On April 14, 1931, the monarchy was overthrown in Spain and the so - called Second Republic (1931-1939) was proclaimed. An article by Alfred Stirner, a prominent functionary of the Comintern (CI) and a member of the CI Executive Committee, is devoted to the initial events of its history. In 1931, as a representative of the CI, he was in Spain, where he was even arrested for radical actions. Given this radicalism, Voog-Stirner would undoubtedly have fallen victim to the" great terror "if he had not returned to his homeland in 1935, where he took a prominent place in the communist movement and died safely in the status of a prominent functionary of the Swiss Workers' Party.

The Spanish Revolution of 1931 overthrew King Alfonso XIII (1886-1941). During the First World War, this monarch, despite his Germanophilism, still resisted the temptation to join Spain to the coalition of the Central Powers, and therefore avoided the shameful defeat of 1918. However, the country has not been able to fully take advantage of its neutrality. The crisis caused by the final collapse of the Spanish colonial empire, which also occurred during the reign of Alfonso XIII (1898 - the Spanish-American War and the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines), and the inability of the ruling class to carry out a full-scale modernization of the country, led the monarchy step by step to collapse. It was only delayed for a few years by the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) and his successors, General D. Berenguer (1873-1953) and Admiral J. - B. Aznar - Cabanes (1860-1933).

After the decisive victory of supporters of the Republic in most major cities in the municipal elections in April 1931, which effectively turned into a referendum on the fate of the monarchy, the fate of the latter was sealed. A Revolutionary Committee composed of prominent Republicans (established in 1930) demanded the abdication of the king, who was accused of sympathizing with the dictatorship. Alfonso XIII submitted and emigrated, and a Provisional Republican Government was formed in Madrid.

* This pseudonym was used to hide the Swiss communist Edgar Voog (1898-1973).

It was headed by the prominent liberal, former minister and moderate Republican leader Niceto Alysala Zamora y Torres (1877-1949), who later became the first president of the Spanish Republic (1931-1936). The Government consisted of moderate Republicans (the right-wing Republican Party, the Republican Radical Party) and leftists (the Republican Action Party and the Republican Radical Socialist Party), as well as Socialists (the Spanish Socialist Workers ' Party (PSOE)) and nationalists-the Catalan Republican Action Party and the Autonomous Galician Republican Organization. Among the other ministers mentioned in the article were the founder and leader of the Republican Radical Party Alejandro Lerru Garcia (1864-1949) (Minister of State), as well as the prominent socialist Indalecio Prieto Tuero (1883-1962) (Minister of Finance).

The Constituent Cortes elected on June 28 (their chairman was also the socialist Julian Besteiro Fernandez (1870-1940), who also appeared in the article) On December 9 of the same year, the Cortes adopted the Constitution of the country, which established the foundations of the republican system, but did not solve the most acute problems facing Spain. That is why the first months of the revolution were a time of steady rise in the influence of the left - especially the PSOE, one of the leaders of which was Francisco Largo Caballero (1869-1946) mentioned in the article. An important part of the left-wing movement was also the Catalan Socialists-including those mentioned in the text of F. Masia and H. Murin. Francesc Macia (1859-1933), who was one of the founders of the parties "Catalan State" (Estat Catala) and the Republican Left Party of Catalonia, in 1931 proclaimed the Catalan Republic in Barcelona and headed the government of autonomous Catalonia - Generalitat. He also led the work on the constitution of autonomous Catalonia-the" Catalan Statute", proclaimed in 1932. Joaquin Maurin (1896-1973), a prominent Trotskyist, was the founder and leader of the Workers ' Party of Marxist Unity (POUM), the most influential party on the Catalan left.

Outside the first republican governments, the Communist Party of Spain (leader - Jose Bullejos (1899 - 1975)), which emerged from the underground in 1931, was created in 1921 and banned in 1923. Due to the repressions of the "general dictatorship" period, the CPI did not have mass support even among the workers, which was completely dominated by anarchists and their trade union, the National Confederation of Labor (established in 1910). Nevertheless, the party leadership was re-elected in 1932. General Secretary X. Bullejos and his supporters, who were criticized by the ECCI, were removed from the Central Committee, and the party was led by Marshal Jose Diaz (1896-1942), under whose leadership the CPI gained the status of one of the main political forces in the country and came to power in 1936 as part of the Popular Front.

However, these events occurred after A. Stirner's article was published.

Permanent link to this publication: