"If all our comrades of Europe, America and other countries, who do not understand what we are doing to Spanish Anarchism, would come to Spain, we could then see how they would react"

Frederica Montseny’s statement highlights the profound disconnect between the lived realities of Spanish anarchists during the Spanish Civil War and the perceptions held by their international comrades. She directs her words at fellow anarchists and leftists outside Spain who criticize or fail to comprehend the choices being made by the movement under duress. The core of Montseny’s reflection lies in the experiential gap: she suggests that true understanding can only arise from direct engagement with the complex conditions on the ground. The phrase evokes a sense of frustration and even exasperation at judgments cast from afar, by individuals who witness events through the filters of ideology, distance, and perhaps idealism untempered by the harsh necessities of civil conflict.

Montseny’s challenge is also a defense of pragmatism. Spanish anarchists, including Montseny herself as a leader in the CNT and a minister during the Republic, were accused by some foreign leftists of betraying purist anarchist principles by collaborating with other Republican factions and accepting roles in government. Her rhetorical proposal for outsiders to come to Spain is less an invitation than a pointed reminder that ideals are tested in practice, and decisions are shaped by rapidly changing, often life-and-death circumstances. Faced with Nazi-backed fascism and the necessity to defend the revolution and the Spanish Republic, choices became matters of survival rather than strict ideological consistency.

Underlying the statement is a wider meditation on solidarity and the limits of empathy. Montseny suggests that critique divorced from the experience of danger and hardship risks misunderstanding or even undermining those struggling on the front lines. Her words crave a solidarity rooted in mutual understanding and shared risk, rather than distant dogma. By invoking the hypothetical transformation of judgment into empathy through direct experience, Montseny articulates the intrinsic tension between revolutionary ideals and the realities of revolutionary struggle.