Dolores Ibárruri was born in 1895 as the eighth of eleven children. She had a
Basque miner father and a
Castilian mother. She grew up in
Gallarta but later moved to Somorrostro (
Biscay). Gallarta was adjacent to a large
siderite mine. Ibárruri left school at 15 after spending two years preparing for teachers' college at the encouragement of her schoolmistress. Her parents could not afford further education, so she went to work as a
seamstress and later as a
housemaid. She became a waitress in the town of Arboleda, the most important urban nucleus in the region of Somorrostro. There, she met Julián Ruiz Gabiña, a
union activist and founder of the
Socialist Youth of Somorrostro. They married in late 1915, two years after the birth of their first child. The young couple participated in the general strike of 1917, which led to the imprisonment of Ruiz. Ibárruri wrote her first article in 1918 for the miners' newspaper
El Minero Vizcaíno under the pseudonym of
"La Pasionaria" ("The Passion Flower"). The article was published during
Holy Week and focused on
religious hypocrisy, contrasting with the
Passion of Christ. Because of the article's theme and timing, she signed it with the alias Pasionaria. In 1920, Ibárruri and the Workers' Centre joined the newly formed
Communist Party of Spain (PCE), and she was named a member of the Provincial Committee of the Basque Communist Party. After ten years of
grassroots militancy, she was appointed to the Central Committee of the PCE in 1930. During this time, Ibárruri had six children. Of her five daughters, four died very young. She "used to relate how her husband made a small coffin out of a crate of fruit." Her son,
Rubén, died at twenty-two during the
Battle of Stalingrad. The remaining child, Amaya Ruiz Ibárruri, outlived her mother. She was married to
Stalin's adopted son,
Artyom Sergeyev. In 2008, Amaya resided in the
working-class neighbourhood of
Ciudad Lineal in Madrid. She died in 2018 at the age of 95.
In Madrid (1931–1936) With the advent of the
Second Republic in 1931, Ibárruri moved to
Madrid and became the editor of the PCE newspaper . She was arrested for the first time in September 1931. Jailed with common offenders, she persuaded them to begin a
hunger strike to secure freedom for political detainees. Following a second arrest in March 1932, she led other inmates in singing "
The Internationale" in the visiting room and encouraged them to reject poorly paid menial labor in the prison yard. She wrote two articles from jail: one published by the PCE periodical and the other by . On 17 March 1932, she was elected to the Central Committee of the PCE at the 4th Congress held in Seville. In 1933, Ibárruri founded , a women's organisation
opposed to Fascism and war. On 18 April,
Soviet astronomer
Grigory Neujmin discovered
asteroid 1933 HA and named it "
Dolores" in her honour. In November, she travelled to
Moscow as a delegate of the 13th Plenum of the
Executive Committee of the Communist International (ECCI), which assessed the dangers posed by fascism and the threat of war. The sight of the Russian capital thrilled Ibárruri. "To me, who saw it through the eyes of the
soul", she wrote in her autobiography, "it was the most wonderful city on earth. The construction of
socialism was being managed from it. In it were taking shape the earthly dreams of freedom of generations of
slaves, outcasts,
serfs, and
proletarians. From it one could take in and perceive the march of humanity toward communism." She did not return to Spain until the new year. In 1934, she attended the First World Meeting of Women against War and
Fascism () in Paris. Although the meeting was chaired by
Gabrielle Duchêne, president of the French branch of the
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, the separate was an organ of the short-lived
French Popular Front. Both the and the Front dissolved in 1939. Toward the end of 1934, Ibárruri and two others spearheaded a risky rescue mission to the mining region of
Asturias to bring more than a hundred starving children to Madrid. The parents of these children had been jailed following the failed
October Revolution, which was suppressed by
General Franco at the behest of the Republican government. Ibárruri succeeded in her mission but was briefly detained in the prisons of
Sama de Langreo and
Oviedo. To spare her children further anguish, she sent them to the Soviet Union in the spring of 1935. , 1936 In 1935, she secretly crossed the Spanish border to attend the 7th World Congress of the
Communist International, held from 25 July to 21 August in Moscow. At this Congress,
Georgi Dimitrov delivered a keynote speech proposing an alliance with "progressive
bourgeois" governments against the
fascists. Under this
doctrine, the
Popular Front would come to power in France in June 1936. Ibárruri welcomed Dimitrov's speech as a vindication of the PCE's long-standing position and returned home "full of enthusiasm, determined to do the impossible to achieve a consensus among the various workers' and democratic organisations of our country." In 1936, Ibárruri was jailed for the fourth time after enduring severe abuse from the arresting officers in Madrid. Upon her release, she went to Asturias to campaign for the PCE in the general elections held on 16 February. In these elections, 323,310 ballots were cast. However, "one ballot, one vote" did not apply; each voter could choose up to 13 candidates simultaneously. The PCE received 170,497 votes, enough to secure one seat in Parliament for Dolores Ibárruri. The Popular Front's election platform included the release of political prisoners, and La Pasionaria set out to free the detainees in Oviedo immediately. As soon as the victory of the Popular Front in the elections became known I, already an elect member of Parliament, showed up at the prison of Oviedo the next morning, went to the office of the Director, who had fled in a mad panic because he had behaved like a genuine criminal toward the Asturian prisoners interned after the revolution of October 1934, and there I found the Administrator to whom I said, "Give me the keys because the prisoners must be released this very day." He replied, "I have not received any orders", and I answered, "I am a member of the Republic's Parliament, and I demand that you hand over the keys immediately to set the prisoners free." He handed them over and I assure you that it was the most thrilling day of my activist life, opening the cells and shouting, "Comrades, everyone get out!" Truly thrilling. I did not wait for Parliament to sit or for the release order to be given. I reasoned, "We have run on the promise of freedom for the prisoners of the revolution of 1934—we won—today the prisoners go free." In the months before the Spanish Civil War, she joined the strikers at the
Cadavio mine in Asturias and stood beside poor tenants evicted from a suburb of Madrid. The poet returned to Granada and met his death at the hands of the
Nationalists before completing the task.
Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) - Pasionaria speaks to the fighters before going to the front, graphic from Spain. Ibárruri delivered a series of speeches, some of which were radio broadcasts from Madrid: "Danger! To Arms!" (19 July), "Our Fighters Must Lack for Nothing!" (24 July), "Discipline, Composure, Vigilance!" (29 July), "Restrain the Hand of the Foreign Meddlers!" (30 July), "Fascism Shall Not Pass!" (24 August), "Better to Die Standing Up Than to Live Kneeling Down!" (3 September), "A Salute to Our Militia Women on the Front Line" (4 September), and "Our Battle Cry Has Been Heard by the Whole World" (15 September). It can be inferred that the majority in Madrid rallied to the Republic's side, that uncontrolled elements roamed the capital and many rounds of gunfire were wasted out of nerves (29 July), that Nationalist propaganda was more effective (30 July), and that she recognised early on that the war would be lost without foreign aid (24 August). On 2 October, she wrote a revealing letter to her son in Russia, apologising for not having written earlier and describing the harrowing situation: "You cannot even imagine, my son, how savage is the struggle going on in Spain now... Fighting is going on daily and round the clock. And in this fighting, some of our finest and bravest comrades have perished." She recounted spending many days beside the troops at the front and expressed her concerns about the war's outcome: "It is my hope that in spite of all the difficulties, particularly the lack of weapons, we shall still win." The war became particularly brutal in 1937. Just as
the Blitz later drove the Allies to bomb German cities mercilessly, the
Nationalist bombardment of open cities spurred Ibárruri (then the newly named fourth vice president of Congress) to demand an equal response from the "progressive bourgeois" government. President
Manuel Azaña, an
intellectual and writer, was unwilling to flout
constitutional or
international laws, while Prime Minister
Francisco Largo Caballero, a socialist, was reluctant to cooperate with the PCE. The closing lines of her speech signalled her readiness to endorse radical violence. On 24 February, Stalin forbade the sending of Soviet volunteers to fight in Spain, but he did not recall
Alexander Orlov, an
Order of Lenin awardee from the
NKVD (secret police). Orlov and the NKVD orchestrated the
May Days, the conflict that erupted between 3 and 8 May in Barcelona between the Popular Front and the Trotskyist Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (
POUM). The battle resulted in approximately 1,000 fighters being killed and 1,500 injured, though estimates vary. Following the suppression of the POUM, any possibility of Spain serving as a refuge for Leon Trotsky was eliminated. Orlov employed the same methods of terror, duplicity, and deception used during the
Great Purge (1936–1938). As a result of the events from 3 to 8 May in Barcelona, the
Trotskyists and the
Anarchists came to be seen by Ibárruri as the "
Fascist enemy within." When we point out the need of opposing Trotskyism we discover a very strange phenomenon, that voices are raised in its defense in the ranks of certain organizations and among certain circles in certain parties. These voices belong to people who themselves are intoxicated with this
counter-revolutionary ideology. The Trotskyists have long been transformed into the agents of Fascism, into the agents of the German
Gestapo. We saw this on the ground during the May
putsch in Catalonia; we saw this clearly in the disturbances that occurred in various other places. And everybody will realize this when the trial opens against the
POUM. leaders who were caught spying. And we realize that the hand of Fascism is behind every attempt to demoralise our home front, to undermine the authority of the Republic. Therefore it is essential that we wipe out Trotskyism with a firm hand, for Trotskyism is no longer a political option for the working class but an instrument of the counter-revolution. Trotskyism must be rooted out of the
proletarian ranks of our Party as one roots out poisonous weeds. The Trotskyists must be rooted out and disposed of like wild beasts, for otherwise every time our men wish to go on the offensive we will not be able to do so due to lawlessness caused by the Trotskyists in the rear. An end must be put to these traitors once and for all so that our men on the front lines can fight without fear of being stabbed in the back. Ibárruri attributed the events to an "anarcho-
Trotskyist" attempt to undermine the Republican government on orders from Franco, acting in concert with Adolf Hitler. She claimed the violence was the culmination of an
anarchist plot that included plans to halt train movement and cut all telegraph and telephone lines. She cited an "order [from the Catalan government] to its forces to control the telephone building and disarm all people whom they encounter in the streets without proper authorization" as part of the anarchist scheme. She did not cite specific evidence for these claims, which were accepted by many Party members at the time. Later analyses by historians have challenged the validity of these claims. The Communist Party alleged that the anarchist "putsch" was motivated by resentment of the centralized military command sought by the Communists and their allies in
Lluís Companys's Catalan government, as well as a desire to seize political power. The anarchists and Trotskyists viewed the events as an attempt by the Communist Party (in close contact with the Stalinist
NKVD) to dominate all revolutionary activity and blamed the Communists for
authoritarianism. They contrasted the Communist
police state with the
egalitarian conditions that existed prior to the May 1937 events. Ibárruri, Díaz, and the rest of the PCE viewed the Trotskyists as a significant threat and worked to suppress their influence. The remnants of the POUM leadership were put on trial in Barcelona on 11 October 1938. Referring to the arraignments, Ibárruri said: "If there is an adage that says in normal times it is preferable to acquit a hundred guilty ones rather than punish a single innocent one, when the life of a people is in danger, it is better to convict a hundred innocent ones than to acquit a single guilty one." On 30 April 1938, Stalin proposed a military alliance to France and Britain, effectively forsaking the Spanish Republic.
Exile, part I (1939–1960) On 6 March 1939, she flew out of Spain under enemy naval fire to the major
Algerian port city of
Oran, then under
French sovereignty. Her arrival surprised the authorities, who hurriedly put her aboard a liner bound for
Marseille. The ship's captain was a Nationalist sympathiser, but a clandestine Communist cell aboard ensured he did not steer the ship towards Nationalist-held Barcelona. This was the third time Ibárruri had evaded capture by the Nationalists. Ibárruri was helped in France by the Communists, who sheltered her in Paris under police surveillance (the Communist Party would be outlawed by the government of
Édouard Daladier on 26 September). From Paris, she travelled to Moscow and stayed there with Díaz, generals
Enrique Líster and
Juan Modesto, and others. She was reunited with Amaya and Rubén, who had escaped from a French internment camp at the end of the Spanish Civil War. The Soviet Union received the
refugees warmly. Ibárruri was given an apartment in Díaz's building and was assigned a chauffeur to drive her around Moscow. She was also invited to dine at the Dimitrovs'. She enjoyed attending performances at the
Bolshoi Theatre and the
Romen Theatre, and was an avid reader. She delighted in witnessing the
emancipation of Russian women. She helped other families adapt to their new country and generally felt happy enough to sing on occasion. Ibárruri worked in the
Executive Committee of the Communist International Secretariat at the
Communist International Headquarters near the
Kremlin. Her work involved the continual evaluation, analysis, and discussion of the progress of Communism outside the Soviet Union. This was complemented by internal discussions within the PCE central committee, which focused on Spain. No serious disagreement existed between the
Communist Party of Spain and the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union until 1968 over the
Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. The PCE supported or excused Stalin's domestic and
foreign policies, including the signing of the
Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 24 August 1939. In January 1940, La Pasionaria wrote the following praise of
Joseph Stalin: Ibárruri was asked to manage a new
short-wave radio station that broadcast news, analysis, and opinion to the citizens of
Francoist Spain. The Moscow station was officially named , but in Spain, it was nicknamed "," ("The Pyrenees one") partly due to the mistaken belief that it was located in the
Pyrenees and partly because the radio itself used the label occasionally. Radio España Independiente began broadcasting on 22 July 1941, one month after Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Initial broadcasts were made from candle-lit basements under sporadic aerial bombardment. Ibárruri recounted that seniors, women, and children kept watch on the terraces of Moscow every night for incendiary bombs dropped by the
Luftwaffe. Civilians would pick up the burning sticks with tongs and dunk them in buckets of water. Many Spanish refugees volunteered to fight alongside the Russians despite Stalin's initial disapproval. According to Ibárruri, more than 200 died in battle. On 18 July 1941, she greeted the Spanish 4th Special Unit assigned to the defence of the
Kremlin. Elsewhere, from
Crimea to Finland, the Spanish Communist volunteers fought as guerrillas behind enemy lines, in the Red Army, or with the Soviet air force; some made it to Berlin, and at least one scouted territory held by the Spanish Nationalist
Blue Division. On
13 October 1941, martial law was declared in Moscow as the German
3rd Panzer Army came within 140 kilometres (87 miles) of the capital. On 16 October, the ECCI was evacuated by train from Moscow to
Ufa, the capital of
Republic of Bashkortostan. Díaz, who was gravely ill, went south to
Tbilisi, the capital of the
Georgian Soviet socialist Republic. Radio España Independiente now broadcast from Ufa. She used various aliases, such as Antonio de Guevara or Juan de Guernica, presumably to create the impression that the station had an extensive network of commentators and journalists. On 19 March 1942, Díaz committed suicide. La Pasionaria became secretary-general of the PCE after a brief period of consultations with Stalin. On 3 September Ibárruri's son
Rubén Ruiz Ibárruri lost his life fighting heroically at Stalingrad. Asteroid
2423 Ibarruri is named in his honour. On 1 March 1943, Stalin established the
Union of Polish Patriots, and on 15 May, the ECCI annulled the
Third International and granted
theoretical independence to each national Communist party. Ibárruri agreed with the decision. On 23 February 1945, La Pasionaria left Moscow for a trip to
Tehran,
Baghdad and
Cairo. In Cairo, she and her party booked passage on the first passenger ship departing from
Alexandria, believing it was bound for
Marseille. In fact, the ship, part of a British convoy, headed to
Boulogne-sur-Mer near the Belgian border. The voyage lasted three months, and she arrived in Paris too late to meet with
Juan Negrín, the last president of the Spanish Republic, to work out a common political strategy against Franco. From 5 to 8 December, the PCE held a central committee plenum in
Toulouse where Santiago Carrillo, the former leader of the Unified Socialist Youth in pre-war Spain who had arrived in liberated France in November 1944, "gained control of the PCE," according to fellow Communist
Enrique Líster. In his book
Así destruyó Carrillo el PCE, Líster criticised Ibárruri's conduct between 1939 and 1945, writing: The persecution of dissidents within the PCE increased over time. Interrogations were cruel: "Carrillo and Anton inflicted true terror. Some comrades came to the brink of insanity during the rounds of interrogation, and others were driven to suicide by the despicable accusations made against them." During that period the PCE also persecuted members in northwestern Spain. They included Victor Garcia, alias El Brasileño, a local leader in Galicia, and his deputy Teófilo Fernández. Garcia had previously expressed dissatisfaction with the party's exiled leadership and was labelled a provocateur. Party documents showed that he was suspected of being a police informant, but historian Lupe Martínez contends that he had been accused of being in contact with Allied forces in helping downed airmen cross into Portugal from France through Galicia. His planned murder was mentioned as early as 1946, but only conducted in 1948. He was shot in the head in a wooded area in the town of
Moalde, after which the regional PCE liaison wrote "At last we have hunted him down. This riffraff withstood us like a leech. We managed to catch him in
Lalín, from where he directed certain adventurous, uncontrolled groups. He is a
provocateur who has given us many troubles; though belatedly, we have eliminated him." His body was discovered days later and buried in the local cemetery.
The exile, part II (1960–1977) At the 6th Congress of the
PCE, held in
Prague from 28 to 31 January 1960, 64-year-old Ibárruri ceded the post of secretary-general to Carrillo and accepted the honorary position of president. As confirmation of her retirement from active politics, she wrote her first memoir in 1960. The book, titled
El Único Camino (The Only Way), was first published in Paris in 1962 and subsequently printed in Moscow in 1963. It was translated into English and published in New York in 1966 under a new title. In her second memoir,
Memorias de Pasionaria, 1939–1977, Ibárruri notes that the childhood memories recorded in
El Único Camino came to her in vivid detail. On 10 November 1961, Ibárruri was awarded an
honorary Doctorate in Historical Sciences by
Moscow State University for her contributions to the development of Marxist theory. In her acceptance speech, she asserted that
class struggle is the motor of history. In 1962, she attended the 10th Congress of the
Italian Communist Party, held from 2 to 8 December in Rome, where she met
Socialists,
Christian-Democrats, and some church representatives. To the clerics, she remarked, "We are not as wicked as you think, and we are not as good as we probably think we are." On 5 December, she arrived in
Havana to commemorate the 5th anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution. Cuban leader Fidel Castro invited Ibárruri to move permanently to the island, but she declined. On 15 April 1964, Ibárruri spoke at the banquet celebrating
Nikita Khrushchev's 70th birthday. On 30 April, she shared the
International Lenin Prize for Strengthening Peace Among Peoples, with three others. On 22 February 1965, Ibárruri requested that the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and the Spanish Army, as well as the defence attorney, appear as witnesses at the
court martial of former Republican commander Justo López de la Fuente, who had been condemned to twenty-three years in prison. Everyone expected that he would be sentenced to death. Ibárruri held a press conference in Moscow to publicise these actions. On 27 February, the Captain General of the Madrid region annulled the proceedings. However, the initial sentence remained, and López later died in prison. Sometime in 1965, Ibárruri flew from Paris to
Dubrovnik to apologize to
Josip Broz Tito as president of the PCE. On 17 May 1948, the
Cominform, successor to the ECCI, had expelled
Yugoslavia from the community of Socialist countries, and Ibárruri had supported this censure. The
20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, held from 14 to 26 February 1956, had repudiated the charges against Yugoslavia. Now, Ibárruri came face to face with the man she had slandered. She began to apologise profusely, but Tito interrupted her, saying, "Do not vex yourself, Dolores, do not worry. I know very well how things worked in those days. I know it perfectly. Furthermore, believe me, I most likely would have done what you did had I been in your situation." In late December 1965, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR awarded Ibárruri the
Order of Lenin medal. Between 1930 and 1991, a total of 431,418 decorations were given out, but only seventeen were awarded to foreigners. Ibárruri chaired the editorial commission that wrote the four volumes of
Guerra y revolución en España, 1936–1939 (War and Revolution in Spain, 1936–1939), which present the PCE's view of the Spanish Civil War. The volumes were published between 1966 and 1971. during a visit to
Bucharest, 1972 On 19 April 1969, former Republican general Juan Modesto died in Prague. Ibárruri delivered a brief eulogy. On 6 May 1970, the Spanish right-wing newspaper
ABC reported that the PCE and the Kremlin had reached a new pact. According to the report, the Spanish party dropped its censure of the
Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in exchange for the Kremlin's blessing on the party's wish to collaborate with non-Communist parties. The newspaper also reported that PCE president Dolores Ibárruri resided permanently in Moscow, while the secretary-general lived in Italy. On 8 November 1972, Ibárruri's estranged husband, 82-year-old Julián Ruiz Gabiña, returned from a workers' clinic in Moscow to Somorrostro, expressing a desire "to rest and die in my land." On 14 March 1974, Ibárruri condemned the execution of 26-year-old
Catalan anarchist
Salvador Puig Antich on 2 March. She also noted the revolutionary political stance taken by Bishop
Antonio Añoveros Ataún of Bilbao, who publicly defended Basque cultural identity and defied Franco's decision to remove him. On 20 November 1975, Spanish dictator Franco died. Ibárruri commented laconically, "May the earth rest lightly upon him." On 14 December, many representatives of Communist parties from around the world gathered in Rome to pay homage to her. The following summer, Ibárruri attended the 3rd Plenary of the Central Committee of the PCE, held 28–31 July 1976 in Rome, under the theme of "national reconciliation." On the night of
24 January 1977, a commando unit of Spanish and Italian neo-Fascists killed three Communist labour-rights attorneys, a law student, and a manager at their law office in downtown Madrid; four others were seriously injured. On 16 February, Ibárruri asked the Spanish authorities in Moscow to allow her to return to Spain. She stated that she had travelled outside the USSR many times, that her profession was a publicist and contributor to newspapers and magazines, that she was the president of the PCE, and that she wanted to travel freely to her own country. On 22 February, the still-illegal PCE announced its list of candidates for the general elections on 15 June. Ibárruri was a candidate in two electoral districts,
Madrid and
Asturias, to ensure her election; Carrillo appeared in three. Despite a climate of fear and insecurity, the Spanish government legalized the PCE on 9 April, but the authorities denied Ibárruri a visa. On 27 April, Julián Ruiz stated that he would not be at the airport to greet his estranged wife, but added, "Nevertheless, she is the mother of my children, and I wish her health and a peaceful life." The PCE arranged for Ibárruri to land in Madrid with or without a visa on 13 May; however, on 12 May, the authorities relented and provided the visa.
Back in Madrid (1977–1989) At 2:00 p.m. Moscow time on 13 May 1977, Ibárruri left
Sheremetyevo Airport aboard an
Aeroflot jet after a "very affectionate" send-off from
Boris Ponomarev,
Mikhail Suslov, three other civilians, and Colonel Sergeyev, the husband of Ibárruri's daughter. On the tarmac, a girl in traditional costume offered the departing president of the PCE a bouquet of flowers. At 7:59 p.m. Madrid time, the Aeroflot jetliner landed at
Barajas Airport. The PCE did not give her an official welcome, and secretary-general Carrillo was in
Seville. Five hundred party members and sympathisers, some waving PCE flags and wearing red berets with a communist insignia, gathered at the airport. They went up to the observation deck to watch and cheer as she landed. Ibárruri then visited the office of the Registrar General of
Fuencarral and officially changed her name from Isidora to Dolores. Ibárruri's first campaign rally was held on 23 May at the Exhibition Fairgrounds of
Bilbao, where she spoke before 30,000 to 50,000 supporters. The following day, she spoke at the Suárez Puerta Stadium in
Avilés in front of "many thousands of workers." On 25 May, at the presentation of his book
Eurocommunism and the State, Carrillo told a reporter that Ibárruri reminded him of
Pablo Iglesias as he knew him as a child—a sick, elderly man who participated very little in party activities and often remained silent during meetings. On 28 May, Ibárruri spoke in
Sama de Langreo, and the right-wing newspaper
ABC admitted that she was drawing "multitudes." On 30 May, she affirmed in
La Felguera that the same spirit which had motivated her in 1936 continued to drive her in support of the PCE and Asturias. On 8 June, a full house (6,000 people according to
ABC, 8,000 according to
La Vanguardia) listened to her at the Palacio de los Deportes in
Oviedo, the capital of Asturias. The following day, she appeared at the national rally of the party held in the neighbouring
province of León. In the general elections held on 15 June, the
Oviedo constituency saw 584,061 votes cast, with a voter turnout rate of 74.6%. The PCE received 60,297 votes (10.5% of the total), securing one seat for Dolores Ibárruri. On 13 July at 10:05 a.m., as noted in her memoirs, The following day, Radio España Independiente aired its final broadcast, number 108,300. On 22 July, the king opened Parliament. Ibárruri participated in the one-minute general standing ovation, though she remained seated. Earlier, as she entered Congress, a 56-year-old man in Falangist uniform gave the Roman salute and heckled her, saying, "Drop dead! If you had any shame, you would not have returned to Spain." On 4 August, 87-year-old Ruiz died in a hospital residence in
Barakaldo, and Ibárruri attended his funeral. Her ailing health led to her hospitalization three times during the first nine months after her return. Her age and frail condition prompted the regional branch of the PCE in Asturias to request her retirement and substitution as early as 21 November 1977. and she served out her full term. On 31 October 1978, she cast a very loud "Yes" vote for the new
Spanish Constitution. On 29 December, President
Adolfo Suárez dissolved Congress and called new elections for 1 March 1979. The 84-year-old Ibárruri was not a candidate. Her life, along with that of every Communist, was put in danger on 23 February 1981, when Fascist elements of the Spanish armed forces and paramilitary police
staged a coup. Broadly speaking, the remaining years of Ibárruri's life were marked by a series of feminist rallies, political gatherings, congresses of the PSUC and PCE, presiding over meetings of the executive committee, and summer holidays in the Soviet Union. Ibárruri denounced
Enver Hoxha's stance against Khrushchev during the
Sino-Soviet Split, describing Hoxha as "a dog that bites the hand that feeds him". Survivors of the
International Brigades came to celebrate her 90th birthday, and the PCE held a party at the Palacio de Deportes in Madrid for 15,000 to 20,000 well-wishers. In October 1987, Ibárruri requested financial assistance from Congress, as she had not contributed to the national social security program and had no pension. Congress granted her a monthly allowance of 150,000 pesetas (approximately $1,250 in
US dollars at the time). On 13 September 1989, she was hospitalized with severe
pneumonia. Although she recovered and left the hospital on 15 October, she experienced a relapse on 7 November and died on 12 November at age 93. On 14 November, thousands of people paid homage as her body lay on a catafalque. Among those who paid their respects were veterans of the Civil War, war amputees, and the ambassadors of
Cuba,
Czechoslovakia,
East Germany,
Yugoslavia, and China, as well as the mayor of Madrid. On 16 November, a short cortege carried her body from the PCE headquarters to the
Plaza de Colón, where
Rafael Alberti and Secretary-General
Julio Anguita delivered brief eulogies. She was then driven to
Almudena Cemetery and interred near the grave of
Pablo Iglesias. Thousands attended her funeral and chanted, "They shall not pass!" The mayors of several townships declared four days of official mourning. ==Monuments and memorials==