Editing CEDA (section)

==Rifts and civil war==
[[File:Mitin de José María Gil Robles, lider de la CEDA (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas), en las instalaciones de un frontón (7 de 7) - Fondo Marín-Kutxa Fototeka.jpg|thumb|José María Gil-Robles at a campaign rally at [[San Sebastián]] in 1935.]]
Between November 1934 and March 1935, the CEDA minister for agriculture, Manuel Giménez Fernández, introduced into parliament a series of agrarian reform measures designed to better conditions in the Spanish countryside. These moderate proposals met with a hostile response from reactionary elements within the Cortes, including the conservative wing of the CEDA and the proposed reform was defeated. A change of personnel in the ministry also followed. The agrarian reform bill proved to be a catalyst for a series of increasingly bitter divisions within the Catholic right, rifts that indicated that the broad based CEDA alliance was disintegrating. Partly as a result of the impetus of the JAP, the Catholic party had been moving further to the right, forcing the resignation of moderate government figures, including Filiberto Villalobos.<ref>Preston, Coming of the Spanish Civil war, 153–154 (2nd edn,
184)</ref> Gil-Robles was not prepared to return the agriculture portfolio to Giménez Fernández. "For all the social Catholic rhetoric, the extreme right had won the day."<ref>Vincent, p. 235</ref>

Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two large scandals, the [[Straperlo]] affair and the [[Nombela scandal]]. However, Zamora did not allow the CEDA to form a government, and called elections. The elections of February 16, 1936 were narrowly won by the [[Popular Front (Spain)|Popular Front]], with vastly smaller resources than the political right, who followed [[Nazi propaganda]] techniques.<ref>Preston (2006). pp. 82&ndash;83.</ref>  Monarchist [[José Calvo Sotelo]] replaced Gil Robles as the right's leading spokesman in parliament.<ref name="Thomas 1961. p. 100"/><ref>Preston (1999). pp. 17–23.</ref> The Falange expanded massively, and thousands of the JAP joined the organisation (though the majority of the JAP seem to have abandoned politics).<ref>Ruiz, Julius. The 'red Terror' and the Spanish Civil War. Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 28</ref>  They successfully created a sense of militancy on the streets, in order to make an authoritarian regime justifiable.<ref>Preston (2006). p. 89.</ref> CEDA came under direct attack from the Falange.<ref name="preston92">Preston (2006). p. 92.</ref> This rapid radicalization of the CEDA youth movement effectively meant that all attempts to save parliamentary Catholicism were doomed to failure.

CEDA played no official role in the military uprising that sparked the [[Spanish Civil War]]. However, some of the party's leaders, such as Gil Robles, were aware of the conspiracy in the army and tried to moderate it. Gil Robles met with [[Manuel Fal Conde]], and offered CEDA's support to the uprising if the rebels were to agree to hand power over to a civilian government as soon as control was established. However, the conspirators rejected this condition. On the eve of the civil war, the CEDA as a whole persisted in legalism and opposition to overthrowing the republic. Historian Samuel M. Pierce wrote that "there is little evidence of widespread support for the conspiracy among local cedistas".<ref name="pierce_179">{{cite journal |title=Political Catholicism in Spain's Second Republic (1931-1936): The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas in Madrid, Seville, and Toledo |first=Samuel M. |last=Pierce |url=https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/E0/01/98/40/00001/pierce_s.pdf |year=2007 |publisher=University of Florida |journal=University of Florida Digital Collections |pages=179–180}}</ref>

Once the civil war started, Gil Robles appealed to the party members to "not take part in possible organizations of repression". CEDA became the target of attack in some Republican-controlled zones, with many party members, such as [[:es:Dimas de Madariaga|Dimas de Madariaga]], being killed by Republican militias. Others sought refuge in foreign embassies, such as Francisco Casares.<ref name="pierce_181">{{cite journal |title=Political Catholicism in Spain's Second Republic (1931-1936): The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas in Madrid, Seville, and Toledo |first=Samuel M. |last=Pierce |url=https://ufdcimages.uflib.ufl.edu/UF/E0/01/98/40/00001/pierce_s.pdf |year=2007 |publisher=University of Florida |journal=University of Florida Digital Collections |page=181}}</ref> Other CEDA members came to believe that CEDA had become relevant and joined the rebels - this course of action was taken by Franco's co-brother-in-law [[Ramón Serrano Suñer]],<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Sources of Democratic Consolidation|last=Alexander|first=Gerard|publisher=Cornell University Press|year=2018|isbn=9781501720482|pages=106}}</ref> who ended up becoming chief of the political junta of the FET y de las JONS.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Battle for Spain|last=Beevor|first=Antony|publisher=Penguin|year=2006|isbn=9781101201206|pages=255}}</ref> In the course of the civil war, the [[Communist Party of Spain]] took over the party's headquarters in Madrid and destroyed its archives.<ref name="pierce_181"/>

In April 1937, the rebel leader [[Francisco Franco]] issued the [[Unification Decree (Spain, 1937)|Unification Decree]] which laid out the creation of the [[FET y de las JONS]] upon the merging of the Fascist [[Falange Española de las JONS|FE de las JONS]] and the traditionalist [[Carlism|carlists]], outlawing the rest of political parties in the rebel-controlled territory. As result, CEDA ceased to exist.