THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR
THE TRIGGER
18th July 1936
Franco: anti-democracy – though the Fascisit historian Pio Mia has tried to claim it was the killings by the extreme left which caused him to organise the coup.
THE IMMEDIATE AND SHORT TERM CAUSES
POLITICAL
1931 The establishment of a mass democracy in 1931. Popular support for Alonso XXIII had gone.
New government elected in June 1931. Manuel Azana is elected.
1932 an uprising is organised by General Sanjuro of the Civil Guard.
The main short term cause was political. It was the large amount of political instability in Spainbetween 1931 and 1936.
The Spanish Civil War is a classic war for showing how a society can fall into Civil War when there is no adequate stable legitimate politcal mechanism to rule society.
OTHER LONGER TERM CAUSES
This news politics can be put down to the rise of the left in the wake of the Russian evolution of 1917. Political ideologies which were articulating long-standing socio-econmiic greivances and injustices.
The fundamental redistribution of social and economic power in Spain which the establishment of a republic based on mass democracy represented and then tried to implement in its reforms..
Social divisions and regional divisions (Basques, Catalans and Galicians) backed u p by regional economic differences.
The social economic and cultural changes that were taking place in the 1920s and 1930s (in part as a consequence of World War 1, the Russian Revolution, and the world and European economic depression.
Tensions over land ownership
Conservative forces of land owners, army, and church
Rise of secularism and anti-clericalism
New rising ideologies: Rise of industrial centres led to rsie fo anarcho-syndicalims and trade uniions. Marxism and Socialism.
A veritable plethora of political parties.
THE .LONGER TERM CAUSES 1830-1930
The long term political instability
The long terms social antagonism
The arrival of various ideologies to seduce those
THE COUP UNLEEASHED ALL SORTS OF DIFFERENT TENSIONS
Many of these different tensions were a consequence of the uneven development as it underwent a process of modernization.
The particular brand of Catholicism and the depth of its grip on Spanish psyche.
The emergence of an ‘intolerant political culture in the officer corps of the army’ in the 20th century Spain. (HG)
Spain’s loss of Empire in 1898 was particularly important to the army.-Civilian’s were blamed. Had an over-large officers corp. Came to see themselves as defenders of ‘Spain’ not just the now defunct Empire. So they were against the encroaching changes of modernity.
Economic ramifications of loss of Empire
EC
The hold on power of the large landowners, whose brothers were often high up in the army. They did not want economic and political reform, unlike the textile factory owners in Castile.
Industrialisation, especially in the North, though relatively small, was creating new social actors and desires, in an urban professional sector as well as a working class.
Rural Spain
Small peasant holders, with their links with and help from the Church and their pro Monarchical stance were fearful of the rise of political liberalism and cultural pluralism.
Church had already lost the urban workers and the rural poor especially landless labourarers of the South.
Economic effect of World War 1 – boom of 20s , leads to increase demand for political reform from middle classes – becoming ‘republicans’ in the midst of a dictatorship when political parties were banned, and an urban growth and boom, asw ell as radio – distinaced the towns from countryside
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And the feeling it gave to the elites of the Russian Revolution – especially the rise of CNT (anarchists).
Primo de Rivera’s military coup of 1923 was a response to this.
REPUBLICAN CONCERNS: land, education; State-Chruch rels; army.
STORY
The underlying general long term cause was the impact of a very particular type of ‘modernization’ on a predominantly agricultural Spanish society.
This was marked, in particular, by the weakness of the industrial and financial bourgeoisie, and hence the lack of a call of a liberal democracy.
It was also marked by the way in which there was a political reaction against the social changes which it wrought which ensured that society and politics were permanently out of synch.
Long terms even traditional resort of violence at certain moments.
1.
1830-1850
An important period as far as the economy was concerned was the 1830s and 1850s.
The decline of feudal relatiosn in the countryside alongside the financial problems of the crown led to a lot of ecclesiastical, royal, aristocracti and common land being put up for sale.
It was bought by the more efficient and ruthless of the big landowners (latifundia) as well as some of those mercantile bourgeoisie who preferred to invest in the social status of land in stead of continuing with their modernizing industrial and commercial activities.
Thus the gloss and patina of paternalism, which had kept the potential social atangaonims in check, was gone.
This part of the landowning class began heavily to exploit the braceros and jornaleros (landless labourers), rather than modernize. Resentments of the poor, if they expressed themselves violently, were kept in check by the Civil Guard.
2.
1868-1874 1st Republic
Brought on by the Depression in 1862 (US Civil War, affected cotton industry)
These years saw the spread of anarchism through the villages of the poor.
3. 1874: RESTORATION OF ALFONSO XII
The political system of the pacific turn – each of the two parties taking turns to rule. The figure of the CACIQUE (CACIQUISMO)
4. 1890s DEPRESSION plus the loss of Spanish colony of Cuba in 1898, had severe economic impact on Spain as well as political and moral consequences.
5. Assassination of PM CANOVAS by an anarchist.
6. Industrial developments between 1890S and 1914 started to have a social impact. The growth of the urban proletariat saw the growth of the PSOE and UGT.
It also saw the rise of a middle class republicanism. Prieto, a Socialist form the PSOE, worked with them.
This upset Cabellero and Lerroux.
7. 1909 The Moroccan Crisis led to the Semana tragica.
1910 CNT was born.
8. World War I was a huge boom for Spanish industrialists, as Spain was neutral and they supplied both sides.
When, in 1916, Alba placed a tax on industry but not agriculture, it upset them and led to a the crisis of 1917.
In this crisis, the soldiers who had fought in Morocco, the Afrianistas, those into the Regeneration movement, the top industrialists and landowners united to crush the landless labourers and industrial working class’s uprising
Meanwhile, Herrera tried to seduce the small peasant farmer to his right wing Catholic movement.
1919-1921 trienio bolchevique.
1921 defeat of Spanish forces at Annual in Morocco cuased a crisis in the monarchy.
Sept 1923 Coup d’etat of Primo de Rivera.
April 2 1939.
Consequences:
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500,000 deaths