ABSTRACT
For Gil Robles the successful repression of the Asturian insurrection was adequate confirmation of the efficacy of his legalist tactic. When the Socialists had formed part of the Republican government, his monarchist allies had tried to destroy the regime with a badly organised military coup in August 1932. That direct assault had, in fact, strengthened the Republic in the same way that the Kapp putsch strengthened the Weimar Republic. Thus Gil Robles, in the aftermath of the abortive 10 August rising, reinforced Acción Popular’s commitment to legal tactics. He was confident that skilful propaganda would bring electoral success and eventually power. It clearly made more sense to carry out his party’s ambitions-the defence of the pre-1931 social order and the destruction of the Socialist threat-from the government rather than in opposition to the state’s repressive apparatus. Having won an electoral success in circumstances not likely to be repeated, he had nursed that success with considerable skill and patience until, in October 1934, three CEDA ministers had joined the government. To his satisfaction, the Socialists had taken the bait and launched a hopeless assault on the state. Now thousands of Socialist cadres were in prison and the Socialist press was silenced-El Socialista, like El Obrero de la Tierra, was not to reappear for over a year. Apologists for Gil Robles have pointed out that the Cortes continued to meet after 5 November 1934, that the Socialist unions were not destroyed and that the military victory in Asturias was not used to impose the corporative state.1 There is ample evidence to show that the CEDA was anxious to do all of these things and was held back only by Gil Robles’s sense of realism.
