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Chapter Three. The Authoritarian State
- University of Nevada Press
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The emergence of Basque nationalism stems from the specific historical sequence of the Spanish state, more specifically its transition from confederal to centralizing and the agency this change triggered from Bizkaia’s conservative elites. Prior to the Second Republic and the Franco dictatorship, nationalism had not really penetrated Basque society. This is hardly surprising since mass politics was still in its infancy in the early twentieth century, which means that any type of popular adherence to a nationalist creed was unlikely. There was also the matter that Basque nationalism was an offshoot of Carlism and that not all Carlists had followed Arana’s “conversion” to nationalism. The Carlist origins of Basque nationalism are also central for explaining why Sabino Arana’s ideas did not find wide acceptance among the elites of Araba and Navarre. In these two territories, Carlism remained strong and nationalism proved less popular than in Bizkaia or Gipuzkoa. Despite the fact that provincial differences in the popularity of nationalism remain to this day, there is no denying that Basque nationalism is a mass movement of considerable strength and mobilization capacity. The broadening of social support for Basque nationalism was the product of a major institutional transformation : the end of the Second Republic, through a bloody civil war, and its replacement by a dictatorship.1 The switch to authoritarianism represents a critical juncture for Basque nationalism insofar as it legitimized Basque nationalism as a political force and gave it broader appeal. The Franco dictatorship represented a strand of Spanish nationalism founded on the sacred unity of Catholic Spain. The authoritarian state sought to project a vision of Spain as united and homogeneous, but its great unintended consequence is that it produced just the opposite. There was no room, in the Franco vision of Spain, for cultural distinctiveness or political autonomy. On the contrary, state structures were centralized and the expression of cultural differences was driven underground by repression. Therefore, the Basque struggle against the Spanish state became closely associated, if not conflated, with a struggle for democracy. The effect of the authoritarian state on Basque nationalism needs to be understood in relation to prior state forms. The Franco dictatorship is part of a historical process of state transformation that framed the development of Basque nationalChapter Three The Authoritarian State ism. The territorial structuring of the early Spanish state gave the Basque provinces a legacy of autonomy and exceptionalism. This legacy was then politicized in nationalist terms during the late nineteenth century through the politics of opposition of Arana and like-minded Traditionalists against the centralizing state in the context of a Spanish nation-building failure. From an instrument to articulate a particular group’s opposition against liberal-secular centralism, Basque nationalism became, in the Franco era, a symbol of democratic resistance and gained wide acceptance in the Basque provinces. The authoritarian state was central to the diffusion and legitimization of Basque nationalism, but it also represents a critical juncture for Basque nationalism insofar as it generated a new cleavage within the movement that still marks its politics. Before the Franco dictatorship, there was little division within the Basque nationalist movement: the pnv was the movement’s hegemonic party and it was dominated by the Aranist program and ideology. The authoritarian state triggered two different patterns of nationalist action and opposition: the pnv formed a government -in-exile that steadily denounced the dictatorship’s treatment of the Basques. eta, created out of a sense that this type of resistance was ineffective against the Franco dictatorship, opted for guerilla warfare. These different patterns of opposition eventually evolved into distinct ideological frameworks and slightly different programmatic positions: the Basque nationalist movement came to feature “moderates ” and “radicals.” Primo de Rivera and the Second Spanish Republic The participation of the pnv in electoral politics was cut short in 1923 by the takeover of General Miguel Primo de Rivera. Class struggles, social violence, and anarchist movements, combined with international tensions and upheaval resulting from World War I and the Russian revolution, had severely shaken the foundations of Spain’s liberal monarchy.2 This growing instability led several actors to seek political change, namely the powerful Catalan bourgeoisie, the Crown, and the army.The military coup, which was presented by the army as a short-term solution to a political crisis, was not completely unwelcome by a large segment of the population who hoped for the return of law and order.3 The army was at that time “the only major institution that could...