UC San Diego UC San Diego Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Santa Coloma de Gramenet : The Transformation of Leftwing Popular Politics in Spain (1968- 1986) Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7t53c8gb Author Davis, Andrea Rebecca Publication Date 2014 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO Santa Coloma de Gramenet: The Transformation of Leftwing Popular Politics in Spain (1968-1986) A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in History by Andrea Rebecca Davis Committee in charge: Professor Pamela Radcliff, Chair Professor Frank Biess Professor Luis Martín-Cabrera Professor Patrick Patterson Professor Kathryn Woolard 2014 Copyright Andrea Rebecca Davis, 2014 All rights reserved. Signature Page The Dissertation of Andrea Rebecca Davis is approved, and it is acceptable in quality and form for publication on microfilm and electronically: ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ ________________________________________________________________________ Chair University of California, San Diego 2014 iii DEDICATION To the memory of Selma and Sidney Davis iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Signature Page ...................................................................................................................iii Dedication.......................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents................................................................................................................ v Acknowledgements........................................................................................................... vii Vita..................................................................................................................................... ix Abstract of the Dissertation ................................................................................................ x INTRODUCTION .............................................................................................................. 1 Spain: In Europe’s Postwar Settlement and its Renegotiation............................................ 4 Dissertation Organization ................................................................................................. 16 CHAPTER 1 SPAIN’S LONG 1968: THE URBAN MOVEMENT OF THE 1970S............................................ 25 The Church: Pre-Political Community Formation............................................................ 29 Politicization: From Single Issue Protest to Neighborhood Organizations ...................... 37 The Institutionalization of the Neighborhood Movement ................................................ 49 CHAPTER 2 THE STRUGGLE OVER DEMOCRACY AND SOCIALISM IN THE POST-68 MOMENT: LOCAL POLITICS (1977-1983) ....................................................................................................... 60 The Left “In (the) Transition” at the Grassroots............................................................... 64 Competing Visions of The Left: The Extra-Parliamentary Left....................................... 75 Competing Visions of the Left: The Parliamentary Left .................................................. 84 CHAPTER 3 THE AUTHORITARIAN LEGACY: ENFORCING THE “PACT OF SILENCE”............................. 100 Leftwing Municipalities: Whose Public Sphere, Whose Civic Peace? .......................... 106 Undermining The Popular Narrative of Democratization .............................................. 117 CHAPTER 4 THE STRUGGLE FOR PUBLIC EDUCATION: LOCAL EMPOWERMENT AND THE ROLE OF STRONG CIVIC INSTITUTIONS IN THE STATE OF AUTONOMOUS COMMUNITIES ................ 128 The Unitary Struggle for Public Education (1979-1981) .............................................. 134 Pedadgogical Reform and The Transfer of Jurisdictions to the Generalitat .................. 146 Conflicting Local and Regional Responses to POSE Educational Reform.................... 163 v CHAPTER 5 THE SPANISH PEACE MOVEMENT AND THE EUROPEAN ALTERNATIVE TO FIRST WORLD DEMOCRACY............................................................................................. 169 The Anti-NATO Campaign: Renewing the Left from the Grassroots Up...................... 173 The Formalization of the Spanish Peace Movement ...................................................... 180 PSOE and the 1986 NATO Referendum ........................................................................ 189 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 200 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Over the course of this project I have received generous support. At the University of California, San Diego, I am grateful to the Department of History and the University of California Humanities Network for funding my research and writing, as well as facilitating rewarding intellectual exchange. I am also grateful to the Fulbright Institute of International Education and the Program for Cultural Cooperation Between Spain’s Ministry of Culture and United States’ Universities for providing me with two years of research funds to support travel for interviews and archival research. I am indebted to those who supported me during research and contributed to the evolution of this project. I was first introduced to the theory and practice of oral history as a researcher for the Spanish Civil War Memory Project: Audiovisual Archive of the Francoist Repression, and I am grateful to the team for inspiring this work. In Barcelona, Stephen Jacobson of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra offered his mentorship, and researchers from El Centre d’Estudis sobre les Èpoques Franquista i Democràtica of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona provided me with resources and guidance. I received great help from librarian Cristina Aguiriano of the Museu d’història de la immigració de Catalunya, archivist Rosa Delgado of the Arxiu municipal administratiu de Santa Coloma de Gramenet, and librarian Luis Soler Alsina of the Biblioteca central de Santa Coloma de Gramenet. My deepest gratitude goes to all those who shared their stories and hospitality with me, especially Agustina Rico and Salvador López Arnal. Many thanks are due to my committee members Frank Biess and Patrick Patterson. I particularly thank Luis Martín-Cabrera and Kathryn Woolard for inviting me to participate in interdisciplinary research projects that were closely related to this vii project. My deepest thanks go to the chair of my committee, Pamela Radcliff, for her intellectual guidance and kind support throughout this undertaking. Special thanks go to Stanley Chodorow, who has been a generous and thoughtful reader. My gratitude also goes to my colleagues and friends: to Nick Saenz for leading the way, to Nancy Eagan, Meagan Strom, and Jessica Cordova for constant intellectual stimulation, and to Anne Schenderlein for being my closest colleague and friend in the program. I would also like to thank my family for their continual love and support, especially Jeff and my father for their help in editing and formatting. Chapter 3, in part, is being prepared for publication as Davis, Andrea, “Enforcing the Transition: The Demobilization of Collective Memory in Spain, 1979-1982,” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Liverpool University Press, 2015. viii VITA 2001 Associates of Arts, Liberal Arts, Simon’s Rock College of Bard 2005 Bachelor of Arts, Philosophy, Brown University 2014 Doctor of Philosophy, History, University of California, San Diego ix ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Santa Coloma de Gramenet: The Transformation of Leftwing Popular Politics in Spain (1968-1986) by Andrea Rebecca Davis Doctor of Philosophy in History University of California, San Diego 2014 Professor Pamela Radcliff, Chair This dissertation examines leftwing popular political culture in the Spanish city of Santa Coloma de Gramenet from the late 1960s to the late 1980s. Using forty life history interviews and a variety of archival and printed sources, it first traces the processes of pre-political community formation, politicization and urban movement institutionalization that occurred in Spain’s new industrial cities during the final decade of the Francoist dictatorship. The study then challenges the dominant scholarly view that the Spanish transition to democracy initiated a consensual process of demobilization. x Although relations were complex, social movement activists, party militants and newly elected municipal officials continued to mobilize as they participated in broader European debates regarding the nature of democracy and socialism in the post-68 moment, the role of public memory in an age of extremist political violence and the international system of Cold War alliances. In addition to intervening in debates on the Spanish transition to democracy, this dissertation also presents an integrated account of the various dimensions of Europe’s long 1968. As a local study, it traces the evolving relations and often-porous boundaries between different activist groups and “new social movements” while assessing the impact of widespread experiences of mobility and transnational