Pact of San Sebastian

Playa de la Concha de San Sebastian in the summer of 1930.

The Pact of San Sebastián designates the meeting promoted by the Republican Alliance that took place in San Sebastián on August 17, 1930, which was attended by representatives of almost all the Spanish republican parties and in which agreed on the strategy to put an end to the monarchy of Alfonso XIII and proclaim the Second Spanish Republic. In October 1930, the two socialist organizations, the PSOE and the UGT, joined the Pact in Madrid.

Background

After King Alfonso XIII accepted in January 1930 the resignation of General Primo de Rivera, whose dictatorship had ruled Spain for more than six years, the King appointed General Dámaso Berenguer as Prime Minister with the purpose of return to "constitutional normality", acting as if the Crown had not been implicated in the violation of the 1876 Constitution that began with the coup d'état of September 1923 and which the Crown supported.

Republican politicians and self-styled "monarchists without a king" (such as Ángel Ossorio and Gallardo), as well as numerous jurists, denounced that a simple return to "constitutional normality" was impossible. The jurist Mariano Gómez González wrote on October 12, 1930: «Spain lives without a Constitution». The Primo de Rivera dictatorship, by violating the Constitution of 1876, had opened a constituent process, affirmed Gómez, that only the Nation could close with a return to normality led by

a constituent government, a constituent elections, presided over by a neutral power that was not a belligerent to the conflict created by the Dictatorship, a system of freedom and guarantees of citizens of constituting fullness and Supreme Courts to create the new common legality.

The socialist leader Indalecio Prieto, in a conference given at the Ateneo de Madrid on April 25, 1930, affirmed that for him «it was an hour of definitions... You have to be with the king or against the king”. A few days earlier, the former monarchist minister Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, who had just joined the ranks of republicanism, stated that there was only one legitimate power: the Constituent Parliament. This is how the confluence of republican parties, new and old, was forged, which met in San Sebastián on August 17, 1930.

The meeting and the agreements that were reached

The Puente María Cristina, with the Estación del Norte and Tabacalera, connects the Centre with the Eguía district.

The meeting was held at the registered office of the Unión Republicana de San Sebastián and under the presidency of Fernando Sasiain (president of the Círculo Republicano de San Sebastián), and was attended, according to the “Official Note” made public to date following, all the Spanish republican parties, with the exception of the Spanish Federal Party:

• by the Republican Alliance: Alejandro Lerroux, of the Republican Radical Party, and Manuel Azaña, of the Republican Action Group;
• by the Radical-Socialist Party: Marcelino Domingo, Alvaro de Albornoz and Angel Galarza;
• for the Republican Liberal Right: Niceto Alcalá-Zamora and Miguel Maura;
• by Acción Catalana: Manuel Carrasco Formiguera;
• of Catalonia: Macià Mallol Bosch;
• by Estat Català: Jaume Aiguader;
• by the Galician Republic Federation: Santiago Casares Quiroga;
  • in his personal capacity: Indalecio Prieto, Felipe Sánchez Román; Eduardo Ortega and Gasset, brother of the philosopher José Ortega and Gasset, were unable to attend, but he sent a "enetratic letter of accession".

No written minutes were taken of the topics discussed or the agreements reached: we only know what was discussed through an "Official Note" that was published the day after the meeting in the newspaper El Sol and by the reference “Other details” that Indalecio Prieto added to said “Official Note”. After noting the "unanimity with which the various adopted resolutions were adopted" (without explaining what they were), the "Official Note" made an appeal to "the other political and labor organizations ” (in an implicit reference to the PSOE and the UGT, since Indalecio Prieto had attended in a personal capacity) to “add his powerful assistance to the action that the forces opposed to the current political regime without fainting intend to jointly undertake ”.

In «Other details» they mentioned «the problem regarding Catalonia, which is the one that could offer the most difficulties in reaching a unanimous agreement» and that «it was resolved in the sense that those gathered accepted the presentation to the Constituent Parliament of a statute freely drafted by Catalonia to regulate its regional life and its relations with the Spanish State”, an agreement that was extended to “all those other regions that they feel the need for an autonomous life". with the authorization, according to him, of all those gathered, and in which he stated that a specific solution was reached in the draft Statute or autonomous Constitution proposed by the people of Catalonia and ratified in a referendum, which would later be submitted to the approval of the Constituent Courts.

Towards the Republic

After a long and difficult internal debate, the two socialist organizations, the PSOE and the UGT, joined the Pact in Madrid in October 1930, with the purpose of organizing a general strike that would be accompanied by an insurrection military that would put «the Monarchy in the archives of History» and establish «the Republic on the basis of national sovereignty represented in a Constituent Assembly», as said in the manifesto made public at the beginning of December 1930. To direct the action, a revolutionary committee was formed, made up of Niceto Alcalá-Zamora, Miguel Maura, Alejandro Lerroux, Diego Martínez Barrio, Manuel Azaña, Marcelino Domingo, Álvaro de Albornoz, Santiago Casares Quiroga and Luis Nicolau d'Olwer, for the Republicans, and Indalecio Prieto, Fernando de los Ríos and Francisco Largo Caballero, for the Socialists.

However, the general strike was never declared and the military uprising, scheduled for December 15, 1930, failed mainly because the captains Fermín Galán and Ángel García Hernández revolted the Jaca garrison three days before, December 12. These events are known as the Jaca Uprising and the two insurgent captains were immediately shot.

Despite the failure of the action in favor of the Republic led by the revolutionary committee, whose members were arrested and others fled abroad or went into hiding, General Berenguer felt compelled to restore the validity of article 13 of the Constitution of 1876 (which recognized the freedoms of expression, assembly and association) and finally call the general elections for March 1, 1931 in order to "get to constitute a Parliament that, linking with the Cortes prior to the last stage [the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera], to fully restore the functioning of the co-sovereign forces [the king and the Cortes] which are the axis of the Constitution of the Spanish Monarchy». It was not, then, neither a Constituent Corte, nor a Cortes that could undertake the reform of the Constitution, so the call did not find any support, not even among the monarchists of the parties that had taken turns in power (Liberal Party and Conservative Party) during the Restoration regime.

A few days later, in mid-February 1931, King Alfonso XIII put an end to the "bland dictator" of General Berenguer and appointed Admiral Juan Bautista Aznar as the new president, in whose government old leaders of the Liberal and Conservative parties entered., such as the Count of Romanones, Manuel García Prieto, Gabriel Maura Gamazo, son of Antonio Maura, and Gabino Bugallal. The government proposed a new electoral calendar: municipal elections would be held first on April 12, and then elections to the Cortes that would have "the character of Constituent Assembly ", so they could proceed to the " review of the powers of the State Powers and the precise delimitation of the area of each one” (that is, reduce the prerogatives of the Crown) and to “an adequate solution to the problem of Catalonia ».

Everyone understood the municipal elections on April 12 as a plebiscite on the Monarchy, so when it became known that the Republican-Socialist candidacies had won in all the capitals, the revolutionary committee issued a statement stating that the result of the elections had been "unfavorable to the Monarchy [and] favorable to the Republic" and announced its intention to "act with energy and alacrity in order to give immediate effect to [the] desires [of that Spain, majority, eager and youthful] implanting the Republic». On Tuesday, April 14, the Republic was proclaimed from the balconies occupied by the new councilors and King Alfonso XIII was forced to leave the country. That same day, the revolutionary committee became the First Provisional Government of the Second Spanish Republic.