Historic context
The debugging of functionaries was a main element of control of the Franco regime that had as a purpose part and dismiss the persons “disaffected”, at the local administrations (and also at the rest of areas). The purge processes began during the transcurs of the Spanish Civil War and accelerated towards the end of the war in 1939 with a set of decrees and laws that judged the rank of collaboration of the public servants with the Second Republic (1931-1939).
After the fall of the dictatorship of Rivera's Primo (1923-1930) and the failure of the “Dictablanda” of the general Berenguer, the government of Juan Bautista Aznar decided to call municipal elections, rather than generals, for the April 12, 1931. It was an operation of explicit politic calculation that pretended to minimise the risk of change, but the elections became a plebiscite on monarchy or republic. The results gave the triumph to the republican parties in most provincial capitals, which led to the proclamation of the Republic on 14 April. In Madrid, preparations were made for the departure into exile of King Alfons XIII, associated with Primo's dictatorship, and the formation of a provisional governance. This government initiated a series of social and economic reforms, among which the approval of laws aimed at the separation of the State and the church stood out; the improvement of the conditions of the rural workers, but also of workers in the cities; the recognition of women's suffrage; several reforms of the army, and the regulation of the regional autonomies. In December 1931 the new constitution of the Second Spanish Republic was approved, and in 1932, the new Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia.
The reformist stage was slowed down by the several right-wings governments between 1933 and 1936. The entry into government of several members of the Catholic right-wing party “Confederación Española of Derechas Autónomas” (CEDA) at the beginning of October 1934 was interpreted by the left as a drift towards fascism. In Asturias the miners led an intense social revolt and in Catalonia the government of the Generality, headed by Lluís Companys, proclaimed the Catalan Republic within the Spanish Federal Republic on 6 October. These two events triggered a strong repression by the Spanish government, which decided to suspend Catalan autonomy. All of this created an atmosphere of complicated social and political reconciliation.
The victory of the Popular Front in February of 1936 led to the resumption of the reformist agenda with a new left-wing government, amidst social tensions and involutionist movements. Throughout the republican stage, monarchic and military groups carried out repeated conspiracies. The King, who had gone into exile in Paris and Rome the 1931 without having previously abdicated, supported these actions and sought the support of the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini to put an end to the republican stage.
In the summer of 1936 the peninsula suffered a final conspiracy: the evening of Friday, July 17, a group of soldiers revolted in the garrison of Melilla. The rebellion spread to Ceuta and the rest of the Spanish Protectorate of Morocco. The following day, several military garrisons in the peninsula did the same, the most important being Sevilla, and a state of war was declared against the republican government. The initial plans of the rebels, however, failed in other places and the situation resulted in a long civil war that lasted two years, eight months and fifteen days.
A month after the coup d'état, the “Joint of National Defence of España”, created by the military who rose up on July 23, 1936 in Burgos, with the intention of becoming the government of the territories it controlled, issued an order on the state administration on August 19 that repealed the decree of Presidency of the Council of republican Cpuncil of Ministers of July 21 by which all civil servants and public employees of the State who had participated in or adhered to the subversive movement had been dismissed. It was the beginning of the civil service purged by the Francoist side.
On September 30, the Joint of Defence published the decree in which Francisco Franco was appointed head of government. The following day, he was proclaimed as head of the new State, adding to the rank of “Generalísimo” that Franco had received from the rebel generals on September 21. The decree was written by José de Yanguas Messía, a jurist and minister of State during the Primo de Rivera dictatorship.
It was the beginning of Franco's personal dictatorship that lasted until his death on November 20, 1975.
On October 26, 1936 Burgos's Francoist Government issued an order requiring civil servants to return to their places of work. Four days later, the Technical Joint of the State, created on October 1 to replace the Joint of Defence, issued an order that contemplated the purge of political responsibilities of public employees for actions “contrary to the National Movement”.
On April 20, 1937 Franco promulgated the Unification Decree by which the single party called “Traditional Spanish Falange and the National Unionist Offensive Joint" (FET and JONS). It was the only party allowed in Spain after the Civil War, later known as the Movimiento National. The single party was dissolved in 1977.
On April 5, 1938 the Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia was repealed. Catalonia did not have another statute until 1979.
On 15 January 1939, coinciding with the entry of Francoist troops into Tarragona, the “Technical Join” of Burgos decreed the restoration of the provincial councils as provincial corporations in accordance with art. 1 of the Law of 5 April 1938. From that moment on, the Barcelona Provincial Council (like the rest of the local corporations) was subordinated to the military authorities first and, later, to the dictates of the civil governor.
On 26 January 1939, Francoist troops entered Barcelona. On 30 January, the Barcelona Provincial Council Management Committee was established, chaired by Josep M. Milà i Camps, Count of Montseny, who had been president of the Corporation between 1925 and 1930, during the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera. The committee was integrated by Felip Batlló i Godó; Joan Claudi Güell i Churruca, Count of Ruiseñada; Àngel Traval i Rodríguez de Lacín; Lluís Rivière i Manén; Magí Raventós i Fatjó; Josep M. Segarra de Montoliu, and Josep Peray i March. The Management Commission was the collegiate body of the provincial councils between 1939 and 1949 and collaborated in the policy of deploying the new Francoist state. The new Management Commission reactivated the Barcelona Provincial Council, which together with the Barcelona City Council, constituted the main institutions of the Regime in Catalonia, in the hands of the Catalan ruling classes sympathetic to Francoism.
On February 4, 1939, Francoist soldiers entered Girona. The next day, the main Republican authorities crossed the border accompanied by a large exodus of Republican civilians and soldiers.
On February 9, 1939, the “Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas” came into force, which basically typified the essential corpus of punishable conduct, which gave rise to legal responsibilities and could establish sanctions limiting activity, freedom of residence or finances.
On February 10, 1939, the “Law on Rules for the purification of public employees” was approved, which established rules and specified the conduct and sanctions announced in the “Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas” with the aim of readmitting to the service of the State personnel who supported the Francoist side and sanctioning the conduct of civil servants who did not.
The law was retroactive and covered a period of application of five years prior to its publication. One of the first measures implemented was the purge of civil servants. This law was not repealed until 10 November 1966, when Decree 2824/1966 was approved, which comprehensively pardoned all civil servants with pending sanctions arising from the legislation on political responsibilities and civil servant purges. Exceptionally, this decree did not include civil servants who had gone into exile during or after the Civil War: these people were not pardoned until 1975 following the proclamation of Juan Carlos I as King.
At the session held on 17 February 1939, the Barcelona Provincial Council approved a provision that declared all civil servants of the Generalitat who had held office during the republican period to be dismissed: 15,860, with the exception of the 753 employees who had been part of the Barcelona Provincial Council staff until 1931, although they were currently suspended. The provincial councils disappeared in Catalonia in 1931, and that their services were integrated into the new Generalitat de Catalunya. Therefore, the Provincial Council did not exist as such from 1931 to 1939. The Management Committee insisted very much on the consideration that the Provincial Council was not the successor or heir of the Generalitat de Catalunya of the republican stage.
On 1 April 1939 the war ended, but not the repression. The desire to remove from the administration the employees suspected of having collaborated with the previous republican regime in the process of building the new state was evident. Also the desire to put an end to the Catalanist dream of having its own civil service since the years of the Commonwealth of Catalonia (1914-1925).
