La Segunda República Española

Ninety years later, the Second Republic takes on a special and controversial topicality. Was it an outbreak of freedom, culture and popular enlightenment, frustrated by the violence of reactionary classes that did not tolerate the loss of their privileges? Or was it a regime of arbitrariness and ignorance, poverty, separatism and political hatred that would lead to civil war? It is enough to pose the question to understand its historical projection: Should we consider that republic a model of political coexistence in which to inspire ourselves or, on the contrary, as a rejectable combination of threats to coexistence in freedom? The studies published in one sense or another number in the hundreds, but very few expose the internal dynamics of that regime based on the trials, intentions and acts expressed by its protagonists. The present work focuses in large part on the writings of Azaña, but also on those of Alcalá-Zamora, the socialist leaders, Lerroux, Gil-Robles and others, avoiding make-up and later more or less interested interpretations.