Spain

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The Second Spanish Republic

The Second Republic came to power with remarkable ease, ushered in by a great wave of popular enthusiasm. However, it soon became clear that supporters of the republic had little in common. Some supporters expected the government to be conservative; others pressed for radical change. Political participation grew divisive and increasingly polarized.

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Progressive Reforms

The republic initiated many far-reaching reforms during its first two years. A coalition of republican parties and socialists, headed by Prime Minister Manuel Azaña, gave the republic a progressive tone. Elections became more democratic, and women gained the right to vote. Autonomy was granted to Catalonia and the Basque provinces. The republic tried to improve the condition of workers, make taxes more equitable, and divide the large estates in southern Spain for redistribution to peasants. In addition, the republic secularized education and legalized divorce.

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Growing Divisions

The government’s ambitious reforms alienated many groups that had at first accepted the Second Republic. At the same time, the deepening worldwide depression in the 1930s reduced demand for Spanish exports and increased poverty and social tensions. The program to break up the large estates alienated landowners, but also lost the support of the peasantry because it moved too slowly. Opposition to the government increased among Roman Catholics who resented republican efforts to reduce the church’s authority. Azaña’s coalition began to crumble in 1933 after the government tried to close private Catholic schools.

In national elections in 1933 rightist and center-right parties won a majority and forced the republican-socialist coalition from power. The newly formed, conservative Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomous, CEDA), led by Catholic politician José María Gil Robles, became the largest party. CEDA entered the government, and the new leadership began to overturn the religious and social reforms of the previous government. Leftist groups bitterly resisted these changes. At the same time, political forces on the far right called for the overthrow of the Second Republic. These forces included monarchists and a new party called the Falange (“phalanx”), founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former dictator. The Falange promoted fascist political ideas and supported a form of nationalist totalitarianism in Spain like that in Fascist Italy under Benito Mussolini and Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler.

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Tensions exploded in October 1934 when a socialist-led workers’ insurrection swept Asturias, and Catalonia proclaimed its independence. Spanish troops crushed the Asturian revolt after two weeks of savage fighting, and the separatist rising in Catalonia was suppressed. The government rounded up and imprisoned thousands of leftists across Spain. This repression encouraged many groups on the left to begin building alliances, and the socialists under leader Francisco Largo Caballero began using revolutionary rhetoric. The governing coalition, plagued by scandals, collapsed in late 1935, and President Alcalá Zamora called new national elections.

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The Popular Front

The elections in February 1936 pitted a rightist bloc of conservatives against a new Popular Front coalition that included the entire left. Less moderate than the previous leftist coalition, the Popular Front included radical republicans, socialists, the small Spanish Communist Party, and other groups. The Popular Front scored a narrow victory and took control of the Cortes. The new government revived the progressive reform program and granted amnesty to hundreds of political prisoners.

The Popular Front’s reforms and radical rhetoric alarmed conservatives, many of whom feared a communist-inspired, leftist revolution. A conspiracy to overthrow the government soon took shape under General Emilio Mola and other prominent military leaders. Tension mounted as street battles between rival groups, assassinations, and widespread strikes paralyzed the nation. Peasants in the south began seizing the land and dividing some of the large estates. By mid-1936, amid escalating factional strife, many conspirators were ready to take action. The assassination on July 13 of monarchist leader José Calvo Sotelo provided convenient justification for the military rebellion.

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Civil War

On July 17, 1936, Spanish military forces stationed in Morocco mutinied and proclaimed a revolution against Spain’s elected government. The uprising marked the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Many troops based in Spain joined the insurrection. The rebels, or Nationalists, soon found a strong leader in General Francisco Franco. They were backed by conservative forces that included the Catholic Church, landowning peasants, the Falange, and Carlist monarchists. Supporters of the government, known as Republicans, included most workers, liberals, socialists, communists, and Basque and Catalan separatists. Juan Negrin, a moderate socialist, led the Republican cause for most of the war.

The Nationalists hoped to seize power quickly; they had not foreseen a long, bloody conflict. At first the Nationalist forces made great advances. The uprising succeeded in the provincial capitals of rural León and Old Castile, including Burgos, Salamanca, and Ávila. Nationalist control rapidly extended across most of western and southern Spain. However, Republicans soon defeated the insurgents in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, and several other eastern and northern cities. A prolonged civil war ensued. Nationalist power was strongest in rural Spain; Republicans held most major industrial and urban areas. As the war continued, Nationalist control of agricultural areas led to severe food shortages in many Republican strongholds.

Both Nationalists and Republicans received help from abroad. Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany sent troops, arms, and airplanes to aid the Nationalists. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) furnished military equipment and advisers to the Republicans. The Republicans also received aid from the International Brigades, made up of idealistic volunteers from Europe and the Americas. France, the United Kingdom, and the United States remained neutral, despite concerns that Franco would establish a new military dictatorship in Spain. Western democracies distrusted the Spanish government, which had backed leftist reforms and came to power in a coalition that included communists. The participation of the brigades, who were organized by communists, seemed to offer further evidence that Spain’s government was slipping toward Communism.

The Nationalist forces were more unified and better equipped and trained than their Republican adversaries. They also benefited from larger amounts of foreign assistance and an international blockade against Spain that was enforced mainly against the Republican side. Franco quickly secured military and political leadership of the Nationalists. In September 1936 he was named generalísimo (commander in chief) of the Nationalist troops and el caudillo (the leader) of Nationalist Spain. In April 1937 he merged the Falange, monarchists, and other Nationalist groups into a single party under his control, the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, or FET/JONS. The Republican ranks were more divided, hindered by internal conflicts and ideological rivalries. Moderates wanted Republican forces to focus on defeating the Nationalists and to postpone reform until after the war. Other groups, including anarchists, left-wing socialists, and revolutionary Marxists, wanted immediate revolution. In some areas revolutionaries asserted public ownership over private property and turned farms and factories into communes. This created economic chaos and led to armed conflicts between revolutionary and antirevolutionary Republicans. Meanwhile, the Spanish Communist Party’s influence over Republican strategy rapidly expanded because of its organizational skills and its control of Soviet-supplied arms.

After failing to seize Madrid, Franco’s forces launched a campaign in 1937 to conquer the Basque provinces, Asturias, and other industrial regions of northern Spain. During this campaign the first large-scale aerial bombing of civilians took place, including the infamous German raid that destroyed the Basque town of Guernica. As the war continued, a series of Nationalist offensives gradually brought the industrialized regions of eastern Spain under rebel control. In March 1939 Nationalist troops finally took Madrid after a long resistance. When Franco’s troops entered the starving city, the remaining Republican forces were too divided and exhausted to continue fighting. Madrid fell on March 28, and Franco proclaimed the Nationalists’ triumph on April 1.

The civil war devastated Spain. An estimated 500,000 people died in the fighting and much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed. Between 250,000 and 500,000 political refugees left the country. Spain’s short-lived experiment with democracy was replaced by an authoritarian regime under Franco, who would rule Spain as dictator for the next 36 years.