3. Anticlericalism, dissidence and radicalization (1932–3)

José Estrada penned this torrent of disparaging remarks in response to criticism published by Communist rivals. For Estrada, a socialist, their behaviour did not match the radical political ideal they claimed to espouse. His scorn, underpinned by a charge of hypocrisy, was typical of the mudslinging between leftists that was prevalent in the first years of the Republic. Anticlericalism was an important way of showing one’s radical mettle and played a prominent role in rivalry within the left, between socialists, Communists and anarchists. Attacking the Church, whether rhetorically or physically, was also a way of reacting to a re-emerging and re-organizing political right in 1932. The importance accorded to religion in Spain might appear to set the country apart from wider Europe, but religion played a role in political struggles more widely. In the crisis of the Weimar Republic, Communists foregrounded militant anticlericalism in order to mobilize working-class support and undermine the German Social Democratic Party, while in France ‘the clerical/anticlerical division remained an important structurant of political life’ between the world wars.² The cleavage over religion was particularly marked and at times noted as an important feature of struggles in towns and villages across Spain, yet its role in fuelling radicalization in the Second Republic has been largely neglected.

Between 1932 and 1933, a current of radicalism developed in the coalfields. It had its roots in conflicts over the role of religion at a local level, both as an element of intra-left rivalry and as a symptom of the revival of the right and the lack of progress in constructing a secular Republic. However, religious divisions were not the sole drivers of radicalism. As the coal industry continued to struggle, the SOMA attempted to respond through pivoting in strategy to embrace strike action. Rather than the union radicalizing into line with the grassroots, its solutions to ameliorate the situation of the workforce only widened the growing breach between the rank and file and the union hierarchy, entrenching dissidence and fomenting greater radicalism. This was particularly evident in younger activists, whose role in spearheading radicalism is widely acknowledged.³ Radicalism was expressed in two ways. Rank-and-file activists sought new ways of building working-class unity and re-appropriating the ‘radical’ label. From late 1932, socialists responded to a shift in the political mood in the coalfields by explicitly refashioning radicalism such that it did not contradict moderation and reformism. A year later, this radical impulse shifted further to the crystallization of a particular vision of the Republic, as a militant and uncompromising ‘social Republic’.

Religion, rivalry and radicalism

On 8 October 1931, the debate in the Republican Constituent Cortes on the draft constitution turned to the role that the Church would play in the new state. As this phase of parliamentary debate loomed, Juan Pablo García, a young Asturian socialist lawyer, had written in the socialist weekly La Aurora Social that ‘the clerical problem [was] the true touchstone of radicalism and democracy for Spanish politicians (men and parties)’. Recent parliamentary votes had served to ‘unmask’ those claiming to be radicals.⁴ The debate was ‘emotional and divisive’ and positions hardened in parliament.⁵ Beyond the walls of the Cortes, rejection of Catholic belief and practice was also a significant marker of radical zeal. Since August, citizens had regularly denounced parish priests for anti-Republican sermons in the provincial press or in person to the civil governor.⁶

Alleging religious belief or practice was an important way of slurring rivals and thereby asserting one’s own radical credentials. Accusations, counteraccusations and denials of religious practice flew back and forth between rival newspapers in Asturias in 1932. An article in anarchist Solidaridad singled out a Communist for selling religious images, while one individual wrote to El Noroeste denying a report in socialist Avance that he had given money to the parish priest of Baíña (Mieres). He retorted that socialists received payments from the priest and sent their members to confession in return.⁷ One young socialist used the forum afforded by the provincial press to boast that he had convinced his wife-to-be to reject the ‘pack of wolves’ intent on using her to claw him back to Catholicism.⁸ These claims – for example, that a socialist had taken his daughter to a different village in order to baptize her – and counterclaims should be treated carefully.⁹ Rather than providing unambiguous evidence of actual religious practice, the slurs informally regulated the public and private conduct of leftists by reinforcing values and delineating the limits of acceptable behaviour. The desire to distance themselves publicly from rumours reveals how damaging the taint of religiosity could be to leftist reputations at the local level.

There was radicalizing potential in these prying eyes and public slanders. The pride in anticlericalism and desire to display radical zeal led to political groups formalizing this policing mechanism through internal procedures to eject members who were not sufficiently anticlerical. The PCE in Turón expelled one of its members for religious observance, proclaiming ‘that is how we communists react to those who humiliate themselves before the Church’.¹⁰ In a similar vein, the Socialist Youth (JS) in Asturias proposed a formal ban on its members ‘attending and practising religious acts’ and that ‘atheist, antireligious and materialist tasks [be made] obligatory’, though the proposal was rejected after fierce debate.¹¹ This was not restricted to Asturias. In Jaén, in Andalusia, the JS agreed that members should not have relationships with young women ‘proud of their religiosity’.¹² Whether the policy was enforced or not, it demonstrated a commitment to upholding its anticlerical – and therefore radical – self-image.

The nature of anticlerical rivalry on the left was moulded by the secularizing context of the new Republic. The Republic decreed the separation of church and state and secularizing legislation signalled that ‘the Church was to be a voluntary association for those willing to subscribe instead of the guardian of Spain’s identity and conscience’.¹³ The measures introduced by the Republican–socialist government removed the Church’s control over key aspects of citizens’ lives, including marriage, education and death. Crucifixes were removed from school walls and civil burials were provided for. In practice, the implementation of government legislation depended on the nature of local politics. In Salamanca, which was a stronghold of Catholicism and conservatism, weddings continued to be religious affairs and there was no growth in civil burials.¹⁴ In the left-wing coalfields of Asturias, meanwhile, the impulse to undermine the ‘Catholic compass’ was strong and activists continued to push the boundaries of secularism in order to present themselves as the most radical.¹⁵ Criticizing past contact with the Church was a way of smearing one’s opponents and positioning oneself in the radical vanguard.

The official secularism of the Republic fuelled and complicated the spiralling race to reject religion. The change in the national political landscape recalibrated what it meant to be radical. Secular values were no longer as radical as they had been prior to 1931. In order to appear radical in 1932, activists had to surpass state secularism. At the same time, espousing militant anticlericalism meant that an activist might be vulnerable to attacks from rivals, as many – if not most – activists’ pasts did not meet the new exacting standards. Prior to 1931, it had not been easy to avoid a church wedding, baptism or simply contact with a priest. As José Estrada pointed out, it was unfair to judge an individual’s radical credentials according to their past actions when avoiding the Church’s control of rites of passage had been very difficult prior to the Republic.¹⁶ But such occasions could nevertheless now be used to besmirch a rival’s reputation.

Leftists did not solely measure their radical mettle against one another. Tensions existed within the left, but also started growing between leftists and Catholics as the secularizing project of the Second Republic started to impact on the everyday lives of citizens in 1932. Announcements in the provincial press trumpeted the first civil marriages and civil burials in towns and villages as victories over tradition and superstition. Parents in Tiraña (Laviana) of a baby registered without a baptism were congratulated for ‘having liberated the child from the clerical dunking’, while speeches at a civil wedding in Boo emphasized the ‘civic value of the act, calling on those present [at the reception] to imitate their example’ and not be stifled by ‘clerical despotism’.¹⁷ Such ceremonies were interpreted as marking the arrival of secular Republican modernity. Religious ceremonies no longer defined the nature of the local community. A riot occurred in Villarubia de Santiago (Toledo) when a girl was baptized against her parents’ will.¹⁸

Catholics had already voiced their criticism of the Republican project in 1931 through the modern weapons of an ‘aggrieved interest group’: petitions and rallies.¹⁹ The Church mobilized Catholics to make monetary donations to replace reduced state funding of the Church, and parents’ associations were created to defend Catholic education.²⁰ Catholic women visited the homes of (young) women in their communities to press them into following the dictates of Catholic doctrine, a practice denounced by articles in Avance. Catholic women were accused of repeatedly pressuring a woman in Ciaño-Santa Ana to demand a church wedding ceremony and of insulting young female socialists in La Cuesta (San Martín del Rey Aurelio), Carbayín and Laviana.²¹ The tone of such episodes indicates the bitterness of the atmosphere in the towns and villages and how Catholic reaction to secularization served to stimulate more militant, stubborn and outraged expressions of anticlericalism locally (and vice versa).

The friction between Catholics’ expression of identity and the leftist proclamation of secular values is particularly evident in struggles over crucifixes. In early 1932, crucifixes were removed from school classrooms across Spain in accordance with a ministerial order.²² In many areas, including Castile, Andalusia and Galicia, Catholics organized public demonstrations to protest or even reverse the removal of crucifixes from schools, sometimes destroying the Republican symbols that had replaced the religious image.²³ Such demonstrations did not occur in the Asturian coalfields, where Catholic organization was much weaker. Instead, Catholics expressed their dissent towards the secularizing regime on an individual level by wearing crucifixes around their necks – a practice applauded by Acción, a new weekly newspaper run by Catholic women in Gijón, and encouraged by the Asturian AP leader Cernuda.²⁴

The proliferation of crucifixes around the necks of Catholics sparked a reaction from leftists. A socialist in Tuilla appealed for young men to ignore women sporting crucifixes ‘when strolling, when dancing, in everything to do with daily life’, while the JS in Turón declared themselves ‘not prepared to tolerate’ what they described as a Jesuit-inspired ‘ignominious campaign’. They demanded the authorities act.²⁵ Elsewhere the crucifix was mocked. A group of people waited outside mass in La Felguera in June accompanied by a dog wearing a crucifix, while youths in Mieres and Sama rang bells to ridicule young women wearing crucifixes as they passed on their evening stroll.²⁶ In doing so, the youths adapted the mocking tradition of the cencerrada – a form of rough music frequently employed to taunt remarrying widows or widowers, or someone marrying outside the community – that was the Spanish variant of European charivari.²⁷ On this occasion, youths retooled the cencerrada for contemporary political needs. The young women were censured for transgressing the new moral standards of the community. Catholicism was not welcome, nor was it representative of the Asturian coalfields. The cencerrada and the crucifix-wearing dog were an assertion of a local secular hegemony believed to be under threat in the face of a reorganizing Catholic right in 1932.

Leftists pressured authorities and teachers into observing secularism in 1932 as a way of exhibiting their own radical zeal. This policing ranged from entering a municipal school and demanding a teacher hand over books and the wall-mounted image of Christ, to reporting a parish priest to the civil governor for criticizing the Republic.²⁸ Denunciation was more common than direct action. Young militants, who tended to be the most active in these cases, tried to place pressure on municipal and provincial authorities to uphold their more radical vision of the Republic. At times, they backed their demands with veiled threats. The JS in Aller requested that the municipal authorities enforce the prohibition on public demonstrations of faith – as mandated by article 27 of the Constitution – and warned otherwise of ‘greater evils that favour no-one, as we youths are not going to consent to the trampling on any articles of the current Constitution, especially by those who merit the repulsion of all citizens of liberal spirit’.²⁹ These young militants policed both the parish priest and the Republican authorities to demand that secularization be enacted more quickly and deeply than it had been thus far. As in the case of crucifixes, criticism centred principally on the public exhibition of Catholic faith. Militants sought to curtail the way Catholic symbols sacralized the public space of streets and squares.³⁰

Public space was therefore central to struggles over religion. The Constitutional requirement that the authorities approve religious processions, such as during Holy Week and on local feast days, provided opportunities for anticlerical mayors to ban them in the name of the law or over fears for public order. While for Catholics a procession expressed a parish’s devotion and affirmed local identity and tradition, preventing a procession was a Republican – or anticlerical – victory. The degree to which processions were banned varied a great deal. Thirty-nine were banned in La Rioja in the spring/summer of 1932, while the situation was less restrictive in Andalusia.³¹ In Salamanca, processions occurred as usual outside the provincial capital, but not in the city itself.³²

Schools operated by mining companies were a battleground over religious symbols and the nature of education itself. Relative moderation in 1931 gave way to conflict in 1932 and the consequent radicalization and hardening of positions on the part of parents and the mining companies. In autumn 1931, the ministry of education banned those without teaching qualifications from working in schools and later reiterated the secular character of education in a ministerial circular in mid January 1932.³³ The ban meant that the Dominican school in San Martín del Rey Aurelio owned by Duro-Felguera was closed for much of the 1931–2 school year because the teachers lacked the required teaching qualifications and the company was unwilling to substitute them. The municipal authorities requested that the company cede them the school, but were unsuccessful. Workers threatened a strike if the schools did not reopen and offer a secular education in March 1932.³⁴ In defiance, Duro-Felguera reopened the school with suitably qualified Dominicans – citing a petition that the company had in fact gerrymandered – and 2,000 workers responded with a ten-day strike.³⁵ The strike revealed both the strength of conviction of the workforce and the importance of religious schooling to the mining companies.

The strike would prove to be the only victory over a mining company in the matter of religious education. Companies reasserted their authority in the schools they owned at the beginning of the next school year. Hulleras del Turón demanded proof of baptism in order to register pupils and SHE made it clear that the confessional nature of schooling was non-negotiable; ‘and this is occurring in a secular state?’ asked Avance.³⁶ The newspaper claimed to have been inundated with letters of protest, although it hoped the matter would not spiral into strike action. Undeterred, SHE refused to back down and instead closed the schools, a decision which affected nearly 2,000 children.³⁷ Some 2,000 people attended a rally on 25 September in defence of secular education. When a busload of attendees passed through Cabañaquinta, their shouts in defence of secular schools were met with a cry of ‘down with the Republic’. Youngsters had to be restrained from leaving the bus to give the individual ‘what he deserved’. Even though the civil governor claimed to have solved the matter by ensuring that religious education classes would be optional, the schools remained closed.³⁸

Despite the pressures from left-wing activists at the local level, leftist councillors and mayors in the coalfields remained cautious. They attempted to balance respect for different beliefs and upholding Republican secularism. While some councils placed restrictions on Catholic funeral processions, which they interpreted as contravening the constitutional prohibition of public displays of faith, Catholics could express their religious identity by placing crosses on tombs or funeral carriages.³⁹ Likewise, the provincial deputation removed chaplains from welfare institutions, but made it clear that chaplains funded by private donations would be allowed to practise. The deputation was ‘non-denominational’ not anticlerical.⁴⁰ Toeing this line was difficult when the authorities were under pressure from both Catholics and left-wing activists, who were dissatisfied with the pace of secularization for opposing reasons.

Frustration at the continued presence of Catholicism in public life and a resurgent right – along with unrealistic expectations at the extent to which religion would disappear from public life – was manifest in episodes of violence against shrines from mid 1932. Such attacks on Church property often occurred just before the feast day of the local patron saint. This served to disrupt the occasion as a Catholic collective performance, in which the parish and local community were affirmed as coterminous.⁴¹ In mid September, an explosion destroyed an image of Christ at a hermitage in Turón and similar assaults occurred on religious images in Sobrescobio, Santa Rosa (Mieres) and beyond Asturias in 1932.⁴² The turn to violence was a marked contrast to 1931, when feast days had been relatively peaceful. The desecration of images attempted to accelerate Republican secularizing legislation and enforce an image of the local community as secular. Avance claimed the attack in Turón resulted from rumours that the priest had planned an unauthorized procession that ‘was opposed by the pueblo’. The newspaper thus justified iconoclasm for reflecting the community’s desires.⁴³ According to this view, the community was consubstantial with anticlericalism.

These attacks on Catholic images in late summer 1932 also occurred in the specific context of a failed military coup. In August 1932, General Sanjurjo and a group of fellow plotters initiated an uprising in Seville in the traditional style of a pronunciamiento by declaring a state of war and expecting the government to step aside. The conspirators were critical of the direction being taken by the Republic, particularly the statute of autonomy that attempted to fulfil the aspirations of Catalan nationalists.⁴⁴ The poorly supported coup was easily suppressed by the government and led to a wave of revenge attacks, which were frequently directed at the Church.⁴⁵ Targeting the Church was an established form of demonstrating political discontent, as occurred in Barcelona in 1909, and May 1931 in Madrid and southern Spain.⁴⁶ There were attempts to set fire to churches and convents in Seville, and in the Asturian coalfields, councillors in Langreo singled out ‘churches and convents’ and a Duro-Felguera confessional school as ‘centres’ of conspiracy. The chairman assured the council that such centres had been under surveillance for a while. Communist councillors presented a motion with fifteen demands covering local and national politics – seven of which centred on the Church.⁴⁷ The failed coup also stimulated a new wave of restrictions on religious practices by municipal authorities in the south of Spain, including taxes on the tolling of church bells and the banning of Catholic funeral processions.⁴⁸

The Communist motion in Langreo was voted down, but the response from socialist councillors shows how the coup helped to propagate a radical mood. Belarmino Tomás, speaking for the socialists, asserted their combativeness. Like the Communists, socialists were ‘radical’, but they were also a party of government and would abide by the government’s plan of action.⁴⁹ This statement was not significant in itself, but it was symptomatic of how socialists embraced self-identification with the label ‘radical’ over the course of 1932, which represented a distinctive shift from 1931. Local divisions and rivalries pushed socialists to adopt the radical label, even if this was limited to rhetoric over an actual shift in political practice.

In 1931, socialists had loudly proclaimed their moderation and responsibility in contrast to Communist and anarchist ‘extremists’, whose attitude was portrayed as dangerous, unrealistic and immature. Socialists sarcastically mocked those who interrupted a meeting in Sama for being ‘the real revolutionaries’ and derided Communists in Aller for striking ‘for sport’.⁵⁰ Yet by 1932, socialists were claiming to be the ‘true revolutionaries’. In Olloniego they drew a clear line between themselves and the Republican bourgeoisie, ‘no matter if [the latter] call themselves radical’.⁵¹ There had been a shift in the mood among rank-and-file militants. To be a Communist was now fashionable – or so an activist from Ujo claimed – while mineworkers at La Cobertoria complained that ‘he who makes the most outrageous comments [at workplace assemblies] is the one who comes out best’.⁵² Attempting to wrest back the labels ‘radical’ and ‘revolutionary’ from Communists and anarchists was the socialist response to this, possibly out of a fear of being outflanked on the left. The voguishness of radicalism was due in part to those who had joined a different political group during the Republic needing to prove themselves to their new comrades. The zealousness of the converted was remarked upon in Turón and Bazuelo (Mieres), where the non-unionized and former members of Primo de Rivera’s right-wing political movement, Unión Patriótica, now fashioned themselves as ‘the most revolutionary’.⁵³

Yet the socialist attempt to wrestle back the label of ‘radical’ in 1932 was little more than rhetoric. The strategy pursued by the SOMA in mining conflicts did not change. Socialists still condemned strike action, which was ‘a very revolutionary tactic for “simpletons”, idiots and the naïve’. Strikes would ‘undoubtedly’ harm workers if not deployed responsibly.⁵⁴ In his criticism of a CNT-led strike at the Fondón pit in Sama, SOMA leader Graciano Antuñac learly spelled out the distinction between radicalism and strike action:

As a socialist from Mieres clarified at the end of 1932, to be a ‘revolutionary’ worker could not ‘be understood in the negative sense that certain individuals extol, for whom hold-ups and crime are fully justified’. Rather, he defended ‘persevering action, daily conquests, consolidating positions taken from the bourgeoisie, in order to continue along the road to emancipation’ because ‘the opposite would mean cultivating our own ruin’.⁵⁶ Socialists were radicals for they desired the transformation of society, but this did not necessarily entail confrontational strategies. Rather, socialists reconfigured radicalism to denote restraint – and thus responsible socialists had always been radical. This attempt to reconcile radicalism and moderation meant socialists still distinguished themselves from Communists and anarchists.

Militancy grew over the following year. Rhetorical radicalism continued, but the vigorous appeals for action and a more combative style of politics meant that strategic moderation eventually disappeared. In October 1933, the JS from Hueria de San Andrés (San Martín del Rey Aurelio) called for more controversias, as they were ‘the best way of propagating socialist ideals and educating the masses in a Marxist and revolutionary way, inciting, thus, the rebellious spirit innate in all proletarians’.⁵⁷ Rather than simply contesting the categories ‘radical’ and ‘revolutionary’, the appeal was for a militant attitude to be actively instilled in the working class.

The coal crisis

Socialist participation in government made it difficult for them to redefine radicalism. They did not have the same freedom to adopt a militant, oppositional attitude as anarchists or communists. This cut to the heart of a major problem facing social democratic parties in Europe, which was particularly acute in Germany but also apparent in other countries where social democratic parties held government office, such as France and Britain. Governing within a capitalist system while attempting to defend the demands of their working-class constituency was a challenging combination at the best of times, but it was made even more so by the Great Depression. Social democratic ministers were often reluctant to challenge the prevailing liberal economic orthodoxy, which counselled cuts in expenditure to balance the books.⁵⁸ The German Social Democratic Party was unable to change course economically and the association of socialists with the defence of the Weimar Republic became a hindrance, as disgruntled voters turned to extreme options adept at channelling the radical mood into a rejection of Weimar democracy.

Germany had been hit particularly hard by the shockwaves from the Wall Street crash in 1929. In the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, unemployment climbed rapidly. Half the workforce – 187,000 men – was dismissed between 1930 and 1932, by which point there were six million jobless nationally.⁵⁹ Unemployment was also high in British mining regions. In July 1931, nearly 40 per cent of the insured population were unemployed in County Durham and 41 per cent in Glamorgan, while in certain areas unemployment was higher still, including Jarrow on Tyneside, where it reached 73 per cent.⁶⁰ Across Europe, ten million were unemployed in 1931. In Spain, the situation was different. The effects of the crash hit later and did not have the same rapid, deep impact, although the economy slowed and unemployment remained an endemic problem during the Republic. This was due in part to the effects of Primo de Rivera’s massive investment in public works during the 1920s along with the structural underemployment that formed part of Spain’s agricultural economy.

The Asturian coal industry did not experience the same level of unemployment seen in the German and British mining areas – or even the Basque iron mines, where the number of workers dropped by a third between 1929 and 1933 – even as it faced difficulties.⁶¹ Piecework rates were reduced, the workforce at Hulleras de Riosa shrunk by two-thirds, and Hulleras del Turón introduced short-time working.⁶² Rather than symptoms of a worldwide economic slump, workers interpreted the difficulties through a political lens, which is testament to the level of politicization of Spanish society during the Republic. In Turón the finger was pointed at the ‘the attitude of a certain person of great influence in … Altos Hornos de Vizcaya [the owner of Hulleras del Turón], who showed himself to be against the regime’, a sentiment later echoed in Figaredo.⁶³

Mineworkers’ frustrations prompted the proliferation of small-scale conflicts. Avance lamented that cases such as a twenty-four-hour strike in protest over a disciplinary matter in Barredos (Laviana) were ‘frequently repeated’ while a socialist from Caborana expressed his frustration at the ‘atmosphere of conflicts in … peaceful [Aller]’, which ‘sometimes come from the flippancy of the workforce, though more often they are due to the clumsiness and impertinence of the bosses’.⁶⁴ The SOMA hierarchy continued to pursue a strategy of avoiding strike action, although socialists often participated in locally organized strikes in defiance of SOMA orders, including a twenty-hour solidarity strike with Industrial Asturiana workers threatened with the company’s closure and the resultant loss of 1,200 jobs.⁶⁵ These seeds of rank-and-file dissent flowered into internal opposition within the socialist mining union over the following year.

Pressure on the SOMA continued to grow as the economic situation deteriorated. The SOMA appeared to be slowly changing position. The union joined the rank and file in criticizing the mining companies’ ‘offensive’ against the workers in August and the Executive announced a general strike soon afterwards.⁶⁶ Yet the strike was cancelled twice after employers made promises to address the union’s demands.⁶⁷ The announcement that Fábrica de Mieres, Duro-Felguera and Hulleras del Turón were to close their mines indefinitely in mid November left the reluctant union with no choice. The SOMA called a general strike and 25,000 downed tools for six days, even as the socialists continued to emphasize their moderation. The solution they proposed included a number of measures to increase the consumption of coal.⁶⁸

The November general strike seemed to confirm SOMA’s hegemony in the coalfields. It received mass backing and an attempt by anarchists and Communists – who were swept up in the strike – to prolong the stoppage failed. Even in Turón, where the SUM’s call received most support, only 25 per cent continued the strike.⁶⁹ While anarchists and Communists were unable to resist being drawn into socialist strikes, the reverse was not true.⁷⁰ Even so, rather than confirming the SOMA’s dominance, the strike served to legitimize the rumbling dissent within the socialists’ own ranks. For the leadership, the November strike was a means of responding to rank-and-file demands and quelling dissent, not a curtain-raiser for further militancy. The SOMA considered the negotiated solution to the strike as a legitimation of their state-centred, moderate approach to conflicts between capital and labour. The rank and file held a different view. They considered it a signal that their long-running discontent was legitimate and that the union was aligning itself with the more militant grassroots. The SOMA even felt the need to quash publicly rumours that they were going to collaborate with other unions in a general strike.⁷¹

The solution to the general strike was short-lived and did not prevent a further decline in the fortunes of the mining industry. At the beginning of 1933, mining companies announced further closures and dismissals and El Noroeste observed that the situation was ruining shopkeepers’ businesses.⁷² Faced with this panorama, the SOMA balloted its members on a second general strike. They voted overwhelmingly in favour: 15,128 for strike action and 113 against. Again, the strike appeared to be a success. It received widespread support in the coalfields and the SOMA managed to negotiate a settlement, which was overwhelmingly ratified by 15,105 votes to 410. The agreement aimed to reduce coal production through a 10 per cent reduction in the labour force. This would be achieved through an early retirement and subsidy scheme that paid workers not to work.⁷³ Retirement would be voluntary, but forced retirement would follow if there were not enough volunteers.⁷⁴

Yet not only was the solution insufficient to improve the fortunes of the struggling coal industry, it also contributed significantly to the radicalization of the wider workforce. When details of the lay-offs emerged, they proved unpalatable to the mineworkers. Subsidies for those dismissed would be far lower than wages, young mineworkers would lose their jobs as well as older miners and the companies would decide who was to be removed from the workforce if there were not enough volunteers.⁷⁵ Faced with the unattractive pensions and unemployment subsidies, there were too few volunteers for redundancy or retirement and so companies were obliged to paste up their own lists of those to be dismissed.

The publication of lists of workers deemed excess to requirements led to a wave of strikes.⁷⁶ Mineworkers had their own criteria as to who should retire. Avance published their articles criticizing the lack of volunteers in their pits – in Vegadotos (Mieres) purportedly only 20 per cent of eligible older mineworkers had solicited retirement – even as the newspaper scolded the authors for their impatience.⁷⁷ The SOMA leadership censured unhelpful rumours spread by ‘extremists’ and tried to reassure workers, aided by Avance. The socialist daily reported that most workers favoured the retirement and subsidy scheme and that there were many volunteers. Yet the need for these reports, several articles penned by SOMA president Amador Fernández, official SOMA press releases and an extensive speaking tour by SOMA leaders to explain the measures is revealing of the widespread opposition and discontent in the coalfields.⁷⁸

The scheme did achieve its objective in reducing the workforce – 2,795 workers were either retired or receiving subsidy payments by the end of June 1933.⁷⁹ Yet the process had not been smooth. Young mineworkers in particular spearheaded protests. Indignation at the dismissal of young workers while those over sixty continued to work sparked wildcat strikes in Siero and the Nalón valley.⁸⁰ A lyrical article in El Noroeste explained that ‘young and strong’ mine workers’ desperation was manifest in a plunge towards revolution and a desire for violence. The author augured a threatening future: ‘a deaf and black storm of repressed courage, of restrained impetus, is dragging itself aggressively and obstinately, relentless and rough, intoxicated by explosions and liberated cries. Why this suffering?’⁸¹ Even those who had kept their jobs resented the levy on their wages to pay for the subsidies, which meant that ‘a revolutionary wave … [was] being born again in the depths of the mines’.⁸²

In Germany, too, unemployment hit young workers particularly hard. Some young males withdrew from society while others, humiliated and angered at losing their status and independence, gravitated towards the Communists and Nazis in search of ‘material assistance, the sense of belonging and order, [and] the action-first mentality of radicalism’. These groups provided them with a ‘reconstructed “family”’ and a sense of purpose.⁸³ The politics of ‘action’ espoused by movements that engaged in street violence attracted those seeking the redemption of class or nation and who rejected or were tired of ‘sterile’ democratic politics.⁸⁴ The particular Asturian context led to a different effect. Young socialists did not move to the Communist ranks in great numbers. They channelled their anger and resentment into ‘action-first’ radicalism within socialism. Socialism was refashioned as the radical and revolutionary option. The Asturian JS claimed that Lenin was more aligned with Spanish socialists than Communists by publishing a commentary on an extract from his 1905 text ‘Social-democracy and the provisional revolutionary government’. Five months later, a delegate from the JS National Committee observing a plenary meeting of the Asturian JS accused the Asturians of being obsessed by the ‘dictatorship of the proletariat’ and using the language of communists.⁸⁵ Claiming Lenin for socialism was a clear bid to position themselves as the revolutionary vanguard and emphasize the radical character of their politics. The national JS followed with extracts from Lenin’s The State and Revolution in its mouthpiece Renovación during the first few months of 1934.⁸⁶

Militancy was not confined to younger workers. It quickly erupted in the autumn in the wake of a third general mining strike organized by the SOMA. Called in response to the companies’ cancellation of payments to the retirement fund created after the previous general strike, the strike was peaceful. It resulted in a provisional extension of the agreement that had ended the previous conflict while the government worked towards a definitive solution.⁸⁷ Yet simmering resentment soon re-emerged via numerous wildcat strikes in October and November when mineworkers did not receive their wages. Reporting on a spontaneous strike of 2,000 mineworkers at Fábrica de Mieres, El Noroeste asked for what had the last mining strike been fought.⁸⁸ The solution negotiated by the SOMA had done little to alleviate the overall situation of the coal industry while the union continued to refuse to sanction wildcat strikes. The Mieres SOMA regional committee advocated patience, blaming strikes on ‘irresponsible elements’ who were ‘taking advantage of the discontent’.⁸⁹ Patience was little consolation for mineworkers owed wages, not least as rank-and-file militancy achieved results. After 2,000 went on strike in Mieres, Fábrica de Mieres quickly announced that October’s wages would be paid the following day. Grassroots pressure achieved more immediate results than the SOMA. The radical attitude among the rank and file was hardening. Even as Fábrica de Mieres paid workers at some pits, two mines remained on strike in solidarity with those still waiting.⁹⁰

Frustrated with the deteriorating situation of the coal industry and the SOMA’s inability to provide a vision or strategy to improve the state of affairs, mineworkers of different ideologies were turning to workplace unity to defend their interests collectively. The new initiatives drew on the traditions of pit-based assemblies in which workers from different unions debated and elected their representatives during disputes, but extended them further towards a more vigorous form of rank-and-file unity that had been catalysed by the general mining strikes. Back in February, joint strike committees had been formed at pit-level without the sanction of the SOMA and were relevant enough for Avance to pour scorn on them, labelling them a ‘comedy’.⁹¹ Further committees followed during the September general strike. At La Nueva pit, it was formed by representatives of the socialists, anarchists, Communists and unaffiliated, while in Ciaño-Santa Ana workers of ‘all tendencies’ attended a ‘huge [magna] assembly’.⁹² These rank-and-file initiatives threatened the authority and strategy of the SOMA.

Much more challenging for the SOMA than pit-based initiatives was the creation of the cross-union Pro-Workers’ Unity Committee (CPUT: Comité Pro-Unidad de los Trabajadores) in Blimea at the beginning of 1933.⁹³ The CPUT committee was formed of delegates representing the socialists, anarchists, Communists and the non-unionized. This inclusion of the unaffiliated was novel. It indicated the desire for all workers to have a voice in the urgent circumstances facing the industry and marked a departure from the existing strategy of trying to capture the unaffiliated or members from rival unions. The CPUT reportedly had the ‘enthusiastic backing’ of twenty-one of the twenty-three sections of the SOMA regional committee in San Martín del Rey Aurelio, which was traditionally a bastion of socialism, and also enjoyed the support of Communists in Requejo (Turón).⁹⁴ The CPUT was symptomatic of a desire for a new direction for the left that put unity above the interests of individual parties and trade unions and recognized that convergence between them was unlikely.

The socialist representative on the CPUT was José Estrada, the same man who six months earlier had engaged in a public exchange of slurs with his Communist rivals. Estrada was an important socialist in San Martín del Rey Aurelio. He had been president of the Socialist group in Blimea and secretary of the SOMA regional committee in 1932.⁹⁵ Now Estrada appealed for ‘the fusion of all workers for the defence of common interests and rights, without anyone giving up their ideology or tendency and without having to leave their respective Unions’.⁹⁶ In effect, Estrada had put his finger on the problem. The respective mining unions made regular, routine calls for working-class unity, but achieving the collapse and absorption of a rival union was unrealistic. Estrada declared this strategy ‘absurd’; instead, ‘unity ha[d] to be made beyond ideological tendencies and beyond, moreover, all of your leaders’.⁹⁷

Seeking an alliance at the level of the rank and file was a challenge to the SOMA and its principle of leaving strategic questions to the union leadership. Unsurprisingly, the socialist hierarchy was not interested. The Socialist Group and SOMA Regional Committee met to discuss the ‘indiscipline’ of Estrada for conspiring with ‘external and enemy elements’ and quickly expelled him. Estrada hit back, criticizing the ‘spiritual myopia’ of the SOMA bureaucracy.⁹⁸ Little more about Estrada appears in the archival record. It is possible that he had converted to Communism and attempted to subvert the SOMA from within. In any case, the events of 1932 had pushed him to engage with his rivals in Blimea.

Unity initiatives at a local level were not a phenomenon limited to Asturias, but were a feature of political activity on the left in Europe at the time, including in southern France and the Welsh coalfields.⁹⁹ Neighbourhood networks and kinship links could serve to forge alternative paths of solidarity in a crisis. However, evidence is fragmentary and, as Stephanie Ward pointed out in the context of British mining areas, the co-operation of different political groups – including those beyond the left – could be fragile and did not mean that previous fractures had been overcome.¹⁰⁰

The consolidation of workplace-based assemblies and committees as mechanisms for unity and dialogue led to growing dissent in the socialist ranks. At an assembly chaired by a SOMA member in September 1933, workers agreed not to return to the mines until the SOMA solution had been debated at a workplace assembly, and strongly criticized the socialist mayor of San Martín del Rey Aurelio for preventing them from holding meetings.¹⁰¹ Spasms of dissidence had manifested themselves throughout the year. SOMA members were thrown out of the section in Piñeres (Aller) for criticizing the leadership.¹⁰² There was a growing rift between the hierarchy and grassroots in the Asturian socialist movement in 1933, something which is frequently highlighted by historians for the rest of Spain.¹⁰³ Across the country, thousands of members left the UGT. Its membership shrank to 400,000 in 1933 after a high point of over a million in 1932.¹⁰⁴ Yet in Asturias, even as the SOMA lost touch with its members, the union did not implode or collapse as an organization, whereas in the Ruhr tens of thousands of voters switched from the German Social Democratic Party to the Communists in the summer of 1932.¹⁰⁵ In Asturias, however, there was no viable alternative in the coalfields. For SOMA members, moreover, sharp criticism of the leadership did not necessarily contradict union membership. The union could still be an effective vehicle for militancy. Besides, if unity was the solution to the problems of the working class, why leave the socialist ranks?

Frictions and growing militancy formed part of a wider radicalizing climate in coalfield towns and villages in 1933, driven by tensions over other community pressure points. Conflicts between tenants and landlords were increasingly bitter. In Oviedo, the Tenants’ League expressed its satisfaction over the reduction in rents achieved over the past year, yet it also wrote to the minister of justice demanding the cessation of a judge who was alleged to favour the landlords.¹⁰⁶ The Tenants’ League in Sama warned landlords to stop evicting tenants and follow the procedures established by the law. A month later, three firecrackers [petardos] were thrown onto the roof of the home of a lawyer who advised landlords in Langreo.¹⁰⁷ Even though it is not possible to draw a strong causative link between rent activism and this particular attack, the fractious atmosphere was clear. In Aller, the league’s anger at a landlord’s ‘intransigence’ and ‘reprehensible methods’ in a case that had already gone to trial sparked a boycott of a theatre owned by the landlord. The boycott had ‘the support of all working class organizations in the municipality, without exception’.¹⁰⁸ This militancy deriving from tenant activism was also evident nearly 2,000km southwest of Asturias on the island of Tenerife. In the spring-summer of 1933, members of the Tenants’ League went on strike when a court ruled in favour of an eviction. The conflict escalated. The authorities closed union and tenants’ centres and arrested their leaderships, demonstrations erupted in protest and a warehouse full of straw was set on fire.¹⁰⁹

Mining companies mirrored the resistance shown by landlords. Hulleras del Turón demonstrated obstinacy in its resistance to Republican secularism. School inspectors confirmed a socialist denunciation that the company demanded proof of baptism in order to register at the school and made a number of recommendations, including that religious education be optional and timetabled outside of normal class hours. Days later, the mayor’s district representative reported that the school staff had taken the children to mass against the orders of the school inspector and, after the de la Salle brothers refused to co-operate, the mayor of Mieres ordered the arrest of one of the teachers.¹¹⁰

The implicit social contract between the mining companies and residents of the coalfields was eroding. Municipal councils were frustrated at the inertia and lack of co-operation from mining companies. After months of fruitless battling with them, the council in Langreo decided to take Carbones La Nueva to court for not repairing damage to public services and in a separate case called for the arrest of the director of Carbones Asturianos.¹¹¹ The difficulties in fulfilling their role as guarantors and defenders of the local community and their own workforces led in some cases to a more militant and aggressive statement of municipal power. During the September mining strike, socialist and Republican councillors in Langreo reached the point of questioning property rights. They demanded ‘new legislation’ on the ‘property of mines’ in which mineworkers would take precedence over the owners. As one councillor reasoned, ‘mining concessions represent a leasehold contract and when one of the parties fails to uphold the agreement, the contract is broken and should then be rescinded’. The radicalism of the motion surprised Communist councillors, who claimed that it would achieve nothing and failed to answer working class demands.¹¹² For supporters of the motion, the companies’ inability to offer stable employment meant they had broken a social contract with the mineworkers and local communities. Property rights and the relationship between the local community and the companies were now open to renegotiation.

In the context of the same September mining strike, striking miners in Mieres used coercion to prevent the transportation of coal and further disrupt the local economy. The SOMA Executive Committee distanced itself from this use of violence, yet at the same time instrumentalized it as a warning: ‘the companies and authorities would do well to interpret it as the firm resolve and intent to take the movement to the limits of resistance’.¹¹³ Whereas in 1932 the SOMA leadership had embraced the radical label yet rejected violence, towards the end of 1933 its position was now more ambiguous. This attitude is inextricably linked to the context of political upheaval due to the collapse of the Republican-socialist coalition and the new militancy in the rhetoric of the president of the PSOE and minister of labour, Francisco Largo Caballero.

The rhetoric of radicalism

Largo Caballero’s militant turn came as Republican-socialist collaboration in government neared its conclusion. The government had come under increasing pressure for a variety of reasons, including obstructionism in parliament, a deepening division within the Radical Socialist party that formed part of the governing coalition, mounting economic difficulties and right-wing success in municipal elections held in parts of central Spain. A particular problem was posed by events in a small village in Cádiz province in January 1933. A nationwide anarchist-organized revolutionary insurrection failed across the country, but in Casas Viejas libertarian communism was proclaimed. Three guards were killed and eight peasants died, six of whom were burned inside a shack. The Assault and Civil Guard killed fourteen peasants they arrested after defeating the insurrection.¹¹⁴ Information slowly emerged detailing the actions of the Assault Guard and parliamentary questions and investigations ensued. The government was cleared of responsibility, but the affair was very damaging and became a ‘Calvary’ for the cabinet. The final blow to the Republican-socialist government came in September, when results of the elections to the Court of Constitutional Guarantees confirmed the resurgence of the right and widespread support for Radical Party, who sat in opposition to the government parties in Cortes.¹¹⁵ When the Republican-socialist government fell, President Alcalá Zamora turned to the Radical Party. Lerroux’s cabinet failed to obtain the confidence of the Cortes and instead his fellow Radical, Diego Martínez Barrio, produced a government that shepherded the legislature towards national elections in November.

Frustrated reform, rank-and-file discontent and the fracturing of the Republican-socialist government formed the backdrop to Largo Caballero’s change in rhetoric. In the summer of 1933, he gave two key speeches as part of his attempt to reconnect with the socialist grassroots. He reiterated the socialist movement’s commitment to socialism and, significantly, in a speech at the JS summer school on 12 August, he stated that it was impossible to build socialism within a bourgeois Republic.¹¹⁶ Even as the final destination was socialism – as it had always been – there were now two roads available: gaining power through elections or the use of force. In this ‘double scenario’, the latter was to be employed if the former was blocked or if the socialists’ enemies broke with legality. Largo Caballero continued to sketch this ‘double scenario’ through the election campaign.¹¹⁷ In his speeches, he repeatedly justified the socialist trajectory during the Republic, criticized the Republicans for allegedly expelling the socialists from power and demanded power for the socialists in order to build a ‘social Republic’. Largo Caballero, however, talked himself into a corner. Electoral defeat in November reduced his double scenario down to one.

Radicalization affected not only the veteran trade unionist and his followers, but also broad swathes of the socialist movement. A more aggressive assertion of socialist identity and the delineation of a sharper ‘social Republic’ are palpable in Asturias from much earlier than the election campaign. The attempted coup by Sanjurjo a year previously had sparked a national ‘wave of pro-Republican fervour’ and in Sama workers declared themselves prepared to ‘take to the streets’ to defend the Republic.¹¹⁸ The coup served to strengthen the affective bonds between socialists and the regime, and started to shape a particular idea of the Republic as more assertive and left wing. Councillors in Oviedo demanded the Constitution be implemented to deepen the regime, while Avance insisted the Republic make ‘a sharp turn to the left’.¹¹⁹ A more muscular Republic was needed, rather than engagement with the Republic’s opponents.

The radical rhetoric was a more assertive expression of socialist ideology and strategy, but portraying it as a straightforward rejection of Republican democracy is simplistic. The militant mood in 1932 and 1933 actually served to sharpen Republican loyalty, although this allegiance was to a particular vision of a ‘social’ Republic. The crystallization of this understanding of the Republic was reflected in Avance’s editorial the day before the Republican-socialist government fell:

The struggle against the Republic’s enemies was framed in more aggressive terms. The Republic had to be introduced in a more radical manner, disregarding those who opposed the Republican-socialist project of the first biennium. The language was more militant, but it was far from a decided rejection of the Republic, still less a call for an immediate revolution. Socialists continued to ridicule anarchists who had been engaged in a months-long strike in La Felguera for thinking they could defeat Duro-Felguera or carry out a social revolution.¹²¹

When the Republican-socialist coalition collapsed in September 1933 and the president entrusted the centre-right Radical Party with forming a government, the socialist rank and file did not reject the Republican framework, as was clear in the appeal to action by the Turón JS:

The Socialist Youth was the first line of defence of the Republican ‘revolution’, which echoed Largo Caballero’s rhetoric that combined criticism of the Republican parties with a defence of Republican state interventionism and the achievements of socialist ministers between 1931 and 1933.¹²³ Indeed, the vision of a more sharply defined social Republic reflected the demands agreed at the national congress of the UGT in autumn 1933 in which the socialist union demanded more state intervention in the economy, including the nationalization of industry.¹²⁴

The militant defence of the Republic and the socialist rediscovery of a radical identity meant that the vision of the Republic was increasingly conceptualized in class terms.¹²⁵ Avance’s rhetoric became ever more militant and the newspaper instructed its readers that:

To an extent, Avance’s rhetoric was electioneering. Through polarizing brinkmanship, the socialist newspaper attempted to solidify its core support, warning of the dangers of voting for other political options. Yet this radical vision also reveals that the socialists had developed a bold, assertive vision for the future. In a deteriorating economic situation and now freed from the responsibility of national government, they could begin to project a new future of a ‘social’ Republic.

By autumn 1933, the socialist position had shifted away from the self-proclaimed moderation and pointed criticism of Communist and anarchist radicalism that had characterized it in 1931. During 1932 socialists had moulded ‘radicalism’ to fit their strategy of moderation in response to a change in the political mood in the coalfields, which itself had been conditioned by the new Republic. The new secularizing context of the Republic instigated the repositioning of oppositional political identities, while the resurgence of the right made 1932 a year of much greater conflict at the local level than 1931. At the same time, conditions in the mining industry deteriorated further, yet the SOMA was reluctant and unable to respond in a way that satisfied rank-and-file mineworkers. In fact, the SOMA’s position only served to alienate sections of the mining workforce, particularly young workers. The grassroots radicalism was channelled into piecemeal rank-and-file unity initiatives and evident in the more militant and aggressive rhetoric, both in Asturias and from the socialist leadership.

Electoral defeat in November 1933 closed the parliamentary road to a social Republic, at least in the short term. According to Largo Caballero’s rhetoric, the only option was an ill-defined revolutionary movement and over the following months, he directed the planning of such a movement. While the factors outlined in this chapter were at the heart of the emergence of radicalism in the coalfields, they do not provide the whole picture of the radicalizing dynamic, nor do they explain the revolutionary insurrection. Radicalism would continue to combine rivalries and tensions on a micro level over an individual’s reputation and place in the community, and projections about the wider nature of the community itself, but between 1933 and 1934 two new radicalizing factors came to the fore: the perceived emergence of ‘fascism’ in 1933 and the actions of the security forces in 1934. These local struggles channelled and accelerated radicalization and would leave Asturias on the threshold of revolution.

______________

¹ Avance, 24 July 1932.

² T. Weir, ‘The Christian front against godlessness: anti-secularism and the demise of the Weimar Republic, 1928–1933’, Past & Present, ccxxix (2015), 201–38; K. Passmore, From Liberalism to Fascism: the Right in a French Province (Cambridge, 1997), p. 45. See also D. H. Bell’s emphasis on friction over religion in Italy in Sesto San Giovanni: Workers, Culture and Politics in an Italian Town, 1880–1922 (New Brunswick, N.J., 1986).

³ See work by S. Souto Kustrín, particularly Paso a la juventud: movilización democrática, estalinismo y revolución en la república española (Valencia, 2013).

⁴ La Aurora Social, 18 Sept. 1931.

⁵ For a summary, see W. J. Callahan, The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1998 (Washington,D.C., 2000), pp. 274–94, the quotation at p. 288. For more detail, see V. M. Arbeloa, La semana trágica de la Iglesia en España (8–14 octubre de 1931) (Madrid, 2006).

⁶ Such denunciations were claimed to be a daily occurrence (Avance, 15 Dec. 1931; El Noroeste, 13 Jan. 1932).

⁷ Solidaridad, 18 July 1931; El Noroeste, 18 June 1932.

⁸ Avance, 24 Nov. 1932.

⁹ La Aurora Social, 6 Nov. 1931.

¹⁰ El Noroeste, 13 Nov. 1932.

¹¹ Avance, 16, 18 July 1933.

¹² A. M. Moral Roncal, La cuestión religiosa en la Segunda República española: iglesia y carlismo (Madrid, 2009), p. 64.

¹³ F. Lannon, Privilege, Persecution and Prophecy: the Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1975 (Oxford, 1987), p. 181.

¹⁴ M. Vincent, Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic: Religion and Politics in Salamanca, 1930–1936 (Oxford, 1996), p. 68.

¹⁵ On the ‘compass’, see M. Thomas, The Faith and the Fury: Popular Anticlerical Violence and Iconoclasm in Spain, 1931–1936 (Eastbourne, 2013), pp. 32–3.

¹⁶ Avance, 24 July 1932.

¹⁷ Avance, 21 Jan., 10 Apr. 1932.

¹⁸ Thomas, Faith, pp. 57–8.

¹⁹ Vincent, Catholicism, p. 183. For petitions, see e.g., J. M. Macarro Vera, Socialismo, República y revolución en Andalucía (1931–1936) (Seville, 2000), p. 259.

²⁰ E.g. Región, 13, 16, 17 Feb., 13 Apr., 2 July, 28 Sept. 1932; Hoja parroquial de Santa María la Real de la Corte, 7 Feb., 11 Sept., 4 Dec. 1932.

²¹ Avance, 21 Feb., 8 Apr., 20 May, 16 Aug. 1932. For similar accusations in Valencia, see S. Valero, Republicanos con la monarquía, socialistas con la República: la Federación Socialista Valenciana durante la II República y la Guerra Civil (1931–1939) (Valencia, 2015), p. 85.

²² Gaceta de Madrid, 14 Jan. 1932.

²³ Vincent, Catholicism, p. 185; Macarro Vera, Socialismo, p. 261; E. Grandío Seoane, Los orígenes de la derecha gallega: la CEDA en Galicia (1931–1936) (Sada, 1998), p. 116; M. González Probados, O socialismo na Segunda República (1931–1936) (Sada, 1992), p. 129.

²⁴ Acción, 26 March, 16 Apr., 14, 21 May, 4 June 1932; Región, 24 Feb. 1932.

²⁵ Avance, 16, 30 Apr. 1932.

²⁶ Región, 22, 25 June 1932; El Noroeste, 13 Apr. 1932.

²⁷ On charivari and rough music, see N. Zemon Davis, ‘The reasons of misrule: youth groups and charivaris in sixteenth-century France’, Past & Present, l (1971), 41–75; E. P. Thompson, ‘Rough music reconsidered’, Folklore, ciii (1991), 3–26.

²⁸ El Noroeste, 8 Jan., 30 March 1932.

²⁹ Avance, 7 Jun. 1932; AA, Actas, 30 May 1932 to 9 Feb. 1933, f. 39.

³⁰ M. Delgado Ruiz, ‘Anticlericalismo, espacio y poder. La destrucción de los rituales católicos, 1931–1939’, Ayer, xxvii (1997), passim.

³¹ C. Gil Andrés, Echarse a la calle: amotinados, huelguistas y revolucionarios (La Rioja, 1890–1936) (Zaragoza, 2000), p. 382; A. L. López Villaverde, El gorro frigio y la mitra frente a frente: construcción y diversidad territorial del conflicto político-religioso en la España republicana (n.p., 2008), p. 214.

³² Vincent, Catholicism, p. 186.

³³ Gaceta de Madrid, 14 Jan. 1932. For complaints, see e.g., Región, 24 Feb. 1932.

³⁴ El Noroeste, 17 March 1932.

³⁵ M. V. Álvarez Fernández, La escuela del paternalismo industrial asturiano (1880–1937) (Gijón, 2006), pp. 281–2; Á. Mato Díaz, La escuela primaria en Asturias (1923 – 1937): los procesos de alfabetización y escolarización (Oviedo, 1992), p. 267; El Noroeste, 24 Apr. 1932.

³⁶ Avance, 10, 13 Sept. 1932.

³⁷ Avance, 13 Sept. 1932 ; Álvarez Fernández, La escuela, p. 284.

³⁸ Avance, 27 Sept., 4 Oct. 1932; Álvarez Fernández, La escuela, pp. 284–5; Mato Díaz, La escuela, p. 197.

³⁹ The authorities in Mieres routinely authorized the erection of crosses at graves while the 1933 regulations on funeral processions in Aller allowed religious and political symbols (AA, Actas, 18 Feb. 1933 to 6 Jan. 1934, ff. 182–3).

⁴⁰ AHPA, Actas de la comisión de la Diputación Provincial, 29 Dec. 1931 to 12 Sept. 1933, ff. 196–9, 208–9.

⁴¹ See Delgado Ruiz, ‘Anticlericalismo’. For a similar emphasis on disruption coinciding with Holy Week in Aragón, see M. P. Salomón Chéliz, Anticlericalismo en Aragón. Protesta popular y movilización cívica (1900 – 1939) (Zaragoza, 2002), pp. 281, 288.

⁴² Región, 18 June, 17 Aug. 1932; Thomas, Faith, pp. 54–6.

⁴³ Región, 15 Sept. 1932; Avance, 14, 15 Sept. 1932.

⁴⁴ For the coup, see E. González Calleja, Contrarrevolucionarios: radicalización violenta de las derechas durante la Segunda República, 1931–1936 (Madrid, 2011), pp. 81–106.

⁴⁵ P. Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction and Revolution in the Second Republic (London, 1978), p. 73.

⁴⁶ See J. C. Ullman, Tragic Week: a Study of Anticlericalism in Spain (Cambridge, Mass., 1968).

⁴⁷ Macarro Vera, Socialismo, p. 251; AL, Actas, 28 Apr. 1932 to 17 Dec. 1932, ff. 98–99, 100.

⁴⁸ Macarro Vera, Socialismo, p. 252.

⁴⁹ AL, Actas, 28 Apr. 1932 to 17 Dec. 1932, ff. 98–9.

⁵⁰ La Aurora Social, 14 Aug., 11 Sept. 1931.

⁵¹ Avance, 17 Apr. 1932.

⁵² Avance, 25 Aug., 6 Dec. 1932.

⁵³ Avance, 23 March, 15 July 1932.

⁵⁴ Avance, 15 March, 30 July 1932.

⁵⁵ Avance, 24 Sept. 1932.

⁵⁶ Avance, 29 Dec. 1932.

⁵⁷ Avance, 4 Oct. 1933.

⁵⁸ But see French socialists’ desire to ‘stimulate demand’, J. Jackson, The Politics of Depression in France, 1932–1936 (Cambridge, 1985), pp. 40–1.

⁵⁹ A. Zukas, ‘Inscribing class struggle in space: unemployed protest in the Ruhr in late Weimar Germany’, Labour History Review, lxxx (2015), 31–62, at p. 39.

⁶⁰ S. Ward, ‘The means test and the unemployed in South Wales and the north-east of England, 1931–1939’, Labour History Review, lxxiii (2008), 113–32, at p. 113.

⁶¹ R. Miralles, El socialismo vasco durante la II República: organización, ideología, política y elecciones, 1931–1936 (Bilbao, 1988), p. 114.

⁶² El Noroeste, 9 Sept. 1932; A. Shubert, The Road to Revolution in Spain: the Coal Miners of Asturias, 1860–1934 (Urbana, Ill., 1987), pp. 144–5.

⁶³ Avance, 9 March, 27 Aug. 1932.

⁶⁴ Avance, 9 July, 15 March 1932.

⁶⁵ For the strike, see El Noroeste, 24 Sept. 1932.

⁶⁶ Avance, 9 Aug. 1932.

⁶⁷ Avance, 18 Sept., 23 Oct. 1932.

⁶⁸ Shubert, Road, p. 145.

⁶⁹ Avance, 22 Nov. 1932; Región, 22 Nov. 1932.

⁷⁰ E.g., see a CNT-organized solidarity strike to support Duro-Felguera metalworkers in December (Avance, 10 Dec. 1932; Región, 10 Dec. 1932; M. Castejón Rodríguez, ‘La patronal hullera asturiana en la Segunda República’ (unpublished UNED PhD thesis, 2009), p. 382).

⁷¹ Avance, 4 Dec. 1932.

⁷² El Noroeste, 5, 15, 21, 26, 27 Jan. 1933.

⁷³ Shubert, Road, p. 146.

⁷⁴ Avance, 3 March 1933.

⁷⁵ Revista Industrial Minera Asturiana, 16 March 1933.

⁷⁶ Avance, 8, 18, 21 March 1933.

⁷⁷ Avance, 17 March 1933.

⁷⁸ Avance, 15, 14, 17 March 1933.

⁷⁹ Revista Industrial Minera Asturiana, 16 Aug. 1933.

⁸⁰ El Noroeste, 26, 28 March 1933.

⁸¹ El Noroeste, 6 Apr. 1933.

⁸² El Noroeste, 9 Apr. 1933.

⁸³ P. Swett, Neighbors and Enemies: the Culture of Radicalism in Berlin, 1929–1933 (Cambridge, 2004), pp. 109–13. See also S. Reichardt, ‘Violence and community: a micro-study on Nazi Storm Troopers’, Central European History, xlvi (2013), 275–97. For a broader survey of how unemployment can result in protest, as opposed to nihilism and passivity, see Unemployment and Protest: New Perspectives on Two Centuries of Contention, ed. M. Reiss and M. Perry (Oxford, 2011).

⁸⁴ On politics as action in interwar Europe, see M. Vincent, ‘Political violence and mass society: a European civil war?’, in The Oxford Handbook of European history, 1914–1945, ed. N. Doumanis (Oxford, 2016), pp. 388–403. For the importance of youth and radicalism, see E. Rosenhaft, Beating the Fascists? The German Communist Party and Political Violence, 1929 – 1933 (Cambridge, 1983), p. 193; S. Whitney, Mobilizing Youth: Communists and Catholics in Interwar France (Durham, N.C., 2009).

⁸⁵ Avance, 6 Dec. 1932, 9 May 1933.

⁸⁶ Souto Kustrín, Paso, p. 57.

⁸⁷ Shubert, Road, p. 146; Avance, 29 Sept. 1933.

⁸⁸ El Noroeste, 13, 26 Oct. 1933; Avance, 13 Oct. 1933.

⁸⁹ Avance, 12 Nov. 1933.

⁹⁰ Avance, 15, 18 Nov. 1933.

⁹¹ Avance, 5, 19, 21, 23 Feb. 1933.

⁹² El Noroeste, 26 Sept. 1933; see also 13, 29 Sept. 1933.

⁹³ The CPUT only receives a brief mention or footnote in the historiography (see D. Ruiz, Insurrección defensiva y revolución obrera: el octubre español de 1934 (Barcelona, 1988), p. 88; E. Izquierdo, ‘Hacia la unidad sindical, 1933–1934’, Estudios de Historia Social, xxxi (1984), 113–22, at p. 117.

⁹⁴ El Noroeste, 1, 5 Feb. 1933.

⁹⁵ A. Fernández Pérez, Tiempos heroicos: diccionario biográfico del socialismo asturiano (Oviedo, 2013), pp. 282–3.

⁹⁶ El Noroeste, 4 Jan., 1 Feb. 1933.

⁹⁷ El Noroeste, 11 Feb. 1933.

⁹⁸ Avance, 8 Jan. 1933; El Noroeste, 1 Feb. 1933.

⁹⁹ For France, see G.-R. Horn, European Socialists Respond to Fascism: Ideology, Activism and Contingency in the 1930s (New York, 1996), pp. 138–9. There was also a failed attempt by the Second (social-democratic) and Third (Communist) Internationals to ‘reach an understanding’ in early 1933 (p. 37).

¹⁰⁰ S. Ward, Unemployment and the State in Britain: the Means Test and Protest in 1930s South Wales and North-East England (Manchester, 2013), pp. 170–1.

¹⁰¹ El Noroeste, 26 Sept. 1933.

¹⁰² Avance, 14 May 1933.

¹⁰³ E.g. Preston, Coming of the Spanish Civil War, p. 80; J. Aróstegui, Largo Caballero: el tesón y la quimera (Barcelona, 2013), p. 297; H. Graham, Socialism and War: the Spanish Socialist Party in Power and Crisis, 1936–1939 (Cambridge, 1991), pp. 43–7.

¹⁰⁴ M. Bizcarrondo, Historia de la UGT, iii: Entre la democracia y la revolución, 1931–1936 (6 vols, Madrid, 2008), pp. 18, 24.

¹⁰⁵ As emphasized by Shubert in Road, p. 149. For the Ruhr, see D. Harsch, German Social Democracy and the Rise of Nazism (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993), p. 205.

¹⁰⁶ Avance, 16 March 1933.

¹⁰⁷ Avance, 19 Feb. 1933; Región, 18 March 1933.

¹⁰⁸ Avance, 27 Apr. 1933.

¹⁰⁹ Heraldo de Madrid, 6, 7 July 1933. See also C. D. Aguiar García and Y. Hermida Martín, ‘Techo y dignidad. La lucha del Sindicato de Inquilinos de Tenerife durante la Segunda República’, in Culturas políticas en la contemporaneidad: discursos y prácticas políticas desde los márgenes a las élites. Culturas políticas y acción colectiva desde la izquierda durante el S. XX, ed. J. A. Caballero Machí, R. Mínguez Blasco and V. Rodríguez-Flores Parra (Valencia, 2015), pp. 115–18.

¹¹⁰ Avance, 16, 22 Feb., 1 March 1933.

¹¹¹ AL, Actas, 7 Oct. 1933 to 16 June 1934, ff. 29–30, 39–40.

¹¹² AL, Actas, 24 Dec. 1932 to 30 Sept. 1933, ff. 181–2.

¹¹³ Avance, 23 Sept. 1933.

¹¹⁴ The canonical study is J. Mintz, The Anarchists of Casas Viejas (Bloomington, Ind., 1994 [1982]). See also J. Casanova, Anarchism, the Republic and Civil War in Spain (1931–1939) (Abingdon, 2004), pp. 68–72.

¹¹⁵ For detailed analysis, see N. Townson, The Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Centrist Politics under the Spanish Second Republic (Brighton, 2000), pp. 152–79, the quotation at p. 156.

¹¹⁶ See Aróstegui, Largo Caballero, pp. 314–16.

¹¹⁷ S. Juliá, ‘Los socialistas y el escenario de la futura revolución’, in Octubre 1934: cincuenta años para la reflexión, ed. G. Jackson et al. (Madrid, 1985), pp. 103–30; Aróstegui, Largo Caballero, pp. 327–8.

¹¹⁸ Preston, Coming of the Spanish Civil War, p. 73; Avance, 12 Aug. 1932. See, e.g., pro-Republican demonstrations in Galicia (González Probados, O socialismo, pp. 133–4).

¹¹⁹ Avance, 12, 13 Aug. 1932.

¹²⁰ Avance, 7 Sept. 1933.

¹²¹ Avance, 1 Aug. 1933.

¹²² Avance, 17 Sept. 1933.

¹²³ Aróstegui, Largo Caballero, pp. 326–7.

¹²⁴ Bizcarrondo, Historia, p. 53.

¹²⁵ See also a renewed enthusiasm for socialism in Andalusia, in Macarro Vera, Socialismo, p. 281.

¹²⁶ Avance, 16 Nov. 1933. Emphasis as in the original.