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1917 Spanish general strike
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1917 Spanish general strike
The 1917 Spanish general strike, or revolutionary general strike of 1917, took place in Spain in August 1917. It was called by the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and in some places it was supported by the National Confederation of Labor (CNT). The general strike took place in the historical context of the Crisis of 1917, during the reign of Alfonso XIII and the government of Eduardo Dato.
The Spanish crisis of 1917 refers to the set of events that took place in the summer of 1917, and specifically to the three simultaneous challenges that endangered the government of the conservative Eduardo Dato and even the system of the Restoration: a military movement led by the Defense Councils; a political movement concretized in the Assembly of Parliamentarians held in Barcelona and called by the Regionalist League; and a social movement that culminated in the revolutionary general strike of 1917.
The anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labor (Spanish: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, CNT) had been defending the possibility of convening a general strike to confront the growing deterioration in the living conditions of the working classes, as a consequence of the economic impact that World War I was having on Spain: inflation, subsistence crisis, deterioration of wages, increase in unemployment, supply shortages, etc. In 1916 this objective was specified in the Valencia Assembly and in the Barcelona Confederal Congress that summer.
A similar process was experienced by the socialist General Union of Workers (Spanish: Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT), which in its XII Congress held in May 1916 passed a resolution in favor of calling a general protest strike, in principle limited to one day. This is how contacts with the CNT began, which in its Valencia Assembly of the same month had not only approved the general strike but also the collaboration with the Socialists. The result was the historic "Pact of Zaragoza" signed on 17 July 1916 by both organizations, from which a joint committee was formed, made up of Ángel Pestaña and Salvador Seguí for the CNT, and Francisco Largo Caballero, Julián Besteiro and Vicente Barrio for the UGT that would organize the protest strike. The government of Álvaro de Figueroa ordered the arrest of the signatories of the Pact. Finally, on 26 November, the CNT and UGT called a 24-hour general strike for 18 December.
The strike was not only a complete success but also "had the support of the middle classes and a general sympathy in the country." Two days earlier, the socialist leader Largo Caballero had written:
All of Spain knows that conscientious workers have been demanding measures to mitigate somewhat the irresistible situation created by the rising cost of basic necessities and the job crisis for more than two years. There have been no more than words and words.
After the success of the December 1916 strike and the null response of the Government, the two workers' organizations agreed to promote an indefinite strike, which they made public in a joint manifesto on 27 March 1917. The response of Figueroa's liberal government was to suspend constitutional guarantees and imprison the signatories of the manifesto that they could find, who were detained for a week. In the manifesto signed, among others, by the UGT members Julián Besteiro and Francisco Largo Caballero, and the CNT members Salvador Seguí and Ángel Pestaña, among other things, it said:
In order to force the ruling classes to make those fundamental changes in the system that guarantee the people a minimum of decent living conditions and the development of their emancipatory activities, it is imposed that the Spanish proletariat employ the general strike, without a defined term of termination, as the most powerful weapon you have to claim your rights.
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1917 Spanish general strike
The 1917 Spanish general strike, or revolutionary general strike of 1917, took place in Spain in August 1917. It was called by the General Union of Workers (UGT) and the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE), and in some places it was supported by the National Confederation of Labor (CNT). The general strike took place in the historical context of the Crisis of 1917, during the reign of Alfonso XIII and the government of Eduardo Dato.
The Spanish crisis of 1917 refers to the set of events that took place in the summer of 1917, and specifically to the three simultaneous challenges that endangered the government of the conservative Eduardo Dato and even the system of the Restoration: a military movement led by the Defense Councils; a political movement concretized in the Assembly of Parliamentarians held in Barcelona and called by the Regionalist League; and a social movement that culminated in the revolutionary general strike of 1917.
The anarcho-syndicalist National Confederation of Labor (Spanish: Confederación Nacional del Trabajo, CNT) had been defending the possibility of convening a general strike to confront the growing deterioration in the living conditions of the working classes, as a consequence of the economic impact that World War I was having on Spain: inflation, subsistence crisis, deterioration of wages, increase in unemployment, supply shortages, etc. In 1916 this objective was specified in the Valencia Assembly and in the Barcelona Confederal Congress that summer.
A similar process was experienced by the socialist General Union of Workers (Spanish: Unión General de Trabajadores, UGT), which in its XII Congress held in May 1916 passed a resolution in favor of calling a general protest strike, in principle limited to one day. This is how contacts with the CNT began, which in its Valencia Assembly of the same month had not only approved the general strike but also the collaboration with the Socialists. The result was the historic "Pact of Zaragoza" signed on 17 July 1916 by both organizations, from which a joint committee was formed, made up of Ángel Pestaña and Salvador Seguí for the CNT, and Francisco Largo Caballero, Julián Besteiro and Vicente Barrio for the UGT that would organize the protest strike. The government of Álvaro de Figueroa ordered the arrest of the signatories of the Pact. Finally, on 26 November, the CNT and UGT called a 24-hour general strike for 18 December.
The strike was not only a complete success but also "had the support of the middle classes and a general sympathy in the country." Two days earlier, the socialist leader Largo Caballero had written:
All of Spain knows that conscientious workers have been demanding measures to mitigate somewhat the irresistible situation created by the rising cost of basic necessities and the job crisis for more than two years. There have been no more than words and words.
After the success of the December 1916 strike and the null response of the Government, the two workers' organizations agreed to promote an indefinite strike, which they made public in a joint manifesto on 27 March 1917. The response of Figueroa's liberal government was to suspend constitutional guarantees and imprison the signatories of the manifesto that they could find, who were detained for a week. In the manifesto signed, among others, by the UGT members Julián Besteiro and Francisco Largo Caballero, and the CNT members Salvador Seguí and Ángel Pestaña, among other things, it said:
In order to force the ruling classes to make those fundamental changes in the system that guarantee the people a minimum of decent living conditions and the development of their emancipatory activities, it is imposed that the Spanish proletariat employ the general strike, without a defined term of termination, as the most powerful weapon you have to claim your rights.