Second Spanish Republic Land Reform: Aims, Implementation, and Failure
Land Reform
Rating: This text is from the Basic Law of Agrarian Reform, proposed on September 21, 1932. It is a primary, public, and political source. The minister who inspired it was Marcelino Domingo, a master journalist and politician in the Second Spanish Republic, who participated in the creation of the Catalan Republican Party.
Analysis: This agrarian reform law applied to farmers in regions with large estates (Extremadura, Andalusia, Toledo, Ciudad Real, Albacete, and Salamanca). It allowed for the settlement of state land and old estates in Spain. The Instituto de Reforma Agraria (IRA) was created to enforce the law and promote loans to farmers settling on expropriated land, offered voluntarily by owners, poorly exploited, or uncultivated. Well-exploited lands, forests, and farms were excluded.
Historical Context: On the night of April 14, 1931, in Madrid, Alcalá Zamora proclaimed the Second Spanish Republic and demanded the king’s departure. The Revolutionary Committee, established by the Pact of San Sebastián, became the provisional government, headed by Alcalá Zamora. Key representatives included Miguel Maura, Lerroux, Manuel Azaña, Indalecio Prieto, and Largo Caballero. The government’s main objectives were immediate reforms:
- Territorial Debate: Approval of the Generalitat, the regional government of Catalonia.
- Land Misery: The obligatory cultivation decree forced landowners to cultivate land, and a municipal decree aimed to combat agricultural unemployment.
- Education Reform: Eradicate illiteracy and promote secular education.
- Army Reform: Create a modern, efficient army, reducing officer numbers.
- Public Order: Established the Assault Guards for city safety.
The Republic faced numerous conflicts. The Madrid Stock Exchange collapsed, credit declined, and private banking suffered. A serious conflict arose with the Catholic Church after Cardinal Segura praised Alfonso XIII, leading to his expulsion and the burning of churches, convents, and religious schools in Madrid, Malaga, Alicante, and other cities.
The provisional government called elections for the Constituent Cortes, amending the 1907 electoral law to end caciquismo (political bossism). These were the first free and fair elections in Spain, although women did not participate initially. Clara Campoamor, Victoria Kent, and Margarita Nelken became the first three women deputies. The Constituent Cortes adopted the first republican constitution. Alcalá Zamora was elected president and tasked Azaña with forming a government, leading to an alliance between Left Republicans and Socialists. The Republic’s establishment coincided with the global crisis, with 10% unemployment hindering reforms and intensifying social conflict. Key reforms included:
- Religious Policy: Separation of church and state, reducing church influence.
- Education Reform: Free, secular, universal education.
- Labor Reforms: Employment Contracts Act (working hours, women and children’s work), Jurados Act (working conditions, wages, layoffs), Associations Act (labor unions).
- Statutes of Autonomy: Recognizing regions’ right to self-governance (Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia, Andalusia).
- Agrarian Reform: The most significant reform, discussed below.
Review of Ideas: Spain was among the last European countries to implement land reform, aiming to correct social inequalities, address rural backwardness, increase land ownership among the landless, and boost rural consumption. The reform was influenced by petty bourgeois liberal krausismo and Joaquín Costa’s agricultural regenerationism. The Republic sought to modernize the productive system through land ownership transformation. Land, like the religious and military issues, was a major problem. Spain’s economy was primarily agrarian.
The typical farmer was a yuntero, a laborer with two mules and a plow, who leased land. Few could rent productive land, often less fertile than large estates. Laborers earned little, working from dawn to dusk. The Duke of Medinaceli was the largest landowner.
The Republic’s first measure was the “Law of Municipal Terms” (Caballero’s initiative), prioritizing local laborers for hiring and significantly raising wages. It established an eight-hour workday and limited landlords’ eviction powers. The Agrarian Reform Law was presented on August 21, 1932. According to Marcelino Domingo, its purposes were to alleviate agricultural unemployment by settling day laborers on expropriated land, redistribute land, expropriate large estates and those of absentee owners, and give land to farmers. It envisioned creating the Agrarian Reform Institute (IRA) to direct the process.
On September 9, 1932, the House passed the Basic Law, prioritizing reform in fourteen provinces with large landholdings: Andalusia, Extremadura, southern La Mancha, and Salamanca. The Act allowed for the expropriation with compensation of feudal courts, uncultivated land, land leased for over 12 years, land near small towns owned by individuals with a certain income level, and land suitable for irrigation.
Contrary to expectations, the Basic Law’s effects were limited. The National Agricultural Credit Bank, meant to fund the project, failed due to resistance from private banks tied to landowners. The IRA was slow to organize and lacked the power to enforce reforms effectively. When the first results appeared after a year, the government’s fall hindered the controversial Domingo Law’s further development. Powerful opposition limited expropriation by reducing the land area and protecting direct farmers’ rights.
Conclusion and Scope: The reform failed mainly due to:
- Planning focused on central and southern Spain, ignoring the reality of smallholders in other regions.
- The required compensation payments were beyond the state’s financial capacity.
- The reform aimed to benefit 60,000 farmers annually but fell short. The IRA’s budget was only 50 million pesetas per year.
- The reform was a double-edged sword for the left government. Its promise garnered rural support and facilitated the Republican-Socialist pact, but its relative failure caused social unrest. The promise of land distribution to 200,000 rural workers led to disappointment. The Federación Nacional de Trabajadores de la Tierra (FNTT) became radicalized, opposing a system that seemed incapable of satisfying peasant land hunger. Anarcho-syndicalists opposed the program, viewing it as consolidating capitalism and hindering agrarian revolution. Worker impatience fueled anarchist and Communist union mobilization, leading to escalating violence, strikes, land occupations, crop theft, and machinery destruction.
- Government measures galvanized traditional dominant social sectors in agriculture and exacerbated the religious issue. The National Association of Farm Owners, founded in August 1931, campaigned for property rights. The right-wing minority obstructed the Basic Law in the courts, mobilizing peasants in non-landowning areas and contributing to the revisionist forces’ victory in the November 1933 elections.
- During the biennium, a counter-reform was launched. On February 11, 1934, the government evicted 28,000 laborers. Between May and June, the UGT-affiliated Federación de Trabajadores de la Tierra launched a violent general strike in the countryside, aborted by the right-wing minister Manuel Giménez. The Popular Front did not seek revenge as attributed. Lands were expropriated to settle nearly 72,000 yunteros. The Popular Front’s new Agrarian Reform Law was approved on June 18, 1936, but hardly applied.