Abstract
Between 1916 and 1923 Spain see-sawed between three political alternatives: a democratization of its political structures, a revolution led by the working-class Left, and a military-inspired reaction. Barcelona was at the centre of all these movements and Catalonia’s major political party, the Lliga Regionalista, played a major role throughout. It was at the forefront of the campaign both to democratize Spain and achieve political autonomy for Catalonia between 1916 and 1918. It played a key part in organizing Catalonia’s middle-class citizens against the anarchist-syndicalist threat in 1919, and it supported the military coup by General Miguel Primo de Rivera in September 1923. This chapter aims to explain the Lliga’s changing stance over this period and the impact this had on the Spanish polity.
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Notes
See, for example, the comments in Hans Rogger and Eugen Weber (eds), The European Right: A Historical Profile (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1966), pp. 1–28;
Martin Blinkhorn (ed.), Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth Century Europe (London: Unwin Hyman, 1990), pp. 1–13.
For the Lliga’s formation see, Borja de Riquer, Lliga Regionalista: La burgesia catalana i el nacionalisme, 1898–1904 (Barcelona: Edicions 62, 1977). I have preferred to use the term Catalanist rather than Catalan nationalist because there is considerable ambiguity as to whether the Lliga’s discourse and practice can be seen as nationalist or regionalist.
Jesús Pabón, Cambó, 1876–1918 (Barcelona: Alpha, 1952), pp. 74–94;
Jordi Sole Tura, Catalanismo y revolución burguesa, 2nd edn (Madrid: Cuadernos Para El Diálogo/Edicusa, 1974), pp. 126–34;
Maties Ramisa, Els orígins del catalanisme conservador i ‘La Veu de Montserrat’ (Vic: Eumo, 1985).
Riquer, Lliga Regionalista, pp. 191–203; Francesc Cambó, Confederencia pronunciada por D. Francisco Cambó en el Teatro Los Campos Elíseos de Bilbao el día 28 de enero de 1917 (Bilbao: Jesús Álvarez, n.d. [1917]), p. 15.
For the world of the bones famílies see, Gary Wray McDonogh, Good Families of Barcelona: A Social History of Power in the Industrial Era (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986);
Borja de Riquer, ‘Burgesos, polítics i caçics a la Catalunya de la Restauració’, L’Avenç, 85 (1985), pp. 16–33. At the top of the social tree, until his death in 1918, was Count Güell, Eusebi Güell i Bacigalupi, who was close to the Lliga.
See, for example, Francesc Cambó, Actuació Regionalista. A propòsit d’un article de Don Gabriel Maura i Gamazo (Barcelona: Publicacions de la Lliga Regionalista, 1915), p. 62; La Veu de Catalunya (hereafter LVC), (15 July 1915). La Veu de Catalunya was the daily mouthpiece of the Lliga.
Peter Alter, Nationalism, 2nd edn (London: Edward Arnold, 1994), pp. 16–64;
Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth and Reality, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 80–130.
Prat de la Riba, ‘La nacionalitat catalana’, pp. 136, 164–8; Francesc Cambó, ‘Catalunya devant de Castella. Conferència pronunciada al Círculo Mercantil de Salamanca el día 15 de març de 1908’, in Francesc Cambó (ed.), El catalanisme regeneracionista, edició a cura de Jordi Casassas (Barcelona: Edicions La Malgrana/Diputació de Barcelona, 1990), p. 23.
Francesc Cambó, Catalunya i la Solidaritat. Conferència donada al Teatre Principal el dia 26 de maig de 1910 (Barcelona: Fills de D. Casanova, 1910), p. 91. Theorists of nationalism have emphasized the voluntarist element present in the ideology of liberal nationalist movements.
Pabón, Cambó, p. 546; Antoni Rovira i Virgili, La crisi del regim. Crònica documentada dels darrrers esdeveniments de la política espanyola (Barcelona: Editorial Catalana, 1918), p. 100.
Amadeu Hurtado, Quaranta any d’advocat. Història del meu temps, 1894–1930 (Barcelona: Ariel, 1969), p. 313.
For an overview of the autonomy campaign see Josep M. Poblet, El moviment autonomista a Catalunya dels anys 1918–1919 (Barcelona: Pòrtic, 1970). Important inside information is to be found in Cambó, Memòries, pp. 300–5.
Angel Smith, Anarchism, Revolution and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of the Spanish State, 1898–1923 (Oxford: Berghahn, 2007), pp. 290–7. See also the chapters by Romero Salvadó (‘Si Vis Pacem Para Bellum’) and Ealham in this volume, pp. 175–201 and pp. 92–120.
For more details on the UMN see Josep Puy, ‘La Unión Monárquica Nacional frente al catalanismo de la Lliga, 1918–1923’, Estudios de Historia Social, 28–9 (1984), pp. 467–73; Smith, ‘Counter-revolutionary Coalition’, pp. 19–20. See also the comments by Alejandro Quiroga in this volume, pp. 207–8
Charles S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade After World War I (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1975), especially pp. 353–4;
Eric J. Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire (London: Abacus, 1994 [1987]), pp. 96–7. For additional details see the introduction to this volume, pp. 1–31.
Fernando del Rey Reguillo, ‘Las voces del antiparliamentarismo conservador’, in Mercedes Cabrera (ed.), Con luz y taquígrafos. El parlamento en la Restauración, 1913–1923 (Madrid: Taurus, 1998), p. 306.
Javier Tusell, Antonio Maura. Una biografía política (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1994), p. 190.
On Primo de Rivera’s outlook see Javier Tusell, Radiografia de un golpe de estado. El ascenso al poder del general Primo deRivera (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 1987), p. 79. For the repercussions of the ‘Annual disaster’ see Pablo La Porte in this volume, pp. 230–54.
Josep Puig i Cadafalch, ‘La Mancomunitat de Catalunya i el dictator I’, in LVC (27 February 1930).
Arturo Perucho, Cataluña bajo la dictadura (Madrid: Oriente, 1932), pp. 12–13.
We also know that Joan Antoni Güell i López was informed of the proposed coup in early July and that Catalan business helped finance it. See Maximiano García Venero, Historia del nacionalismo catalán (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1967), 2, pp. 306–8;
Gabriel Maura Gamazo, Bosquejo histórico de la dictadura, 5th edn (Madrid: Tip de Archivos, 1930), p. 33. Claims that Primo de Rivera actually met up with Cambó before the coup, however, seem mistaken.
Though he was reported as saying: ‘I consider the attitude of the military the only sweet we have tasted in these bitter years.’ M. Teresa González Calbet, La dictadura de Primo de Rivera: El Directorio Militar (Madrid: El Arquero, 1987), p. 82.
La Vanguardia (15 September 1923); LVC (15 September 1923); Francisco J. Romero Salvadó, The Foundations of Civil War: Revolution, Social Conflict and Reaction in Liberal Spain, 1916–1923 (London: Routledge, 2008), p. 291.
Francesc Cambó, Entorn del fascisme italià. Meditacions i comentaris sobre problemes de política contemporània (Barcelona: Editorial Catalana, 1924).
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Smith, A. (2010). The Lliga Regionalista, the Catalan Right and the Making of the Primo de Rivera Dictatorship, 1916–23. In: Salvadó, F.J.R., Smith, A. (eds) The Agony of Spanish Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230274648_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230274648_6
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