Manuel
Azaña
was born into
a prosperous family in Spain on 10th January 1880. Azaña
was educated at the University of Saragossa and Madrid University.
He qualified as a lawyer and in 1911 was employed in the Registry
Office of the Ministry of Justice.
He
became involved in politics and was a member of the Reformist Party.
He was a candidate for the province of Toledo in 1918 and 1923 but
lost on both occasions. In 1925 he founded his own political party,
Accion Republicana.
Azaña wrote
a large number of articles on law and politics and in 1920 began publishing
the journal, La Pluma. He was also on the editorial board of España
which was closed down by the government in 1924. Later he turned to
writing plays and novels and in 1926 won the National Prize for Literature.
In 1931 Azaña
joined with other liberal politicians that took part in the successful
revolution that led to Alfonso
XIII leaving
the country. In the first government of the Second
Republic Azaña
became minister of war. He introduced a series of reforms that upset
senior army officers.
Azaña believed
that the Catholic Church was responsible for Spain's backwardness.
He defended the elimination of special privileges for the Church on
the grounds that Spain had ceased to be Catholic. Azaña was
criticised by the Catholic Church for not doing more to stop the burning
of religious buildings in May 1931. He controversially remarked that
burning of "all the convents in Spain was not worth the life
of a single Republican".
On 16th October
1931, Azaña replaced Niceto
Alcala Zamora as
prime minister. With the support of the Socialist
Party (PSOE) he
attempted to introduce agrarian reform and regional autonomy. However,
these measures were blocked in the Cortes.
The failed military
coup led by José
Sanjurjo on
10th August, 1932, rallied support for Azaña's
government. It was now possible for him to get the Agrarian
Reform Bill and the Catalan Statute passed by the Cortes.
The November 1933
elections were a victory for the Catholic
Party (CEDA). Azaña's party only won five seats and he
was forced from power.
In April 1934
Azaña managed to unite his party with the Radical Socialist
and the Gallegan Autonomists. Later that year there were violent demonstrations
in Barcelona and Asturias. Azaña
was accused of encouraging these disturbances and on 7th October he
was arrested and interned on a ship in Barcelona Harbour. However,
no evidence could be found against him and he was released on 18th
December.
Azaña was
also accused of supplying arms to the Asturias insurrectionaries.
In March 1935, the matter was debated in the Cortes, where Azaña
defended himself in a three-hour speech. On 6th April, 1935, the Tribunal
of Constitutional Guarantees acquitted Azaña.
On 15th January 1936, Azaña
helped to establish a
coalition of parties on the political left to fight the national
elections due to take place the following month. This included the
Socialist Party (PSOE), Communist
Party (PCE) and the Republican Union
Party.
In the elections held on
16th February 1936, 34.3 per cent of the vote went to the Popular
Front, 33.2 per cent to the conservative parties and the rest to regional
and centre parties. This gave the Popular Front 271 seats out of the
448 in the Cortes
and Azaña
was asked to form a new
government.
The Popular Front government
immediately upset the conservatives by releasing all left-wing political
prisoners. The government also introduced agrarian reforms that penalized
the landed aristocracy. Other measures included transferring right-wing
military leaders such as Francisco
Franco to
posts outside Spain, outlawing the Falange
Española and granting Catalonia political and administrative
autonomy.
As a result of these measures
the wealthy took vast sums of capital out of the country. This created
an economic crisis and the value of the peseta declined which damaged
trade and tourism. With prices rising workers demanded higher wages.
This led to a series of strikes in Spain.
On 10th May 1936 Azaña
replaced the conservative
Niceto
Alcala Zamora as
president of Spain. Soon afterwards Spanish Army officers, including
Emilio
Mola,
Francisco
Franco and José
Sanjurjo,
began plotting to overthrow the Popular Front government. This resulted
in the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
on 17th July, 1936.
To protect the Popular
Front government, José Giral,
the new prime minister, gave orders for arms to be distributed to
left-wing organizations and trade unions that opposed the military
uprising.
Azaña
had no desire to be head of a government that was trying to militarily
defeat another group of Spaniards. He attempted to resign but was
persuaded to stay on by the Socialist Party
and Communist Party who hoped that
he was the best person to persuade foreign governments not to support
the military uprising.
In September 1936, Azaña
appointed the left-wing socialist, Francisco
Largo Caballero
as prime minister. Largo Caballero also took over the important role
of war minister.
Largo Caballero brought
into his government two left-wing radicals, Angel
Galarza (minister of the interior) and Alvarez
del Vayo (minister of foreign affairs). He also included right-wing
socialists, Juan Negrin (minister of finance)
and Indalecio Prieto (minister of navy
and air) in his government. Largo
Caballero also gave two ministries to the Communist
Party (PCE) and the rest went to the Republican
Union Party.
After taking power Francisco
Largo Caballero concentrated
on winning the war and did not pursue his policy of social revolution.
In an effort to gain the support of foreign governments, he announced
that his administration was "not fighting for socialism but for
democracy and constitutional rule."
Largo Caballero introduced
changes that upset the left in Spain. This
included conscription, the reintroduction of ranks and insignia into
the militia, and the abolition of workers' and soldiers' councils.
He also established a new police force, the National Republican Guard.
He also agreed for Juan Negrin to be given
control of the Carabineros.
Largo Caballero resisted
pressure from the Communist Party to
promote its members to senior posts in the government. He also refused
their demands to suppress the Worker's Party
(POUM) in May 1937. The Communists now withdrew from the government.
In an attempt to maintain a coalition government, on 15th May, Azaña
sacked Largo Caballero and
asked Juan Negrin to form a new cabinet.
Negrin now
began appointing members of the Communist
Party (PCE) to important military and civilian
posts. This included Marcelino Fernandez, a communist, to head the
Carabineros. Communists were also given control of propaganda, finance
and foreign affairs. The socialist, Luis
Araquistain, described Negrin's government as the "most cynical
and despotic in Spanish history."
Negrin now attempted
to gain the support of western governments by announcing his plan
to decollectivize industries. On 1st May 1938 Negrin published a thirteen-point
program that included the promise of full civil and political rights
and freedom of religion.
In August 1938 President
Manuel
Azaña
attempted to oust Juan
Negrin.
However, he no longer had the power he once had and with the support
of the communists in the government and armed forces, Negrin was able
to survive.
Azaña attempted
to oust Negrin in August 1938. However, he no longer had the power
he once had and with the support of the communists in the government
and armed forces, Negrin was able to survive.
On 26th January,
1939, Barcelona fell to the Nationalist
Army. Azaña and his government now moved to Perelada, close
to the French border. With the nationalist forces still advancing,
Azaña and his colleagues crossed into France
on 5th February.
On 27th February,
1939, the British prime minister, Neville
Chamberlain
recognized the Nationalist government headed by General Francisco
Franco. Later that day
Azaña resigned from office, declaring that the war was lost
and that he did not want Spaniards to make anymore useless sacrifices.
Azaña
went to live in the south of France near Bordeaux. He suffered a heart
attack in February 1940 and was still recovering when the German
Army invaded
three months later. Manuel
Azaña was
moved to Mountauban where he died on 3rd November, 1940.
(1)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
Azana's government had
a difficult time maintaining order. There was a rash of strikes, violence,
church burnings and other disorders. Virtually all the news coming
out of Spain during my first nine months there dealt with these disorders.
Each day would see some new form of violence-some phase of industry
tied up or some blood spilled. Rex Smith, then bureau manager of the
Associated Press in Madrid, once quite appropriately remarked that
it might save us time and cable tolls if we had stereotyped forms
made for New York and referred to them by number in indicating repetitions
of violence.
The Azana government found
itself obliged to use strong measures to curb the disorders. One of
these incidents caused Azana's overthrow. Thirteen anarchists, having
barricaded themselves in
a cafe called Casa de Seis Dedos in the little village of Casas Viejas,
fired on the police. The head of the Casas Viejas constabulary asked
Madrid for instructions. The Ministry of Interior sent orders to the
effect that the place should be cleaned up: "we want neither
prisoners nor wounded." The police took these orders literally.
Not one of the thirteen escaped alive
The extreme Left took
up Casas Viejas as their war cry the thirteen men who had been killed
by police bullets became martyrs. Public opinion was so aroused that,
following Spanish tradition, it ended in reaction. The Right-Centre
coalition of the then unknown newspaperman, Jose Maria Gil Robles,
carried the November, 1933, elections in a
sweeping upset. Azana was ousted. Gil Robles, by virtue of heading
the largest parliamentary minority - the Popular Action group with
112 of the 473 Cortes votes - was first in line to succeed him. But
President Niceto Alcala Zamora, although a strong Catholic, did not
deem it wise to encourage a Right trend in parliament at that time.
Instead, he named Lerroux, the veteran, to the post of Premier.
(2)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
Zamora felt he had no alternative except to
dissolve the Cortes and call for new elections. He issued the decree
on January 7, 1936. The elections were set for February 16. That act
was his political death warrant. Three months later to the day he
was ousted from office.
Azana, meanwhile, had
been in eclipse. Out of the political limelight, his name had been
heard only for a brief moment since the fall of 1933. That was when
he appeared in the Cortes chamber and, by a masterful defense, saved
himself from going to prison as an alleged accomplice of Company's
in the Barcelona revolt of October, 1934. He had
been in Barcelona before and during the uprising, and had
held numerous conferences with Companys. His defense
was one of the finest bits of oratory I have ever heard.
It had its effect, and
Azana was exonerated. Now he blossomed
out in a new role—one that was to carry him to the Presidency.
He organized the Left Popular Front. Socialists,
Anarchists, Communists and Left Republicans were summoned
to his banner. The Rightists vowed that it could not
be done, but Azana welded the groups. The feat earned him
the admiration of even his bitterest enemies. The Socialists
and Communists had reached an entente, but the Left
Republicans and the Anarchists were as far apart as the
stars, and they in turn had nothing in common with the Socialist-Communists.
In getting these discordant elements together
Azana lived up to his reputation as the shrewdest and
cleverest politician in Spain.
(3)
Manuel
Azaña,
speech (21st January, 1937)
I
believe in the creations that will emerge from this tremendous upheaval
in Spain. The regime that I desire is one where all the rights of
conscience and of the human person are defended and secured by all
the political machinery of the State, where the moral and political
liberty of man is guaranteed, where work shall be, as the Republic
intended it to be in Spain, the one qualification of Spanish citizenship,
and where the free disposal of their
country's destiny by the people in their entirety and in their total
representation is assured. No regime will be possible in Spain unless
its based on what I have just said. Peace will come, and the victory
will come; but it will be an impersonal victory: the victory of the
law, of the people, the victory of the Republic. It will not be a
triumph of a leader, for the Republic has no chiefs, and because we
are not going to substitute for the old oligarchic and authoritarian
militarism a demagogic and tumultuous militarism, more fatal still
and even more ineffective in the professional sphere. Victory will
be impersonal, for it will not be the triumph of any one of us, or
of our parties, or of our organizations. It will be the triumph of
Republican liberty, the triumph of the rights of the people, of the
moral entities before which we bow.
(4)
Manuel
Azaña,
speech (18th July, 1937)
It
is therefore an evident truth that if the war in Spain has now lasted
a year, it is no longer a movement of repression against an internal
rebellion, but an act of war from without, an invasion. The war is
entirely and exclusively maintained, not by the military rebels, but
by the Foreign Powers that are making a clandestine invasion of the
Spanish Republic.
Spain has been invaded
by three Powers: Portugal, Italy and Germany. What, then, are the
motives of this three-fold invasion? The internal political regime
of Spain does not matter greatly to them, and even if it mattered,
would not justify the invasion. No. They have come for our mines,
they have come for our raw materials, they have come for harbours,
for the Straits, for naval bases in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean.
What is the purpose of all this? To check the Western Powers who are
interested in maintaining this balance and in whose international
political orbit. Spain has moved for many decades. To check both the
British Power and
the French. That is the reason for the invasion of Spain.
(5)
Manuel
Azaña,
speech (13th November, 1937)
We
are fighting in self-defense, defending the life of our people and
its highest moral values, all the moral values of Spain, absolutely
all - the past, the present, and those that you will know how to create
in time to come.
We, the innovators of
Spanish policy, we, the restorers of the Republic, the workmen of
the Republic, who labored to make it an instrument to bring civilization
and progress to our community, we have denied nothing of all that
is noble and great in the history of Spain - absolutely nothing.
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