Spain 1936 – The Seeds of Confrontation & Collapse

Frente Popular Election (Feb 1936)

  • Voter mobilisation
    • Highest participation of the Second Republic: 72\% (men + women).
    • Regarded by the electorate as decisive for Spain’s future ➜ intense, feverish campaign (Tusell).
  • Contesting blocs
    • Frente Popular (FP): moderate reformist programme; core points = amnesty + resumption of reforms of 1931–33.
    • Right-wing: CEDA + monarchists + Falange.
    • Slogan: “for God and for Spain – Catholic Spain vs. barbaric revolution”.
    • Massive propaganda spending, esp. evoking the Asturias 1934 revolt.
    • Extreme right already advocating dictatorship.
  • Results (majority system amplified winner):
    • FP: 263 seats.
    • Right: 156.
    • Centre parties: 54.
    • Partido Radical collapses from 103 \to 4 seats; Lerroux loses in Catalonia.
    • PSOE & CEDA top individual vote counts; Izquierda Republicana (IR) close behind.
    • Communists: 16 seats (up from 1) thanks to coalition slots, not vote surge.
    • Falange: 46{,}466 votes = 0.5\%.
    • Chamber highly fragmented ( 33 parties, only 11 > 10 seats ); nevertheless FP enjoys comfortable majority.

Street Reaction & Early Disorder

  • Spontaneous celebrations; release-demand riots in several jails.
  • Zaragoza example
    • CNT+UGT call strike & demo demanding freedom for “political & social” prisoners.
    • Gen. Cabanellas occupies key points; state of emergency; demo broken by Assault Guard → 1 dead, several wounded.
  • Immediate conspiratorial response
    • Gil Robles presses PM Portela to annul results & declare emergency.
    • Gen. Franco (Chief of Staff) phones Civil Guard chief Pozas for joint military action ⇒ Pozas refuses; Franco pressures War Minister Molero.
    • Generals Goded, Fanjul, Rodríguez del Barrio sound out Madrid garrisons.
    • Preston: 17-19 Feb Franco “closer than ever” to coup; thwarted by Pozas & Núñez de Prado.

Formation of the Azaña Government (19 Feb 1936)

  • Portela resigns; President Alcalá Zamora calls Manuel Azaña.
  • Azaña uneasy (“corn must be harvested before it is ripe”).
  • Cabinet = only republicans (agreement with PSOE):
    • 9 IR, 3 Unión Republicana, 1 independent (Gen. Masquelet as War minister).
    • NOT technically a Frente Popular government; purely left-republican, mostly professors/lawyers (Giral, Casares, Domingo). Seats held < \frac14 of Cortes → inherent fragility.
  • Azaña’s appeal: union of “republicans & non-republicans… all who love Fatherland, discipline, respect for authority”.

Urgent Measures & Symbolic Gestures

  • 21 Feb: Permanent Deputation grants general amnesty (≈30{,}000 beneficiaries) – incl. Lluís Companys + Generalitat councillors (serving 30-yr terms).
  • Reinstatement of suspended local officials (since Dec 1933) & rehiring fired workers.
  • Demonstrations dissipate once these demands met.
  • Press mantra: restore legality & “neutrality of the streets” (El Sol, 4 Mar).
    • Streets framed as public, productive space vs. revolutionary arena (cf. Ramón J. Sender’s line: “The street is still nobody’s … it remains to be seen who conquers it”).

Social & Labour Conflicts

  • Trade-union agenda: wage rises, shorter hours, hiring control; CNT & UGT rivalry resurfaces (e.g., Málaga worksites).
  • Countryside hotter than cities
    • FP programme ≈ 1932 agrarian reform; expectation now urgency.
    • 1932 Intensificación de Cultivos decree reinstated (Mar): IRA authorised to occupy estates of “social utility”.
    • 25 Mar: Federación de Trabajadores de la Tierra organises mass occupations (Badajoz): \approx 60{,}000 labourers, >2{,}000 estates.
    • Similar, smaller actions in Cáceres, Jaén, Córdoba, Sevilla, Toledo.
    • Mar–Jul: land distributed = \text{7}\times previous 5 yrs; ≈550{,}000\,ha to 110{,}000 peasants (Malefakis) – figures contested.
    • Employers & upper classes alarmed → narrative of government loss of control.
  • Strikes wave?
    • Payne claims ‘unprecedented’ unrest; stats flawed. 1936 (Feb-Jul) ≈ total strikes of 1933; CNT role limited geographically (not Barcelona/Seville/Zaragoza where it had been strongest).

CNT Reorientation & May 1936 Zaragoza Congress

  • Context: prisoners freed, censorship eased, premises reopen, schism healing.
  • Congress data: 649 delegates, 988 unions, 559{,}294 members.
  • Famous “Libertarian Communism” declaration ➜ utopian debates (family, sexuality in future communes).
  • BUT key practical shift:
    • Self-critique of insurrectionism; priority = organisation, unemployment relief, communal assets.
    • Agrarian line: avoid sporadic actions when “circumstances show that the time is not right for revolution”.

Escalating Political Violence (Mar–Jul 1936)

  • 12 Mar: Falangists shoot at Prof. Luis Jiménez de Asúa → kill escort Jesús Gisbert → riots, church burnings, La Nación offices torched.
    • Police round-up: José Antonio Primo de Rivera + leadership jailed (14 Mar); Falange declared unconstitutional association.
  • 13 Apr: Judge Manuel Pedregal assassinated (had sentenced attackers).
  • 14 Apr (5th anniv. Republic): parade violence
    • Civil Guard Lt. Anastasio de los Reyes killed; later funeral clashes → 6 dead, 36 wounded (incl. Falangist cousin of José Antonio).
  • April–July: clandestine Falange “Front Line” gunfights
    • Julio Gil Pecharromán: \sim 40 Falangists dead, >100 wounded; higher toll on adversaries.
  • Barcelona relatively calm; standout event = 28 Apr assassination of Badia brothers (Estat Català paramilitaries) – possibly FAI.

Institutional Crisis: Presidency Vacancy & Government Shifts

  • Universal elite dislike of President Alcalá Zamora
    • Right (CEDA) blamed him for blocking full power in Dec 1935.
    • Left never forgave Sept 1933 dismissal of Azaña.
  • Constitutional removal (Art. 81): Cortes vote 7 Apr → 238 for, 5 against; right abstains.
  • Electoral college chosen 26 Apr (CEDA abstains): FP 358 reps, opposition 63.
  • 10 May: Manuel Azaña elected President (Palacio de Cristal) with blank CEDA votes.
  • Socialist split blocks planned Prieto-led coalition → PSOE group (49 vs 19) rejects cabinet entry.
  • Santiago Casares Quiroga (IR) becomes PM + War Minister; cabinet again purely republican (includes Catalan Esquerra) – later tarred as weak re violence/coup.
  • Socialist factions
    • UGT & JS under Largo Caballero shift to revolutionary wait-and-see; creation (Jun) of Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas with Communist youth (leader: Santiago Carrillo).
    • PCE pursues ‘Popular Front’ legality line yet benefits from socialist schism.

Radicalisation of the Right & Church–State Clash

  • CEDA drifts to authoritarianism; JAP youth adopt fascist style; discourse of “right to rebelliousness” (Aniceto de Castro Albarrán, 1934).
  • Post-Feb >15{,}000 JAP militants join Falange.
  • Monarchist rhetoric (Calvo Sotelo) becomes openly anti-system in Cortes; Gil Robles tacitly supports.
  • Carlist Requeté militarisation in Navarre & Álava: manoeuvres with clergy/landowners; aim = “new Covadonga”.
  • Catholic press frames FP as “enemy of God & Church”; predicts armed struggle.
  • Government revisits church–state flashpoints: processions, bells, religious schools, co-education ⇨ fuels clerical alarm.
  • Despite claims, no clergy killed Feb–Jul 1936; myth of pre-war ‘clergy extermination’ retrospective justification.

Military Conspiracy

  • Govt purge/transfer policy (Masquelet):
    • Franco → Canary Is.; Goded → Balearics; Mola → Pamplona; Fanjul, Orgaz, Villegas, Saliquet sidelined.
    • Intent: isolate plotters; effect: resentment (“banishment” – Preston).
  • 8 Mar Madrid meeting (broker José Delgado): Generals Franco, Mola, Orgaz, Villegas, etc. – agree to “re-establish order”; Sanjurjo (exile, Portugal) to lead.
  • General Mola (“El Director”) drafts 5 secret instructions (25 May →):
    • Call for “uncommonly violent” repression; immediate arrest & exemplary punishment of leaders “not sympathetic”.
  • Late Jun: 5th Division (Zaragoza) fully committed (Gen. Cabanellas, Col. Monasterio).
  • 4 Jul: financier Juan March funds aircraft; 6 Jul Luis Bolín charters Dragon Rapide for £2{,}000 to fetch Franco.

Trigger: Assassination of José Calvo Sotelo (13 Jul)

  • 12 Jul: socialist-sympathiser Lt. José del Castillo murdered by rightist gunmen.
  • Retaliation night raid (Assault Guard + Civil Guard Capt. Condés) kidnaps Calvo Sotelo from home, shoots him, dumps body in Almudena morgue.
  • Rightist outrage; Goicoechea vows to “avenge & save Spain”.
    • Gil Robles in Cortes: “blood … on your hands” (15 Jul).
  • Franco reportedly to messenger: “The Fatherland has another martyr – this is the signal!”. Dragon Rapide lands Canary Is. 14 Jul.

Outbreak of the Coup & Civil War

  • 17 Jul evening: Garrisons in Melilla, Tetuán, Ceuta revolt.
  • 18 Jul early hrs: Franco proclaims state of war vs. government; 19 Jul reaches Tetuán.
  • Other garrisons rise; State split; Republic’s peace ends.

Why the Republic Failed (Casanova synthesis)

  • Spain had escaped WWI trauma but shared Europe-wide modernisation tensions (order vs. revolution).
  • Coalition fractures
    • 1930 San Sebastián Pact (middle + working classes) lasted ≤2 yrs.
    • Oct 1931: conservative republicans exit over Church reform; Dec 1931 Partido Radical leaves over socialist presence.
  • CNT & insurrectionism undermine left unity (Jan 1932, Jan & Dec 1933).
  • Economic crisis & restricted budgets limit reform success; union rivalry (worker placement control) intensifies.
  • After 1933 break-up, PSOE radicalises ➜ Oct 1934 uprising (Asturias, Catalonia) – brutally crushed.
  • Counter-revolutionary right grows: CEDA mass Catholic mobilisation; youth fascistisation; landowner & clerical backing.
  • Collapse of political centre: Partido Radical discredited; no liberal right; CEDA shifts extra-parliamentary.
  • Polarisation & violence debate (Payne): unprecedented 1936 disorder; Casanova counters – violence alone didn’t doom regime; key = military treason.
  • European pattern: after 1917 left revolts always crushed by united state forces; Spain unique because coup split army/security ➜ power vacuum ➜ civil war.

Key Figures & Works Cited (for exam cross-reference)

  • Historians: Javier Tusell, Paul Preston, Edward Malefakis, Stanley G. Payne, Santos Juliá, Martin Blinkhorn, Julio Gil Pecharromán, Ian Gibson.
  • Political leaders: Manuel Azaña, Santiago Casares Quiroga, Indalecio Prieto, Francisco Largo Caballero, José Calvo Sotelo, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Alejandro Lerroux, Gil Robles.
  • Military plotters: Generals Franco, Mola, Sanjurjo, Goded, Fanjul, Cabanellas, Orgaz, Villegas, Saliquet, Queipo de Llano.
  • Union leaders: Buenaventura Durruti, Juan García Oliver, Joaquín Ascaso, Ángel Pestaña, Isaac Puente, Federica Montseny.
  • Symbols/Metaphors: “conquering the street”; “new Covadonga”; “right to rebelliousness”; amnesty as “harvesting corn before ripe”.

Numerical & Statistical References (chronological key)

  • Electorate turnout: 72\%.
  • FP seats 263; Right 156; Centre 54.
  • Partido Radical: -99 seats.
  • Falange votes: 46{,}466 ( 0.5\% ).
  • Amnesty beneficiaries ≈30{,}000.
  • CNT Congress: 649 delegates; 988 unions; 559{,}294 members.
  • Land occupations: \approx 60{,}000 labourers, >2{,}000 estates; 550{,}000\,ha to 110{,}000 peasants.
  • Falange street war casualties: \sim 40 dead, >100 wounded (own side).
  • Calvo Sotelo funeral riot: 6 dead, 36 wounded.
  • Asturias 1934 toll: \approx 1{,}400 dead ( >1{,}100 rebels ).

Ethical & Practical Implications Discussed

  • Legitimacy vs. legality: use of emergency decrees, amnesties, presidential prerogatives.
  • Violence as political language: both sides saw street & gun as extensions of rhetoric.
  • Church’s social role: shift from social-Catholic outreach to clerical blessing of armed revolt.
  • Agrarian justice vs. property rights: land seizures framed as restitution; landowners view as class war.
  • Military ethic: oath to Republic vs. “higher” duty to order/Spain/God.
  • Historiographical debate: structural vs. contingent causes of Civil War; reliability of violence statistics; role of narrative myths (e.g., ‘clergy extermination’).