Jaume Perich left us a definition that portrays very well a certain Catalan, Spanish and universal right. "Order: something that must be maintained however it is, which is how it is usually maintained." It is a definition that makes us think of Villarejo and his patriotic police, but that also fits with the attitude of Francesc Cambó at three key moments: in 1909, after the Setmana Tràgica, when he defended the repressive policy and the actions of the military courts ; in 1923, when he consented to Primo de Rivera's coup, and in 1936, when he supported Franco's uprising. In all three, Cambó –and, with him, the Lliga– stood alongside those who, in order to maintain order, subverted it.
In his magisterial biography Francesc Cambó, the last portrait, Borja de Riquer describes him as a politician who was always aware of who he represented. He knew that he was acting on behalf of a bourgeoisie that felt deeply Catalan, but was conservative and Catholic, a bourgeoisie that aspired to modernize Spain in order to unleash its economic potential, but above all else wanted peace on the streets and in the factories.
Borja de Riquer describes Cambó's complex relations with Alfonso XIII, littered with misunderstandings. In 1913, Cambó tried to convince the monarch of the benefits of the Mancomunitat project, presenting it as harmless to the integrity of the Spanish nation and saying that it was only a matter of allowing the surplus resources of Barcelona to be allocated to the other three Catalan provinces. Alfonso XIII replied that he did not see a problem, but why not form a Commonwealth between Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Huesca, for example, leaving Tarragona out? Thus no one could say that they were endangering the unity of Spain. Angry, Cambó told him that this was nonsense. Understandably, the relationship between the two cooled.
In 1922, Alfonso XIII offered him the presidency of the government on one condition: that he renounce his role at the head of Catalan conservative nationalism (and, understandably, that he stop promoting autonomy). Cambó not only rejected the offer, but was offended. Alfonso XIII must have been perplexed. He was offering power to a man who had fought his entire life to achieve it. But Cambó was not the typical Restoration politician, willing to change his jacket when it suited him. If he resigned to continue acting as leader of the League, he would lose his political base, his only real power.
Cambó was a politician of exceptional stature and management capacity, profoundly regenerationist, and reading his biography one cannot avoid the feeling that, given the opportunity, he would have succeeded in modernizing Spain. But the ability to maneuver that characterized him turned against him.
In Catalonia, many considered him a traitor, despite the fact that he managed to get the central government to accept the Mancomunitat and always defended a statute of autonomy to go further, and despite everything he did for Catalan culture, with a work of patronage Unpublished until then and never repeated. In Madrid, despite hundreds of speeches by him in Congress projecting the vision of a strong Catalonia within a prosperous and modern Spain, they saw him as a dangerous independentista.
Riquer's biography boils with current resonances: the clashes between republican Catalanism and the Lliga; the discussions between the posibilist sector of the Lliga, in favor of intervening in Spanish politics to achieve the Mancomunitat as a first step, and the more fundamentalist sector, which considered it too little and did not want to do politics in Madrid; the discussions in the Barcelona City Hall every time Alfonso XIII visited the city. Today's problems are not the same as yesterday's, but there are times when they are strangely similar to them.
Law enforcement never thanked Cambó for his support. The indifference with which the Francoist establishment treated him, during and after the war, makes one think of Luis Berlanga and the automatic doorman salesman from La escopeta nacional. They teased him from day one. The more he contributed to the success of the cause –with political and financial support, with an information network abroad–, the more they laughed at him and the more they humiliated him (him and all those who followed him, such as Josep Pla and Gaziel). .
His naivety surprises. The documentation provided by De Riquer is final. Cambó hoped that, when it came time to govern, the insurgents would turn to the Lliga to turn Spain into a prosperous country. He left it written in his Diary and in numerous letters. Holy innocence: he believed that, after the war, Franco would give him power, that he would limit himself to playing the bad cop and asking him to play the good cop. He did not understand that for Franco the priority was to retain power, not that Spain was a modern and prosperous country.
In exchange for their support, Cambó and the Lliga only managed to get Franco to abolish the autonomy of Catalonia, to launch a ferocious campaign against the Catalan, and to condemn them to a sad silence. Businesses, they could do all they wanted. But politics, no.
What would have happened if Cambó and his followers had been a little more clear-sighted, if they had considered that, in order to maintain order, it had to be respected first and they had remained faithful to the Republic, without deviating from the current constitutional framework?
Maybe nothing would have changed. After all, Cambó and the Lliga were not the fundamental pieces on the board. Or maybe yes. Perhaps the story – the sad story of those years – would have gone another way. Who knows. But today the figure of Cambó would shine with a greatness that he lost forever the day he supported Franco.
