The New School Lecture ''An Army of Women'': Communist-Linked Solidarity Movements, Maternalism, and Political Consciousness in 1930s and 1940s Argentina

"I carried a package for Osvaldo Pugliese," Teresa de Gílenberg proudly recalled during our interview in 1997. One day in the late 1940s, this Communist militant of Polish origins asked Juan, a vendor in her barrio, if he would contribute potatoes and gather foods from other tradesmen in solidarity with Pugliese, a renowned tango composer, orchestra director, and Communist who was incarcerated in the infamous Villa Devoto jail. Juan brought her a large parcel containing his donations and those offered by his fellow vendors, and she personally handed it to the musician.

Gílenberg formed part of what she called an "army of women," organized through the Communist-linked Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre. This army solicited, assembled, and delivered foodstuffs and other goods to imprisoned militants, and it also created networks with the jailed, their families, and neighborhood sympathizers.¹ In using the phrase "army of women," Gílenberg most likely referred to the large number of women who were involved. She also seemed to evoke the quasi-military sense of dedication, unity, combativeness, bravery, and camaraderie that characterized her group.² Her term is striking in that it alludes—probably unintentionally—to a path for women to acquiring citizenship. Male citizenship in Argentina and elsewhere rested partly on serving in the military. In an effort to extend such rights to women, Santiago Fassi introduced a bill in Congress in 1938 that would have permitted women to vote if they offered "auxiliary service compatible with their sex" to the armed forces. Congress did not pass the bill, but the suggestion and its connotations lingered.³ Gílenberg and the Liga asserted women's citizenship by fostering a well-organized and courageous rearguard activity in solidarity with Communist Party activists.

The Liga Argentina por los Derechos del Hombre is one of the Communist-influenced solidarity movements of the 1930s and 1940s that I will analyze. Founded in 1937, the roots of this group reached back to 1922 and its efforts then to help political prisoners. Communists helped establish the Agrupación Femenina Antiguerrera in 1935 and the feminist Unión Argentina de Mujeres in 1936. Also tied to the party were Spanish Republican aid efforts such as the Comité Argentino de Mujeres Pro Huérfanos Españoles and the pro-Allied Junta de la Victoria, of the Spanish Civil War and World War II eras, respectively. Women in or close to the Communist Party were instrumental in creating these solidarity organizations and setting their agendas.

Latin Americanists frequently refer to solidarity without explaining clearly what it means, perhaps assuming that we know solidarity when we see it.⁴ Thus, one must venture outside the discipline to find fuller treatments. Even so, solidarity remains a vague and often slippery concept. For this reason, rather than rely on a single definition, I draw on ideas from several scholars. The activists under study participated in what philosopher Sally Scholtz calls "political solidarity," a type of social movement characterized by a "moral relation" that takes concrete actions to construct a better world, fight injustice, and help its victims.⁵ Catherine Sameh, a specialist in gender and sexuality studies, has developed the notion of this "moral relation," explaining that "as a practice, solidarity attempts to build ethical relationships based on equity while acknowledging and challenging the economic and political structures that create inequality between people." Sameh writes, "As a set of feelings and aspirations, solidarity might be imagined as a bridge that enables people to connect to or meet each other across significant divides," and goes on to state that "the concept of solidarity emphasizes trust, justice, equity, democracy, mutuality, and love in the building of movements, ties, and relationships that seek to overturn, rather than reproduce, relations of inequality."⁶ Solidarity, according to philosopher Kurt Bayertz, also "denotes the emotional cohesion between the members of these social movements and the mutual support they give each other in their battle for common goals" and, one might add, their resistance to persecution...