The Corporatist Threat and the Overthrow of the Spanish Second Republic

For many European leftists and liberals, Republican resistance to General Francisco Franco’s forces in the Spanish Civil War of 1936–9 encapsulated the inter-war democratic struggle against the forces of ‘Fascism’. There was much to recommend this view. The Spanish Second Republic was, on paper at least, Spain’s first fully democratic regime, and its proclamation on 14 April 1931 was met by wild jubilation on the streets. Yet at a social, cultural and political level, deep fractures soon appeared, precipitating fierce political divisions between workers and employers; peasants and landowners; revolutionary leftists, moderate Socialists and liberal republicans; between peripheral nationalists and centralists; and between defenders of the Republic and a vociferous and violent right wing. There are plenty of parallels between this experience and many other continental European countries in inter-war Europe. As in their case, it is only through long-term analysis of major trends in Spanish history that the causes behind the polarization of Spanish society, and the undermining of the Republic, can be understood.