Mujeres Libres (11th issue front cover)

Free Women, front cover of the 11th issue of the Mujeres Libres magazine.

Mujeres Libres (Free Women) was an anarchist women's organisation in Spain during 1936-39.

The Revolution and Civil War saw women play a crucial and often under-recognised role in both revolutionary struggles and the fight against fascism. Their participation was marked by radical activism, challenges to traditional gender roles, and efforts to achieve social and political emancipation.

Prior to 1936, compared to other European democracies, Spain could be described as backward, misogynistic and conservative. Even within the left, trade unions, socialists, anarchists, and communists, women were expected by many of the men to remain at home or support the men.

Mujeres Libres sought emancipation through direct action, education, and organised labour. They rejected liberal feminism, seeing women’s liberation as inseparable from class struggle.

As well as organising with the workers' militias and providing military training, Mujeres Libres established schools, workshops, and literacy programs to empower working-class women. The design in the poster is taken from a graphic in the newspaper they published of the same name.

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The CNT was founded in November 1910, with a membership of 26,000 at a conference of workers societies in Barcelona and had its first national congress the following year. A general strike was immediately called in Barcelona and the CNT was declared illegal.

By 1919 there were 700,000 members. As the CNT grew, employers became more worried and hired armed thugs (pistoleros) to intimidate or assassinate union members.

The CNT took part in revolutionary strikes and uprisings throughout the period leading up to the 1936 Revolution and Civil War, including uprisings in Catalonia, Asturias and Andalusia. By 1937 the CNT had 1.5 million members.

From the start of the attempted coup in 1936, the CNT had a decisive role in events - pushing revolutionary land and factory collectivisation, but by May 1937 the Republican Government, under the influence of the Stalinist Spanish Communist Party (PCE), was reversing its achievements, suppressing the collectives, forcing militias to join the regular army or be disbanded and arresting militants.