Indalecio Prieto | |
|---|---|
 Prieto in 1936 | |
| Minister of Finance | |
| In office 14 April 1931 – 16 December 1931 | |
| President | Manuel Azaña |
| Preceded by | Gabino Bugallal Araújo |
| Succeeded by | Jaime Carner |
| Minister of Public Works | |
| In office 16 December 1931 – 12 September 1933 | |
| President | Manuel Azaña |
| Minister of the Navy and Air Force | |
| In office 4 September 1936 – 17 May 1937 | |
| President | Francisco Largo Caballero |
| Minister of the National Defence | |
| In office 17 May 1937 – 5 April 1938 | |
| President | Juan Negrín |
| President of theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party | |
| In office 1948–1951 | |
| Preceded by | Enrique de Francisco |
| Succeeded by | Trifón Gómez |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 30 April 1883 Oviedo, Spain |
| Died | 11 February 1962 (aged 78) Mexico City, Mexico |
| Political party | PSOE |
| Signature |  |
Indalecio Prieto Tuero (30 April 1883 – 11 February 1962) was a Spanish politician, a minister and one of the leading figures of theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the years before and during theSecond Spanish Republic. Less radical thanFrancisco Largo Caballero, Prieto served as minister under his government during theSpanish Civil War. Exiled inMexico after the republican defeat, he led the Socialist Party from 1948 to 1951.
Born inOviedo in 1883, he was six years old when his father died. His mother moved him toBilbao in 1891. From a young age, he survived by selling magazines in the street. He eventually obtained work as astenographer at the daily newspaperLa Voz de Vizcaya, which led to a position as a copy editor and later a journalist at the rival dailyEl Liberal.[1] He eventually became the director and owner of the newspaper.[2]
In 1899, at the age of 16, he had joined the PSOE. As a journalist in the first decade of the 20th century, Prieto became a leading figure ofsocialism in theBasque Country.
Spain's neutrality inWorld War I greatly benefited Spanish industry and commerce, but those benefits were not reflected in the workers' salaries. The period was one of great social unrest, culminating on August 13, 1917, in a revolutionarygeneral strike. The government's fear of unrest like that of theFebruary Revolution that year inRussia (theOctober Revolution there was still to come) caused it to use the military to put down the general strike. Members of the strike committee were arrested inMadrid. Having been involved in organizing the strike, Prieto fled toFrance before he could be arrested.
He did not return until April 1918, when he had been elected to theSpanish Congress of Deputies.[3] Very critical of the actions of the government and army during theRif War, or "War of Melilla" (1919–1926), Prieto spoke out strongly in the Congress after theBattle of Annual (1921). He also addressed the likely responsibility of the king in the imprudent military actions of GeneralManuel Fernández Silvestre in theMelilla command zone.
Prieto was opposed toFrancisco Largo Caballero's line of partial collaboration with the dictatorship ofMiguel Primo de Rivera.[4] He had bitter confrontations with both men.
In August 1930, despite the opposition of party leaderJulián Besteiro Fernández, Prieto participated in thePact of San Sebastián. The broad coalition of republican parties proposed doing away with the Spanish monarchy.[5][6] In that matter, Prieto was supported by Largo Caballero's wing of the party, as the latter believed that the fall of the monarchy was necessary so that socialism could rise to power.
When theSecond Spanish Republic was proclaimed on April 14, 1931, Prieto was named finance minister in the provisional government, presided byNiceto Alcalá-Zamora.[7]
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As Minister of Public Works in the 1931–1933 government ofManuel Azaña, he continued and expanded the policy ofhydroelectric projects that had been begun during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship,[8] as well as the ambitious plan of infrastructural improvements in Madrid, such as the newChamartín railway station and the tunnel under Madrid linking it toAtocha railway station. Most of those works that would not be completed until after the 1936–1939Spanish Civil War.[9]
Unlike Largo Caballero, he opposed thegeneral strike and thefailed armed rising in October 1934,[dubious –discuss] but he again fled to France to escape possible prosecution.[10] Before the republic, Prieto had arguably maintained a more radical line than Largo Caballero, but he would now be identified as a relative moderate and opposed Largo Caballero's more revolutionary tendency.
Prieto gave a thrilling campaign speech inCuenca on 1 May 1936, prior to the 3 May repetition of the February 1936 election in the district in which the Popular Front would face among the right-wing rivalJosé Antonio Primo de Rivera and, after the resignation of GeneralFrancisco Franco as candidate,Manuel Casanova.[11] He broughtRegenerationist memories and proposedKeynesian measures to develop the domestic market of the country.[12] In words directed towards the firebrand faction of Largo Cabrello, Prieto asked for moderation, discipline and the disregarding of revolutionary excesses that would put the democratic government in peril.[12] The speech in which Prieto also displayed a deep sense of patriotism (he claimed to "carry Spain within his heart" and "in the marrow of his bones"[13]) was celebrated by the republican press, and it was received well even by José Antonio, then in prison. However, it was met with hostility among the radicals, deepening the rupture within the party.[12]
On 31 May 1936, Prieto was shot at a socialist rally inEcija.[14]
After the beginning of the Civil War, when news of the ruthless and systematic executions of Loyalists by the Nationalists, as part ofGeneral Mola's policy of instilling terror in their ranks, began to filter to the areas held by the government, Prieto made a fervent plea to Spanish republicans on 8 August in a radiocast:
Don't imitate them! Don't imitate them! Surpass them in moral conduct; surpass them by being generous. I do not ask you, however, that you should lose either strength in battle or zeal in the fight. I ask for brave, hard and steely breasts for the combat,... but with sensitive hearts, capable of shaking when faced with human sorrow and being able to harbour mercy and tender feelings, without which the most essential part of human greatness is lost.[15][16]
However, a couple of weeks after those words, theModelo Massacre took place in Madrid, much to the dismay of many Popular Front leaders. Saddened, Prieto is recorded as expressing his pessimism with these words: "with this brutality we have lost the war".[17] However, historian Julius Ruiz argues that Prieto was not necessarily a steadfast moderate, as he held that Republican victory would require stripping the Church, capitalists and army of their power as they were deemed collectively responsible for the rebellion. In August 1936, Prieto also stated that Republican terror was unnecessary because their internal opponents were already cowed and that Nationalist terror was because of their relative weakness.[18]
In September 1936, after the fall ofTalavera de la Reina, inToledo Province, to the rebels, Largo Caballero became the head of the government, and Prieto became Minister of Marine and Air.[19]
After the May 3–8, 1937 events inBarcelona in which thecommunists and the government forces tried to establish control over theWorkers' Party of Marxist Unification (POUM) and theanarchistConfederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT), the government of Largo Caballero was replaced by that ofJuan Negrín, with Prieto being Minister of Defense.[20] Lacking support from thedemocratic powers, such asFrance, theUnited Kingdom and theUnited States, the Spanish Republic was subject to severeinternational isolation during Prieto's last ministry in Spain. Maritime access forSoviet material aid was effectively cut off by the attacks ofItaliansubmarines,[21] and the French border remained closed.
After the defeat of theSpanish Republican Armed Forces on the northern front in October 1937, he offered his resignation, which was rejected.[22] Prieto finally left the government after the March 1938 defeat on theAragon front[23] after an escalating dispute with the communists.
_busto_de_Indalecio_Prieto.png)
He refrained from active political life for the remainder of the war,exiling himself toMexico.[24] In 1945, toward the end ofWorld War II, he was one of those who attempted to form a republican government-in-exile and hoped to reach an accord with themonarchist opposition toFrancisco Franco, the ruler of Spain since the end of the Civil War, with a view to restoring Spanish democracy.[25] The failure of that initiative led to his definitive retirement from active politics. He died inMexico City in 1962.
In Mexico, he wrote several books, such asPalabras al viento (Words in the Wind, 1942),Discursos en América (Discourses in America, 1944) and at the end of his life,Cartas a un escultor: pequeños detalles de grandes sucesos (Letters to a Sculptor: Small Details of Great events, 1962).
Supporting of the notion of further devolution to the Basque Provinces andNavarra, Prieto was greatly opposed to separatism as well as towards the plans of theBasque nationalists in the draft of the Estella Statute, fearing the prospect of the territory becoming a "reactionaryGibraltar and a clerical stronghold".[26]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister of Finance 1931 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of Public Works 1931–1933 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of the Navy and Air Force 1936–1937 | Succeeded by Himself asMinister of National Defense |
| Preceded by Himself asMinister of the Navy and Air Force | Minister of National Defence 1937–1938 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | President of theSpanish Socialist Workers' Party 1948–1951 | Succeeded by |
