Party Republicin Radical — Wikipedia

The Radical republican party (in Spanish : Radical Republican Party ) is a Spanish political party founded by Alejandro Lerroux in 1908 in Santander and born of a split of the Republican Union of Nicolás Salmerón.

With indecisive ideological bases, the posture of the party passed from an initial radical and violent anticlericalism (he thus played an active role in the events of the tragic week of Barcelona in 1909) to a moderate republicanism and tinged with conservatism, which brought to collaborate under the Second Republic with the monarchical and denominational right represented by CEDA.

At the end of the reign of Alphonse XIII, the monarchical regime being in a deep crisis, the radical republican party was one of the main signatories of the Saint-Sébastien agreement, and participated as such in the provisional committee which ordered the abolition of the monarchy as well as to the provisional government which took over the new Republic to its proclamation April 14, 1931 .

During the first period of the new regime, the party occupied 89 seats with constituent cortes and proved, since its center-right position, the leader of opposition to the left-wing politics led by Azaña. He thus attracted certain moderate political figures, monarchists disillusioned since the advent of the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, like Santiago Alba Bonifaz.

After the 1933 elections, the right obtaining the majority, 104 seats being in particular won by the candidates of the radical republican party, he directed the government of the Republic, alone at first, but with the clear support of the CEDA by José María Gil-Robles, then in an open coalition with it.

During this mandate, he faced the October 1934 revolution, encouraged by the socialists, precisely in response to the participation of CEDA in the government, and which was particularly violent in the Asturias (see Asturienne Revolution), as well as to the simultaneous uprising of the generality of Catalonia and its president Lluís Companys, which brought a blow to the constitutional regime by unilaterally proclaiming the Catalan state within a Spanish Federal Republic. After regaining control of the rest of the country, the radical government had Companys arrested, suspected the institutions of generality and sent the legion to fight the insurrection of the Asturias, which was harshly repressed under the orders of the Franco General.

The radical governments succeeded each other, gradually undermined by the corruption scandals in which their leaders were involved (in particular that of the Straperlo), and with increasing difficulties in stabilizing an increasingly tense social and political situation, Until the triumph of the Coalition of the Popular Front in 1936, which gave power to the left.

Like all active political parties during the Republic except that of National Movement , Fet y de Las Jons, the radical republican party was prohibited after the victory of the nationalist camp in the civil war.

The party experienced various splits throughout its existence; two are in particular notable:

• In 1929, the most progressive sectors of the party, led by Marcelino Domingo, separated to found the Radical Socialist Republican Party, including a fraction (that led by Domingo himself) later joined the Republican left of Azaña.
• In April 1934 , while heading the Republican government, Diego Martínez Barrio, accompanied by the most centrist training officials, left the Radical Republican Party to found the Radical Democratic Party, which would later form the hard core of the new Republican Union. They thus expressed their disagreement with the most right of the party, which planned to continue to govern with the decisive support of CEDA.

The figures given indicate the number of deputies obtained in the congress during the various general elections.

Reign of Alphonse XIII

• 1910: 8
• 1914: 5
• 1916: 5
• 1918: 2
• 1919: 4
• 1920: 5
• 1923: 4

Second Republic

Bibliography [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

• (is) Octavio Ruiz-Manjón Cabezas, The Radical Republican Party (1908-1936) , Madrid, Tebas, 1976

Related articles [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

external links [ modifier | Modifier and code ]