People of the Revolution and the USSR

Activity(set)
Any Government and administration 1 Military command 3 Ideology and propaganda 1 Social movements and organizing 11 Scholarship and theory 2 Literature and arts 3
Affiliation

Most people

Any Spanish Republicstate 1

All 1 affiliations

Spain

Spanish Republicstate 1
Position(set)
Any Imperial establishment and White movement 9 Counter-revolutionary forces 32 Left critics of Bolshevism 5 Socialist-bloc reform leader 11 Dissident 2 Anarchists 1 Non-Bolshevik socialists 31 Jacobins and French revolutionary radicals 7 Fascists and Nazis 10 National liberation and anti-colonial movements 9 Marxism and communism 92 Liberalism and republicanism 18 Conservatism and Christian democracy 24 Monarchy and royalism 2 Agrarianism and peasant parties 5 Nationalism 17
Citizenship
Any Spain 1
Background
Any Spain 1
Era
Any

People of the wider world

The revolutionary wave and the world war1917–1945 1
Government and administration Anarchists Clear all

Federica Montseny

Federica Montseny
Spanish Republic Anarchists Spain Spain 1905–1994

Spanish anarchist who served in the Republican government

In November 1936 she accepted a cabinet post. Her dispute with Emma Goldman over government participation exposed strategic differences among anarchists supporting the same revolution.

Spanish anarchist and writer associated with the CNT. She served as minister of Health and Public Assistance from November 1936 to May 1937. Her participation in the Republican government raised a difficult question for an anti-statist movement: could taking state office defend the revolution without compromising its principles? Her exchanges with Emma Goldman reveal disagreements over the relationship between anti-fascist war and social revolution.

Career timeline
  • 1921Publishes her first short novel, Horas trágicas, beginning her writing career at fifteen
  • 1927Joins the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI)
  • 1931Joins the anarcho-syndicalist union CNT and gains prominence as a speaker
  • 1936After the July coup, serves on the FAI peninsular committee and the CNT national committee
  • 1936Appointed minister of Health and Social Assistance in the Republican government in November
  • 1937Leaves office in May when the anarchist ministers resign after the Barcelona May Days
  • 1939Flees into exile in France; based in Toulouse, works to rebuild the CNT in exile and edits anarchist papers