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Interview with (formerly responsible for the CP's work on women at the MDM - consisted of women whose politics made them put the interests of the party as an institution first, before the interests of women. The decisions reached in the MDM were not taken up by the leadership of the party itself. The PCE did not introduce feminism as an important factor for its total political line, regarding it as a separate issue.
Q. What is the MDM, when was it established, and what are its links with the PCE?
A. It appeared in 1965 in the wake of the general change in the political line of the PCE. The party at that time abandoned the idea that the Franco dictatorship was an unstable regime which could be finished by a general strike, It began to put forward a strategy of alliances with sectors of the bourgeoisie and with social groups that could have interests opposing the regime. The PCE analysed that women could have objective interests against the Francoist dictatorship, and they thus planned a new women's organisation.
During the first few years the organisation worked in the neighbourhoods, organising solidarity groups. For example, women from these groups took food to political prisoners.
When the PCE had a reasonable influence in the neighbourhoods in big cities, the MDM began to work specifically with housewives. The political line of the MDM was to take up problems specific to each neighbourhood, to improve their conditions and facilities, and to struggle against price rises, as well as participating in the general battles of the workers movement.
Up to about 1970, the MDM had no opponents on the terrain of feminist struggle. The only groups in existence were minority groups with specific objectives or small groups of radicalised women who didn't set out to provide a general political alternative, but began to have discussions in confined groups.
In the heart of the MDM there was one sole nucleus of opposition - the women of Catalonia, of the PSUC (as the CP is known in Catalonia). I don't know if it arose from a feminist consciousness or opposition to the centralism of the PCE, but in 1968-9 they disbanded the MDM in Catalonia.
Until 1975 the MDM was practically the only organisation with any serious influence. That was the year of the first "Women's Days'. These days of action were held and feminist alternatives began to appear with the perspective of turning themselves into a real alternative to the MDM.
In the first Women's Days, a broad group of women emerged who opposed the project of the MDM, which until very recently was to work with housewives - who were characterised by the PCE as backward and isolated, only prepared to act around problems related to the home and refusing to take up problems of sexuality or even changes in legislation.
When feminist currents appeared outside the PCE - backed by other parties or independent women - women at the heart of the PCE began to question its political line.
The Women's Days were seen as a response to International Women's Year. Some minimal demands were formulated and coordinated between groups was established - like the Women's Platform in Madrid. Further days of action were also proposed.