Clientelismo político y derecha autoritaria en la Galicia de la Segunda República. Una aproximación a la correspondencia de Calvo Sotelo

Abstract

Political Patronage and Authoritarian Right in Second Republic’s Galicia. An Approach to Calvo Sotelo’s Correpondence

This article attemps to show the persistence of clientelistic networks inherited from the Restoration period through the democratic five years of the Spanish Second Republic, taking as an example the activity developed by José Calvo Sotelo’s friends in the South of Galicia. Relying on solid personal links established during the Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, Calvo Sotelo was able to maintain a reduced but very effective party structure in Ourense, which enabled him and his organizations (the National Block, Renovación Española, etc.) to win several seats in that province thanks to the exchange of suffrages against favours. Calvo Sotelo’s private correspondence, a part of which has been kept at the Civil War’s Archive of Salamanca, provides a good insight on the political nature of the authoritarian right in a rural area.