Spanish Civil War Research Paper

Final Assignment: The Spanish Civil War
Final Paper
Marked the “Little World War” by various historians (Beevor, 2001, pg 17), the Spanish
Civil War (1936-1939) stood as the most significant conflict in Europe in the Interwar period. It allowed Fascists Italy and Germany to demonstrate the prowess and precision of their growing militaries. Likewise it stood as a last stand for the left, a hope for the anarchists and socialists as growing powers in the right looked to crush the common man in Western Europe. With the significance of Franco’s takeover of Spain noted, this piece will investigate the revolutionary changing of the guard following the departure of Primo de Rivera prior to the Civil War that put the Republicans, a coalition of Socialists, Anarchists, and
leftists, in command in one of the most volatile nations in Europe at the time. John Foran’s Theory of Third World Revolutions (Foran,
2005) is used to analyze the political paradigm shift in Spain prior to the Civil War (1930-1936).
Despite difficulties of categorizing Spain as “third world,” when applied, a nation is exposed with a highly exclusive polity under both General Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) and earlier the
Constitutional Monarchy (1875-1923), a distinctly polarized social structure with large income and power gaps that provided ingrained political cultures of opposition, a moving economic downturn created by the Great Depression, and a world systemic opening generated via the seeds of previous and brewing World War.
Revolution Outline
Spain was in turmoil for significant portions of the 19th century. The urban and rural classes never consistently interacted; the gap between the poor and wealthy was large and

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growing and both political and economic repression had become an all too common theme. The nation had developed up as primarily an agrarian state supported by a dwindling colonial empire, with major territories abroad in the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Mexico. However
Mexican independence in 1821 foreshadowed troubles later in the century. These woes stockpiled until a pronunciamento, a military coup d’état, initiated by General Arsenio MartinezCampos against King Amadeo I established the First Republic in 1873.
The First Republic represented the first attempt by the Republicans, a prominent leftist group, to play a major role in the Spanish political realm. However it was wrought with civil wars and saw the leadership of four different presidents. Doomed to fail from the beginning, in
December, 1874 a high ranking military officer, lent allegiance to the Alfonsists, a monarchist group supporting a constitutional monarchy under King Alfonso XII, spelling the end of the First
Republic. [Brandt, Joseph, 1933]
Despite the reestablishment of the Constitutional Monarchy under King Alfonso XII,
Spain remained divided in many of the same ways as before. The briefly lived Republic had done very little except draw attention to the growing problems in the underdeveloped nation.
Furthermore, King Alfonso XII died in 1886 leaving his newly born son Alfonso XIII to inherit the crown with his mother Maria Christina of Austria looking over the seat of the monarchy until
Alfonso XIII reached the age of sixteen. Her reign was not very significant save one event: the
Spanish-American War in 1898. Spain and its nearly obsolete military regime were embarrassed by the Americans during the conflict. Besides just losing, the United States also took control of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Cuba. These colonial possessions marked some of the most important for Spain and thus the war marked the end of Spanish colonial prominence.

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In response to the embarrassing defeat of the Spanish-American War, a time remembered as “the Disaster” in Spanish history, a political movement called regenerationism came about.
Developed by political and intellectual elites to diagnose the drawbacks of the current monarchy regime, regenerationalism symbolized the distrust the people had in both the monarchy and the
Cortes (the Spanish Parliament). This distrust stemmed from the little political and social growth that occurred between 1874 and 1902 as the government continued to repress the people. Two systems in particular repressed political activity and maintained the “old guard” presence in the government: the caciquismo and the turno pacific.
The caciquismo system represented a “bottom up” method of political coercion. In this system, the Minister of the Interior ran “elections” where local bosses (“caciques”) brought in the vote for their districts as they saw fit. Much like despotism, these bosses influenced their constituencies into voting how they wanted. At the root of the Cortes, this obviously system prevented true representation, free elections, and installed elements of repression deep into the weaves of the Spanish society.
The turno pacific system on the other hand could be seen as a “top-down” method of political manipulation. Through the turno, the control over the Cortes alternated between two dynastic parties: the Conservatives and the Liberals. Again the system operated through the
Interior Minster as he met with monarchist opposition to discuss an agreed list of candidates with which centers of focus were decided as to determine who won the next election. Despite the peacefulness of the turnover, there were no elections to establish a majority party nor were minor parties able to make significant gains in the political realm. Both of these systems represented the epitome of what the regenerationalists stood against as they sought to remove “the artificiality of

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the Spanish parliamentary regime due to the absence of living channels of communication between representatives and citizens.” (Moreno Luzon, 2012, pg. 53)
An equally powerful, and perhaps more dangerous, movement in Spain following “the
Disaster” were the growing sentiments of “espanolismo” among the military and monarchists.
Humiliated at its defeat, the military brought it upon itself to restore a sense of nationalism primarily because it was being mocked and criticized for its methods in the conflict. To make matters worse, growing sentiments of regional fracturing were present in Catalonia and the
Basque country as these highly differentiated segments of Spain began considering the ramifications of their own nationalism. In response, the military became increasingly repressive of labor strikes and dissidence, especially of those in the aforementioned regions. This increased aggression and repression marked the onset of growing radicalism and Fascism within the
Spanish military, an element that would grow significantly in the coming decades.
In 1914, the coming of World War I increased pressure on the Spanish state. Outside of
Spain, Fascism had been growing at an even greater rate. Italy and Germany had come under the direction of Fascist dictators that worked to grow their militaries and exert their dominance.
Despite its importance to both sides of the conflict, Spain remained neutral. There were efforts to draw Spain because of its interactions with Morocco. However for the most part it remained neutral economically as well. Nonetheless, historian Francisco Romero Salvado remarked,
“Spain did not enter the war, but the war entered Spain.”
The War had a variety of impacts on the Spain despite the lack of direct conflict on the part of the Spanish military or on Spanish turf. The economic impact of the War was positive for the Spanish. By remaining independent, the economy had a chance to grow and industry

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expanded rapidly. Exports increased to support the countries involved in the conflict combined while increased immigration encouraged infrastructural development. Overall, Spain improved economically because of World War.
Socially, a divide grew between those who supported the Allied forces and those who supported the Germans (and its allies). Those supporting the Allied forces were called the
Aliadofilos, while those with the Germans were the Germanofilos. The divide in War support followed the general social divisions within Spain in 1914. The new guard, those excluded from the political polity, supported the Allied forces due their sympathies for increased liberty and representation of the democratic processes. Conservatives and Catholics, the foundations of the old guard, were Germanofilos because of the German peoples’ support of the fatherland, their obedience to an autocratic state, respect for order, and their strong military traditions (Moreno
Luzón, 2012, pg 37).
Following through with this move towards Fascism on the part of state, Army General
Primo de Rivera incited a pronunciamento against the Cortes and the monarchy in 1923. Primo de Rivera insisted that he would return control to the Cortes as soon as the system offered individuals who would lead “uncontaminated with the vices of political organization.” (Moreno
Luzón, 2012, pg 18) In some sense, Primo de Rivera was highly successful. He ended uprisings in Morocco with relatively low amounts of violence and worked to continue the economic growth following the end of WW1. He was then named Prime Minister by Alfonso XIII in an attempt to recognize the legitimacy of the state; however he also maintained a heavy hand as he fired all civilian politicians and appointed a supreme Directory of eight military men.
Furthermore he got rid of the Cortes, dissolved the Constitution, and established martial law.

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Primo de Rivera led a state that was “highly interventionist in the economic field, religious, corporatists, and reactionary….” (Moreno Luzón, 2012, pg 27).
After destroying the legislative elements of the political system without solving the nation’s problems, Primo de Rivera lost the support of the both the monarchy and the military.
After a large student demonstration at Madrid’s University City, Primo de River left for Paris and abdicated his position at the pinnacle of the state. With the leader of the nation gone, the parliamentary system dissolved, and the legitimacy of the monarchy in question a massive power vacuum appeared.
Although this power vacuum set the stage for the revolutionary shift in Spain’s ideology, one significant tipping point was necessary: the Great Depression. Although under a repressive dictatorial regime, the economic and infrastructural improvements seen between 1914 and 1930 induced a “sociopsychological revolution of rising expectations” that made the downfall of the
Great Depression so harsh (Payne, 2012, pg 23). Many historians point out the fact that Spain was spared from many of the woes of the Depression. Nevertheless it was detrimental to industry as both iron and steel production dropped by fifty percent, unemployment rose significantly, and the value of real wages in relation to GDP plummeted (Giménez, 2005, pg 23).
Once the economic woes caught up to the power vacuum, the Republicans and their socialists, anarchists, and communists allies won their municipal elections in a landslide and took control of the Cortes, affirming a leftist takeover of the Spain. Under the direction of Niceto
Alcalá-Zamora, the Second Republic drafted a new constitution under a Constituent Congress that went into effect immediately. The Second Republic would survive despite uprisings from

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militant anarchists unhappy with progress until 1936, when the Nationalists under Franco incited the Spanish Civil War in a re-revolutionary movement.
Analysis of Foran’s Model
John Foran’s theory of third world revolution highlights certain characteristic variables that constitute a revolution. Foran looks at an economic development rooted in dependence on core countries, the establishment of an exclusionary polity, the creation of a polarizing culture of political opposition, and a combination of an economic downturn and a world lessening of restriction that culminate in a revolutionary outbreak. The shift in political and social culture within Spain between 1931 and 1936 offers better representations of some of the elements than others, yet seen as a whole Foran’s theory presents a complete enough image of the revolution as to derive its causes.
The dependent development element of Foran’s theory is the characteristic that points toward a third world origin directly. However, there are a couple of reasons why this variable is not precisely apparent in this context. First, Spain was not a third world state. Although the least developed and economically advanced in a Western European sense, Spain was still ahead of its southern and eastern European counterparts. Furthermore Spain did not operate via a cash crop or rentier system; in fact, the exports from Spain were not especially strong. This draws from
Foran’s theory that dependently developed nations are only economically viable because of investment from and trade with core nations. The Spanish economy had strong industrial centers in Madrid and Barcelona, yet because of highly decentralized patterns of development the nation could not reach economic prominence. Political pressures contributed more to a dependent state of development in the nation however, as the Spanish were aware of the liberal polities in France

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and England and sought to see these freedoms at home. In summation, despite the presence of political and economic pressures from neighboring countries, Spain’s power as a Western nation in conjunction with its marginally industrialized economy prevented the state from developing completely dependently.
The political systems in place prior to the 1930 rise of the new guard serve as literal paradigms of Foran’s “exclusionary polities.” From the caciquismo system that prevented the people from having a meaningful say in their parliamentary representation to the turno pacific that systematically decided which of the two majority parties would be in command (all under the direction of the Interior Minister), the majority of the Spanish people were excluded from any legitimate political processes. The Constitutional Monarchy did little to even provide a façade of transparency. Instead it repressed dissidents and kept those who supported the crown, the bourgeoisie, the landowners, the Church, the wealthy, and the military in power. Further political repression would exist under the dictatorial regime of General Primo de Rivera who crushed uprisings and instituted a state of martial law. Although the monarchy may have been able to recover and gain the support of the people following the departure of Primo de Rivera, the dearth of nationalistic support directly reveals the lack of enthusiasm for the government in 193. Under both the constitutional monarchy and the dictatorship, the lower classes of society were forced to suffer while those at the top reaped the benefits, an environment that is a breeding ground for revolutionary upheaval.
Despite the polarizing contributions the extremist governments added to the situation, a culture of political opposition had almost always existed in Spain within which the old guard, consisting of urban industrialists, landlords, wealthy politicians, the military, and the Catholic
Church, butted heads with the lower class workers, farmers, urban intelligentsia, and other
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middle class groups that suffered under the regimes of the State. Called the pueblo, these lower class groups suffered through poor living and working conditions. However not until the extreme repression under Primo de Rivera when all hopes of social mobility removed, did groups such as the anarchists and the socialists begin to catch headwind. The gaps between the poor and the rich were growing at increasing rates, encouraged by unevenly dispersed gained from both repatriation of capital from the Spanish-American War and industrial exports from World War
One.
By 1920 the National Confederation of Labor, an anarchist labor group, had 750,000 members. Similar growth trends were present in the Spanish Socialists Party and the Spanish
Communist Party as organized labor and the intelligentsia began to push back against the restrictive old guard regimes.
Two additional elements contributed to the growing grievances between the Republicans and the Nationalists. First was the fact that the military had been growing increasingly aggressive with respect to protests. The military crushed protests in Morocco in 1928 with many casualties.
The second was the growing anti-clerical movement in Spain and throughout Europe. The
Church had always held a powerful position in governmental affairs and the intelligentsia was growing to resent it upon a “separation of church and state” standard. Conflicts with the church would come to center stage in 1931 when hundreds of Churches across the country were burned to the ground, highlighting the extreme positions of political
opposition.
Foran’s theory is most applicable when the economic downturn and world systemic opening elements are analyzed. Following the increases in population, infrastructure, and economic virility between 1900 and 1931, Spain was looking toward a bright industrial future. Even under repressive political regimes, Spain’s real wage rate was able to increase up until 1920 when Primo de Rivera took over. Between 1920 and 1931 the real wage rate stayed
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steady while the national GDP grew, demonstrating a significant decrease in purchasing power for the common Spanish worker (Giménez, 2005, pg 28). This drop in growth was finally capped by the Great Depression that began in 1929. As previously mentioned, the Great Depression may not have impacted Spain as harshly as it did some other European nations. Nonetheless, industry was crippled, the already struggling agricultural market saw losses, and the trade balanced suffered as foreign nations became insular, protecting their own domestic economies. In essence, the Great Depression toppled an economy that may have been growing on paper despite the minimal gains of those at the bottom.
With the Great Depression further degrading the situation, the releasing of foreign pressure incited the final revolution. Important trade partners of Spain such as England and
France were interested in preventing conflict within Spain, yet the failure of a “NonIntervention” agreement amongst the countries of Europe allowed Germany and Italy to get involved which contributed significantly to the conflict (Casanova, 2010, pg. 17). The Germans and Italians, eager to encourage Fascism and test their militaries supported the conflict instead of staying non-engaged. Called the “Little World War,” the conflict between the Nationalists and
Republicans excited the rest of Europe.
The least moving element of Foran’s theory in the scope of Spain is the revolutionary outbreak. The movement was spread amongst a variety of cultural and social divisions and sought change for many groups. With that being said, there was no true “moment” of revolution that incited everything. Students did protest in 1930 in Madrid to call for the removal of Primo de Rivera, however the true shift in power did not come militarily or directly from protest as in other situations. Instead political divide came between the government and the people came to an

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apex when the Republicans were able to win power through municipal elections, re-write the constitution, and begin the short reign of the Second Republic.
Spain’s revolution prior to the Civil War is difficult to characterize. The political revolution at hand shifted power from the domineering old guard to the young, disadvantaged labors who had suffered under the Monarchy and Primo de Rivera. Rooted in a variety of social, political, and economic causes, Spain had reached a tipping point. While Foran’s theory of revolution looks to characterize Third World revolutions the presence of exclusionary polities, polarized cultures of political opposition, a detrimental economic downturn in the Great
Depression, and a world systemic opening generated by previous and oncoming world conflicts drive at the cause of this political revolution.
Despite five promising years for the Second Republic, the failure of the revolution to take complete hold may be rooted in why it was so difficult to characterize: method and size. The coalition of forces working to overthrow the old guard was so wide and diverse that it was difficult to maintain unity. The anarchists left the Republicans at one point because their policies were not radical enough, while middle class groups saw many provisions as too radical.
Regardless of the distaste for the government, the sheer expanse in opinion contributed to failure.
Additionally, Spain is not truly a third world country and thus did not depend on a core nation to develop. Because of this relative sense of independent development Spain’s military, with wealthy backing, was strong enough to overturn the Second Republic and to install a fascist regime under General Franco. This fragmented Republican front, facing a well allied and funded
Nationalist front, had very little hopes of seeing a free and egalitarian society beyond 1936 and sadly never did.

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Works Cited

Beevor, A. (2001; 1982). The spanish civil war. London: Cassell.

Brandt, J. A. (1933). Toward the new spain. Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago Press.

Casanova, J. (2010). The spanish republic and civil war [República y guerra civil.English].
Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press.

Esenwein, G. R., & Shubert, A. (1995). Spain at war :The spanish civil war in context, 19311939. London; New York: Longman.

Foran, J. (2005). Taking power :On the origins of third world revolutions. Cambridge, UK; New
York: Cambridge University Press.

Giménez, L. E., & Montero, M. (2005) The Spanish Great Depression. 1925-1929. Vigo, Spain:
Universidade de Vigo.

Moreno Luzón, J. (2012). Modernizing the nation :Spain during the reign of alfonso XIII, 19021931. Portland: Sussex Academic Press.

Payne, S. G. (2012). The spanish civil war. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Romero Salvadó, F. J. (2005). The spanish civil war :Origins, course, and outcomes.
Houndmills, BAsingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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Romero Salvadó, F. J., & Smith, A. (2010). The agony of spanish liberalism :From revolution to dictatorship 1913-23. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire; New York: Palgrave
Macmillan.

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