Chapter 12: The Spanish Revolution
...and although that could have been an escape valve in a less delicate situation, the expansion of suffrage not only would not be able to placate the demands of the elements opposed to the Crown but would also demonstrate a decisive factor in the fall of the monarchical regime in Spain . When the dynastic parties agreed to the measure, traditional leaders hoped to replicate, even on a larger scale, the old tactics that had allowed them to marginalize opposing parties and take turns in power. However, the newly enfranchised masses had no connection to the old party apparatuses, since most belonged to the lowest strata of society: neither could they benefit from the caciquil structures nor their position was seriously threatened by them. In fact, it would be these urban masses, uprooted and influenced by the socialist, anarchist and republican propaganda that dominated the cities, who would cause the collapse, by action and omission, of the House of Bourbon.
The General Election of 1913
The date for the first general elections held in Spain under universal male suffrage was set on March 1, 1913. Although the Crown pressed for it to be delayed as much as possible, the social situation was deemed too explosive to decree a suspension of constitutional guarantees. During the electoral campaign, the Liberal and Conservative parties, confident, dedicated themselves to engaging in sterile debates among themselves, without noticing the force that the new radical ideologies took on the new urban electorate. Republican groups of various petty-bourgeois tendencies agreed in the Assembly of Valencia to present a united front against the regime, through the Republican Union, while the Socialists of the PSOE declined to unite and presented themselves under their own acronym. From the anarchist ranks, calls to abstentionism were lowered, which would undoubtedly have an influence on the proletariat.
On February 22, a week before the elections, there was a battle between the native rebels and the Spanish army in the Rif, north of the Moroccan protectorate, which resulted in 1,500 Spanish casualties. The news spread rapidly, unleashing a wave of indignation. The dynastic parties, whose members had conflicting interests in the Moroccan adventure, closed ranks and branded opponents of the war as antipatriotic, while the latter appealed to the anti-war sentiment of the masses whose children died in an enterprise outside their interests.
The result of the election gave a narrow plurality to the Liberals over the Conservatives, although both republicans and socialists gained the upper hand in the main cities and industrial belts, so even if both dynastic parties agreed a coalition, they would be outvoted by the opposition. The tie would need to be broken by the ultramontane of the Catholic Communion movement, traditionalists who rejected parliamentary politics, so a deadlock was reached in which neither block could form a majority.
The Proclamation of the Republic
The climate of tension coincided with Vannier's coup d'état in France, which replaced the newly proclaimed Third French Republic with the future National Gouvernement. The repercussions of this in Spain led Republicans and socialists to forge an extra-parliamentary alliance to organize a mass movement that prevented the acting government of Liberal Laureano Rosellón from suspending constitutional guarantees.
On March 15 the first protesters met at the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, demanding that the government amnesty for the opponents and that the subsistence crisis be stopped. Little by little, more people joined, in the capital and in different places in Spain. It did not take long to join the demands of a democratic republic and, where the Socialists dominated, the abolition of private property and the dictatorship of the proletariat.
The paralyzed government decided to order the dissolution of the demonstrations, but in many places the police refused to shoot the protesters and in others they joined them. The high command, unable to secure the situation, suggested that the government enter into negotiations with the Republican Union so that it could enter the government and that King Charles VI leave the country to avoid further bloodshed or even a civil war.
Situation of the country on March 27, a day before the official proclamation of the Republic by the Provisional Government.
Orange: areas of major unrest and pro-republican demonstrations.
Red: areas of socialist influence.
Black: areas under anarchist control.