Interview with Soledad Bengoechea, historian

Soledad Bengoechea: (1919) «The distinct strategy of catalan employers»

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Andreu Navarra

In recent years, significant strides have been made in the study of the turbulent final years of the Spanish Restoration (1919-1923). In 1998, Soledad Bengoechea (San Sebastián, 1942) published a groundbreaking book with Curial: El locaut de Barcelona (1919-1920). Bengoechea proposed an innovative approach to studying the La Canadiense strike and the subsequent employer lockout from the perspective of the Catalan far right, which ultimately dismantled the Cánovas system that had prevailed since 1876. Later research into the fascist experiences of the 1920s has lent credence to her perspective. Recently, she revisited her central themes on Catalan employer corporatism in her latest book, Barcelona 1919. La huelga patronal que alumbró la dictadura de Primo de Rivera, published by Libélula Verde.

What was the Barcelona Employers’ Federation like in 1919? Could it be described as fascist?

In my view, this question cannot be answered unequivocally, given the lack of academic consensus on the definition of the term. However, let us begin by examining what the Federación Patronal de Barcelona (FPB) was in 1919. Although its origins date back to the early twentieth century, it was formally established on 12 March of that year in response to the La Canadiense strike. It represented the majority of Barcelona’s business sector, backed by major capital interests, and in essence, it was La Patronal. It was led by construction entrepreneurs, with its president, Félix Graupera Lleonart, being a building contractor. The FPB proved highly effective in orchestrating the employer lockout of autumn and winter 1919-1920. In its conflict with the CNT, it sought support from the Captain General of Catalonia, Joaquín Milans del Bosch, as well as from civil governors such as the Count of Salvatierra.

The rhetoric of the FPB’s leaders was strikingly similar to that of the emergent far-right movements spreading across Europe: anti-political, anti-parliamentary, militaristic, and nationalist, advocating for an employer-led revolution. In 1919, the FPB created a parallel police force, while the bourgeoisie and employers, as FPB members, formed an armed Somatén that would eventually number 60,000 men. An Automotive Brigade was established, consisting of loyalist workers, and the Sindicato Libre (Free Trade Union) emerged. Of that Barcelona in 1919, the Italian Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci would later note in 1921: “This city gave birth to a fascism that preceded Mussolini’s”.

«Of that Barcelona in 1919, the Italian Marxist intellectual Antonio Gramsci would later remark in 1921: “This city gave birth to a fascism that preceded Mussolini’s»

Where is the Antonio Maura’s archive located, and what does it contain?

The Antonio Maura’s Foundation archive is situated in Madrid, specifically on Antonio Maura Street. Its private documentary holdings are of great value for the study of mentalities, ecclesiastical history, diplomacy, military affairs, and socio-economic history. As a family archive, it contains documents produced by various members of the Maura family, and it is especially rich due to the dynamic nature of the family group, which contrasts with the institutional constraints typical of other collections. The archive is made up of several distinct collections: the Antonio Maura Collection, the Gabriel Maura y Gamazo Collection, the Blas Vives Collection, the Gamazo Abarca Collection, the Julia Maura Collection, and the Gabriela Maura Collection.

And what about the Romanones Collection?

It is housed at the Real Academia de la Historia. Its documentary holdings include both personal and political materials. It is of particular interest due to the significant role played by the Count of Romanones throughout the reign of Alfonso XIII. The collection’s descriptive indices include references to Romanones himself, the evolution of the Liberal Party, the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, the First World War, and Alfonso XIII.

How would you define ‘corporatist ideology,’ and how was it consolidated in Catalonia between 1919 and 1923?

Corporatism is a political, economic, and social doctrine that emerged in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century as an alternative to both liberalism and socialism. It advocated for a corporatist model of capitalist production, inspired by the guilds of pre-industrial societies. In this model, both employers and workers would be organised according to their respective economic sectors to achieve “social harmony,” in contrast to the Marxist notion of “class struggle”.

Later, at the end of 1918 and the beginning of 1919, following the CNT’s establishment of the Sindicatos Únicos de Industria (Unified Industrial Trade Unions) at its Congress in Sants and with the La Canadiense strike on the horizon, Catalan employer manifestos began to advocate for mandatory corporate syndication. They proposed separate unions for each industrial sector—both for workers and for employers or companies. These bodies would engage in dialogue within a ‘labour chamber’ specific to their industry, while an overarching Labour Chamber would coordinate, negotiate, and even serve as a legislative body for labour matters.

«By late 1919, a significant portion of workers and employers in Barcelona were already unionised, whether within the CNT or the FPB in Barcelona»

By late 1919, a significant portion of both workers and employers in Barcelona were already unionised, whether within the CNT or the FPB. The failure of Catholic trade unions—whose influence remained largely confined to rural Catalonia—and the rise of the CNT led many publicists aligned with the employers’ sector to view parallel syndication (where employers and workers were organised separately by sector) not as a tool for pacification but as a weapon of struggle. They justified their opposition by arguing that such parallel unions were at odds with the nature of industrial labour, which they believed consisted of three interconnected elements: the worker, the employer, and accumulated capital. Based on this premise, championed by Lluís Ferrer-Vidal, it was argued that since labour was an integrated whole, its components should not be fragmented. Hence, it was necessary to unite them within a single entity to preserve that unity. From this reasoning emerged the proposal for the creation of integrative organisations, taking the form of guilds (modernised guilds) or corporations—in other words, vertical syndicates where all productive elements of a given sector would be represented within one unified organisation.

Why did the employers opt for this corporatist path? They were fully aware that mandatory and unified syndication by industrial sector would inevitably lead, first, to total employer syndication—something that had, until then, been virtually impossible to achieve—and second, to the dissolution of worker-led unions, particularly the CNT.

Who was Joaquín Milans del Bosch? Why do you consider him so important?

Milans del Bosch was an Africanist military officer who could have been the first right-wing dictator in interwar Europe. In September 1918, he was appointed Captain General of Catalonia, a region rife with tension. The workers’ movement, led by the CNT/AIT (founded in 1910), had organised itself and was calling for legendary strikes, such as the 1919 strike at La Canadiense. Ignoring government orders, Milans del Bosch sided with the employers, declared a state of war, and threatened the government with a coup d’état. During the subsequent lockout, he once again threatened the government with a second coup. Milans del Bosch felt supported by the Catalan employers, and it was not until direct orders from King Alfonso XIII, prompted by the Cortes, that he finally resigned in 1920 due to his excesses. Following this, some military officers in Barcelona and the employers’ organisation again threatened the government with a third coup d’état. Milans passed away in Madrid on 31 August 1936 from a gunshot wound.

What were the Centro de Defensa Social and the Unión Monárquica Nacional?

The Centro de Defensa Social, founded in Barcelona in 1903, was a Catholic and conservative organisation established under the initiative of Claudio López Bru, Marqués de Comillas. By 1907, it had expanded to 25 branches in Barcelona alone. While its founders may have initially adhered to the existing legal order, by the end of 1918, their rhetoric had shifted significantly. The growing resolve to eradicate parliamentary democracy, even through violence if necessary, became increasingly evident in the words of a traditionalist aristocrat, the Count of Santa María de Pomés.

Commenting on a speech delivered seventy years earlier by his fellow traditionalist Donoso Cortés in Parliament, Pomés declared: “Spain’s significance in the world in times of peace, and that of the Spanish right in times of war”. Following Cortés’s model, Pomés proclaimed, “when legality is sufficient to save [society], legality. When it is not, dictatorship”.

The Unión Monárquica Nacional (UMN), on the other hand, was a political party founded in Barcelona around February 1919, coinciding with the strike at La Canadiense. Its aim was to serve as the nucleus of a federation of the most hardline right-wing Spanish nationalist factions. The party was initiated by textile industrialist Alfonso Sala, Count of Egara. Sala would later become president of the Mancomunitat de Catalunya during the early years of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship (1924-1925). Briefly revived in 1930, the UMN effectively faded into obscurity during the Second Republic, with its members merging into the extreme right-wing Alfonsine organisations.

«The Sindicato Libre was founded in Barcelona in the early months of 1919 but remained relatively insignificant until the autumn of that year when it allegedly attracted workers disillusioned with the CNT»

What was the Sindicato Libre in Barcelona, who did it obey, and what were its objectives?

As far as I know, the Sindicato Libre was founded in Barcelona in the early months of 1919 but remained relatively inconspicuous until the autumn of that year, when it reportedly gained traction among workers disillusioned with the CNT due to the employers’ lockout. The union’s chief promoter was Ramón Sales, a traditionalist and shop assistant by trade, who was brutally executed in the summer of 1936 by a group of CNT members. To trace a connection between this union and the employer organisation, one can refer to Can Folch. Memoria de una fábrica, 1882-1987. The book reveals that the owners of the prominent chemical company Albiñana Argemí were patrons of the Sindicatos Libres. Everything indicates that the principal goal of this union was to oppose the CNT’s dominance. Armed with pistols, unionists on both sides transformed the streets of Barcelona into a battleground. A recently published book, El fascio de las Ramblas, posits that two groups, La Liga Patriótica Española (LPE) and the Libre, backed by the military command, embodied Barcelona’s first fascist movement.

What was the CNT like in 1919?

In 1919, Barcelona witnessed two opposing social reactions: a revolution driven by the anarcho-syndicalist CNT and a counterrevolution aimed at dismantling this union. As expected, the CNT played a central role in both. Early that year, the CNT called the famous strike at La Canadiense, followed by a general strike. The employer organisation endured 44 days of work stoppage, and the frustration of seeing the revolution result in the eight-hour workday led to a counterrevolution, culminating in an 84-day employer lockout. At the time, the CNT boasted 400,000 members, and in the previous year’s Sants Congress, it had reorganised as a Sindicato Único, structured by industrial sectors.

From the first day of the lockout, CNT leaders formed a Permanent Committee of the Federación Local de Sindicatos Obreros of Barcelona. They issued calls for calm, with leaders such as Salvador Seguí (El Noi del Sucre) and the Leonese Ángel Pestaña insisting that violence should be avoided. They understood from experience that the employer organisation was looking for any excuse to justify brutal repression, eliminate workplace delegates, and dismantle the unions. However, the CNT was not unanimous in its stance, and acts of sabotage and bombings became daily occurrences.

What connections do you see between early 20th-century Catalan corporatism and Francoist vertical unions?

After Barcelona’s 1902 general strike, the influential Catalan bourgeois figure Ferrer-Vidal urged the government to allow the creation of the “modern guild” in Catalonia to regulate labour relations. At that time, voluntary unionisation was favoured. However, by late 1918 and throughout 1919-1923, Catalan employers consistently pushed for mandatory, unified syndication for both employers and workers, organised by industrial sector. These demands were not granted at the time, although their implementation would have been straightforward. By the middle of the second decade of the century, employers in the Federación de las Industrias de la Construcción and workers in the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo had already begun organising by industrial sectors.

The corporatist approach established during Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship in the 1920s did not satisfy everyone. The model of a mandatory single union for both employers and workers in each sector, long desired by the Catalan employer organisation, only materialised with the corporatist and openly fascist structure established by Francoism and previously advocated by the Falange Española: the Sindicatos Verticales. This system, implemented in 1940 after the Civil War, was a refinement of the corporatist model. Francoism learned from Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, leaning more heavily towards a fascist model that firmly established vertical unionism. Under Primo, unions such as the UGT and the Libre were still allowed, whereas under Franco’s corporatism, class-based trade unions were entirely eliminated.

«In retrospect, the lockout meant unemployment, hunger, and despair for the working class»

What were the consequences of the 1919 lockout?

In retrospect, the lockout resulted in unemployment, hunger, and despair for the working class. It also catalysed the rise of more radical factions within the CNT. However, the economic toll on the business sector must also be acknowledged. The Fomento del Trabajo Nacional’s year-end report for 1920 estimated these losses at over one billion pesetas. One might question whether the lockout was truly worth it for the employers. The likely answer is no. They failed to extend the lockout to other regions of Spain, which would have granted them more leverage in achieving their objectives. Moreover, although the CNT was temporarily suppressed, it was always destined to be legalised again in any democratic system, however fragile. From that point forward, Catalan employers shifted their strategy, working relentlessly to impose a stark choice: either a corporatist regime or a dictatorship—an enduring alternative purportedly aimed at ending the “class struggle”.

Which of your many articles would you choose? Are you going to keep writing?

Perhaps these: : “El impacto del fascismo italiano en Barcelona: el centenario”, Viento Sur, 16 October 2020,“La rebeldía de la patronal catalana: «debemos imponer el gobierno que conviene a España». Crónica del locaut de Barcelona, 1919-1920”, Conversaciones sobre historia, 9 November 2019, “Artistes, professionals i empresaris. La xarxa del poder burgès a Barcelona”, 1901-1923, Catxipanda, 7 February 2018.

Currently, I have finished a book titled Esperanzas frustradas: las mujeres desde la República a la posguerra; I am in the process of finding a publisher. And yes, I would like to keep writing.

Source: educational EVIDENCE

Rights: Creative Commons