Indalecio
Prieto was
born in Bilbao, Spain on 30th April, 1883.
His father died when he was six years old and he was raised in extreme
poverty. When he was a child he made a living by selling newspapers
on the streets. In 1899 Prieto joined the Socialist
Party (PSOE) and four years later helped to form the Young Socialist
League.
Prieto worked as a journalist
and in 1911 he became the first socialist to be elected to a provincial
council in Spain. During the First World War
Prieto emerged as the leader of PSOE in the Basque region. In the
summer of 1917 Prieto became involved in the organization of a political
strike in Spain. The strikers demanded the establishment of a provisional
republican government, elections to a constituent Cortes and action
to deal with inflation.
In Madrid
members of the strike committee, including Julián
Besteiro and
Francisco
Largo Caballero,
were arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment. Prieto feared the
same would happened to him and he fled to France and did not return
until April 1918. Soon afterwards was elected to the Cortes.
Miguel
Primo de Rivera became military dictator of Spain in September
1923. He promised to eliminate corruption and to regenerate Spain.
In order to do this he suspended the constitution, established martial
law and imposed a strict system of censorship. Some members of the
Socialist Party, including Francisco
Largo Caballero,
initially favoured working with the new regime. Prieto disagreed and
called for the left-wing groups to form an alliance against the regime.
Largo Cabellero joined
the dictatorship's Council of State. He also accepted Primo de Rivera's
invitation for the Union General de Trabajadores
(UGT) to become the regime's trade union at the expense of the banned
anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of
Trabajo (CNT). This brought Prieto into direct conflict with Largo
Cabellero. Prieto
wrote that "Largo Caballero is a fool who wants to appear clever.
He is a frigid bureaucrat who plays the role of a mad fanatic".
Largo Caballero replied that Prieto was "envious, arrogant, and
distainful" and was not a socialist "either in his ideas
or in his action."
In August 1930 Prieto was
a central figure in the formation of the Republican coalition known
as the Pact of San Sebastián. Julián
Besteiro was
opposed to the idea but Prieto's old enemy, Francisco
Largo Caballero,
gave it his support as he felt it was the only way the Socialist
Party would gain power. At a conference held in July 1930, delegates
voted by 10,607 to 8,326 to approve the PSOE taking part in a future
coalition government.
After Alfonso
XIII abdicated
in April 1931 Prieto became Minister of Finance in the new government
led by Niceto
Alcala Zamora.
Prieto was immediately plunged into a financial crisis as wealthy
people in Spain took their money out of the country and he was forced
to spend large sums to maintain the value of the currency.
In December 1931 Manuel
Azaña replaced
Niceto
Alcala Zamora
as prime minister and Prieto
was appointed Minister of Public Works. Over the next two years Prieto
completed many of the hydro-electrical projects initiated by Miguel
Primo de Rivera. He also introduced large-scale irrigation
schemes, a major road building programme and a railway network in
Madrid.
Attacked by the extreme
left for not being radical enough, the government faced an anarcho-syndicalist
uprising at Casas Viejas in January 1933. The government was severely
criticized in the Cortes
for its approval of the
way the Civil
Guard and Assault
Guard put down the uprising. This included the execution
without trial of fourteen prisoners.
In September 1933 the government
of Manuel
Azaña collapsed
and Prieto and other Socialist Party
members of the cabinet left office. The following month Prieto announced
the end of the Republican-Socialist coalition. In the elections that
followed in November 1933 the conservative CEDA
became the largest party in the Cortes.
Prieto was aware that the
left would have to join forces in order to form another government
in Spain. In January 1936, Prieto joined with 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 Socialist
Party (PSOE), Communist Party (PCE)
and the Republican Union Party.
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.
Prieto was expected to
become prime minister but he was forced to withdraw when he failed
to get the support of Francisco
Largo Caballero.
Instead the post went to the non-socialist José
Giral. The Popular Front government
immediately upset the conservatives by realizing 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.
During the early stages
of the Spanish Civil War Prieto grew disillusioned
with José Giral and supported the
view that his old enemy, Francisco
Largo Caballero,
should become prime minister. In Largo Caballero's new government
Prieto served as Minister of Navy and Air (September, 1936 to May,
1937). He also served as Minister of National Defence (May, 1937 to
March, 1938) under Juan Negrin.
By June 1937,
the Socialist
Party had
160,000 members. The growth in the Communist
Party was
even more dramatic which now had nearly 400,000 members. The communists
also controlled the Union
General de Trabajadores (UGT), the Catalan
Socialist Party (PSUC) and
the PSOE youth movement, Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (JSU).
Prieto was
now leader of the Socialist Party but in April 1938 Juan
Negrin felt
strong enough to remove him from the government.
Prieto was forced
to flee from Spain when General Francisco
Franco and
the Nationalist Army took control
of the country in March 1939. Indalecio
Prieto
went to Mexico where he led the Socialist
Party in exile until his death from an heart-attack on 11th February
1962.
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Last updated: 20th March, 2002
(1)
Miguel Maura was one of the Republicans involved in establishing the
Pact of San Sebastián
in August 1930. Afterwards he wrote about the
role of Indalecio Prieto
in the alliance.
Once we had clinched the agreement of the Socialists, the republican
block was compact and efficient. Moreover, the security represented
by being able to count on Prieto and the elements that he had been
accumulating on his own account for months represented an enormous
relief for the rest of us. Indalecio,
who knew the most heterogeneous and picturesque characters, was a
truly exceptional judge of men. When he spoke with someone twice,
he knew exactly what to expect in terms of their moral fibre and,
without the slightest euphemism, he passed judgement once and for
all. Time after time we were to find out just how accurate his assessment
had been
(2)
Salvador
de Madariaga, a member of the Republican Union Party, commented
on the clash between Francisco
Largo Caballero and Indalecio
Prieto.
What made the Spanish Civil War inevitable was the civil war within
the Socialist party. No wonder Fascism grew. Let no one argue that
it was fascist violence that developed socialist violence. It was
not at the Fascists that Largo Caballero's gunmen shot but at their
brother socialists. It was (Largo Caballero's) avowed, nay, his proclaimed
policy to rush Spain on to the dictatorship of the proletariat. Thus
pushed on the road
to violence, the nation, always prone to it,
became more violent than ever. This suited the fascists admirably,
for they are nothing if not lovers and adepts of violence.
(3)
The exiled Italian socialist, Pietro Nenni wrote about Indalecio
Prieto in August 1936.
I've been watching Indalecio Prieto for the last few days. It could
be said that, more than just a man, he is a prodigious work machine.
He thinks about a hundred things at once. He knows everything, he
sees all. Within the space of a few minutes, he receives a group of
socialists, he runs twenty times to pick up the telephone. Belarmino
Tomas takes him to one side to speak about dynamite, ammunition and
cannons. Professor
Negrin takes him by the arm to report on the latest developments in
an important diplomatic issue. In his short sleeves, sweating and
breathing heavily, Indalecio goes from one to another, gives orders,
signs papers, takes notes, shouts on the telephone, bawls out one
and smiles at another. He is nothing; he isn't a minister; he's just
a member of a parliament that is in recess. And yet he is everything:
the heart and soul
and co-ordinator of all government activity.
(4)
Indalecio Prieto was interviewed
by the Soviet journalist Mikhail Koltsov on 26th August 1936.
Our political differences lie at the heart of the struggle within
the Spanish Socialist Party in recent years. And, despite everything,
at least today, Caballero is the only man, rather is the only appropriate
name, to head a new government. I am ready to take part in that government,
to take any post and work at Caballero's orders doing whatever is
necessary. There is no other outlet for Spain nor for me, if I want
to be of use to the country.
(5)
Ilya
Ehrenburg, letter
sent to Marcel Rosenberg (30th September,
1936)
The question of possibly
merging the Socialists and the Communists into one party (as in Catalonia)
does not have, according to my preliminary impression, any immediate,
current significance since the Socialist party, as such, at least
in the central region, does not make itself much felt and since the
Socialists and Communists act in concert within the framework of a
union organization - the General Workers' Union - headed by Caballero
(abbreviated UGT), the activity and influence of which far exceed
the limits of a union.
What are our channels
for action in this situation? We support close contact with the majority
of the members of the government, chiefly with Caballero and Prieto.
Both of them, through their personal and public authority, stand incomparably
higher than the other members of the government and play a leading
role for them. Both of them very attentively listen to everything
that we say. Prieto at this particular time is trying at all costs
to avoid conflict with Caballero and therefore is trying not to focus
on the issues.
I think it unnecessary
to dwell at this time on the problem of how an aggravation in class
contradictions might take shape during a protracted civil war and
the difficulties with the economy that might result (supplying the
army, the workers, and so on), especially as I think it futile to
explore a more distant prospect while the situation at the front still
places all the issues of the revolution under a question mark.
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