Wednesday, May 6, 2020

Causes Spanish Civil War free essay sample

However before this, Spain had its fair share of stability problems. The problems began all the way since 1851, but instead of going year by year, it is better to divide the causes in the following categories: political, military, socioeconomic, regional and religious. During the years previous to the war, Spain had a lot of political instability. Most think that the Left was more responsible for this than the right, for various reasons. Fro example between 1933 and 1936 the Left became very divided, which led to a lot of clashes between partied, within the same movement, preventing them from reaching any agreements. The Socialists refused to cooperate and Anarchist wouldn’t join the Popular Front. Also the Left Wing was determined not to stay passive like their Italian and German counterparts. All this created a lot of tension between parties, which led to an inevitable confrontation. There was also the introduction of a variety of extremist reforms. We will write a custom essay sample on Causes Spanish Civil War or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Some of these were like divorce being allowed, Jesuits being expelled, and others. However these reforms on their own didn’t do much, it was the fact that they were so radical that upset the Right Wing. If this weren’t enough, when the Right came to power again, it made yet another radical change; they took all the reforms away. This instability eventually would lead to both sides being angry. However, politics in Spain were very influenced by the military, and it was because of the split in it that the Spanish Civil War broke out. In the years before the war, the military basically ran the country. They were overstaffed and over powerful. An example of this was 1930, when the army withdrew their support from Rivera, and thus he had to resign. However, during the Left Wing period (1931-33) most of the army officers were made to retire early in half pay. Which displeased the army greatly. The down side to this was that the army would support the opposite side, as opposed to the Left. However this didn’t happen, in 1932, General Sanjuro attempted a coup, which failed, precisely because the Army stayed loyal to the government. However in 1936, there was a split in the army, some favoring Franco, and some staying loyal to the Republic. It was because of this that the war began, because if they had all supported one side, it would have simply being another coup, like many Spain had seen. This split in the military was a perfect example of the division between the people in Spain. There were various events that led to the discontent of the people, mostly the peasants. Some examples are the Tragic Week in 1909 when there was a clash between the peasants and the proletariat. This was a clear example of the division there was between classes, and the wide gap in between. Then, during Rivera’s rule, in 1924 he suspended the Cortes, which angered a lot of the people. To top it off, the Austria’s Uprising in 1934 was a clash between the army lead by Franco and the working class, which ended up in the deaths off innocent people. All this problems with the working classes only helped to make the Left Wing support larger. Having said that, the Right wing was backed up by the higher classes and the Church, which only fed the large gap between the rich and poor. Another factor to take into consideration is the roll the Church had. In 1851 the church had a stranglehold over education, and was very powerful like in most countries at the time. However after the Republicans were elected, they introduced new reforms (previously mentioned in politics paragraph) which took away some of the church’s power, and expelled Jesuits from the country. However in 1932 The Ceda is created which starts to look out for the interests of the Church. We can see from this, maybe not so much that the Church had a very important role, but more so the abrupt changes between each side’s views. Other events that show displeased people are the Regional problems Spain had, especially with Catalonia and the Basque. Both of which got partial independence granted and later removed from them, creating once more, many displeased people. In conclusion we can see that most of Spain’s problems come from radical decisions made by parties at both far ends of the political spectrum. This would have been fine in a country were most people agreed, however Spain was a widely divided country not only within the government, but also with its people and the classes dividing them. All this led to the discomfort of opposing parties, whom eventually decided they wanted to overthrow the government, the only problem was, this time, the divisions where much greater, and not only that but more powerful, which meant they could put up a fight, which is exactly what they did.

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