¡No Pasarán!

It's about time Speakola used one of those upside down exclamation marks. It was on this day in 1936 that union leader and anti fascist Dolores Ibárruri delivered a speech that would inspire Tolkien.

Although did Ibárruri’s famous ‘They shall not pass!’ beget Gandalf’s now even more famous ‘You shall not pass!’? A bit of military lexicological googling says that Ibárruri wasn’t the first to toss out a ¡No Pasarán!

Dolores Ibarruri was a famous activist and communist who spoke in defense of the Spanish 2nd Republic as it was under threat from General Franco's military takeover. Her famous '"¡No Pasarán' slogan was a catchcry of the left in the Civil War. She was herself known as Pasionaria, "the passionate one" or Passion flower". She was a charismatic figure, and in a few weeks in 1936, delivered a series of speeches on Spanish radio and at public events defending the second republic, including:

"Danger! To arms!" (July 19)
"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 militiawomen on the front line" (4 September)
"Our battle cry has been heard by the whole world" (15 September)

When Franco and his troops did indeed pass, Pasionaria went into exile, and became a favourite with Stalin and the Russian communist leaders. She received an Order of Lenin (one of the few foreigners to do so) and her son was killed at the battle of Stalingrad.

Remarkably, she was still a prominent political figure into her eighties, pulling tens of thousands to rallies as she ran for office on her return to Madrid from exile in 1977. The Spanish Communists received 10.5% of the vote in the Oviedo constituency, enough to seat the 81 year old in parliament, 41 years after defeat in the Spanish Civil War and exile.

She died in 1989 aged 94.

Below is the transcript for ¡No Pasarán!, including the Spanish version: