Socialism, the State and Civil Service in Spain: Two Experiences in Perspective (Second Republic and Democratic Transition)

Abstract

This essay compares the different experiences lived by Spanish socialism under the Second Republic in the 1930s and after the democratic transition in the late twentieth century. The historical circumstances were certainly very different—the crisis of democracy in the 1930s and the ‘third democratization wave’ (Huntington) from the 1970s—but also the Socialist Party (PSOE) had changed radically: the old working-class organization founded in 1879 had become a catch-all party with a strong presence of middle class and civil servants among its cadres and senior government officials. This structural change directly affected the perception of the state by Spanish socialism, viewed as a class enemy in the 1930s and as a factor of modernization and progress in the 1980s.