His repressive career begins: Morocco, 1921 The defeat of the Spanish revolution and the establishment of the Franco dictatorship in 1939 was one of the great tragedies suffered by the European working class. The fascist victory after nearly three years of civil war left 600,000 dead out of a population of 24 million. It ushered in thirty-six years of brutal repression in Spain, and it was the prelude to World War II.
Franco's faseist uprising was the answer of the Spanish capitalist class to a situation it could no longer control by traditional methods. The Great Depression had shattered the fragile stability imposed by the military dictatorship of Gen. Miguel Primo de Rivera. In 1930 the dictator was forced to resign. The following year, under the pressure of massive political strikes, a republican mutiny in the army, and a decisive electoral defeat, King Alfonso XIII left the country and a republic was procaimed NO SOLUTIONS A coalition government of the Social Democrats and various capitalist parties was set up, engendering high expectations among the masses. "Under a régime of liberty, the bloodless revolution is still more possible, still easier than under the mon archy," the Anarchist newspaper Solidaridad Obrera declared in April 1931..
But the capitalist regime proved unable to solve even the agrarian problem-the most pressing and most elementary, of the tasks facing it. Seventy percent of the Spanish population lived on the land—almost all of them partially or wholly dependent on wage labor on the big estates. The division of the land was even more unequal in Spain than it had been In Russia, and starvation among the peasantry was commonplace.
In his book The Spanish Cockpit, Franz Borkenau discussed the problem from a liberal capitalist perspective:
The civil service, deeply implicated with the interests of the large landowners, sabotaged the reform, and the only way left to make it effective would nave been to appeal to the peasants to take their claims into their own hands; which would nave meant social revorumon ine repuoncans were far from wanting that. Exactly as in 1873, but with more violence, the republic had awak ened the masses of the peasants, who, without the invitation of the Government, tried to speed up matters by revolting against the guardia [riot police] and the landowners. All over the country ran a wave or peasant risings. hey merged. in a disquieting manner, with proletarian risings in all Ine lareer towns or spain. the workers too. nad expected the republic to introduce a new régime to wen aavantage and. as chey cornownine witnou a fight, they tried to take their cause into their own hands. Under the leadership of the CNT [the Anarchist-led trade-union federation], Spain was filled with combined risings worKers peasants. The Government had little hesitation in deciding how to deal with them; it called for the nelp or lne guardia and the army, and thus put itself into their hands.
The republican government went so far as to put down a general strike in Seville by shelling the working-class districts. Asaltos, the republic's special police, moved in to break up a land occupation in the village of Casas Viejas by shooting down the peasants. Prisoners were shot without trial.
In November 1933 new elections were held.. After their experience with the liberal bourgeoisie, the masses withheld their votes from the republican parties and the Social Democrats. An openly rightist government was formed. GENERAL STRIKES However, the combativity of the workers and peasants remained unbroken. The new government was met by a series of general strikes.
Another dimension to the mass resistance was added by the national liberation strugge of the oppressed Basque and Catalan minorities. These minorities accounted for roughly five million The rigid centralizing policies of the rightist government resulted in growing opposition in the Basque Country and Catalonia In October 1934 representatives of the clerical-fascist party of Gil Robles were invited into the government for the first time. The working-class parties compared this move to Hindenburg's appointment of Hitler as chancellor of Germany the previous year. General strikes were called in numerous cities. In Catalonia the nationalists led a revolt. In Asturias the Anarchists and left Socialists led an insurrection and declared a socialist commune. All were put down The Asturian workers in particular were suppressed in the most brutal way. Under the command of Gen. Francisco Franco, who had made his name in the colonial war in Spanish Morocco, foreign legionnaires and Moroccan mercenaries killed 3,000persons, most of them after they had surrendered. More than 30,000 political prisoners were held in connection with the rebellion Franco's troops hold up severed heads of Asturian miners, 1934 But the repression of the Asturian work ers created a rallying point for the masses instead of intimidating them. New layers of the population were drawn into political activity by the campaign for amnesty for the political prisoners. Street demonstrations against the government repeatedly drew hundreds of thousands of participants.
The regime staggered from one crisis to another; finally, new elections were called for February 1936. In these elections the Communists and Socialist parties joined bourgeois republicans in an electoral bloc pledged to release the political prisoners. With the tacit support of the Anarchists, the Popular Front coalition swept to victory. A new government was formed under the leadership of Manuel Azaña, who headed the republic from June 1931 until the rightist victory in and MANUEL AZANA