Revolution of 1934
Revolution of 1934 | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Civil Guard forces with prisoners in Brañosera | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
|
Catalan State | ||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
] |
Belarmino Tomás Ramón González Peña Teodomiro Menéndez (POW) Ramón Álvarez Palomo Lluís Companys Frederic Escofet Enric Pérez i Farràs | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
450 dead[1] |
1,500–2,000 dead 15,000–30,000 arrested |
The Revolution of 1934, also known as the Revolution of October 1934 or the Revolutionary General Strike of 1934, was a
Prelude
The elections held in October 1933 resulted in a centre-right majority. The political party with the most votes was the
The Socialists triggered an insurrection that they had been preparing for nine months.
Preparation of the revolution
1934 was a year of constant class clashes, established on the basis of small incidents and short general strikes, which allowed the movement to arrive on the eve of October in the fullness of its strength, with great confidence and extraordinarily united.[10]
The rebels had a considerable stock of rifles and pistols on them. Most of the rifles came from a shipment of arms supplied by Indalecio Prieto, a socialist party moderate. The rifles had been landed by the yacht Turquesa at Pravia, north-east of Oviedo; Prieto swiftly fled to France to avoid arrest. Other weapons came from captured arms factories in the region and the miners also had their dynamite blasting charges, which were known as "la artillería de la revolución."[11]
Asturias
The rising in Asturias was well prepared with headquarters in Oviedo.[3]
In several mining towns in Asturias, local unions gathered small arms and were determined to see the strike through. Fighting began on the evening of 4 October, with the miners occupying several towns, attacking and seizing local
At dawn on 5 October, the rebels attacked the Brothers' school in Turón. The Brothers and the Passionist Fathers were captured and imprisoned in the "House of the People" while waiting for a decision from the Revolutionary Committee. Under pressure from extremists, the Committee condemned them to death.
The same day saw columns of miners advancing along the road to Oviedo, the provincial capital. With the exception of two barracks in which fighting with the garrison of 1,500 government troops continued, the city was taken by 6 October. The miners proceeded to occupy several other towns, most notably the large industrial centre of La Felguera, and set up town assemblies, or "revolutionary committees", to govern the towns that they controlled.[16]
Within three days the center of Asturias was in the hands of the rebels. The revolutionary soviets set up by the miners attempted to impose order on the areas under their control, and the moderate socialist leadership of Ramón González Peña and Belarmino Tomás took measures to restrain violence.
Taking Oviedo, the rebels were able to seize the city' arsenal gaining 24,000 rifles, carbines, and light and heavy machine guns.[17] Recruitment offices demanded the services of all workers between the ages of eighteen and forty for the 'Red Army'. Thirty thousand workers were mobilized for battle within ten days.[3]
In the occupied areas, the rebels officially declared the proletarian revolution and abolished regular money.[18]
The government was now facing a civil war. Franco, already General of Division and aide to Minister of War Diego Hidalgo, was put in command of operations to suppress the violent insurgency. Franco and General Manuel Goded Llopis advised Hidalgo to bring in the battle-tested Spanish Army of Africa, composed of the Spanish Legion and the Moroccan Regulares.[17] Historian Hugh Thomas asserts that Hidalgo said that he did not want young inexperienced recruits fighting their own people, and that he was wary of moving troops to Asturias, leaving the rest of Spain unprotected. Bringing in the Army of Africa was not a novelty; in 1932 Manuel Azaña had also called the Tercio and the Regulares from North Africa.
War Ministe Hidalgo wanted Franco to lead the troops. But President Alcalá Zamora, aware of Franco's monarchist sympathies, chose General Eduardo López Ochoa to lead the troops against the miners, hoping that his reputation as a loyal Republican would minimize the bloodshed.[19]
Army of Africa troops carried out the campaign. After two weeks of heavy fighting (and a death toll estimated between 1,200 and 2,000), the rebellion was suppressed.
As a deterrent to further atrocities, López Ochoa summarily executed a number of Legionnaires and Regulares for torturing or murdering prisoners.[20]
Historian Javier Tusell argues that although Franco had a leading role, giving instructions from Madrid, that does not mean he took part in the illegal repressive activities.[21] According to Tusell it was the Republican General, López de Óchoa, a republican freemason who had been appointed by President Alcalá Zamora to lead the repression in the field, that was unable to prevent innumerous atrocities.[21]
According to
Catalonia
In Catalonia the revolt was triggered by the Government of Catalonia led by its president Lluís Companys, who proclaimed the Catalan State. The Catalonian uprising began and ended the same day, it lasted only ten hours, in the so-called "Events of 6 October".
In October 6, Lluís Companys decided to declare the Catalan Republic within the "Spanish Federal Republic",[24] and numerous heavily armed squads occupied the streets of Barcelona and other towns, supporting the initiative and capturing public offices. Lluís Companys appeared on a balcony of the Palau de la Generalitat (Government Building) and he told the crowd that "monarchists and fascists" had "assaulted the government", and went on:
In this solemn hour, in the name of the people and the Parliament, the Government over which I preside assumes all the faculties of power in Catalonia, proclaims the Catalan State of the Spanish Federal Republic, and in establishing and fortifying relations with the leaders of the general protest against Fascism, invites them to establish in Catalonia the provisional Government of the Republic, which will find in our Catalan people the most generous impulse of fraternity in the common desire to erect a liberal and magnificent federal republic.[25]
Lluís Companys asked
In the failed rebellion forty-six people died: thirty-eight civilians and eight soldiers.[30] More than three thousand people were imprisoned, most of them in the "Uruguay" steamer, and placed under the jurisdiction of the councils of war.
The International Marxist Tendency movement classified Lluis Company's actions as the "worst betrayal of the movement", according to this movement Companys surrendered without resistance and his “Estat Catala” did not challenge private property nor the current social establishment he just wanted to place "the leadership of the struggle in the hands of the petty bourgeoisie represented by the ERC (Catalan Republican Left)".[31]
Although the vast majority of the events happened in Asturias and Catalonia, strikes, clashes, and shootings happened also in the Basque country, north of Castile and León, Cantabria, or Madrid.
Aftermath
The insurgency in Asturias sparked a new era of violent anti-Christian persecutions, initiated the practice of atrocities against the clergy
After the "miners" had surrendered the investigations and repression were carried out by the brutal Civil Guard Major Lisardo Doval Bravo who applied torture and savage beatings.[35] Several prisoners died. The independent journalist “Luis de Sirval” was arbitrarily arrested and shot dead in prison by a Bulgarian Legionnaire named Dimitri Ivan Ivanoff.[35] Due to martial law and censorship, little or no information was officially made public, a group of Socialist deputies carried a private investigation and published an independent report that discarded most to the publicized atrocities but that confirmed the savage beatings and tortures.[35]
In Catalonia Lluís Companys and his government were arrested. So too was Manuel Azaña, despite having taken no part in the events; he was released in December.[36]The Statute of Autonomy was suspended indefinitely on 14 December, and all powers that had been transferred to Barcelona were returned to Madrid. The soldiers who had taken part of the insurrection, the commander Enric Pérez i Farràs and the captains Escofet and Ricart, were condemned to death, their sentence being commuted to life imprisonment by the President of the Republic, Alcalá Zamora, in spite of the protests of both the CEDA and the Republican Liberal Democrat Party of Melquiades Álvarez, who demanded a strong hand.[37]
Martial law was in place until January 23, 1935. The government tried to be and was reasonable in dealing with insurrects in most cases, but in Asturias justice was uneven and the police administration was allowed to continue with excesses.[35]
On February 23, 1935, the
In June 1935 The President and the Government of the Generalitat were tried by the Constitutional Guarantees Tribunal and were sentenced for military rebellion to thirty years in prison, which was carried out by some in the Cartagena prison and others in the
The government of Lerroux unleashed "a harsh repressive wave with the closure of political and trade union centers, the suppression of newspapers, the removal of municipalities and thousands of detainees, without having had a direct action on the facts", which showed "a punitive will often arbitrary and with vengeance components of class or ideological".[40]
There were no mass killing after the fighting was over, completely different from the massacres that had taken place in similar uprisings in France, Hungary or Germany; all death sentences were commuted aside from two, army sergeant and deserter Diego Vásquez, who fought alongside the miners, and a worker known as "El Pichilatu" who had committed serial killings. Little effort was actually made to suppress the organisations that had carried out the insurrection, resulting in most being functional again by 1935. Support for fascism was minimal and did not increase, while civil liberties were restored in full by 1935, after which the revolutionaries had a generous opportunity to pursue power through electoral means.[44]
Following the
At the outbreak of the
The eight martyrs of Turon were venerated on 7 September 1989, and beatified By Pope John Paul II[47] on 29 April 1990. They were canonized on 21 November 1999.[48][49]
See also
Notes
- ^ In the original: “El alzamiento de 1934 es imperdonable. La decisión del presidente de la República de llamar al poder a la CEDA era inatacable y hasta debida desde hacía ya tiempo. El argumento de que el señor Gil Robles intentaba destruir la Constitución para instaurar el fascismo era, a la vez, hipócrita y falso. ….. Con la rebelión de 1934, la izquierda española perdió hasta la sombra de autoridad para condenar la rebelión de 1936."
References
- ISBN 978-1-107-05454-7.
- ^ Keeley Rogers & Jo Thomas, Causes of 20th Century Wars, Page 228
- ^ a b c d e Thomas 1977.
- ^ Payne & Palacios 2018, pp. 84–85.
- ^ Souto Sandra, “De la paramilitarización al fracaso: las insurrecciones socialistas de 1934 en Viena y Madrid ,” Pasado y Memoria. Revista de Historia Contemporánea 2 (2003), 5-74.
- ^ Madariaga - Spain (1964) p.416
- ^ Payne & Palacios 2018, p. 88.
- ^ Payne & Palacios 2018, pp. 88–85.
- ^ Ranzato G., El eclipse de la democracia. La guerra civil española y sus orígenes, 1931-1939, (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 2006), 185-201; Manuel Álvarez Tardío, El camino a la democracia en España. 1931 y 1978 (Madrid: Gota a Gota, 2005), 307-380.
- ^ Las diferencias asturianas. Octubre 1934. Edit.Siglo veintiuno.Madrid 1985. Pág. 235
- ^ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Hachette UK, 2012.
- ^ Jackson 1987, pp. 154–155.
- ^ "Cirilo Bertrán and 8 Companions, religious of the Institute of Brothers of the Christian Schools and Inocencio de la Immaculada, priest of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, martyrs (+1934, +1937)". Holly See. Vatican News. 21 November 1999.
- ^ a b Thomas 1977, p. 132.
- ^ a b Cueva 1998, pp. 355–369.
- ^ Thomas 1977, p. 131.
- ^ a b Álvarez 2011.
- ^ Payne 2008, p. 55.
- ^ Hodges 2002.
- ^ a b Preston 2012, p. 269.
- ^ a b Tusell 1992, p. 19.
- ^ Thomas 1977, p. 136.
- ^ Payne & Palacios 2018, p. 90.
- ^ Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, revolution & revenge. Harper Perennial. London. 2006. p.78
- ^ "Separatists' Rising: Bloodshed in Barcelona". The Times. 8 October 1934. p. 14.
- ^ Jackson 1987, p. 166.
- ISSN 1695-2014.
- ^ Payne (2006), pp. 87–8
- ^ Payne 2006, p. 88.
- ISBN 978-84-8432-878-0.
- ^ Samblas, Ramon (20 July 2005). "Lessons of the Asturian Commune, October 1934". In Defence of Marxism.
- ^ Preston, p. 103
- ISBN 0-268-03268-8
- ISBN 0199252963.
- ^ a b c d Payne 1999, p. 228.
- ^ Casanova 2010, p. 113.
- ^ Casanova (2007), p. 139
- ISBN 84-297-4510-6.
- ^ Casanova 2010, p. 114.
- ISBN 84-7738-918-7.
- ^ Goethem, Geert van. The Amsterdam International: The World of the International Federation of Trade Unions (IFTU), 1913–1945. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2006. p. 76
- ^ Kraus, Dorothy, and Henry Kraus. The Gothic Choirstalls of Spain. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1986. p. 37
- ^ "González Peña, Ramón" (in Spanish). Fundación Pablo Iglesias. 21 February 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2015.
- ^ Payne 2008, pp. 100–103.
- ISBN 978-9004254275. Retrieved 16 March 2018.
- ^ Ruiz 2015, p. 158.
- ^ "Blessed Martyrs of Turón (Asturias, Spain)", Christian brothers of the Midwest Archived 2016-03-04 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ ""Saint Martyrs of Turon", Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools". Archived from the original on 27 June 2019. Retrieved 7 July 2021.
- ^ Cirilo Bertrán and 8 Companions, religious of the Institute of Brothers of the Christian Schools and Inocencio de la Inmaculada, priest of the Congregation of the Passion of Jesus Christ, martyrs (+1934, +1937)
Sources
- Álvarez, José E. (2011). "The Spanish Foreign Legion during the Asturian Uprising of October 1934". War in History. 18 (2): 200–224. S2CID 159593285.
- Casanova, Julián (2010). The Spanish Republic and Civil War. Cambridge University Press. p. 113. ISBN 978-1139490573.
- Cueva, Julio de la Cueva (1998). "Religious Persecution, Anticlerical Tradition and Revolution: On Atrocities against the Clergy during the Spanish Civil War". Journal of Contemporary History. 33 (3). Sage Publications, Ltd.: 355–369.
- Hodges, Gabrielle Ashfod (2002). Franco : a concise biography (1st U.S. ed.). St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0312282851.
- ISBN 978-0691007571.
- ISBN 978-0299110703.
- ISBN 978-0299136741.
- ISBN 978-0300110654.
- ISBN 978-0300130782.
- ISBN 978-0299302146.
- S2CID 153836234.
- ISBN 978-0-00-686210-9.
- ISBN 978-0-00-723207-9.
- ISBN 978-0393345919.
- Ruiz, Julius (2015). The 'Red Terror' and the Spanish Civil War: Revolutionary Violence in Madrid. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1107682931.
- ISBN 978-0060142780.
- ISBN 9788472236486.
- ISBN 9788448706371.