It is eighty-four years since the Barcelona May days, an anarchist led working-class insurrection in defence of the Spanish revolution. The initiative for and co-ordination of the rising came from the middle ranks of the anarchist movement in the CNT and the FAI; its demobilisation and defeat came from the top. Both the article extract and short article translated below emphasise two key elements of the May days uprising: the prominent involvement of women and the revolutionary solidarity shown behind the barricades between the anarchists and the revolutionary Marxists of the POUM. They commemorate a woman POUM activist, Francisca Jordá Montaña (pictured), who died on 24 May 1937.