Second Spanish Republic and Spanish Civil War
When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed on April 14, 1931, he was named Finance Minister in the provisional government presided over by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora.
As Minister of Public Works in the 1931–1933 government of Manuel Azaña, he continued and expanded the policy of hydroelectric projects begun during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, as well as the ambitious plan of infrastructural improvements in Madrid, such as the new Chamartín railway station and the tunnel under Madrid linking it to Atocha Station; most of these works that would not be completed until after the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War.
Unlike Largo, he opposed the general strike and the failed armed rising of October 1934; nonetheless he again fled to France to escape possible prosecution. While, prior to the period of the Republic, Prieto had arguably maintained a "harder" line than Largo, from this time forward he would be identified as a relative moderate, opposed to Largo's more revolutionary tendency.
At the beginning of the Civil War in September 1936, after the fall of Talavera de la Reina, in Toledo province, Largo became head of the government and Prieto became Minister of Marine and Air.
After the May 3–8, 1937 events in Barcelona when the Communists and government forces tried to establish control over the Workers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and the anarchist Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the government of Largo was supplanted by that of Juan Negrín, with Prieto designated Minister of Defense, although, privately, he recognized that the war could not be won because the Republican side lacked support from the democratic powers such as France, the United Kingdom, and the United States. During his ministry, maritime access for Soviet material aid remained effectively cut off by the attacks of Italian submarines and the French frontier remained closed.
After the defeat of the Spanish Republican Armed Forces on the northern front in October 1937, he offered his resignation, which was rejected. He finally left the government after the March 1938 defeat on the Aragon front, following an escalating dispute with the Communists.
Read more about this topic: Indalecio Prieto
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