Alcala Zamora and the Failure of the Spanish Republic, 1931-1936

215 Pages·2017·6.127 MB·English

by  Stanley G. Payne

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Alcalá
Zamora
and the
Failure
of the
Spanish
Republic,
1931–1936
payne 7 - index 18/12/2016 08:38 Page ii
ii Lefttt
Sussex Studies in Spanish History
General Editor: Nigel Townson, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Consultant Editor: José Álvarez-Junco, Universidad Complutense, Madrid
Advisory Editors: Pamela Radcliff, University of California, San Diego
Tim Rees, University of Exeter
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Demagoguery and Republican Culture, 1890–1910.
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and Memory.
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Nation.*
Hugo García, The Truth about Spain!: Mobilizing British Public Opinion,
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Cultural Interactions in a Colonial Context .
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Democracy through Migrant Engagement, 1985–2010.
Patricia Hertel, The Crescent Remembered: Islam and Nationalism on the
Iberian Peninsula.
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Essentialism and Modernity.
David Messenger, L’Espagne Républicaine: French Policy and Spanish
Republicanism in Liberated France.
Javier Moreno-Luzón, Modernizing the Nation: Spain during the Reign of
Alfonso XIII, 1902–1931.
Inbal Ofer,Señoritas in Blue: The Making of a Female Political Elite in
Franco’s Spain.
Stanley G. Payne, Alcalá Zamora and the Failure of the Spanish Republic,
1931–1936.
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and the Republican Cause.
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Conscience in Greece, Spain and Finland.
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Guy Setton, Spanish–Israeli Relations, 1956–1992: Ghosts of the Past and
Contemporary Challenges in the Middle East.
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Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Fernando del Rey Reguillo(eds.), The Spanish
Second Republic Revisited.
Nigel Townson,The Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Centrist Politics under
the Second Republic, 1931–1936.
Nigel Townson (ed.),Is Spain Different?: A Comparative Look at the 19th
and 20th Centuries.
* Published in association with the Cañada Blanch Centre for Contemporary
Spanish Studies and the Catalan Observatory, London School of Economics.
A full list of titles in the series is available on the Press website.
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Alcalá
Zamora
and the
Failure
of the
Spanish
Republic,
1931–1936
STANLEY G. PAYNE
payne 7 - index 18/12/2016 08:38 Page vi
Copyright © Stanley G. Payne, 2017.
The right of Stanley G. Payne to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted in accor-
dance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
ISBN 978-1-78284-399-3 (PDF)
First published in Spanish in 2016 under the title Alcalá Zamora: El fracaso de la Repuública
conservadora, by Fundación Para el Análisis de los Estudios Sociales. The author and
publisher acknowledge permission to publish this English edition, 2017,
in Great Britain by
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
PO Box 139
Eastbourne BN24 9BP
Distributed in North America by
SUSSEX ACADEMIC PRESS
ISBS Publisher Services
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All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and
review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Payne, Stanley G., author.
Title: AlcaláZamora and the failure of the Spanish Republic, 1931–1936 /
Stanley G. Payne.
Other titles: Alcala Zamora y el republicano conservador. English
Description: Brighton ; Chicago : Sussex Academic Press, [2017] | Series: Sussex studies
in Spanish history | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016049252 | ISBN 9781845198589 (paperback : alkaline paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Alcala-Zamora y Torres, Niceto, 1877–1949. | Alcala-Zamora y Torres,
Niceto, 1877–1949—Political and social views. | Spain—History—Republic, 1931–
1939. | Spain—Politics and government—1931–1939. | Representative government
and representation—Spain—History—20th century. | Liberalism—Spain—History
—20th century. | Democracy—Spain—History—20th century. | Presidents—Spain
—Biography.
Classification: LCC DP267 .P39 2017 | DDC 946.081092 [B] —dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016049252
Typeset & designed by Sussex Academic Press, Brighton & Eastbourne.
Printed by TJ International, Padstow, Cornwall.
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Rightt vii
Contents
Preface by Series Editor Nigel Townson vii
List of Illustrations viii
1 A Monarchist Liberal (1877–1923) 1
2 From Monarchist to Republican (1923–1931) 14
3 The Battle over the Constitution (1931) 30
4 The Reformist Biennium (1931–1933) 48
5 The Elections of 1933 and the Victory of the Center and Right 61
6 The Center Governments and the Revolutionary Insurrection 68
of 1934
7 Government by the Center-Right (1934–1935) 86
8 Alcalá Zamora Puts an End to Parliamentary Government 109
(1935–1936)
9 The Ouster of Alcalá Zamora (1936) 129
Epilogue 150
Notes 166
Index 187
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Series Editor’s Preface
During the post-Civil War years families would speak darkly within the
confines of their own homes about the nefarious exploits of a fickle figure
from the 1930s, el Botasor ‘Boots’. Whether a family sided with the mili-
tary rebels who rose up against the Second Republic in July 1936 or with
the republicans that opposed them, they could at least agree on one thing:
that el Botashad betrayed their cause. For the Francoists, he was a ‘liberal’,
a ‘Freemason’ and, above all, a ‘traitor to Spain’; for the republicans, he
was a ‘reactionary’, a ‘clerical’ and, above all, a ‘traitor to the Republic’.1
That el Botas – otherwise known as Niceto Alcalá-Zamora – was a
bogeyman for left and right alike during the post-war period was hardly
a surprise. As the first Prime Minister of the Republic (1931) and as the
first President of the regime (1931–36), he had pursued a centrist agenda
that had little to do with the political polarities that characterized the
Civil War. Moderate republicans were in fact regarded as inherently
suspicious by both the rebels and the loyalists: to the insurgents for their
republican ideals and in particular for collaborating with the left and for
voting on the whole for the Constitution of 1931. For the left, they were
hated for allying with the right during the second biennium of 1933 to
1935 and especially for crushing the socialist-inspired uprising of
October 1934. Clearly the politics of transaction and inclusion defended
by the centrists was anathema to the spirit of the Civil War.
Moderate republicanism’s political marginalization during the
conflict of 1936–39 was later translated into historiographical marginal-
ization. As a non-Francoist narrative of the Republic began to be widely
reconstructed in the 1970s and 1980s, there was a tendency to view the
ante bellumperiod via the prism of the Civil War and the Franco dicta-
torship; that is to say, in terms of the struggle between left and right, to
the exclusion of the centre. The fact that moderate republicans had held
more parliamentary seats and occupied more ministries than any other
ideological current up to the time of the 1936 general election counted
for little. Or that Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, first as premier and then as head
of State, was a key figure of Spain’s first democracy. Further accentuating
the sidelining of the centrists has been the dominance of Marxism within
the social sciences and history at Spanish universities for most of the
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Series Editor’s PRreifgahctet iixx
period since Franco’s death in 1975. An additional reason for the neglect
of moderate republicanism has been the complete lack of any institu-
tional or political continuity with the republican forces of the 1930s.
Indeed, republican parties were explicitly banned from the first post-
Francoist elections of 1977.
Still, the last fifteen years or so have seen a certain recovery of the
history of moderate republicanism. In particular, the critical role played
by Alcalá-Zamora has increasingly come to be recognized, the first
complete biography of him appearing in 2002.2 The importance of
Alcalá-Zamora and the Failure of the Spanish Republic, 1931– 1936 is
fourfold. First, this is the first biography of Niceto Alcalá-Zamora to be
published in English. Second, the author, Stanley Payne, is one of the
foremost historians of modern Spain, and in particular of the Second
Republic. Third, Professor Payne offers a bold, far-reaching reassessment
of one of the most extraordinary, if polemical, figures of the 1930s. And,
finally, Alcalá-Zamora and the Failure of the Spanish Republic, 1931–1936
is to be welcomed as the very first biography to appear in the Sussex
Studies in Spanish History Series.
NIGELTOWNSON
1 As related by Julio Gil Pecharromán in his study Niceto Alcalá-Zamora. Un
liberal en la encrucijada(Madrid: Síntesis, 2005), pp. 9–10.
2 Ángel Alcalá Galve, Alcalá-Zamora y la agonía de la república (Seville:
Fundación José Manuel Lara, 2002).