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Toma La Calle: An Analysis of The Influences Behind the Anti-Franco Student Protests of February 1956 at the University of Madrid Department of History Honors Program Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey The School of Arts & Sciences Written under the Direction of: Professor Temma Kaplan Department of History By: Ian B. Gabriel Table of Contents Introduction………………………………………………………………………………1 1. A Stifling Syndicate: Student Discontent and the SEU…………………….……… 3 2. Laín and Liberalism: Foundation for Dissidence………………………………….15 3. Ridruejo and Poetry: Expression as Dissidence…………………………………... 26 4. Semprún and the Young Intellectual: Organization of Dissidence……………… 39 Conclusions…………………………………………………………………………….. 49 List of Works Cited……………………………………………………………………. 51 Introduction During the first two weeks of February 1956, thousands of students at the University of Madrid publically protested against Generalissimo Francisco Franco’s dictatorship and its total control over the Spanish university system. Franco authorities and groups of pro-government students violently suppressed the demonstrations, detaining protestors and temporarily closing the university. The regime’s press cited the quelling of the protests as evidence of their failure, but the events had a significant impact. While they did not depose Franco, they forced him to fire important members of his administration and confirmed the growing unpopularity of his regime among Spanish youth. The uprising also marked the first time that students, most of whom were members of the middle and upper classes, had gathered en masse to challenge the authoritarian regime that had ruled Spain since 1939. Historians focusing on the Franco regime usually cite this uprising as the beginning of the student opposition movement that would continue to be an important and robust source of resistance to the government until 1975, when Spain began its transition to democracy following the dictator’s death. The primary activists in the uprising were a small group of intellectual students from various backgrounds. Its most influential members were Enrique Múgica, a law student from San Sebastián; Ramón Tamames, a law student and the son of a famous surgeon; Javier Pradera, a law student and the grandson of a famous conservative leader who died in the Civil War; Miguel Sánchez Mazas, a philosophy student and the son of an important fascist ideologue; Jesús López Pacheco, a philosophy student and young poet; and Julián Marcos, who studied both law and philosophy. These students felt that the government’s dominance over the university made higher education expensive and 1 inaccessible to most Spaniards, limited post-graduation job opportunities, and impeded intellectual development. They shared this sentiment with a majority of university students, but were distinct from the student mass because they converted their views into militant political action. But what was the inspiration behind their action? What were the forces that turned these philosophy and law students, some from pro-regime families, into the radical leaders of the first major anti-Franco youth uprising? What characteristics and qualities did these students possess that the rest of Spanish students did not? This thesis attempts to provide answers to some of these questions by examining how University of Madrid rector Pedro Laín Entralgo, poet and former fascist ideologue Dionisio Ridruejo, and Spanish Communist Party leader Jorge Semprún influenced the radical students. Simultaneously, each of these older men, who underwent their own crises of conscience regarding Franco and other party leaders, personally interacted with the student leaders, guiding them towards political activism. Laín instituted his own form of liberalism at the University, which allowed the students to organize intellectual symposiums. Ridruejo, once a member of Franco’s administration, turned against the regime and participated in a new poetry movement, which exposed the students to censored and subversive poets. And Semprún attempted to emphasize the importance of the Communist student fight against Franco, which introduced the students to organized militancy. Without their help, it seems unlikely that the uprising would have occurred. 2 Chapter 1 A Stifling Syndicate: Student Discontent and the SEU Beginning in the 1950s, young people in Spain, especially university students, became increasingly dissatisfied with the state of their country. These students were born during or just after the end of the Civil War, so they lived their entire lives under Franco’s oppressive rule. Unlike many older Spaniards who sympathized with Franco’s movement, many of the students were unconcerned with the ideological conflicts of the war. But they were concerned with how Franco’s authoritarian government negatively impacted their life at universities, and how student life and freedom in other countries trumped theirs. These students were restless, lacking the older generation’s emotional attachment to the Civil War and the Falangist movement.1 By the mid-1950s, a number of clandestine newspapers including España Libre reported that the majority of Spanish university students opposed the Franco regime and wanted social and political change.2 In 1955, University of Madrid psychology professor José Pinillos conducted a study called “Social Attitudes in the University” to gauge student opinion of the Franco regime. The study revealed that 74 percent of students believed that Spanish politicians were 1 Note: The Falangist movement, or the National Movement, refers to Spain’s only official political organization during the Franco dictatorship. Originally, the term referred to the nationalist Falangist party (Falange Española Tradicionalista) that José Antonio Primo de Rivera, the son of the former dictator, founded in 1933, during the Second Spanish Republic. In 1934, the Falangist party merged with Ramiro Ledesma and Onésimo Redondo’s 1931 movement, Juntas of National-Syndicalist Offensive (JONS), to form a single organization often abbreviated as the FET and the JONS. Franco assumed control of the Falangist ideology after the Civil War and altered it slightly to emphasize Catholicism and Spanish nationalism. Under Franco, the Falangist movement became the corporatist structure that organized all workers, students, and economic sectors of the country. 2 Cosme de Asclepios, “Soltando amarras los universitarios españoles,” España Libre, Febraury 12, 1956, 1. 3 incompetent and ignorant; 90 percent believed that the military was incompetent and useless; 70 percent believed that the church had no place in politics; and 67 percent believed that theirs was a generation without authentic and dedicated university professors. According to the same study, only 20 percent of Spanish university students believed that the present government could solve these problems.3 The average Spanish student seemed restless and worried about the future. By early 1956, students transformed their restlessness into political activism. On February 1, 1956, a group of students at the University of Madrid circulated a petition. Students Enrique Múgica, Ramón Tamames, Miguel Sánchez Masas, and Jesús López Pacheco, and non-student Dionisio Ridruejo, wrote and edited the “Manifesto to the University Students of Madrid,” on behalf of their organization University Congress of Young Writers.4 The writers argued that, as students, they had the right and the obligation to find a solution to the problems that plagued the university. They addressed their remarks to “The Government of the Nation, the Ministers of National Education, and the Secretary General of the [Falangist] Movement,” in order to give voice to the Spanish university students who believed that the government’s control of the university system did not satisfy their educational desires.5 The authors of the Manifesto expressed student dissatisfaction with basic aspects of their university life: what they were learning in the 3 José L. Pinillos, “Las actitudes sociales en la Universidad de Madrid,” in Jaraneros y alborotadores: Documentos sobre los sucesos estudiantiles de febrero de 1956 en la Universidad Complutense de Madrid, ed. Roberto Mesa (Madrid: Editorial Complutense, 1982), 61-62. 4 Note: In Spanish, the Manifesto’s title was “Manifiesto a los universitarios madrileños” and the organization’s name was “el Congreso Universitario de Escritores Jóvenes.” From this point onwards, I will refer to the Manifesto as the “Manifesto” and the organization as the “Congreso de Escritores.” 5 “Manifiesto a los universitarios madrileños,” in Jaraneros y alboratadores… ed. Roberta Mesa, 65. 4 universities, the costs of attending school, and the lack of jobs available to them when they finished their degrees. The Manifesto harshly criticized Spanish universities and called for the democratization of the system, including the right to directly elect student representatives that would work with the government to create policy to improve those aspects of student life. Franco exercised his control of higher education with the Spanish University Syndicate (SEU).6 The SEU was the government organization that dominated all aspects of university education in Spain, and also the Manifesto’s primary target. José Antonio Primo de Rivera originally created the SEU in 1933 to inject Falangist propaganda into the university. The theory behind Primo de Rivera’s version of the syndicate was that young people had historically been the first group to mobilize behind fascist