The events of 6 October ( ca, Fets del sis d'octubre) were a general strike, armed insurgency and declaration of a
Catalan State by
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...
's autonomous government on 6 October 1934, in reaction to the inclusion of conservatives in the
republican regime of
Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
. They took place as part of a nationwide strike and armed action known as the
Revolution of 1934
The Revolution of 1934, also known as the Revolution of October 1934 or the Revolutionary General Strike of 1934, was a revolutionary strike movement that took place between 5 and 19 October 1934, during the Background of the Spanish Civil War#T ...
. Catalan President
Lluís Companys declared the Catalan State at 8p.m. Martial law was declared, and military forces attacked the
Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya
The Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya is a historic palace in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It houses the offices of the Presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya. It is one of the few buildings of medieval origin in Europe that still function ...
(Palace of the Government of Catalonia) and other buildings. Companys surrendered on the morning of 7 October.
Background
In Spain
In the
general election of 1933, left-wing parties lost heavily, and the newly formed conservative
Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas
The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (, CEDA), was a Spanish political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined itself in t ...
(Confederation of the Autonomous Right; CEDA), led by
José María Gil Robles, became the largest party with 115 seats. Nevertheless, incoming prime minister
Alejandro Lerroux
Alejandro Lerroux García (4 March 1864, in La Rambla, Córdoba – 25 June 1949, in Madrid) was a Spanish politician who was the leader of the Radical Republican Party. He served as Prime Minister three times from 1933 to 1935 and held severa ...
formed a government which excluded CEDA and was dominated by Lerroux's
Partido Republicano Radical (Radical Republican Party). Lerroux resigned in April 1934, to be replaced by
Ricardo Samper. 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. The government was announced on 4 October 1934 and included three CEDA members.
[Casanova and Gil Andrés (2014), p. 135] Left wing republicans denounced the "betrayal" of the Republic.
[ The ]Unión General de Trabajadores
The Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT, General Union of Workers) is a major Spanish trade union, historically affiliated with the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE).
History
The UGT was founded 12 August 1888 by Pablo Iglesias Posse ...
(General Union of Workers; UGT) called a general strike.
The general strike began on 5 October, in places across Spain including Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
, Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
, Córdoba and Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...
. There was fighting in some places, including Mondragón
Mondragón ( eu, Arrasate or ''Mondragoe''), officially known as Arrasate/Mondragón, is a town and municipality in Gipuzkoa Province, Basque Country, Spain. Its population in 2015 was 21,933.
Economic and historical significance
The town is be ...
and Eibar
Eibar ( eu, Eibar, es, Éibar) is a city and municipality within the province of Gipuzkoa, in the Basque Country of Spain. It is the head town of Debabarrena, one of the '' eskualde / comarca'' of Gipuzkoa.
Eibar has 27,138 inhabitants ( Eustat ...
in the Basque Country.[ There were also clashes in Madrid, but in general, planned uprisings failed to materialise or were quickly put down, and members of the military and of the ]Guardia Civil
The Civil Guard ( es, Guardia Civil, link=no; ) is the oldest law enforcement agency in Spain and is one of two national police forces. As a national gendarmerie force, it is military in nature and is responsible for civil policing under the a ...
did not, as hoped, join the rebels. Outside of Catalonia, the only significant military action took place in Asturias
Asturias (, ; ast, Asturies ), officially the Principality of Asturias ( es, Principado de Asturias; ast, Principáu d'Asturies; Galician-Asturian: ''Principao d'Asturias''), is an autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in nor ...
where, in the early hours of 6 October, activists took hold of Avilés
Avilés (; ) is a town in Asturias, Spain. Avilés is, along with Oviedo and Gijón, one of the main cities in the Principality of Asturias.
The town occupies the flattest land in the municipality, partially in a land that belonged to the sea, ...
, Gijón
Gijón () or () is a city and municipality in north-western Spain. It is the largest city and municipality by population in the autonomous community of Asturias. It is located on the coast of the Cantabrian Sea in the Bay of Biscay, in the cent ...
and the centre of Oviedo
Oviedo (; ast, Uviéu ) is the capital city of the Principality of Asturias in northern Spain and the administrative and commercial centre of the region. It is also the name of the municipality that contains the city. Oviedo is located ap ...
, as well as Guardia Civil barracks in mining areas, beginning the Asturian miners' strike of 1934
The Asturian miners' strike of 1934 was a major strike action undertaken by regional miners against the 1933 Spanish general election, which redistributed political power from the leftists to conservatives in the Second Spanish Republic. The str ...
and the "October Revolution
The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...
".
In Catalonia
Following the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic
The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII, and was di ...
in 1931, a Statute of Autonomy
Nominally, a Statute of Autonomy ( es, Estatuto de Autonomía, ca, Estatut d'Autonomia, gl, Estatuto de Autonomía, ast, Estatutu d'Autonomía, eu, Autonomia Estatutua) is a law hierarchically located under the constitution of a country and, u ...
established Catalonia as an autonomous region, but it was passed only after two important cuts that kept control of taxation and education vested in the Spanish state. Elections were held in November 1932 to a new Catalan parliament, which were won by the Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (Republican Left of Catalonia; ERC), with Francesc Macià
Francesc Macià i Llussà (; 21 September 1859 – 25 December 1933) was a Spanish politician from Catalonia who served as the 122nd president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, and formerly an officer in the Spanish Army.
Politically, he evolve ...
becoming president.
The appointment of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Nazi Germany, Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his death in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the le ...
as German chancellor in January 1933 was followed in Catalonia by the formation of the (Workers' Alliance), an anti-fascist organisation among whose aims was preparation for a revolution to establish a federal Spanish republic. Macià died at Christmas, and 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.
6 October
The general strike in Catalonia was organised by the Alianza Obrera, working alongside the Escamots (squads), a paramilitary adjunct to the ERC.[Payne (2006), p. 87] The Catalan minister of security, Josep Dencàs
Josep Dencàs i Puigdollers (March 19, 1900 – February 13, 1966) was a Catalan nationalist politician active in the Republican Left of Catalonia.
A supporter of Catalan independence movement, he served as interior minister of short-lived Cat ...
, in theory had 70,000 armed Escamots at his disposal, but in the event they were ill-prepared for the fighting.[ The president, Lluís Companys, was thought to be having talks with former Spanish prime minister ]Manuel Azaña
Manuel Azaña Díaz (; 10 January 1880 – 3 November 1940) was a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1933 and 1936), organizer of the Popular Front in 1935 and the last President of the Repu ...
, who had gone to Barcelona, with a view to declaring the government deposed and creating a provisional government of a federal Spanish republic in Barcelona. In fact, Azaña met with the Catalan committee of his Izquierda Republicana
The Republican Left ( es, Izquierda Republicana) was a Spanish republican party founded in 1934.
History
The party was founded in 1934 following the left's defeat in the 1933 election, by the merger of Manuel Azaña's Republican Action, part o ...
(Republican Left) party and it was agreed to oppose any such action. He then left his hotel and stayed with a friend. Companys telephoned Domènec Batet
Domènec Batet i Mestres ( es, Domingo Batet Mestres; Tarragona, August 30, 1872 – Burgos, February 18, 1937) was a Spanish military man who became general of the Spanish Army.
Starting as a lieutenant, Batet quickly escalated ranks during ...
, the military commander of Barcelona, to ask him to put his forces at the disposal of the new republic. Batet was non-committal.
At 8p.m., Companys appeared on a balcony of the Palau de la Generalitat
The Palau de la Generalitat de Catalunya is a historic palace in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain. It houses the offices of the Presidency of the Generalitat de Catalunya. It is one of the few buildings of medieval origin in Europe that still function ...
(Government Building) to proclaim the "Catalan State within the Spanish Federal Republic". He told the crowd that "monarchists and fascists" had "assaulted the government",[ and went on:
]In this solemn hour, in the name of the people and the Parliament, the Government over which I preside assumes all the faculties of power in Catalonia, proclaims the Catalan State of the Spanish Federal Republic, and in establishing and fortifying relations with the leaders of the general protest against Fascism, invites them to establish in Catalonia the provisional Government of the Republic, which will find in our Catalan people the most generous impulse of fraternity in the common desire to erect a liberal and magnificent federal republic.
An hour later, General Batet declared martial law. He moved against trade union and militia headquarters, both of whom surrendered quickly, then brought light artillery to bear against the city hall and the Generalitat. Fighting continued until 6am, when Companys surrendered.
Consequences
Companys and his government were arrested. So too was Manuel Azaña, despite his having taken no part in the events; he was released in December. The Statute of Autonomy was suspended indefinitely on 14 December, and all powers that had been transferred to Barcelona were returned to Madrid. In June 1935, Companys was sentenced to thirty years in prison. Following the Spanish general election of 1936, the new government of Manuel Azaña released Companys and his government from jail.
References
{{reflist
History of Catalonia
1934 in Spain
Catalan independence movement
Conflicts in 1934
1934 in Catalonia