ABSTRACT
The social bases of the demise of democratic rule in Spain and Germany have been widely debated theoretically in the literature on interwar Europe. In Spain, as in the case of interwar Italy, Greece and Poland, the retention of a very substantial share in political power by the landed elite and the political weakness of peasants were social structural factors that diminished the likelihood of successful agrarian reform policies altering the social structure. In the southern and south-central latifundia provinces, the labour situation was markedly different from that obtaining in the north. The latifundia heritage prevented the spread of small family-sized farms, so the largest social class in southern and south-central Spain consisted of landless day labourers or the rural proletariat. Democracy in Second Republic Spain came about through the victory of Republicans and Socialists in the larger cities in the municipal elections of 1931 and in the subsequent proclamation of the Revolutionary Committee, composed of Republicans and Socialist conspirators.
