The Socialist Party (PSOE)
was founded in Spain in 1879. Initially
a Marxist organization, it remained a small
political party before the First World War.
Its main support came from Madrid,
the mining districts of Asturias and the industrial areas of Bilbao.
In the summer of 1917 members
of the Socialist Party 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.
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. Indalecio
Prieto disagreed and called for the left-wing groups to
form an alliance against the regime.
Largo Caballero 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 Indalecio
Prieto into direct conflict with Francisco
Largo Caballero.
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 1925 Francisco
Largo Caballero became
leader of the party. He called for "the conquest of political
power by the working class by whatever means possible" and the
"dictatorship of the proletariat organized as a working-class
democracy".
The two men continued to
argue throughout the 1920s. Largo Caballero had the support of union
members whereas Prieto gained most of his following from the middle
class and the intellectuals in the party. By 1930 the PSOE had 20,000
members.
In August 1930 Indalecio
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 both Francisco
Largo Caballero and
Indalecio
Prieto joined the new coalition 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 the Republican government
established in April 1931 Francisco
Largo Caballero and
Indalecio Prieto both served in the new
administration. 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.
Largo Caballero served
as minister of labour and formulated agrarian policies which called
for the distribution of land to landless labourers. This increased
the support for the PSOE in rural communities. By 1935 the PSOE had
increased its membership to 75,000.
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.
On 15th
January 1936, Manuel
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, 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.
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
Diego 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. To protect the
Popular Front government, Giral gave orders for arms to be distributed
to left-wing organizations that opposed the military uprising.
In September 1936, President
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 other
members of the Socialist Party including Angel
Galarza (minister of the interior), Alvarez
del Vayo (minister of foreign affairs), Juan
Negrin (Finance) and Indalecio Prieto
(Navy and Air) in his government.
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.
The May
Riots in 1937 severely damaged the Popular
Front government. Communist members of the Cabinet were highly
critical of the way Francisco
Largo Caballero handled
the disturbances. President Manuel
Azaña agreed
and on 17th May he asked Juan Negrin to
form a new government. Negrin was a communist sympathizer and from
this date Joseph Stalin obtained more
control over the policies of the Republican government
Negrin's government
now attempted to bring the Anarchist
Brigades under
the control of the Republican Army. At first
the Anarcho-Syndicalists
resisted and attempted
to retain hegemony over their units. This proved impossible when the
government made the decision to only pay and supply militias that
subjected themselves to unified command and structure.
Negrin also
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."
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).
Indalecio
Prieto
was now leader of the Socialist Party but in April 1938 Juan
Negrin felt
strong enough to remove him from the government.
On 27th February,
1939, the British prime minister, Neville
Chamberlain
recognized the Nationalist government headed by General Francisco
Franco. Later that day Manuel
Azaña
resigned from office, declaring that the war was lost and that he
did not want Spaniards to make anymore useless sacrifices.
Juan
Negrin
now promoted communist leaders such as Antonio
Cordon, Juan
Modesto and
Enrique Lister to senior posts in the army.
Segismundo
Casado,
commander of the Republican Army
of the Centre,
now became convinced that Negrin was planning a communist coup. On
4th March, Casedo, with the support of the socialist leader, Julián
Besteiro and disillusioned anarchist leaders, established an anti-Negrin
National Defence Junta.
On 6th March
José
Miaja in Madrid joined the rebellion by ordering the arrests of
Communists in the city. Negrin, about
to leave for France, ordered Luis Barceló,
commander of the First Corps of the Army of the Centre, to try and
regain control of the capital. His troops entered Madrid and there
was fierce fighting for several days in the city. Anarchists troops
led by Cipriano Mera, managed to defeat the
First Corps and Barceló was captured and executed.
Segismundo
Casado
now tried to negotiate a peace settlement with General Francisco
Franco.
However, he refused demanding an unconditional surrender.
The leaders of
the Socialist Party were forced to flee from Spain
when General Francisco
Franco and
the Nationalist Army took control
of the country in March 1939. Julián
Besteiro remained behind and despite his attempts to negotiate
an end to the war was arrested and sentenced to thirty years' imprisonment.
(1)
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.
Except for La Pasionaria,
the leadership of the Communist party consists of people who do not
yet have authority on the national level. The party's real general
secretary was an individual about whom I wrote you. Because he occupied
just such a position not only within the Central Committee but also
outside it, he besmirched the reputations of two institutions with
all the people in the Popular Front. However we evaluate his role,
in any case, the fact that he himself took the place of the leadership
hindered the formation, from the leadership cadres, of independent
political leaders.
The Communist party, which
has attracted some of the more politically conscious elements of the
working class, is, all the same, insufficiently organized and politically
strong to take on even to the slightest degree the political work
for the armed forces of the revolution. In Catalonia, about which
I can judge only through partial evidence, the party is significantly
weaker and undoubtedly suffers from the provocative activities of
Trotskyists, who have won over several active leaders, like, for example,
Maurin. Undoubtedly the party is still incapable of independently
rousing the masses to some kind of large-scale action, or of concentrating
all the strength of the leadership on such an action. What is more
the example of Alcazar has been in this connection a notoriously negative
test for the party. However, I will not give a more definite evaluation
of the cadres and strength of the party, since this is the only organization
with which I have had insufficient contact.
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.
(2)
George
Orwell,
Homage to Catalonia (1938)
The Government was headed
by Caballero, a Left-wing Socialist, and contained ministers representing
the U.G.T. (Socialist trade unions) and the C.N.T. (Syndicalist unions
controlled by the Anarchists). The Catalan Generalite was for a while
virtually superseded by an anti-Fascist Defence Committee' consisting
mainly of delegates from the trade unions. Later the Defence Committee
was dissolved and the Generalite was reconstituted so as to represent
the unions and the various Left-wing parties. But every subsequent
reshuffling of the Government was a move towards the Right. First
the P.O.U.M. was expelled from the Generalite; six months later Caballero
was replaced by the Right-wing Socialist Negrin; shortly afterwards
the C.N.T. Was eliminated from the Government; then the U.G.T.; then
the C.N.T. Was turned out of the Generalite; finally, a year after
the outbreak of war and revolution, there remained a Government composed
entirely of Right-wing
Socialists, Liberals, and Communists.
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