Lise London

Who was Lise London?

Lise London was a French Communist politician and activist. She participated in the International Brigades during the Spanish Civil War and the French Resistance during World War II. She was the widow of Artur London, a Czechoslovak communist politician and co-defendant in the Slánský Trial. Following her husband's show trial and imprisonment, she became a strong critic of Stalin and Stalinism.

London was born Élizabeth Ricol in Montceau-les-Mines, France, in 1916 to parents from Spain. She became a member of the French Communist Party as a teenager. She moved to Moscow in the Soviet Union, where she first met and then married her husband, Artur London. The couple moved to Spain and joined the International Brigades at the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. In a 2011 interview with El Pais, London described her involvement with the International Brigade as the "best moment" of her life, saying, "The Spanish people are always in my memories. I am constantly reminded of the Brigades, of my old friends; I dream about them. Spain was an ideal, our most beloved ideal, and it continues to be a valid ideal."