelo still maintains its traditional political privileges such as the right of the inmates to freely mingle together, organize their committees to represent them with the director, receiving parcels, tobacco, etc., in addition to the scanty prison fare. . . . My next visit was to the women’s prison, which I found better kept and more cheerful than the Modelo. Only six women politicals were there at the time.

  (Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 157)

• 51

  During my stay of three months I visited many of the collectivized estates and factories, maternities and hospitals in Barcelona, and last but not least, also the “Modelo” prison. This is the place that had harbored some of the most distinguished revolutionaries and anarchists in Catalonia. Our own heroic comrades Durruti and Ascaso, Garcia Oliver and many others had been cell neighbors of Companys, the new President of the Generalitat. . . . The director gave me free access to every part of the prison and the right to speak to any of the Fascists without the presence of guards. Among the few hundred admirers of Franco were ofcers and priests. They assured me in one voice of the decent and just treatment they were receiving from the management in charge of the place, most of whom were CNT-FAI men.

  (Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 154)

• 52

  The possibility that Fascists would soon be replaced by revolutionists and anarchists was far removed from my mind. If anything, the high water mark of the revolution in the Autumn of 1936 held out hopes that the stain of prison would be wiped out once Franco and his hordes were defeated.

  (Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 155)

• 53

  The report of the foul murder of the most gentle of anarchists, Camillo Berneri and his roommate, the anarchist Barbieri, was followed by wholesale arrests, mutilation and death. They seemed too . . . incredible to be true. I decided to go back to Spain to see for myself how far the new-found freedom of the Spanish masses had been annihilated by Stalin’s henchmen.

  (Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 155)

• 54

  Russia has more than proven the nature of this beast. After twenty years it still thrives on the blood of its makers. Nor is its crushing weight felt in Russia alone. Since Stalin began his invasion of Spain, the march of his henchmen has been leaving death and ruin behind them. Destruction of numerous collectives, the introduction of the Tcheka with its “gentle” methods of treating political opponents, the arrest of thousands of revolutionaries, and the murder in broad daylight of others. All this and more, has Stalin’s dictatorship given Spain, when he sold arms to the Spanish people in return for good gold. Innocent of the jesuitical trick of “our beloved comrade” Stalin, the CNT-FAI could not imagine in their wildest dreams the unscrupulous designs hidden behind the seeming solidarity in the ofer of arms from Russia. Their need to meet Franco’s military equipment was a matter of life and death. The Spanish people had not a moment to lose if they were not to be crushed. What wonder if they saw in Stalin the savior of the anti-Fascist war? They have since learned that Stalin helped to make Spain safe against the Fascists so as to make it safer for his own ends.

  (Goldman, “Address”)

• 55Goldman, “Address.”
• 56Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Schocken Books, 1976), xxvii.
• 57Goldman, “Address.”
• 58See Emma Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 130: “I am torn into a thousand directions. I want to help our comrades and yet I feel that my silence is a sign of consent of all the dreadful and useless compromises our comrades are making.”
• 59Goldman, “Address.”
• 60“Yet closer contact with reality in Spain, with the almost insurmountable odds against the aspirations of the CNT-FAI, made me understand their tactics better, and helped me to guard against any dogmatic judgment of our comrades” (Goldman, “Address”).
• 61Emma Goldman (4/5/38) letter to Rudolf Rocker in Porter, Vision on Fire, 129. Porter comments:

  She finds the fnal CNT agreement with the UGT a tragic collapse of the CNT position. As if to prove it, Luis Urteil Araquistáin is gleeful about the CNT change. For Goldman, the pact is a nightmare and poisons her daily existence.

• 62

  The Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalist and Anarchist movements until very recently have held out the most glaring fulfllment of all our dreams and aspirations. I cannot therefore blame those of our comrades who see in the compromises of the Spanish Anarchists a reversal of all they had held high for well nigh seventy years. . . . Also, I fear that the critics too are very much at fault. They are no less dogmatic than the Spanish comrades. They condemn every step made in Spain unreservedly. In their sectarian attitude they have overlooked the motive element recognized in our time even in capitalist courts. Yet it is a fact that one can never judge human action unless one has discovered the motive back of the action.

  (Emma Goldman in Porter, Vision on Fire, 303–04

• 63Goldman, “Address.”
• 64

  All these factors directing the course of the CNT-FAI should be taken into consideration by the comrade critics, who after all are far removed from the struggle, hence really not in a position to see the whole tragic drama through the eyes of those who are in the actual struggle. I do not mean to say that I may not also reach the painful point of disagreement with the CNT-FAI. But until Fascism is conquered, I would not raise my hand against them. For the present my place is at the side of the Spanish comrades and their great struggle against a whole world.

  (Goldman, “Address”)

• 65For the economic situation, see Bernecker, “El anarquismo en la guerra civil española.”
• 66

  In other words, while the Russian Revolution and the civil war were being fought out on Russian soil and by Russians, the Spanish revolution and anti-Fascist war involves all the powers of Europe. It is no exaggeration to say that the Spanish Civil War has spread out far beyond its own confnes.

  (Goldman, “Address”)

• 67

  “The Spanish revolution, . . . just because its leaders are Anarchists, immediately became a sore in the eyes not only of the bourgeoisie and the democratic governments, but also of the entire school of Marxists and liberals.” Goldman summarizes all compromises the Spanish anarchists had agreed to in the course of the war, naming, quote: “participation in the government, all sorts of humiliating overtures to Stalin, superhuman tolerance for his henchmen who were openly plotting and conniving against the Spanish revolution”

  (Goldman, “Address”).

• 68Goldman, “Address.”
• 69

  This makes me think that the CNT-FAI have remained fundamentally the same, and that the time is not far of when they will again prove themselves the symbol, the inspirational force, that the Spanish Anarcho-Syndicalists and Anarchists have always been to the rest of the Anarchists in the world.

  (Goldman, “Address”)

• 70Goldman argued for birth control instead of abortion: Emma Goldman, “The Social Aspects of Birth Control,” in Anarchy! An Anthology of Emma Goldman’s Mother Earth (Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2001), 134–39. See also Candace Falk, “Emma Goldman: Passion, Politics, and the Theatrics of Free Expression,” Women’s History Review 11, no. 1 (2002): 13.
• 71 Goldman, “Louise Michel. Letter to Magnus Hirschfeld.” See also Clare Hemmings, “Sexual Freedom and the Promise of Revolution: Emma Goldman’s Passion,” Feminist Review 106 (2014): 43–59.
• 72Goldman, “Durruti Is Dead, Yet Living.”