Political and Social Transformations in Spain: 1917-1936

Posted on Dec 10, 2024 in History

The Political Regeneration

A) Regeneration

Regeneration occurred in the aftermath of 1898, leaving a feeling of disappointment and pessimism in Spain. When Alfonso XIII reached the age of majority, the regenerationists tried to resolve pending problems based on the moralization of public management, reforming the state, promoting wealth, and promoting public education.

B) Maurismo (1903-1909)

Maurismo addressed the first regenerationist attempt at social, political, and budgetary problems. The second attempt was taken by conservatives with Maura as a leader. This represents authoritarian reformism but failed to carry out its administrative reform (braking by liberals and Republicans) or its election law of 1907. The crisis of 1898 favored the consolidation of Catalanism and socialism in the Basque Country, Asturias, and Madrid. Republicans and Socialists united against the anarchists. Maura remained divided and formed the CNT.

C) The Impact of the Tragic Week

Causes: Confrontation between right and left, and Maura’s government’s fall. The final coexistence between liberals and conservatives. The government of Maura had to send troops to Barcelona to quell the Rif War, establishing a strike committee between socialists and anarchists. A peaceful anti-war strike with just a few confrontations in which the government sent its troops. The harsh repression of the soldiers accentuated the division between the right and the left. The Liberal party split from the conservatives and started a campaign against the King. The government lost confidence in Maura and he retired. The restoration began to break.

D) Reforming Liberalism

Liberals were unsuccessful in their reformist attempts. They recovered the democratization of the Senate, strengthening local administration, reforming public education and the concordat, and trying to keep everything just like Moret. Canalejas attempted to reform the civil power without harming the church, imposing the Padlock Law. Decentralization concessions also took place.

The Crisis of 1917

A) Antecedents

At the height of the First World War, Spain was neutral. Cause: Mining and industry were favored by the growing demand from countries at war. Agricultural prices rose because of the difficulty of exports. The trade balance was favorable. Traders and industries increased their exports. Spanish capitalism prevented the consolidation of industrial development and increased the purchasing power of the internal market, increasing social differences.

B) The Crisis

In 1917, the crisis of the reign broke out, caused by: 1) The imminent end of the First World War (and the critical social and economic difficulties that ensued, there was a subsistence crisis). 2) Problems in the army due to royal favors for Africans (easier promotions, the Board of Defense was created). 3) The protests of a group of parliamentarians (discontented with Dato). Cambó convened a parliamentary strike in Barcelona that was missed by the Maurists and conservatives, and requested the convening of constituent courts. The UGT and CNT convened the first general strike in Spain, which failed.

Consequences: The restoration regime ended with the coup of 1923. The consequences were: unsteady government, gunmen, anarchists, employers and trade unions, and social conflicts. All this added up to the consequences of the Disaster of Annual.

Causes of the Coup d’état

A) The Consequences of the Disaster of Annual

The army asked for more ways to get revenge, and several military leaders joined the coup due to the government’s refusal. The Picasso file provoked the law of the military and rightists.

B) The Rise of Nationalism in Catalonia and the Basque Country

C) Increasing Army Role in the Politics of the Country

D) Division of the Liberals and Conservatives

The rise of socialists and Republicans. In 1921, the PCE was formed. The coup was also encouraged by political corruption, price rises, and the Moroccan question. The dictatorship gave this as a solution.

Economic and Political Changes

The Military Directorate

Declared a state of war in the country, suspended the constitution, banned political parties and unions, dismissed all elected officials, repressed the CNT, reached nationalist intellectuals. The press and civil governors were replaced by the military. The government appointed military delegates for local councils, and council members were replaced by trusted individuals. The administration was militarized, and from 1924, politicians began to occupy positions held by civilians.

Principal Civil

In 1925, the military directory was replaced by a civil one formed by young right-wingers. They attempted to consolidate the dictatorship as a regime but were unsuccessful because they only had the support of conservatives and traditionalists. The most prominent measures of the dictatorship were: 1) Designing a social policy (joint committees were established to resolve labor conflicts, on the contrary, the CNT and PCE were marginalized). 2) Repression of Catalan nationalism (the Commonwealth of Catalonia was deleted, Catalan was forbidden, and so the nationalist movement became radicalized). 3) Ending the war in Morocco (landing at Alhucemas ended the military question in the Rif with French aid). 4) The formation of the Somatén (a militia created in Barcelona to combat unionism that then spread to Spain). 5) Economic policy (the dictatorship emphasized some basic tendencies of capitalism in the first third of the 20th century): “Economic nationalism, monopolistic practices, financial concentration, state intervention.” Economic nationalism was reinforced by the creation of the monopoly on CAMPSA, the tobacco monopoly, the telephone monopoly, etc. It accentuated the power of the financial oligarchy. The dictatorship attempted to improve the country’s infrastructure (roads, rail, hydraulic plan, etc.).

The Constitution of 1931

Finally, in June 1931, elections were held for the Constituent Cortes in an atmosphere of relative tranquility. The polls gave a clear majority to the Republican-Socialist coalition. The new Constitution, adopted in December 1931, reflected the views of this majority. These are its main features:

  • Popular sovereignty. It defined the new Spanish state as a “democratic republic of workers of all kinds.”
  • Universal male and female suffrage. After a long and complex debate in the Cortes, Spanish women gained the right to vote.
  • Extensive bill of rights and freedoms.
    • Civil rights: divorce, equating legitimate and illegitimate children.
    • Right to education.
  • Legislative power left in the hands of a unicameral Cortes.
  • Executive Branch
    • President of the Republic with limited powers.
    • Head of Government, appointed by the President but requiring the approval of the Cortes.
  • Judiciary in the hands of the courts.
  • For the first time in our history, it establishes the right of regions to establish an autonomy statute.
  • In regard to the “religious issue,” it imposed a secular state:
    • Separation of Church and State
    • Disappearance of the budget for clergy worship and education
    • Prohibition of the exercise of conscience and worship.

The Reform of the Republican-Socialist Biennium

Religious Reform

The separation of church and state and the secularization of a society with a Catholic majority were absolute priorities for the first republican governments, as well as an endless source of conflicts. At the root of this conflict were, on the one hand, the traditional anticlericalism of much of the petty bourgeoisie, which occasionally manifested itself in more marginalized sectors of society, and on the other hand, the attitude of much of the episcopate, which was jealous of its prerogatives. The Church had 11,921 urban properties and 7,828 rural properties. It accounted for 2% of spending, and its impact on education was indisputable. To change this, successive decrees dissolved the Jesuits, confiscated their estates, and established civil marriage, divorce, and the secularization of cemeteries. The 1933 law prohibited congregations of the Church and religious orders from teaching (the deadline for the cessation of their teaching was October 1, 1933), trade, and industry, prompting a collective pastoral calling for peaceful resistance. Within the issue of religion and secularism of the state is the issue of educational reform, since Spain in 1931 showed a high rate of illiteracy. The accessibility of school and the University were the privilege of the upper classes. That reform was overturned in the Republic, with education as an instrument of redemption of the lower classes and modernization. The government’s effort was directed towards the creation of 5,000 public schools each year and upgrading teacher training with a wage increase and greater social recognition. The secularist establishment regulated the Catholic religion.

Army Reform

Azaña wanted to demilitarize the regime by reducing the role of the armed forces to external defense. To modernize, controls had to be reduced, technical deterioration addressed, bureaucracy streamlined, and the division between the metropolitan and colonial army eliminated. The colonial army, from the Morocco War, was in some way an instrument in the hands of their leaders, the “Africans.” By the Act of 1931, Azaña allowed chiefs and officers who wished to retire with full pay. 84 Generals (out of 170) and 8,650 officers (out of 14,000) took advantage of this. He established the Assault Guards (a force of law and order loyal to the Republic) and closed the Military Academy of Zaragoza, led by General Franco. The right sought to capitalize on the discontent these changes might produce, and the opposition was highlighted by the failed coup of General Sanjurjo in August 1932 and the creation of the Spanish Military Union (EMU) in 1933 as a clandestine organization of right-wing military.

Decentralization Policy: Autonomy

Self-government aspirations were part of the Pact of San Sebastian. The government, however, never intended to create a federal political and administrative organization but wanted to “combine particularistic aspiration or desire for autonomy… with the interest or the permanent end of Spain within the state organized by the Republic” (Azaña). In Catalonia, after negotiation with the interim government, the problem caused by the proclamation of the Catalan Republic had been solved. The Republic was canceled, but an autonomous government was recognized that would draft a statute to be approved by Parliament: the draft Statute of Nuria, which was approved by referendum with 99% of the vote. On August 18, 1931, the Nuria Statute was presented to Parliament by Macià despite facing opposition from the right and resistance from Republicans. It was ultimately passed with numerous cuts in 1932:

  • The Catalan Government was the Generalitat with three institutions:
    • Catalan Parliament
    • Chairman
    • Executive Board Councils
  • Catalan and Castilian languages
  • Powers of the Generalitat: finance, economics, education, culture, health, transport and communications, and public order (Mossos d’Esquadra)
  • Powers of the Central Government: foreign affairs, defense, border control…
  • Conflicts between the central and autonomic governments: Court of Constitutional Guarantees

ERC played an important role in its development, highlighted in the Catalan Parliament elections, in which Macià was elected President of the Generalitat.

In the Basque Country, the PNV and the Carlists reached an agreement in Estella in 1931, which adopted a draft statute that socialists and republicans considered reactionary. Municipalities voted in 1932 on a new bill that was approved in Vizcaya, Guipuzcoa, 50% of Alava, and rejected in Navarra (the Carlists refused to agree with an atheist Republic). The project was paralyzed and was not approved by Parliament until 1936, once the Civil War had begun.

In Galicia, the war cut short the approval by Parliament of a draft Statute ratified by referendum in June 1936.

Agrarian Reform

In the 1930s, the importance of the primary sector was considerable. With 23 million inhabitants, 3.8 million worked in agriculture (2 million were agricultural laborers, 750,000 tenants and sharecroppers, and 1 million small and medium proprietors). The large estate was very important, especially in the south: 1.8% of farms, 44% of the land (+100 ha). To address the land problem, the Provisional Government issued a series of decrees that sought to protect tenants and the landless: Decree of municipal boundaries, an automatic extension of leases, and an 8-hour workday. But the real test of reform came with the development of an agrarian reform law that was passed by Parliament in September 1932. The objective of the law was not an agrarian revolution and collectivization of land, but its goals were more modest. The law allowed only expropriation without compensation of the lands of the grandees of Spain, while poorly cultivated, systematically leased lands that could be watered and were not, could only be expropriated with compensation. Moreover, problems of inefficiency, bureaucracy, and the cost of compensation contributed to the fact that its implementation was even more limited. Politically, the land reform led to the reunification of the right, and many farmers distanced themselves from the Republic. Peasant unrest led to numerous incidents: Casas Viejas, Castilblanco, Arnedo, etc. In Catalonia, the problem arose between landlords and tenants (rabassaires) that persuaded Parliament to improve production contracts subject in part to the archaic system of “rabassa morta.” This law would be contested as early as 1934 by the rightist government, and the Court of Guarantees refused to consider the Parliament incompetent to legislate on the subject.