Carmen Aldecoa

En Español

Carmen Aldecoa (1904 - 1988)

SHC executive member, España Libre's editor and contributor, and Del sentir y del pensar's author. Spanish adjunct professor at several US universities.

During the Spanish Civil War, the CNT asked Asturian Aldecoa to teach the militia’s children, and she organized a school, the Casa Hijo del Miliciano (House of the Militia’s Children). When the city of Santander fell to rebel forces in 1937, Aldecoa and González Malo sought safety in Bordeaux, France. In Lyon, Aldecoa started an orphanage for refugee children named Iberia. Aldecoa and González Malo crossed again into Barcelona, still under pro-Republic forces. The anarchist and exile networks brought Carmen Aldecoa to Cuba and New York in 1940. She, in turn, supported thousands of refugees, recovered workers’ print culture, and engaged readers in rearticulating the meaning of revolution after the Spanish Civil War. Aldecoa served as editor of España Libre for a few months in 1965, after González Malo passed away. Aldecoa often gave speeches in workers’ associations and speeches at SHC events.

González Malo said of her: "Yo conocí a mi Carmen en medio de la borrasca, en Santander, siendo yo secretario general de Milicia, quien las organizó allí y ella hubo ser directora de Casa Hijo de Miliciano y otros cargos más. Mi Carmen procede de familia liberal burguesa, es profesora de Ciencias Naturales, aquí de literatura y civilización españolas en la Universidad de Nueva York, ideológicamente está con nosotros, por compenetración con mis sentimientos, a mis razonamientos formula reparos; no es, pues sectaria ni cosa que se lo parezca; está, por corazón, al lado de quien sufre la injusticia” (Correspondencia personal y política, 2016)

Her book Del sentir y pensar sought to preserve Spanish workers’ history through a comprehensive review of pre–Spanish Civil War labor periodicals. In her manuscript, Aldecoa noted that the workers’ revolution started in Spain when anarchists and socialists discussed authors and thinkers such as Étienne Cabet, Pierre Joseph Proudhon, and Charles Fourier in workers’ newspapers, associations, and schools. In this respect, Aldecoa recognized French anarchist historian and Max Nettlau’s collaborator Renée Lamberet (Aldecoa, Del sentir y pensar 115). They documented Spanish labor and print networks before the First International of 1864.

Aldecoa continued to credit the proletarian print culture in pre-Spanish Civil War times. The author counted 582 newspapers from 1869 to 1936 and highlighted the role of periodicals in serializing publications and, in doing so, educating the people. She counted more than fifty in exile (Aldecoa, Del sentir y pensar 125-127). Aldecoa expressed her concern that such periodicals were not being preserved, and thus, the historical legacy of workers was being lost. She lamented that their writers were not found in anthologies of Spanish literature (Aldecoa, Del sentir y pensar, 183). Therefore, Aldecoa invited scholars to consult the archive and carefully examine workers’ journalism in Spain and exile.

Aldecoa directed her criticism to elitist and colonialist perspectives that disregarded the historical contributions of common people to society. She praised España Libre's fight against fascism but stressed the need to define exile beyond solely an antifascist identity. Like Violeta Miqueli, Aldecoa asked anarchists in exile to surpass a simply reactive project against fascism and construct a free world.