History of Catalonia - Republic and Civil War

Republic and Civil War

After the fall of Primo de Rivera, the Catalan left made great efforts to create a united front under Francesc Macià. The Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia, or ERC) represented a break with the electoral abstentionism that, until then had been characteristic of the Catalan workers. Advocating socialism and Catalan independence, the party achieved a spectacular victory in the municipal elections of April 12, 1931, which preceded the April 14 proclamation of the Second Spanish Republic. The Catalan Generalitat was revived, and a September 1932 statute of autonomy for Catalonia gave a strong, though not absolute, grant of self-government. A similar statute granted automomy to the Basque Country.

Under its two presidents, Francesc Macià (1931–1933) and Lluís Companys (1934–1939), the republican Generalitat carried out a considerable task, despite the serious economic crisis, its social repercussions and the political vicissitudes of the period, including its suspension in 1934, due to an uprising in Barcelona in October that year. As for the workers' movement, there was the CNT crisis with the break-away faction in the 1930s and the formation of the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (Spanish: Partido Obrero de Unificación Marxista, POUM) and Unified Socialist Party of Catalonia (Catalan: Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya, PSUC).

After the electoral victory of the left in the Spanish national elections of February 1936 came the July 1936 armed insurrection that led to the Spanish Civil War. The defeat of the initial military rebellion in Catalonia placed Catalonia firmly in the Republican camp. During the war, there were two rival powers in Catalonia: the de jure power of the Generalitat and the de facto power of the armed popular militias. Violent confrontations between the workers' parties culminated in the defeat of the CNT-FAI and POUM, against whom the PSUC unleashed strong repression. The local situation resolved itself progressively in favor of the Generalitat, but at the same time the Generalitat was losing its autonomous power within republican Spain.

The military forces of the Generalitat were concentrated on two fronts: Aragon and Majorca. The latter was an utter disaster. The Aragon front resisted firmly until 1937, when the occupation of Lérida and Balaguer destabilized it. Finally, Franco's troops broke the republican territory in two by occupying Vinaròs, isolating Catalonia from the rest of republican Spain. The defeat of the Republican armies in the Battle of the Ebro led in 1938 and 1939 to the occupation of Catalonia by Franco's forces, who abolished Catalan autonomy and brought in a dictatorial regime, which took strong measures against Catalan nationalism and Catalan culture. Only forty years later, after Franco's death (1975) and the adoption of a democratic constitution in Spain (1978), did Catalonia recover its autonomy and reconstitute the Generalitat (1979).

George Orwell served with the POUM in Catalonia from December 1936 until June 1937. His memoir of that time, Homage to Catalonia, was first published in 1938 and foreshadowed the causes of Second World War. It remains one of the most widely read books on the Spanish Civil War.