Spain The
1933 general election of the
Second Spanish Republic, left-wing parties lost heavily, and the newly formed conservative
Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA), led by
José María Gil Robles, became the largest party with 115 seats in the
Cortes Generales. Nevertheless, incoming prime minister
Alejandro Lerroux formed a government which excluded CEDA and was dominated by his
Radical Republican Party (RRP), which came second place with 102 seats. Lerroux resigned in April 1934 to be replaced by
Ricardo Samper, a member of the RRP and one of his chief lieutenants. A summer of strikes and social conflict led Gil Robles to withdraw CEDA support from the Samper government and demand participation in government. President
Niceto Alcalá Zamora, unwilling to call new elections, instructed Lerroux to form a new government, which was announced on 4 October 1934 and included three CEDA members. Left-wing republicans denounced the "betrayal" of the Republic and the
General Union of Workers (UGT), a powerful
Marxist trade union, called a
general strike. On 5 October, the general strike began in places across Spain including
Madrid,
Seville,
Córdoba and
Zaragoza. There was fighting in some places, including
Mondragón and
Eibar in the
Basque Country. Outside of Catalonia, the only significant military action took place in
Asturias where, in the early hours of 6 October, activists took hold of
Avilés,
Gijón and the centre of
Oviedo, as well as Guardia Civil barracks in mining areas, beginning the
Asturian miners' strike of 1934 and the "
October Revolution".
Catalonia Following the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, a
Statute of Autonomy established Catalonia as an
autonomous region, but it was passed only after two important concessions that kept control of
taxation and education vested in Madrid. Elections were held in November 1932 to a new
Parliament of Catalonia, which were won by the
Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC), with
Francesc Macià becoming
President of Catalonia. In January 1933, the appointment of
Adolf Hitler as
Chancellor of Germany was met with anxiety by the Spanish left. Catalonia saw the formation of the (Workers' Alliance), an
anti-fascist organisation among whose aims was preparation for a revolution to establish a "
federal" Spanish republic. When Macià died at Christmas,
Lluís Companys was elected president of Catalonia a week later on 1 January 1934. The ERC won the Catalan election of 1934, bucking the trend in Spain where a shift to the right was the norm. The implementation of the Statute of Autonomy was seen to be threatened by the CEDA success in the 1933 election and its entry into government on 4 October 1934. In addition, the rejection by the
Constitutional Court of Spain of the emancipatory
Crop Contracts Law land reform passed by the Parliament of Catalonia on 14 April 1934, which protected the tenant farmers and granted access to the land they were cultivating, was seen as a direct attack to both social progress and Catalan self-government, thus rising tensions. On 5 October the general strike was declared in various Catalan towns, among them
Sabadell,
Vilanova i la Geltrú,
Granollers,
Mataró or
Badalona. Crowds of workers and peasants claimed for the proclamation of the Catalan Republic, a move that was approved by the city councils of some of the afformentioned towns, which proceeded to hoist the
estelada (Catalan pro-independence flag) and the
red flag from their balconies. ==6 October==