In the 1930s, nearly 60 per cent of the population lived in rural Spain. This could well mean townships with populations of several thousands, usually relatively self-sufficient communities dependent on agriculture, livestock, fishing, and, less frequently, mining. After Madrid and Barcelona, each with just over 1 million inhabitants in 1936, the next largest city, Valencia, had a population of 380,000. A provincial capital like Burgos, for example, had some 45,000 inhabitants. Life in the small towns often seemed closer in style to nineteenth-than twentieth-century models.
—All the profound changes which took place in Europe after the First World War reached Spain, which had not taken part in the conflict, in a mediated, sterile form; life continued much as before …
Jesús-Evaristo CASARIEGO, born in 1913, the son of an Asturian dentist, was brought up by his grandparents in the small Asturian coastal town of Luarca. Girls didn’t go out alone, women didn’t smoke, weddings were arranged, courting – if permission was given – took place with the man in the street, the girl on the balcony. Transportation was by bus, and it took five or six hours to travel the 100 km to the provincial capital, Oviedo. New ideas percolated slowly; it was ‘an archaic life – made even more nineteenth-century-like for me by being brought up by grandparents who talked about the last Carlist war, the Franco-Prussian war, the war in Cuba as though they were yesterday … ’
The petty bourgeoisie from which he came did not correspond in outlook to what, in western Europe, was generally expected of that class.
—In large areas of Spain, the petty bourgeois was still much closer in outlook to the Spanish hidalgo or minor nobility – to don Quixote – than to the typical European petty bourgeois of the time. Religion was more important to him than business; and when economic matters concerned him, it was much less to start up a small business and make money on the French model than to keep what money he already had in order to provide for his children. The European petty bourgeois, the shopkeeper or small merchant who defended the values of the French revolution, who was concerned about divorce to resolve his matrimonial problems, but unconcerned about his ‘masculinity’, did not really have his counterpart on any large scale in provincial Spain …
Monarchist until the monarchy fell, this petty bourgeoisie became republican out of convenience, he thought. It was a fluctuating mass, prepared neither to form a solid, liberal republican base nor to confront the republic head-on. This explained the success of Gil Robles and the CEDA which offered to defend the existing social order – and in particular religion – from within the confines of the republic.
A Carlist, CASARIEGO rose with the nationalists. Dr Carlos MARTINEZ, a fellow-Asturian and a radical socialist deputy in the 1931 Constituent Cortes, fought for the republic. But he, too, noted the uneven development which marked a large part of the provincial petty bourgeoisie. In his own party, modelled on the French party of the same name, he found a lack of the class which should have swelled its ranks – lawyers, doctors, engineers, medium-sized businessmen. In their place were small shopkeepers, socialist party and anarcho-syndicalist dissidents. With the exception of Catalonia, the Basque country and Valencia, the petty bourgeoisie very soon withdrew its support from the republic, remaining in a state of neutrality inclining to hostility. The case of Azaña was illustrative.
—Here was an intellectual, liberal democrat of stature, who should have represented the middle-class ideal: democratic freedoms, a liberal social policy, etc. The petty bourgeoisie should have rallied unanimously behind him. Instead, it refused him its support …
But if they failed to back Azaña – ‘and their failure largely determined his’ – then there were conservative Catholic parties to the right of him which a frightened petty bourgeoisie should have joined. On one occasion, given the task of looking for people in Asturias to join just such parties – Miguel Maura’s and Alcalá Zamora’s – he found himself making very little headway: ‘The middle classes were not going to participate.’ He often wondered why this was so, and the only explanation he could find was that the anarcho-syndicalist offensive against the republic frightened them.
Dionisio RIDRUEJO16 was brought up in a provincial town of Old Castile and received the traditional middle-class education of the time: ‘Catholic and patriotic’, at the hands of Jesuits and Augustinians. Critical of his class’s conservatism, but sharing much of its religious values, he found the solution in the Falange which he joined before the war.
For him, the petty bourgeoisie was much more a ‘state of being’ than a class conscious of itself as a class; it felt itself ‘distinct’ because it differentiated itself from the working class by a life style which – in very relative terms – brought it closer to the privileged upper bourgeoisie.
—Economically speaking, a schoolteacher, a shopkeeper, a petty civil servant, was much closer to the proletariat than to the upper class; but the fact that he wore shoes and usually a tie, gave him a personal dignity which made him feel close to the upper class. In provincial towns, moreover, there was very little difference in life style between the different strata of the bourgeoisie. It must be admitted that the big bourgeoisie did not exercise its undisputed power in a particularly ostentatious manner …
In fact, there were in these small provincial towns really only two classes, he believed: the upper and the lower. Señoritos and proletarians. All those who wore ties, who had fixed employment and did not work with their hands, were señoritos. The poorer the province, the truer this distinction was.
—This provincial petty bourgeoisie – that large sector of it which had not been influenced by the enlightened bourgeoisie – would objectively have found its proper place within a reformist party under the republic. But its cultural and religious prejudices kept it firmly within traditionalist postures. Religion provided the cement which kept this ‘traditionalist’ class, as I call it, together. The fact that large sectors of the left were violently hostile to the church resulted in an unnecessarily crude polemic which influenced wide sectors of the petty bourgeoisie, as it did me. Anti-clericalism, of course, was a common antibody to a clericalism that had been a driving force in Spanish history for a long time. Because of these characteristics – its concept of itself, its economic position, its cultural and religious attitudes – the ‘traditional’ class was very easily manipulated and dominated by the conservative forces representing capitalist, militarist and clerical interests …
The provincial petty bourgeoisie was product and victim of the country’s weak capitalist development. The urban and nationalist liberal petty bourgeoisie’s attempt to introduce a liberal democracy lacked the support of its provincial counterpart. No other class could substitute for it; and when the military rose, it became the civilian base of the insurgent offensive and of the new, Franquista state.17
In the gulf between ‘urban’ and ‘provincial’ petty bourgeoisie, religion played a seemingly large part. The former stratum was heir to the anti-clerical liberals of the nineteenth century who had failed to carry the bourgeois revolution to its ultimate conclusion. The peculiar form of that revolution, which had concluded with the bourgeoisie’s alliance with the landed aristocracy, had meant the acceptance of the oligarchy’s dominant ideology; there was no ‘rupture’, no new bourgeois ideology. The church’s ideological dominance – in the 1930s as in the previous century – was the opposite face of the bourgeoisie’s failure to make its ideological revolution. From the preceding period of absolutism, the church provided the ‘ideological categories to justify the repression and intolerance necessary to maintain the system, and had transposed these on to the religious plane: intolerance assumed the character of sanctity … The immobilist defence of the system charged with heresy any reforming attitude.’18
In taking on the church, the left republican–socialist coalition which had come to power after the republic’s advent, confronted an opponent of great strength: 30,000 priests, 20,000 monks and friars, 60,000 nuns gave it the highest proportion of regula
r and secular clergy per head of population outside Italy. Its wealth was unknown but still large. Yet its real strength lay neither in its size nor wealth, but in its ideological dominance within society. In attempting to break this – especially in the important area of religious education – the urban petty bourgeoisie was attacking the ideological cornerstone of ruling-class domination. Religion was the ‘cement’ which bound other classes, including the provincial petty bourgeoisie, into acceptance of this power.
The new regime launched headlong into the battle. Religious freedom was proclaimed by decree; the new constitution separated church and state and cleared the path for abolishing state stipends for priests within two years, banning religious orders from engaging in any but religious teaching, making all education laic, dissolving the Jesuits, introducing divorce, civil marriage and burial. The reaction, as could be expected, was not long in coming.
—A great number of Spaniards called themselves Catholics because they had been baptized. Little else in their attitude to life would make one particularly aware that they were Catholic, maintained the monarchist professor and deputy, Pedro SAINZ RODRIGUEZ. Under the monarchy, on the feast day of the Sacred Heart, perhaps seven out of every hundred would display hangings from their balconies. When the republic forbade hangings, suddenly people who believed neither in the Sacred Heart, in Jesus nor in God himself, put out hangings …
In the opinion of David JATO, the falangist student leader, the liberal republicans forgot how easy it was to confuse anti-clericalism with anti-Catholicism. People who felt themselves profoundly Catholic, even if they weren’t practising Catholics, came to feel that their religious sentiments were gravely threatened by the new regime.
Before any legislation had been introduced, less than a month after the republic’s proclamation, an event took place that aroused the right, confirming its suspicions of the republic’s anti-clericalism. After monarchists held a private meeting and the Royal March had been played, there was a riot. The next day a number of convents19 in Madrid were fired, and the burning spread southward, to Málaga and Seville. In the view of a Madrid priest, Father Alejandro MARTINEZ, the republic committed suicide that day.
—Here was a regime which, unbelievable as it may sound, had come in with clerical support, and in less than a month was condoning the burning of convents and churches. The left in Spain had always been anti-clerical, anti-religious … It was from that day – 11 May, 1931 – that I realized nothing would be achieved by legal means; sooner or later, to save ourselves, we should have to rise20 …
—The burnings had a tremendous impact on the country at large, recalled Marquess PUEBLA DE PARGA, a monarchist university student. In the face of the republic’s disrespect for law and order, we anti-republican students began to organize, forming guards at night to defend the convents …
Another student, Enrique MIRET MAGDALENA, who belonged to the Catholic youth organization, saw that from that moment the clergy divided the country into ‘Catholic’ and ‘non-Catholic’, right-wing and left.
—Unable to grasp what was new in the world, the clergy shut itself in behind a palisade where it fomented an ideology which would sustain its position in society. They realized that the republic was going to combat clericalism, which was the bane of this country. At that time I shared the clergy’s view; it was only later that I came to see things differently,21 to realize that the average republican was very respectful of religion in fact …
Very few people took part in the convent burnings. The new regime acted maladroitly in not preventing the provocation which, after the event, was wholeheartedly condemned by the republican and socialist parties. But the shock-waves which reverberated through the bourgeoisie were tremendous; this was, after all, what it had expected, what modern Spanish history had led it to expect of the anti-clerical liberals.
A left republican youth leader in Madrid, Andrés MARQUEZ, denied that anti-clericalism was the main cause of the burnings. He had passed by the house where the monarchists were meeting the day before.
—What a provocation! Only weeks after the proclamation of the republic, which had happened so peacefully that anyone who wanted to could go to mass! The next day several convents were burnt but not a single priest, friar or nun was killed. Under the monarchy in the last century, not only did convents burn but priests were massacred. No, the fact of the matter was that the Spanish right had its roots in clericalism, was a ‘religious’ oligarchy; but it was a religion that had nothing to do with Christianity …
The real battle, however, was not to be waged over the burning of churches; more vital issues were at stake. Not surprisingly, it was the educational aspects that mobilized traditional opinion.22
—The removal of crucifixes from state school classrooms, the suppression of religious education in those schools, divided the country and created a very violent reaction, maintained Marquess PUEBLA DE PARGA. The matter of crucifixes caused the most bitter hatred; they were a symbol of the attempt to tear religious belief from the country’s heart …
In reaction, believers and their children started to wear black crucifixes on their clothes. The law, however, permitted state schools to remain open on Sundays if sufficient numbers of parents petitioned that their children be taught religion.
—That was a sign of tolerance, it’s true. Volunteer schoolteachers and youths like myself would go and teach the children Sunday school. I enjoyed it, I felt I was doing something useful. Afterwards, we’d go into a local bar in the working-class district of Carabanchel bajo, which is where my school was, and have a beer. The workers in their Sunday best would joke with us. They seemed pleased we were teaching their children the catechism. No doubt, they supported parties which, in the Cortes, were voting in favour of these anti-clerical measures. It was a very contradictory, difficult period of Spanish history …
Not all left republicans shared their party’s views on the religious question. Régulo MARTINEZ, the priest who had given up his parish to become a schoolmaster in a lay school, believed the offensive against the church was an error.
—Exaggerated, mistaken. Not just anti-clericalism, but a phobia against everything ecclesiastical and religious. I was in favour, and said so, of church and state being separated: it was fundamental to the well-being of both. I agreed with the dissolution of the Jesuits – they were the republic’s bitterest enemy. One preached a sermon saying that any woman who applied for divorce was no better than a whore. I believed the republic was justified in abolishing bishops’ and canons’ stipends; but not those of the rural clergy. The republic wanted to expand education but lacked schoolmasters; let the priests help with this task. If the republic allowed them to help it, this rural clergy would be attracted to the republic. They had been deformed, as I had, by a seminary education and, like me, they would have to re-educate themselves …
In what was generally acknowledged to be one – if not the – most religious area in the peninsula, the Basque country, the clergy’s reaction was more muted.23 Father José María BASABILOTRA, a Bilbao priest recently ordained and exercising his ministry in a small village of Alava, felt there were even positive aspects to it. It made the Basque clergy work harder, brought them closer to the people.
—Of course, the burning of churches and the clergy’s persecution depressed and angered us. This wasn’t the republic we wanted, but it didn’t make us anti-republican. I was in favour of the separation of church and state. Support of the church should be a matter for the faithful …
‘Sons of the people who lived with the people’, the Basque clergy kept faith with the humble, the ordinary. If the Basques’ deep sense of religion was missing elsewhere, he blamed the priests, not the people; in other parts, the majority of the clergy was too close to the powerful and rich. ‘Here people went to church to worship God – not to worship images.’
Like Father BASABILOTRA, a supporter of Basque nationalism, Father Luis ECHEBARRIA believed that if the republic had confined its religiou
s legislation to the separation of church and state there would have been few repercussions. But instead, the republic was really attempting to wipe out religion. In the Basque country and Navarre, where ‘religious belief was genuine’, such a project was doomed to fail.
—In other parts, it was an official religion; as such it lacked the one thing necessary to prevent persecution being effective – a mass base. That was why elsewhere the clergy opposed the republic totally while we, here, opposed only its religious legislation. Anti-clericalism, in truth, hardly affected us …
In Catalonia, homeland of industrial anarcho-syndicalism, no churches or convents had been fired in 1931. Maurici SERRAHIMA, a leading member of Unió Democrática – ‘the only Christian Democratic party to have existed in Spain’ – felt that Catalan nationalism had been beneficial to the church in Catalonia. For the past fifteen years or so, the Catalan clergy – in response to the defence of Catalan interests which raised the country’s general level of culture – concentrated attention on Catalan cultural matters. This had helped to open the church much more to the world. ‘One couldn’t call it conciliar, but it was authentically pre-conciliar.’
None the less, in the view of Tomás ROIG LLOP, a practising Catholic lawyer and Catalan liberal, this did not mean that the republic had not made a very serious political error in its handling of the religious problem. The evolution of the typical Spanish Catholic had been slow, if evolution had taken place at all. To expect the great mass of Spaniards to confront, simultaneously, a new political and a new religious situation when ‘they did not know how to live out their religious beliefs’ was expecting too much. The republic should have left the problem alone.
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