The Agony of Spanish Liberalism and the Origins of Dictatorship: A European Framework

  • Francisco J. Romero Salvadó
  • Angel Smith
Chapter

Abstract

This book analyses the organic crisis of Spain’s liberal order that culminated with the establishment of a military dictatorship headed by General Miguel Primo de Rivera in September 1923.1 The decay of liberal politics in Spain is approached as a regional variant of the general crisis that engulfed most traditional (fin de siècle) European regimes in the aftermath of the First World War. At the root of this crisis was the fact that these regimes had taken only limited steps towards democratization. Before 1914, all ruling orders, even autocratic Russia, had introduced a modicum of civil liberties, embraced parliamentarian practices and replaced the feudal system with capitalist forms of production. In some, relatively free elections took place and ministers were to an important degree accountable to parliament. However, elements of the ancien régime still permeated Europe’s political societies. At their apex, the heads of state (in most cases crowned sovereigns) ruled over extended courts and at the very least retained significant constitutional powers. In fact, armies were still the monarch’s Praetorian Guard rather than a national institution. The upper houses of parliament were bulwarks of vested interests while a series of devices — ranging from limits to the franchise to giving disproportionate weight to rural areas, and, in southern Europe above all, sheer ballot-rigging — limited the power of lower chambers. This encouraged demands for democratic and even revolutionary change.2

Keywords

Trade Union Labour Movement European Framework Officer Corps Labour Agitation 
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Notes

  1. 1.
    We use the Gramscian term of ‘organic crisis’ to argue that the crisis of Spanish liberalism was not conjunctural but involved the whole system. One of its glaring signs was that the regime was not only challenged from below but was also increasingly rejected (particularly from 1919) by significant sectors of the bourgeoisie and middle classes who no longer believed it to be able to deliver social containment. Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell-Smith (eds and trans.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1986), p. 212.Google Scholar
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Copyright information

© Francisco J. Romero Salvadó and Angel Smith 2010

Authors and Affiliations

  • Francisco J. Romero Salvadó
  • Angel Smith

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