Spanish Civil War

Definition of Civil Wars: Armed disputes that erupt over often radically different ideas about the direction, governmental system, or composition of a country

• National fault lines along which these volatile differences develop can be ideological, regional, political, economic, religious, etc.

• Civil wars are also caused by the lack of a political system with enough of a monopoly of force or perceived legitimacy to address the competing interests inherent in the divisions.

Background

• Divisions and regionalism divided Spain (Basques, Catalans, Galicians)

• Class differences

  • Spain is a warm climate and thus they didn’t perceive the need of industrializing as much as Russia or colder countries did

  • Divided between the aristocracy and peasants.

  • Peasants vs Estates (Over half the land in Spain was owned by 50,000 individuals, compared to 25 million total people (very small number of people owning majority of the land/wealth)

• Ideological differences:

  • Right:

    • Right was comprised of the traditional conservative triad: landowners, church, and the army

    • Church is not just a religious entity, it’s a political, economic, and social entities.

      • You could take goods from the church.

      • You could take loans from the church.

      • Churches were like city halls, stores, etc. in Spain.

  • Left:

    • Anarcho-syndicalism emerging in industrial sectors

      • Anarchism is based in feudalism, and wanted to live as indigenous societies did

      • Anarchism is libertarian in the sense of “no government”, but opposite to libertarianism in the sense that they argue communal economic benefit

      • Anarcho-syndacalism advocated for decentralized control of factories by workers, and they argued for trade unions.

    • Traditional anarchism was also emerging, along with Marxism, Socialism, etc.

  • These growing movements caused tensions across Spain

Immediate causes of the Spanish Civil War

• Alfonso XIII was the King of Spain from 1902 to 1931 and was out of touch with reality; he prevented reforms

• He held democratic elections in 1931, and was convinced that he would win

  • He did not win, obviously

  • People wanted something better than his conservatism

• The Second Republic was created and Alfonso XIII abdicated the throne on 14 April 1931.

• General Elections were held in June 1931 and the left won convincingly

  • left began becoming more and more radical (they made mistakes though)

  • Agrarian reforms were introduced but blocked by the right

    • Agrarian reforms require to take from the rich and give to the poor.

    • The rich people were the right people.

    • When rich people get harassed, they just leave with their money.