Barcelona, January 15, 1924
68. From the Strikes of December to end of the Spanish Revolution (November 1923-May 8, 1924)
The end of the Great War was met with relief in Spain. For the Spaniards it meant the end of the endless list of casualties from the front, the return of the soldiers and also of the rationing of food. However, food control was to last for some time as long as, the government warned, international trade and the national economy struggled to return to a "bussines as usual" situation. To counter this, the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils took over the distribution of food and the accommodation and provisions of the front-line soldiers that were gradually returning home, as well as the police force. To coordinate their work, a Central Council was created on December 19, 1923. Meanwhile, Largo Caballero proposed excluding the "Royalist democrat" deputies from the
Cortes, but his proposal was rejected. This led to Communist accusations against the Liberals and Socialists of protecting the royalist faction, or, even worse, of conspiring with them to restore monarchy and to repeal the Constitution of 1923. At the end of December more than three thousand shops were plundered in the main cities of Spain. Protesters claimed that the profiteers were responsible for the high prices and that they were protected by the Royalists in high places, the
Cortes included.
Then, on January 4, 1924, the Communist uprising began as planned, with the PCE calling for a demonstration to take place on the following day. To the surprise of the organizers, the protest turned into a huge, massive show of anger which also attracted the support of many Socialists. On January 5, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the streets of the main Spanish cities, many of them armed. In the afternoon the train stations and the newspapers of Madrid and Barcelona were occupied as disgruntled war veterans joined the rebels side. On the following day, Largo Caballero called for a general strike on January 7, which attracted about 500,000 participants. Strikers seized key buildings, which led to a standoff with the government. During the following two days the revolution won the Eastern and Southern provinces, the government declared the state of emergency. On January 9, Largo Caballero read the proclamation of the
República Popular Española (People's Republic of Spain) in the
Cortes. He was surrounded by a small armed retinue
for his own protection. The transfer of power was not without disagreement. The Liberals and the Conservatives, as well as Besteiro's socialdemocrats, believed that Largo Caballero had not only illegally seized power but also was threatening them with his bodyguards. Thus, they walked out before the votation began. As they departed, they were taunted by a Communist deputy, Daniel Anguiano, who told them "
You are leaving history! Your time is over!" Five days later (January 11), the Revolution had engulfed the rest of the country. Just Burgos, Huelva, Huesca, Lugo, Orense, Oviedo, Pamplona, the Canary Islands and the Protectorate of Morocco remained in Loyalist hands. That day, the first Popular columns departed Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Sevilla, Valencia and Zaragoza heading to those cities as the Socialist Republic of Italy recognized the Spanish Republic and began to send supplies and weapons to Spain. By January 25, the last Loyalist strongholds had been secured by the Republican forces but for the Protectorate and Pamplona.
At the same time, social revolution and collectivization began in earnest in the Popular Republic, mixed with a violent anticlerical violence. Soon a libertarian socialist economy appeared in the Eastern parts of the Peninsula (Catalonia and Valencia) based on coordination through decentralized federations of industrial collectives and agrarian communes, which led to another bout of violence (January 14-28) when rural unrest exploded and armed peasants manor houses, both in the diminishing Loyalist areas as in Republican ones. Personal revenges also caused bloodshed in both sides. For two weeks, blood streamed free as hatred consumed the cities and the countryside in an orgy of violence. This was to allienate many Spaniards in both sides, among them Prieto, who raised his voice in protest for the unlawful state of the country. As Pamplona held against the assaults of the Popular columns (February 4), the revolutionary committees of Madrid and Barcelona engaged in a policy of political repression of all suspected counter-revolutionaries, which led to the creation in every city of survillance committees (
Comités de Vigilancia), which conducted searches and made arrests by the hundreds. It was mostly these committees, rather than the Government, which released the repression of February 1924. To ensure that legal process were applied to suspects accused of political crimes and treason to stop the arbitrary killings and to silence Prieto's criticism, Largo Caballero created a revolutionary tribunal with extraordinary powers on February 19.
Then, on February 24, an armed mob stormed the
Cárcel Modelo, the main prison for men in Madrid. That day, as other prisons in the capital were assaulted and its inmates murdered, the surveillance committees of Madrid, led by Daniel Anguiano, sent a circular letter to the regional authorities were he announced that "
ferocious conspirators detained in the prisons had been put to death by the people" and asked them to eliminate counter-revolutionaries. By February 25 local councils were already passing motions demanding the death of conspirators. When the murder spree was over three days later, around 2,200-2,700 people had been murdered. By that day, half the prison population of Madrid had been executed and many members of the PSOE and the Liberal parties had been killed in personal vendettas. This was to lead to the murder of Anguiano (March 1) by Margarita Nelken, a Socialist sympathizer, who would be executed for her crime. This led to a purge of the moderate revolutionaries and Socialists, including Prieto, from the Central Council, and a vicious persecution of the few Conservative leaders who had been unable to flee to either France of the loyalist areas. Meanwhile, the bloodshed went on in the Spanish-held Libya, where the revolution had plunged their cities into chaos as the last remnats of order disappeared. Finally, London grew tired of all that madness and British troops crossed the border in the so-called Operation E on February 19. Supported by armored cars, the British troops (an army corps with RAF support) led by Major-General Sir Lee Oliver Fitzmaurice Stack captured Sollum and the Halfaya Pass by February 25 and then Stack by-passed the garrisons further south in the desert as it advanced westwards to Bardia. The chaotic state of the Republican troops only worsened with time and the city was conquered on March 3: 8,000 Spanish soldiers were captured at the cost of 60 British casualties. The remants of the Bardia garrison fled to Tobruk. Only 9,000 reached Tobruk, utterley demoralized, while 8,000 surrendered or died in the hot sand of Libya. Tobruk was completely surrounded by British troops by March 30.
When the news of this disaster reached Spain in late February, a young Communist, Dolores Ibarruri, the leader of the "
Comuneros" faction (Communards), part of the extremist wing of the PCE, pushed for a full mobilization of the country to fight war to the death and demanded the execution of all the traitors and a state-controlled economy, as the complete political unity of the Left as well. This, she claimed, was essential to the war effort. Initially, Largo Caballero recovered the moderate Prieto to use him against the radical Ibarruri, but Prieto resigned two days later and went into hiding. The tired population began to show the strain caused by the shortage of food and the war. When Tobruk was surrounded by the British, a frenzied mood ran through the Central Comittee. The "
Comuneros" took the streets demanding stringent measures. On April 2, Ibarruri pressed for a decree confiscating the property of suspects and distributing it to the needy, which was approved that very day. After this, and seeing that Ibarruri was becoming too popular, Largo Caballero acted at once: Ibarruri was jailed on April 4 and his faction crushed as they were accused of being "Loyalist saboteurs". Ibarruri was executed on the 9th, and after this the group disolved or vanished in the jails of the surveillance councils. Seeing the writting on the wall, Prieto left Madrid and ran away to Zaragoza, which was an Anarchist stronghold, where he went underground again. Hardly had he done that, Largo Caballero turned against the PSOE and, after accusing its leadership of corruption and blatantly disregarding the parliamentary immunity of nine Socialist deputies, he had them tried and executed on April 14.
Feeling securing after eliminating his rivals, Largo Caballero returned his attention to the war. but to no avail. Gibraltar had no troubles to resist the weak attempts of the Popular Army of the Spanish Republic and Tobruk had surrendered on April 2 and the British took Derna two days later. Largo Caballero began to muster all the available forces as the navy was reorganized and prepared to face the British Mediterranean Fleet, an enterprise that was considered foolish by the Republican Admirals. They were not the only ones who were critics of Largo Caballero. He had doomed his cause in his purge as he had caused many to be disilusioned, not only in the ranks of the two decimated groups, but also out of them. The survivors of the purge and those who had avoided Largo Caballero's wrath, horrified by his actions and the kangaroo courts, began to withdraw their support to him. To his shock, the Communist leader was called "
dictator" in the
Cortes by his critics on April 26, the very day that El Agheila fell to the British as its garrison deserted to the British and changed sides: the Spanish army of Libya simply melted away from that moment on, with the soldiers deserting or surrendering in mass. Largo Caballero's reaction was to free the reigns of the surveillance councils. The number of executions skyrocketed. If March had seen 155 executions, in the next weeks the butcher's bill rose to 354 (April 1-15) and then to 509 (April 15-31). With the fast fragmentation of the Committe ongoing at full speed, two Communist leaders, Antonio García Quejido and Manuel Núñez de Arenas attempted a reconciliation. Nevertheless, it was too late. On May 6, as it was known the loss of Tripoli two days earlier, an uneasy alliance of Communists and the few Socalist survivors demaned his resignation in the
Cortes. His indictment was decreed. Largo Caballero was arrested in place. When he exited the building, to his surprise, he found it surrounded by soldiers, policemen and militiamnen. On the evening of May 8, Largo Caballero, García Quejido, Núnez de Arenas and nine membrers of Largo's group, were executed without a trial. On the following day, Prieto returned to Madrid. The PCE was outlawed, as many feared or hoped. and then Prieto surprised his enemies and friends when he offered the exiled Besteiro, Alcalá-Zamora and Sanchez Guerra (Maura had been one of the first victims of Largo Caballero's purges) to return to Spain to reconstruct the country together.
It was time to heal the wounds.