Francisco_Largo_Caballero

Francisco Largo Caballero

Francisco Largo Caballero

20th-century Spanish politician and trade union leader

Francisco Largo Caballero (15 October 1869 – 23 March 1946) was a Spanish politician and trade unionist, who served as the Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War. He was one of the historic leaders of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and of the Workers' General Union (UGT). Although he entered into politics as a moderate leftist, he took a more radical turn after the 1933 general election in which the conservative CEDA party won the majority and began to advocate for a socialist revolution.

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Largo and the second or maternal family name is Caballero.
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Early life

Born in Madrid, as a young man he made his living stuccoing walls. He participated in a construction workers strike in 1890 and joined the PSOE in 1894. Upon the death in 1925 of party founder Pablo Iglesias, he succeeded him as head of the party and of the UGT.[1]

Political career

Moderate in his positions at the beginning of his political life, he advocated maintaining a degree of UGT cooperation with the dictatorial government of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, which permitted the union to continue functioning under his military dictatorship (that lasted from 1923 to 1930).[2] This was the start of his political conflict with Indalecio Prieto, who opposed all collaboration with the dictatorial regime.

He was Minister of Labor Relations between 1931 and 1933, in the first governments of the Second Spanish Republic, headed by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, and in that of his successor Manuel Azaña.[3] Caballero attempted to improve the conditions of landless labourers (braceros) in the rural south. On 28 April 1931 he introduced a decree of municipal boundaries to prevent the importation of foreign labour while there remained unemployed workers within the municipality. In May he established mixed juries (jurados mixtos) to arbitrate in agrarian labour disputes, and introduced an eight-hour working day in the countryside. Alongside these, a decree on obligatory cultivation prevented owners from using their land however they wanted.[4] He enjoyed great popularity among the masses of workers, who saw their own austere existences reflected in his way of life.[1]

In the elections of 19 November 1933, the right-wing Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) won power in Spain. The government nominally led by the centrist Radical Alejandro Lerroux was dependent on CEDA's parliamentary support. Responding to this reversal of fortune, Largo abandoned his moderate positions and became more openly far left. In the January 3, 1934 edition of El Socialista, the PSOE newspaper, he wrote "Harmony? No! Class war! Hatred for the criminal bourgeoise to the death!" A few weeks later, the PSOE compiled a new platform that called for the nationalization of all land, dissolution of all religious orders and the confiscation of their property, and the dissolution of the army, to be replaced by socialist militias.[5] In early October 1934, after three CEDA ministers entered the government, he was one of the leaders of the failed armed rising of workers (mainly in Asturias) which was forcefully put down by the CEDA-dominated government.[6]

He defended the pact of alliance with the other workers' political parties and trade unions, such as the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the anarchist trade union, the Confederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Once again, this placed him at odds with Prieto.[7] He declared, that he, Largo Caballero "shall be the second Lenin", whose aim is the union of Iberian Soviet republics.[dead link][8]

After the Popular Front won the elections in February 1936, president Manuel Azaña proposed that Prieto join the government, but Largo blocked these attempts at collaboration between PSOE and the Republican government.[9] Largo dismissed fears of a military coup, and predicted that, were it to happen, a general strike would defeat it, opening the door to the workers' revolution.

In the event, the coup attempt by the colonial army and the right came on 17 July 1936. While not immediately successful, further actions by rebellious army units sparked the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), in which the republic was ultimately defeated and destroyed.

Prime Minister of Spain

Francisco Largo Caballero's office, kept in the Archives of the Labor Movement in Alcalá de Henares.
Monument of Largo Caballero

A few months into the civil war, after the Republican Left Party government of José Giral resigned on 4 September 1936, President Manuel Azaña asked Largo Caballero to form a new government.[10] There resulted a broader-based Popular Front cabinet.[11] Largo Cabellero served as Prime Minister[12] and also took the post of Minister of War.[13] Besides conducting the war, he also focused on maintaining military discipline and government authority within the Republic.[14] On 4 November 1936 Largo Caballero persuaded the anarchist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT; "National Confederation of Labour") to join the government, with four members assigned to junior ministries including Justice, Health and Trade. The decision was controversial with the CNT members.[15]

The Barcelona May Days of 3 to 8 May 1937 led to a governmental crisis[16] that forced Caballero to resign on 17 May 1937. Juan Negrín, also a member of the PSOE, was appointed Prime Minister in his stead.[17]

Largo Cabellero's cabinet, formed on 4 September 1936 and reshuffled on 4 November 1936, consisted of:[18]

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Exile, death, and legacy

Upon the defeat of the Republic in 1939, he fled to France. Arrested during the German occupation of France, he spent most of World War II imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp, until the liberation of the camps at the end of the war.[19]

He died in exile in Paris in 1946;[1] his remains were returned to Madrid in 1978 after Franco's death in 1975.[citation needed]

See also

Footnotes

  1. [1]
    Thomas 2003, p. 39.
  2. [2]
    Beevor 2006, p. 17.
  3. [3]
    Beevor 2006, p. 21.
  4. [4]
    Preston, Paul. The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction and Revolution in the Spanish Second Republic. Routledge. New York. 1994. p. 81.
  5. [5]
    Beevor 2006, p. 28.
  6. [6]
    Beevor 2006, pp. 29–32.
  7. [7]
    Jackson 1967, pp. 206–208.
  8. [8]
    "Francisco Largo Caballero : Biography". Archived from the original on 19 January 2010. Retrieved 20 July 2010.
  9. [9]
    Preston 2006, p. 84.
  10. [10]
    Barnhart, Harley E. (1947). The Politics of Republican Spain: 1936-1946. Stanford University. p. 49. Retrieved 3 June 2023. When the flood-tide approached the gates of the capital, President Azaña asked Largo Caballero to form a cabinet that would help to rally the working class organizations for the defense of the city.
  11. [11]
    Smith, Angel, ed. (29 December 2017) [2009]. Historical Dictionary of Spain (3 ed.). Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield. p. 401. ISBN 9781538108833. Retrieved 3 June 2023. In an atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm, Largo Cabellero accepted the post of prime minister in a new Popular Front government in September 1936.
  12. [12]
    De Meneses, Filipe Ribeiro (2001). "The Republicans' War". Franco and the Spanish Civil War. Introductions to history. London: Psychology Press. p. 61. ISBN 9780415239257. Retrieved 3 June 2023. The appointment in September 1936 of the historic leader of Spanish socialism, Francisco Largo Caballero, as prime minister was of great importance. It marked the return of the Popular Front [...].
  13. [13]
    Thomas 2003, p. 392–394.
  14. [14]
    Jackson 1967, pp. 341.
  15. [15]
    Paz 2011, p. 96-97.
  16. [16]
    Preston 2006, pp. 256–258.
  17. [17]
    Graham 2005, p. 162.
  18. [18]
    Urquijo y Goitia 2008, p. 129–130.
  19. [19]
    Beevor 2006, p. 413.

Sources

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