Iberian Federation

## Iberian Federal Socialist Republic

### Official Name

República Socialista Federal Ibérica (Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician)Iberiar Errepublika Sozialista Federala (Basque)

Iberia Federacia Socialisma Respubliko (Esperanto)

### Language(s)

Spanish, Portuguese, Catalan, Galician, Basque

### Establishment

* Spanish Socialist Republic: 1937
* Iberian Federation: 1946

### Dissolved

1975 (replaced by modern-day Iberian Republic)

### Faction

INFOR

The **Iberian Federal Socialist Republic**, commonly shortened to **Iberian Federation**, is a country located in the Iberian Peninsular in southwestern Europe. The Federation came to be as a result of the 1946 referendum that took place after the full expulsion of the Kingdom of Portugal from the Iberian Peninsula, where the Iberista movement convinced the Spainards to carry a referendum of union in Portugal. It is governed by a leftist broad front composed of syndicalists and marxists. It is an INFOR member.

**History:**

Spain in 1936 constituted an unpopular monarchist regime, that despite maintaining a semblance of stability to foreign observers, carried over a lot of internal tensions within the populace, the workers’ movement, and sectors of the military. Following Black Monday, Spain was forced to liberalize political life to contain its collapsing house of cards, under the direction of general-turned-Prime Minister Dámaso Berenguer. However, said liberalizing reforms were unsuccessful in containing the unrest, and after a Revolutionary General Strike called for May Day, chaos soon erupted. In a week, the regime lost control of the northern Atlantic coast, most of Andalusia, the Spanish Levant, Zaragoza, and the rural areas in the south Meseta. Madrid, Gibraltar, Galicia, most of Castilla y León as well as La Rioja remained loyal, however, as the different movements that attempted uprisings in those areas were crushed or contained. The aftermath of the insurrection left the country divided and approaching a state of war which would come to last for eight months. Dámaso Berenguer resigned and was followed by the hardliner José Sanjurjo.

Though the monarchists commanded most of the army, and as such initially had better equipment and discipline than the revolutionaries, they were lacking in morale. The especially demoralizing characteristics under which the revolt took place, along with the fact that France was able to cross the border and send large amounts of aid in the form of volunteers, equipment and military training spelt doom for the Kingdom. The Popular Front opted to consolidate the northern and southern fronts. At the same time, an offensive around the entire course of the Ebro was prepared, so as to connect the northern coast to the rest of the revolutionary nucleus. After its success, a gradual push towards Madrid occurred; one that would proceed until the 23rd of December, when white forces in the city either surrendered or fled towards Portugal.

The revolutionary forces, at first, constituted themselves as a Popular Front of Republican and Socialist forces, united against reaction and monarchism. As the war progressed, the capitalistic elements were gradually pushed out of political life. By the end of the war, only the revolutionary factions (PSOE, CNT, Partido Sindicalista (Ángel Pestañas’ splinter party originating from the moderate branch of CNT and the FAI)) and some opportunistic Left Republicans such as the likes of Marcelino Domingo, Álvaro de Albornoz and Eduardo Ortega y Gasset remained. The Radical Republicans of Diego Martínez Barrio were forced underground (and only survived due to Barrios’ connections within masonry), names such as Manuel Azaña, Alejandro Lerroux and Niceto Alcalá Zamora fled (arguably without much reason since their livelihood wasn’t endangered), and the opportunist general Queipo de Llano was imprisoned, but escaped and hid in the Sierra Nevada after fleeing there.

However, while the Republicans took control across the entire peninsula, they didn’t take over the entirety of what the Kingdom held. Spanish Morocco, and the Balearic and Canary Islands, all fell under the control of the Spanish Kingdom, and the military set up a provisional capital in the city of Ceuta, hoping to reconquer the Peninsula in the future with the help of their overseas allies. On that peninsula, an assortment of underground terrorist groups as well as the remainders of the Carlist Requeté, maintained a campaign of white terror, supported by Catholics in reactionary areas. They hoped to dethrone the atheist new republic and restore the newly-exiled monarchy. Additionally, the city of Olivenza was seized by Portugal under the premise of safeguarding it.

The CNT didn’t want to set a precedent of ‘statism’, and as such, even if CNT members like Federica Montseny joined the governing coalition and lent it their support, the trade union would not officially join the coalition. Thus, the ensuing government was formed by Francisco Largo Caballero as President of the Republic (a leftover position of the popular front days), and Indalecio Prieto as President of the Government. The new government of the Spanish Socialist Republic would not reach a high degree of centralization, however, as most power was held by the CNT and UGT trade unions, as well as others, minor and regional. Together they had organized a syndicalist revolutionary transformation, putting power in the hands of the unions. Workplaces were quickly collectivized, securing one of the goals of the Iberian leftist movement.

Another one of their goals was a definitive solution to the agrarian question and the end of the misery of the Iberian field labourer. This was quickly dealt with, as the lands owned by big landlords were collectivized in one fell sweep at the very beginning of the revolution, as many hectares of arable land in Andalusia, Castilla la Mancha and Aragón were seized. This collectivisation push would be hampered in areas where smaller, conservative landholder peasants were the dominant form of agrarian exploitation. At first, collectivisation prevailed in those areas where most of the land was cultivated by landless labourers who were kept in misery, but due to its limited scope a second collectivisation push which targeted petty peasants started soon after, and would continue for around a decade.

A popular initiative to draft a new constitution materialised within the trade unions and soon after a process, which was intended to take several years, began with the aim of democratically creating this new constitution with the full support of the population. The project began in early 1937 and was estimated to take a full four years to collect popular proposals before a solid revolutionary legal body was established. The future seemed bright and prosperous, that is, until Portugal attacked. The legal project was temporarily suspended, as Spain was yet again forced to wage war for its own sake, and the continued survival of the revolution.

It was a coordinated operation of the Entente. They wished to remove Spain from the equation and attack France from the rear, opening a new front to assist the Germans and retake their old homelands. These forces of reaction, spearheaded by Canada, managed to capture parts of western Spain and the entirety of Galicia, pushing the frontlines to the outskirts of Oviedo, Salamanca and Seville, but after several months their offensive stalled. The reasons for this development were simple: Canada was degenerating into civil conflict on its own turf and was unable to supply the Iberian front adequately. After these developments, Indalecio Prieto resigned, and let his factional ally Juan Negrín take over.

Negrín maintained a policy of “proletarian resistance” and encouraged trade unions to direct their activities towards supporting their war effort. Harsh measures were taken, and more than one strike flared out in response. Still, eventually, the Spanish proletariat understood the critical situation they were experiencing after witnessing their enemy conduct firebombings of working-class neighbourhoods and their navies mercilessly bombarding coastal towns. The faist (FAI-ist) tendency within the CNT lost support and influence due to their sectarianism, enhanced after recent events, so for the time being they were sidelined in favour of the moderates who had their more visible face in Ángel Pestaña. He was able to negotiate with Negrín to diminish factionalism on both sides and to defend the rights of workers in their now collectivized posts. Both figures agreed after this to maintain political stability, as any instability would be detrimental to the war effort and would be the cause of ultimate failure of the Spanish revolution.

With Portuguese industry negligible, and battle-hardened revolutionaries using the finest equipment France could spare, Spain was able to halt Portugal to a stalemate and slowly reverse their losses, even if the front remained static for a long time, as no side was able to gather the resources to start an offensive. It remained a war of attrition, which would strive to weaken the enemy as much as possible. With fresh French supply of weapons of high enough quality for the Spaniards to manufacture by themselves, they were able to counteract the destruction made by Arthur Harris’s bombing campaigns. Irregular formations, such as Asturian miner companies using explosives to infiltrate enemy camps, or Andalusian peasants wearing Mexican hats as part of their uniform to honour the agrarian revolutionary Pancho Villa, were commonplace during the war.

The war accelerated in 1944 as France’s challenge in the war effort grew increasingly easier, and Revolutionary Spain benefited from this. More French equipment was able to be dispatched to the front, and French forces were able to come back from the frontlines. British squadrons made it possible to repel Entente air dominance, and the Portuguese ranks were ripe with desertion, with numerous young, nascent revolutionaries switching sides and paving the way for a collapse of Portuguese manpower. From there Spain was able to reverse Entente gains in the remainder of the year, and enter Portugal proper in early 1945. On the 12th of June of said year, Portugal was forced out of the mainland by the might of the Spanish and Portuguese workers.

Spain, France and Britain then took part in naval campaigns across Macaronesia in order to free the several archipelagos that constitute it (Azores, Madeira, Canarias, Cape Verde), as not only were the exiled Portuguese there, but also the Spanish white remnant, which joined forces with the Entente in the war effort. While Macaronesia was being wrapped up, a referendum took place on the mainland, due to the initiative of the Socialist Iberists to unify Spain and Portugal into one country, a socialist Iberian Union. This referendum took place within Portugal, and the Union vote was successful due to the anti-nationalist sentiment that grew during the war and as a consequence of the harsh policies of the former Integralist dictatorship, where political rights were scarce. The economy had been ruined, as a direct result of Portugal having started a pointless war that led to their destruction, upholding an ancient alliance as per the 1373 treaty, a true medieval relic that cost them many lives. These events generated a general apathy towards Portuguese nationalism, and to the left it was all but discredited.

Shortly before the referendum took place, Francisco Largo Caballero passed away. Ángel Pestaña, who had risen to the position of President of the Government after Juan Negrín stepped down, decided to put himself forward to become the Provisional President of the Republic until an election could be arranged, letting Andreu Nin control the government, as he felt unqualified for maintaining proper government duty due to age. Both validated their positions in a democratic election, and as such agreed to 4 year mandates, maintaining their positions after the new Iberian Federation was established.

The Iberians had initially hoped to land in the Rif to apprehend war criminals of the likes of José Sanjurjo and Francisco Franco that had been stationed there, however the Revolutionary Military Council of INFOR prioritised an invasion of Algeria and Tunisia to finally end the French colonial regime. The invasion of Rif never happened, as while INFOR was conducting campaigns in the eastern Maghreb to finally displace the reactionary French and allow revolutionaries secure the area, the newly independent Kingdom of Morocco took the occasion to seize the old Spanish Protectorate themselves, in the process capturing Ceuta, Melilla, Tangier - along with many of the war criminals that INFOR had hoped to taken to trial. Later, Iberia collaborated to a lesser degree in the liberation of Senegambia and the establishment of the International Mandate of West Africa. At this point, the war was considered to have ended.

Ever since Iberia was proclaimed, preparations for a democratic constitution have been underway. Now, that time is closer than ever, and the broad front of communists and anarchists is eagerly waiting for their chance to influence the process.

**Modern Iberia:**

Will Iberia hold together the union of proletarian forces, or will left unity fall apart? Will anarchism, communism, syndicalism, or even social democratic opportunism take its place in that case? What of the war criminals on Moroccan soil, will they be rightfully punished? Or will the King of Morocco side with them? What will happen to the still-underground reactionaries hiding in the mountains, and that cretin Queipo de Llano? All things aside, it is clear that the revolutionary transformation has not finalised, with the last obstacle before its realization being a constitution that is still to be drafted.