Labor Movement in Spain: 1833-1875

Economic and Social Developments: The Start of the Labor Movement (1833-1875)

Social Evolution

The main feature of this period was the gradual disappearance of a class society and its replacement by a class society based on property rights and equality before the law. This new partnership allowed much greater social mobility, either by business success or by civil service and, above all, military.

It shaped a new dominant social group set up by the gentry (Catalan textile business, financial, Madrid and Basque), the landed oligarchy that owned large estates, especially in southern Spain, and the senior state and army.

Below, an urban middle class emerged, not too many (rural and urban small landowners, military officers, officials, doctors, teachers).

The rural population made up the majority of the population of the country and was quite heterogeneous: owners, tenants, and landless laborers who made up more than half the rural population.

Finally, linked to weak industrialization, a small group of industrial workers was established.

The Origins of the Labor Movement in Spain

The weak and very localized Spanish industrialization explains the weakness of the labor movement up to the democratic presidential term. It is estimated that in 1860 there were around one hundred and fifty thousand industrial workers in the country, over half were living in Catalonia.

However, since the 1830s some associations were born, such as "mutual aid societies". There were some protests Luddite in nature, such as conflicts in 1835 in the factory "El Vapor" in Barcelona, or the protests against "selfactinas" in 1854, and the emergence of the first newspapers. These first signs of the labor movement were harshly repressed by the government of the time.

The Labor Movement Under Six Years of Democracy

Political freedoms allowed a major boost to the labor movement during the administration.

In 1864, the International Workers Association (IWA) was established in London, where the followers of the ideas of Karl Marx (Marxists or socialists) and the followers of Mikhail Bakunin (anarchists) lived for a time.

The new freedoms brought by the "Glorious Revolution" led to the creation of the Spanish Section of the IWA. Its foundation was due to the momentum of the Italian anarchist Giuseppe Fanelli. From the start, in the "internationalists", the anarchist ideology was clearly predominant, inspired by the thought of Bakunin. As expected by its greater degree of industrialization, the anarchist movement had its greatest development in Catalonia.

Furthermore, Paul Lafargue, Marx's son-in-law, came to our country to spread the ideas of Marxism. In 1872, he created a small band from Madrid that would lead shortly after to the PSOE.