Conflictividad y orden público durante la segunda república en la Región de Murcia (1931-1936)

Abstract

We must fill a historiographic gap or analyze topics whose study has been ideologically conditioned. We need to know the democratic quality of the regime implanted in 1931 and discern if there was an interrelation between living conditions and the perpetration of crimes or the scope of the anti-religious persecution. Our intention is also to reduce our analysis to the regional scope to know if the disorders that occurred in Spain had different repercussions in this region. Legal sources must be transcribed and contrasted with other sources, especially with the press and with the Gaceta de Madrid. Other primary and secondary sources are essential for the research. Its study should not be done separately, but together. For instance, the commentary found on the news should be made taking into account with the ideological affinity of the newspaper or the press censorship. The most numerous anti-clerical attacks were the burning of religious buildings. The huge majority of these incidents were concentrated in the months after February 1936. We can not conclude that there was a differential behavior in this area in our region, although the religious violence during the spring of 1936 was bigger than in other provinces, due to the fact that a large part of these incidents were concentrated in a short period and only in two locations. Religious processions were generally taken place, except for specific cases in some towns due to financial problems or possible public disorder. Furthermore, religious congregations were continued to be practiced thanks to legal mechanisms. The economic crisis was one of the unstable factors. We can fathom higher unemployment rates in our region due to the lower productivity of the fields of vegetables and because the economic crisis had an impact on vulnerable sectors, such as esparto grass, construction or mining. Social conflicts and strikes increased. The pattern in this region is that all the insurrections promoted by the workers' organizations had not as much follow-up as in other territories and in all of them the actions consisted of compulsion and infrastructures damaged. The policy of each executive was distinguished by its arbitrariness, making decisions to punish the political rival. In fact, this is what happened with the dismissals of councils. The government repression after the strike of October 1934 has also been studied. The revolutionary committee of Cieza suffered a judicial process in which people were arrested only because they were symphatizers of left-wing labor unions. The exactitude of this repression created after the elections of 1936 differents acts of revenge. The behavior of other right-wing formations fed back the succesions of violence. The violence exerted by the socialist and falangist wings was similar. Likewise, we must highlight the corelation between the different categories of the conflict, being the violence a transversal process. We cannot ignore the contradiction between the constitutional freedoms of the Republic and its practical enjoyment. Certainly, some people were prosecuted for expressions favorable to the monarchy. However, judiacially, the court showed that the accused were allowed to some guarantees. What is more, right-wing organizations participated in the political process. There was a link between social position and the commission of crimes, due to the fact that most of the accused were day laborers, a profession with huge levels of misery. We have also verified a relationship between the gender of the accused, their profession and their education, fact that shows that the access to work and culture was restricted for the female gender.