The Second Spanish Republic (1931-1936): Politics and Culture

Posted on Oct 21, 2024 in History

The Second Spanish Republic (1931-1936)

A. The Constitution of 1931 and the Reform Biennium

The triumph of the Republican candidates in large cities led to the proclamation of the Republic on April 14, 1931. This popular movement led to the exile of King Alfonso XIII.

A provisional government, headed by Niceto Alcalá Zamora and comprising left and right Republicans, socialists, and nationalists, was immediately formed. This government would last until a new Constituent Cortes could shape the new regime.

The new government had to make some reforms. It took the first steps toward reform, initiated labor reforms, initiated military reform, adopted education legislation, and implemented the Provisional Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia.

The social environment was complicated. The anarchist CNT supported a comprehensive campaign of strikes. The clashes between the Church and the new government were immediate. The most conservative sector of the Church, headed by Cardinal Segura, put all sorts of obstacles in the way of the new executive. The old anticlericalism resurfaced in May 1931, and several churches and convents were attacked and burned. Catholic public opinion distanced itself from the very beginning of the new republican regime.

In June 1931, elections were held for the Constituent Cortes. The elections 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 suffrage (male and female): Spanish women gained the right to vote.
  • Extensive bill of rights and freedoms:
    • Civil rights, divorce, equating legitimate and illegitimate children.
    • Right to education.
  • State Powers:
    • The Legislature remained in the hands of a unicameral Cortes.
    • The Executive:
      • President of the Republic with limited powers.
      • Head of Government, appointed by the President but requiring the approval of the Cortes.
    • The Judiciary in the hands of the courts.
  • Regional autonomy: It established the right of regions to establish a statute of autonomy.
  • Secular state: Regarding the “religious question,” it established a secular state:
    • Separation of Church and State.
    • Eliminated the budget for worship and clergy.
    • Banned the Church from exercising education.
    • Freedom of conscience and worship.

The Reform Biennium (1931-1933)

After the adoption of the Constitution, a new period started with a government headed by Manuel Azaña and formed by Left Republicans and Socialists. In December, Niceto Alcalá Zamora was elected President of the Republic.

The Republican-Socialist government began a comprehensive reform program in a deteriorating economic environment, marked by rising unemployment. These were the main measures:

  • Labor reforms: Initiated by the Ministry of Labor under the Socialist Largo Caballero, who favored the position of workers and unions and encountered fierce opposition from employers.
  • Educational reform:
    • Large program of school construction and teacher recruitment: 6,750 schools and 7,000 teachers with better pay.
    • Mixed-gender teaching.
    • Religion was no longer a compulsory subject, which sharpened the confrontation with the Church.
  • Military reform: Looking to secure the loyalty of the Army to the new republican regime and reducing the excessive number of officers, it required the oath of allegiance to the new republican regime. Those who refused could choose early retirement with full pay.
  • Agrarian Reform:
    • The Law on Bases of Agrarian Reform was passed in 1932. It sought the resettlement of landless peasants on under-exploited estates.
    • Its application was a failure, and very few farmers benefited from the law. This provoked widespread disappointment among the peasantry in an economic context of rising unemployment.

Opposition to the Government

The traditional right was disorganized after the proclamation of the Republic in the early months of the new regime. The conservative opposition was restricted to employers’ associations, such as the National Economic Union, and Lerroux’s Radical Party. This center-right group led the opposition in Parliament.

The National Labor Confederation (CNT), with more than one million members, followed the line marked by extremist militants of the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). The minority Communist Party of Spain (PCE) was also installed in a radical line, defended at the time by the Comintern and Stalin.

The Social and Political Tensions

There were social tensions caused by the economic crisis, the radicalism of the CNT, and the employers’ refusal to reform. There were frequent violent clashes between strikers and the Guardia Civil (Castilblanco, Arnedo, Baix Llobregat).

The debates on the Statute of Catalonia and the Agrarian Reform Law provoked substantial opposition from rightist forces. Conservative forces resorted to the traditional method of military insurrection. General Sanjurjo attempted a military coup in August 1932 in Seville. The “Sanjurjada” failed due to being unprepared and lacking even support in the army.

The reaction of the forces supporting the government was immediate. The Cortes adopted the Agrarian Reform Law and the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia. Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, directed by Francesc Macià, triumphed in the first autonomous elections.

Despite the failure of Sanjurjo, the Republican-Socialist government showed clear signs of wear. There were serious incidents in Casas Viejas, in which the Assault Guard killed a group of peasant anarchists. This led the government to the decision to call new elections in November 1933.

For this election, the right had been reorganized. Three new groups participated in the elections:

  • The Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (CEDA), directed by José María Gil-Robles, a majority group sponsored by the Catholic Church.
  • Spanish Renewal, headed by José Calvo Sotelo, which brought together the monarchists.
  • Spanish Falange, the Spanish version of fascism, led by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the dictator.

Meanwhile, the left was fragmented into multiple groups, and the anarchists called for abstention.

The elections gave victory to conservative groups: the Radical Republican Party and the CEDA.

The conservative victory was answered by an anarchist insurrection that resulted in more than a hundred deaths.

B. The Radical-CEDA Biennium. The Elections of 1936 and the Popular Front

The Radical-CEDA Biennium (1933-1936)

After the elections, Lerroux formed a cabinet composed exclusively of members of his party. The CEDA supported the government in Parliament. Lerroux was forced to start a policy of reforms to rectify the previous biennium. This new policy was implemented by the cessation of the reforms:

  • Cessation of agrarian reform, resulting in the eviction of thousands of laborers from the land they had occupied.
  • Cessation of military reform and appointment of clearly anti-republican military officers to key positions, such as Francisco Franco, Emilio Mola, and Manuel Goded Llopis. This new policy was completed with an amnesty for the participants in Sanjurjo’s coup in 1932.
  • Reconciliation with the Catholic Church.
  • Cessation of educational reforms. Halt in the school building program and cancellation of coeducation.
  • Confrontation with the peripheral nationalisms. The draft Statute of Basque Autonomy, presented by the PNV, was halted, and there were clashes with the Generalitat of Catalonia, which was presided over by Lluís Companys, the leader of ERC since January 1934.

Radicalization of Political Confrontation

In a context of international economic crisis and the triumph of extremism in Europe with Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 and the consolidation of Stalin’s dictatorship in the USSR, the political struggle in Spain was radicalized. Spain was polarized between the “right” and the “left.”

Right:

  • Gil-Robles’ CEDA brought together the Catholic middle and lower classes. The Young People’s Action (JAP), the party’s youth organization, already had clearly fascist traits at that time.
  • In Spanish Renewal, headed by Calvo Sotelo, the monarchists were grouped with increasingly extremist and undemocratic positions.
  • Finally, José Antonio Primo de Rivera’s Spanish Falange merged in 1934 with the Boards of the National Syndicalist Offensive (JONS) of Ramiro Ledesma Ramos. This formed the political core of fascist ideology in Spain.

Left:

  • The Republican Left of Manuel Azaña grouped the center-left that had opted for a policy of reform and alliances with the labor movement.
  • The PSOE, the largest workers’ party, was led by a group of often polarized leaders. Indalecio Prieto represented the more moderate wing of the party, and Francisco Largo Caballero the more radical. In general, the PSOE experienced a clear process of radicalization.
  • The PCE followed the new guidelines of the Comintern and sought an alliance of the left against fascism. The German experience and the rise of Hitler in January 1933 had caused Stalin to rectify and seek alliances with all the forces of the center-left.
  • The CNT was committed to revolutionary action, although it had been greatly diminished after the failure of the insurrection of December 1933.
  • The continued struggle of the government of the Generalitat of Catalonia with the right-wing government in Madrid had allowed Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, directed by Lluís Companys, to shift to the left in its political positions.

October Revolution of 1934

The growing tension between the two political poles led to the entry of three CEDA ministers into the government in October 1934. This restructuring of the government was interpreted by the Left as announcing the imminent triumph of fascism in Spain. The increasingly radicalized left, PSOE, UGT, CNT, and PCE, called a general strike against the government. The follow-up was very uneven.

The movement failed in Madrid. Government troops quartered and arrested key leaders of the Socialists and Communists.

In Barcelona, Companys, as President of the Generalitat, launched an insurgency with a clear separatist tint. The revolt was quickly suppressed by the army. In Asturias, the general strike succeeded and degenerated into a veritable revolution organized by the UGT and the CNT. The persistence of the insurgency led the government to opt for brutal repression carried out by the Legion, led by General Franco. The toll of the October Revolution of 1934 was staggering: more than 1,300 dead, twice as many wounded, and 30,000 prisoners, including Companys, Azaña (who had not supported the uprising), and the senior leadership of the PSOE, such as Prieto and Largo Caballero. The reaction of the right-wing government was to tighten its policy: it suspended the statute of autonomy for Catalonia and drafted a new Agrarian Reform Law, which in practice was a real counter-reform.

However, dissension within the government was increasing. The differences between the Radical Party and the increasingly radical CEDA were evident. An example of the CEDA’s orientation were the appointments made by Gil-Robles as the new defense minister. Military officers manifestly opposed to the republic and democracy were appointed to key positions in the Army’s structure. Franco was appointed Chief of the General Staff. The final crisis came with a corruption scandal, the Estraperlo scandal, affecting senior government officials. Lerroux and the Radical Party fell into total disgrace. The emergence of new scandals precipitated the end of the legislature and the call for new parliamentary elections in February 1936.

The Elections of 1936 and the Popular Front

In an environment of increasing radicalization, the following groups presented themselves for the elections of February 1936:

  • Popular Front: An electoral pact signed in January 1936 by the Republican Left, PSOE, PCE, POUM (Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification), and Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya. This pact brought together all the left-wing forces. The CNT supported the leftist coalition.
  • The coalition of right-wing groups formed by the CEDA and Spanish Renewal presented a program based on fear of social revolution. The Falange and the PNV presented themselves on their own.

Victory went to the Popular Front, which triumphed in the cities, the southern provinces, and the periphery. Meanwhile, the right triumphed in the north and inland.

After the elections, Manuel Azaña was appointed President of the Republic. The intention was for Indalecio Prieto, the strongman of the moderate wing of the PSOE, to be head of government. However, the refusal of the Socialist Party, which was split into several factions, led to the formation of a government headed by Santiago Casares Quiroga and composed exclusively of left-wing Republicans without the participation of the PSOE. Thus, the new government was born weakened.

The new government quickly began reformist action:

  • Wide amnesty for all those repressed after October 1934.
  • Restoration of the Catalan Statute.
  • Removal of generals suspected of plotting a coup in Madrid. Franco, Mola, and Goded were sent to the Canary Islands, Navarre, and the Balearic Islands, respectively.
  • Resumption of land reform. The laborers proceeded to occupy land.
  • Processing of new statutes of autonomy. The Statute of Galicia was adopted by referendum in June 1936, and that of the Basque Country was practically completed in July 1936.

The social atmosphere was increasingly tense. The left-wing workers had opted for a clearly revolutionary stance, and the right evidently sought to overthrow the democratic system. From April onwards, there were violent street clashes between militia groups of socialists, communists, and anarchists and Falangists.

Meanwhile, the military conspiracy against the Popular Front government was advancing. First, there was a plot made up by the main right-wing political leaders: Gil-Robles, Calvo Sotelo, and José Antonio Primo de Rivera. On the other hand, the number of generals involved grew: Franco, Goded, Fanjul, Varela… Emilio Mola, stationed in Pamplona, became the leader of the conspiracy, the “director” of the coup. The international support for the undemocratic forces was evident. They soon initiated contacts with Mussolini and Hitler.

On July 12, Lieutenant Castillo, an officer of the Assault Guard, was murdered by right-wing extremists. The response came the next morning with the murder of José Calvo Sotelo by a group of members of the security forces. The clash was inevitable.

The government of Casares Quiroga witnessed the beginning of the rebellion against the government of the Republic by the Moroccan army on July 17, 1936. The partial success of the coup sparked the Civil War.

Spanish Culture from the Beginning of the Silver Age to 1936

The Silver Age

The first third of the twentieth century has been called the Silver Age of Spanish culture due to the quality and role of intellectuals, writers, and artists of the period. This brilliant group of intellectuals has been traditionally classified into generations: the Generation of ’98, the Generation of ’14, and finally the Generation of ’27. The Free Institution of Education and other institutions linked to it, such as the Student Residence and the Institute-School, played a major role in this cultural blossoming. Intellectuals like Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Julián Besteiro, and Fernando de los Ríos came from these institutions. It is amazing how in a country with a majority of illiterates and only thirty-eight thousand university students in 1930, there were a few generations of such high literary quality.

After the Generation of ’98, which remained active throughout the period, with Pío Baroja, Azorín, Miguel de Unamuno, Antonio Machado, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, and Ramiro de Maeztu, came the Generation of ’14, with intellectuals such as Juan Ramón Jiménez, José Ortega y Gasset, Ramón Pérez de Ayala, and Gregorio Marañón. Finally, in the second half of the 1920s, the third generation, the Generation of ’27, began to stand out, reaching intellectual fullness during the Second Republic.

Not only literature shone in the Silver Age. Along with men of letters, we find scientists like Santiago Ramón y Cajal, Nobel Prize winner in 1906, and philosophers like José Ortega y Gasset and María Zambrano.

The Cultural Life of the Second Republic

Intellectuals played a central role during the Second Republic. Many of the Republican and socialist leaders, like Manuel Azaña, Fernando de los Ríos, and Julián Besteiro, belonged to the world of culture. Others, like José Ortega y Gasset, Antonio Machado, and Gregorio Marañón, expressly supported the new regime, grouping together in the Association at the Service of the Republic.

This unanimous support crumbled over time. From 1932 onwards, some intellectuals, like Ortega and Unamuno, adopted a critical position towards the Republican-Socialist government. Most, however, supported the government’s reform policy and helped Azaña in the cultural outreach efforts of the Republican-Socialist government. Several theater companies, made up of professional actors and students, visited remote villages in the country, performing the main Spanish theatrical repertoire. The best known of these was La Barraca, a personal project of the poet Federico García Lorca. Pedagogical Missions had a similar objective, the dissemination of culture among a largely illiterate population: mobile libraries, conferences, lectures, poetry readings, film screenings, exhibitions of reproductions of works from the Prado Museum… The Generation of ’27 came to the fore during the republican period. The group of poets was exceptional. It is sufficient to mention its members: Dámaso Alonso, Luis Cernuda, Vicente Aleixandre, Rafael Alberti, Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Miguel Hernández, and Federico García Lorca. Ramón J. Sender was the most prominent novelist.

The Arts

Architecture experienced a heyday in the early twentieth century with the modernist period in Barcelona. Lluís Domènech i Montaner built the Palau de la Música Catalana, and Antoni Gaudí marked the urban fabric of the city with works such as Casa Milà, Casa Batlló, and the Sagrada Família.

In a more conventional style, most of the buildings along the Gran Vía in Madrid were built, as well as the Palacio de Comunicaciones in the Plaza de Cibeles and many of the mansions that still survive in the Castellana, especially in the Salamanca district.

In painting and sculpture, traditional figurative artists such as the sculptor Mariano Benlliure or the painters Ignacio Zuloaga and Julio Romero de Torres coexisted with key figures in the development of twentieth-century art. Above all stands Pablo Picasso, who throughout the first third of the century evolved towards the creation of Cubism. Along with Picasso, other great painters such as Juan Gris, Joan Miró, and Salvador Dalí, and sculptors such as Pablo Gargallo, began their careers. As often happens, these avant-garde artists were known only by a narrow social elite.

In film, the figure of Luis Buñuel, belonging to the Generation of ’27 and linked to the circle of García Lorca and Dalí, stands out. His early films are integrated into the surrealist movement.

Finally, we must mention that the first third of the twentieth century is also the most brilliant period in the history of Spanish music. Figures like Isaac Albéniz, Enrique Granados, and above all, Manuel de Falla represented a very brilliant period of our music.