Carroll Quigley - Tragedy and Hope - A History of the World in Our Time

The republic lasted only five years before the Civil War began on July 18, 1936. During that period it was challenged constantly from the Right and from the extreme Left, the former offering the greatest test because it commanded economic, military, and ideological power through the landlords, the army, and the Church. During this time the nation was ruled by coalition governments: first by a coalition of the Left from December 1931 to September, 1933; then by the Center from September to October 1934; third, by a coalition of the Right from October to the Popular Front election of February 1936; and, last, by the Left after February 1936. These shifts of government resulted from changes in alignments of the multitude of political parties. The Right formed a coalition under Jose Maria Gil Robles in February 1933, while the Left formed a coalition under Manuel Azana in February 1936. As a result, the Right coalition won the second parliamentary election in November 1933, while the Left won the third, or Popular Front, election of February 1936.

Because of this shifting of governments, the liberal program which was enacted into law in 1931-1933 was annulled or unenforced in 1933-1936. This program included educational reform, army reform, separation of Church and State, agrarian reform, and social assistance for peasants and workers.

In an effort to reduce illiteracy (which was over 45 percent in 1930), the republic created thousands of new schools and new teachers, raised teachers’ salaries to a minimum of about $450 a year (this affected 21,500 out of 37,500 teachers), founded over a thousand new libraries, and encouraged adult education.

Efforts were made to obtain a smaller, better paid, more efficient army. The 23,000 officers (including 258 generals) were reduced to 9,500 officers (including 86 generals), the surplus being retired on full pay. The number of enlisted men was reduced to about 100,000 with higher pay. Organization was completely reformed. As a result, over $14 million was saved on the cost of the army in the first year (1931-1932). Unfortunately, nothing was done to make the army loyal to the new regime. Since the choice to retire or stay on active duty was purely voluntary, the republican officers tended to retire, the monarchists to stay on, with the result that the army of the republic was more monarchist in its sympathies than the army had been before 1931. Although the officers, disgruntled at their narrowing opportunities for enriching themselves, were openly disrespectful and insubordinate toward the republic, almost nothing was done to remedy this.

The Church was subjected to laws establishing complete separation of Church and State. The government gave up its right to nominate the upper clergy, ended the annual grant to the Church, took ownership (but not possession) of Church property, forbade teaching in public schools by the clergy, established religious toleration and civil divorce, and required that all corporations (including religious orders and trade unions) must register with the government and publish financial accounts.

To assist the peasants and workers, mixed juries were established to hear rural rent disputes; importation of labor from one district to another for wage-breaking purposes was forbidden; and credit was provided for peasants to obtain land, seed, or fertilizers on favorable terms. Manorial lands, those of monarchists who had fled with Alfonso, and customarily uncultivated lands were expropriated with compensation, to provide farms for a new class of peasant proprietors.

Most of these reforms went into effect only partially or not at all. The annual contribution to the Church could not be ended, because the Spanish people refused to contribute voluntarily to the Church, and an alternative system of ecclesiastical taxation enforced by the state had to be set up. Few of the abandoned or poorly cultivated estates could be expropriated because of lack of money for compensation. The clergy could not be excluded from teaching because of the lack of trained teachers. Most expropriated ecclesiastical property was left in the control of the Church either because it was necessary for religious and social services or because it could not be tracked down.

The conservative groups reacted violently against the republic almost as soon as it began. In fact, the monarchists criticized Alfonso for leaving without a struggle, while the upper clergy and landlords ostracized the papal legate for his efforts to make the former adopt a neutral attitude toward the new regime. As a result, three plots began to be formed against the republic, the one monarchist led by Calvo Sotelo in parliament and by Antonio Goicoechea behind the scenes; the second a parliamentary alliance of landlords and clericals under Jose Maria Gil Robles; and the last a conspiracy of officers under Generals Emilio Barrera and Jose Sanjurjo. Sanjurjo led an unsuccessful rebellion at Seville in August 1932. When it collapsed from lack of public support, he was arrested, condemned to death, reprieved, and finally released (with all his back pay) in 1934. Barrera was arrested but released by the courts. Both generals began to prepare for the rebellion of 1936.

In the meantime, the monarchist conspiracy was organized by former King Alfonso from abroad as early as May 1931. As part of this movement a new political party was founded under Sotelo, a “research” organization known as Spanish Action was set up “to publish texts from great thinkers on the legality of revolution,” a war chest of 1.5 million pesetas was created, and an underground conspiracy was drawn up under the leadership of Antonio Goicoechea. This last action was taken at a meeting in Paris presided over by Alfonso himself (September 29, 1932).

Goicoechea performed his task with great skill, under the eyes of a government which refused to take preventive action because of its own liberal and legalistic scruples. He organized an alliance of the officers, the Carlists, and his own Alfonsist party. Four men from these three groups then signed an agreement with Mussolini on March 31, 1934. By this agreement the Duce of Fascism promised arms, money, and diplomatic support to the revolutionary movement and gave the conspirators a first-installment payment of 1,500,000 pesetas, 10,000 rifles, 10,000 grenades, and 200 machine guns. In return the signers, Lieutenant General Emilio Barrera, Antonio Lizarza, Rafael de Olazabal, and Antonio Goicoechea, promised when they came to power to denounce the existing French-Spanish “secret treaty,” and to sign with Mussolini an agreement establishing a joint export policy between Spain and Italy, as well as an agreement to maintain the status quo in the western Mediterranean.

In the meantime, Gil Robles’s coalition, known as CEDA (Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right Parties), along with his own clerical party (Popular Action) and the Agrarian Party of the big landlords, was able to replace the Left Republican Manuel Azana by the Right Republican Alejandro Lerroux as prime minister (September 1933). It then called new elections in November 1934, and won a victory with 213 seats for the Right, 139 for the Center, and 121 for the Left. The Center Cabinet continued in office, supported by the votes of the Right. It revoked many of the reforms of 1931-1933, allowed most of the rest to go unenforced, released all the Rightist conspirators from prison (including Sanjurjo), gave an amnesty to thousands of monarchist plotters and exiles, and restored their expropriated estates. By a process of consolidating portfolios and abolishing Cabinet seats, Gil Robles slowly reduced the Cabinet from thirteen ministers at the end of 1933 to nine two years later. Of these CEDA took three in October 1934 and five in March 1935.

The advent to office of CEDA in October 1934 led to a violent agitation which burst into open revolt in the two separatist centers of the Basque country and Catalonia. The latter, led by the bourgeois Left, received little support from the workers, and collapsed at once; the uprising in Asturias, however, spearheaded by anarchist miners hurling dynamite from slings, lasted for nine days. The government used the Foreign Legion and Moors, brought from Morocco by sea, and crushed the rebels without mercy. The latter suffered at least 5,000 casualties, of which a third were dead. After the uprising was quelled, all the Socialist press was silenced and 25,000 suspects were thrown into prison.