The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1322: The Spanish Civil War - Radicalizing a Moderate Socialist Pt. 1 of 2 - w/ Karl Dahl and Morghur

Episode Date: January 27, 2026

70 MinutesPG-13Karl Dahl is an author specializing in the Spanish Civil War and historical "fiction." Morghur lives in Spain and translates writings about the Spanish Civil War that are only available in Spanish.Karl returns and is joined by his compadre Morghur to continue a look into his "Anatomy of a Leftist" Substack series. In part one of this lengthy episode, they discuss Largo Caballero, who became Prime Minister of Spain three months into the conflict.Now and Then: Anatomy of a Leftist, Part 2Now and then: Women in the Spanish Civil WarFaction: With the CrusadersKarl's SubstackKarl's MerchPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's SubstackPete's SubscribestarPete's GUMROADPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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Subscribe Star. And if you do that, you will get access to the audio file. So head on over to the Pekino Show.com. You'll see all the ways that you can support me there. And I just want to thank everyone. It's because of you that I can put out the amount of material that I do. I can do what I'm doing with Dr. Johnson on 200 years together and everything else. the things that Thomas and I are doing together on continental philosophy.

It's all because of you. And yeah, I mean, I'll never be able to thank you enough. So thank you. The Pekingona Show.com. Everything's there. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekina Show. Carl Dahl's back. I'm going to talk some more Spanish Civil War.

Carl, how are you doing? Doing great. Thanks for having me. Why don't you introduce your friend? This is a gentleman you've introduced me. too and you've talked about in the past. So go right ahead. Great. I will lead off and then hand it over. So my friend and correspondent Morgor, who's a writer and artist from Spain, who I've been collaborating with on a series of articles on my substack,

the now and then series. Really great content that he's been providing. And a lot of it is a a Spanish orientation that often doesn't show up in, you know, the English language material that comes up, but is fairly well known in Spain, easily accessible. And so a lot of the material that I've been able to provide in the last, like, what is it, six, eight, you know, six to eight months or so on this topic has been with Morgre. So welcome and please introduce yourself as much as you want to. Well, hello, it is, well, I can't deny, I'm a little bit nervous because I don't appear in podcast that much, but I am Morgor. I'm from Spain. I draw, I write, I have aspirations as an artist, but very humble. And this series of articles about the Spanish Civil War, initially there were, it was kind of a niche interest because, When I studied Spanish history in high school and later,

the Civil War and the period of the dictatorship was very glossed over. It was usually at the end of the academic year, so teachers wanted to get it done as quickly as possible. And essentially, the general conception of the Spanish Civil War is that the legal legal peaceful and righteous republic, elected, left-leaning government, and some military people that were very evil, decided to take them down. That is the general widespread idea that happened. But if you look deeper,

if you go beyond the surface, you start noticing a lot of discrepancies, a lot of information that there is evidence and retellings not only of historians or like individuals that are obscure. No, that, for example, a lot of evidence of the public disturbances that took place during 36 come from the president of the government. No, president of parliament, Nizetal-Kal-Garza-Mora. He literally said the left manipulated the elections and there there is why. widespread banditry and riots in Spain. And it is amazing that a lot of people don't know about it. And to a certain degree, I think this is kind of a public service announcement,

especially when so many people talk about civil war. This is the situation like the Spanish Civil War relating to a lot of things that are happening right now. Great. All right. So thank you. What we're going to do here is for some of our listeners, just to be clear, we're going to be walking through this article in particular, as well as sprinkling in some additional commentary. It is now and then, anatomy of a leftist part two, Francisco Largo Caballero, the radicalization of a moderate socialist. And that was kind of my own spin on the language based on the reading, you know, because I think it tells a clear story as to kind of how we get here. Some people might characterize it slightly differently, be less charitable.

But I think, you know, it makes sense for this framing and understanding, you know, the conflagration in Spain. So, you know, folks who are just listening, we're not going to be lingering on, you know, images and the like too much. We'll focus on the text and commentary. So, Morgar introduced the piece that I edited down. Part of it was because there are, that there's information that is, pretty obvious that you can state in a very direct way and move on in Spanish, or I should say for a Spanish audience, that I have to explain more for Americans. And sometimes I'm like, I kind of know what that is, but I have to look at up. Yeah. If you need more information, context or whatever, just ask me, I would be glad to share my question. Absolutely. Yeah. And we're, We have another piece that will be coming up, which is about that Morgoor wrote that I just started on, which is very good and I'm very excited to publish it.

It's about the Servicio de Intelligencia Militar, the Military Intelligence Service of the Republic, which almost immediately was co-opted by the communists of the NKVD from control of the socialist government. it's very interesting. So Morgor likes to start with a quote, whether it's biblical or from literature. And in this piece, Anatomy of a Leftist Part 2, and the devil who deceived them was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night forever and ever, and that's from Revelation 2010.

So the, I think the way to summarize Francisco Largo Caballero and feel free to jump in is that he was a fellow coming from circumstances that were very common in Spain. And one of the themes that can be a little challenging sometimes with an American audience that like our friend Thomas 777 always talks about is that the conditions on the ground like politically and economically for the working class in America were very different than that in Europe. And so the whole reason fascism is a thing or was a thing in Europe, but never was really, I mean, I can say at the time of the communist uprisings really necessary in America was because the conditions weren't ripe in America to require a counter movement to address. a lot of the things that would appeal to, you know, the lower classes in Europe because we had means, you know, economic and political that were not necessarily as available. We were much more enfranchised. And again, it depends on where you're at in Spain, where people would feel less enfranchised versus more enfranchised. Yes, yes. in the north because i think you said it in in the talk you had with astral i listened to it it was it was very good uh just the plug here but the thing is that um of course it's easily

understandable for me because i'm from spain i know my in my country better than you and you know your country better than me so you have to understand that at the time um a lot of people I also have to explain the the Latin industrialization model that to summarize is like people say that in Latin countries and Latin I mean Spain, Portugal, Italy, the Mediterranean nations. Industrialization is a much slower process

and comes with a greater deal of challenges in order to achieve that level of proper industrialization. So the thing that, that happened is that at the time, Spain was still industrializing. And there was a transition that was steady, but of course it led to a lot of conflict in factories and production areas, mainly in Basque Country, where most founders of Spain are, in Asturias, where most mining operations were, not right now. But the greatest problem in Spain was in Andalus. And it is because most of the land in Andalusia belonged back then, belonged to the nobility. They had huge

properties for vineyards or olive trees. And that meant that the people only worked during the harvest. There was a lot of work during the harvest. And the rest of the year, if you were a normal person, you had to scrape by with whatever you could. would have. So it was, you have to understand that a lot of people in Andalithia were dispossessed completely. Nobody offered anything. And also the same in Catalonia. Because I remember that you said that a lot of people were coming from the countryside. Something like that happened in Andalusia, they moved north. But in Catalonia, it was usually a tradition that if the father dies, the father of the family dies, the first son inherits everything and the others get nothing. So they have to

strike out on their own. And that made a lot of people from the countryside slowly move to the cities. And it fed a lot into the workers movement. That is why in Andalusia, the socialist and the anarchists were so big, why Catalonia is still to this day the main stronghold of the left in Spain. Well put. And it's interesting with Largo Caballero. So he was born in Madrid. And one of the things that I've seen, and I'd be interested in your perspective on this, but Madrid has is much more of a stronghold of like a state socialist vibe. And I think it's the fact that, you know, that's the seat of the national government. And my understanding and, from conversations I've had with people is that it's not, it's not the same thing as other places. It was created, it was instituted as the capital because it was in the middle of the country

and it was less, it developed less organically than say, you know, the countryside anywhere else or towns elsewhere. And would you say that's a fair characterization that drove like state socialism versus anarchism in Madrid? To a certain degree, yes, because historically the capital of Spain was Toledo. It was the main city. And Madrid is just a little bit further north from Toledo.

Yeah. But the thing is that is like you say, a lot of the development in Madrid is, it's not organic. It is heavily promoted by the government because, of course, the capital and the parliament and the royal palace, everything is in there. So, of course, the seat of power is going to try to grow as large as possible in order to provide for all of the people living there. The thing is that in terms of socialism and anarchism, back then, with the huge development and especially with the industry,

it led to a lot of people, a lot of conflict with four men's business. mainly. The thing is that anarchism and socialism, I don't want to say that they specifically deviated that much because initially they worked together and it was after the radicalization that they split apart. So initially they had like a common front. They worked very well together. And it was later when they split apart. The socialists wanted to still negotiate it. they still wanted to work with the government. And the anarchist said, no, we have to kill them all. Very well put.

Yeah, that's very good to explain. I try not to put my Putin hat on and go too far back. But do you think that my understanding is a lot of that split that in Spain, the non-Marxist state socialists and the anarchists kept more of a thread together with one another, despite what was going on in the Second International. Would you say that's a fair characterization from your understanding? On the anarchist side, I'm not so sure, but on the socialist side, yes, because the thing that happened very, very peculiar is that with the second international, actually Largo Caballero distance itself from the international.

That's right. That's right. Yeah, he moved aside. The problem is that as things developed later on, he saw, okay, I have been in politics for nearly 50 years and I have achieved very little. I have to do something like right now. And I think that is an important part that drove him towards the collaboration with the communist. But still, inside the Socialist Party, even to the end of the war, there was a sector that was actively anti-Marxist. And it was led by Julian Besteiro, really interesting guy as well. Yeah, that's right. So, you know, there's so much to explore in this topic. I'll take my Putin hat off and hang it up, but keep it handy because this is great color. Thank you very much. So Largo

Cabiero was born. As you pointed out, he was in politics for a very long time. How long? He was born in 1869 in Madrid. His parents divorced four years after his birth, so mother and son were on their own. They moved to Granada. His mother worked in an inn. Largo Caballero began to attend school, and then they were forced to return to Madrid and live with a relative a year later. So at age seven, Largo Cabiero left school. At age seven, and went to work first as an apprentice and a cardboard fact.

and then as a rope maker. At the age of nine, he transitioned into working as a plasterer, which paid much better. Yeah, considering a lot better here as a salary of the time here on 15 pesetas compared to the average two pesetas. Oh, wow. That's a huge difference. But it was variable demand. So would you characterize it as seasonal work?

Kind of, yeah, because in the... Yeah, because it depended on like redevelopments on houses as well as expansions. Like they get a theater and they need one. And it's essentially, once the work is done, you never know when you're going to go back to work. And that's true. And that kind of irregularity in work demand for Slago Cavalier to take other works. like he was a fruit salesman, he was a construction worker, he was a farm hand, a lot of things. So the interesting thing is for those who who participated or who listened to the shows that Pete and I did

about kind of the 19th century leftist movements, this will make sense. So Largo Cabier was growing up in this era of opening in Spain or political loose where the Cortes is getting a little more powerful and there's more of a diversity of political movements. The left is growing as a movement. Yeah, it grew immensely. And it just started right then. Yes, it was brand new and it had explosive growth. But the Cortes was essentially keeping a lid on a lot of the,

potential conflict through the Terno Pacifico, the kind of handing off in a regular, like, metered fashion between the kind of institutionalized conservative and liberal parties. Yeah, and the thing is that it wasn't exactly handed down. It's because there was constant election manipulation. So to ensure that the opposite won. in order to ensure that, okay, I'm done here, now it's your turn. Amusing. It is very funny.

So in 1890, Largo Cabiero makes his first contact with the socialist movement. And this is really interesting because there's a current here where Largo Cabiero is, he seems like instinctually, his social. Socialism is instinctual more than it's super ideological and based on thought reading and being persuaded by raw ideas. Although, of course, it would appeal to him being a worker who's had this very tough, unsteady existence and just the unsureity of how he grew up. And also consider that Largo Cavalera didn't finish his studies. because he left the school, he had to learn how to read and write later in life. Excellent. So he encounters the political movement created by the politician Pablo Iglesias Posse. Posse, Posse. I had to include his full name because if today you look for public

Iglesis in Google. You will get the picture of a guy that looks like a hippie with a ponytail. Because he's a singer, right? No, it's the founder of another left-wing party. Okay. Yeah, that it happened like in 2012, 2010. Around that time, he founded a new political party, and now he has gone the way of the dodo because his second in command kicked him out. Oh, that's funny. Yeah, it's amusing. So that this follows, this party in 1890 that Largo Cabiero encounters follows the pattern that's really important to understand in Spanish political parties

is that there's a general workers union, Union General de Trabadores, UGT. And then the PSOE, you can say it. Pesoe of Partido Socialist Obrero-Spaniel. If you want to know, they are still in the elections and they are the current ruling party in Spain. And that is the Spanish Workers Socialist Party. Yes. And so the labor union has a corresponding political party. And so you can be...

So Largo Cabiero joins the UGT General Union for Construction Workers, but then they have subunions, based on your specialties. It's the, oh my, the word is escaping me. It's a syndicalist model. Yes, yes. Because in Spain, the unions are called syndicato. So it is essentially the same thing. And then the syndicalista becomes like a code word for like the street fighters later.

once we get into the 20s, the teams in 20s. Yeah, once that time comes, the syndicalists were essentially the newly ascribed to the UGT. So they were the new guys and they put them to the test. Interesting. That's also the code word for a, like a star 32 automatic from the era, because that was the main pistol that the syndicalists used for, fighting. Damn. Yeah.

Wow. That is amazing. So it's interesting. Largo Cabiero described this encounter. He attended a speech by Pablo Iglesias, Posse, who explained the great advantage of worker unions and organizations, and Largo Cabiero later described it as light piercing the darkness. So 1890, he joins the UGT. 1993, he formally joins the PSOE political party.

So again, to reiterate, he had a distinct lack of a formal education, had to learn later on. He'd only ever read the most basic Marxist texts. I get the feeling that he would have dealt with like tracts and then news articles. Yes, his main source of. kind of ideology, political leanings or, you know, the ideas that he wanted to defend and all that. He got it mainly through reading news articles that were written by other socialists, but mainly by Pablo Iglesias, who was a journalist, by the way. Ah, okay. That makes sense because then the political parties would have their own newspapers as well, so it would be reading. It is amazing to know how many left-wing people,

of the time were journalists. Gasp. Like Dolores Ibarrui was a journalist, Santiago Carrillo was a journalist, in the left of Prieto was a journalist, Pablo Iglesis was a journalist. It kind of makes sense. You see the same thing with the thought leaders in the 19th centuries. They were writers and they would get jobs as journalists

and get paid through the political parties. that way. So, you know, nothing new under the sun for the people who think that it's some new thing that journalism has been recently corrupted, not at all. Just remember, time moved forward. Nothing changes. Yes. Worth repeating. So, interestingly, in 1899, Largo Cabiero was put in charge of the UGT's treasury in an unpaid position. He still worked as a plasterer. And, And then he was elected as a speaker in the National Committee of the PSOE. In 1904, he becomes the UGT representative to the Social Reform Institute, which is interesting. It was created by a conservative politician Francisco Silvella as a joint operation between the government and workers' organizations with the intent of improving working conditions for Spanish workers.

This is something that is, it's so interesting that like the conservatives were doing this. And it gets back to the whole idea behind that that fascist instinct, you know, scare words, fascism. But in reality, it's trying to address the social question. It's the duty of the system and all the people in it to try to reconcile these things. for people, whereas the left, typically, like, the radicals use these things to stoke revolution, but these kind of institutional socialists want to reform them in a peaceful way, or just to get the results that they want, to be honest. Yeah, and in this case, you could kind of see it as the, that the,

conservatives were starting to see the rise of the socialists and they said okay now we have to tackle this issue this problem that we have in our hands and we better give them the tools to do it or else they will the problem will get much worse on a lot of a lot of ways because they were kind of you have to see that they have the liberal and the conservative and suddenly this guy this new guy appeared in their midst and And they were, we have to be a little bit careful with it. Yes. So they would want, they would want to have.

They would want to appease to them in order for, so they don't grow too big. Excellent. So it's interesting because in 1905, Largo Cabiero, Pablo Iglesias, and Raphael Garcia, who is another related fellow, successfully ran for positions in Madrid, local elections, as representatives of the socialist left. And this is when Largo Cabiero is at this point, 36 years of age in 1905, right? So that marks the end of his career as a plasterer and laborer, and now he's a full-time politician, which he will be until, you know, he's deposed. Yeah, until he's removed.

Yeah. So he fully dedicates himself to politics. He's making 50 pesetas and getting this from the Socialist Party of Madrid. This elevates him obviously in life. And he starts getting involved in negotiating strikes and working conditions with workers in the city. And then he becomes the vice president of the UGT in 1908. And then in the following year, he finds himself in jail for the first time related to a protest against essentially an escalation in Morocco. Yes, because there was, you could say there was also differences between the army.

At the time, the army is another question that would require another article. But I will keep it short, is that the army needed more effective in Morocco. They needed more staff. So they were essentially sending the garrison from the peninsula. The problem is that the garrison of the peninsula usually earn considerably less than active on-duty personnel in Morocco. And if they send them, they would still earn less than the active on-duty personnel destiny. Oops.

That's not a good plan. Yeah, that created a lot of content animosity and created two sides of the army, the Africanists and the reservists. Because the Africanists essentially saw their reservists. They were complacent that sitting in their barracks and just taking their money. While the others saw the Africanists as they got unfair positions, unfair merits and unfair. salaries just because they want to war which is a conflict that we saw for the following several decades yes very much excellent so in 1910 Largo Cabiero and Pablo Iglesias were elected to Parliament with the aid of center left parties so interestingly that the coalition the coalition election

are incredibly important. And Pablo Iglesias had been against this previously, but we see a lot of this moving forward in Spanish elections. And one small thing about in 1910 is because the conservatives were taking, were rising to power, especially Maura, you know. The band that was in charge of, of regenerating Spain. He was the kind of the tutor of Calvo Sotelo politically.

And it is in this time in 1910 where Pablo Iglesias literally said that Maura should be killed in parliament. And 15 days later, Maura would be gravely wounded by an anarchist gunman. The beginning of a pattern. Very interesting. I mean, you have to consider that. during the parliamentary monarchy, the anarchist murdered like four presidents and they made an attempt on the life of the king at his wedding. Consider that, let it sink. And this is so important for people to understand because it contextualizes the reality of what the republic was and the politicians who were

running it in the provisional government you know the bit unelected you know for the first several years right and uh and who they worked with and the kinds of things that they were up to and and instead we have to hand wave and say oh well it was it was a republic and you know some meanies decided to do a fascism and overthrow yeah in a lot of sense they just go you know the The evil fascists just rose against the peaceful left. And come on. It's incredible. So in 1911, Largo Cabiero is the head of the UGT.

He declares a general strike in response to essentially the response of the government, the liberal government against various workers movements. They declare martial law, and Largo Cabierro was rounded up with a bunch of other socialist leaders. And then at this point, there's a consideration to ban the UGT, and a great many members of the UGT abandoned that council of the IRS that we mentioned previously. the social reform institute. Yeah. So again, World War I erupts,

Spain remains neutral, the economy booms because they can sell all kinds of materials to the belligerent parties on either side and ride this out. So the UGT surges with the growth of industry

at this time and largely, Cabiero standing goes up considerably. So then we start seeing more of these coordinated general strikes. The next one being 1917, which shuts the country down for five days. It was organized by the PSOE as well as the anarchists of the CNT. Largo Cabierro was a committee member and figurehead of the movement. and the goal is to address workers' conditions,

the life of Spanish workers, the surge in the price of basic goods. Yes, because the end of World War I essentially tanked the Spanish production and exports. And you also have to keep in mind that Spain at the time was suffering for huge inflation because foreign investors were speculating with the peseta at the time. And that was causing. Yeah. It was brutal. Do we have surnames of those foreign speculators?

Unfortunately. Oh, here we go. Unfortunately, I don't have them, but don't worry. People that are like those speculators appear in the civil war quite often. Hmm. Interesting. Yeah. I did my, I did my homework.

Excellent. Excellent. All right. So, at this point, this, this strike, general strike creates a crisis. You know, Largo Cabiero and his peers who are involved in the strike leadership in particular, as well as many other participants, are rounded up, tried for treason, sentenced to life in prison. Interestingly, just a pattern that we see all the time, the response is so great that Largo Cabiero is released in the following year. Because these are people who are candidates for election in the following year. And because he and several others win their elections and are appointed seats in Parliament, this is essentially an amnesty that's given to them, despite. their previous convictions.

Yeah, because a thing that I didn't understand until I studied administrative law is that if you're a politician, unless you get caught red-handed on committing a crime, they cannot send you to jail. Incredible. And at least here in Spain. And I think the same happen in this regard, because they couldn't like completely ascertain or say that they were the materials. They could say they were involved,

but not the material actor. So that's, that plausible deniability is what allowed them to be released. Excellent. All right. So, uh,

the same year, Largo Cabrero was formally named leader of the UGT and speaker of the PSOE. as Pablo Iglesias moved to retire from political activities due to his health and old age. And so interestingly, Largo Cabiero actually worked very hard and was very serious about his beliefs. He worked with that institute for social reform. and he was very vocal about workers organizing within the bounds of the law,

working with the institutions to achieve their goals, improve their lives, while still saying yes, our goal is to enact socialism. And so the really interesting thing is that this is taking place against the backdrop of the communist revolution in Russia and the spread. of Bolshevik influence. And so this success of these more radical strains reinforces the radicalization and buoys the radicals in Spain, whether anarchist, socialist, communist, etc. You know, a fair bit of this, frankly, is that a lot of resources were then able to be directed

by the Soviet Union into these other parties. Because the PCE wasn't born yet at this point. No. It still needed a couple more years. But the main thing is that the socialist, the sector of the socialists, were steadily being radicalized. And that eventually became the PC, the communists. In the case of the anarchies, they essentially broke apart from collaborating with the socialists. They said, okay, we have to kill people, we have to take buildings, we have to burn churches, all of that.

They said, okay, we need results and we need them now. But Largo Cavalera at that time was still kind of staunch moderate. So he resisted very well along with others like Julian Besteiro. the advance of the radical sector. And that is what made the radicals leave the socialists, while the socialists kept their core pretty much untouched. And so in 1922 is when that formal schism happened at the party level where the Communist Party of Spain was birthed in 1922,

primarily from radicals who had split off from that PSOE party? The radicals of the socialists, of the PSOE, were you could say the leadership, because the PCE was formed from small communists, communist parties and associations that were regional. They were very small. And then they all concentrated in the communist party. great excellent well put and so 1922 what happens in 1923 the coup d'etat with general prima de rivaura as figurehead basically put politics on hold in spain at this point you know it's fair to say that the cortes was essentially suspended and everything became top down. Calvo Sotelo was appointed minister of revenue.

And this became, this is why they hated him so much, even though, like, on paper, he was kind of a middle of the road conservative in a lot of ways when he was assassinated, although they saw him as a primary enemy because of his political stances under the dictator. Yeah, even though, like it was said in the article of Carl Vossettel, a lot of people saw him kind of like a communist or a socialist, and it was in because of his work in the Ministry of Revenue, because he was trying to stabilize the value of the peseta. He was trying to stop the inflation. He was introducing reforms that a lot of people didn't like, but he said, no, we need this. stop complaining. Yeah.

And it's interesting because Largo Cabiero worked with the dictatorship because again, the dictatorship reached out directly to them to collaborate within the Ministry of Labor. Indolecio Prieto, for example, who was younger, kind of new guard. Well, not exactly a new guard. He was already a member of parliament

during the parliamentary monarchy. I could talk about one thing that he did. It was absolutely scummy back then, but it's not, it's not, it has no relation with this. The thing is that the

collaboration, that is that Largo Cavalero deciding to collaborate with a dictatorship what almost caused another schism in the person because the mother the young moderates of Prieto essentially said no we shouldn't do it because doing this we're reducing the prestige of the socialists we are actually selling out to these people that don't have our best interests in mind they just want to draw us in and Largo

Caballero pretty much said dictatorship or not if we If they allow us to do our work, we will do it. Yeah. Classic. So interestingly, that, you know, this is another expression of this. There was another schism within the PSOE, which took place soon. Pablo Iglesias passed away in 1925. Largo Cabiero becomes the formal leader of the PSOE and accepts an appointment by Primo

Rue de Rivera to Supreme Council of Labor Trade and Industry, which again unites representatives of workers and businessmen from different trades across economic sectors, to work with the government to resolve these things. And again, this is seen, you know, some people love it and it gets a lot of support because they're like, we can make real progress here. This also causes a lot of resentment and hatred because it's seen as collaboration with a dictatorship. All right. And so I think what really starts happening interestingly is that in 1927, the dictatorship declares that there's going to be a newly constituted parliament, but it's going to be appointed representatives

and not elected. And so this really creates a huge problem with the socialist parties who want to collaborate. And they, even though they, in 1929, come to Largo Cabiero and say, you can name five of the representatives and then we'll choose the rest. and the socialist refuse to participate and demanded elections. And then interestingly, you know, Primo de Rivera passes away. And by 1930, Largo Cabiero considered his efforts to collaborate, like, exhausted. But a lot of it was because of the pressure that he was getting from within the PSOE and other people in leadership. Yeah, essentially the more moderates like their Julian Bastato were telling him that,

no, we can still do our job. We can still achieve our goals within the bounds of the law. We can still do this without taking up arms like these lunatics that left our party did. Yeah. Yeah. Do you want to explain the Pact of San Sebastian of 1930 a little bit? Okay, the Pact of San Sebastian was essentially an agreement between, at the time, of course, there were no political parties, but there would be the leaders of the future Republican parties between Athania, Diego Martinez Barrio, Santiago Casares, Chiroga. They essentially wanted to put the republic in place, but they knew that by themselves, just by themselves,

They didn't have enough support. And that's why they came to the socialists to tell them, okay, if we do this, if we achieve the republic, if we do it with your help, you will be part of the government. And of course, the socialists agreed because it was a very tempting offer in that regard. And the pact of San Sebastian, the fact that Largo Cavalera decided to collaborate there,

it is kind of, it kind of washed a lot of, away the guilt that he had in collaborating with the dictatorship because now he was collaborating with the republic. Very well put. Thank you. So this is where we see this thing that is perplexing to a lot of people, which is that very quickly as they start moving into this new period where the the dictatorship and the republic are, or I should say the dictatorship is essentially creating the conditions for the restoration of a constitutional monarchy and the republic with the

reinstitution of the Cortes and there's this Republican movement. And in there's a plan for, there's a plan for. for December 15th, 1930, for an anti-monarchist armed insurrection and general strike. Originally, the plan was for three days later, but the people in charge of this insurrection, the suburbation of Haka, they kind of got a little bit nervous that they were going to be found out, and they decided to do it earlier. And that through an enormous ranch on the plans of the of the republicans because now they were very afraid that the that berengar was going to arrest them all to and so the basically a bunch of people

flee the country or remain in hiding um but then the newly designated dictator um oznar I've made a last enough, yeah. Decides, let's proceed with elections. I want to bring the temperature down. That's surely going to do it by appeasing them, you know, to a certain degree. Again, this is what the Republican, you know, the Republican parties are what became the Republic, the parties that were pro-Republic framed these local elections as a moratorium on the this plan yeah the monarchy in general um and so they they went for it essentially and uh declared

their uh you know pretty decent performance in the elections uh to basically have to say well obviously because we got elected uh you know that that no one wants the monarchy and so like the king and many members of the dictatorship flee Spain at this point. A thing that you have to, it is usually not said, but it's very important, is that at the time, the king lost the support of the army. He had no one behind him. Because with the destitution of Miguel Primo de Rivera, the dictator, he essentially pissed off the entire army. Primo de Rivera was a very condecorated general, very prestigious, a war hero, nobleman. He was kind of of the man that all everyone in the army looked up to. And the king essentially told him, no, I don't like what you did, piss off.

You have to consider, okay, because when the elections were won, the detachment of the army and the police were sent to arrest the leaders of the Republican parties. and the person in charge, which was Jose San Jorjo, important name, essentially said, hail the republic, hailed the new president. And they just let them go. That is incredibly interesting. You know, Pete, I don't think that that's something that is very clearly explained. The loss of the support because of essentially what's seen as like a, an insulting or betrayal of the army.

That's not really well explained in most of the English language histories as the cause of that. No, I don't know that I've read that at anyone's book, even pains. And it's so important because that's something that we see all the time in modern politics, as people are like, no, you have to keep voting for the guy who's like continuously insulting you. For me, it's very surprising that not a lot of people say that the, Because a thing important is that the king had at this time in 1930, he had no one. He pissed off the army and the politicians were against him. Incredible.

Because in 1921, he did a speech in which he pretty much, and he verbatim, very, very brief, he said, you politicians are a bunch of useless idiots. You do nothing. you become obstacles for progress, I should have power. He was a little bit drunk, I admit. Yeah, that's incredible. Yeah. That's a good lesson for everyone.

Yeah, with that speech, long time ago, he pissed off all the politicians. And by dismissing Primo de Rivera, he pissed off the army. Incredible. I mean, it really goes to show not that it was done this way purposely. but by causing the military you know forcing bioleninism upon the military exactly what um you know what obama and the obama administrate well the regime under obama and the regime under biden exactly what they were doing yeah absolutely incredible that's that's that's wonderful i'm so glad i'm so glad that we're doing this. This is great. So the period of the Republic, I feel like we've

talked about it a lot. And I kind of want to skim some of the details at this point in time. But I think what the real important takeaways here for Laguerre Cabriero, he becomes an integral part of the provisional government. Again, this isn't a elected government. There were these local elections, but the provisional government is just put together by this socialist coalition, by this quote-unquote Republican coalition. Largo Cabiero is at the helm of the Ministry of Labor. He presents numerous labor reforms, such as the 40-hour work week, the law of contracts, which I don't know a ton about, and then the creation of the mixed juries, which would be basically these boards that would solve disputes between workers

and business owners. What's the law of contracts, Morgor? The law of contracts is essentially that if you start a work relationship with someone, meaning that you get hired by someone, that person has to formalize that working relationship through a written document that is a contract in order to establish that yes you work for them and that they cannot essentially what is called in spain an undue firing that he can dismiss you just like that because by that contract you essentially have a certain set of privileges that you can demand that person like for example you have been working for five years if you

If your contract is terminated, you can get how much was? It was you get 20 days of wage for every year you have worked as compensation for firing. So codified severance packages? Yeah, pretty much. It is kind of that. It's both to ensure things for the worker and for the employer. Okay, that makes sense. Interesting. Okay. So essentially what happens, though, is that, you know, this is stuff that seems fairly moderate to us, but it's also they were very, you know, the characterization is that they were blatantly biased in favor of workers and not necessarily as balanced as they could be, you know, according to certain business interests. So that, that's, said, Largo-Cabiero starts wanting to institute more radical socialist policies. And the

the Republic is in this position as well in general. They have the religious laws. They have their new constitution, which is really interesting in that, you know, there are constraints upon the government in the new constitution. There's also like real assertions of power that the state had never had previously in the same constitution. So like no one's happy essentially. And also you have to keep in mind that there are two very important laws that were enacted in this period in 31.

And one of them much later would become. very effective they say it's a very effective tool of oppression for of the Franco regime or whatever and that was the it has a very very funny name for me is a lay the vagus imaleantes or a law of vagrants and hoodlums which essentially started the construction of prison camps in Spain by the way but by 1932 important and the other law was the law of citizen protection. That law was enacted through most of the government in 36, and to summarize it in brief, extremely brief, it's a law that allows the government to suspend its constitution. Very important, because that essentially, that's essentially the state of emergency that this government is in so that they can

essentially favor the oppression of the right, for example, and say that it's legally justifiable. So this is the state that it's codified, that they're essentially allowed to ignore their own constitution, you know, is the characterization that people make? They only, they only, they didn't do it only for that because in, in April, there would be local elections also in Spain. And the thing is that Athania, which was the president then, center left, by the way, he knew that if the elections run its course legally, the left would most likely lose. And so he enacted this law to suspend the elections indefinitely.

That's right. And then when they had the 33-34 period, say the Catholic right-wing coalition wins, but the Republic essentially doesn't allow them to form a government. That is because Jose Maria Gil Robles, he was called an accidentalist. His main objective, his main political objective was to destroy the republic. And he almost achieved it if it wasn't for obviously all the people that prevented him. But the thing is that he was allowed, CEDA was allowed into the government if no one from CEDA was part of the government.

Yes. No ministries and also no president. That is why the president was Alejandro Lerux, which was a center-right politician, more or less. He supported the right wing causes. The thing is that in August of 34 was when Theda said, okay, we have done a good deal of things, but there's a government crisis. And now if you want our support, you have to allow us to take ministries. And that is, that was something that a lot of people really, really, really didn't like, as you well know. And the most amusing thing is that they, they gave them the military.

Yeah, Jose Maria Gil Robles was the, was the, was the defense minister, which was, um, pretty amusing. Which is essentially what allowed the military conspiracy as well as the, to a degree, the organization of the Carlist recetes in particular, as well as the Falunhe training and militarization and equipment gathering, although the financing for that came from the party's own coffers. that wasn't coming from the military, but it did reduce a certain level of oversight that they would have gotten from Republican officials, who still nonetheless tried their best to control the military as much as possible,

particularly identifying who was a Republican and who was in the leadership. The thing is that there was, ever since the monarchy, politicians in Spain had this huge interest. on making the military submit to their authority. And obviously, the military didn't like that. The thing is that during the Republic, they tried it even harder, and that pissed off a lot of old military, old people in the military, officers especially. And the thing, like you said, in the thing that,

the fact that Hill Robles was a minister of war allowed a lot of things to happen during his service. happened during his role. Still, the main bulk of the conspiracy was in 36. Just seven months, seven months. Yeah. But a lot of work was done during this time. And it is also during this time when in 34, after the October Revolution is put down, that the UNE, the Union Militar Spanish or Spanish Union is born, which is right-wing military association within the army. They are more or less underground, and their first publication is really amazing. I read parts of it.

I couldn't find the full text, but it was impassionate to say the list. And shortly after a left-wing military union. Union is also born to counteract. Yes. Silent war is brewing within the army. And that is why the new corpse of the army, like the Air Force, they remain mainly loyal to the Republic while the army is sublovated almost completely. And also, so not only is this military conspiracy taking place.

And in the right wing parties, as I pointed out, the, um, uh, the among the carolists and the Falunhe. On the left, uh, the CNT and that, and their FAA, uh, subdivision in particular are all in on, on getting ready for revolution. Largo Caballero, uh, and, uh, you know, other socialists and communists also begin to do the same thing. they start sending some of their trusted people to the to the Soviet Union for training in the military economies. A lot of them, a lot of them mainly from the PCE, but also from the socialists and the CNT. For example, Juan Negrin, which was a communist, he went to Russia, and he became the main joint between the socialists and the Russian agents in Spain. also Enrique Lister, who received military training in Moscow, and he also worked in the construction of Moscow subway because he was a stone cutter. But he received training and also political lessons in Moscow.

A lot of the Spanish that went there were mainly from the political branch, and they learn Russian so they could serve later as a liaison to communicate with Russian agents in Spain. Which is incredibly important, and it illustrates how the Soviet Union was able to essentially take over the republic so quickly when the Civil War actually began and essentially owned the army almost out of the gate, like within what, a month and a half? Mm. Ish two, three months. More or less. Be very dominant. They essentially got to rebrand it.

And then when the Soviet supplies were coming in, and all of a sudden they have these new uniforms with red rank insignia and red stars and commissars. Because remember that the Republic, after the sublobation took place, they had the marvelous idea of this band in the army. Yes, that's right. And be militias only. And the problem is that because Athana tells it in a book is that absolutely everyone in Spain that remain loyal to the republic, wanted to do politics, they wanted to do the revolution, they wanted to do absolutely everything except making an army. Incredible. That is why the communists took such a preponderant role in the republic because they were the main force that built the army.

Incredible. It's like drinking your own Kool-Aid is the American term. Of course, that being a reference to Jim Jones in their suicide cult. I mean, I think in England they say to hoist your own petard or something. Yes, yes, they do. We use that as well.