The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera

General Primo de Rivera assumed power in Spain by means of a classic pronunciamiento on 13 September 1923. He suspended the 1876 constitution, upon which the liberal monarchy had rested for the previous fifty years, and established a seven-year dictatorship. His coup d'etat was, however, acclaimed by King Alfonso XIII, who had been exhibiting signs of impatience with the parliamentary regime which had, he believed, obstructed the material development of the country. By his adherence to rebellion against legality, the king put himself in an unconstitutional position, a position which was to be aggravated by his constant endorsement of the dictator's decrees throughout his years in power. Historians and contemporary observers have generally dismissed Primo's rule as that of a 'national Father Christmas','a Haroun-el-Rashid issuing decrees right and left with a Robin Hood sense of justice, or a sympathetic Andalusian determined to force upon a whole nation his primitive and over-simplistic political philosophy. Primo de Rivera was certainly an improviser, an amateur politician who believed fervently in his 'intuition', and a naive soldier who maintained that 'patriotism' alone could be the lever with which he would 'reconstruct' and 'regenerate' the 'decaying' Spanish state.1 A major purpose of this paper is, however, to focus attention upon those aspects of the dictatorship which constitute attempts, though hesitant, to set up a new regime; and to highlight the political consequences of Primo de Rivera's arbitrary rule, as well as of his failure to become a political architect. His measures to undermine the foundations of the monarchist liberal state unleashed processes which finally brought about both his downfall and that of the monarchy. Furthermore Primo de Rivera was responsible for the disappearance, for years

Absolute monarchy · Constitution · Democracy · Dictator · Dictatorship · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Principle of legality · History · History of Education in Spain · Law · Philosophy · Spanish Culture and Identity · Spanish History and Politics