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Hello and welcome to the history page. Our
discussion this week will centre on the profound social changes
that were instituted - at least at the legislative level -
during the first two years of the Second Republic, a period
know as the Reformist Biennium (1931-1933). The primary aim
of the new legislation was to modernize Spain’s obsolete
and, frankly, inequitable social and economic structures,
thus ensuring a more democratic brand of progress which would
benefit, not just the privileged elite, but the entire population.
In a very real sense, the interests of the masses, ‘the
real Spain’, were represented in government for the first
time in the country’s long history.
The ratification (if not the implementation)
of new policies was immediate, so that, by the close of 1931,
the old guard was suddenly and nervously on guard. As ever,
the powerful conservative sectors of society rested in the
Church, the Army, the land-owning aristocracy and a small
financial (mainly industrialist) oligarchy. These sectors
now faced the imminent danger of losing, not all, but some
of the social and economic leverage that, for centuries, had
elevated them over the hungering masses. Predictably, the
new rulings were seen as revolutionary and opposition to them
was vehement. Most measures were met with total disregard
at best and flagrant sabotage at worst.
Land distribution and utilization, education,
civil liberty and the decentralization of Spanish government
were the principal areas in which the Azaña administration
endeavoured to remodel the country in order to bring its institutions
and economy up to date with the rest of Europe. Once again
we hear the echoes of Joaquin Costa’s Regenerationist
ideal of “a rich Spain that eats, an educated Spain that
thinks, [and] a free Spain that governs… In short, a
Spain contemporary with the rest of humanity…” Readers
will remember that Costa maintained the only way to achieve
such as Spain was by means of an Iron Surgeon, a concept that
inspired Primo de Rivera in his day and now guided the lawmaking
policies of the Second Republic. Point by point; let us examine
the main areas affected by the reforms and shake-ups of the
Azaña administration.
The Agrarian Reform
Like most of the social structures in early
20th century Spain, the distribution of real property dated
back to the Middle Ages. This problematic issue had already
been addressed, unsuccessfully, by the liberal governments
of the 19th century; however, various attempts at disentailment
only served to aggravate the situation by further concentrating
real estate in the hands of a reduced aristocratic circle.
I.e. the grandees of Spain. The inevitable consequence of
this imbalance translated into a lack of communal lands for
the farming majority and the latter’s subsequent proletarianization.
In country that was still overwhelmingly agrarian, the question
of land rights was indeed a critical issue.
The solution of the agrarian problem along
with the abusive practices of landlords was given top priority
by the Republic’s provisional government. Only twenty
days after the proclamation of the new regime, the first of
four major rulings was passed. The District Decree, dated
20th April 1931, made it obligatory for overseers to hire
day labourers native to the district in question, in strict
accordance with the order in which the workers had signed
up at the employment office. The measure was meant to eliminate
the practice of hiring migratory workers from other districts
or provinces, a tactic adroitly used by patrons to break strikes
and thus keep labour conditions in an appalling state of retrogression.
Some weeks later, on 7th May, another key
piece of legislation, known as the Decree of Mandatory Tillage,
was passed. This bill made it compulsory to utilize potentially
arable lands for the purposes of farming, whether the landlord
was in agreement or not. The need for such a measure arose
from the fact that lands were frequently left fallow in order
to be used for hunting, raising bulls for sport, or were simply
left uncultivated while nearby farmers and their families
lived in hunger and misery. It often occurred that landlords
blandished their decisions to plant or not plant certain tracts
of land as a type of threat of punishment over those who worked
the land. The Mandatory Tillage Decree was designed so that
no Spaniard need go hungry as a consequence of landowners’
callousness in this regard.
The third and last decree ratified during
the provisional phase of republican government was dated 11th
July 1931, and was aimed at protecting tenant farmers. Under
this piece of legislation, crofters were granted reductions
in their rents in cases of low agricultural yield - a rather
common occurrence, as any farmer knows, caused by either too
much or too little rain, early or late frosts, etc. Reductions
were also applicable in cases in which crofters were charged
unrealistically high rents for their farms, rents based, for
example, on the pre-depression economy and which were no longer
reasonable in the early 1930s.
In spring of 1933, two additional decrees
were introduced, one prohibiting the eviction of crofters
from their rented farms, legitimizing the automatic extension
of a lease until the tenant chose to vacate the premises.
The other decree was less of an ordinance and more of an arbitration
aid for peasants and farmers. The measure established a system
of mixed juries whereby workers, patrons and a government
representative (allegedly) cooperated to negotiate conflicts
of interest, work conditions, terms of payment, etc. One of
the norms instituted by this ruling was the establishment
of an eight-hour workday in both the agrarian and industrial
sector.
Implacable Opposition
Landowners’ resistance to these new
policies was immutable. Months passed and conditions remained
unchanged. As a result, the peasants began to grow impatient,
strikes became more frequent and violent clashes broke out
between the labourers and the guardia civil, several of which
involved bloodshed and the loss of life. Rural villages in
Toledo, Salamanca, Badajoz and Logroño marked the scenes
of four of the worst incidents, and, in hindsight, constitute
an undeniable foreshadowing of the civil war that was smouldering
just below the surface of Spanish society.
In his excellent work, La crisis del Estado:
Dictadura, República, Guerra (1923-1939), Manuel Muñón
de Lara informs on the state of social agitation, deliberately
provoked by the landowning class:
“… In February of 1932, the civil
governor of Toledo reported that ‘there was a patrons’
plot to not give work and so cause a grave question of public
disorder against the Regime’… He also confirmed
that, ‘The agrarian patrons in Salamanca also refused
to follow the employment rulings and the Bloque Agrario (a
landowner’s association) even sent up flares calling
workers in the fields to halt the planting they were engaged
in’; in numerous provinces patrons boycotted the arbitration
of the mixed juries.”
Closing
These acts of dissent were, in fact, the
beginning of the end; for, unlike passive governments that
had come and gone before, the founders of the Republic would
not give in to pressures from the oligarchy. Instead, Azaña
and his government continued to fight for what they, and many
other nations of the world, perceived as indefensible social
injustice. Join us next week as the Republic continues to
crash headlong into a solid block of conservative opposition.
Emily Kaufman
emilykaufman@ibizahistoryculture.com
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