The Red Dawn of the Andalusian Countryside: Peasant Protest during the ‘Bolshevik Triennium’, 1918–20

Abstract

The years 1918–20 were fundamental in the modern history of the Andalusian peasant movement. The post-war economic dislocation and the rocketing prices of basic commodities brought about by Spain’s neutrality during the First World War resulted in a dramatic deterioration in the living conditions of a vast legion of landless peasants (jornaleros or braceros)1 from the south of the Iberian peninsula. In Andalusia, agrarian capitalism made giant strides with the gradual incorporation of small and medium-sized holdings into a market economy sustained by a large and impoverished labour force.2 This made possible the rapid extension in contractual relationships between jornaleros and small landowners and sharecroppers resulting in higher numbers of disputes between these groups due to the post-war inflationary cycle. Furthermore, in a still poorly mechanized agricultural sector, the profits of the big landowners depended on the maintenance of extremely low salaries. Better pay demands from jornaleros, progressively more organized in trade unions, were therefore systematically refused.