“Against this monstrous outbreak of fascism, which has now achieved such frightening evidence in Spain, we, writers, artists, scientific researchers, men of intellectual activity, in short, grouped together to defend culture in all its national and universal values of tradition and constant creation, we declare our total union, our full and active identification with the people, who now fight gloriously alongside the Popular Front Government, defending the values of intelligence by defending our freedom and human dignity.”
It was July 30, 1936 and the Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals for the Defense of Culture in Spain began its period of maximum activity. Aware of the setback that the victory of the rebels would mean for knowledge and human intelligence, up to 61 intellectuals signed the aforementioned manifesto. Among them, María Zambrano, Luis Buñuel, Rosa Chacel, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Manuel Altolaguirre, José Bergamín, Miguel Hernández, Rafael Alberti and María Teresa León.
An investigation delves into the profile of the anti-fascist intellectual during the Spanish Civil War and the ideology that, for the most part, all of them defended. Some unsheathed their pens, others also their rifles, all of them tried to educate the republican soldiers who were fighting in defense of the legitimate Government. The objective was clear: to teach them literacy, with certain doses of propaganda, so that they were aware of the global importance of the war they were fighting.
Claudia Gago Martín is a doctor in Political Science and author of Spain knotted at its throat. The Alliance of Antifascist Intellectuals in the Spanish Civil War (Tecnos, 2024) and locates the creation of the Alliance as a section born from the first Congress of Anti-Fascist Writers, held in Paris in 1935. “The War broke out so soon that the Spanish were the first to practically exercise that defense.” of culture,” he comments.
The researcher takes that first manifesto of July 1936 as a reference to compare it with the second, published on December 9, 1937 in The Blue Monkeythe Alliance’s organ of expression. On this second occasion, the intellectual signatories dropped to 24. “At all times their intention was to carry out ideological propaganda in addition to important pedagogical work. They talk about the fact that the Republican soldier must be a conscious soldier and must understand the dimension of the War he was fighting,” the expert reiterates.
Among the great milestones of the Alliance is having organized the second International Congress of Anti-Fascist Writers in Valencia in July 1937, inaugurated by the president of the Republican Government, Juan Negrín. That was the conclave that left for posterity the only images that exist of Miguel Hernández in motion. The poet from Orihuela, who had joined the group with the signing of its second manifesto, was very critical of the Alliance itself: “He thought that we had to go further, that many of his colleagues only participated in the intellectual sphere and did not actively as militiamen,” says Gago.
The union of two generations
The war context and the umbrella of anti-fascism in which the Alliance moved initially allowed individuals from heterogeneous political traditions to be integrated, the expert elucidates. “In the end, the worldview brought by the Generation of ’27, who are also active in mass organizations such as the Communist Party or the Group for the Service of the Republic, prevails,” states the author of the monograph.
In this sense, Gago traces two generations within the Alliance. On the one hand, that unity of the youngest, those who at the outbreak of the War had already begun to socialize in the new politics that were developing in Spain. This is the case of Ramón J. Sender, Luis Buñuel and Luis Cernuda. On the other hand, those intellectuals of democratic and republican tradition, but somewhat older, who have not participated in mass politics, such as Blas Zambrano and Adolfo Salazar.
Among the 61 signatories of the first manifesto, six women appear. A year later, only two of them, who repeat, María Teresa León and Rosario del Olmo, appear along with their 22 companions. “It is striking that some of these women also had some type of personal connection with men”
One of the aspects that united all of them was having broadened the concept of intellectual. While in previous generations it was somewhat more linked to the academic and literary, as could be the case of Ortega y Gasset or Miguel de Unamuno, in 1936 the notion of intellectual was expanded to include plastic artists, musicians and filmmakers, for example. example. In this way, they overcome the traditional idea of intellectual and bring it closer to other cultural disciplines from where, like the rest, they reject bourgeois culture.
Lower class intellectuals
After examining more than 70 personal trajectories, Gago has found in the Alliance two ways to become part of it, a couple of differentiated circuits. One was the hegemonic one, followed by those intellectuals who also participated in institutions, such as the Central University, the Student Residence or the Ateneo de Madrid, and found themselves inserted in that cultural framework of the Republic.
The other path that the specialist has found was the one followed by those characters who “also contributed to the group, but history has forgotten them, perhaps because their artistic contribution did not survive,” in her own terms. This was the case of numerous journalists who also wrote in media such as Working Worldthe organ of expression of the Communist Party. Gago calls it the “militant circuit” and it was followed by “authors who came from a lower social origin, without higher education and who did not participate in the classic institutions of knowledge.”
A maternal image of the woman
Gago has also studied the role of women and their representation in the Alliance. Among the 61 signatories of the first manifesto, six women appear. A year later, only two of them, who repeat, María Teresa León and Rosario del Olmo, appear along with their 22 companions. “It is striking that some of these women also had some type of personal bond with men,” emphasizes the researcher.
Her investigations have led her to assert that they, as still happens today, had to overcome the sexual gap, but also the class gap, which their male colleagues did not suffer. Likewise, after studying the published numbers of The Blue MonkeyGago has analyzed how women were represented, what it meant for the Alliance: “It is deeply maternalistic and the specificities that affected them, such as being a woman at war, are never addressed. “They always appeared as mothers, wives, women in the rear.”
This fact contrasts with the line followed by other anti-fascist organizations of the moment, such as Mujeres Libres, with an eminently libertarian orientation. “We just have to think about how La Pasionaria, claimed as the mother of the comrades, is represented,” Gago herself illustrates. Thus, within the Alliance of Anti-Fascist Intellectuals, women were never separated from the role that society had traditionally marked for them.
A disparate ending for intellectuals
The course of the War and the taking of more and more territory by the rebels caused the Alliance to begin to break down. Gago has not located a text or document that certifies the end of his actions. On the other hand, having studied the phenomenon through the personal trajectories of its members, but always with a collective perspective, the researcher maintains that the ending was very different.
“Some died on the front, others stayed in Spain after the triumph of Franco’s rule, but the reality that the group faces most is exile. Most of them try to flee,” he points out. And they did it with different luck. Rafael Alberti and María Teresa León were able to settle in their new destinations. Adolfo Salazar, who in Spain combined his work as a civil servant with his musical activity, found a job improvement in exile in Mexico. “It is not representative, but in this case he was able to live off his criticism and work as a musicologist, something he had never achieved in Spain,” highlights Gago. On the opposite side is María Zambrano: “She had a trajectory that moved towards consolidation, but the War cut short all her aspirations. From then on, his life was very wandering,” concludes the expert.
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