The Grupo de Acción Republicana (in English: Republican Action Group) —initially called Grupo de Acción Política (Political Action Group) and also known simply as Acción Republicana (Republican Action)— was a Spanish political group that emerged around 1925, during the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Its ideology consisted basically in the intention of replacing the monarchy of Alfonso XIII with a republican regime, while maintaining a great internal pluralism in other matters. It promoted the creation of the Republican Alliance to unite the different forces of this tendency, and supported on a secondary level the different pronunciamientos that tried to put an end to the Dictatorship. After the fall of Primo de Rivera, it participated in the attempts to form a unitary front that culminated in the Pact of San Sebastián. After the coalition thus formed failed in its attempt to end the monarchy by means of a military pronunciamiento, it participated in the Republican-Socialist Conjunction, a coalition that triumphed in the main cities in the municipal elections of April 1931, the result of which produced the proclamation of the Second Republic. It formed part of the first Provisional Government presided over by Alcalá-Zamora, in which its representative, the Minister of the Army Manuel Azaña, distinguished himself by promoting various reforms. Finally, at the end of May 1931, it became a political party under the name of Acción Republicana.
Background
The political system of the Restoration had serious defects due to the distortion of the suffrage, the caciquismo and the interference of the king in the political struggle. However, it maintained the multiparty system and public liberties, and the existence of elections kept open a certain possibility of regeneration of the system. This changed with the coup d'état perpetrated by General Primo de Rivera. By liquidating the parliamentary system, he prevented any possibility of its evolution; and he did so with the consent of King Alfonso XIII.
Republicanism had long been a weak political movement. Its main representative, the Radical Republican Party of Alejandro Lerroux, had a diffuse structure based on small local parties. However, the political perspicacity of its leader allowed him to realize that it was necessary to undertake a reorganization work to receive the inheritance that the Dictatorship was going to leave to the movement. The reaction of the Reformist Party of Melquíades Álvarez was very different, as it failed to understand the significance of the political change and simply waited for the return of constitutional normality.
Foundation The Republican Action Group was born in 1925, when the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera had been in existence for a year and a half. Its first promoters were the pharmacist and professor of Biology José Giral and the lawyer and professor Enrique Martí Jara. Both were linked to the Escuela Nueva, a leftist cultural institution, and had been in correspondence with Miguel de Unamuno in 1924. In February of that year they announced to the writer that they wanted to form a "grouping, without dogma, of all or the healthiest part of Spanish politics". They began by holding what were called "novenas", that is, meetings of a maximum of nine people to avoid incurring in the crime of illegal meeting established by the Dictatorship. Martí incorporated Manuel Azaña, who had left the Reformist Party after the Primo de Rivera's pronunciamiento, to the meetings in Giral's backroom. At the beginning of 1925, they also had the assistance of the writer Ramón Pérez de Ayala, the criminal lawyer Luis Jiménez de Asúa and the physician Teófilo Hernando.
In May 1925, the group made public its founding manifesto,Manifiesto de Acción Republicana (in Spanish). although the censorship of the Dictatorship prevented it from being published and circulated. It had been drafted by Azaña. The text expressed "all the rage of our liberal spirit, subjected to tyranny, and all the hope of our Spanish vigor, eager to redeem itself". It called for freedom, which he clearly identified with the Republic. Its purpose seemed to be to unite all Republicans, regardless of whether or not they were already members of any other organization. However, the group also expressed its desire to be an "embryo party" and called for the collaboration of the various republican and proletarian organizations. The text also defended the group's own identity, which did not wish to be confused with the discredited republican parties. It aspired rather to have a moral authority over the existing parties. It was not a political party and seemed to have the ambition of becoming a supra-party organization, as the Republican Alliance would later become. For the time being, membership of the group was perfectly compatible with membership of a public party. However, the manifesto did not reach thirty signatories.
Although some place the creation of the Republican Action Group at that time, the truth is that it was only known as "the group". Little by little it began to be called "political action group"; and then, with capital letters, "Political Action Group". Towards the end of December 1925, it was already called "Republican Action Group". During that year, it had no organization, statutes or quotas, and its informal character was evident. In fact, its first public appearance can be considered a failure; the manifesto had few signatories and was not published; and the Political Action Group did not have members, a board of directors or a representative assembly. This situation would continue for four years. Although Azaña had a certain initial protagonism —which was always supported by Giral and Martí— he soon lost enthusiasm.
Creation of the Republican Alliance
Although the group was little more than a mere gathering of professors and writers at the Ateneo, it played a key role in uniting the different currents of republicanism. Aware of their weakness but jealous of their independence, they established contact with the Radical Republican Party of Alejandro Lerroux. Despite the discredit of the traditional republican parties, the group needed them to break out of their isolation. For his part, Lerroux was also interested in the renown that this group of intellectuals could bring him. Giral and Azaña had to work hard to overcome the reluctance of other members of the group to deal with the radicals. With the help of Antonio Marsá —a member of the Radical Party also linked to the New School— Giral and Martí organized on February 11, 1926, a joint celebration of the anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic that had a great echo throughout Spain and which meant the birth of the Republican Alliance. The board of this new unitary organization was formed by Lerroux in representation of the Radical Party, the main party of republicanism although it did not have influence in all the territory; Hilario Ayuso for the Federal Party, a political force following the tradition of Pi y Margall quite divided; Marcelino Domingo for the Catalan Republican Party, an organization that, after fleetingly affiliating with the Communist International in 1920, had been greatly weakened by the violence that plagued Barcelona between the CNT and the Free Trade Unions; Roberto Castrovido for the Republican press, a veteran journalist who had been a deputy in several legislatures; and Manuel Azaña, who was appointed to represent the Republican Action Group. Giral, Martí Jara and Marsá were listed as secretaries. The manifesto of the Alliance, which presented a moderate program, was signed by a good number of intellectuals thanks largely to the work of Giral and Jara's group.
Although the beginning of the Alliance was encouraging and its organs were created in numerous provinces, it seems that its activity in successive years was almost limited to commemorating the anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic. As the Radical Party would later say, the independent intellectuals who were linked to it were generically included in Republican Action.
Through the Republican Alliance, the group supported the failed monarchist pronunciamiento of June 24, 1926 known as the Sanjuanada. Given the weakness of republicanism, it was considered convenient to collaborate with moderate monarchist sectors opposed to the Dictatorship that would have greater support within the armed forces. However, the support of the Alliance for the failed pronunciamiento of Sánchez-Guerra in 1929 caused the most left-wing sector, headed by Marcelino Domingo and Álvaro de Albornoz, to separate from the common front and create the Radical Socialist Party (PRRS) as a reaction to this collaboration with monarchist sectors and to the excessive weight of the Radical Party. It was also abandoned by part of the Federal Party and some intellectuals such as Gregorio Marañón, Jiménez de Asúa and Pérez de Ayala. The PRRS was a clear competitor of Acción Republicana as it was equally to the left of the Radical Party, achieved rapid organizational success against the disjointed local groups of Azaña's grouping, had media that supported it and its leaders were more popular as old republican leaders.
In December 1926 the Masonic lodge "Dantón" was formed, in which Giral and Martí participated. It belonged to the most "political" sector of Freemasonry and was in favor of the struggle against the Dictatorship. Other members of the group would ascribe to Freemasonry in one way or another.
"Dictablanda"
Revitalization