La Constitución de 1931 y la organización territorial del Estado

Abstract

The «Catalan issue» marked the «Pact of San Sebastian» in the period immediately prior to the Second Republic and made its presence felt from the very first day of the proclamation of the republic on 14 April 1931. Somewhat unexpectedly, it also marked the short but extremely intense constitutional process, when the debate on the new Fundamental Law in the greatly atomised Spanish Cortes (in which the nationalist parties, mainly of Catalonia but also of the Basque Country and even Galicia, vehemently defended their respective selfgovernment regimes) ended up also being a debate of the Catalan Statute of Autonomy. The federal or unitary nature of the republic, along with the religious problem, was hotly debated in the constituent assembly. In the end, a hybrid, ground-breaking formula, unprecedented in the history of Spain, won the day: the so-called «integral state». The autonomy of Catalonia was articulated in the light of this formula, albeit in fits and starts, as was that of the Basque Country, on the eve of the Spanish Civil War, although the self-government of Galicia was aborted. However, opposition to the regional autonomies and the «integral state» that had permitted them was rife from the moment the republican constitution entered force, with demands for the reinstatement of the uniform state (the pillar of an exclusively Castilian Spain), by force if necessary. Indeed, this is precisely what happened following the victory of General Franco.