# Talk:1936 Spanish general election

In their wiki-article it says the the Workers Party of Marxist Unification despite being initally critical of the Popular Front policy eventually took part in the government. If that was true than did they contest the election or join afterwards?

This review is transcluded from Talk:Spanish general election, 1936/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.
Reviewer: Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:48, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
I'll be reviewing this article and will make straightforward copyedits as I go (check edit summaries for reasoning). Correct me if I inadvertently change the meaning. I'll jot queries below: Casliber (talk · contribs) 06:48, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

On 26 September 1935, the CEDA announced it would no longer support the RRP's minority government; it was replaced by a RRP cabinet, led by Lerroux once more, that included three members of the CEDA - why? Do the next few sentences refer to this or are they the aftermath?
....the military purged of republicanism members...  - "republican members"?
Lerroux's Radical government collapsed after two large scandals, including the Straperlo affair.  - "large" is a weird adjective to use here, and you mention one scandal and not the other - why not none or (better) both?
On point 1, it's context in so far as it's a description of the incumbent and how it got there, the relationship between the RRP (centrist, more or less) and the political right. The part about farm wages, etc. are notable legislation of the incumbent, giving some insight into how votes would be won. I'll clarify the join. Point 2, yes. Point 3: on the word "large" I will change it to "significant" as far the scandals themselves, well, all three books I have say it the same way: two scandals, one of which was the Straperlo affair. It just seems like one has gone down in history more than the other. I'm essentially defering the weighting to the books I have, which say it like that. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  13:35, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
ok, I'll pay that. Casliber (talk · contribs) 15:04, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
The campaigning for the election was generally clean, with few problems, and peacefully; certain press restrictions were lifted. - setence flows oddly. "clean" is possibly a little colloquial and I was trying to think of a more formal adjective. Should it be "peaceful" or "orderly"?
Done that. I've also tried to address point 1, above. I'm afraid I'm going away tomorrow, and shan't be back before the close of the month. I'd like to think that there were few problems actually blocking the passing of the article, rather than what one would merely like. If this is the case, if you could make any small adjustments as required, or leave them if not necessary until after (hypothetically) the passing of the article, that would be great. I'll see to anything you manage to squeeze in tonight. Grandiose (me, talk, contribs)  17:04, 26 June 2011 (UTC)
The elections of 1936 were narrowly won by the Popular Front, with vastly smaller resources the political right, who followed Nazi propaganda techniques - should there be a "than" after "resources"?
Strike that last one - obvious. Sorry about forgetting review.
1. Well written?:

Prose quality: 
Manual of Style compliance: 
2. Factually accurate and verifiable?:

References to sources: 
Citations to reliable sources, where required: 
No original research: 
3. Broad in coverage?:

Major aspects: 
Focused: 
4. Reflects a neutral point of view?:

Fair representation without bias: 
5. Reasonably stable?

No edit wars, etc. (Vandalism does not count against GA): 
6. Illustrated by images, when possible and appropriate?:

Images are copyright tagged, and non-free images have fair use rationales: 
Images are provided where possible and appropriate, with suitable captions: 

Overall: 

Pass or Fail: 

It is of course necessary to address fraud in these elections, but this can be done in a much more balanced and informative way. 
The large space given to old research by the American historian Payne is odd given how much more research more recently on the topic has been written.
The Spanish language section is much better in keeping balance, even if it could be better still.
THe lopsided reference in the lead was introduced by user JPratas (talk | contribs) at 19:03, 5 January 2020 with no other material edits since.
I would suggest citing academic sources. There has been DIY historians in the popular press like  Pío Moa, Fernando Paz ou encore César Vidal, and these don't seem balanced evidence-based researchers to me. 
Tardío and Villa are a more serious source, and by now well known, and they need to be mentioned. But even if it reads like a polemic, their work can still be read and interpreted neutrally.    I think they wrote that they see fraud favouring the Front by at most 30 seats  That wouldn't have changed the result.  
Especially such talk  can be  balanced with other analysis  
eg   
González Calleja and Sánchez Pérez   «Reviewing revisionism. About the book 1936. Fraud and violence in the Popular Front elections »  in Contemporary history   in 2018.
And lastly, whatever the POV, it is inappropriate to give such a large space to Payne right in the lead.
TGcoa (talk) 23:26, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

The fraud in the 1936 elections is a central issue and therefore must be included in the lead section. What is odd is that in the article there was not a single word on the fraud issue. Actually the article deserves a section on the fraud discussion.
In order to respect the NPOV I have placed a paragraph in the voices of  Stanley G. Payne and also Manuel Álvarez Tardío y Roberto Villa García and NOT in Wikipedia's voice.
According to historian Julius Ruiz, a senior lecturer at the University of Edinburgh [1] The book written by the two leading specialists on Spanish electoral politics, Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García...is a monumental study of this critical moment in modern Spanish history... it suggests that the Popular Front may not have won a majority in 1936. But the sheer quality and range of evidence provided by Álvarez Tardío and Villa García makes it a plausible one. The February 1936 election has finally received a study that its significance warrants. ( The English Historical Review, Volume 133, Issue 562, June 2018, Pages 765–767 [2]
Stanley Payne's work is from 2016. It is recent. Not outdated. And Payne`s views are very similar to Álvarez Tardío and Villa García`s and all place in the same paragraph.
Similar views have been published by other historians, such as Javier Redondo, professor of "Historia de los procesos políticos y electorales contemporáneos" at Charles III University of Madrid (see: Redondo, Javier. "El 'pucherazo' del 36" (in Spanish). El Mundo.)
Honestly, I don't know of any historian saying that the 1936 elections were not rigged and were not conducted under an atmosphere of violence. What has been debated is if the fraud was big enough to change the outcome of the process or if the fraud justified the subsequent armed rebellion. It is hard to determine the influence of violence and intimidation in an electoral process, however Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Roberto Villa García argue that between twenty-nine and thirty-three seats, meaning that ‘somewhat more than 10% of the seats in the new parliament, over fifty’ were not allocated fairly (p. 524). This according to historian Julius Ruiz is a startling conclusion, as it suggests that the Popular Front may not have won a majority in 1936. However the Wikipedia's artice does NOT address or raises these debates.
Maybe you can help, starting a section where all these additional topics are addressed. J Pratas (talk) 11:50, 25 February 2020 (UTC)
The "Fraud paragraph" in the lede already has its content discussed in the outcomes section (indeed I was the one who originally wrote it), so it's a duplication and it's far too controversial to go in the lede, particularly since it doesn't mention Calleja and Perez's criticism, whereas the Outcome section does mention this. So I don't think it should go there at all. Sdio7 (talk) 23:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

"Far too controversial" is not an argument to remove it from the lede. The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents. This is important content. It is a central issue that has been studied by the academia world (José Varela Ortega, Joaquin Romero Maura, Javier Tusell, Roberto Villa García, etc..) and that as got a lot of media attention. We don`t remove controversial issues from the lede sections just because they are controversial. We just have to present them in a neutral point of view.J Pratas (talk) 06:37, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
It's because a disputed claim shouldn't be given so much prominence - it's a minor part of the overall article and is disputed within the article itself. If it's going to be there, the criticisms of it should also be present.Sdio7 (talk) 16:23, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Wikipedia aims to describe disputes, but not engage in them. If the dispute is important and this one has been given a lot of academia and media attention, then it has a place in the lede. Because there are some conflicting views, regarding the size of the fraud, the assertions about this matter, must be presented as opinions rather than facts, and not be presented as direct statements. To balance things you might want to add that there are other historians (e.g.Julián Casanova) that think that there was fraud but not big enough to move the balance of power in the congress.J Pratas (talk) 20:57, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Toda información sobre los graduados normalistas y cursillistas 1936 en Lobeira . ( provincia de Ourense ; aportación de los ayuntamientos y de la Deputacion provincial de Órense . 2A01:CB1D:8311:B900:8946:C606:BA9:D236 (talk) 11:58, 14 June 2023 (UTC)