10 - The Growing Polarization of Rural Society during the Second Republic

Summary

This final chapter therefore attempts to answer two questions that are crucial to explaining why so many people had become disillusioned with parliamentary democracy. First, it shows why apparently modest reforms, such as the introduction of collective bargaining or the providing of emergency assistance to workers through temporary land settlements, become so contentious and, in particular, why employers and labour organizations were so intransigent. Second, it explains why conflicts became widespread across Spain, appearing not just in areas of latifundios, but also in villages where land was not heavily concentrated. After briefly examining the theoretical literature on rural conflicts and the scale and scope of contentious behavior in the Spanish countryside between 1931 and 1936, it looks at case studies of conflicts involving casual harvest labourers in Southern Spain, and tenant farmers or yunteros in Extremadura.