Editing Alejandro Lerroux

{{short description|Spanish pro-Republican politician}}
{{family name hatnote|Lerroux|García|lang=Spanish}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name                = Alejandro Lerroux
| image               = Alejandro Lerroux García.jpg
| order               = 
| office              = [[Prime Minister of Spain]]
| term_start          = 12 September 1933
| term_end            = 9 October 1933
| president           = [[Niceto Alcalá Zamora]]
| predecessor         = [[Manuel Azaña]]
| successor           = [[Diego Martínez Barrio]]
| order2              = 
| office2             = 
| term_start2         = 16 December 1933
| term_end2           = 28 April 1934
| president2          = Niceto Alcalá Zamora
| predecessor2        = [[Diego Martínez Barrio]]
| successor2          = [[Ricardo Samper]]
| term_start3         = 4 October 1934
| term_end3           = 25 September 1935
| president3          = Niceto Alcalá-Zamora
| predecessor3        = [[Ricardo Samper]]
| successor3          = [[Joaquín Chapaprieta]]
| order7              = Member of the [[Congress of Deputies]]
| term_start7         = 8 December 1933
| term_end7           = 7 January 1936
| constituency7       = [[Valencia]]
| term_start8         = 14 July 1931
| term_end8           = 9 October 1933
| constituency8       = [[Madrid]]
| birth_name          = Alejandro Lerroux García
| birth_date          = {{birth date|1864|3|4|df=y}}
| birth_place         = [[La Rambla, Córdoba]], Spain
| death_date          = {{death date and age|1949|6|25|1864|3|4|df=y}}
| death_place         = [[Madrid]], Spain
| restingplace        = 
| restingplacecoordinates = 
| citizenship         = 
| nationality         = Spanish
| party               = [[Radical Republican Party]]
| otherparty          = 
| spouse              = Teresa López
| father              = Alejandro Lerroux Rodríguez<ref>{{cite book|last1=López Castillo|first1=Antonio|title=El republicanismo Almeriense durante la segunda república (1931-1936)|date=2008|publisher=Universidad de Almería|isbn=9788482408675|page=389|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-eDgCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA389|access-date=19 December 2017|language=es}}</ref>
| mother              = 
| relations           = 
| children            = Aurelio Lerroux ''(adoptive)''
| residence           = 
| alma_mater          = 
| occupation          = Lawyer
| cabinet             = 
| committees          = 
| portfolio           = 
| signature           = 
| signature_alt       = 
| website             = 
| footnotes           = 
| religion            = 
| office4             = [[List of foreign ministers of Spain#Ministers of State|Minister of State of Spain]]
| president4          = Niceto Alcalá-Zamora
| primeminister4      = Manuel Azaña
| 1blankname4         = [[Provisional Government of the Second Spanish Republic|President of the Provisional Government]]
| 1namedata4          = Niceto Alcalá-Zamora <br> Manuel Azaña
| predecessor4        = [[Count of Romanones]]
| successor4          = [[Luis de Zulueta]]
| termstart4          = 14 April
| termend4            = 16 December 1931
| termstart5          = 25 September
| termend5            = 29 October 1935
| president5          = Niceto Alcalá-Zamora
| primeminister5      = [[Joaquín Chapaprieta]]
| predecessor5        = Juan José Racha García
| successor5          = José Martínez de Velasco
| office6             = [[Minister of War (Spain)#Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939)|Minister of War of Spain]]
| president6          = Niceto Alcalá-Zamora
| primeminister6      = Himself
| termstart6          = 16 November 1934
| termend6            = 3 April 1936
| predecessor6        = [[Diego Hidalgo y Durán]]
| successor6          = Carlos Masquelet
}}
'''Alejandro Lerroux García''' (4 March 1864, in [[La Rambla, Córdoba|La Rambla]], [[Córdoba Province, Spain|Córdoba]] – 25 June 1949, in [[Madrid]]) was a [[Politics of Spain|Spanish politician]] who was the leader of the [[Radical Republican Party]].<ref name="isbn081223717x">{{cite book |author=Cowans, Jon |title=Modern Spain: a documentary history |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |location=Philadelphia |year=2003 |pages= 103|isbn=0-8122-3717-X |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=IcmrVmq0_-8C&dq=%22Alejandro+Lerroux%22&pg=PA103 }}</ref> He served as [[Prime Minister of Spain|Prime Minister]] three times from 1933 to 1935 and held several cabinet posts as well.<ref>[http://www.geneall.net/H/per_page.php?id=467652 Geneall, Alejandro Lerroux y García]</ref> A highly charismatic politician, he was distinguished by his demagogical and populist political style.

Founder and leader of the [[Radical Republican Party]] (PRR), he was a controversial politician from the beginning, being especially known for his demagogic rhetoric. With a workerist, [[anticlerical]] discourse and diametrically opposed to the incipient [[Catalan nationalism]], during his first political stage he became a prominent political leader in [[Barcelona]]. Later he would adopt more moderate positions, having a prominent role in the proclamation of the [[Second Spanish Republic]]. Faced with the [[Manuel Azaña]] governments during the so-called [[First Biennium|"reformist" biennium]], from September 1933 he would assume the presidency of the Council of Ministers and became one of the main arbiters of the political situation during the conservative biennium of 1934-1935.

His turn to the right, however, led his party to suffer several splits; His image was also badly damaged among the public by a succession of corruption scandals that became public at the end of 1935. After the collapse of the Radical Party in the 1936 elections, Lerroux disappeared from the political scene. With the outbreak of the [[Spanish Civil War]], he went into exile in [[Portugal]].

==Biography==
He was initiated as [[Freemasonry|Freemason]] around 1886 in Madrid's Vetonica lodge of the Grand Orient of Spain, but his activity was limited, among other reasons due to his disillusion with the prospects this membership offered to his immediate purposes.<ref>{{Cite book|title=La masonería en la España del Siglo XX|publisher=[[University of Castile-La Mancha|Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha]] & [[Cortes of Castile-La Mancha|Cortes de Castilla-La Mancha]]|year=1996|location=Cuenca<!--|pages=271–276-->|volume=1|isbn=84-89492-41-7|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SzMq3tWs8aIC&pg=PA273|page=273|chapter=Alejandro Lerroux: La Masonería como oportunidad|first=Amparo|last=Guerra Gómez}}</ref>

Lerroux agitated as a young man in the ranks of the radical republicans, as a follower of [[Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla]]. He practised a demagogic and aggressive journalistic style in the diverse publications that he directed (''El País'', ''El Progreso'', ''El Intransigente'' and ''El Radical'').
[[File:1914-12-08, El Imparcial, Tirando piedras al tejado de vidrio, Tovar.jpg|thumb|left|Lerroux, by [[Manuel Tovar Siles|Tovar]], in ''[[El Imparcial (1867–1933)|El Imparcial]]''.]]
From the 1890s onwards Lerroux radicalized his discourse.<ref name=smith>{{Cite book|isbn=978-1-84545-176-9|location=New York & Oxford|title=Anarchism, Revolution, and Reaction: Catalan Labour and the Crisis of the Spanish State, 1898-1923|first=Angel|last=Smith|publisher=[[Berghahn Books]]|year=2007|page=163|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=I-jeACxXPFIC}}</ref> His populist and [[anticlerical]] speeches, as well as his intervention in diverse campaigns against the governments of the [[Spain under the Restoration|Restoration]], made him very popular among workers in [[Barcelona]], who later constituted the base of a loyal electorate. A prominent [[anti-Catalanism|anti-catalanist]], he became known as the "Emperor of the [[Avinguda del Paral·lel|Paralelo]]".<ref name=brenan /> In 1898 and 1899, he organized through his newspapers a campaign for the judicial review of the [[Montjuïc trial|Montjuic trial]] in which forced confessions through torture had led to the execution of some of the suspects for the [[1896 Barcelona Corpus Christi procession bombing]]. This contributed to his rise as a [[Left-wing politics|left-wing]] political force in Barcelona.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Smith |first=Angel |url=http://worldcat.org/oclc/470992692 |title=Anarchism, revolution and reaction : catalan labor and the crisis of the spanish state, 1898-1923 |date=2007 |publisher=Berghahn Books |isbn=978-1-84545-176-9 |pages=115–116 |oclc=470992692}}</ref>

In 1906, Lerroux rallied his followers with the following exhortation: "Young barbarians of today: enter and sack the decadent civilization of this unhappy country, destroy its temples, finish off its gods, tear the veil from its novices and raise them up to be mothers to virilize the species, break into the records of property and make bonfires of its papers that fire may purify the infamous social organization. Enter its humble hearths and raise the legions of proletarians that the world may tremble before their awakened judges. Do not be stopped by altars nor by tombs. Fight, kill, die."<ref name=brenan>{{Cite book|page=30|isbn=978-0-521-39827-5|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=p7vqPNB6locC&pg=PA30|publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]]|first=Gerald|last=Brenan|location=Cambridge|author-link=Gerald Brenan|orig-year=1943|year=2009|title=The Spanish Labyrinth: An Account of the Social and Political Background of the Spanish Civil War}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|title=La Setmana Tràgica de 1909: l'Arxiu Secret Vaticà|first=Ramon|last=Corts i Blay|page=214|publisher=Publicacions de l'Abadia de Montserrat|year=2009|isbn=978-84-9883-144-3|location=Barcelona|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PCVtroqUKvkC&pg=PA214}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book|pages=138–139|title=Hojas volanderas: Periodistas y escritores en tiempos de República|first=Juan Antonio|last=Ríos Carratalá|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lTQzAwAAQBAJ&pg=PA139|publisher=Publicaciones Universidad de Alicante & Editorial Renacimiento|isbn=978-84-8472-892-4|year=2011}}</ref>

He was elected as a member of the [[Congress of Deputies]] for the first time in 1901 and again in 1903 and 1905, as a member of the [[Republican Union Party (Spain)|Republican Union Party]] that he had helped to form with [[Nicolás Salmerón]]. The defection of Salmerón to the [[Catalan Solidarity (1906)|Catalan Solidarity]] coalition in 1906 led Lerroux to form the Radical Republican Party (1908) and headed the struggle against increasing [[Catalan nationalism]]. There is some evidence that both [[Francisco Ferrer]] and Lerroux may have participated in the hatching of two different plots to assassinate king [[Alfonso XIII]] in 1905 and 1906.<ref name=smith /> He had to go into exile on several occasions, first to escape condemnation dictated by one of his articles (1907) and later fleeing from governmental repression in response to the [[Tragic Week (Catalonia)|Tragic Week]] in Barcelona (1909). 

After returning to Spain, Lerroux agreed to join the [[Republican–Socialist Conjunction]], and he was elected as a deputy again in 1910. Afterwards, he was involved in a series of scandals that moved him away from his Barcelona electorate, with corruption accusations forcing him into a change of district, appearing for Córdoba in 1914). From 1919 he was on the payroll of [[Barcelona Traction]], part of the Anglo-Canadian Traction, Light, and Power Company.<ref>Preston, Paul. ''A People Betrayed.'' William Collins. London. 2020. p.111</ref>

Under the dictatorship of [[Miguel Primo de Rivera]] (1923–30), his party was debilitated when its left-wing, led by [[Marcelino Domingo]], left to form the [[Radical Socialist Republican Party]] in 1929. However, he continued to be active in politics, attending the revolutionary committee that produced the [[Pact of San Sebastián]] with the intention of overthrowing King [[Alfonso XIII of Spain|Alfonso XIII]] and proclaiming a republic.

===Second Republic===
Under the republican government, Lerroux regained a leading political role, being appointed prime minister three times between 1933 and 1935 and occupying the distinguished ministerial portfolios of War (1934) and State (1935).

He was part of the coalition of leftists that supported the reforms of [[Manuel Azaña]]'s government during the first biennium (1931–1933), during which time he served as [[Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Spain)|Minister of State]] between 14 April 1931 and 16 December 1931. From 12 September to 9 October 1933, he was Prime Minister.

After the victory of the [[Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right]] (CEDA) in the elections of autumn 1933, Lerroux again became prime minister, mainly because the President, [[Niceto Alcalá-Zamora]], did not wish to appoint CEDA leader [[José María Gil-Robles y Quiñones]]. As such, he served from 16 December 1933 to 28 April 1934 and again from 4 October 1934 to 25 September 1935. He also served as minister of war (1934), state (1935) and foreign affairs (1935).

After the [[Revolution of 1934|attempted revolution of October 1934]], he fell out of favor due to the [[Straperlo]] affair (a case of corruption bound to gambling legalization), which completely broke his alliance with the right and even weakened his position within the party.<ref>Thomas, Hugh. ''The Spanish Civil War.'' Penguin Books. London. 2003. p.140</ref> This was followed by the [[Nombela scandal]], where he participated actively by signing a contract paying a private company 3 million pesetas to perform a cancelled route, leading to his further discreditment.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Gil Pecharromán |first=Julio |title=La Segunda República. Esperanzas y frustraciones |publisher=Historia 16 |year=1997 |isbn=84-7679-319-7 |location=Madrid |pages=98 |author-link=Julio Gil Pecharromán}}</ref>

In the elections of 1936, Lerroux was not elected as a deputy. The same year, the [[Spanish Civil War]] broke out and he fled to [[Portugal]]. He returned to Spain in 1947.<ref name="Langdon-Davies">{{cite book|last=Langdon-Davies|first=John |title=Behind the Spanish Barricades: Reports from the Spanish Civil War|publisher=Reportage Press|year=1936|isbn=9780955572944 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ExpwlomPe6cC&dq=%22Alejandro+Lerroux%22+spain+1947&pg=PA5}}</ref>

==See also==
*[[Catalan nationalism]]
* [[¡Cu-Cut!]] and [[El Be Negre]]

==References==
{{Reflist}}

== External links ==
{{wikiquote|Alejandro Lerroux}}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120625103222/http://www.publico.es/especial/republica-80-aniversario/protagonistas.php "Público" - La II República Española en su 80 aniversario: Protagonistas]
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20170919225501/http://pictures2.todocoleccion.net/tc/2013/01/09/35150744.jpg Poster of the Radical Republican Party with Alejandro Lerroux]
*[http://cordobesesilustres.wikispaces.com/Alejandro+Lerroux Illustrious Cordobese People] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200121050322/https://cordobesesilustres.wikispaces.com/Alejandro+Lerroux |date=2020-01-21 }}
* {{PM20|FID=pe/011301}}

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{{succession box|
title=[[Minister of Foreign Affairs (Spain)|Minister of State]]|
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years=1931 |
after=[[Luis de Zulueta]]
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{{succession box|
title=[[Prime Minister of Spain]]|
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years=1933 |
after=[[Diego Martínez Barrio]]
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{{succession box|
title=[[Prime Minister of Spain]]|
before=[[Diego Martínez Barrio]]|
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after=[[Ricardo Samper]]
}}
{{succession box|
title=[[Prime Minister of Spain]]|
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after=[[Joaquín Chapaprieta Torregrosa]]
}}
{{succession box|
title=[[Minister of Foreign Affairs (Spain)|Minister of State]]|
before=[[Juan José Rocha García]]|
years=1935 |
after=[[José Martínez de Velasco]]
}}
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{{s-bef|before=Party created}}
{{s-ttl|title=Leader of the [[Radical Republican Party]] |years=1908–1936}}
{{s-aft|after=Party dissolved}}
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{{Prime Ministers of Spain}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lerroux, Alejandro}}
[[Category:1864 births]]
[[Category:1949 deaths]]
[[Category:People from Campiña Sur (Córdoba)]]
[[Category:Republican Union Party (Spain) politicians]]
[[Category:Radical Republican Party politicians]]
[[Category:Prime ministers of Spain]]
[[Category:Foreign ministers of Spain]]
[[Category:Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Spanish Restoration]]
[[Category:Members of the Congress of Deputies of the Second Spanish Republic]]
[[Category:Politicians from Andalusia]]
[[Category:Spanish Freemasons]]
[[Category:Exiles of the Spanish Civil War in Portugal]]
[[Category:Spanish people of French descent]]
[[Category:Exiled Spanish politicians]]
[[Category:Government ministers during the Second Spanish Republic]]