The Second Spanish Republic: A Democratic Experiment and the Path to Civil War
Second Republic:
Over the years 931-1936 Spanish state as the Second Republic is the most thorough attempt to democratic change in its history. Right reaction to these changes taking Spain to the Civil War following the collapse of the uprising of July 18, 1936.
When leaving the country Alfonso XIII’s new government is composed of some Republicans and Socialists, with some changes, (dropouts, M. Maura, Alcalá Zamora and A. Lerroux), will remain in power until 1933. The new interim government and the governments of Reform Biennium try to answer all the historical problems of the country. First by the 1931 Constitution, establishing a state model with extensive democratic rights and a central power structure where he combines his existence with statutes of autonomy for the regions. Civil power claimed the separation of Church and State, Secular State, and the subordination of military power. The state could even speak on private property that was subject to the interests of the national economy. Also with the Republic granted the vote to women. The new constitution, reforming glow, while all aspects of Spanish society: The educational and cultural policy will develop a vast program of construction of schools, public schools, a unique and Lay it conflicts with the interests of the Church which prohibits, dedicated to education. Military Reform aims republicanized the Army and increase its technical capacity. The attempt to create a new framework of industrial relations through laws and, of municipal law, the obligatory cultivation, the eight-hour day, and an attempt to transform the Spanish agriculture through the Agrarian Reform Law. Reactions to these reforms are produced from the right and left.
The raised right all these reforms as an attack on the unity of Spain, the Army, to private property, religion and family. The Catholic Church opposes the Republic since the first time, Cardinal Segura plays an essential role in the tension and division in society. In the important area left anarchist, CNT-FAI, declares its opposition to the Republic for which it considers another form of bourgeois rule. In addition the Agrarian Reform Law is slow and the peasants of the UGT as will radicalize a sector of the PSOE, leading in 1933 to the party to abandon its partnership with the Republicans.
The right is organizing a new party, the CEDA taking advantage of the disunity of the left, this wins the elections and the end of 1933 begins the period, the Radical Biennium CEDA.
The left regarded the CEDA fascist and had warned that if it entered the government would call it a revolutionary general strike. The fears of the left came from the speeches of the head of CEDA, Gil Robles, the recent rise of Hitler to power in Germany and the coup semi-fascist Austria.
The entry into the government of the CEDA causes immediate response from the left in a General Strike to be irregular monitoring throughout the country except for a few days Asturias where an alliance of socialists, communists and anarchists took power, with produced a brief but intense Asturian Commune revolution. The Republican government using violent represses the African army led by General Franco.
Beat the Asturian uprising, but many members of labor organizations are imprisoned. Then suspend the Catalan Statute of the Law of Agrarian Revolution … And there are new leaders like Calvo Sotelo and getting to know the Fascist Party formed by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera FE de las JONS.
In 1936 the President Zamora dissolved the Parliament for a second time as new elections are called. The left has once again be united in a coalition ranging from communists and republicans called Popular Front. On the right however there are divisions as the Popular Front wins elections in February. It forms a new government composed exclusively of ministers Republican parties and opens a new period known as the Popular Front Government. The new government is weak so that you can not oppose the peasants and workers who are released to make election promises, and there is a tremendous crisis in the country. Moreover, the right to organize work openly a military conspiracy, and the government does not take strong action against the conspirators. There is a great divide between the Spanish when the police lieutenant Republican Socialist Castillo is killed by gunmen on the right, and friends of the killed responding to the new leader of the right in the Cortes Calvo Sotelo. On July 13 the right supported the military uprising that began the Army of Africa on July 17, 1936. This uprising later renamed National Uprising, fails in most of the country, but this is divided between supporters of the rebel uprising and supporters to continue with the Republic. Start the Civil War, a catastrophe that ends in victory for the rebels and the imposition of a dictatorship, which ruled the country until the death of Francisco Franco in 1975