Today Azaña, tomorrow ... Franco: Berja (Almeria) as a microhistory of local oligarchies from democracy to dictatorship, 1931-1945

Abstract

This article explores the political continuities between Spain under Liberalism and under Franco´s rule. It stresses the importance of studying local politics. The main documents used for this work are the personal correspondence of a business man from Berja (Almeria) from the start of the Second Republic in 1931 until 1945. This last year is the first in which the definitive model for the working relationship between local municipalities and branches of the single party appears. The result is a microhistory that shows how, beneath the surface of party politics in the Republic or single party politics in the Francoist period, the old liberal political networks of corruption and patronage continued to prosper. To achieve this, these networks adopted new ideological discourses, organisational techniques, even embracing mass mobilisation. The result was that, as in the pre-1931 period, public resources were diverted to the private benefit of these patronage networks. The two main contributions of this article are: first, it is a compelling account of how politics really worked at local levels; second, it offers an alternative view to traditional political historical studies which are based on external organisational forms and discourses.