Socialism was introduced in Spain in 1849, with the creation of the Democratic Party, progressive and close to socialist principles. However, Marxist socialism did not appear in Spain until the celebration of the First International (1864). At that time there was a heated debate in the Spanish Cortes as to whetheror not the International should be legalized in Spain. It was ultimately outlawed, but Marxist and anarchist ideas spread among the Spanish working class, despite the clandestinity and the dissolution of the First International.[2]
On July 20, 1879, the first meeting of the new party was held in a tavern on Visitación Street, attended by 21 people,[7] at which the first Executive Committee of the party was elected, Pablo Iglesias, secretary; Inocente Calleja, treasurer; Alejandro Ocina, accountant; and Alejandro Calderón and Gonzalo Zubiarre, members, and the "Manifesto and Program" was approved,[8] "until a workers' congress" could "ratify or amend it."[4] This document stated:[9]
[...] The Spanish Democratic Socialist Workers Party declares that its aspirations are: the abolition of classes, that is, the complete emancipation of the workers; the transformation of individual property into social property or the property of the whole society; the possession of political power by the working class.
The first group of the party to be formed outside Madrid was in Guadalajara, and the next one in Barcelona, thanks to the trip of the typographer Toribio Reoyo, who contacted Josep Pàmias, director of El Obrero, and members of the "societario" movement. The Barcelona group decided to clandestinely edit the Manifesto and Program approved on July 20, but introduced some modifications such as "The constitution of society on the basis of economic federation, scientific organization of work and comprehensive education for all individuals of both sexes," and further specified the immediate political objectives, such as the achievement of universal suffrage. Later, two other nuclei of the party were formed in Valencia and Sant Martí de Provensals.[10]
In 1882, the Barcelona group, led by Pàmias, held a Workers' Congress in which 88 workers' organizations were represented and in which it was decided to advise the workers to join the newly created Democratic Socialist Workers' Party.[11]
In 1883, the party decided to take advantage of the opportunity offered by the newly created Commission of Social Reforms and presented the "Written Report of the Madrid Socialist Grouping", a work by Jaime Vera that Manuel Tuñón de Lara considers "the most important theoretical document of Spanish Marxism in the 19th century". Pablo Iglesias, for his part, wrote the report of the Asociación del Arte de Impresión and was the spokesman of the Madrid Group when it was presented to the Commission, Antonio García Quejido and Facundo Perezagua also intervened.[12]
At the beginning of 1885, the first crisis within the party arose from the disagreement between Pablo Iglesias, on the one hand, and Jaime Vera and Francisco Mora Méndez, on the other, in the debate over the principles that should guide the newspaper that it had been decided to create in order to spread socialist ideas and strengthen the organization. Vera defended that the Federal Republicans were potential allies of the socialists, while Pablo Iglesias opposed any pact with the "bourgeois" parties. Antonio García Quejido tried to mediate, but Iglesias' position prevailed, and Vera and Mora left the active militancy for four and fifteen years, respectively. Finally, in the Fourth Foundation, it was decided that the newspaper should "fight against all bourgeois parties and especially against the doctrines of the advanced ones, while stating that between the republican and monarchical forms of government, El Socialista always prefers the former". The first issue of the newspaper, called El Socialista was published on March 12, 1886.[13] The editorial board consisted of six members, but the weight of the publication was carried by Pablo Iglesias and Gómez Latorre. José Mesa sent many contributions and translations from Paris.[14]
In the middle of 1887, the Mataró Workers' Center proposed to the Barcelona Workers' Center the celebration of a Workers' Congress for the following year, coinciding with the Barcelona Universal Exposition (1888), thus resuming the project of creating a national organization that had been proposed at the 1882 meeting. The Barcelona Center accepted the idea and published the call in September. Antonio García Quejido, who was in Barcelona, transmitted the proposal to the socialist group in Madrid, which not only supported it but also decided to take advantage of the occasion to hold the First Congress of the Socialist Workers Party, founded in 1879, immediately afterwards.[15]
The Congress
Whereas:
This society is unjust because it divides its members into two unequal and antagonistic classes: one, the bourgeoisie, which, possessing the instruments of labor, is the ruling class; the other, the proletariat, which, possessing only its life force, is the dominated class;
The economic subjection of the proletariat is the first cause of slavery in all its forms: social misery, intellectual degradation and political dependence;
The privileges of the bourgeoisie are guaranteed by the political power it uses to dominate the proletariat.
On the other hand:
Whereas necessity, reason and justice demand that inequality and antagonism between one class and the other should disappear by reforming or destroying the social state which produces them;
This can only be achieved by transforming the individual or corporate ownership of the instruments of labor into the common property of society as a whole;
The powerful lever with which the proletariat must destroy the obstacles to the transformation of property must be the political power which the bourgeoisie uses to prevent the vindication of our rights;
The Socialist Party declares that it has two aspirations:
The possession of political power by the working class.
The transformation of individual or corporate ownership of the instruments of labor into collective, social or common property. By instruments of labor we mean land, mines, transportation, factories, machinery, capital currency, etc.
The organization of society on the basis of an economic federation, the usufruct of the instruments of labor by the workers' collectives, guaranteeing to all its members the total product of their labor, and the general scientific and special teaching of each profession to individuals of both sexes.
The satisfaction by society of the needs of those handicapped by age or infirmity.
In short, the ideal of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party is the complete emancipation of the working class, that is, the abolition of all social classes and their transformation into a single class of workers, owners of the fruits of their labor, free, equal, honest and intelligent.
—PSOE program approved at the First Congress. 1888.
The Congress began on August 23, 1888, nine days after the conclusion of the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1888, in which the General Union of Workers was founded. It was attended by 18 delegates, all of them manual workers, representing 20 groups of the party: 13 from Catalonia, plus Madrid, Guadalajara, Valencia, Xàtiva, Linares, Málaga and Bilbao, the latter founded in 1886 by Facundo Perezagua.[16]
The Congress approved the party program, in which, according to Manuel Tuñón de Lara "certain utopian elements are still present; the 'economic federation' resembles more a Proudhonian residue rathen than an interpretation of Engels' thesis on the higher stage of the disappearance of the state; the right to the 'full product of labor' is likewise a pre-Marxist formulation that does not take into account the need to reproduce and expand the means of production. As for the "ethic" of "honest and intelligent", how can we not see in it a continuation of the spirit of the Constitution of Cádiz, article 6 of which prescribed that Spaniards should be 'just and beneficent'".[17]
At the Congress, the relationship with the "bourgeois" parties was discussed, with Pablo Iglesias' thesis of maintaining a "constant and harsh war" with them, regardless of their political orientation, being reaffirmed. Strikes were also discussed, and it was agreed that "the P.S.O. will encourage the resistance movement as much as possible and will support with all its strength the strugles that the workers' organizations are waging against the bosses," referring to the recently founded General Union of Workers.[18]
As for the organization of the party, it was decided that it would be formed by local grouos and, at the top, by a National Committee appointed by the Socialist Workers' Party of the Community of Madrid (a power it maintained until 1915, although its president was elected at the congresses from 1894 onwards). It was also decided to send a delegate to Paris, where a workers' congress was to be held that would give birth to the Second International.[18] The Madrid Grouping appointed the following National Committee: Pablo Iglesias, president; Francisco Diego, secretary; Francisco Carrero, treasurer; and Mariano Rodríguez and Antonio Atienza, members.[18]
The Congress closed on August 25, and subsequent Congresses were held in Bilbao (1890), Valencia (1892), and Madrid (1894 and 1899).[19]
The International Alliance of Socialist Democracy was an organisation founded by Mikhail Bakunin along with 79 other members on October 28, 1868, as an organisation within the International Workingmen's Association (IWA). The establishment of the Alliance as a section of the IWA was not accepted by the general council of the IWA because, according to the IWA statutes, international organisations were not allowed to join, since the IWA already fulfilled the role of an international organisation. The Alliance dissolved shortly afterwards and the former members instead joined their respective national sections of the IWA.
The Petroleum Revolution was a libertarian and syndicalist leaning workers' revolution that took place in Alcoy, Alicante, Spain in 1873. The event is called the Petroleum Revolution since the workers, desperate due to living conditions, carried as their standard petroleum-soaked torches. During those days, according to chroniclers, the city stank of petroleum.
Manuel Tuñón de Lara (1915–1997) was a Spanish historian.
The Anarchist Organization of the Spanish Region was an anarchist organization founded in 1888 during the last congress of the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region (FTRE), held in Valencia. It had an ephemeral life as it disappeared the following year.
The Union and Solidarity Pact was a Spanish labor organization founded in 1888, which succeeded the Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region. It was valid until 1896.
The 1870 Barcelona Workers' Congress was a congress that brought together, from 18 to 26 June 1870, 89 delegates from workers' societies in Barcelona and in which the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) was founded. It is considered the founding act of anarchism in Spain.
The Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region was a Spanish anarchist organization founded in the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1881 by the initiative of a group of Catalan anarcho-syndicalists headed Josep Llunas i Pujals, Rafael Farga Pellicer and Antoni Pellicer, after the dissolution of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association founded in the Barcelona Workers' Congress of 1870. It only had seven years of life since it was dissolved in 1888. Its failure, in which the episode of La Mano Negra was key, opened a new stage in the history of anarchism in Spain dominated by propaganda of the deed.
The 1881 Barcelona Workers' Congress was a congress of the workers' societies of Spain held in Barcelona in September 1881, during the reign of Alfonso XII, from which the new Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region emerged, with an anarcho-collectivist tendency, which replaced the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) founded eleven years earlier in a labor congress also held in Barcelona.
The Seville Congress was the Second Congress of the newly created Federation of Workers of the Spanish Region held in Seville in September 1882.
The origins of the labor movement in Spain are located in Catalonia in the 1830s and 1840s, since it was the only place in Spain where there was a modern industry: the textile industry. There the first conflicts between workers and employers took place and there the first trade union — called "resistance societies" at the time — in the history of Spain, the Barcelona Weavers Association, was founded in 1840. The first general strike took place during the progressive biennium - a period of extension of the movement to other areas of Spain. By 1865, the first Workers' Congress was held in Barcelona. After the triumph of the Glorious Revolution, the right to freedom of association was recognized for the first time, which put an end, at least momentarily, to the persecutions and prohibitions that the incipient labor movement had suffered during the previous forty years.
The 1868 Barcelona Workers' Congress was convened on December 13, 1868, by the Central Directorate of Workers' Societies of Barcelona, which had been created two months earlier thanks to the freedom achieved after the triumph of the Glorious Revolution of September 1868. Sixty-one Catalan workers' societies attended. Its most immediate antecedent was the 1865 Barcelona Workers' Congress - the first in the history of the labor movement in Spain, although it was also limited to Catalonia. It wasn't until 1870 that the first state-level workers' congress was held, which also had its headquarters in Barcelona, and from which the FRE-AIT would emerge.
The 1865 Barcelona Workers Congress was held in December —in September, according to Manuel Tuñón de Lara - from 1865 in Barcelona (Spain) and brought together 22 Catalan workers' societies, taking advantage of a moment tolerance during the final crisis of the reign of Elizabeth II (1863-1868). It was the first workers' congress to be held in Spain, although it was limited to Catalonia.
La Federación was a periodical publication published in Barcelona during the Sexenio Democrático.
La Solidaridad was an anarchist weekly newspaper from Madrid, founded by Anselmo Lorenzo in 1870.
The Valencia Conference was a secret meeting of the delegates of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) held in Valencia in September 1871, during the reign of Amadeo I. It was held in secret due to the persecution it suffered in consequence of the panic caused by the Paris Commune among the European governments and ruling classes.
The Zaragoza Congress was the Second Congress of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT). It was held in Zaragoza in September 1872, at the end of the reign of Amadeo I. To prevent it from being suspended by the government, as it ended up happening, the delegates met secretly a few days before the scheduled date. Previously, the Valencia Conference, had also been held in semi-underground conditions. The Congress, among other matters, dealt with the conflict that arose in the Madrid Federation between the anarchists, the majority, and the Marxists, the minority.
The Córdoba Congress was the Third Congress of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT). It was held in Córdoba between December 25, 1872 and January 3, 1873, just one month before King Amadeo I abdicated and the First Spanish Republic was subsequently proclaimed. Like what happened in the Hague Congress of 1872, the definitive rupture between anarchists, the majority, and Marxists, the minority, who no longer attended the Congress, was confirmed.
The Madrid Congress was the Fourth Congress of the Spanish Regional Federation of the International Workingmen's Association (FRE-AIT) that was held in Madrid in June 1874.
Guillermina Rojas y Orgis was a Spanish teacher, anarchist, and feminist. She was included as a character in Benito Pérez Gáldos' novel Amadeo I, part of the National Episodes.
The Barcelona Weavers Association was an association of weavers of cotton from Barcelona and neighboring towns. It was the first union in the labor movement in Spain.
References
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.290–291. ISBN84-7222-331-0. The first (the party), pretending to group the most advanced sector of the class for a global objective; the second (the union), postulating the adhesion of every member of the class, indeed of every wage earner, for objectives of a professional and class order, but not global (which will not exclude later on, the acceptance of certain global principles).
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.204. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.244. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.244–245. ISBN84-7222-331-0. The "Manifesto and Program that was approved was sketched by Mora and drafted by Iglesias, after an exchange of impressions with Mesa (it is probable that the latter consulted with Marx, Engels or Lafargue)."
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.245. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.253. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.254. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.254–255. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.255–256. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.287. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.288–289, 254. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.289–290. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
1 2 3 Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. p.290. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
↑ Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (in Spanish) (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. pp.288, 291. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
Bibliography
Juliá, Santos (1997). Los socialistas en la política española, 1879-1982 (Taurused.). Madrid. ISBN84-306-0010-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Termes, Josep (2011). Historia del anarquismo en España (1870-1980). Barcelona: RBA. ISBN978-84-9006-017-9.
Tuñón de Lara, Manuel (1977). El movimiento obrero en la historia de España. I.1832-1899 (2ed.). Barcelona: Laia. ISBN84-7222-331-0.
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