Alejandro Lerroux García (4 March 1864, in La Rambla,

Córdoba Córdoba most commonly refers to: * Córdoba, Spain, a major city in southern Spain and formerly the imperial capital of Islamic Spain * Córdoba, Argentina, the second largest city in Argentina and the capital of Córdoba Province Córdoba or Cord ...

– 25 June 1949, in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

) was a Spanish politician who was the leader of the

Radical Republican Party The Radical Republican Party (), sometimes shortened to the Radical Party, was a Spanish Radical party in existence between 1908 and 1936. Beginning as a splinter from earlier Radical parties, it initially played a minor role in Spanish parlia ...

. He served as

Prime Minister A prime minister or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. A prime minister is not the head of state, but r ...

three times from 1933 to 1935 and held several cabinet posts as well. A highly charismatic politician, he was distinguished by his demagogical and populist political style. Founder and leader of the

(PRR), he was a controversial politician from the beginning, being especially known for his demagogic rhetoric. With a workerist,

anticlerical Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historically, anti-clericalism in Christian traditions has been opposed to the influence of Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, ...

discourse and diametrically opposed to the incipient

Catalan nationalism Catalan nationalism promotes the idea that the Catalan people form a distinct nation and national identity. A related term is Catalanism (, ), which is more related to Regionalism (politics), regionalism and tends to have a wider meaning, most pe ...

, during his first political stage he became a prominent political leader in

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

. Later he would adopt more moderate positions, having a prominent role in the proclamation of the

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII. ...

. Faced with the

Manuel Azaña Manuel Azaña Díaz (; 10 January 1880 – 3 November 1940) was a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of Spain, Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1933 and 1936), organizer of the Popular Front in 1935 and the la ...

governments during the so-called "reformist" biennium, from September 1933 he would assume the presidency of the Council of Ministers and became one of the main arbiters of the political situation during the conservative biennium of 1934-1935. His turn to the right, however, led his party to suffer several splits; His image was also badly damaged among the public by a succession of corruption scandals that became public at the end of 1935. After the collapse of the Radical Party in the 1936 elections, Lerroux disappeared from the political scene. With the outbreak of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

, he went into exile in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

Biography

He was initiated as

Freemason Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...

around 1886 in Madrid's Vetonica lodge of the Grand Orient of Spain, but his activity was limited, among other reasons due to his disillusion with the prospects this membership offered to his immediate purposes. Lerroux agitated as a young man in the ranks of the radical republicans, as a follower of

Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla (22 March 183313 June 1895) was a Spanish politician. He served as Prime Minister of Spain for a little over ten weeks, in the summer of 1871, and again for eight months, between June 1872 and February 1873. Biography Born ...

. He practised a demagogic and aggressive journalistic style in the diverse publications that he directed (''El País'', ''El Progreso'', ''El Intransigente'' and ''El Radical''). From the 1890s onwards Lerroux radicalized his discourse. His populist and

speeches, as well as his intervention in diverse campaigns against the governments of the Restoration, made him very popular among workers in

, who later constituted the base of a loyal electorate. A prominent anti-catalanist, he became known as the "Emperor of the Paralelo". In 1898 and 1899, he organized through his newspapers a campaign for the judicial review of the Montjuic trial in which forced confessions through torture had led to the execution of some of the suspects for the

1896 Barcelona Corpus Christi procession bombing The 1896 Barcelona Corpus Christi procession bombing was an attack carried out on the Feast of Corpus Christi procession in Barcelona on 7 June 1896. The identity of the perpetrators is disputed: the attack was attributed to anarchists but this wa ...

. This contributed to his rise as a

left-wing Left-wing politics describes the range of Ideology#Political ideologies, political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy either as a whole or of certain social ...

political force in Barcelona. In 1906, Lerroux rallied his followers with the following exhortation: "Young barbarians of today: enter and sack the decadent civilization of this unhappy country, destroy its temples, finish off its gods, tear the veil from its novices and raise them up to be mothers to virilize the species, break into the records of property and make bonfires of its papers that fire may purify the infamous social organization. Enter its humble hearths and raise the legions of proletarians that the world may tremble before their awakened judges. Do not be stopped by altars nor by tombs. Fight, kill, die." He was elected as a member of the

Congress of Deputies The Congress of Deputies () is the lower house of the , Spain's legislative branch, the upper house being the Senate of Spain, Senate. The Congress meets in the Palacio de las Cortes, Madrid, Palace of the Parliament () in Madrid. Congress has ...

for the first time in 1901 and again in 1903 and 1905, as a member of the Republican Union Party that he had helped to form with

Nicolás Salmerón Nicolas or Nicolás may refer to: People Given name * Nicolas (given name) Mononym * Nicolas (footballer, born 1999), Brazilian footballer * Nicolas (footballer, born 2000), Brazilian footballer Surname Nicolas * Dafydd Nicolas (c.1705–1774), ...

. The defection of Salmerón to the Catalan Solidarity coalition in 1906 led Lerroux to form the Radical Republican Party (1908) and headed the struggle against increasing

. There is some evidence that both

Francisco Ferrer Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia (; January 14, 1859 – October 13, 1909), widely known as Francisco Ferrer (), was a Spanish radical freethinker, anarchist, and educationist behind a network of secular, private, libertarian schools in and aroun ...

and Lerroux may have participated in the hatching of two different plots to assassinate king

Alfonso XIII Alfonso XIII (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Alfonso León Fernando María Jaime Isidro Pascual Antonio de Borbón y Habsburgo-Lorena''; French language, French: ''Alphonse Léon Ferdinand Marie Jacques Isidore Pascal Antoine de Bourbon''; 17 May ...

in 1905 and 1906. He had to go into exile on several occasions, first to escape condemnation dictated by one of his articles (1907) and later fleeing from governmental repression in response to the Tragic Week in Barcelona (1909). After returning to Spain, Lerroux agreed to join the

Republican–Socialist Conjunction The Republican–Socialist Conjunction (, CRS) was a Spanish electoral coalition created in 1909 and lasting until 1919. It comprised different parties during its short lifespan, but it always included the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The ...

, and he was elected as a deputy again in 1910. Afterwards, he was involved in a series of scandals that moved him away from his Barcelona electorate, with corruption accusations forcing him into a change of district, appearing for Córdoba in 1914). From 1919 he was on the payroll of

Barcelona Traction Barcelona Traction, Light and Power Company (BTLP) (locally known as in Spanish and in Catalan, "The Canadian") was a Canadian utility company that operated light and power utilities in Catalonia, Spain. It was incorporated on September 12, 19 ...

, part of the Anglo-Canadian Traction, Light, and Power Company. Under the dictatorship of

Miguel Primo de Rivera Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquis of Estella, Grandee, GE (8 January 1870 – 16 March 1930), was a Spanish dictator and military officer who ruled as prime minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during the last years of the Resto ...

(1923–30), his party was debilitated when its left-wing, led by Marcelino Domingo, left to form the

Radical Socialist Republican Party The Radical Socialist Republican Party (PRRS; ), sometimes shortened to Radical Socialist Party (PRS; ''Partido Radical Socialista''), was a Spanish radical political party, created in 1929 after the split of the left-wing in Alejandro Lerroux's ...

in 1929. However, he continued to be active in politics, attending the revolutionary committee that produced the

Pact of San Sebastián The Pact of San Sebastián was a meeting led by Niceto Alcalá Zamora and Miguel Maura, which took place in San Sebastián, Spain on 17 August 1930. Representatives from practically all republican political movements in Spain at the time attended ...

with the intention of overthrowing King

and proclaiming a republic.

Second Republic

Under the republican government, Lerroux regained a leading political role, being appointed prime minister three times between 1933 and 1935 and occupying the distinguished ministerial portfolios of War (1934) and State (1935). He was part of the coalition of leftists that supported the reforms of

's government during the first biennium (1931–1933), during which time he served as

Minister of State Minister of state is a designation for a government minister, with varying meanings in different jurisdictions. In a number of European countries, the title is given as an honorific conferring a higher rank, often bestowed upon senior minister ...

between 14 April 1931 and 16 December 1931. From 12 September to 9 October 1933, he was Prime Minister. After the victory of the

Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (, CEDA) was a Spanish right-wing political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined ...

(CEDA) in the elections of autumn 1933, Lerroux again became prime minister, mainly because the President,

Niceto Alcalá-Zamora Niceto Alcalá-Zamora y Torres (6 July 1877 – 18 February 1949) was a Spanish lawyer and politician who served, briefly, as the first prime minister of the Second Spanish Republic, and then—from 1931 to 1936—as its president. Early life ...

, did not wish to appoint CEDA leader

José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones de León (Salamanca, 27 November 1898 – Madrid, 13 September 1980) was a Spanish politician, leader of the CEDA, and a prominent figure in the period leading up to the Spanish Civil War. He served as ...

. As such, he served from 16 December 1933 to 28 April 1934 and again from 4 October 1934 to 25 September 1935. He also served as minister of war (1934), state (1935) and foreign affairs (1935). After the attempted revolution of October 1934, he fell out of favor due to the

Straperlo Straperlo was a scheme which originated in the Netherlands in the 1930s and was then introduced in Spain. In essence it was a fraudulent roulette which could be controlled electrically with the push of a button. The ensuing scandal was one of the s ...

affair (a case of corruption bound to gambling legalization), which completely broke his alliance with the right and even weakened his position within the party. This was followed by the

Nombela scandal The Nombela scandal or Nombela affair was a corruption scandal during the Second Spanish Republic. The scandal had a serious political impact on the coalition government of the Radical Republican Party and CEDA, due to many distinguished members of ...

, where he participated actively by signing a contract paying a private company 3 million pesetas to perform a cancelled route, leading to his further discreditment. In the elections of 1936, Lerroux was not elected as a deputy. The same year, the

broke out and he fled to

. He returned to Spain in 1947.

References

External links

"Público" - La II República Española en su 80 aniversario: ProtagonistasPoster of the Radical Republican Party with Alejandro LerrouxIllustrious Cordobese People
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Lerroux, Alejandro 1864 births 1949 deaths People from Campiña Sur (Córdoba) Republican Union Party (Spain) politicians Radical Republican Party politicians Prime ministers of Spain Foreign ministers of Spain Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Spanish Restoration Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic Politicians from Andalusia Spanish Freemasons Exiles of the Spanish Civil War in Portugal Spanish people of French descent Exiled Spanish politicians Government ministers during the Second Spanish Republic

Biography

Second Republic

See also

References

External links