Lately, ever since King Juan Carlos I abdicated in favor of our current monarch, Felipe VI, there has been a great number of people (certainly many, but probably not as many as they say or believe) that are asking/demanding for the celebration of a referendum to allow the Spaniards to choose between Monarchy and Republic. Given this, and our past (Spain's past, of course), I have judged convenient to speak about the Spanish Republics in today's post.
The First Spanish Republic was proclaimed on February 11th 1873, a day after Amadeo I abdicated, by the Congress of Deputies, but not only did the Federal Republican Party of Pi y Marcall vote for it, but also other parties, amongst them the monarchical parties. However, there was a reason for the latter: the monarchists knew that the republicans would not have the time or the luck of fixing up all the problems that were pervading the country, did this to reduce republicanism's popularity and accelerate the fall of the system that had come from the Glorious Revolution of 1868, and thus ease up the Bourbonic Restoration in the person of Alfonso XII. In eleven months (until January 3rd of the following year), Spain went through four Presidents of the Executive Power (Estanislao Figueras, Francisco Pi y Margall, Nicolás Salmerón and Emilio Castelar), the Third Carlist War, the Cantonalist Uprising, the Alcoy Oil Revolution, the Ten Years War and many other problems that ended in Manuel Pavía's uprising. Francisco Serrano would then take control of the Presidency until December 29th 1874, when Arsenio Martínez Campos started an uprising that ended up placing Alfonso XII in the throne.
The Scond Republic was proclaimed on April 14th 1931, but this time it was with great popular support, as it happened three days after the victory of republican candidates in most of the main cities of Spain during the municipal elections, and two days after the abdication and self-exile of Alfonso XIII (Alfonso XII's son) with the rest of his family. This Republic had greater consensus, thanks to the collaboration between many republican and even monarchical political forces, and its first few months were placid, but soon the division between right-wing and left-wing parties on facts like certain regions' autonomy (like nowadays), the religious policies (like nowadays), the education (like nowadays) or other things. Unfortunately, back then the people tended to express their disagreements in a more violent way, and some tended to be a bit more fire-friendly than nowadays. After two years with a left-wing government, and tw more with a right-wing government (one that saw great disturbs, particularly a small civil war in Asturias, as the government swang even more to the right), the Popular Front won the elections, something that the right was not capable of accepting. Thus, they led the attempt of coup d'état of July 17th 1936, supported by a good part of the Armed Forces, the Catholic Church and other anti-democracy forces. The result is well known to us: Spain had to bear that "gentleman" that thought himself to be cool, but was nothing more than a reactionary murderer, Francisco Franco (who, fortunately for everyone but the people who are of the same kind, is still dead), for thirty-six years.
One thing we should be asking ourselves about is whether either of the Republics would have been able to survive the events that ended up leading to their deaths. The First Republic would have needed pretty much a miracle (or several, even) to survive the dog-piling they were subjected to during its only year of life. Maybe, had more people voted in 1869 to the Republican Party instead of others, the situation would have been different, but when 1873 arrived, it was pretty much impossible to revert.
But the Second Republic would have had a chance, several, in fact. A better consensus between the republican forces when it came to writing the Constitution would have prevented the chaos that would happen during the different governments. Less extremists governments (no CEDA in the government, for example) would have prevented the problems related with the 1934 Revolution from taking place. If the right-wing parties had not been so paranoid about what might have happened when the Popular Front won the elections, a war would have been avoided (one of the reasons the Nationals used to justify their uprising was that they wanted to prevent the Communists from turning Spain into a USSR-like nation, but the Communists actually had little power within the new government and it wasn't until the war started and they became the only ones that could contact a foreign power and get weapons that they actually became powerful at all). And, of course, had the Western democracies (Britain and France) not been so stupid, the Republic would have been able to win the war.
And, of course, there are many stories on how the Republic could have survived the passing of time. Given the First Republic's great instability, there are little to none stories about them, but the Second has many of them, and very interesting, actually.
An example is the mockumentary Viva la República, emitted by La Sexta in the year 2008. According to the mockumentary, Juan Negrín resigns as President of the Republic and is replaced by moderate socialist Indalecio Prieto, which leads to a series of events that give victory to the Republic in the Civil War. Spain barely has the time to recover before the Nazis invade. Europe's liberation begins in Spain, who after the war is one of the founders of the United Nations and the Treaty of Rome, the one that led to the creation of the European Union. Joaquín Ruíz-Giménez Cortés becomes President of the Government. Franco dies and is buried in Nicaragua, where he was exiled after being defeated. Serrat sung the "La, la, la" in Catalonian. United Kingdom gave Gibraltar back to Spain in the year 2000. Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón (Juan Carlos I to us) is the President of the International Olympic Committee. And José María Aznar and José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero are the President of the Republic and of the Government, respectively. The one thing many people pointed out about this is that it never cleared how Prieto's election led to victory, and it appears to be quite implausible at times, but it is an interesting thought experiment, nonetheless.
Much more intense is the Internet story No Spanish Civil War in 1936 by Spanish Dr. Strangelove. The POD is Santiago Casares Quiroga, President of the Council of Ministers, answering a letter written by Francisco Franco and meeting with him, something that allows the government to prevent the July 17th plot. The most moderate politicians' ability manages to help soften the situation and finally unify Spain behind its government, allowing them to improve its situation on an international level (the national football team wins the 1938 FIFA World Cup, for example). When World War Two begins, Spain is one of the Western Allies, supporting attacks against Salazar's Portugal and Mussolini's Italy, leading to the former joining the Allies as a democracy and the second to get out of the fighting (Ciano's Italy becomes the equivalent to Franco's Spain). Germany successfully invades Spain, but through a Pyrrhic victory that does not reach its true objectives and keeps a good part of the Wehrmacht busy for months (the 67 days-long Siege of Zaragoza is a good example). The destiny of the war depended for weeks on what was going on near the Kremlin and Moscow's sewers. The liberation of Europe begins with Operación León Marino (Operation Sealion in Spanish), which succeeds in stunning Erwin Rommel. And, most hilariously, famous anarchist Buenaventura Durruti is the President of the Republic for most of the war. Unfortunately, the story is so far stuck in the year 1944, and it does not look like it is going to avance rapidly any time soon.
In the book "The Reds Won the War", the divergence is in the Battle of the Ebro. The victory of the Republic in this front helps to revert the National troops' advance, eventually defeating the rebels and forcing Franco and other rebel leaders to exile themselves, allowing the establishment of a communist regime in Spain.
The book Historia virtual de España (1870-2004): ¿Qué hubiera pasado si...? has several short stories, two of which are related with the Second Republic: in one of them, the author asks himself what might have happened if the republican parties had unified their candidacies for the 1933 elections, while the second talks about the possibility of Indalecio Prieto (leader of the PSOE) accepting to become President of the Republic in 1936.
There is also a strategy game called Sombras de guerra: La Guerra Civil Española (Shadows of War: The Spanish Civil War), poorly received for its graphics and other defects, in which one of the campaigns allows the player to control the Republican side and lead it into victory in the Civil War. The great strategy game series Hearts of Iron also lets the player control the Republic and face the Nationals when they uprise.
Finally, we have Harry Turtledove's The War That Came Early series. The first point of divergence is José Sanjurjo not suffering the plane accident that killed him in real life, but this influences little in the story. The real POD is the leader of the Sudetenland Nazis being killed, which gives Hitler a pretext to declare war on Czechoslovakia, starting the Second World War a year before it did normally. As the Nationals are nominally allied to Germany, France aids the Republic, which allows the Battle of the Ebro to be a Republican victory and revert the losses from previous months, but, as their allies are more concentrated on their own side of the war, Spain becomes a secondary theatre of war, ignored by all save for those that are fighting there.
See, we could have been living in a repulbic, if it were not for a boatload of small details... although, of course, were that to happen, there would surely be lots of people asking for a referendum to vote in favor of monarchy. Who knows?
See you later!
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