Republicanism in Spain

Spanish republicanism has not been a single doctrine or organisation. Since the nineteenth century it has included federal, unitary, liberal, democratic, anticlerical, social-reformist, socialist and regional nationalist currents. These currents have shared opposition to dynastic monarchy, but have differed over the territorial organisation of the state, the relationship between religion and public life, social reform, and the means by which a republic should be achieved.

Spain has been governed as a republic during two periods: the First Spanish Republic from February 1873 to December 1874, and the Second Spanish Republic from April 1931 to April 1939. The latter was defeated in the Spanish Civil War and survived institutionally only in exile until the Spanish transition to democracy.

Under the constitutional parliamentary monarchy established after Francoism, republicanism has remained present in political parties, social movements and public debate. It is most closely associated with the political left, but republican positions have also appeared in liberal, federalist, regional nationalist and other political traditions.

History

Origins and nineteenth-century formation

The origins of modern Spanish republicanism are usually placed in the last years of the eighteenth century and the early nineteenth century, under the impact of the French Revolution and the French First Republic. Historians have nevertheless described those origins as complex, since the word republic had previously been used in learned and classical senses and did not always imply an anti-monarchical programme. French republican symbols, including tricolour flags, female allegories, the Phrygian cap and La Marseillaise, later became part of Spanish republican political culture.

Early Spanish republicanism developed slowly and was often viewed by its opponents as synonymous with Jacobinism, social disorder or anti-clericalism. The Conspiracy of San Blas of 1795 has sometimes been cited as an early episode, although its programme did not explicitly abolish monarchy. Clearer republican expressions appeared during the Trienio Liberal (1820–1823), especially among the most radical liberals, the so-called exaltados.

After the restoration of absolutism in 1823, republican ideas circulated among liberal exiles and were often combined with federalism and Iberism. Writers such as José Canga Argüelles praised the new republican governments in the Americas, while Ramón Xaudaró y Fábregas proposed a federal republican system in Bases d'une Constitution Politique (1832). These writings had little immediate political effect, but they helped define the vocabulary of Spanish federal republicanism.

During the reign of Isabella II republicanism became more visible in urban democratic, anticlerical and federal circles. Barcelona was one of its main centres. Xaudaró published El Catalán there in 1835 and was later executed after taking part in the disturbances of 1837. Secret societies, local juntas and newspapers helped spread republican language, although the movement was still fragmented. Abdón Terradas, another early Catalan republican, led a short-lived republican proclamation in Figueres in 1842 and used the newspaper El Republicano to continue his agitation.

The 1840s were decisive for the formation of a republican-democratic current. Republican candidates achieved local electoral successes in several cities during the regency of Baldomero Espartero, although these results were often obtained through alliances with the left wing of the Progressive Party. In this period republicans formulated a programme that went beyond replacing monarchy: they associated the republic with universal male suffrage, freedom of the press and association, secular education, the reduction of privilege, social reform and the rationalisation of public life.

A democratic faction emerged inside the Progressive Party around figures such as José María Orense, Nicolás María Rivero and José Ordax Avecilla. In 1849 this current founded the Democratic Party, whose initial programme defended universal suffrage, civil liberties, a single chamber based on national sovereignty and state action to reduce social inequality. Although its first manifesto still accepted the throne of Isabella II, its political demands placed it close to republicanism. During the 1850s and 1860s the party increasingly identified with republicanism. Its internal debates included federalism, individual rights, social reform and the relationship between democracy and socialism. Francisco Pi y Margall became the most important federal theorist, while Emilio Castelar represented a more liberal-democratic current.

Democratic Sexennium and First Republic

The Glorious Revolution of 1868 overthrew Isabella II and opened the Democratic Sexennium. The provisional government favoured a constitutional monarchy, but the republican majority of the old Democratic Party reorganised itself as the Federal Democratic Republican Party. The minority that accepted monarchy as compatible with democracy became known as the cimbrios.

Federal republicans were divided over both social reform and political method. Some favoured legal action and parliamentary tactics; others defended insurrection and the construction of the federal republic "from below". Provincial and regional federal pacts, beginning with the Pact of Tortosa in 1869, sought to organise republican federalism around local and regional structures. Republican uprisings in 1869 and 1870, partly linked to opposition to military conscription, were suppressed by the army.

On 11 February 1873, after the abdication of Amadeo I, the Cortes proclaimed the First Spanish Republic. The new regime was born in a context of war in Cuba, the Third Carlist War, social unrest and fiscal weakness. It was also weakened by divisions among republicans. Federal republicans formed the majority, but they were divided between intransigents, centrists around Pi y Margall, reformist democrats around Nicolás Salmerón and more liberal republicans around Castelar.

The Republic had four presidents of the executive power in less than a year: Estanislao Figueras, Pi y Margall, Salmerón and Castelar. In June 1873 the Constituent Cortes declared that Spain would be a federal democratic republic, but the federal constitution was not approved. The Cantonal rebellion of 1873, especially the Canton of Cartagena, revealed the gap between federalists who wanted a constitutional federation created from above and intransigents who sought immediate local sovereignty.

On 3 January 1874 General Manuel Pavía dissolved the Cortes by force. The republic formally continued under Francisco Serrano, but in a unitary and authoritarian form. The Pronunciamiento of Sagunto by Arsenio Martínez Campos on 29 December 1874 restored the Bourbon monarchy in the person of Alfonso XII.

Bourbon Restoration and republican renewal

During the early Bourbon Restoration, republicanism was excluded from power and divided into several parties. Pi y Margall led the federal republicans; Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla promoted an insurrectionary republicanism from exile; Salmerón increasingly favoured legal and parliamentary methods; and Castelar defended a possibilist strategy of cooperation with liberal monarchists if democratic reforms were accepted.

Republican organisation during the Restoration combined parliamentary groups, newspapers, local committees and republican clubs or casinos. It was strongest in urban settings and among sectors of the middle classes, artisans and workers, but it struggled against the electoral machinery of the Restoration regime. Even after the restoration of universal male suffrage in 1890, electoral fraud and clientelist networks limited republican representation. Castelar dissolved his possibilist party after the adoption of universal male suffrage and advised his followers to join the Liberal Party. After the deaths of Ruiz Zorrilla, Castelar and Pi y Margall, Salmerón became the main historical republican leader until his death in 1908.

At the turn of the twentieth century, historians distinguish between the old republicanism inherited from the First Republic and a new republicanism that sought modern mass politics. Vicente Blasco Ibáñez in Valencia and Alejandro Lerroux in Barcelona developed powerful urban republican movements with strong anticlerical, populist and working-class appeal.

In 1903 Salmerón sponsored the creation of the Republican Union, an attempt to unite most republican currents through electoral politics. It performed well in the 1903 general election, but soon divided between a moderate or "governmental" wing and a more radical current led by Lerroux. The latter founded the Radical Republican Party in 1908. The repression following the Tragic Week of 1909 helped produce the Republican–Socialist Conjunction, an alliance between republicans and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE). A more moderate tendency around Melquíades Álvarez created the Reformist Party, which later adopted an accidentalist position on the form of government and moved closer to the monarchy.

Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the fall of the monarchy

The coup d'état of Miguel Primo de Rivera found republicanism organisationally weak. Nevertheless, the dictatorship helped bring new sectors into republican opposition. Manuel Azaña, formerly linked to reformism, founded Republican Action after concluding that democratisation within the monarchy was no longer viable.

In 1926 the Republican Alliance was created by old and new republican forces, including Lerroux's Radical Republican Party, Azaña's Republican Action, the federal republicans and Catalan republican groups. It called for constituent Cortes elected by universal suffrage and committed its members to remain united until the dictatorship fell. Republicanism also attracted parts of the urban middle classes, professionals and small business owners dissatisfied with Primo de Rivera's authoritarian and interventionist policies.

After Primo de Rivera resigned in January 1930, the monarchy of Alfonso XIII lost support rapidly. In August 1930 republican groups, joined by Catalan nationalists and later by socialists, reached the Pact of San Sebastián, which prepared a strategy to end the monarchy and establish a republic. The failed Jaca uprising of December 1930 and the execution of the captains Fermín Galán and Ángel García Hernández strengthened republican symbolism.

Municipal elections held on 12 April 1931 became a de facto test of the monarchy. Republican candidates won in most major cities. On 14 April the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed, Alfonso XIII left Spain, and a provisional government headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora took power.

Second Republic and Civil War

The Second Spanish Republic brought republicanism to power for the second time. Its 1931 Constitution established a democratic, secular and decentralised republic, extended suffrage to women and allowed provinces to form autonomous regions. The first governments included liberal Catholic republicans, left republicans, radicals and socialists, although the coalition soon fractured over religion, social reform and the role of the PSOE in government.

The first biennium, led by Azaña and supported by a republican-socialist coalition, pursued reforms in the army, education, church-state relations, labour law, regional autonomy and agrarian policy. These reforms mobilised support among republican and labour movements but also produced strong resistance from conservative, Catholic, monarchist and military sectors. The centre-right victory in the 1933 elections brought governments led by Lerroux's Radical Republican Party with parliamentary support, and later participation, from the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA).

The entry of CEDA ministers into government in October 1934 triggered a revolutionary general strike and an armed uprising in Asturias, while the Catalan government proclaimed a "Catalan State" within a Spanish federal republic. The failure and repression of the October events intensified polarisation. In 1934, Azaña's Republican Left was formed from Republican Action and other left-republican groups, while Diego Martínez Barrio's Republican Union emerged from a split in the Radical Republican Party.

For the 1936 elections, left republicans formed an electoral alliance with the PSOE and other labour organisations, later known as the Popular Front. Its programme was primarily that of the left republicans: amnesty for those imprisoned after October 1934, restoration of the reformist legislation of the first biennium and the resumption of regional autonomy processes. After the Popular Front victory, Azaña formed a government composed only of left republicans. In May 1936 he became President of the Republic and Santiago Casares Quiroga became prime minister.

The military uprising of 17–18 July 1936 failed to seize the whole state and led to the Spanish Civil War. The republican state survived in the territory loyal to the government, but the authority of republican parties was soon overwhelmed by war, social revolution and the growing importance of socialist, communist and anarchist organisations. During the war, governments under José Giral, Francisco Largo Caballero and Juan Negrín attempted to combine military resistance with political control of the loyal zone. The Republic was defeated in 1939 after Francoist victory, mass exile and the establishment of the Franco dictatorship.

Exile, Francoism and transition

After the Civil War, republican organisations were eliminated inside Francoist Spain through repression, executions, imprisonment, exile and the closure of republican cultural and political spaces. A Spanish Republican government in exile was established in 1939. Thousands of republicans fled to France; many were later detained after the German occupation and some 7,000 Spaniards died in Nazi concentration camps, especially Mauthausen-Gusen.

In exile, republican politics remained divided over strategy. In Mexico, Martínez Barrio helped create Acción Republicana Española in 1941, defending a liberal and democratic republic. In 1943 republican, socialist and nationalist groups formed the Junta Española de Liberación, while in Spain interior opposition groups created the Alianza Nacional de Fuerzas Democráticas in 1944. These initiatives sought international support after the Second World War, but failed to bring down Francoism.

During the Spanish transition to democracy, the main anti-Franco opposition parties prioritised political freedoms, legalisation, amnesty and regional autonomy over restoration of the republic. The PCE and PSOE accepted the parliamentary monarchy of Juan Carlos I within the new constitutional settlement, while historical republican parties obtained little electoral support outside Catalonia. The Republican government-in-exile dissolved itself in 1977 and recognised the new democratic framework. The Spanish Constitution of 1978 established Spain as a parliamentary monarchy, but republicanism remained present in parties, civic associations and public debate.