7

A Conservative against Anarchy

(1934–1935)

There were tumultuous scenes within the communications ministry in Madrid during the night of 6 October 1934. César Jalón, its new Radical minister, told his officials that all contact with Asturias had been lost. Gumersindo Rico, the head of Telefónica, the state telecommunications company, reported that the last known message from the province stated that revolutionaries had taken control of the mining region; Civil Guard posts opposing their advance towards Oviedo and Gijon had been ‘swallowed up’. After ensuring that the guards protecting the ministerial building from snipers were safe, Jalón returned to his office to more bad news: the Generalidad had also rebelled against the government. ‘We were all emotionally overwhelmed’, he wrote in his memoirs, ‘Catalonia had risen!’ He did not underestimate the gravity of the Catalan revolt, but felt more concerned about the Asturian revolution. ‘[It is in] Asturias, Asturias!’ Jalón stressed, where ‘blood will flow’. His mental state was not improved by subsequent messages of uprisings in Vizcaya and Guipúzcoa. An exasperated minister also saw that those around him ‘became considerably depressed’ and ‘desolate’. Yet this funeral atmosphere was transformed after a radio message given by the new prime minister. Forty years later, Jalón could still recall how ‘that speech by Alejandro Lerroux, fanned by the fiery language of the days of his youth’ raised the morale of all who heard it with him; the oratory of the ‘old titan, that paladin of Spanishness [españolismo] touched the hearts of all good men’, and his ‘warm, emotional yet calm’ words brought ‘succour to millions of sleepless, [and] restless households’. The insurrection, Lerroux declared, had not triumphed in most provinces, and the forces of law and order were poised to crush the rebels. The nightmare looked like it was ending.1

Although these promises were premature, one should not dismiss Jalón’s recollections of October 1934 as those of a party sycophant. Praise for Lerroux’s handling of the most violent episode in Spanish politics in nearly sixty years went well beyond the Radicals. He was no longer a mere party leader but a symbol of anti-revolutionary Spain and the personification of the liberal democratic Republic against those who would not accept their defeat at the polls in November 1933. Of course, the rebels and their apologists intensified their criticism of Lerroux as a traitor who had sold the Republic to her enemies. The socialists reiterated the claims first made by Pablo Iglesias that the Radical leader was merely a populist demagogue acting on the orders of the most reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie.

Even so, Lerroux’s elevation to the status of national hero by many Spaniards did not offset the bitterness he had felt during those difficult days. While he expected a revolt from the extreme left, he was indignant at the news that his former republican allies had reacted to his appointment as prime minister by breaking off all relations with the government. This was a deliberate act by Azaña, Sánchez-Román, Miguel Maura and even Martínez Barrio to make up an alibi in case of a rebel victory.2 Soon after left republican parties withdrew from politics, the new interior minister Eloy Vaquero informed Lerroux of the first clashes between the police and leftist militants in Madrid and Oviedo following the declaration by the Workers’ Alliance of a revolutionary general strike throughout Spain. He was also told that the government did not have any contingency plans for the rebellion as the previous month, Samper –acting on the advice of Alcalá-Zamora – had dispersed military units sent to León as a precaution. Had such a force been available for immediate transfer to Asturias, it is possible that the miners would have thought again before rising; it is certain that the fighting would have been ended more quickly with less bloodshed.

The October Revolution

Irrespective of the desertion of left republicans and Samper’s negligence, Lerroux did not hesitate when confronting a rebellion ‘against a legitimate Government that had the confidence of the Cortes and the Head of State’. Rapid suppression was essential before it spread to other parts of Spain, and the prime minister was prepared to use the army if the police could not do it alone. This was a matter of life and death for the Republic; if the socialists, Catalan separatists and even former republican colleagues had repudiated the rule of law and broken the Constitution with ‘ill-considered and fierce’ declarations, then they were no longer opponents ‘separated from us by ideological differences’ or different views towards the government, but ‘sworn enemies’. This was no exaggeration, and Lerroux’s bellicose attitude towards the left republicans was more than justified. Earlier than summer, its leaders had met Alcalá-Zamora twice in an effort to persuade the president to appoint a government of ‘republican defence’ that would call new elections to ensure a ‘truly republican’ parliamentary majority. In return, the Esquerra would end the ongoing Catalan constitutional crisis. If Alcalá-Zamora did not accede, Diego Martínez Barrio warned, left republican parties would no longer display any loyalty towards the current regime; the president would have to take responsibility for the ‘risk’ of a ‘rising’. This threat was repeated on 6 October with the revolution already underway; a Martínez Barrio government, it was claimed, was the only way to save the Republic. Understandably, Alcalá-Zamora dismissed these ultimatums as evidence of the ‘mad fervour to regain power’ by the losers of the previous year’s elections.3

Needless to say that on this particular matter, Lerroux agreed unreservedly with the president. The Catholic right was not fascist, he stressed to all who would listen, and it owed its parliamentary strength to legal and democratic activities. Moreover, not only had it always obeyed the Republic, but it had even come to its aid after November 1933 when the CEDA had broken with the monarchists to work with the Radicals. Gil-Robles, Lerroux underlined, may not have liked the Constitution but he respected it, and the prime minister contrasted the CEDA leader with those on the left who pontificated about the sanctity of the December 1931 text only to later violate it. Deriding the arguments of left republicans and socialists about the need to hold fresh elections, he pointed to the fact that the existing composition of the Cortes was the consequence of the failures of the Azaña government (including a non-proportional electoral law), socialist isolationism and Martínez Barrio’s disastrous 1933 election campaign. For all its talk about the Republic in danger, the left should have followed basic democratic practice and acted as a responsible and constitutional opposition in order to win back power legally. Instead, he noted with sadness, it reacted to the loss of power by reverting to its 1930 attitude of impugning a political system that it could not control; the refusal to see the CEDA in government was mere subterfuge for a patrimonial view of the Republic. For Lerroux, his leftist critics ‘believed that power belonged to them permanently’.⁴

With his political opponents favouring the bullet over the ballot box, Lerroux obtained Alcalá-Zamora’s signature for the declaration of a state of emergency on 6 October. He quickly realised that his own life might perish with the democratic Republic as revolutionary gunmen hidden on roofs and terraces shot at the prime minister when he arrived at the interior ministry in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol to direct operations. After being informed that the building was also under threat from assault by armed militias, he received a report that the Generalidad had raised the standard of revolt in Catalonia. Companys’ declaration of a Catalan state within a new Federal Republic and his invitation to other rebels to form a provisional government in Barcelona led Lerroux to believe that the Catalan capital was the hub of the conspiracy and the prime minister immediately ordered general Batet, the head of the Fourth Division, to declare martial law and take total control of the region.5

Lerroux then turned to the alarming situation in Madrid. After learning that the mayor Pedro Rico had joined the rebellion, he placed the Agrarian leader Martínez de Velasco in control of the city council to secure the loyalty of the municipal police. Working with Civil and Assault Guards, the local cops cleared the city centre of leftist militants and silenced the snipers. By the end of 6 October, the prime minister also received encouraging news from Catalonia as the government had taken back control of the streets of Barcelona and troops were surrounding the Catalan government building. Yet the situation was seriously deteriorating in Asturias, and the authorities elsewhere in Spain began reporting serious armed clashes. Lerroux had no option but to declare martial law throughout Spain to preserve order.

As one of Spain’s most experienced politicians, Lerroux knew that the battle of the airwaves was as important as the struggle for control in the streets. In order to counteract rebel propaganda the prime minister decided to speak directly to the nation on the radio. After hurriedly preparing a text, he broadcast from the interior ministry at 10 p.m. that night. His speech reflected the principles and values that guided the government in its struggle against the revolution. It was another example of his genius as an orator, and its tone explains why liberals and conservatives welcomed it so enthusiastically:

At the present time the rebellion, which has managed to disturb public Order, has reached its peak. Fortunately, Spanish citizens have overcome the foolish madness of the misadvised, and the [revolutionary] movement, which has made few serious and painful appearances throughout the country, remains circumscribed to Asturias and Catalonia because of the heroic activity of the forces of law and order.

The Army are the masters of the situation in Asturias and normality will be restored there tomorrow [7 October]. Forgetting the responsibilities of his post, the prime minister of the Generalidad has permitted the proclamation of a Catalan State [Estat Catalá] in Catalonia.

Given this situation, the Republican Government has taken the decision to declare martial law throughout the country. On making this public now, the Government declares that it has waited until all the options that the law had placed in its hands were exhausted without humiliating or undermining its authority. In the hours of peace, it spared no expense to reach a compromise; on declaring a state of war, it will apply martial law energetically but without weakness and cruelty.

Be sure that before the social revolt of Asturias and the unpatriotic and rebel position of the Catalan Government, the whole country’s full soul will rise in an eruption of national solidarity in Catalonia, like in Castile; in Aragon, like in Valencia; in Galicia, like in Extremadura; in the Basque Country like in Navarre and Andalusia. [All provinces] will place themselves on the side of the Government to re-establish not only the rule of the Constitution, the [Catalan] Statute and all Republican laws, but also the moral and political unity that makes all Spaniards a free people with a glorious tradition and glorious future.

All Spaniards will feel a real sense of shame of the madness committed by a few. The Government asks you not to find a space in your heart for any feelings of hate towards any of the peoples of our Patria. The patriotism of Catalonia will know how to impose itself on the separatist madness and will know how to preserve the freedoms that the Republic, under a Government that is loyal to the Constitution, has given her [Catalonia].

In Madrid, like everywhere else, the fervour of citizens accompanies us. With that, and under the rule of law, we are going to continue the glorious History of Spain.6

The contrast with the proclamations of Lerroux’s former republican allies could not be clearer. With these words, Lerroux made a vigorous defence of freedom based on the rule of law. While he was excessively optimistic in order to sustain the morale of his supporters and depress that of his enemies, the prime minister nevertheless admitted that the rebellion would not be over in a matter of hours. As he spoke, shootouts continued in the suburbs of Madrid and panic paralysed commerce and public transport. The police and volunteers from centrist and rightist parties stepped in to ensure the continued supply of essential goods and services, and on the morning of 7 October, a few city centre shops reopened.

Lerroux did not sleep until he received word of the surrender of the Generalidad that same morning. The catalanist rebellion had been brief but violent: 50 dead and 150 seriously injured. By then, an exhausted and stressed prime minister had returned home to receive a depressing update from the military authorities in Oviedo and Gijon. The old man burst into tears in front of colleagues and journalists.

Lerroux had reached his lowest point. His spirits revived when he returned to the interior ministry later that day. The crowds awaiting him were very different to the groups that attempted to attack the building 24 hours earlier. They wanted to salute not murder the Radical leader, and the Puerta del Sol was filled with enthusiastic cries for Spain, the Republic, and for Lerroux. This was followed by a seemingly never-ending procession of anti-revolutionary figures from across the political spectrum who wanted to thank the prime minister and volunteer their services. Among them was the Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera. Lerroux had never previously met him, although he knew both his father and grandfather. The fascist effusively praised the work of the old republican, and offered the assistance of his youthful subordinates in exchange for pistols. Unlike Manuel Azaña and José Giral less than two years later, the Radical prime minister firmly rejected the idea of arming paramilitaries, as the maintenance of public order could not be entrusted ‘to those who did not work for the State or those not subject to the discipline of the armed services’. Primo de Rivera took this disappointment well, as he told journalists afterwards in the Puerta del Sol that Lerroux had acted vigorously to defend the unity of Spain. Although sporadic gunfire could still be heard in the city, the public came out to applaud Lerroux as he made his way home that evening. In scenes reminiscent of 14 April 1931, his car could barely move as it attempted to leave the Puerta del Sol; the prime minister shook hands, waved and made himself hoarse shouting cries to Spain and the Republic.7

The Consequences of October

This spontaneous tribute was the first of many. With leftist deputies absent, the Cortes met on 9 October to pass unanimously credits to increase police numbers; the first vote of confidence in the government was also approved amid cheers from even the monarchist benches. The end of the Asturian revolt a week later produced public demonstrations of support for the prime minister and the forces of law and order throughout Spain. As the saviour of the Republic and democracy, countless local councils named Lerroux their ‘adoptive son’ and ‘honoured citizen’. Various well-off supporters organised a public subscription for the Radical leader with a target of one million pesetas. This was a kind and extremely timely gesture, as Lerroux’s personal finances had been much eroded by a focus on politics and largesse on a grand scale to party friends and acquaintances. Such was the prime minister’s popularity that the original figure was easily surpassed, and Lerroux donated much money to those who fought the revolution, as well as the widows and orphans of those who died for Republican democracy. He also contributed to the reconstruction of areas – principally Asturias – that suffered physical damage as a consequence of the socialist-led insurrection. For a romantic revolutionary like Lerroux, the scale of destruction in Oviedo was a shock. In a visit to the Asturian capital, he thundered against the material ‘attack . . . against art, against science, against religion, against tradition, against wealth, against work, against all the spiritual values that make up the patrimony of civilised Humanity’. He was referring to the attacks on educational establishments like the university and its library, the cathedral, the episcopal palace, the Campoamor Theatre and the provincial branch of the Bank of Spain that was successfully broken into ‘with the deliberate . . . intention to force open its deposit boxes for the millions [of pesetas] that they contained’.8

Albeit at a heavy price, the suppression of the revolution had positive consequences. With the exception of continuing clashes with rebel bands in the mountains of Asturias and León, and the frequent discovery of arms, money and jewels stashed by the revolutionaries, political violence declined markedly. Confidence in the economy also rose, and investment rebounded strongly, although continuing doubts about political stability –the socialists after all remained the main party of opposition – meant that it remained lower than before 1931. Although no political organisation had been illegalised, Julián Besteiro’s efforts to persuade the PSOE to abandon the revolutionary road were fruitless; more generally, the extreme left and the Esquerra also remained outside the realms of constitutional politics. The left republican parties did return to parliament some weeks later, but few forgot their permissive attitude towards the revolt.

There was no credible alternative to the ruling centre-right bloc. The dramatic events of October completed the Radical Party’s conversion to conservatism. Irrespective of previous electoral pledges and the ‘outsider’ backgrounds of its leaders, the revolution had fundamentally changed the landscape of Spanish politics; the Radicals now firmly identified with other moderate republicans and rightists. The prospect of sharing power with the left republicans was unthinkable barely a year after it had briefly taken place.

Polarisation between revolutionary and anti-revolutionary camps intensified over the punishments meted out to the rebels. For Lerroux, exile normally followed failed insurrections, but few insurgent leaders imitated the examples of Indalecio Prieto and Josep Dencás, councillor of the interior in the Catalan regional government. The police had netted not just the Workers’ Alliance revolutionary committee (including its chief Largo Caballero), but also the leaders of the Asturian rising. In addition, Manuel Azaña was arrested in Barcelona accused of being the head of the provisional government cited by Companys on 6 October. This claim did not lack foundation. At a public meeting on 30 August, the former prime minister called for a revolt if the CEDA entered the cabinet, and his close friend and confidant Carlos Esplá had joined Dencás military committee. Azaña only pulled out of the insurrection in Catalonia when he became alarmed at its increasingly separatist character.9

The sheer number of armed rebels caught by the authorities in Asturias, Catalonia, Madrid, and the Basque Country and elsewhere made matters more difficult for the government. Asturias witnessed open warfare with 4,286 dead and wounded. Attacks on property in rebel held territory was common, and around fifty priests, policemen and rightists had been murdered. Military courts and emergency tribunals permitted under the terms of the Public Order Act of 1933 worked hard to process the thousands of cases, but unsurprisingly mass trials could take weeks if not months. Nevertheless, the military courts produced the first 23 death sentences that October.

Those passed against Catalan police commanders, and especially against Enrique Pérez Farrás, the man who led the defence of the Catalan government building, provoked the most political controversy. An aggravating factor in his case was the killing of one government soldier and the wounding of two others during surrender negotiations. Article 102 of the Constitution allowed the government to request a presidential pardon based on a Supreme Court ruling but Lerroux and his ministers decided against clemency. Although the prime minister did not support the application of the death penalty in civil trials, he was a firm advocate of its use in military courts. Even in his revolutionary days, Lerroux remembered what had happened during the First Republic, when its abolition sparked the collapse of military discipline and intensified the conflicts within Spain and Cuba. While the prime minister had the backing of other centre-right leaders, the left mobilised to save the lives of those facing a firing squad. The existence of such a campaign indicated that Republican democracy was still very much alive despite the imposition of martial law, and Lerroux was placed in an awkward position when he received a visit –‘almost an assault’ in his recollection – of Farrás’ family accompanied by the daughter of the recently deceased catalanist icon Francesc Maciá. The pleas of the condemned man’s wife and daughter visibly touched the prime minister, but Lerroux remained firm in his refusal to grant clemency.

Farrás’ relatives had better luck with Alcalá-Zamora. Although the president also supported the death penalty in military trials, he feared that executions would only create martyrs and discredit the Republic in the same way that the lack of mercy shown to its own heroes Galán and Hernández after the Jaca uprising of December 1930 had delegitimised the monarchy. He called on Lerroux and reminded the prime minister of Sanjurjo’s pardon earlier that year. The Radical leader refused to accept the comparison with Farrás, as the August 1932 coup had caused no deaths. While Lerroux understood Alcalá-Zamora’s concerns, he argued that the sheer scale of the revolutionary violence of October meant that clemency would be misconstrued as weakness, if only because the insurrection’s leaders had yet to show any remorse for their actions. Indeed, the socialists and their allies openly celebrated the attempt to rid Spain of ‘fascism’ and did not repudiate future revolutionary action.

Dealing with the penal consequences of the revolt overshadowed the other work of the government and undermined its cohesion. Its priorities were economic recovery, balanced budgets and constitutional reform, as from December 1935 the original text could be amended by a simple parliamentary majority. But Alcalá-Zamora used the Farrás affair to shake the unity of the ruling centre-right coalition. After submitting Samper to an interminable speech in the Presidential Palace, the Foreign minister cracked and called for Farrás to be pardoned. In order to keep his Radical colleague in government, Lerroux referred the case to the Supreme Court but the nation’s most senior magistrates confirmed the original death sentence. The president, determined to save the Republic from the apparition of catalanist martyrs – the Esquerra had already labelled Farrás as the ‘hero of Catalan freedoms’ – was not to be outdone. On 31 October, he ignored constitutional propriety and told the cabinet that public opinion expected Farrás to be spared as passions had cooled. Alcalá-Zamora fretted about the impact of the left’s campaigns for clemency in Spain and abroad, and pointed to Fernando de los Ríos’ mobilisation of international socialist opinion against the government. If the civil leaders of the insurrection were to be shown mercy, the head of state told his ministers, it would be impolitic not to show the same grace to its military commanders. In any case, the president announced that he had the right to issue a pardon, and did not accept the Supreme Court’s ruling. If the government refused to change its position, he threatened, another government would be found. To the frustration of his coalition partners, Lerroux gave way, and pardons were granted to Farrás and twenty others. In the end, only two executions took place for the murder of policemen.10

Alcalá-Zamora’s interest in Farrás was strictly political. A few months later on 1 February 1935, a military court condemned to death Diego Vázquez, a sergeant who deserted to command one of the rebel columns in Asturias. Lerroux sought to pass responsibility for a pardon to the president in order to save his administration. The cabinet referred the case to the Supreme Court, which confirmed the original verdict. Yet to the prime minister’s surprise, Alcalá-Zamora did not intervene and the execution went ahead. He realised that the head of state’s vaunted humanitarianism was merely a tactic to ensure his popularity among Catalan nationalists. Nonetheless, Vázquez’s fate was an exception. The Farrás case created a precedent and by the spring of 1935, the public clamour for firmness had diminished. Lerroux felt a ‘spiritual conflict’ in approving death sentences ‘coldly against the pity and horror of the entire country that previously demanded implacable justice’. He also did not want Alcalá-Zamora, who was prepared to intervene to save the lives of socialist rebel leaders, to monopolise the politics of compassion. The next crisis over a death sentence was not long in coming. Predictably, a military tribunal decided that the socialist Ramón González Peña should die for leading the revolt in Asturias. Lerroux secured the support for a pardon among his Radical ministerial colleagues, although he had a harder time convincing his parliamentary party. Yet on 29 March 1935, the three CEDA ministers resigned in protest, and the government collapsed.11

A Reforming Government

The departure of CEDA’s ministers over pardons was predictable given the pressure placed on Gil-Robles by monarchists over the preceding five months. On 5 November 1934, a Calvo Sotelo-inspired parliamentary debate over the Samper government’s failure to prevent the insurrection prompted the CEDA leader to demand the heads of Lerroux’s now foreign minister and war minister Diego Hidalgo. The prime minister acquiesced, and he decided to the take on the war ministry himself, finally satisfying the ‘rather puerile’ and frustrated military ambitions of his youth. He may not have had the technical background for the post, but Lerroux identified more with the military than any other republican leader. He saw it as his mission ‘to restore their morale, to rise their depressed sense of internal satisfaction’ following Azaña’s bruising tenure of office. He was optimistic, for as well as having ‘authority and prestige’ as prime minister, his party was popular with the army.¹²

In this as in other matters, Lerroux had to overcome the thorny problem of Alcalá-Zamora if he was going to bring back into active service those officers deemed by Azaña as too ‘lukewarm’ towards the Republic. The first clash was over general Millán Astray, the founder of the Spanish Legion. When the president objected, Lerroux pointed to his many war wounds ‘in service of the Patria’ where ‘the bullets did not discern whether he was a republican or a monarchist’. The prime minister then decorated generals Batet and López-Ochoa, commanders of the operations in Catalonia and Asturias respectively, and (more controversially) Franco, who directed the military campaign against the insurgents. He also made the future Caudillo head of the Army of Africa, as well as bringing Joaquín Fanjul and Emilio Mola back into the fold. Lower down the ranks, Lerroux restored to the air force Franco’s brother Ramón, the once revolutionary pilot of 1930–31. None of this implies that openly republican officers fell into disfavour; on the contrary, many were promoted and given prestigious postings. Lerroux only wanted to base appointments on merit rather than politics.

So rather than seeing the prime minister’s policy towards the military as the triumph of reaction, it reflected his deep conviction that the Spanish army still possessed ‘a frankly liberal spirit’. Lerroux assumed that the majority of the officer corps were ‘indifferent to the form of government’ with only a minority divided among monarchists and republicans, ‘the latter being much smaller in number than the former’. Given this state of affairs, he argued, the idea of making the army ‘fervently republican’ was a ‘ridiculous pretension ’. Lerroux was only thankful that it ‘had not turned firmly monarchist’ by the time Azaña left the war ministry. He was neither naïve nor intent on handing over the military to the Republic’s enemies. Broadly speaking, the command structure inherited in 1933 remained unchanged. The prime minister simply wanted to address grievances thereby winning over ‘the liberal . . . majority, indifferent to the different forms of government’, in order to neutralise the two politicised wings of the military. By treating officers with intelligence and empathy, ‘one can obtain the loyalty of gentlemen and veterans, and the obedience of both the mature noble officer and the young generation coming up in the new atmosphere of loyalty to the Republic in the military academies’.13

Apart from a revised appointments policy, Lerroux’s other proposals for military reform reveal a modernising vision equal or even superior to that of Azaña. He envisioned a reorganised and professionalised unified national police force based on the Civil Guard, the creation of a fully integrated national defence ministry, the establishment of a motorised brigade, a state monopoly on the manufacture and sale of arms and most ambitiously of all, a feasibility study into one of his long-standing pet projects, the construction of an underground tunnel that would link the peninsula with north Africa through the Strait of Gibraltar.¹⁴ But given the multiple demands on the old man’s time, these ideas remained on paper.

A more pressing concern was Catalonia. The revolt by the Esquerra placed Lerroux in a difficult situation. The region was under martial law, but the prime minister had pledged in his 6 October manifesto to preserve Catalan autonomy. He could not easily restore the regional parliament, as its leader and the majority of its deputies had supported the seditious movement. His alternative was a transitory administration approved by the Cortes in January 1935. This was run by a governor general who exercised the powers of the Generalidad with the assistance of an executive council composed by centre-right politicians. This improvisation gave the Cortes an opportunity to revise the 1932 Catalan Statute and repatriate certain powers such as policing. The government did not suspend autonomy, and the commission entrusted with transferring non-affected services to Barcelona continued to operate.15

The prime minister selected Manuel Portela Valladares, a former Liberal minister and Barcelona civil governor before 1923, for the post of governor general. They had met in the Catalan capital in 1910 and remained in friendly contact until the 1920s. They bumped into each other again while on holiday in Galicia during the summer of 1933, and Lerroux thought him ideal for the post some eighteen months later. He regarded the former monarchist as precisely the kind of politician that the Republic needed in 1935 because of his ‘experience and [comfortable] economic background, which protected him against wickedness’ as well as being an ‘skilful, energetic and active’ man who ‘knew well the social and special problems of Catalonia’.¹⁶ In other words, as a seasoned non-party figure, Portela could bring together all sides in the Catalan imbroglio, and indeed, he carried out his duties as governor general with such success that he obtained the post of interior minister in April 1935.

Portela became part of a minority Radical administration under Lerroux, which took office during the parliamentary recess. Although Alcalá-Zamora hoped that the prime minister would govern again without the CEDA, Lerroux only saw it as an interim measure while he negotiated a new pact with Gil-Robles. Just before the opening of the parliamentary session in May, a relieved Radical leader announced that the CEDA would contribute five ministers to a new coalition government and for the first time, Gil-Robles took office as war minister to demonstrate definitively the legalism of the Catholic right. Both Lerroux and Gil-Robles assumed that the CEDA leader would take over the premiership after he had proved his loyalty to the Republic as the civilian head of the army. Inevitably, the president attempted to dissuade the Radical leader from sharing power by raising the spectre of the leftist reaction. But Lerroux did not retreat. This was a key feature of the prime minister’s plan to integrate the conservatives within the Republic. As early as December 1934, he had warned his parliamentary party that the Radicals would have to back a Gil-Robles government as a reward for the CEDA’s backing during the previous twelve months.

Lerroux also took the opportunity to incorporate veteran leaders of the old Liberal Party into his administration. Apart from the political experience that they provided, their followers bolstered a Radical Party still recovering from the loss of Martínez Barrio’s followers the previous year. In particular, the former monarchist minister Joaquín Chapaprieta accompanied Portela into government as finance minister. Since Lerroux wanted to balance the books, he needed an expert to work out the details of the necessary tax rises and spending cuts. As a former Liberal himself, Alcalá-Zamora was – for once – delighted with the Radical leader’s choice of ministers, and the presence of Portela and Chapaprieta in the cabinet softened the blow of the disintegration of his dream of a Radical-led ‘conciliation government’ that included Martínez Barrio.17

Lerroux’s determination to overcome the president’s opposition to the CEDA did not however signify that he wished to eliminate Alcalá-Zamora’s influence on government policy. Even as the two men quarrelled over pardons in the autumn of 1934, the prime minister wanted the head of state to play an active role in constitutional reform. Taking advantage of this, the president presented a detailed set of proposals to the first three cabinet meetings of 1935. In response, the Radical leader appointed an inter-party ministerial committee to harmonise Alcalá-Zamora’s suggestions with those of the ruling centre-right coalition. Led by Joaquín Dualde, the Liberal Democrat education minister, it issued a report that was approved by the government on 13 June and presented to parliament three weeks later. The reform bill was a substantial piece of legislation, affecting 41 of the most controversial articles of the Constitution. It proposed to abolish the anticlerical clauses, as well as reaffirming the rights of property. It also envisaged a wide-ranging transformation of the Republic’s political architecture with the creation of a Senate, the re-centralisation of tax-raising powers and the policing, and a clearer demarcation of the powers of the Republican president, government and parliament. The bill passed to committee stage, with a revised text due to ready for further parliamentary scrutiny in 1936. In the meantime, the administration set itself the task of revising the electoral law, and provincial and local government regulations; the latter was approved with the intention of holding municipal elections by the end of 1935.¹⁸

This ambitious reform programme was predicated on the stability of the centre-right government, and that summer few believed that it was in imminent danger. The Radicals remained its hub. It was the second largest parliamentary grouping in the Cortes, essential for any viable ruling coalition. The party also controlled most of the provincial administrations and about a third of local councils. Yet its greatest asset remained Lerroux. His personal relationship with Gil-Robles cemented the political compact between the Radicals and the CEDA. This was ‘considerate’ and ‘affectionate’ with ‘mutually recognised courtesies’ that reflected Lerroux’s typically paternalistic style with a man half his age. The best example of this was a public tribute to Gil-Robles in Salamanca on 23 June. Addressing the audience, Lerroux explained that his concordat with the Catholic right was not opportunistic but rather an instrument that would guarantee the much coveted consolidation of the Republic. ‘I will not abandon this coalition’, he promised, if the conservatives ‘continue to collaborate with me’. Furthermore, he stressed that the entente between the two parties should be extended at provincial and local level to ensure that both parliament and the president complete their terms of office.19

For Lerroux, this happy outcome could only come to pass if the CEDA became republican through constitutional reform and Alcalá-Zamora accepted Gil-Robles as prime minister. Achieving the latter was more difficult. Quite apart from the president’s frequent interference in the business of government, the CEDA leader became tired of Alcalá-Zamora’s manifest hostility towards him. While Lerroux partly attributed the less than harmonious relationship between Gil-Robles and Alcalá-Zamora to the former’s youth and political inexperience, he held the veteran president primarily responsible. Lerroux could not understand why the head of state, despite being more right-wing than himself, derided the CEDA leader as a ‘dangerous reactionary’. The Radical leader also believed that Gil-Robles had more than demonstrated that such insults were unjust, and that only the experience of government would allow the CEDA to abandon its ‘doctrinal rigidities’, acquire ‘versatility’ and definitively join the Republic. Being rightist should be no barrier for a party in a liberal democracy, as it was only natural that ‘the [political] pendulum’ would later resume its ‘synchronic swing’ and lead to more leftist governments. The constitutional crisis of April 1934, Lerroux argued, was a warning that Alcalá-Zamora’s continued use of the presidential prerogative against the CEDA could create a ‘dangerous political situation’. The prime minister also watched with dismay as the president continued to dabble in the internal affairs of the parties, noticing how Alcalá-Zamora attempted to cultivate Giménez Fernández, the CEDA agriculture minister in October 1934, insinuating on various occasions that he was a possible future prime minister. Allergic to large and disciplined parties that reduced his political room for manoeuvre, the president seemed to be looking for a Martínez Barrio of the CEDA.20

Loyal Collaboration

The centre-right coalition looked firm. On 9 September 1935, Gil-Robles responded to Lerroux’s gesture in Salamanca with a public telegram of support. Read out at a Radical Party meeting in Barcelona, it referred to their alliance as ‘loyal collaboration’ for a common undertaking that ‘being national is above party differences or interests’. For the prime minister, these words confirmed that his parliamentary majority was secure. The president remained the problem. Alcalá-Zamora saw the consolidation of the ruling bloc as a threat to the exercise of his powers. He ceased to regard Lerroux’s Radical Party as a possible instrument of political change, dismissing the still republican party as just another liberal-conservative entity. For the president, his prime minister had damned himself on 25 August with a speech in Baños de Montemayor, when Lerroux ruled out announcing any agreements with the socialists or their republican allies. Far from convincing Alcalá-Zamora to bow to the inevitable and accept the CEDA leader as a future prime minister, the public declarations of unity between Lerroux and Gil-Robles only served to intensify Alcalá-Zamora’s fears that he was being forced to submit to the latter to prevent a dissolution of parliament.²¹

The president’s response to Lerroux’s efforts at reconciliation was correspondingly blunt: he sought to undermine the prime minister’s leadership of the Radicals as a means to decouple the party from the CEDA. The president made ever more indiscrete comments to Radical ministers about their boss in a clumsy attempt to ferment internal dissent. He also warned conservative leaders against working too closely with the veteran politician, as the ‘moral infection’ that afflicted the Radicals could strike their parties too. Alcalá-Zamora was prepared to grasp at any straw to discredit his prime minister.²²