page_title: Integrism (Spain)
section_title: Olazábal's lead, 1907–1932
hierarchical_section_title: Integrism (Spain) / Olazábal's lead, 1907–1932
caption_attribution_description: English: Juan Olazabal Ramery
context_page_description: Integrism was a Spanish political philosophy of the late 19th and early 20th century. Rooted in ultraconservative Catholic groupings like Neo-Catholics or Carlists, the Integrists represented the most right-wing formation of the Restoration political spectrum. Their vision discarded religious tolerance and embraced a state constructed along strictly Catholic lines; the Integrists opposed Liberalism and parliamentarian system, advocating an accidentalist organic regime. Led first by Ramón Nocedal Romea and then by Juan Olazábal Ramery they were active as a political structure named Partido Católico Nacional, but the group retained influence mostly thanks to an array of periodicals, headed by the Madrid-based El Siglo Futuro. Though Integrism enjoyed some momentum when it formally emerged in the late 1880s, it was soon reduced to a third-rate political force and eventually amalgamated within Carlism in the early 1930s.
context_section_description: Some contemporaries concluded that Integrism died together with Nocedal, the opinion which reflected his immense personal influence on the party but which underestimated the mobilizing potential of ultraconservative, militant Spanish Catholicism. The party leadership was assumed by a triumvirate, presided by Juan Olazábal Ramery. In 1909 he was elected the official jefe and steered faithful to the Nocedal's line, though his leadership style was somewhat different. Deprived of Nocedal's charisma, Olazábal resided in the provincial San Sebastián, away from great national politics. He did not compete for the Cortes and it was the minority parliamentarian speaker, Manuel Senante, acting as the party representative in Madrid. He also left Senante to manage El Siglo Futuro, focusing on his La Constancia and local Guipuzcoan issues. Finally, during political negotiations with other parties, at times he authorized the others to represent Partido Católico Nacional.
  Despite gradually shrinking social base and continuously losing strength in 1910–1914 Integrism seemed reinvigorated, as a new breed of young Guipuzcoan activists launched its youth branch, Juventud Integrista and the party stimulated emergence of its Catholic trade unions. The movement, however, eventually did not evolve along new lines of popular mobilization and remained in its traditional formula. Though under Olazábal's guidance it initially kept winning 2 mandates in each campaign (1907, 1910, 1914), later it was reduced to a single deputy, always elected in the infallible Azpeitia (1916, 1918, 1919, 1920, 1923). The Integros welcomed the fall of what they perceived a rotten Liberal monarchy, but they soon lost any illusion that Primo de Rivera would lead Spain into a new Traditionalist regime. Partido Católico Nacional was forcibly dissolved and its leaders refused to take part in official primoderiverista structures. Following another wave of defections, during Dictablanda Integrism re-emerged as Comunión Tradicionalista-Integrista. It maintained local branches in almost all Spanish provinces and even recorded sort of revival in some; during last voting campaign of the monarchy, the local elections of April 1931, the Integrists won some seats in the Vasco-Navarrese area and few in Catalonia and Andalusia.
  In case of the orthodox conservative Catholics the advent of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931 revealed the same political patterns as those which surfaced during the Glorious Revolution and the years of 1868–1870. Militantly secular revolutionary sway drew different ultra-Right counter-revolutionary groupings together, with their differences swept away. During the 1931 elections to Cortes Constituyentes the Integrists concluded a number of local right-wing alliances, which produced 3 mandates for candidates associated with Integrism. As the row between Integrists and various Christian-democratic groupings was already too wide, eventually the former – just like neocatólicos 62 years earlier – neared Carlism. Attracted by its similarly anti-modern, traditional and fanatical religiosity, the Integros decided to forget their accidentalism and in early 1932, still led by Olazábal, they joined a united Carlist organization, Comunión Tradicionalista.
caption: Juan Olazábal
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