Lost Memories
Eighty years. A lifetime, and yet, just yesterday. But in today's Spain it might as well be prehistory. Spanish society has decided blinkers are a great thing and have put them on willingly so it can only look forward. It doesn't even want to look around, just forward. Forward to the next festival, forward to the next weekend, forward to the next happening.
But what happened eighty years ago today shaped our present and our future. It was also a time of political uncertainty. Elections had just been held in February. The block of leftist parties got together to run the Cortes under the name Frente Popular. The beaten rightist parties gathered under the name Frente Nacional. The government was too fragmented and couldn't get its act together to govern minimally, let alone reasonably. Different social groups wanted immediate, revolutionary, change. The slow-moving mammoth that was the army was allergic to change. Such were the seeds that grew into the military coup of 18 July, 1936, that led to the Spanish Civil War.
It all began with a dream of a modern Spain. In 1931, after having ousted a dictatorial prime minister that had been in power with the King's consent since 1923, elections were held. They were only municipal, but in almost every city the parties in favor of a republic, won. The King left the country for exile, and on the 13th of April, 1931, the Republic of Spain was born.
From the beginning there were problems most people today would understand. Working people wanted radical reforms, the rich and the Church wanted things to remain as they were or reformed back toward tradition. There was also a Catalan question then as now. Then it was solved by allowing the Catalan people to vote for autonomy, as did the Basques and the Galicians just before the War. Now, it's a little more difficult, but still negotiable. A new Constitution at the end of 1931 tried to address the more immediate concerns, however, and guaranteed voting rights for men and women, legalized divorce, universalized education, divided the Church from the State, and defined the powers within the legislative and judicial body.
To help offset the reach of the Great Depression into the Spanish economy, other reforms were undertaken, as well. Workers were given more rights, in contrary to what company executives wanted. (The opposite of what has happened now after the Great Recession.) Schools were built, more teachers were hired, and they were all given a pay raise. Boys and girls sat together in the same class. Religion stopped being obligatory in all schools. All military officers were obliged to swear loyalty to the new Republic. Those who didn't wish to do so were retired with full pay. An agrarian reform was implemented in the south, but didn't do too well. The intention had been to divide up unproductive land in the hands of a few rich landowners, and settle the peasants of the nearby villages with tracts of land they could farm at will. Few took advantage, and the rich landowners were absolutely against it.
But the new government was being assaulted by both the right and the radical left. The right wanted a return to the status quo before the Republic, and the radical left wanted to try to impose reforms similar to those in Soviet Russia. Since the government was an amalgam of different parties, and not one single party with a majority, it was weak. New elections were announced in 1933.
These new elections were won by the right, which tried to roll back all the reforms. Spain polarized into "right" and "left." The "right" was a mishmash of Catholics, monarquics, and Falangistas (Spanish Fascist Party). The left was even more unequally joined. There were centrist Republicans, anarquists, communists, and Socialists. All that roiling mass brought about a small revolution in October of 1934. Anarquists rose up and tried to upset the rightist government. It had no impact in most of Spain except Asturias. There, the revolt was brutally squashed. The revolt did not succeed, but the harsh measures used by the government, and scandals that later popped up showing that some government members were involved in fraud, brought about yet another general election in February of 1936. That was the definitive.
No one party won. In fact, the rightist parties had a small advantage over the leftist. Yet, the leftist parties joined together as a Frente Popular and created a minority government. They tried to continue the reforms of the first Republican government, but circumstances got in the way. There was violence across the country; the extreme left wanted to do things immediately and radically; the right became reactionary and wanted to do away with democratically elected governments. Some reactionary generals got in contact with Mussolini and Hitler. Then the assassination of a national guard happened at the beginning of July. The next day, José Calvo Sotelo, leader of one of the rightest parties, was assassinated in retaliation. On the 17th of July the generals stationed in the Moroccan Spanish protectorates revolted. On the 18th, most of the generals in the Spanish peninsula joined them in the military coup. The country became divided into two camps, the Republican and the Nationalist. The Civil War had begun.
One would think that with the anniversary being such a nice, round number, and with most of the people who participated, gone, except for the children, there would be more of an observance. The newspaper El País has a small article about the photographers of the first days of the coup. Last night one television channel's news program mentioned it in passing, just before going on to sports, and that's it. But what else can be expected? In April, the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes was barely mentioned. One might say he was the Shakespeare of Castilian Spanish, yet his works aren't even studied in school anymore. If his death was barely noted, why would the Civil War be remembered?
There are parallelisms that can be drawn between the Spain of 1936 and the Spain of 2016. Elections with no clear result, bickering among political parties, unrest among the thousands of unemployed and underemployed, the obvious need for reform, and a reactionary right that wants to return to the "glorious" Spain. But, society just doesn't seem to care, as long as there's enough trash on television and food banks that feed the neediest. The Civil War and what led up to it might as well have happened eighty thousand years ago instead of within our grandparents' lifetime.
But what happened eighty years ago today shaped our present and our future. It was also a time of political uncertainty. Elections had just been held in February. The block of leftist parties got together to run the Cortes under the name Frente Popular. The beaten rightist parties gathered under the name Frente Nacional. The government was too fragmented and couldn't get its act together to govern minimally, let alone reasonably. Different social groups wanted immediate, revolutionary, change. The slow-moving mammoth that was the army was allergic to change. Such were the seeds that grew into the military coup of 18 July, 1936, that led to the Spanish Civil War.
From the beginning there were problems most people today would understand. Working people wanted radical reforms, the rich and the Church wanted things to remain as they were or reformed back toward tradition. There was also a Catalan question then as now. Then it was solved by allowing the Catalan people to vote for autonomy, as did the Basques and the Galicians just before the War. Now, it's a little more difficult, but still negotiable. A new Constitution at the end of 1931 tried to address the more immediate concerns, however, and guaranteed voting rights for men and women, legalized divorce, universalized education, divided the Church from the State, and defined the powers within the legislative and judicial body.
To help offset the reach of the Great Depression into the Spanish economy, other reforms were undertaken, as well. Workers were given more rights, in contrary to what company executives wanted. (The opposite of what has happened now after the Great Recession.) Schools were built, more teachers were hired, and they were all given a pay raise. Boys and girls sat together in the same class. Religion stopped being obligatory in all schools. All military officers were obliged to swear loyalty to the new Republic. Those who didn't wish to do so were retired with full pay. An agrarian reform was implemented in the south, but didn't do too well. The intention had been to divide up unproductive land in the hands of a few rich landowners, and settle the peasants of the nearby villages with tracts of land they could farm at will. Few took advantage, and the rich landowners were absolutely against it.
But the new government was being assaulted by both the right and the radical left. The right wanted a return to the status quo before the Republic, and the radical left wanted to try to impose reforms similar to those in Soviet Russia. Since the government was an amalgam of different parties, and not one single party with a majority, it was weak. New elections were announced in 1933.
These new elections were won by the right, which tried to roll back all the reforms. Spain polarized into "right" and "left." The "right" was a mishmash of Catholics, monarquics, and Falangistas (Spanish Fascist Party). The left was even more unequally joined. There were centrist Republicans, anarquists, communists, and Socialists. All that roiling mass brought about a small revolution in October of 1934. Anarquists rose up and tried to upset the rightist government. It had no impact in most of Spain except Asturias. There, the revolt was brutally squashed. The revolt did not succeed, but the harsh measures used by the government, and scandals that later popped up showing that some government members were involved in fraud, brought about yet another general election in February of 1936. That was the definitive.
No one party won. In fact, the rightist parties had a small advantage over the leftist. Yet, the leftist parties joined together as a Frente Popular and created a minority government. They tried to continue the reforms of the first Republican government, but circumstances got in the way. There was violence across the country; the extreme left wanted to do things immediately and radically; the right became reactionary and wanted to do away with democratically elected governments. Some reactionary generals got in contact with Mussolini and Hitler. Then the assassination of a national guard happened at the beginning of July. The next day, José Calvo Sotelo, leader of one of the rightest parties, was assassinated in retaliation. On the 17th of July the generals stationed in the Moroccan Spanish protectorates revolted. On the 18th, most of the generals in the Spanish peninsula joined them in the military coup. The country became divided into two camps, the Republican and the Nationalist. The Civil War had begun.
One would think that with the anniversary being such a nice, round number, and with most of the people who participated, gone, except for the children, there would be more of an observance. The newspaper El País has a small article about the photographers of the first days of the coup. Last night one television channel's news program mentioned it in passing, just before going on to sports, and that's it. But what else can be expected? In April, the four hundredth anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes was barely mentioned. One might say he was the Shakespeare of Castilian Spanish, yet his works aren't even studied in school anymore. If his death was barely noted, why would the Civil War be remembered?
There are parallelisms that can be drawn between the Spain of 1936 and the Spain of 2016. Elections with no clear result, bickering among political parties, unrest among the thousands of unemployed and underemployed, the obvious need for reform, and a reactionary right that wants to return to the "glorious" Spain. But, society just doesn't seem to care, as long as there's enough trash on television and food banks that feed the neediest. The Civil War and what led up to it might as well have happened eighty thousand years ago instead of within our grandparents' lifetime.
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