Manuel Azaña
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Manuel Azaña | |
|---|---|
Minister of War | |
| In office 14 April 1931 – 12 September 1933 | |
| Preceded by | Dámaso Berenguer |
| Succeeded by | Juan José Rocha García |
| Member of the Congress of Deputies | |
| In office 16 March 1936 – 31 March 1939 | |
| Constituency | Madrid |
| In office 8 December 1933 – 7 January 1936 | |
| Constituency | Vizcaya |
| In office 14 July 1931 – 9 October 1933 | |
| Constituency | Valencia |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Manuel Azaña Díaz 10 January 1880 Madrid, Kingdom of Spain |
| Died | 3 November 1940 (aged 60) Montauban, Midi-Pyrénées, Vichy France |
| Resting place | Montauban Cemetery, France |
| Political party | Republican Left (1934–1940) |
| Other political affiliations | Republican Action (1930–1934) |
| Spouse | Dolores de Rivas Cherif |
| Occupation | Jurist |
| Signature | _firma.png){kind=small} |
Manuel Azaña Díaz (Spanish pronunciation:
A published author in the 1910s, he stood out in the
After the Proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic in April 1931, Azaña became Minister of War of the Provisional Government and enacted military reform, looking to develop a modern armed forces with fewer army officers. He later became Prime Minister in October 1931.
The
Early career
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Born into a wealthy family, Manuel Azaña Díaz was orphaned at a very young age. He studied in the
in 1897, and a doctorate by the Universidad Complutense in 1900.In 1909, he achieved a position at the Main Directorate of the Registries and practised the profession of civil law notary, and travelled to Paris in 1911. He became involved in politics and in 1914 joined the Reformist Republican Party led by Melquíades Álvarez. He collaborated in the production of various newspapers, such as El Imparcial and El Sol. He also joined the Freemasons.[3]
During World War I, he covered operations on the Western Front for various newspapers. His treatment was very sympathetic to the French, and he may have been sponsored by French military intelligence. Afterwards he edited the magazines
A strong critic of the dictatorship of
On 12 April 1931, republican candidates swept the municipal elections. This was seen as repudiation of Primo de Rivera and the monarchy. Two days later, the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed and the King forced into exile.
In the government
Azaña pursued some of the major reforms anticipated by the republican program. He introduced work accident insurance,[4] reduced the size of the Spanish Army, and removed some monarchist officers. He also moved to reduce the power and influence of the Roman Catholic Church, abolishing Church-operated schools and charities, and greatly expanding state-operated secular schools.
He defended these measures by saying "Do not tell me that this is contrary to freedom. It is a matter of public health".[5]
The Spanish legislature, the Cortes, also enacted an agrarian reform program, under which large private landholdings (latifundia) were to be confiscated and distributed among the rural poor. However, Azaña was a "middle-class republican", not a socialist. He and his followers were not enthusiastic for this program. The agrarian law did not include state-funded collective farms, as the Socialists wanted, and was not enacted until late 1932. It was also clumsily written, and threatened many relatively small landholders more than the latifundists. The Azaña government also did very little to carry it out: only 12,000 families received land in the first two years.[6]
In addition, Azaña did little to reform the taxation system to shift the burden of government onto the wealthy. Also, the government continued to support the owners of industry against wildcat strikes or attempted takeovers by militant workers, especially the
Meanwhile, Azaña's extreme anti-clerical program alienated many moderates. In local elections held in early 1933, most of the seats went to conservative and centrist parties. Elections to the "Tribunal of Constitutional Guarantees" (the Republic's "Supreme Court") followed this pattern.
Thus Azaña came into conflict with both the right and far left. He called a
These elections were won by the right-wing
Azaña's self-imposed political retreat lasted only a short while; in 1934 he founded the
On 5 October 1934, the PSOE and Communists attempted a general left-wing rebellion. The rebellion had a temporary success in Asturias and Barcelona, but was over in two weeks. Azaña was in Barcelona that day, and the Lerroux-CEDA government tried to implicate him. He was arrested and charged with complicity in the rebellion.[7]
In fact, Azaña had no connection with the rebellion, and the attempt to convict him on spurious charges soon collapsed, giving him the prestige of a martyr. He was released from prison in January 1935. Azaña then helped organize the Frente Popular ("Popular Front"), a coalition of all the major left-wing parties for the elections of 16 February 1936.
The Front won the election, and Azaña became prime minister again on 19 February. His parliamentary coalition included the PSOE and Communists. This alarmed conservatives, who remembered their attempt to seize power only 17 months earlier. The Azaña government proclaimed an immediate amnesty for all prisoners from the rebellion, which increased conservative concerns. Socialists and Communists were appointed to important positions in the Assault Guard and Civil Guard.[6]
Also, with the Popular Front victory, radicalized peasants led by the Socialists began seizing land on 25 March. Azaña chose to legitimize these actions rather than challenge them. Radical Socialists vied with Communists in calling for violent revolution and forcible suppression of the Right. Political assassinations by Communists, Socialists, and anarchosyndicalists were frequent, as were retaliations by increasingly radicalized conservatives.[6]
Azaña insisted that the danger to the Republic was from the Right and on 11 March, the government suppressed the Falange.
Azaña was a man of very strong convictions. Stanley G. Payne tentatively described him as "the last great figure of traditional Castilian arrogance in the history of Spain."[8] As a "middle class republican", he was implacably hostile to the monarchy and the Church. The CEDA, which was pro-Catholic, he therefore regarded as illegitimate, and also any and all monarchists, even those who supported parliamentary democracy.
In the view of Paul Preston, nothing indicates more directly the value of the services provided by Azaña to the Republic than the hatred felt towards him by the ideologues and propagandists of the Francoist cause.[9][10]
Presidency
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When the Cortes met in April, it removed President Alcalá-Zamora from office. On 7 April 1936, Azaña was elected President of the Republic; Quiroga succeeded him as prime minister. Azaña by this time was profoundly depressed by the increasing disorder, but could see no way to counter it.[6]
Azaña repeatedly warned his fellow Republicans that the lack of unity within the government was a serious threat to the Republic's stability. Political violence continued: there were over 200 assassinations in February through early July.
By July, the military conspiracy to overthrow the Republic was well underway, but nothing definite had been planned. Then on 13 July, José Calvo Sotelo, leader of a small monarchist grouping in the Cortes, was arrested and murdered by a mixed group of Socialist gunmen and Assault Guards. Azaña and Quiroga did not act effectively against the killers.[6]
On 17 July, right-wing, Falangist, and monarchist elements in the Republican army proclaimed the overthrow of the Republic. The rebellion failed in Madrid, however. Azaña replaced Quiroga as Prime Minister with his ally Diego Martínez Barrio, and the government attempted a compromise with the rebels, which was rejected by General Mola.[6]
On 13 September, Azaña authorized Minister of Finance
In 1938, Azaña moved to Barcelona with the rest of the Republican government, and was cut off there when the monarchist forces drove to the sea between Barcelona and
Road to exile
La Barata
Since February 1938 Azaña resided in La Barata, an isolated mansion at the outskirts of Matadepera near Terrassa. Built by Lliga politician Francesc Salvans, killed by the Republicans,[11] between late 1937 and early 1938 it was undergoing preparation works to host the head of state.[12] The place was some 30 km away from Barcelona and some 80 km from the French frontier. Already on January 13, 1939 general Saravia advised the president to leave the place given rapid advance of Nationalist troops,[13] the suggestion repeated by Negrin on January 17. On January 19 Saravia insisted the president evacuates; Azaña commenced preparations.[14]
Llavaneras
The president, his family and his entourage, including secretaries and military AdCs, left La Barata on January 21 (Nationalist troops would seize the place on January 24). Following some 50 km of drive east in the afternoon hours the column of cars reached the town of Llavaneras (now San Andreu de Llavaneres), north of Mataró, some 30 km from Barcelona and some 100 km from the French frontier. It turned out that the premises, supposed to host Azaña, were unsuitable; they spent the night in a randomly selected and hastily prepared house in a park.[15]
Caldetas
The following day, on January 22, some members of Azaña’s family left to France.[16] The president proceeded to the coastal town of Caldetas (now Caldes d’Estrac), some 4 km away, where in another makeshift premises he spent the following one or two nights, while remainings of his belongings were being fetched from La Barata.[17] During these few days he was almost entirely isolated and with no contact either with the government or the military command; at the time evacuation of Barcelona has just commenced.
Peralada
The presidential column departed north from Caldetas on January 23 or 24 (the city would be seized by the Nationalists on January 28), and following some 90-km drive during evening hours they reached the
Agullana
Some time at the turn of January and February (exact day unclear, January 31 earliest and February 2 latest) the president left Peralada and moved some 20 km north-west, to Agullana. It was a village already in the Pyrennees some 4 km from the French frontier, located by a secondary drive and away from main roads, which were crammed with refugees who tried to flee Barcelona and Catalonia. Agullana was at the time hosting staff of general Rojo. The president spent one night there.[22]
La Vajol
The following day, probably either on February 2 or February 3, Azaña left Agullana and drove some 5 km up the road, to the last Spanish settlement some 2 km from the French frontier, a hamlet of La Vajol. It is there he met last foreign diplomatic representatives. On February 4 Negrín visited Azaña in La Vajol and suggested that in view of Nationalist advance, the president crosses to France as soon as possible.
French frontier
On February 5, at 6 AM, when it was still dark, Azaña, his wife, his entourage and some state officials departed La Vajol (which would be seized by the Nationalists on February 9) to France. What should have been few-minute-drive turned into a slightly longer journey. The leading police car broke down and blocked the narrow, windy mountainous road. All passengers had to leave their cars and proceeded on foot, struggling on slippery, iced surface. They saw the French gendarmes already after dawn.[23]
Last days
On 3 March, he resigned as President of the Republic, rather than return to Madrid with the rest of the government. Both Nationalist and Republican commentators have condemned this decision as "desertion".[6]
Azaña lived in exile in France for more than a year after the war, eventually being trapped by the invasion of France by Germany and institution of the
Azaña died of natural causes on 3 November 1940, in
Writings
In his diaries and memoirs, on which he worked meticulously, Azaña vividly describes the various personality and ideological conflicts between himself and various Republican leaders, such as Largo Caballero and Negrín. Azaña's writings during the Civil War have been resources for study by scholars of the workings of the Republican government during the conflict. Along with his extensive memoirs and diaries, Azaña also wrote a number of well-known speeches. His speech on 18 July 1938 is one of the best known in which he implores his fellow Spaniards to seek reconciliation after the fighting ends and emphasizes the need for "Peace, Pity, and Pardon."
Azaña wrote a play during the Civil War, La velada en Benicarló ("Vigil in Benicarló"). Having worked on the play during the previous weeks, Azaña dictated the final version while he was trapped in Barcelona during the
Azaña was aware of
A policy should never be based on the extermination of the adversary; not only because—and that is a lot to say—it is morally an abomination, but because it is materially unfeasible. And the blood unjustly spilled by the hatred that seeks to exterminate will be reborn, sprouting and giving accursed fruits; a curse that will not be restricted, unfortunately, to those who spilled the blood, but which will be over the very country which—to compound its misfortune—absorbed it.
During the many years of his political activity, Azaña kept diaries. His work Diarios completos: monarquía, república, Guerra Civil was published posthumously in Spanish in 2003.[26]
Political legacy
According to British historian Piers Brendon, Manuel Azaña was the leading Republican politician. He was a well-educated would-be writer who "plotted to rid Spain of the yoke of church and king". A brilliant speaker, Azaña was graceful in word, but clumsy in action. "He was a polemical bullfighter but a political bulldozer.".[27] Although he preached a lofty form of liberalism, he had a mixed record as prime minister. He wanted to introduce a welfare state with minimum-wage, sickness benefits and paid holidays, but he never attempted to deal with the overwhelming problem of peasant poverty. He was so concerned to balance the budget that he cut back on land redistribution. He worked more effectively to establish a secular state, breaking the Catholic church’s hold on education, legalizing civil marriage, seizing Catholic properties, expelling the Jesuit order, and tolerating the burning of church buildings such as convents for nuns. "All the convents in Spain are not worth a single Republican life," he proclaimed.[28] As opposition mounted, he censored the press, exiled his enemies to North Africa, and formed a private militia force of Assault Guards. Meanwhile, his allies the anarchists were assassinating priests and nuns, and burning convents. Azaña tried to reform the army, by replacing outmoded equipment and closing its military academy. In the process he demoted its most promising general—young Francisco Franco. Azaña was defeated in the elections of November 1933, having antagonized extremists and alienated the moderates. He made a comeback in 1936 but could not hold his coalition together in the face of a civil war. In recent decades he has become a hero of the left in Spain.[29]
See also
References
- ISSN 0213-2087.
- Jackson, Gabriel (1 July 2009). "Toda una vida". Revista de Libros.
- ^ Bedoya, Juan G. (2016-03-24). "Why did General Franco hate the freemasons so much?". EL PAÍS English Edition. Retrieved 2022-01-11.
- ^ Social Democracy and Welfare Capitalism: A Century of Income Security Policies by Alexander Hicks
- ^ Lee, Stephen J. (2016). European Dictatorships 1918-1945. Taylor & Francis. p. 232.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Payne, Stanley (1970). The Spanish Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton. pp. 97–99, 181–184, 191–196.
- ^ ISBN 0-14-303765-X.
- ^ Payne (2006), p. 356
- ISBN 9788499891392.
- ISBN 9788477857570.
- ^ La Torre Salvans: la casa-refugi del president de la República, Manuel Azaña, durant la Guerra Civil], [in:] ''Trail Sant Lorenc service 2012
- ^ J.M.O., La barraca en què vivia la guàrdia d'Azaña a La Barata, [in:] Nacio 22.04.2015
- ^ Santos Juliá, Destierro y muerte de Manuel Azaña, [in:] Claves de Razón Práctica 188 (2008), p. 52
- ^ Juliá 2008, p. 52
- ^ Juliá 2008, pp. 52-53
- ^ Higinio Polo, Los últimos días de la Barcelona republicana [PhD thesis Universitat de Barcelona], Barcelona 1989, p. 642
- ^ Polo 1989, p. 642
- ^ "siguen viaje hasta el castillo de Perelada, adonde llegan el lunes 24, cerrada la noche", Juliá 2008, p. 52. The date is not entirely clear, as January 24, 1939 was not Monday, but Tuesday; Monday fell on January 23
- ^ according to some sources Azaña arrived in Peralada already on January 22, Paul Preston, The Last Days of the Spanish Republic, London 2016, ISBN 9780008163419, p. 36
- ^ Juliá 2008, p. 53
- ^ Juliá 2008, p. 54
- ^ Polo 1989, p. 766
- ^ Juliá 2008, pp. 56-57
- ^ Beevor, p. 412
- ^ Ninguna política se ha de fundar en la decisión de exterminar al adversario; no sólo —y ya es mucho—porque moralmente es una abominación, sino porque, además, es materialmente irrealizable; y la sangre injustamente vertida por el odio, con propósito de exterminio, renace y retoña y fructifica en frutos de maldición; maldición no sobre los que la derramaron, desgraciadamente, sino sobre el propio país que la ha absorbido para colmo de la desventura.Diario Córdoba – 2 March de 2015; Mas Madera?
- ISBN 84-8432-142-8.
- ^ Piers Brendon, The dark valley: A panorama of the 1930s (2007), quoting pp. 364, 365.
- ^ Brendon, p 365.
- ^ Brendon, pp 365–367.
Further reading
- Azana, Manuel (1981). "Vigil in Benicarlo (Josephine and Paul Stewart, English trans.)". Associated University Press.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - Ben-Ami, Shlomo. The origins of the Second Republic in Spain (Oxford UP, 1978).
- Rivas Cherif, Cipriano de (1995). "Portrait of an Unknown Man: Manuel Azana and Modern Spain (Paul Stewart, edit. and English trans.)". Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press.
{{cite web}}: Missing or empty|url=(help) - Feeny, Thomas. "Fact and Fiction in Rojas 'Azaña'." Hispanófila 103 (1991): 33–46. online; on a fictionalized life of Azaña.
- Payne, Stanley (1970). The Spanish Revolution. New York: W. W. Norton.
- Sedwick, Frank. The tragedy of Manuel Azaña and the fate of the Spanish Republic (Ohio State Univ Press, 1964) online review.
Other languages
- Lagarrigue, Max. "Manuel Azaña en Montauban. La ultima morada del presidente de la República española, Manuel Azaña", in Azkárraga, José Ma (2001). República 70 anys després: 1931–2001. Valencia: Amics del Dia de la Foto. pp. 64–65..
- Amalric, Jean-Pierre (2007). "Manuel Azaña and France" (in French). Arkheia Revue. Archived from the original on 2008-12-25. Retrieved 2008-06-17.
- Amalric, Jean-Pierre (2008). "Intellectuals in the political arena (1898–1940)" (in French). Arkheia Revue. Archived from the original on 2008-12-24. Retrieved 2008-11-30.
