Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights

The Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Rights (CEDA) was a Spanish coalition of Catholic and right-wing parties during the Second Republic. From the very moment of its constitution, in 1933, it presented itself as the right-wing and orderly alternative to the Government and to the republican-socialist coalitions.

Considered a conservative and Catholic political force, it was the political heir of Ángel Herrera Oria's Popular Action and defined itself in terms of the "affirmation and defense of the principles of Christian civilization", translating this support theory into a practical demand for a revision of the Republican Constitution. The CEDA saw itself as a "defensive" organization, formed to protect religion, family and property. According to Gabriele Ranzato, the CEDA was not "a party for the Church, that is to say, oriented to ensure the liberties that the Republic denied it, but rather a party of the Church —its political expression— oriented to affirm its supremacy over civil society and the State». In the first point of its program it was said that the coalition would constantly abide "by the norms that the ecclesiastical hierarchy dictates for Spain at all times in the political-religious order".

Ranzato also highlights the inclination of the CEDA towards fascism, especially its youth branch (the Juventudes de Acción Popular, JAP). Its leader José María Gil-Robles went so far as to say that his intention was "to give Spain a true unity, a new spirit, a totalitarian policy”, to which he added that “democracy is not an end but a means for the conquest of the new State. When the time comes, either through parliament, we will eliminate it [democracy]". The CEDA held fascist-style rallies, during which Gil-Robles was called "jefe", the equivalent of the Duce , and during which it was even stated that the CEDA would lead a march on Madrid —similar to the Italian fascist march on Rome— to seize power by force.

The CEDA stated on several occasions that it was defending Spain and "Christian civilization" from Marxism, and that the existing political atmosphere in Spain had become a matter of Marxism versus anti-Marxism. With the rise to power of the Nazi Party in Germany, the CEDA began to use propaganda tactics similar to those of the Nazis: among others, the emphasis on authority, the homeland and the hierarchy. In fact, Gil-Robles even attended the Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg held in September 1933 and was strongly impressed, after which he returned with the firm commitment to create a counterrevolutionary anti-Marxist united front in Spain. Gil Robles stated that there were common elements between the Nazi Party and the CEDA as "their roots and his eminently popular performance; his exaltation of patriotic values; its clear anti-Marxist significance; his enmity with liberal and parliamentary democracy”—although he rejected “Nazi state-latry”—.

In the framework of the Second Republic, the CEDA ended up becoming the great mass party of the Spanish right, supported by a strong display of media and "an exorbitant and sometimes grotesque propaganda". Its president Gil- Robles came to celebrate the same day, June 30, 1935, rallies in Medina del Campo (Valladolid) and in the Mestalla stadium (Valencia), being the first time in the history of Spain that the plane was used to move around electoral matters.

However, between 1933 and 1936 the CEDA failed to obtain substantial electoral gains, which meant that it failed to obtain sufficient support to form a government and that right-wing support redirected towards the Alfonsino monarchist leader, José Calvo Sotelo. The electoral failure led the CEDA to abandon its relative moderation and begin to support violent individuals or groups opposed to the Republic, which included the delivery of CEDA electoral funds to the leader of the 1936 military coup against the Republic., General Emilio Mola. In addition, numerous members and supporters of the CEDA youth movement, the Juventudes de Acción Popular (JAP), began to go over en masse to the Falange Española.

History

Background: Popular Action

Ángel Herrera Oria headed the Catholic social organization Acción Católica. In 1931 he managed to unite around El Debate a group of Catholics interested in defending their religious principles within the framework of the Republic, eventually forming the National Action party, founded on April 29, 1931. A law approved by the Cortes at the beginning of 1932 that prohibited the use of the term "national" in the names of the parties, forced him to change it to Acción Popular, which was to become the agglutinating party of the Confederation.

The uprising of August 1932 known as the "Sanjurjada" advised the leaders of Acción Popular to disassociate themselves from the other right-wing groups in order to accentuate their independence, since it proclaimed that to reach power they would only use the path of legality. When Gil-Robles enacted the duty of compliance in El Debate, many monarchists left the group, highlighting Esteban Bilbao, Antonio Goicoechea and José María Albiñana.

On January 5, 1933, Gil-Robles outlines the program and tactics, specifying the conditions for joining the projected right-wing confederation.

National Party

Popular Action believed the time had come to become the national party bringing together various right-wing organizations, the following regional parties:

• Regional Right Valencia, chaired by Luis Lucia and José Duato Chapa.
• Unión Agraria Provincial de Albacete, Pedro Acacio Sandoval and Francisco Giménez de Córdoba y Arce.
• Agrarian Regional Right of Cáceres and Plasencia.
• Union de Derechas Independientes de Jerez de la Frontera and Sanlúcar de Barrameda.
• Action Agraria Manchega de Ciudad Real.
• Unión Navarra, de Rafael Aizpun.
• Catalan People's Action of Barcelona.
• Union Regional de Derechas de La Coruña.
• Acción Agraria y Ciudadana de Cuenca.
• Union de Derechas de Granada.
• Regional Action Agraria and Ciudadana de Guadalajara.
• Agrarian Action of Leon.
• Action Agraria Riojana de Logroño, Angels Gil Albarellos, Tomás Ortiz de Solórzano and Ortiz de la Puente and Antonio Arnedo Monguilán.
• Union de Derechas y Agrarios de Lugo, José Benito Pardo Pardo and Luis Rodríguez de Viguri.
• Asturian Catholic Union.
• Pontevedra Regional Right Union.
• Salmantina Autonomous Right.
• Soria Provincial Agricultural Block.
• Unión de Derechas de Baleares, César Puget Piquer y Tomás Salort y de Olives.
• Unión Castellana Agraria

The idea of forming a confederation was sponsored by Luis Lucía Lucía who, as head of the Valencian Regional Right, repeatedly set out rules and paths that came to fruition at the Congress held in Madrid between February 27 and March 2, with more than 400 people attending delegates, who represented 735,000 contributors.

The common factor in these parties was their special interest in clerical issues and their rejection of the reforms that were undertaken on these issues in the first legislature of the Republic: The secularism of the State with the division of Church and State powers, the educational reform that prohibited religious symbols in schools and other minor issues of a clerical nature, but which they assumed to be especially important. They were especially sensitive to public disorder that ended with the burning of churches and convents. The CEDA managed to be the most important party on the right, reaching nearly 700,000 members. This penetration into society, which turned it into a mass party, was achieved using mainly Catholic organizations.

Coalition of 1933

For the elections of November 19, 1933, it formed a coalition with several parties, such as the monarchist Renovación Española (also from Acción Nacional), in order to take advantage of the advantages that the electoral law granted to the majority, obtaining 115 minutes deputy becoming the first political force in Parliament, but without the necessary strength to form a government, so at first it was limited to conditioning the policy of the government formed by Lerroux. Some leftist historians call this period "Black Biennium" meaning that they were "reactionary years and marked by fascism".

CEDA ministers in government

Gil-Robles rally in San Sebastian in 1935

The annulment, by the Lerroux government, of the reforms undertaken in the first legislature and the constitution of a new government, which incorporated three CEDA ministers, in October 1934, were responded to with an uprising of sectors of left (what was called the October Revolution of 1934).

Government of the Popular Front

The elections of February 16, 1936 gave victory to the left-wing alliance of the Popular Front, although by individual parties, the CEDA continued to be the party with the most votes. As the party with the most votes, the CEDA wanted to form a government, which would have given some stability if it had united with the Popular Front in a coalition, uniting in the government all the ideologies of society, both right and left, but Manuel Azaña He flatly refused to form a government with the right and break the alliance of the left. Since then, the CEDA, and mainly its leader Gil-Robles, maneuvered to have martial law declared and constitutional guarantees annulled in order to prevent the Popular Front will take possession of the government.

After some representatives of the more moderate wing of the CEDA, together with representatives of the political center, attempted a timid approach to the more moderate sectors of the Popular Front parties, members of the CEDA were in contact with a group of generals, among them Mola, Franco, Goded, etc., conspiring to propitiate the coup d'état against the Popular Front government, which would materialize on July 17, after the assassination of the opposition politician José Calvo Sotelo at the hands of socialist militiamen and members of the Assault Guard. The partial failure of the coup led to the Civil War. On the rebel side, all political parties were dissolved in 1937, integrating many of their militants and leaders into the Spanish Falange (later the National Movement), as is the case of the CED leader Ramón Serrano Súñer. The Carlist leaders were forced to integrate or into exile, they even suffered jail.

Civil War

In the first days of the war, prominent members of the CEDA (Federico Salmón, Dimas de Madariaga, Ricardo Cortés Villasana, Juan Bautista Guerra García, Antonio Bermúdez Cañete, Romualdo Alvargonzález...) were assassinated by militiamen from the revolutionary organizations.

Leadership

José María Gil-Robles, leader of the CEDA.

José María Gil-Robles, who was already the parliamentary leader, first of Acción Nacional and later of Acción Popular, became the leader of the CEDA. He visited Nazi Germany, interested in the means of political propaganda used by the Nazis and came to attend one of the Nuremberg Congresses. As a result of these experiences, the CEDA adopted an exacerbated cult of the leader's personality in its campaigns and electoral acts, reproducing the image of Gil-Robles on large-scale posters such as the one displayed at Puerta del Sol in Madrid in the 1936 campaign., until then never seen in Spain. The epithet Jefe was also used to refer to Gil-Robles and thus reinforce his authority, in imitation of the expressions Führer, Duce or the same Jefe already used by the Falangists to address José Antonio. The cheers "boss, boss, boss" were common! by crowds dressed in fascist style at their rallies and parades. All of this contributed to reinforcing the authority of the politician from Salamanca to the detriment of other party figures closer to democratic and centrist positions, such as Manuel Giménez Fernández, who in the opinion of some would have saved the republican institutions and avoided the war.

Ideology

According to the historian Gabriel Jackson, the common point of the parties that formed the Confederation was the defense of Catholic feelings and interests against the anticlerical policies of the republican-socialist governments presided over by Manuel Azaña and their ultimate goal was to modify the Constitution of 1931. It was inspired by the social Catholicism of Pope Leo XIII and its program was summed up in the motto: "Religion, Homeland, Family, Order, Work and Property" (excluding the Monarchy given the accidental nature that the forms had for the CEDA of government, which caused the departure of the Alfonsino Catholics headed by Antonio Goicoechea who founded the Spanish Renovation party that sought an alliance with the Carlists of the Traditionalist Communion). He advocated a corporate organization of society following Pius XI's encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.

Thus, the CEDA, different from the Christian-Democratic parties of the time, was formed as a clerical party that bet on a counter-reformism with a Catholic sign, on political anti-liberalism and on a moral fundamentalism. Supporter of a corporate State, so if for some it could be assimilated to the Christian Democracy, other historians have described it as fascist-inspired, especially in what refers to its youth organization, the Youth of Popular Action (JAP). They placed the English Conservative Party as their model; although they showed in the Spanish parliament a clear support for the fascist regimes of Germany and Italy. The CEDA followed the current of opinion, already manifested within Acción Popular, in favor of accepting republican institutions, despite the monarchical origin of many of its members, for the defense, from within, of its social and economic interests.

Newspapers and media outlets

Throughout its existence, the confederation had numerous newspapers and weeklies that served as CEDA's organs of expression. Among those newspapers that acted as organs of the confederation were La Provincia from Úbeda, La Gaceta del Norte, El Noticiero from Zaragoza, the Diario de Reus, Odiel from Hueva, Guión from Córdoba, Diario de Valencia, etc In Madrid, the historic daily El Debate served as the CEDA's "unofficial" means of expression. Newspapers such as La Mañana from Jaén, Yesterday from Jerez de la Frontera, Acción from Teruel, Diario de León, Today from Badajoz, Diario de Ávila , El Pueblo Manchego and La Gaceta Regional de Salamanca —these last two, related to Gil Robles—, etc.

Election results

Compositions	Collections	% of seats	+/-	Notes
1933	115/473	24.3%		It is part of the Right Union.
1936	88/473	18.6%	27	It is part of the National Counter-Revolutionary Front.