Catalan Left and Renaissance: History and Political Movements
The Catalan Left
The Catalan Left: During the early twentieth century, Catalan esquerres (left-wing movements) often lacked cohesion. Until 1910, left-wing sectors of Solidaritat Catalana were working to establish a Catalan Republican Party with autonomy: the Federal Union Nationalist Republican (UFNR). In the elections of 1910, the UFNR achieved some success but could not overcome the dominance of the Radical Republican Party. Founded in 1908, Lerroux’s Radical Republican Party had successfully enlisted broad classes of voters with a populist, anticlerical, and anti-Catalan discourse. The influence of anarcho-syndicalism limited the diffusion of Catalanism. The UFNR sought an alliance with the radicals before the legislative elections of 1914. This led to the Sant Gervasi pact between the autonomist Republicans and the UFNR with Lerroux’s radicals. The coalition failed and caused the disappearance of the UFNR. The Catalan Republican Party (1917), led by Francesc Layret, Marcel·lí Domingo, and Lluís Companys, tried unsuccessfully to unite the working class and Catalanism. Acció Catalana (1922) also formed, integrating dissidents from the Lliga Regionalista.
The factors limiting the triumph of Catalan left-wing movements are linked to the socio-political context of the time, which cut off their electoral base. The proletariat was closer to Lerroux’s rhetoric and anarcho-syndicalism, which advocated apoliticism. No party offered a coherent program, and there was no charismatic leader. Social instability caused by anarchist attacks and police repression of the worker movement overshadowed the Catalan nationalist parties. The entry into political activity of Francesc Macià, who formed a party in 1922 called Estat Català (Catalan State), represented the beginning of the success of the Catalan left, which adopted pro-independence stances. During the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930), the party went into exile and organized the Prats de Molló conspiracy (1926), advocating resistance to the regime and the ‘national liberation’ of Catalonia. The unsuccessful attempt increased Macià’s popularity in Catalan politics. Finally, in 1931, Macià participated in the creation of Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, which united much of the Catalan left and achieved political hegemony during the Second Republic.
The Renaissance and Catalanism
The Renaissance (Renaixença) was a romantic movement that spurred the revival of Catalan culture and was based on actions that built national consciousness throughout the nineteenth century. The Modernism movement of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reinforced the affirmation of Catalan culture as distinct from Spanish culture, not as a vindication of the past, but as a project for the future. The first anticentralist movements emerged between federalist republicans and Carlists. Subsequently, they promoted critical movements in Catalonia, almost all of which seemed conservative in nature. Following the Crisis of 1898, the Catalan bourgeoisie led the structuring of Catalan politics, demanding the defense of their industries and political autonomy, giving rise to nationalism as a political project. After 1910, a Catalanism of the left began to take shape, breaking the hegemony of Catalan nationalist thought, which until then had been in the hands of the right.