A Socialist Spain?

A Socialist Spain in 1909?

I was reading a bit around, and I came upon an interesting idea for an alternate timeline: the Semana Trágica. It was a conflict between the far left and the military in 1909, leading to a lot of bloodshed. I have two questions:

What PoD could have plausibly caused the Semana Trágica to result in a successful overthrow of the Kingdom of Spain?

And how would a socialist Spain have reacted to the unfolding events of WWI?
 
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I was reading a bit more about the Semana Tragica and found out something interesting: Madrid agreed upon a general strike for August 2, but in Barcelona, Solidaritat Obrera prematurely set off a strike on July 26. If the general strike had been successfully delayed to August, the strikers would have been in the capital, and thus be much more capable of a successful uprising and overthrow of the government. A consequence of Barcelona going off prematurely was that Madrid (AFAIK) did not have large-scale striking. For those better versed on early 20th century Spanish history than me, how plausible is this turn of events, and could it culminate in a successful revolution? If successful, how would the new state look?
 
It is an interesting idea, but apart from the General stuff Spanish history is'nt one of my strongpoints.

I wonder though, with its history of anarcho-socialism and Federalism, might Spain become the model for the USSR.
 
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Goldstein

Banned
How plausible is this turn of events, and could it culminate in a successful revolution?

It would be plausible and a very interesting start for a TL. I encourage you to go on with the idea.

If successful, how would the new state look?

I imagine it as sort of a Paris Commune-style republic, with a radical federalist structure and a strong syndical force, and with the Church and some army sectors suffering a brutal retailation.
 
Apparently during WWI, though strict neutrality was attempted, there were two major political factions: those who empathized more with the liberal French (the professional middle class, intellectuals, republicans, socialists, regionalists) and those who empathized more with the conservative Germans (the privileged classes, right-wingers like the Carlists and the Mauristas). ITTL, the pro-French elements would be in power and large swaths of the pro-German elements would have been purged. So there's the real possibility of an Entente Spain.

But another butterfly occurred to me: without the Second Rif War, would the Agadir Crisis still happen, and how might it change?

The Agadir Crisis involved an increase of French presence in Morocco, and the Second Rif War involved an increase of Spanish presence in Morocco. Given that the Semana Trágica had its origins in opposition to the Second Rif War, it is pretty much certain that the war would stop. Without Spanish involvement, it seems likely that the French would end up getting a full protectorate over all of Morocco, assuming that the Agadir Crisis is still resolved peacefully, meaning the Germans would be even more pissed off at the Treaty of Fez.
 
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This one's complicated. These explorations of an earlier Republican takeover pre-suppose actual victory; yes, soldiers in Barcelona refused to fire upon the workers erecting baricades, but in the end the rising was crushed by soldiers from elsewhere, like Valencia and Pamplona. Have the Semana Tragica become a Republican/Socialist success, you need all the army to suddenly not shoot upon the strikers. The closest comparisons to all of this are the Republican takeover and/or the opening movements of the Civil War itself, the latter case rather proving that the Spanish Generals were more than willing to shoot upon Masons, Socialists, Communists et al.
I was originally imagining something along the lines of building a broader base of support amongst the rural citizenry, so that the government can't as easily just go over to unsympathetic soldiers from other social classes/areas. Or the opposite effect, with the sympathetic military defecting to the striker's cause. I don't know how plausible this is though.
 
Hmm, the more I read, the more I think that the strike taking place in Madrid as well could see a successful overthrow of the Kingdom.

I guess it really depends on three things:
• Whether or not the local military would view the strikers as their peers (I don't know if this was true as it was in Barcelona)
• Whether or not the strikers were as "radical" as the ones in Barcelona (the striking committee lost control of them after only a day, before troops from elsewhere had arrived; if they had been in the capital, it would be very plausible that they would attempt to storm the capital building)
• Whether or not storming the capital building would lead to the genesis of a new, leftist government, or simply a military junta/restoration of the monarchy after the rest of the military arrives.
 
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