Chapter 2: An Authoritarian Alternative: The Primo de Rivera Dictatorship
"Primos only professed ideology was that of constitutional lib- eralism. He continued to insist that the parliamentary constitution of 1876 was the law of the land and at first even denied that he was a dictator in any genuine sense, insisting in his first public statement, “No one can with justice apply that term to me.’ !
It is generally agreed that the establishment of the Dictatorship was greeted with relief and broad, if shallow, support from the public."
"As it turned out, the ninety-day Military Directory, composed of eight brigadiers and one admiral, governed for twenty-seven months until De- cember 1925. There was little domestic reform though much authoritar- ian centralization of administration."
"The government took advantage of the economic prosperity of the 1920s (los felices años veinte) to concentrate on internal development. Public works expanded rapidly, and construction of a modern highway system was begun. The young finance minister, José Calvo Sotelo, instituted a tax reform that was proportionately the most significant to occur until after the end of the Franco regime half a century later.* The marketing of petroleum was nationalized under a state consortium (CAMPSA), and plans were initiated for major irrigation and hydroelectric projects.‘
Politics and government remained unsolved problems. The only theo- retical alternative within Spain was right-wing Carlism,"
"Mussolini hailed Primo de Rivera as the “head of Spanish fascism, while Primo called Mussolini his inspirer and teacher. '” Both the Spanish dictator and the king viewed Mussolinis regime as the most friendly foreign power, if for no other reason than that it was the only other authoritarian west European state.
...Nonetheless, the extremely cordial relations between the two Latin dictators did not yield results. Trade between their countries more than doubled within the next three years, but that stemmed from the general economic expansion of the period. Though a Treaty of Friendship and Conciliation between Rome and Madrid was signed in 1926, Spain refused to yield to Italy a most-favored-nation status in exemption from its high tariff"
Union Patriotica
"The most likely organizational basis for any drastic new alternative on the right lay in Catholicism. Under the parliamentary regime, there had been no separate organized political form of Catholicism (save for the remnant of Carlism) because the Church had become increasingly identified with the established system during the second half of the nineteenth century. Catholic opinion had thus been represented primarily by the old Conservative Party, but elimination of the party system opened new possibilities. Though the Conservative Party elite generally rejected the new government, many conservative Catholics and Carlists greeted it warmly. In the last months of 1923 members of the Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas (ACNP; National Association of Catholic Propagandists), led by Angel Herrera, began to organize a new civic group that would support the new government while representing Catholic and patriotic opinion. What began in the conservative and Catholic rural and small-town society of Castile and León as the Unión Patriótica Castellana was expanded into a national organization, the Unión Patriótica, in a meeting at Valladolid in April 1924, and was quickly adopted as the new political front of the regime.'*"
"Its doctrines were based on a revival of the historic Spanish ideology and attempted to create a sense of positive nationalism in Spain. They empha- sized hierarchical and authoritarian leadership, with Primo de Rivera as Jefe Nacional, and the ultimate goal of some kind of corporative system."
"Conceiving of the civilian government as based on the UP, Primo stressed that it was to be neither of the left nor the right and would even welcomed nonmonarchists"
"The major expansion of the UP as a bureaucratic political organization occurred in 1926-27. Though some support was obtained from most of the main political and social sectors, upetistas were, as Calvo Sotelo noted, “mostly rightists,”% and there was a particular influx of Carlists.
The most notable government innovation was a limited system of state-supervised labor arbitration, the first step toward corporatism...The result was the Spanish decree law on economic corporations promulgated on November 26, 1926, which theoretically divided the entire Spanish economy into twenty-seven economic corporations. "
"In fact, the Spanish corporative system remained largely undeveloped. The largest labor organization in Spain, the anarchosyndicalist CNT, had been formally dissolved and driven underground by the Dictatorship. Its rival, the much smaller, more moderate and disciplined Socialist UGT, was willing to participate in the new system. In the process, it was able to elect numerous local delegates to the comités paritarios and expand its own membership by more than a third.” The other sectors most represented were Catholic labor groups. Altogether, by May 1929, a total of 450 comités paritarios had been formed, representing more than 320,000 workers and nearly 100,000 employers.” This represented only about 15 percent of the total national labor force and not even half the industrial workers, the ones primarily represented.
The condition of Spanish labor under the Dictatorship varied widely. General wage levels did not rise, despite relatively high production and employment levels in industry. Overall real wages declined 3 percent between 1925 and 1930. Skilled workers in Vizcayan industry, strongly rep- resented by Socialist and Basque unions, gained a nominal increase of 8 percent in wages over five years. The addition of not inconsiderable fringe benefits meant an even greater increase in real income. Yet the destitute farm laborers of the south probably saw their meager incomes de- cline even further. Most noteworthy perhaps was the more careful regula- tion of female labor, and the wages of women in some fields increased 12 percent over five years.”
End of the dictatorship
After three years in power, Primo de Rivera showed not the slightest inclination to return to military command, and so finally had to consider state reorganization and constitutional reform."
"Before the National Assembly’s final session in June 1928, a constituent committee was named to prepare the draft of a new Spanish constitution. This body was dominated by ultraconservative monarchists under the secretaryship of the right- wing Andalusian writer and politician José María Pemán. Its proposal, eventually presented in July 1929, provided for a drastic increase in royal executive power. The crown was to have responsibility for appointing the government, its approval would be necessary for all legislation, and par- liamentary votes of confidence would be proscribed. Membership in fu- ture parliaments would be divided equally between deputies chosen through corporative representation and those chosen by direct elections, though the latter for the first time would be based on full universal suf- frage, with women granted the right to vote and hold office. The Spanish senate would be replaced by a small consultative Consejo del Reino (Council of the Realm), half of whose members would be appointed by the government and half selected by corporate elections.
During the summer of 1929 the proposed draft was subjected to extensive criticism in the only lightly censored Spanish press.* It found little favor. Primo de Rivera had never thought the matter through, and along with some in his cabinet was quite skeptical of such an increase in royal power. Even the king doubted that he could accept greater authority in this manner.
Meanwhile opposition to the Dictatorship mounted on the center-right more effectively than on the left. University students had come out in op- position, and middle-class liberals were turning to new semiclandestine republican parties. By late 1929 the officer corps of the Army, parts of which had always been restive, were beginning to turn against Primo de Rivera. The Dictators health declined seriously as a result of diabetes. Unable to see his way clear to remaining in power or preparing for a new system that would continue the dictatorship, he resigned at the end of January 1930.
Primo de Rivera had initiated a movement away from the parliamentary liberalism that had governed Spain for a century and toward right- authoritarianism. Yet he never clearly conceptualized the process and always drew back from any sharp conclusions. "
"The Socialist leader Indalecio Prieto termed Primo “a dictator without corpses, which was true enough, and added, “If only all dictatorships— though I do not desire any more—were like his.”* The Dictatorship was the object of much execration in 1931, but the years under Primo were regarded with nostalgia by more than a few Spaniards, after the horrors of the Civil War, as the last “good times” before the onset of the depression and increasing political violence. "
"Though the Dictator himself and his leading followers could not fully conceive a completely rounded ideology and a finished new state system, they provided some of the fundamental concepts and principles which the Franco regime would later elaborate more fully.*"
Emergence of the Radical Right: The Unión Monárquica Nacional
"The collapse of the Dictatorship brought the downfall of the Spanish monarchy within fifteen months, for recognition of the Dictatorship by the Crown in 1923 had seriously compromised the legitimacy of Alfonso XIII. Had the state moved vigorously to restore the political system through full and free elections soon after the departure of the dictator, it is at least theoretically possible that constitutional monarchy might have survived. Yet seven years of dictatorship had undone the old parliamentary parties, and they were being replaced by more radical new semiclandestine republican organizations. Don Alfonso feared to proceed directly to new elections and passed more than a year under an epigonic dictablanda (a mildly authoritarian government) that eroded the Monarchy's remaining credibility...Though elsewhere in southern and eastern Europe during the depression year of 1931 forces of authoritarian nationalism were either in power or rapidly growing in strength, Spain seemed to be registering the final triumph of liberalism."
"Indeed, the majority of Spanish monarchists in 1930-31 did not con- test this in itself but simply the form of the liberalism—democratic republican rather than constitutional monarchist—that would predominate. Only one small group of diehard supporters of Primo de Rivera stood against the liberal tide. In April 1930 they organized a new Unión Monárquica Nacional (UMN) whose monarchism was strictly sui generis, for it vehemently opposed the current political line of the Monarchy. "
"the UMN stood for a new regime of strong nationalism based on outright authoritarian rule and the willingness to employ violence. It glorified the historic Spanish ideology and sought the full restoration of traditional Spanish values. Though Fascism was hailed, a particular interpretation of religion formed much of its ideological basis. The economic program of Primo de Rivera was invoked to demonstrate the path to further development, a path that would guarantee the interests of workers and peasants. Government should rest on popular support but not on parties and elections. The UMN proposed to repress all regionalism in the interest of “Spain, One, Great, and Indivisible,” reviving a slogan of the Dictatorship. Its position was categorical: if an atomistic, democratic republic were inaugurated even by means of free elections, the new regime should be crushed through armed force.* "