Indalecio Prieto Tuero (30 April 1883 – 11 February 1962) was a Spanish politician, a minister and one of the leading figures of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the years before and during the Second Spanish Republic. Less radical than Francisco Largo Caballero, Prieto served as minister under his government during the Spanish Civil War. Exiled in Mexico after the republican defeat, he led the Socialist Party from 1948 to 1951.

Early life

Born in Oviedo in 1883, he was six years old when his father died. His mother moved him to Bilbao in 1891. From a young age, he survived by selling magazines in the street. He eventually obtained work as a stenographer at the daily newspaper La Voz de Vizcaya, which led to a position as a copy editor and later a journalist at the rival daily El 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 of socialism in the Basque Country.

Entering politics

Spain's neutrality in World 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 revolutionary general strike. The government's fear of unrest like that of the February Revolution that year in Russia (the October 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 in Madrid. Having been involved in organizing the strike, Prieto fled to France before he could be arrested.

He did not return until April 1918, when he had been elected to the Spanish Congress of Deputies.[3] Very critical of the actions of the government and army during the Rif War, or "War of Melilla" (1919–1926), Prieto spoke out strongly in the Congress after the Battle of Annual (1921). He also addressed the likely responsibility of the king in the imprudent military actions of General Manuel Fernández Silvestre in the Melilla command zone.

Prieto was opposed to Francisco Largo Caballero's line of partial collaboration with the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera.[4] He had bitter confrontations with both men.

In August 1930, despite the opposition of party leader Julián Besteiro Fernández, Prieto participated in the Pact 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.

Second Spanish Republic

When the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed on April 14, 1931, Prieto was named finance minister in the provisional government, presided by Niceto Alcalá-Zamora.[7]

Prieto along Niceto Alcalá-Zamora and other personalities in the San Sebastián bullring (1932).

As Minister of Public Works in the 1931–1933 government of Manuel Azaña, he continued and expanded the policy of hydroelectric 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 new Chamartín railway station and the tunnel under Madrid linking it to Atocha railway station. Most of those works that would not be completed until after the 1936–1939 Spanish Civil War.[9]

Before the republic, Prieto had arguably maintained a more radical line than Largo Caballero, but his views became more moderate as tensions worsened in the country. Historian Hugh Thomas argued that, unlike Largo Caballero, Prieto opposed the general strike and the failed revolution in October 1934.[10] However, fellow socialist and Minister of State Julio Álvarez del Vayo claims in his book The Last Optimist that Prieto did not express opposition to the uprising. Prieto declared before the Spanish parliament that if the right-wing gained control of the government, the Socialist Party would start a revolution. Prieto then purchased weapons from the Spanish government that were confiscated in 1931 as they were on their way to Portuguese separatists. The Spanish government had been tricked into thinking that the weapons were going to Haile Selassie in Ethiopia. These weapons were to be distributed in Asturias, Andalusia, and the Basque Country. However, after members of the Socialist Youth of Spain accused Prieto of possibly sabotaging the shipment because he was viewed as a reformist unlike Caballero who was their hero at the time, Prieto reportedly said "Those children are going to learn who I am," and tried to dump all the weapons at once in Asturias. Prieto drove off after being seen unloading the weapons and tried to hide in the middle of the funeral of Manuel Andres.[11] He then fled to France and remained there until late 1935.[12]

Prieto gave a thrilling campaign speech in Cuenca 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 rival José Antonio Primo de Rivera and, after the resignation of General Francisco Franco as candidate, Manuel Casanova.[13] He brought Regenerationist memories and proposed Keynesian measures to develop the domestic market of the country.[14] 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.[14] 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"[15]) 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.[14]

Prieto (third on the right), during a meeting of the Council of Ministers, presided by Largo Caballero (1936).

Assassination attempt

In 1934, Jesús Hernández Tomás tried to kill Prieto but was unsuccessful.[16]

On 31 May 1936, Prieto was shot at a socialist rally in Ecija.[17]

Spanish Civil War

After the beginning of the Civil War, when news of the ruthless and systematic executions of Loyalists by the Nationalists, as part of General 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:

Exile

Indalecio Prieto (Juan Cristóbal, 1926).

He refrained from active political life for the remainder of the war, exiling himself to Mexico.[27] In 1945, toward the end of World War II, he was one of those who attempted to form a republican government-in-exile and hoped to reach an accord with the monarchist opposition to Francisco Franco, the ruler of Spain since the end of the Civil War, with a view to restoring Spanish democracy.[28] The failure of that initiative led to his definitive retirement from active politics. He died in Mexico City in 1962.

In Mexico, he wrote several books, such as Palabras 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).

Positions

Supporting of the notion of further devolution to the Basque Provinces and Navarra, Prieto was greatly opposed to separatism as well as towards the plans of the Basque nationalists in the draft of the Estella Statute, fearing the prospect of the territory becoming a "reactionary Gibraltar and a clerical stronghold".[29]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. London. 2001. p. 40
  2. ↑ Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931–1939. Princeton University Press. 1967. Princeton. p. 91
  3. ↑ Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War Penguin Books.London. 2003. p. 40
  4. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Penguin Books, 2006, p. 17
  5. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Penguin Books, 2006, p. 18
  6. ↑ Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931–1939. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1967, p. 24
  7. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. p. 21
  8. ↑ Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931–1939. Princeton University Press. 1967. Princeton. pp. 91–92
  9. ↑ Jackson, Gabriel. The Spanish Republic and the Civil War, 1931–1939. Princeton University Press. 1967. Princeton. p. 93
  10. ↑ Thomas, Hugh. The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books.London. 2001. p. 126
  11. ↑ del Vayo, Julio Álvarez (1950). The Last Optimist. Internet Archive. New York: Viking Press. pp. 260–262.
  12. ↑ La Republica Espanola y La Guerra Civil 1931-1939. Internet Archive. Crítica. 1979. p. 141. ISBN 978-84-7423-006-2.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
  13. ↑ López Villaverde 1999, p. 16.
  14. 1 2 3 López Villaverde 1999, p. 18.
  15. ↑ López Villaverde 1999, p. 17.
  16. ↑ Thomas, Hugh (1961). The Spanish Civil War. Penguin Books. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-141-01161-5. {{cite book}}: ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
  17. ↑ "01 Jun 1936, page 7 - The Windsor Star at Newspapers.com - Newspapers.com". Archived from the original on 2024-07-12. Retrieved 2025-04-06.
  18. ↑ Redondo 1993, p. 43; Cabezas 2005, pp. 333–34
  19. ↑ ¡No los imitéis! ¡No los imitéis! Superadlos en vuestra conducta moral; superadlos en vuestra generosidad. Yo no os pido, conste, que perdáis vigor en la lucha, ardor en la pelea. Pido pechos duros para el combate, duros, de acero, como se denominan algunas de las milicias valientes—pechos de acero—pero corazones sensibles, capaces de estremecerse ante el dolor humano y de ser albergue de la piedad, tierno sentimiento, sin el cual parece que se pierde lo más esencial de la grandeza humana." Wikiquote, Indalecio Prieto
  20. ↑ Redondo 1993, p. 43.
  21. ↑ Ruiz, Julius. The 'Red Terror' and the Spanish Civil War: Revolutionary Violence in Madrid. Cambridge University Press, 2014, page 146
  22. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. p. 146
  23. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. p. 271
  24. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. pp. 289–90
  25. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. p. 302
  26. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. p. 336
  27. ↑ Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War. Reaction, Revolution and Revenge. Harper Perennial. 2006. London. p. 319
  28. ↑ Beevor, Antony. The battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. Penguin Books. London. 2006. p. 425
  29. ↑ Granja Sainz 2008, p. 275.

Bibliography

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indalecio_Prieto