Asturian miners strike of 1934

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Asturian miners' strike of 1934 was a revolutionary general strike on the occasion of the entry of the Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (CEDA) into the Spanish government. Based on the Paris Commune , it is also known as the Commune of Asturias . He was crushed by the Spanish Navy , Army and the Foreign Legion . The later Caudillo Francisco Franco was in command of the military counterinsurgency operations.

background

After the victory of the right-wing parties in the parliamentary elections of 1933, the new government was led by Alejandro Lerroux and met stiff resistance from the labor movement . In October 1934 the socialist organizations involved in the united front (Spanish: Alianza Obrera ) called for a nationwide revolutionary general strike. This failed in almost all Spanish provinces in the early stages. In Catalonia the nationalists under Lluís Companys i Jover proclaimed an independent republic and formed a provisional central government in Barcelona for the new Federal Republic of Spain - this lasted only 10 hours. Only in Asturias , the only region in which the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo (CNT) had joined the Alianza Obrera , was the strike initially successful.

strike

Armed unionists gathered in several mining towns in Asturias. The uprising began on the evening of October 4th. The miners occupied several cities, attacked and occupied the local Civil Guard and Guardia de Asalto barracks . The following day, several columns of miners set out for Oviedo , the provincial capital. With the exception of two barracks, where fighting with government forces continued, the city was under workers' control from October 6th.

The miners occupied other cities, especially the large industrial center of La Felguera . The workers achieved Unios Hermanos Proletarios with slogans ! - Unity, proletarian brothers! control of most of Asturias. The factories and fields were expropriated and jointly managed and tilled. Committees have been elected to administer.

The government sent troops to retake the cities from the miners. The commander was Eduardo López Ochoa . On October 7th, a delegation of anarchists who controlled the ports of Gijón and Avilés arrived in Oviedo. They asked for weapons in order to be able to defend themselves against the steady arrival of government troops in the ports. The committee, which is controlled by the socialist union Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT), has denied adequate armament. The delegation returned to their cities empty-handed, so the army encountered little resistance when they captured the cities of Gijón and Aviles on October 8th. After about 20 days the uprising ended with the capture of Oviedo by government troops.

aftermath

According to Hugh Thomas , about 2,000 people died during the uprising: 230–260 soldiers, 33 priests, 1,500 miners died in battle and 200 died in the repression that followed. The union houses of the UGT and the CNT were closed. Around 30,000 people were arrested across Spain. Among the victims was Luis de Sirval , a journalist who reported on the torture and executions, arrested and killed by Foreign Legion officials.

The use of the Spanish Foreign Legion, led by General López Ochoa, and Regulares from Spanish Morocco , to put down the strike, and the order to kill Spaniards, aroused public outrage. Captured miners were tortured , raped , maimed and executed . This cast a shadow over the brutality that emerged two years later in the Spanish Civil War .

Franco believed that the miners' uprising "had been carefully prepared by agents from Moscow". He based this conviction on documents he had received from a gathering of anti-communists in Geneva. Franco believed that this was why the brutal use of troops against the Spanish civilian population was justified.

credentials

  1. ↑ Albert Kropf: From the Republic to the Civil War

Web links