Diego
Martinez Barrio was
born in Spain in 1883. He formed and led
the Republican Union Party (RUP) and
in January 1936, helped Manuel
Azaña
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 RUP, Socialist Party (PSOE)
and the Communist Party (PCE).
The Popular
Front, as the coalition became known, advocated the restoration
of Catalan autonomy, amnesty for political prisoners, agrarian reform,
an end to political blacklists and the payment of damages for property
owners who suffered during the revolt of 1934. The Anarchists
refused to support the coalition and instead urged people not to vote.
Right-wing groups in Spain
formed the National Front. This included the CEDA
and the Carlists. The Falange
Española did not officially join but most of its members
supported the aims of the National Front.
The Spanish people voted
on Sunday, 16th February, 1936. Out of a possible 13.5 million voters,
over 9,870,000 participated in the 1936
General Election. 4,654,116 people (34.3) voted for the Popular
Front, whereas the National Front obtained 4,503,505 (33.2) and the
centre parties got 526,615 (5.4). The Popular Front, with 263 seats
out of the 473 in the Cortes
formed the new government.
The RUP won 37 seats and
Martinez Barrio became speaker in the Cortes. 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 the 10th May 1936 the
conservative Niceto
Alcala Zamora was
ousted as president and replaced by the left-wing Manuel
Azaña.
Soon afterwards Spanish Army officers, including Emilio
Mola,
Francisco
Franco, Gonzalo
Queipo de Llano 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.
President Manuel
Azaña appointed
Martinez Barrio as prime minister on 18th July 1936 and asked him
to negotiate with the rebels. He contacted Emilio
Mola and
offered him the post of Minister of War in his government. He refused
and when Azaña
realized that the Nationalists
were unwilling to compromise, he sacked Martinez Barrio and replaced
him with José Giral.
Martinez Barrio
was forced to flee from Spain when General
Francisco
Franco and
the Nationalist Army took control
of the country in March 1939. Diego
Martinez Barrio died
in 1965.
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