Dolores Ibarruri (1895-1989) – better known as La Pasionaria – was an icon to the Communists and Socialists of the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War, as well as to their ideological offspring and co-dependents today.
Born to poor but devout parents, a Basque father and Castilian mother, Dolores was encouraged to go to teachers school by her schoolmistress, but had to leave school at 15 due to her parents’ poverty. Taking up various jobs, including maid and seamstress, she became a waitress in the town of Arboleda, where she met Julián Ruiz Gabiña, a union organiser and founder of the local Socialist Youth. Becoming his mistress, she bore him a child in 1913; two years later they married.
