Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Spanish Civil War of 1936–9 , a conflict that saw Spanish democracy overthrown, was fought over many issues. One key component that bound the disparate forces of the Spanish right wing together was the perceived challenge to the unity of Spain, from both the Basque Country and Catalonia. The fear of territorial dismemberment expressed by broad swathes of the Spanish right reflected the acute anxiety within Spanish nationalism at the international status and position of Spain if it lost the important territories of Catalonia and the Basque Country. By the 1930s the Catalan national movement embodied in the project of Catalanism was in the ascendant, though a complex dynamic and conflict with the anarchist-led working class was apparent, above all in the city of Barcelona. Autonomy for Catalonia was obtained in 1932, though this measure was highly controversial and led to much anxiety on the part of the right at a perceived break-up of Spain and much anti-Catalan hysteria. Catalan society in the 1930s had four main political constituencies. There was a revolutionary left, in which the anarchist and anarchosyndicalist movement of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) was hegemonic. In this sector were also to be found other smaller forces of varied forms of socialism and communism. Catalanist liberals and a moderate left were led, above all, by Esquerra Republicana ... log in or subscribe to read full text