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2.1     THE DISASTER

In 1900 Spain had around 18.5 million inhabitants and the average life expectancy was only 35 years, below the European average. Most people were illiterate and very poor. King Alfonso XIII, the current king’s great grandfather, reigned in a very turbulent Spain from 1902 to 1931.

Spanish society was deeply divided between classes that had completely different interests and were bound to clash. On the one hand, military officers, Catholic Church hierarchy, landowners, small farmers and middle-class urban classes were more likely to support the monarchy and vote for centre to right-wing political parties. On the other hand, industrial workers, landless peasants and intellectual urban classes would favour liberal and Marxist parties and even join Anarchist trade unions. At that time elections were systematically rigged. Only men had the right to vote. The two main political sides (conservatives and liberals) had put in place an arrangement that allowed them to alternate in government. This only led to corruption and inefficiency. Anarchist attacks were frequent. Two PMs were assassinated by Anarchists. Workers were starting to unionise themselves and organize strikes to demand better working conditions. Nationalist politicians in the Basque Country and Catalonia were also making demands for linguistic rights and devolution of powers.

In 1898, just before Alfonso became king, the Spanish navy had been badly defeated by the US navy in a war involving the last important colonies left to the once powerful Spanish empire. Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines had rebelled against their metropolis and the USA had come to their support hoping to get hold of these territories, which they did. The humiliating defeat revealed the economic, social and military weakness in the country. It is known as el Desastre (the ‘Disaster’). Spanish intellectuals of the time wrote in favour of a ‘regeneration’ of the country.

Spain was also having problems both with native rebellions in its protectorate in Morocco and with the conscription of troops. Conscription was compulsory unless one could afford to pay the required amount of money to avoid it. As a result, it was poor workers and peasants who made up the troops that would fight in miserable conditions. In 1909 a whole week of violence took place in Barcelona. Socialists and Republicans had called for a strike to protest about the massacre of Spanish soldiers in a military assault in Morocco. The strike turned violent and some churches and convents were set on fire. These events are known as the Semana Trágica (the ‘Tragic Week’). They were harshly dealt with by the army and the government. A bigger massacre in Morocco was to come. In 1921 4,000 Rif native rebels killed 15,000 Spanish soldiers in the battle of Annual. This disaster was mainly due to incompetency on the part of the military officers within the Spanish Army of Africa, but the king was also bitterly criticized.

In order to avoid a further destabilization of the regime, General Miguel Primo de Rivera took over the reins of the country in a coup in 1923, with the king’s blessing. Primo de Rivera installed a ‘soft’ dictatorship until 1930 in a country which was becoming politically more and more torn between left and right-wing extremes. The dictatorship was very harsh towards those who attacked the government, the Church or the military. Strict press censorship was implemented. Communism, anarchism and, especially, Basque and Catalan nationalisms were severely repressed. One of the greatest philosophers and novelists of the time, and also Vice-president of the University of Salamanca, Miguel de Unamuno, was exiled to the Canary Islands, for his criticism of the regime.

The rebellions in Morocco were finally suppressed in 1926. No cruelty was spared in these wars. Mustard gas was used against the rebels. Appalling acts of torture and mutilation were performed on enemy bodies on both sides. These wars were the training ground for military officers, one of them the future dictator Francisco Franco. Some of these cruel war tactics used in Morocco would be deployed against the Republicans later in the Civil War.

Despite some advances in trying to implement order in the country and some social reforms, conflicts flared up again and, in the end, the king turned against Primo de Rivera, who resigned and exiled himself in Paris in 1930.

In the 1931 local elections, the Republican parties won in most big cities. This result was interpreted as a clear rejection of the monarchy, and the king fled the country. The Second Republic was proclaimed on April 14th 1931.

2.2         THE SECOND REPUBLIC (1931-1936)

The Republic raised people’s expectations of modernity and social justice. Industrial workers hoped to improve their working conditions and peasants hoped for agrarian reform. The ‘historical regions’ (Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia) saw this as their opportunity to achieve some form of self-government within Spain. All this was felt as a threat by the elites (industrialists, landowners, the Church, high-ranking military officers). Whether the Republic was to survive or not was a matter of a very fine balance between all these social forces. In the end its enemies proved to be stronger.

In order to understand this period, we can divide it into three phases:

2.2.1    Constitution and reforms (April 1931-November 1933)

As a result of the 1931 election a Republican-Socialist coalition government set about ruling the country. For the first time there were women in Parliament: Clara Campoamor, Victoria Kent and Margarita Nelken. This government’s first endeavor was to draft a progressive constitution for the new Republic. This Constitution extended universal suffrage to women on equal terms with men. Until then women could run for Parliament but could not vote. Campoamor fought hard to get this provision passed in Parliament, even if, ironically, Kent and Nelken voted against it together with other Republican and Socialist MPs. The reason for this contradictory vote from progressive forces was the fear of an increase in votes in future elections for monarchist and conservative parties due to the Church’s influence on women.

The Constitution also made provision for devolution of power to ‘historical regions’ (Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia). Its most controversial item was establishing the separation between Church and State, in a country were the Catholic Church had had special privileges for centuries and was the main provider of education. The new government took measures to curtail the Church’s control over education. The Jesuit order was dissolved. A progressive divorce law was passed in Parliament. Prime Minister Manuel Azaña proclaimed that Spain was no longer Catholic. These anticlerical measures were going to ruffle many feathers, not only the Church’s. The conservative, monarchist and right-wing forces in the country saw this as a head-on attack against the essence of ‘Spanishness’ as they understood it.

Workers and peasants were demanding social reforms, as this was the reason why they had voted for left-wing parties. The new labour reform law improved salaries and work conditions. The 8-hour working day was implemented, and, for the first time, workers had a right to paid holidays. The new agrarian reform law aimed at a fair redistribution of the land to improve the appalling conditions in which landless labourers lived and worked in the latifundios. These were large states in the south of Spain owned largely by absentee landlords where peasants worked in conditions not very different to those of serfs in the Middle Ages. This reform did not go far enough since the government lacked the finances to compensate owners for forced expropriations. Wealthy landowners, typically conservative monarchists, saw their worst fears realised under this progressive republican government. At the same time, agricultural labourers were disheartened at the slowness of the process. The most radical embarked on protests. In 1933 in Casas Viejas, a small village in Andalusia, Anarchist peasants stormed the Guardia Civil barracks. The repression against the protesters was brutal. There is no agreement regarding the number of deaths, figures between 12 and 24 are given by different historians. This cruel incident led to the loss of support for the coalition government by its left-wing allies, more sympathetic to the peasants’ cause. Also, the right-wing parties in the opposition took advantage of this event to undermine the government.

The new government supported devolution of power to the ‘historical’ regions as one of the means to avoid secessionism. This had been the case in Catalonia where, the same day the Second Republic was proclaimed, an independent Catalan Republic within an Iberian Federation had also been proclaimed. Catalonia finally settled for a Statute of Autonomy in 1932.

The government were aware of the threats the Republic was facing. Some of its enemies were high-ranking officers in the armed forces; therefore, they took steps to force their early retirement. This measure did not prevent a right-wing coup attempt by General Sanjurjo in 1932, which failed miserably.

After two years of vertiginous reforms and some unwise decisions, the coalition in government collapsed at the end of 1933 and a new election was called.

2.2.2     Two Tragic Years (November 1933-February 1936)

Elections were held at the end of 1933. The lack of union between the different Republican parties made it easier for the CEDA (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas), a confederation of Catholic right-wing parties, to win the election. The members of the CEDA, a proto-fascist party, did not accept the legitimacy of the Republic, but seized the opportunity to reach power by taking part in the democratic game. This new government focused its efforts in undoing most of what the previous government had implemented. Agrarian reform stopped. The Catalan Statute was abolished. There was a purge of army officers sympathetic to the Republic.

In 1934 a general strike against the right-wing government was convened in several cities. In Catalonia the Catalan government proclaimed a Catalan state within the Spanish Republic. The army entered the Catalan government headquarters and put an end to this insurrection. Over 40 people died in the confrontations with the army. However, the most serious incident is known as the October Revolution in Asturias, from October 5th to October 18th. This was not a rebellion, but a budding revolution. The coal miners, well-organized through their unions and left-wing parties, had got hold of guns and dynamite. They attacked official and religious buildings and managed to occupy several villages and cities in Asturias, implementing the rule of revolutionary committees. 34 priests were murdered in an anticlerical frenzy. Around 250 members of the security forces lost their lives. The government put General Franco, the future dictator, in charge of the eradication of the insurrection. He resorted to the Legion and the Moroccan troops. The repression against the revolutionaries was merciless. Between 1,000 and 1,700 miners lost their lives, thousands were imprisoned and many suffered terrible tortures at the hands of the security forces. Some historians consider this was the last time in history that workers staged a revolution in Europe. The weakness of the government was reflected in the number of reshuffles that took place in a very short period. In the end, two different corruption cases were made public and the president of the Republic dissolved the Parliament and called for an election. This was the end of the ‘Bienio negro’ (‘Two Black Years’).

2.2.3     The end of the Republic (February-July 1936)

The 1936 election was won by a coalition of Republicans, Socialists and Communists under the name Frente Popular (Popular Front). This was a much more radical left-wing coalition than the one that won in 1931. It was supported by the Anarchist union CNT (Confederación Nacional de Trabajadores). This government restored de Catalan Statute and granted a statute to the Basque Country as well. A new agrarian reform policy, more radical than the previous one, was implemented.

The political polarization was palpable. The right-wing parties and their followers found it impossible to tolerate a new stint of left-wing policies that went against their interests. Many landless labourers and workers saw the new government as the first step towards a full-blown revolution that would change Spain forever. The unrest in some military quarters was easily felt. The new government posted some ‘dangerous’ generals far from centres of government. General Franco was posted to the Canary Islands. All this was to no avail. A small group of generals managed to hatch a plot. On 17th July 1936 the Spanish Army of Africa rose in Morocco and was followed by garrisons in different parts of Spain. The country split in two sections: Republican, loyal to the government, and Nationalist, supporters of the coup. The Spanish Civil War had started.

A hundred years before the Civil War the great master Goya painted images that represent  symbolically the horror and senselessness of war.