SESSION 13 Restoration Crisis.

Primo de
Rivera.

SPANISH CIVILIZATION AND CULTURE

CEA BARCELONA GLOBAL CAMPUS

SPRING 2007 PROGRAMME

Instructor: Dr. Andrew Davis

e-mail: ldxasd@nottingham.ac.uk

1
 Session 12. Restoration Crisis.

Today’s session will cover:

► The late Restoration crisis
► Alternatives to the Restoration System
► Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera

2
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
As you know by now, the Restoration
was in crisis for very different factors.
Among them:
► Turno Pacifico & Caciquismo
► Several attempts to reform the system
fail as every move to reform threatens
either one group or another.

3
 Proposals to end the corrupt
system
► Politically,
Joaquin Costa coined a a
new term Regeneracionismo or
Regenerationism, by which
regeneration would wipe out
caciquismo and would allow the real
powers to introduce in politics.
Believed in an ‘iron surgeon’ to
destroy old system and create canals
and irrigation to expand economy.
4
 Proposals to end the corrupt
system II
► But the most interesting part came
from the literature, something known
as Generation of ‘98. those were
influenced by the Europeans. And for
some of them as Ortega y Gasset,
Europe was the solution to the Spanish
problem (for many years Spain has
been the most pro-European country
in the EU).
5
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► The reactions to failure of reform:

► New movements: socialism,

communism, anarchism
► Remember also the assassination of
the big politicians: Canovas del
Castillo, Eduardo Dato…

6
 Elites question Spain’s
demise
► Asyou know from Alvarez Junco, 1898 was a
key date. It was qualified as the Disaster.
This begged the question among elites….
was Spain a decadent state in danger of
disappearing or was it powerful enough to
recover?

► Remember that in the international context

we are moving in the expansion of colonies
& (social) Darwinism… Imperialism and the
like. 7
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► Something curious is that the regime
survived the crisis of 1898, indeed it
survived until 1923. How was this
possible?

► Mainly because protest movements were not able

to articulate an alternative comprehensive enough
to gain the necessary support.
► The reform and protest movements were made up
of 4 main groups against corrupt Restoration
system: Catalan & Basque nationalists, Socialists &
Anarchists … plus the Carlists also around.
8
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► Incipient Republicanism (in this case
meaning anti-monarchy), with 2 sides:
► The one from Alejandro Lerroux.
Lerroux exploited the classic
discontent of the marginalized urban
proletariat. “The Emperor of Paralelo”.
He was a demagog. He renewed the
violent anticlericalism (as in 1830).

9
The Radical Party and Alejandro
Lerroux
► Bitterlyanticlerical and an opponent of
Catalan autonomy. He pushed to wean
the army and the disinherited from the
monarchy to the vision of a Spanish
republic.
► Attracted the Barcelona poor with food
cooperatives, mutual benefits, day and
evening classes, and inexpensive
theatrical productions.
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The other side of such incipient
republicanism is:

► Comes from the Bourgeoisie side.

Through the Reformist Republican
Party, lead intellectually by Ortega and
leaded by Azaña who would be
President of the 2nd Republic.

11
 Catalan Nationalism
► Atthe same time Catalan nationalism
–and less importantly the Basque-
starts to blossom. This is not
necessarily Republican but it does
represent an alternative to the
Restoration system.

12
 Catalonia as a ‘nation’ rather
than as a ‘region’
► The ‘desastre’ reinforced the feeling among
many Catalans that they had a separate
national identity and a different historical
destiny and that these were increasingly
incompatible with Castile.
► Some begin to identify with Anglo-Saxons
and Germans
► Refer to the ‘Semitic’ blood of the Castilians
and Andalusians, their ‘Muslim inheritance’
and their ‘African’ attitudes towards work
► Anti-bullfighting begins as early as 1901 –
still active today
13
 Different expressions of
Catalanisme
► The urban reaction was the Renaixença,
which began to reinterpret Catalonia’s
history in more glorified terms.

► Opposite interpretation was Carlism, also

wanting a ‘return to the past’, but from a
very different perspective.

► What was the Renaixença and who were the

Carlistas?
14
 Catalanisme starts as cultural
phenomenon
► Renaixença – response to the disruption and
violence brought about by modernisation.

► Thepast becomes an escape route to avoid

confronting the problems of modernity – this
involves a historicist reconstruction of an
idealised past, focusing on the middle ages.

► Howwill this affect political nationalism

when it emerges later – how?
15
 Carlism
► Reaction by traditional rural society against
the secular, centralist and modernizing
efforts of liberal and republican regimes.

► Reactionary traditionalism with return to

local-self rule under the king.

► In
Catalonia, Carlists were supported by the
Church, because they supported traditional
values, including staunch Catholicism
16
 Political Catalanism
► When Catalanism becomes political, there is
already a historiography built up, fruit of the
Renaixença

► Inother words, they had a pre-existing

definition of Catalan identity to work with,
already completed by cultural revivalists.

► But
how to ‘use’ the history moving forward
was the site of controversy…
17
Catalanisme – Broad Church but
intellectual by nature
►2 main sources – both believed in autonomy
for Catalonia. What do you see as the
difference?

► Moderate and conservative but not fully

democratic, and represented the Catalan
industrial bourgeoisie.
► Republican federalists, more democratic,
individualist and linked to the budding
worker movements, whose intellectual
leader was Francisco Pi i Maragall.
18
 Catalan bourgeoisie
► The most critical group in Catalonia -
They had bought into Spain as part of
an imperial project. Were not
inherently Catalan nationalists. Much
of the Catalan middle class still
depended on trade with Cuba and the
Philippines, and on protectionist trade
measures. After ’98, this important
lobby begins to drift away from
Madrid. 19
 Catalan Federalism
► Federalism was a ‘Catalan project’ –
administration needed to be reformed
and decentralized.
► Catalan bourgeoisie would regenerate
Spain from a politically resurgent
Catalonia – they would show Spain the
way, imposing their model on
‘backward’ Spain.
► They believed that federalism would
regenerate all the Spanish regions.
20
 Two Basic Principles of
Catalanisme
► Rejection of a centralized Spanish
state, and the pushing for a
decentralized one. Convert other
regions and nationalities to their
decentralized caused.
► The hecho diferencial (fet diferencial).
The acceptance that Catalonia has
specific characteristics, different from
those of Spain - language, private law,
culture, common history, and general
cultural characteristics. 21
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► The “father of Catalan Nationalism” was
Valenti Almirall who urged a regionalist form
of federalism. He published the newspaper
“El Estado Catalan” which focused both on
the literary renaissance and on federalist
politics.
► In 1880 founded El Diari Catala, where he
advocated for provincial administrative
autonomy for a federation of the 4 Catalan
provinces.
► He also organized a Catalanist Congress
that attracted 1200 supporters and in 1886
he published “Lo Catalanisme”, considered
the first categorical expression of political
22
 What made the 1880s and
1890s “the period of gestation
for political Catalanism”? 4
linked reasons:
► 1) Expansion of the Renaixença across the whole
region
► 2) Concern for Catalan industry, especially in the
wake of a temporary decline began in 1886, and
later 1898.
► 3) The influence of federalism among the Catalan
middle class
► 4) Residues of Catalan Carlism, which resonated
with Catalanism’s pro-traditionalist & anti-centralist
aspects

► Political Catalanism was a slow-growing but soon- 23

to-be potent force. But it only became a real force
 Enric Prat de la Riba, “the first
specific ideologue of
Catalanism”
► Spain was defined as “the political state”
Spain was defined as “the political state”
and Catalonia as the “true fatherland of
Catalans, who were said to constitute a
distinct and fully developed nationality;
hence their state must be altered to
conform to their nationality” (fet diferencial)
► Language & culture constituted the core of
Cat national identity
► Catalan nation demanded a regional
parliament & autonomous administrative
system. It promoted cat cult and soc values,
together with econ modernization.
24
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► The Centre Nacional Català, with Prat de la
Riba, & Unió Regionalista joined to present a
Catalanist ticket for the 1st time in the
parliamentary election of 1901, winning 4 of
47 Cat seats in the Cortes.
► The 2 groups then formed a political party,
the Lliga Regionalista, one of the only
“modern”, well-organized political parties in
Spain at the time and the dominant force in
Cat through 1923.
► During the 1901 campaign promised that if
elected they would ‘by all legal means to
achieved the autonomy of the Catalan
people within the Spanish state’. 25
 Lliga Regionalista
► Lliga Regionalista – Catalan political
party. It was anti-restoration
corruption, and not independentist but
regionalist and regenerationist.
► They pressed for a constitutional
reform, to include decentralization,
democratic Senate elections, & near-
elimination of royal power over
parliament.
26
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► In
1912, the liberal central gov’t
worked to establish the
Mancommunitat, the unification of
provincial administration under
regional federations. The
Mancomunitat, dominated by the Lliga
& with Prat de la Riba as president,
took office in 1914.

27
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► The Lliga cooperate with the central
gov for the final years of
parliamentarism (18-23).
► They rejected radical nationalism (in
practice and in its rhetoric). As
regionalists they fought for Catalan
interests in the form of an autonomous
government INSIDE Spain.

28
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► At the same time, one of the features of
Catalanism was the diversity of its
components: from priests, to bohemians.
► But for the Catalan left, la Lliga, when
cooperating with the politicians in Madrid
was transformed to an ‘apendix of
monarchic conservatism’.
► Political Catalan nationalism begins to slowly
evolve to the left… but we will see that
when we talk about the republic.
29
 Basque Nationalism
► The BC, together with Navarre and
rural Cat, was a stronghold of anti-
liberalist Carlism (a struggle primarily
over questions of male succession and
constitu) in the mid-19th century,
largely for religious reasons and due to
peasant resentment of urban areas.

30
The Basque Country

31
32
‘Traditional’ Basque Country

► The pink section is now the region

called ‘the Basque Country’
► The green section is another Spanish
region called Navarre (which some
Navarrese consider Basque, while
others do not)
► The three yellow territories are French
Basque country.
33
 Basque country
► Basque fueros abolished in 1876 at the end of
the final Carlist war (1873-1876)
► This directly contributed to the massive growth
of Basque industry, which until then had
industrialized more slowly compared with
Catalonia (opened up Basque Country to rest of
Spain economically, no customs barriers).
► BUT, in Basque countryside, the removal of
foral customs destroyed inefficient agricultural
industry. It was the sudden, drastic shock to
traditional life which created unease amongst
the middle-class bourgeoisie Basques who felt
squeezed from above by the centralista 34

oligarchies
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► Theconcept of Basque nation was a
creation of the 1890’s. the essence
was to defend Basque traditions &
ethnicity (particularly language) vs
contamination by the Spanish, with
whom the Basques had fought 2 wars
(Carlists) & in the face of
industralization, urbanization, & the
immigration into the region these
processes encouraged. 35
 Basque nationalism
► Thus,
this was a defensive nationalism
based on fears created by radical
change.

► Rather than the inclusive Catalan

nationalism, this was exclusive; it was
a racial defense of the purity of the
Basque people and their culture and
extreme in its ties to the Vatican.
36
 Sabina Arana y Goiri (1865-
1903)
► Few nationalisms can be said to be so
exclusively identified with one person.
► Bizkaya por su indepencia (1892)
► Becomes the inspiration for
independence for the Basque Country,
which for nationalists includes the
three provinces in Spain, three
provinces in France, and Navarre
(Spain).
37
 Arana and Basque
Nationalism
► Formulated BC’s first political program
► Coined its name
► Defined its geographical extent
► Founded its first political organixation
► Wrote its anthem
► Designed its flag

38
 Arana and Basque
Nationalism II
► Sabina’s ‘divine intervention’ – his
political conversion to independence
for Basque Country comes on Easter
Sunday 1882.
► Thus, the resurrection has special
meaning in Euskadi, and pays tribute
to the idea of the Basques as a
‘chosen’ people.
► Arana is a traditional man living in a
non-traditional world. Thus, his
nationalism was a neo-traditionalist 39
 Arana the Racialist
► Rather than encouraging the spread of the Basque
language, they chose to mark an ethnic boundary.
Language was not widespread enough to use as
cultural or nationalist marker. Instead, the idea is
to preserve sense of unique Basque racial purity.

► Immigrants called Maketos – term of racist abuse

meant to emphasize Basque purity as opposed to
the irreligiosity and immorality of the Spanish.

► Studies purported to show an unusually high % of

type O blood, distinctive cranial formations, hair
and eye coloring.
40
 Arana the Racialist II
► This
is fed by the fact that people
thought Basque was unlearnable,
ethnically specific.

► The devil visited the Basque country to

learn the language and make
disciples. He tried for weeks, but was
defeated and returned to hell after
having learned no more of the
language than bai (yes) and ez (no).
41
 Arana the Believer
► Basque civil society was far less
secularized than in Catalonia
► Advocated non-violent methods to
achieve his goal.
► Espoused Social Catholicism’s concern
for the poor and needy.
► Resented the materialistic attitude of
the bourgeoisie
42
 Territorial question linked to
Religion
► He derived from Catholicism a large body of
thought which is still instilled in the Basque
Nationalist Party today.
► Religious basis of Arana’s program can be
found in the motto ‘God and the Old Law’
► So centralization meant a conspiracy to
deprive the Church of its hold over society
and dilute Catholic values of piety and
justice in the name of materialism and
avarice.
43
 Arana and language
► Firstand foremost – race was always above
language in Arana’s nationalism.
► Learning the language was not ‘integration’
as in Catalonia. Because learning the
language did not necessarily mean changing
a state of mind and acquiring Basque
‘values’.
► Thus, a language revival could be a ‘threat’
to Basques, as an immigrant learning
Basque threatened the natives with moral
contamination. 44
 From Nationalism to Politics
► Originalterm in Basque for the Basque
Country is ‘Euskal-Herria’. Refers to
the of the people who speak Basque.

► Arana creates the new word ‘Euskadi’,

which changes the meaning from the
land of the Basque ‘speakers’ to the
Land of the Basques.
45
 Basque Nationalist Party
► Eusko Alderdi Jeltzalea (EAJ) (in Basque)
► Partido Nacionalista Vasco (PNV) (in Spanish)

► One of the first Christian Democratic parties in

Europe

► The party was created in 1895 by Sabino de Arana

y Goiri as a Catholic conservative. He pledged to
restore self-government for the Basques.

► When it was formed, minimal bloodlines were

established for members - they had to prove
Basque ancestry by having a minimum number of
Basque surnames. 46
► Over time, Arana becomes less independent
 Arana’s legacy
► Arana left a legacy of contradictions
and ambivalences that sowed the
seeds of future nationalist
fragmentation.
► As a consequence, each of the
opposing forces within the nationalist
field claimed to be the true inheritor of
his ideal
► no matter how moderate or radical,
anti-capitalist or rapprochement with
industrialists, or on language or 47
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► The‘other’ two anti-Restoration
system influences:

► Socialism
► Anarchism

A brief note on those two:

48
 Socialism in Spain
► Socialism- Any of various theories or
systems of social organization in which the
means of producing and distributing goods
is owned collectively or by a centralized
government that often plans and controls
the economy.
► Socialist party (PSOE) formed in 1879, and
its trade union the UGT in 1880.
► Both were inspired by Pablo Iglesias, and
was hostile to bourgeois Republicanism.
49
 Socialism in Spain II
► The importance of the PSOE lay less in its
power in representing organized labor, than
in its standing as the heir of the Republicans
as critics of a ‘feudal monarchy’.
► Moral alternative to a corrupt system.
► Most of support found in the north industrial
areas, and mines of Asturias.
► Their meeting places (las Casas del Pueblo)
would educate the working classes, and will
promote abstinence from alcohol…

50
 Anarchism
► The political philosophy advocating a
libertarian society without hierarchy,
based on mutual aid and voluntary
cooperation.
► Anarchism historically gained the most
support and influence in Spain,
especially in the seventy or so years
before Francisco Franco's victory in
the Spanish Civil War of 1936-1939.
51
 Anarchism II
► During the late 19th century, the success of the
anarchist movement was sporadic. They would
organize a strike, and ranks would swell. Usually,
repression by police reduced the numbers again,
but at the same time, further radicalized many
members.
► This action/repression/action cycle helped lead to
an era of mutual violence in the late 19th century,
where anarchist "pistoleros" and police gunmen
were both responsible for political assassinations.
Anarchists vs. State
► Strong (an at times violent) anticlericalism.
Anarchists vs. Church
► Result - more divided society. 52
 Anarchism III
► In the 20th century, the movement
gained speed with the rise of anarcho-
syndicalism and the creation of the
huge libertarian union, the CNT.
► General strikes became common, and
large portions of the Spanish working
class adopted anarchist ideas.

53
 Session 12. Restoration
Crisis.
► About the anarchists:
► Anarchist goals: social justice, land
reform and the destruction of the
capitalist system.
► Supported mostly by industrial workers
in Catalonia and landless peasants in
Andalusia.

54
 Summary of late Restoration
(1902-23)
► Between 1902-23, 34 different governments
► All attempts to reform corrupt system fail
► Brief economic growth during WWI ends
► High class tension over Morocco and
industrial relations
► In 1923, due to this instability, and following
longstanding tradition, Miguel Primo de
Rivera pushes another pronunciamiento.
Initially strongly supported.
55