Spanish Confederation of The Autonomous Right - Rifts, Moving Further To The Right

Rifts, Moving Further To The Right

Between November 1934 and March 1935, the CEDA minister for agriculture, Manuel Gimenez Fernandez, introduced into parliament a series of agrarian reform measures designed to better conditions in the Spanish countryside. These moderate proposals met with a hostile response from reactionary elements within the Cortes, including the conservative wing of the CEDA and the proposed reform was defeated. A change of personnel in the ministry also followed. The agrarian reform bill proved to be a catalyst for a series of increasingly bitter divisions within the Catholic right, rifts that indicated that the broad based CEDA alliance was disintegrating. Partly as a result of the impetus of the JAP, the Catholic party had been moving further to the right, forcing the resignation of moderate government figures, including Filiberto Villalobos. Gil Robles was not prepared to return the agriculture portfolio to Gimenez Fernandez. "For all the social Catholic rhetoric, the extreme right had won the day."

Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two large scandals, including the Straperlo affair. However, Zamora did not allow the CEDA to form a government, and called elections. The elections of February 16, 1936 were narrowly won by the Popular Front, with vastly smaller resources the political right, who followed Nazi propaganda techniques. CEDA turned its campaign chest over to army plotter Emilio Mola. Monarchist José Calvo Sotelo replaced Gil Robles as the right's leading spokesman in parliament. The Falange expanded massively, and many members of the JAP moved over to it. They successfully created a sense of militancy on the streets, in order to make an authoritarian regime justifiable. CEDA came under direct attack from the Falange. This rapid radicalization of the CEDA youth movement effectively meant that all attempts to save parliamentary Catholicism were doomed to failure.

Many of the party's supporters welcomed the military rebellion in the summer of 1936 which led to the Spanish Civil War, and many of them joined Franco's National Movement. However, General Franco was determined not to have competing right-wing parties in Spain and, in April 1937, CEDA was dissolved.

It was not active throughout the Franco dictatorship, but its roots led to the establishment of an Alianza Popular, formed during the transition period that followed Franco's death. Alianza was to be the basis for the successful Partido Popular.