Dolores Ibárruri

Dolores Ibarruri, La Pasionaria, was the leader of the Communist party in Spain during the Spanish Civil War. Growing up in poverty in Gallarta, she joined the Communist party in 1920. She started using the pseudonym La Pasionaria, which means the passion flower, in 1918. She was a member of the Spanish delegation of the Communist International which met in the Soviet Union in 1933. During the Spanish Civil War, she became famous for saying, "The fascists shall not pass! No Pasaran". Another famous saying of hers was, "It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees." At the end of the Spanish Civil War, she fled to the USSR. She became Secretary General of the Communist Party in 1944. Sheltered by the Soviets, she remained in Moscow until the death of Franco. She would spent much of her time traveling to Cuba, to China, Italy, Switzerland and Yugoslavia organizing Communist movements. In 1964, she was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize and the following year the Order of Lenin. After the death of Franco, she returned to Spain and became a member of Spanish Parliament. At the time, she was hailed as the greatest of the war's heroes. She died in 1989, the year the Berlin Wall fell, at the age of 94 in her native city. In her long lifetime, she knew Ernest Hemingway, Alvah Bessie, Joseph Stalin, Fidel Castro, and George Seldes. She is the subject of many novels and poems.