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Revision as of 09:49, 15 April 2006 by Ghepeu (talk | contribs) (reworded)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)José Calvo Sotelo (Tui, Pontevedra, May 6, 1893—Madrid, July 13 1936) was a Spanish political figure prior to and during the Second Spanish Republic. His murder by a commando unit of the Assault Guards, a special police corps created to deal with urban violence, just the day after a harsh confrontation in Parliament, aroused suspicions of a government involvement in the act and helped precipitate the Spanish Civil War.
An economist and jurist, he was secretary of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Ateneo Mercantil de Madrid and a University professor of the Universidad Central. He was affiliated with the Conservative Party of Antonio Maura Montaner. He first served as an administrative officer in the Ministry of Grace and Justice. In 1919 he was chosen as a deputy to the Cortes for the district of Carballino (Ourense), and in 1922 he was made Civil Governor of Valencia.
When Miguel Primo de Rivera became dictator of Spain in 1923 he appointed Calvo Sotelo as finance minister in 1925. Calvo Sotelo was forced into exile when the Republic was proclaimed (1931). Calvo Sotelo returned to Spain after he was amnestied in May 1934, becoming a deputy for Renovación Española. He soon became one of the most important right-wing political figures in the country. Calvo Sotelo unsuccessfully attempted to gain control of the Falange Española from José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1935. Calvo Sotelo was harshly critical of the Republican government after the electoral victory of the leftist Popular Front in February 1936.
On July 12 1936, a lieutenant in the Republican Assault Guards and active member of the Socialist Party, José Castillo, was murdered by a Falangist group in Madrid. The next day, members of the Guards and Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas murdered Calvo Sotelo in a police light truck. His corpse was left in the cemetery by Republican police. This event accelerated the preparations for a military revolt that was being developed since the electoral triumph of the Popular Front in the month of February. Thus, on July 17 1936 took place the uprising of the army of Africa in Melilla that, under the assumed command of Generals Emilio Mola, Francisco Franco and José Sanjurjo, resulting in the Spanish Civil War.
Bibliography
- Ian Gibson - La noche en que mataron a Calvo Sotelo (The night in which they killed Calvo Sotelo) Plaza & Janés. Barcelona. 1986 ISBN 8401450616 (For the Spanish edition)