"Being político" in Spain: An ethnographic account of memories, silences and public politics

History and Memory

Volumn 14, Issue 1-2, 2002, Pages 189-228

  Narotzky, Susana ^a   Smith, Gavin ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 79957997228     PISSN: 0935560X     EISSN: 15271994     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/ham.2002.0008     Document Type: Review

References (71)

1. Josep M. Bernabé Mestre, Indústria i subdesenvolupament al País Valencià (Mallorca, 1975).
2. The law of February 1939 was specifically designed to include all those workers who had participated in the 1934 October revolution in the mining region of Asturias. In theory, the agricultural day laborers' uprising in June 1934 was excluded from the reach of the retroactive bill, but in practice the bill simply opened the door - in the usual vague terms - to retroactive political responsibility of any on the left or even just liberal republicans before 1936. However, the Law of Political Responsibilities was particularly aimed at the politically organized (and united) working class that predated the 1936 revolution. See also below, p. 205.
3. See José Manuel Naredo, Por una oposición que se oponga (1976; Barcelona, 2001).
4. Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez, "Dictatorship from Below: Local Politics in the Making of the Francoist State, 1937-1948," The Journal of Modern History 71, no. 4 (Dec. 1999): 882-901;
5. Antonio Robles Egea, ed., Política en penumbra: Patronazgo y clientelismo políticos en la España contemporánea (Madrid, 1996).
6. Cazorla-Sánchez, "Dictatorship from Below," 886;
7. Antonio Robles Egea, "Sistemas políticos, mutaciones y modelos de las relaciones de patronazgo y clientelismo en la España del siglo XX
8. Miguel Jerez Mir, "El régimen de Franco: élite política central y redes clientelares (1938-1957)," both in Robles Egea, ed., Política en penumbra, 229-52 and 253-74, respectively.
9. Cazorla-Sánchez, "Dictatorship from Below";
10. Robles Egea, ed., Política en penumbra.
11. Michael Richards, A Time of Silence: Civil War and the Culture of Repression in Franco's Spain, 1936-1945 (Cambridge, 1998), 26-66;
12. Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Los demonios familiares de Franco (Barcelona, 1978).
13. Most of them had been large tenants for absentee owners before the Civil War and had acquired the land just after the war, when absentee owners decided to sell their property, in part scared by the collectivization experience of the revolution during the war. See Antonio Gil Olcina and Gregorio Canales Martínez, Residuos de propiedad señorial en España (Alicante, 1988).
14. See Joaquín Costa, Oligarquía y caciquismo: Colectivismo agrario y otros escritos (Madrid, 1967);
15. María Carmen García-Nieto, Javier M. Donezar and Luis López Puerta, eds., La dictadura 1923-1930 (Madrid, 1973);
16. Shlomo Ben-Ami, La dictadura de Primo de Rivera, 1923-1930 (Barcelona, 1983).
17. During the revolution, Catral, originally an UGT town, organized production through a local Consejo de Administracion de las Fincas, managed by unionized workers. Some large properties were collectivized and were then managed directly by a union encargado (foreman) who decided how many workers he needed to work the land. But other large properties were parceled to small tenants and left for them to work. In general, the lands managed by the CNT tended to be collectivized, while those managed by the UGT tended to be divided into small parcels to be distributed to peasants without land. In Catral, the unions constituted a "Colectividad Cooperativa Unificada de Trabajadores Campesinos" which seems to have been extremely well managed. See Fernando Quilis Tauriz, Revolución y guerra civil: Las colectividades obreras en la provincia de Alicante, 1936-1939 (Alicante, 1992), 123.
18. In a conversation with the Asturian miners who had been on strike in 1963 and 1964, Manuel Castells reported that the Comisiones Obreras were something that concerned workers of all political leanings. A worker told him: "They are all there. There is unity (unidad). It's the comisiones [elected directly by the workers as their representatives] that count." To Castells' question: "Then the term Union Opposition (Oposición Sindical) rather than being an organization refers to action, the action of the comisiones obreras where all organizations participate?" the worker answers: "Yes, that's it. And everyone is in the comisiones. All those that are really with the worker. Because we workers are not idiots...." Jordi Blanc (Manuel Castells), "Asturias: Minas, huelgas y comisiones obreras (Transcripción de una charla de café)," Cuadernos de Ruedo Ibérico (Paris), no. 1 (June-July 1965): 70-74.
19. This pattern of permanent emigration was a recurrent aspect in many of the vanquished lineages. Cf. George Collier, Socialists of Rural Andalusia: Unacknowledged Revolutionaries of the Second Republic (Stanford, 1987).
20. An emphasis on the religious aspect of repression and pardon was ubiquitous: during the first years after the war, prisoners recall that death sentences were executed at dawn on Sundays or on important festivities, highlighting the sacrificial aspect of the execution, its purifying function. See Ángel Suárez and Colectivo 36, Libro blanco sobre las cárceles franquistas: Ruedo Ibérico (Paris, 1976). A memorable beating of Reds that took place in Catral in 1945 occurred on the first day of Easter, Holy Thursday.
21. This story was recounted to us many times as an example of the repressive practices in the aftermath of the war. Hence, it was not just a personal memory but a collective memory for the local "Reds." This particular beating is reported by different informants as having taken place at different moments: (a) at the very end of the war; (b) in 1942 or 1943 simultaneously with a round-up of "communist" organizers in the village; (c) in 1947 for the previous reason. In fact the round-up of 15-20 people in Catral probably took place in 1945 when some 800 alleged communist militants were detained in the area between Crevillente, Elche and Alicante. See Antoni Furió, Historia del País Valencia (Valencia, 1995), 619.
22. William Roseberry, "Hegemony and the Language of Contention," in Gilbert Joseph and Daniel Nugent, eds., Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico (Durham, 1994).
23. Gabarda speaks of some 30,000 detainees in the first months, others speak of between 8,000 and 17,000. Vicente Gabarda, Els afusellaments al País Valencia: 1938-1956, (Valencia, 1993);
24. Juan Llarch, Campos de concentración en la España de Franco (Barcelona, 1978);
25. Suárez and Colectivo 36, Libro blanco;
26. Cipriano Damiano and Carlos Enrique Bayo "Sólo dejaron los huesos: Albatera (Alicante), ensayo general para el exterminio," Interviú, no. 105 (May 1978): 40-42. In any case all the testimonies are agreed on the arbitrary executions, the terrible health conditions (72 people are reported to have died in one month of hunger). Typhus was so widespread that it began claiming victims among the guards so that the Albatera camp was closed in December 1939 and prisoners transferred to other detention centers.
27. Ronald Fraser, Recuérdalo tú y recuérdalo a otros: Historia oral de la guerra civil española, vol. 2 (1979; Barcelona, 1997), 298.
28. Damiano and Bayo, "Sólo dejaron los huesos," 40-42.
29. In 1999, Florencio Dimas, a local historian working at the Centro de Documentación de la Guerra Civil - Lorca (Murcia) and doing research on the Francoist concentration camps, e-mailed the Socialist mayor of Albatera, suggesting that the municipality rehabilitate the memory of the camp where so many had suffered and died. He even suggested a "consumable" touristic cultural itinerary of repression linked to the Albatera camp. He received no answer (http://www.fut.es/ mllistes/gce/September-2001/ msg00241.html).
30. Avance, 31 April 1939.
31. Gabarda, Els afusellaments.
32. 1940: Ley para reprimir la Masoneria y el comunismo;
33. 1941: Ley de Seguridad del Estado;
34. Salvoconducto Especial para desplazarse a la zona de frontera (until 1955) and more generally within Spain (up to 1948);
35. 1945: Fuero de los Españoles;
36. 1946: creation of the corporatist unions;
37. 1947: Ley para la represión del bandidaje y el terrorismo. In 1946 and 1947 there were the first nonpolitical strikes in Catalonia and the Basque Country in demand of better salaries.
38. Suárez and Colectivo 36, Libro blanco, 32-33.
39. See, for example, the sweeping formulation of Article 2 of the Decree on Banditry and Terrorism: "Will be considered convicted of the offense of military rebellion.... (1) Those who spread false or tendentious information with the object of provoking disruptions in public order, international conflicts or discrediting the State, its institutions, the government, the army or the authorities. (2) Those who in any way associate, plot or participate in reunions, conferences or demonstrations with the above-mentioned objectives. This can also apply to plans, strikes, sabotage and any such acts when they have a political aim and disrupt public order." Amnesty International, Situación actual de las cárceles españolas (n.d.[1973]).
40. "On 22 March 1957 - that is, a month after the new government [the first technocratic government of the Opus Dei] - a law appears that ascribes collective responsibilities in case of a strike, noting that if the individuals responsible for the strike are not found, the most prominent among the culprits or ... the oldest will be considered as such." Naredo, Por una oposición que se oponga, 91.
41. Susana Narotzky and Gavin Smith, Real Life: Conflicting Histories in a Regional Economy (forthcoming).
42. Luisa Passerini, Torino Operaia e Fascismo (Rome, 1984), mentions an informant, Maddalena, forcefully saying: "we were born socialist. And we were born socialist! My father was like that!" (17).
43. Franco to Manuel Aznar, 31 Dec. 1938, in Vázquez Montalbán, Los demonios familiares de Franco, 146;
44. cf. Richards, A Time of Silence, 26-66.
45. Franco to Manuel Aznar, 31 Dec.1938, in Vázquez Montalbán, Los demonios familiares de Franco, 147;
46. cf. Richards, A Time of Silence, 26-66.
47. Psychiatrist Antonio Vallejo-Nágera, who was appointed chief of the Psychiatric Services of Franco's Army in 1938, and whose office conducted between 1938 and 1939 a series of research projects on war prisoners under the general title of "Biopsiquismo del Fanatismo Marxista," including a "Psychological Research on Female Marxist Delinquents" - conducted in the prison of Málaga among 50 women sentenced to death (66%), life imprisonment (20%), 20 years (6%) and 12 years (8%) - concluded that the motivations impelling them to political action were (1) environmental suggestion (38%), (2) antisocial psychopathy (24%) and (3) innate revolutionary tendencies (36%). See Antonio Vallejo and Eduardo M. Martínez, "Psiquismo del fanatismo Marxista: Investigación psicológica en Marxistas femeninos delincuentes," Revista Española de Medecina y Cirurgía de Guerra 9 (1939): 398-413
48. cited in Javier Bandrés and Rafael Llavona, "Psychology in Franco's Concentration Camps," Psychology in Spain 1, no. 1 (1997): 3-9.
49. Passerini, Torino Operaia, 20-21.
50. For a similar situation see Gabriella Gribaudi, "Napoli 1943: Memoria individuale e memoria collettiva," Quaderni Storici 101/a.XXXIV, no. 2 (1999): 507-37. Gribaudi points to the occlusion from collective memory of the particularly violent retreat of the German troops from Naples in 1943, while a collective memory of cunning and resourcefulness in the black market with the American troops is supported by a highly visible popular culture. The memory of the massacre of Ponticelli remains an individual memory because there has been no public space for constructing a collective memory.
51. Alessandro Portelli, "Uchronic Dreams: Working Class Memory and Possible Worlds," Oral History Journal 16, no. 2 (1988): 46-55.
52. Naredo, Por una oposición que se oponga.
53. See also Jesús Ibáñez, "Nada para el pueblo, pero sin el pueblo," Archipiélago, no. 9 (1992): 59-67;
54. For an excellent account of the neoliberal practices of the Socialist (PSOE) years (1982-1996), see James Petras, "Spanish Socialism: The Politics of Neo-Liberalism," in James Kurth and James Petras, Mediterranean Paradoxes: The Politics and Social Structure of Southern Europe (Oxford, 1993).
55. See also Naredo, Por una oposición que se oponga.
56. Naredo, Por una oposición que se oponga, 78-106, especially 105-6;
57. Santiago Míguez González, La preparación de la transición a la democracia en España (Zaragoza, 1990), 230-380.
58. Carme Molinero and Pere Ysàs, Productores disciplinados y minorías subversivas: Clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista (Madrid, 1998).
59. Cf. Joan Frigolé, "'Ser cacique' y 'ser hombre' o la negación delas relaciones de patronazgo en un pueblo de la Vega Alta del Segura," in Joan Prat et al., eds., Antropología de los Pueblos de España (Madrid, 1991), 556-73.
60. Joan Martínez Alier, "Velles idelogies i noves realitats corporativistes," Papers. Revista de Sociologia, no. 24 (1985): 25-51.
61. Alier defines the new political regime as "liberal paliamentary corporatism" (32-35). For a more general discussion of organic forms of "democracy," see Michael Mann, "The Dark Side of Democracy: The Modern Tradition of Ethnic and Political Cleansing," New Left Review, no. 235 (2000): 28-45;
62. Verena Stolcke, "Talking Culture: New Boundaries, New Rhetorics of Exclusion in Europe," Current Anthropology 36, no. 1 (1995): 1-24.
63. Cited in Naredo, Por una oposición que se oponga, 57.
64. "Moros y Cristianos" is a folk festival of the Valencia region, in which local people join "Moor" or "Christian" associations, dress up in traditional costumes and stage on the streets the medieval confrontation between Arabs and Christians at the time of the Reconquista (the seven-centuries struggle to expel the Arabs from the Iberian Peninsula ending in the conquest of Granada by the Catholic Kings in 1492). See Antoni Ariño, Temes d'Etnografia Valenciana, vol. 4, Festes Rituals i Creences (Valencia, 1988), 30-66.
65. See http://europa.eu.int/comm/culture/overview-en.html.
66. It is particularly revealing to look at the 2002 call for proposals within the "Culture 2000" program. The main sectors addressed are visual arts (2002), performing arts (2003) and cultural heritage (2004). In this last sector, actions should involve the following: virtual cultural itineraries, the implementation of touring exhibitions and conservation/safeguarding of monuments or objects. See Official Journal of the European Communities, 15 Aug. 2001.
67. Gavin Smith, "Pandora's History: Central Peruvian Peasants and the Recovering of the Past," in Gerald Sider and Gavin Smith, eds. Between History and Histories: The Making of Silences and Commemorations (Toronto, 1997), 86.
68. Portelli, "Uchronic Dreams," 53.
69. Raymond Williams, Marxism and Literature (Oxford, 1977), 115-16 (original emphasis).
70. Gribaudi, "Napoli 1943," 534, also voices a similar need.
71. Raymond Williams, Keywords (London, 1983), 148 (original emphasis).