From one of the first women occupying management positions in the Portuguese Communist Party to the one eliminated from the party’s official history: this is the story of Carolina Loff da Fonseca.
Carolina Loff da Fonseca was born in Cape Verde. However, she would later come to Portugal, since her mom married a Portuguese man and moved to Lisbon. Her lifetime was marked by clandestinity. She was an active opponent to the regime in force in Portugal. Clandestinity made her change many different identities, names and covers. By the age of seventeen, she joined the Federation of Portuguese Communist Youths. The State Surveillance and Defense Police considered her a very dangerous individual. Inasmuch she put all her dedication and effort into the service of the Portuguese Communist Party! However, she was also considered dangerous because of her beauty. She would make use of it to lure people into the organization.
The Communist Party and the arrest
Carolina Loff da Fonseca was first arrested in 1932. After two years of being released, she left for the Soviet Union and engaged in an international political path. That was the beginning of her downfall, seeing as this path would lead her to be expelled from the party. At the service of the Comintern, in Moscow, later she travelled to Spain and she got arrested again. In 1939, she is released in the Portuguese frontier. Usually, the Portuguese police would arrest the Portuguese prisoners returned by Franco, but it did not happen to her. As the influence held by the Comintern was very powerful, the Portuguese Communist Party received her in its core of directors without even questioning her path.
The traitor “bride”
Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal was a great opponent of the “Estado Novo” (Portugal) who dedicated his entire life to the ideal of communism, as well as to the Portuguese Communist Party. It was in 1940 that Álvaro Barreirinhas Cunhal, with whom Carolina Loff da Fonseca maintained a love affair, presented her as his “bride”, leading her way into clandestinity once more.
Later, both Álvaro and Carolina were arrested together. Her imprisonment would lead to follow separate paths as those of the Party. She got involved with the inspector Júlio de Almeida in a love relationship that would endure for ten years.
Even though kicked out of the party’s official history, Carolina Loff da Fonseca’s history was brought to light through literary pieces.
Bibliography:
Visão História, 2021. Histórias do PCP. (63).
