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.402,Carp.22 (26 October 1917).114.For details of these eight days see Lacomba, La crisis española, pp.304 18.115.Romanones, Notas de una vida, p.420.116.Ángeles Barrio Alonso, La modernización de España, 1917 1939 (Madrid:Síntesis, 2004), p.16.See also the chapter on the Lliga by Angel Smith, thisvolume, pp.145 74.117.Cambó s thoughts can be seen in ADV, letters to Durán i Ventosa (28October 3 November 1917).Cambó s cunning opportunism was describedas gypsy-bargaining by Saborit (La huelga, p.83) and superbly analysed atthe time by the Republican journalist Luis Bello in España, nos.137 and140 (22 November and 13 December 1917).Further analysis can be seen inPabón, Cambó, pp.469 70; Boyd, Praetorian, p.91; José Antonio GonzálezCasanova, Federalismo y autonomía (Barcelona: Crítica, 1979), pp.205 6;Riquer, Francesc Cambó , pp.106 7; and Romero Salvadó, Foundations,pp.102 4. 4An Impossible Unity: Revolution,Reform and Counter-Revolutionand the Spanish Left, 1917 23Chris EalhamLabour politics, 1917 23The history of the Left during these years was, in no small part, dictatedby the tale of two revolutions in 1917 the Bolshevik Revolution, theepitome of 20th-century revolutions, and a much lesser known abortedSpanish revolution.1 The year 1917 initiated a process of political defin-ition and realignment on the Left, a process that was both organizationallyfissiparous and divisive and witnessed the emergence of new Communistmovements.Thus we will see how the Left was in a state of crisis and tran-sition during the crucial period leading up to the 1923 military coup.2Prior to 1917, the Left was split essentially between reformist Socialistand revolutionary anti-state currents.On the Socialist side, the PartidoSocialista Obrero Español (Spanish Socialist Workers Party PSOE) andUnión General de Trabajadores (General Workers Union UGT) wereboth quite typical of European social democracy of the period.3 TheSocialist movement was more influenced by Kautsky and Guesde thanby the untrammelled reformism of Bernstein, its occasional and fleetingrevolutionary rhetoric, its talk of the march towards socialism, mask-ing an essentially reformist practice that was, among certain factionsof the party, more republican than Marxist.In contrast, the anti-statetrend, represented by the revolutionary unionism of the ConfederaciónNacional del Trabajo (National Confederation of Workers CNT) afterits foundation in 1910, was always far more complex, difficult to char-acterize and open to misinterpretation.4The division of the Left was perhaps inevitable in a country likeSpain, with its profound regional differences, its unevenly developed9292 An Impossible Unity 93economy, and its divergences between the urban and rural economies.The division also reflected the internal and occupational differenti-ation of the working class.What is also remarkable, however, is that after years of division, theLeft managed to reach a new understanding in 1916 in a bid to fightrising prices and inflation, and promote united union mobilizations infavour of improving working-class living standards, a degree of unityin action that was unprecedented and utterly unimaginable in earliertimes.But in the context of Spain s repressive monarchy, economicstruggles were quickly politicized.Thus, in 1917 a united Left chal-lenged Spain s corrupt monarchy frontally with a general strike thatwas conceived as part of a wider bid to establish a democratic, parlia-mentary republic.The failure of this revolutionary movement, coupledwith the impact of the Russian Revolution,5 brought this brief essay inunity to an end.Moreover, 1917 radically reshaped the balance of forceson the Left: its main organizations became increasingly estranged fromone another, and also underwent a series of debilitating schisms.It isthis panorama that, in part, explains why the Left failed to present aunited response to the 1923 coup.And yet, much seemed to suggest that Spain might follow Russia alongthe road to revolution during 1917 23.First of all, there is much evi-dence that throughout this period there was great support among thegrass roots of the main left-wing groups for broad, working-class unity.6Ultimately, this popular desire for unity was stymied by the organiza-tional rivalries of the main leftist groups and the growing divisions overthe question of how to make the revolution, or indeed whether revolu-tion was necessary at all.Meanwhile, this period was one of unprecedented social and politicalconflict and mobilization.For the first time the working class emergedas a major player on the national political stage; previously it had largelyexerted influence in Barcelona and the Basque Country, the main indus-trial centres, but now it was possible to talk of a modern class struggle, aspopular dissent and more spontaneous protest forms, such as the breadriot, gave way to more organized and structured conflicts based aroundunions and political parties, although, of course, the two protest reper-toires continued to coexist.Despite Spain s wartime neutrality, towardsthe end of the war and in subsequent years, the state was rocked by thesame conflicts that reverberated in the belligerent nations of Europe.7We can make comparisons with the revolutionary factory occupationsthat occurred in Northern Italy; we can point to Russian-style landoccupations in the south, during the so-called Bolshevik triennium ; 94 Chris Ealhamwe can also see the emergence of right-wing militia and parallel policeforces; and finally this protest cycle was largely abrogated by the 1923coup and the dictatorship that emerged in its wake.8The first frontal challenge to the state was seen in 1917.9 The elitistand repressive constitutional monarchy so pandered to oligarchic inter-ests that large sectors of society were increasingly alienated by theirsocial and political exclusion.The 1917 crisis had its immediate originin the growing strength of the working and bourgeois classes during thewartime economic boom, occasioned by Spain s privileged neutrality,which allowed its exports to reach both warring camps.Urban manu-facturing interests, especially in Catalonia, wished for a governmentthat might be more responsive to the needs of business, and their pro-test appeared to dovetail with that of dissident, junior army officers insearch of more pay, and whose demands were dressed up in democraticlanguage.At the same time, the organized labour movement appearedready to provide the muscle that would topple the monarchy with ageneral revolutionary strike.As urban social groups increased theirdemands for political representation in the summer of 1917, the narrowsocial basis of the regime was thrown into sharp relief.Increasingly iso-lated and bereft of broad support, sections of the moderate Left believedthe monarchy might be superseded by a democratic republic.However,as crises unfolded in Spain and in Russia, army dissidents and Catalanindustrialists recognized that their interests would be poorly served bya clash with the state and the unpredictable consequences this presup-posed.Inevitably, following the August 1917 general strike, business-men and army officers preferred to rally to the old order, leaving theirerstwhile allies on the Left to face a fierce repression that left 71 dead,156 wounded and over 2,000 imprisoned.So what was the impact of Spain s 1917 for the Left? For the Socialistsit was incredibly traumatic
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