CHAPTER XXV. The new government and its political program

The April 15 issue of the Gaceta Oficial reported on the composition of the new government, as well as all the appointments and administrative orders. A new group now controlled the state. The ministries were distributed among those who had cooked up the Pact of San Sebastián and in accordance with their commitment to unity. There were three ministries for the Socialists:

Fernando de los Ríos, in the Ministry of Justice.

Francisco Largo Caballero, in the Ministry of Labor.

Indalecio Prieto, in the Treasury Ministry

The Radical Socialists followed the Socialists in importance, with two ministries:

Alvaro de Albornoz, in the Ministry of Public Works.

Marcelino Domingo, in the Ministry of Public Education.

Then, with the same number of ministries, the Radicals:

Alejandro Lerroux, in the Ministry of the State.

Martínez Barrio, in the Ministry of Communication.

For Manuel Azaña’s Republican Action, one: Manuel Azaña, in the Ministry of War. For Casares Quiroga’s Galician Republicans, one: Santiago Casares Quiroga, in the Ministry of the Navy.

The Ministry of the Economy was reserved for a Catalan: Nicolau d’Olwer.

Miguel Maura, the ex-monarchist who wanted a law and order Republic, ran the Interior Ministry. His support for the Republic rested on the following observation: “The monarchy committed suicide and, therefore, either we joined the nascent revolution and defended legitimate conservative principles within it or we left the field open for the Leftists and workers’ associations.” [232] The Presidency went to Niceto Alcalá Zamora, an ex-monarchist who also ruminated on the demands of the moment: “A viable Republic, governmental, conservative, with the mesocracy and Spanish intelligentsia’s consequent deference toward it; I serve it, I govern it, I propose it, and I defend it.

A convulsive Republic, epileptic, full of enthusiasm, idealism, but lacking in reason; I will not play the role of a Kerensky to implant it in my homeland.” [233]

What was the government’s political program? For all the twists and turns that we give to the texts that formed the foundation of the state, we do not find anything resembling a program. The only thing we come across is the commitment to unity in confronting the popular explosion and “cushioning” the Monarchy during its crisis and collapse.

What were the central ideas around which these men formed their pact in San Sebastián? To defend “legitimate conservative principles.” With what forces? With the “mesocracy and the Spanish intelligentsia.” What are these “legitimate conservative principles”? The right to private property. What was the right to property? The abuse of that right with anachronistic economic structures imposed by Fernando de Aragón and Isabel de Castilla through conquest and pillage; a war booty distributed among their captains in the form of countships, dukedoms, and marquisates that established the land-ownership system based on large estates in Andalusia and part of New Castile.

Rural caciquism was part of the “legitimate conservative principles” of the aristocracy and its appendages. The Church, despite all the attempts at reform, continued to be an economic power and to monopolize education and the country’s cultural and intellectual life. The army, with almost as many officers as soldiers, and a statist bureaucracy that suffocated the country’s economy, formed part of the “legitimate conservative principles” and functioned like a parasitic caste that gobbled up taxes.

With whom did they intend to defend those conservative and legitimate principles? With the “Spanish intelligentsia and the mesocracy;” that is, with the bourgeoisie. The “intelligentsia” smelled of vestry and was chained to the Church. State bureaucrats made up the “mesocracy” and the bourgeoisie was inexistent as a political force, given that the Monarchy had impeded its development and fostered the supremacy of rural oligarchs over industrialists.

With that political program, if we can call it a program, the new government intended to leave everything just as it found it and to ignore the social and political problems that had, at base, caused the Monarchy to crumble. They would maintain the social relations of the Monarchy under the cloak of a Republic. Was that program viable? Could such a Republic survive while they completely disregarded the working class and the peasantry who, in reality, had proclaimed it? Like it or not, Alcalá Zamora was going to be the Spanish Kerensky.

^{Front page article in the Heraldo de Aragón on the murder of Cardinal Soldevila (June 5, 1923).}

^{Front page of Tiempos Nuevos; Paris, April 2, 1925. The article discusses the life and death of Cardinal Soldevila as well as the various investigation into his murder.}

^{Above: in 1900, Buenaventura Durruti and his older brother Santiago began to attend the school on Misericordia Street run by Manuel Fernández. Buenaventura is the third from the right and his older brother Santiago is sixth from the right.}

^{Top: the murder of anarchists in Barcelona after the Tragic Week. Although educator Francisco Ferrer y Guardia did not participate in the popular revolt, authorities accused him of being its instigator. He was sentenced to death and executed.}

^{Middle (left and right): Durruti’s membership card in the Metalworkers’ Society of León.}

^{Bottom: the building in which Durruti was born.}

^{León, 1915. Durruti, standing and in the center, surrounded by coworkers in Antonio Mijé’s metal shop, which specialized in machinery used to wash minerals in mines.}

^{Above: Durruti, during his first exile in France (1917 -1920).}

^{Above and following page: in Paris, accompanied by a group of French anarchists.}

^{Below: in Vals-les-Bains (Ardeche) on September 1, 1918.}

^{Right: Durruti comments satirically on his situation in Belgium in a postcard to his family.}

^{Above, left: the Barcelona press reports on the assassination of Salvador Seguí (alias “sugar boy”), Secretary of the CNT National Committee. Languía, the right-hand man of Sales, perpetrated the crime on March 10, 1923 on Cadena Street. Graupera, the president of the Employers’ Federation, paid Languía and other gunmen a large sum of money to carry out the killing.}

^{Right: Severiano Martínez Anido became the civil governor of Barcelona on November 8, 1920. He was infamous for his tireless oppression of the proletariat and created the “ley de fugas,” whose purpose was to sow terror among radical workers.}

^{Below: the body of Salvador Seguí spread out on the operating table in the Hospital Clínico after doctors conducted the autopsy.}

^{Above: Durruti in a mug shot taken after his detention in March 1923.}

^{Below, left: a photo from Heraldo de Aragón showing the car in which the Cardinal Soldevila was traveling when he was killed. The bullet holes are visible in the picture.}

^{Below, right: Cardinal Soldevila in the Heraldo de Aragón on June 5, 1923.}

^{Barcelona. November 12, 1930. Standing, left: Acrato Lluly. Seated: De Souza, father of Germinal of Souza (Portuguese) is on the left; Sebastián Clara is on the right. There are reasons to believe that they were members of the Peninsular Committee of the FAI at this moment.}

^{Le Libertaire, Friday, December 31, 1926. The anarcho-communist periodical rallies to the defense of Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover against the imminent danger of their extradition to Spain. Miguel de Unamuno was among the orators that participated in the rally demanding political asylum that is announced in the paper. There is also news of the Sacco and Vanzetti trial in the United States.}

^{While waiting for the Supreme Court to decide on the Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover case, Le Libertaire calls for support for Sacco and Vanzetti (April 8, 1927)}

^{Violating article 18 of the law on extradition, the French government decided that it would hand over Ascaso, Durruti, and Jove to the Argentine police. Meanwhile, to stop this from happening, they threaten to go on a hunger strike. Le Libertaire publishes that news and comments on the “martyrdom” of Sacco and Vanzetti (July 8, 1927)}

^{Le Libertaire announces the liberation of Ascaso, Durruti, and Jover. It also prints a desperate call on behalf of Sacco and Vanzetti (July 15, 1927).}

^{Marking the death of Nestor Makhno, the July 31, 1934 issue of Solidaridad Obrera published a brief biography of this great fighter for human freedom, who was constantly defamed and vilified in the bourgeois press.}