Table Of ContentThe Agony of Spanish Liberalism
Also by Francisco J. Romero Salvadó:
TWENTIETH CENTURY SPAIN: Politics and Society, 1898–1998
SPAIN 1914–1918: Between War and Revolution
THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR: Origins, Course and Outcomes
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CIVIL WAR: Revolution, Social Conflict and Reaction
in Liberal Spain, 1916–1923
Books by Angel Smith:
ANARCHISM, REVOLUTION AND REACTION: Catalan Labour and the Crisis
of the Spanish State, 1898–1923
HISTORICAL DICTIONARY OF SPAIN
(ed. with Clare Mar-Molinero), NATIONALISM AND THE NATION IN THE
IBERIAN PENINSULA: Competing and Conflicting Identities
(ed. with Emma Dávila-Cox), THE CRISIS OF 1898: Colonial
Redistribution and Nationalist Mobilisation
(ed. with Stefan Berger), NATIONALISM, LABOUR AND ETHNICITY,
1870–1939
(ed.), RED BARCELONA. SOCIAL PROTEST AND LABOUR MOBILIZATION IN
THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
The Agony of Spanish
Liberalism
From Revolution to Dictatorship 1913–23
Edited by
Francisco J. Romero Salvadó
Senior Lecturer, Department of Hispanic,
Portuguese and Latin American Studies,
University of Bristol, UK
and
Angel Smith
Reader in Modern Spanish History,
Department of Spanish, Portuguese and
Latin American Studies
University of Leeds, UK
Editorial matter, selection and chapter 1 © Francisco J. Romero Salvadó and
Angel Smith 2010
All remaining chapters © their respective authors 2010
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2010 978-0-230-55424-5
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First published 2010 by
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ISBN 978-1-349-36383-4 ISBN 978-0-230-27464-8 (eBook)
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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The agony of Spanish liberalism : from revolution to dictatorship
1913–23 / edited by Francisco Jos Romero Salvado, Angel Smith.
p. cm.
Summary: “An exploration of the causes of the growing schism within
Spanish society between 1914–1923, and the political polarisation and social
violence that culminated in the Spanish Civil War. Essays analyse the crisis
and eventual downfall of Spain’s elitist liberal order and its replacement by
an authoritarian dictatorship” – Provided by publisher.
1. Spain – Politics and government – 1886–1931. 2. Liberalism – Spain –
History – 20th century. I. Romero Salvadó, Francisco J., 1960– II. Smith,
Angel, 1958–
DP247.A576 2010
946(cid:2).074—dc22 2010002712
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vi
Notes on Contributors vii
1 The Agony of Spanish Liberalism and the Origins of
Dictatorship: A European Framework 1
Francisco J. Romero Salvadó and Angel Smith
2 The Government, Parties and the King, 1913–23 32
Javier Moreno Luzón
3 Spain’s Revolutionary Crisis of 1917: A Reckless Gamble 62
Francisco J. Romero Salvadó
4 An Impossible Unity: Revolution, Reform and
Counter-Revolution and the Spanish Left, 1917–23 92
Chris Ealham
5 ‘The Red Dawn’ of the Andalusian Countryside: Peasant
Protest during the ‘Bolshevik Triennium’, 1918–20 121
Francisco Cobo Romero
6 The Lliga Regionalista, the Catalan Right and the
Making of the Primo de Rivera Dictatorship, 1916–23 145
Angel Smith
7 ‘Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum’: The Catalan Employers’
Dirty War, 1919–23 175
Francisco J. Romero Salvadó
8 Nation and Reaction: Spanish Conservative
Nationalism and the Restoration Crisis 202
Alejandro Quiroga
9 The Moroccan Quagmire and the Crisis of Spain’s
Liberal System, 1917–23 230
Pablo La Porte
10 The Making of an Interventionist Army, 1898–1923 255
Sebastian Balfour
Index 275
v
Figures and Tables
Figures
2.1 Percentage of seats in the Lower House of Parliament
which were Distritos Propios, 1876–1923 48
2.2 Government crises, 1912–23 53
Tables
2.1 Elections and make-up of the Congreso De Los Diputados
(1914–23) 42
5.1 Agrarian salaries in Spain, 1910–26 125
5.2 Strikes registered in four Andalusian provinces, 1917–22 131
5.3 Members of the Socialist and Anarchist unions in
Andalusia, 1918–22 136
5.4 Socialist councillors elected in the eight Andalusian
provinces, 1905–20 137
vi
Contributors
Sebastian Balfour is Emeritus Professor of Contemporary Spanish
Studies in the Department of Government of the London School of
Economics and Political Science. He has published extensively on con-
temporary Spain. His books include Dictatorship, Workers and the City.
Labour in Greater Barcelona since 1939 (1989); The End of the Spanish
Empire 1898–1923 (1997); Deadly Embrace. Morocco and the Road to the
Spanish Civil War (2002); (with Alejandro Quiroga), The Reinvention of
Spain. Nation and Identity since Democracy (2007) – all of which were
published in editions in Spanish. He has edited two books: (with Paul
Preston), Spain and the Great Powers in the Twentieth Century (1999) and
The Politics of Contemporary Spain (2005). He has also published numer-
ous chapters and articles on contemporary Spain in edited books, aca-
demic journals and newspapers in both Britain and Spain. His latest
book is an extensively revised and expanded third edition of his Castro:
A Profile in Power (2009).
Francisco Cobo Romero is a Professor in Contemporary Spanish
History at the Universidad of Granada. He is an expert on the field of
agrarian politics in Spain and Europe during the first three decades of
the 20th century. Recently, his research has focused on the social basis
of early Francoism. His publications include: Conflicto rural y violencia
política (1998); De Campesinos a Electores (2003); Revolución campesina
y contrarrevolución franquista en Andalucía (2004); (co-authored with
Teresa María Ortega López), Franquismo y posguerra en Andalucía Oriental
(2005); and Por la Reforma Agraria hacia la Revolución. El sindicalismo
agrario socialista durante la II República y la Guerra Civil (2007).
Chris Ealham teaches History at Saint Louis University in Madrid and
is Honorary Research Fellow at Lancaster University. He is a specialist
in the Spanish workers’ movement, and his publications include Class,
Conflict and Culture in Barcelona, 1898–1937 (2004) and (edited with
Mike Richards), The Splintering of Spain: Cultural History and the Spanish
Civil War (2005). He is currently writing a book on the role of intellectu-
als within the Spanish anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist movements.
Pablo La Porte obtained his PhD from the University Complutense of
Madrid in 1997. Following a period as visiting fellow at the London
vii
viii Contributors
School of Economics, he is currently lecturing in Spanish history at
Heriot Watt University (Edinburgh). His research focuses on problems
of perception and misperception in international politics. An expert
on Spain’s colonial war in Morocco, his recent publications include
‘Marruecos y la crisis de la Restauración, 1917–1923’, Ayer Revista de
Historia Contemporánea, and ‘Civil-Military Relations in the Spanish
Protectorate in Morocco: The Road to the Spanish Civil War, 1912–1936’,
Armed Forces and Society.
Javier Moreno Luzón is Professor in Contemporary Spanish History at
the Universidad Complutense de Madrid. He has been a visiting scholar
at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the École des
Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Tufts University, and the Minda de
Gunzburg Center for European Studies of Harvard University. He is the
author of several articles, numerous chapters, and books on political
clientelism, monarchy, liberalism, parliamentarian elites, and parties
in Restoration Spain (1875–1923). His current research involves Spanish
nationalism and the nation-building process in the early 20th century.
Alejandro Quiroga is Reader in Spanish History at the University of
Newcastle. His research interests include nationalism, conservative pol-
itical thought, and ethnic conflict. He is the author of Los orígenes del
Nacionalcatolicismo (2006), Making Spaniards: Primo the Rivera and the
Nationalization of the Masses, 1923–1930 (2007) and (with Sebastian
Balfour), The Reinvention of Spain (2007).
Francisco J. Romero Salvadó is Senior Lecturer in Modern Spanish
History at the University of Bristol. He has written extensively on the
transition from elite to mass politics, the post-First World War crisis of
the Liberal Monarchy, popular protest and praetorian intervention in
political society. His recent publications include The Spanish Civil War:
Origins, Course and Outcomes (2005) and Foundations of the Civil War.
Revolution, Social Conflict and Reaction in Spain, 1916–1923 (2008).
Angel Smith is Reader in Modern Spanish History at the University of
Leeds. He works above all in areas of Spanish labour and social history
and national identities and nationalisms in Spain. His most recent works
are Anarchism, Revolution and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of
the Spanish State, 1898–1923 (2007), and A Historical Dictionary of Spain,
2nd edition (2009). At present he is writing a book on the origins and
rise of Catalan nationalism.
1
The Agony of Spanish Liberalism
and the Origins of Dictatorship:
A European Framework
Francisco J. Romero Salvadó and Angel Smith
Introduction
This book analyses the organic crisis of Spain’s liberal order that cul-
minated with the establishment of a military dictatorship headed by
General Miguel Primo de Rivera in September 1923.1 The decay of lib-
eral politics in Spain is approached as a regional variant of the general
crisis that engulfed most traditional (fin de siècle) European regimes in
the aftermath of the First World War. At the root of this crisis was the
fact that these regimes had taken only limited steps towards democ-
ratization. Before 1914, all ruling orders, even autocratic Russia, had
introduced a modicum of civil liberties, embraced parliamentarian
practices and replaced the feudal system with capitalist forms of pro-
duction. In some, relatively free elections took place and ministers were
to an important degree accountable to parliament. However, elements
of the ancien régime still permeated Europe’s political societies. At their
apex, the heads of state (in most cases crowned sovereigns) ruled over
extended courts and at the very least retained significant constitutional
powers. In fact, armies were still the monarch’s Praetorian Guard rather
than a national institution. The upper houses of parliament were bul-
warks of vested interests while a series of devices – ranging from limits
to the franchise to giving disproportionate weight to rural areas, and,
in southern Europe above all, sheer ballot-rigging – limited the power
of lower chambers. This encouraged demands for democratic and even
revolutionary change.2
The outbreak of the First World War proved a watershed. Its awesome
socio-economic and human impact saw the rise of mass politics and the
accelerated breakdown of hierarchical and clientelist-based governments.
1
