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. |