Spanish Political History: Restoration to Second Republic
Government of Concentration
A government of concentration is one with majority participation from political parties, formed to address serious and challenging situations for the state. Examples in Spain include those of 1917 and during the Civil War (1936-1939) in the Republican zone.
Pact of San Sebastián (1930)
Signed in August 1930, this pact was an agreement between representatives of the main Republican opposition to create a common platform against the monarchy. It marked a turning point in the Restoration system and the reign of Alfonso XIII. The key agreement was forming a Revolutionary Committee chaired by Niceto Alcalá Zamora, a figure from the right-wing of the Republican movement, who was less objectionable to the military and moderate forces.
Patriotic Union Party (1924)
Created in 1924 by a cousin of Primo de Rivera during his dictatorship, its motto was “Fatherland, Religion, and Monarchy.” With a regeneration program based on justice and order, it acted as the sole legal party during the dictatorship. It experienced rapid growth followed by a swift decline, drawing comparisons to the UCD. The party aimed to broaden the regime’s social base beyond officials, militia members, and the local oligarchy.
CNT (National Confederation of Labor)
Founded in 1910 in Barcelona, the CNT was a Spanish anarcho-syndicalist trade union. It opposed terrorism, advocating for trade unionism and the general strike to improve workers’ conditions. Strongest in Catalonia and Andalusia, its goals were the destruction of capitalism, collectivization of production, and replacement of the state with trade unions. Led by moderates by 1916, it agreed with the UGT, leading to the 1917 general strike. During the Second Republic, it fractured, with the radical FAI gaining prominence. It did not participate in the October Revolution or the Popular Front. During the Civil War, it collaborated with the Republic while pursuing revolutionary goals. For the first time, anarchists held government positions (Montseny, Peiró, López, and García Oliver). Clashes with communists and moderate socialists culminated in the May 1937 events in Barcelona. Defeat and exile brought further divisions, and the CNT disappeared under Franco, only to be legalized again in 1977.
Bolshevik Triennium (1918-1921)
This period in the late Restoration saw peasant revolts in Andalusia, driven by poverty and rising prices. Anarchists and socialists led these revolts, motivated by “land hunger” and deteriorating living conditions. Crops were burned, lands occupied, and towns controlled by strike committees. The government responded with a state of war, banning unions, and arresting leaders.
Gunmen (1916-1923)
During this period, gunmen in Barcelona protected employers from union action and repressed trade unionists. The Law of Escape allowed police to shoot detainees attempting to escape. 226 people died, including Prime Minister Dato, employers, and union leaders.
Disaster of Annual (1921)
.- This refers to the defeat suffered by the Spanish army in Morocco. General Wildlife began an offensive into the territory of which ended with a real disaster. The army was defeated at Annual, was lost throughout the occupied territory and there were about 13,000 casualties, iclosa of the Wild. It announced it would discuss the case of Annual Parliament (File Picasso) and responsibilities demanded of us that might involve the same monarch, it was mobilized sectors of the army and the right that for some time, saw the solution to the crisis in a Spanish military dictatorship. National Assembly Advisory (1927) .- It meant the beginning of the Primo de Rivera’s attempt to institutionalize his par attempt authoritarian regime, to give continuity and permanence. It was corporate in nature, because its members would not be elected but appointed at large among people belonging public institutions (municipalities, universities, governments, employers and workers representatives). The universal suffrage was forgotten altogether. Corporatization NATIONAL .- group patterns and workers in large corporations (vertical union) and regulating disputes through peer committees, composed of an equal number of employers and workers. His mission was the regulation of wages and working conditions, and mediation and arbritatge in case of conflict. The system was well seen by a part of the labor movement represented by the UGT, whereas the anarcho-syndicalists and communists were persegits and forced to remain underground. C .- ap Modern School in August of 1901, s ‘opened in Barcelona, a school that is proposed transforming the educational experience in a critical sense, secular, rationalist and libertarian. It was openly stated a project freed the intellectual mediocrity of the limitations resulting from superstition and authoritarianism and lack of hygiene and the educational materials that dominated Spain of the Restoration, both for the few public schools in the state and private schools, mainly religious.