The second Republic was then established
without violence or bloodshed. Its history was
brief and filled with mounting political and social
conflict. The left had drawn together, temporar-
ily as it turned out, to take charge of the country.
But it was characteristic of the politics of the left
and the right that, once the electoral victory was
won by electoral pacts, rivalry between the parties
would thereafter prevent any coalition from pro-
viding stable government.
First, until the end of 1933, the Republic was
governed by a coalition of the left and moderate
Republicans under the leadership of Manuel
Azaña. He sought to solve the regional question
by granting autonomy to the Catalans; he pro-
moted educational reform, and plunged into a
programme of agricultural reform which achieved
little. In the summer of 1932, there was an
abortive generals’ rising against the government
of the Republic. It was a fiasco.
What caused the greatest bitterness was the
anti-clerical legislation of the government, which
regarded the Church as the bulwark of reaction. It
drove moderate supporters who were faithful
Catholics into opposition. The anarchists stirred
up the workers in violent strikes which the gov-
ernment suppressed with bloodshed, thus alien-
ating supporters on the left. The moderate
politicians, of whom Azaña was an example, were
assailed by extremists on the left and right, and
even the more moderate Socialists looked fearfully
over their shoulders lest supporting the govern-
ment should lose them the allegiance of their fol-
lowers to those political groups further to the left,
especially the anarchists. During the election of
November 1933, the left no longer fought by
means of electoral agreements. It was the turn of
the right to strike such bargains, forming a com-
mon opposition to the government’s anti-clerical
legislation. Gil Robles founded CEDA, a confed-
eration of right-wing Catholic groups. A new elec-
toral pact, with the radicals changing sides and
now supporting CEDA, gave the centre-right a
resounding victory. From 1934 to 1936 the
Republic struggled on amid mounting tensions.
The coalition government of the centre sup-
ported by CEDA reversed the ‘progressive’
aspects of the legislation of Azaña’s government.
With the roles reversed, the miners in Asturias,
under the united leadership of socialists, commu-
nists and anarchists began a general strike in
October 1934 and seized Oviedo, the provincial
capital. Simultaneously there occurred an abortive
separatist rising in Catalonia. The government
retaliated by using the Foreign Legion and
Moorish troops from Morocco bloodily to sup-
press the Asturian rising. The shootings and tor-
tures inflicted on the miners increased the
extreme bitterness of the workers, while there was
strong Catholic feeling against the godless
Marxist conspiracy. Both the left and right were
strengthening their following. Among groups of
the right, José Antonio, son of Primo de Rivera,
attracted increasing support to the Falange Party,
which he had founded in 1933 and which came
closest to a fascist party in Spain. But in the elec-
tion of February 1936 the parties of the left,
which were out of power, organised an effective
electoral pact and presented themselves as the
Popular Front. Its cry was that the Republic was
in danger and that the parties of the right were
fascist. The parties of the right called on the elec-
torate to vote for Spain and against revolution.
Spanish politics had become so polarised that
neither the parties of the right nor those of the
left were ready to accept the ‘democratic’ verdict
of the people. The Popular Front combination
gave the left the parliamentary victory, but the
country was almost equally split between left and
right in the votes cast. What was now lacking was
a strong grouping of the centre, a majority who
believed in a genuine democratic peace and par-
liamentary institutions.
The familiar spectacle of the united left achieving
electoral victory, and then falling into division
when they got to power, was repeated in the
spring and summer of 1936. The left-wing social-
ists, led by Largo Caballero, rejected all coopera-
tion with left ‘bourgeois’ governments; Caballero
continued the Popular Front but would not serve
in the government. He was supported by the
communists; but despite all his revolutionary lan-
guage, he had no plans for revolution. On the
right, however, plans were drawn up to forestall
the supposed revolution of the left. The generals
1
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