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Francisco Largo Caballero | |
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.jpg) Largo Caballero in 1927 | |
| Prime Minister of Spain | |
| In office 4 September 1936 – 17 May 1937 | |
| President | Manuel Azaña |
| Preceded by | José Giral Pereira |
| Succeeded by | Juan Negrín López |
| Minister of War | |
| In office 4 September 1936 – 17 May 1937 | |
| Prime Minister | Himself |
| Preceded by | Juan Hernández Saravia |
| Succeeded by | Indalecio Prieto |
| President of theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party | |
| In office 12 October 1932 – 1 July 1936 | |
| Preceded by | Remigio Cabello |
| Succeeded by | Ramón González Peña |
| Minister of Labour and Social Security | |
| In office 14 April 1931 – 12 September 1933 | |
| Prime Minister | Manuel Azaña |
| Preceded by | Gabriel Maura Gamazo |
| Succeeded by | Carles Pi i Suner |
| Member of theCongress of Deputies | |
| In office 14 July 1931 – 31 March 1939 | |
| Constituency | Madrid |
| In office 18 May 1918 – 1 June 1919 | |
| Constituency | Barcelona |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1869-10-15)15 October 1869 Madrid,Kingdom of Spain |
| Died | 23 March 1946(1946-03-23) (aged 76) |
| Political party | PSOE |
| Signature |  |
Francisco Largo Caballero (15 October 1869 – 23 March 1946) was a Spanish politician andtrade unionist who served as the prime minister of theSecond Spanish Republic during theSpanish Civil War. He was one of the historic leaders of theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and of theWorkers' General Union (UGT). Although he entered politics as a moderate leftist, after the1933 general election in which the conservativeCEDA party won the majority, he took a more radical turn and began to advocate for a socialist revolution, materialized with the failedRevolution of 1934 inAsturias.
After the victory of thePopular Front in the1936 Spanish general election and following theJuly coup, Caballero served asprime minister of Spain during theSpanish Civil War from 4 September 1936 until 17 May 1937. Exiled inFrance following the Republican defeat in 1939, Caballero was imprisoned in theSachsenhausen concentration camp after theNazi invasion of France.
Born inMadrid, as a young man he made his livingstuccoing walls. He participated in a construction workersstrike in 1890 and joined the PSOE in 1894. Upon the death in 1925 of party founderPablo Iglesias, Largo Caballero became head of the party and of the UGT.[1]
Moderate in his positions at the beginning of his political life, he advocated maintaining a degree of UGT cooperation with the dictatorial government of GeneralMiguel Primo de Rivera, which permitted the union to continue functioning under his military dictatorship (which lasted from 1923 to 1930).[2] This cooperation was the start of Largo Caballero's political conflict withIndalecio Prieto, who opposed all collaboration with Primo de Rivera.
Largo Caballero was Minister of Labor Relations between 1931 and 1933 in the first governments of theSecond Spanish Republic, headed byNiceto Alcalá-Zamora, and in that of his successorManuel Azaña.[3] Caballero attempted to improve the conditions of landless labourers (braceros) in the rural south. On 28 April 1931 he introduced a decree of municipal boundaries to prevent the importation of foreign labour while there remained unemployed workers within the municipality. In May he established mixed juries (jurados mixtos) to arbitrate in agrarian labour disputes, and introduced an eight-hour working day in the countryside. Alongside these, a decree on obligatory cultivation prevented owners from using their land however they wanted.[4] He enjoyed great popularity among the masses of workers, who saw their own austere existences reflected in his way of life.[1]
In the elections of 19 November 1933, theright-wing Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) won power in Spain, beginning the Black Biennium, as called by the left. The government nominally led by the centristRadicalAlejandro Lerroux was dependent on CEDA's parliamentary support. Responding to this reversal of fortune, Largo abandoned his moderate positions and became more openly far left. In the January 3, 1934 edition ofEl Socialista, the PSOE newspaper, he wrote "Harmony? No!Class war! Hatred for the criminal bourgeoise to the death!" A few weeks later, the PSOE compiled a new platform that called for the nationalization of all land, dissolution of all religious orders and the confiscation of their property, and the dissolution of the army, to be replaced by socialist militias.[5] In early October 1934, after three CEDA ministers entered the government, he was one of the leaders ofthe failed armed rising of workers (mainly inAsturias) which was forcefully put down by the CEDA-dominated government.[6]
He defended the pact of alliance with the other workers' political parties and trade unions, such as theCommunist Party of Spain (PCE) and theanarchist trade union, theConfederacion Nacional del Trabajo (CNT). Once again, this placed him at odds with Prieto.[7] He declared, that he, Largo Caballero "shall be the secondLenin", whose aim is the union of IberianSoviet republics.[dead link][8]
After thePopular Front won theelections in February 1936, president Manuel Azaña proposed that Prieto join the government, but Largo blocked these attempts at collaboration between PSOE and the Republican government.[9] Largo dismissed fears of a military coup, and predicted that, were it to happen, a general strike would defeat it, opening the door to the workers' revolution.
In the event, the coup attempt by the colonial army and the right came on 17 July 1936. While not immediately successful, further actions by rebellious army units sparked theSpanish Civil War (1936–1939), in which the republic was ultimately defeated and destroyed.
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A few months into the civil war, after the Republican Left Party government ofJosé Giral resigned on 4 September 1936, PresidentManuel Azaña asked Largo Caballero to form a new government.[10]There resulted a broader-based Popular Front cabinet.[11]Largo Cabellero served as Prime Minister[12]and also took the post of Minister of War.[13] Besides conducting the war, he also focused on maintaining military discipline and government authority within the Republic.[14] On 4 November 1936 Largo Caballero persuaded the anarchistConfederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT; "National Confederation of Labour") to join the government, with four members assigned to junior ministries including Justice, Health and Trade. The decision was controversial with the CNT members.[15]
Throughout his tenure in office the once-radicalised Caballero became more and more disenchanted with his earlier flirtations with the radical left and communists during the Black Biennium. When diplomatic recognition was established with the USSR in 1936, the exchange of ambassadors left Caballero with Soviet ambassadorMarcel Rosenberg, who according to Caballerist PSOE memberLuis Araquistain in his memoirs, “acted like a Russian viceroy in Spain.” At one occasion PSOE memberGines Ganga wrote of an incident witnessed by numerous people where Caballero, showing Rosenberg and Communust sympathetic foreign ministerJulio Alvarez del Vayo the door at a heated meeting, yelled:
Get out! Get out! You must learn, Señor Ambassador, that Spaniards may be poor and need help from abroad, but we are sufficiently proud not to accept that a foreign ambassador should try to impose his will on the head of the Spanish government.
Caballero also found himself under attack from the Communists when he was forced to accept the removal, to appease them, of his favourite Jose Asencio Torrado from the post of Undersecretary of War after the military failure of February 1937 of the fall ofMalaga, according to Burnett Bolloten. When he attempted to remove from del Vayo, who was also Comissariat General of the People’s Army, the right of naming political commissars, the Communists stirred up a furor, antagonising them further.
TheBarcelona May Days of 3 to 8 May 1937 led to a governmental crisis[16] that forced Caballero to resign on 17 May 1937. His attempted defence of thePOUM, one of the parties involved in the May Days, led to the opposition of various moderate pro-centralisation PSOE ministers like Indalecio Prieto and Jose Giral as well as the Communists, who seized the opportunity to walk out with their colleagues on Caballero, therefore crippling his government.Juan Negrín, also a member of the PSOE, was appointed prime minister in his stead.[17]
For the rest of the war Caballero was out of office, writing to express his opinions in his publication La Claridad. He openly sided with Negrin and Prieto against Communist hegemony in the army and security forces.
Largo Cabellero's cabinet, formed on 4 September 1936 and reshuffled on 4 November 1936, consisted of:[18]
| Ministry | Start | End | Officeholder | Party | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prime Minister and War | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Francisco Largo Caballero | PSOE (left) | |
| State (Foreign Affairs) | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Julio Álvarez del Vayo | PSOE (left) | |
| Finance | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Juan Negrín López | PSOE (moderate) | |
| Interior | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Ángel Galarza | PSOE (left) | |
| Industry and Commerce | 4 September 1936 | 4 November 1936 | Anastasio de Gracia Villarrubia | PSOE (moderate) | |
| Industry | 4 November 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Juan Peiró Belis | CNT | |
| Commerce | 4 November 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Juan López Sánchez | CNT | |
| Navy and Air | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Indalecio Prieto Tuero | PSOE (moderate) | |
| Education and Fine Arts | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Jesús Hernández Tomás | PCE | |
| Agriculture | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Vicente Uribe Galdeano | PCE | |
| Justice | 4 September 1936 | 4 November 1936 | Mariano Ruiz-Funes García | IR | |
| 4 November 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Juan García Oliver | CNT | ||
| Communications and Merchant Marine | 4 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Bernardo Giner de los Ríos | UR | |
| Labor and Health | 4 September 1936 | 4 November 1936 | José Tomás y Piera | ERC | |
| Labor and Planning | 4 November 1936 | 15 May 1937 | Anastasio de Gracia Villarrubia | PSOE (moderate) | |
| Health and Social Assistance | 4 November 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Federica Montseny Mañé | CNT | |
| Public Works | 4 September 1936 | 15 September 1936 | Vicente Uribe Galdeano (Interim) | PCE | |
| 15 September 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Julio Just Gimeno | IR | ||
| Propaganda | 4 November 1936 | 17 May 1937 | Carlos Esplá Rizo | IR | |
| Without portfolio | 4 September 1936 | 15 May 1937 | José Giral Pereira | IR | |
| Without portfolio | 4 September 1936 | 15 May 1937 | Manuel Irujo y Ollo | PNV | |
| Without portfolio | 4 November 1936 | 17 May 1936 | Jaime Ayguadé Miró | ERC |
Upon the defeat of the Republic in 1939, he fled to France. Arrested during theGermanoccupation of France, he spent most of World War II imprisoned in theSachsenhausen-Oranienburg concentration camp, until the liberation of the camps at the end of the war.[19]
He died in exile in Paris in 1946;[1] his remains were returned to Madrid in 1978 after Franco's death in 1975.[citation needed]
When the flood-tide approached the gates of the capital, President Azaña asked Largo Caballero to form a cabinet that would help to rally the working class organizations for the defense of the city.
In an atmosphere of revolutionary enthusiasm, Largo Cabellero accepted the post of prime minister in a new Popular Front government in September 1936.
The appointment in September 1936 of the historic leader of Spanish socialism, Francisco Largo Caballero, as prime minister was of great importance. It marked the return of the Popular Front [...].
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister of Labour and Social Security 1931–1933 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Prime Minister of Spain 1936–1937 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of War 1936–1937 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | President of theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party 1932–1936 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Leader of theSocialist Group in theCongress of Deputies 1933–1936 | Succeeded by |
| Trade union offices | ||
| Preceded by Vicente Barrio | Secretary General of theUGT 1918–1938 | Succeeded by José Rodríguez Vega |
