MORANT (2019). Spanish Fascist Women’s Transnational Relations during the Second World War: Between Ideology and Realpolitik (original) (raw)
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This article examines the phenomenon of “Eurocommunism” through the lens of the transnational dialogue between Italian and Spanish communist women activists as Spain transitioned from dictatorship to rebuilding democracy (1974-1982). Eurocommunism emerged in the mid-1970s as a trend of West European communist parties aiming to leverage democratic politics as a strategy of transition to socialism. The paper sheds light on the little-known female protagonists of the phenomenon by reconstructing the exchanges and collaborations between Italian and Spanish communist women on various fronts: from solidarity initiatives in the twilight of the Franco dictatorship to the exchange of political strategies to advance women’s rights in their respective contexts. As such, it provides evidence to the key role of women’s cross-border activism in propelling Eurocommunism in the 1970s. Finally, it highlights that female militants saw the renewal of their parties’ policies on the ‘women’s question’ as integral to the Eurocommunist platform.
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As the source of one of the broadest movements of solidarity in history, the Spanish Civil War represents an ideal laboratory for the culture-oriented and increasingly transnational historiography that has developed since the turn of the century. This chapter examines the discourse and actions of the activists who supported –or refused to support– the Spanish Republic as combatants, relief workers or intellectuals, focusing on their conceptions of antifascism. Thus, it tries to move beyond existing international histories of the war to gauge the extent to which a transnational imagined community built on this notion operated throughout this period, its relations to parallel movements in various regions and its changing contours. While the often invoked Anti-fascist International never achieved actual unity or a truly global reach, it served as an effective bond between disparate actors and projects and had a considerable performative force in sustaining Republican resistance throughout the conflict.
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This article explores the connections between the International Council of Women (ICW) and some Spanish women during the first third of the twentieth century. It proposes a broad interpretation of historical feminisms that permits a better understanding of the different forms of connection between these women. On the one hand, it looks at informal networks (affinities relations, friendships, individual contacts, etc.) and formal networks (associations), while on the other, it includes other examples of feminisms that developed in southern Europe.
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The aim of this paper is to trace the evolution of the neofascist networks from the vantage point, between 1945 and 1953, of Madrid, a city where a myriad of extreme right activists gathered to discuss and promote their cause at a transnational level. Exploring the local socio-political context in which these (neo)-fascists moved, and the networks that they formed, the study delves into the creation of ratlines crucial for fascists to escape from the Allied prosecution once the Second World War was over, the consolidation of the city as a central meeting point for fascists from all over the world (from Degrelle to Skorzeny, passing by Horia Sima or Filippo Anfuso), discussions around the possible creation of paramilitary organisations, and the everyday lives of (neo)-fascists operating in Madrid. On the basis of police reports, secret service intelligences and other primary sources, this paper foregrounds the role of the fascist diaspora and the subsequent interactions as driving fo...
Arnd Bauerkämper and Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Fascism without Borders: Transnational Connections and Cooperation between Movements and Regimes in Europe from 1918 to 1945 (Oxford: Berghahn, 2017), 1-38.
Fascist movements and regimes have usually been conceived as and presented themselves as national political forces. In fact, contemporaries as well as scholars have highlighted hyper-nationalism as one of the most important features of fascism which separated fascist movements and regimes from each other. Not accidentally, all attempts to forge a “Fascist International” foundered between the two world wars. Many historians have therefore dismissed or failed to recognize crossborder cooperations between fascists. In fact, the hyper-nationalism of fascist movements and their social Darwinist doctrines, as well as the expansionist and racist policies of the Third Reich and Fascist Italy, have led most experts to argue that fascist internationalism or international fascism was merely a camouflage and a sham. The interpretation that “international fascism is unthinkable, a contradiction in terms” has received broad support from most historians. As a corollary, fascism has largely been investigated in the framework of national history. Beyond volumes that have collected national case studies, few systematic comparative studies have been published. In particular, cross-border interactions between fascist movements and regimes have largely been dismissed in historical scholarship.