Jaume Perich left us a definition that portrays very well a certain Catalan, Spanish and universal right. "Order: something that needs to be maintained as it is, which is how it is usually maintained."
It is a definition that makes you think of Villarejo and the patriotic police, but which also fits the attitude of Francesc Cambó in three key moments: in 1909, after the Tragical Week, when he defended the repressive policy and the action of the military courts; in 1923, when he consented to Primo de Rivera's coup d'état, and in 1936, when he supported Franco's uprising. In all three, Cambó – and, with him, the League – sided with those who, in order to maintain order, subverted it.
In the masterful 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 that was conservative and Catholic, a bourgeoisie that aspired to modernize Spain in order to be able to unfold its economic potential, but that above all wanted there to be peace in the streets and in factories.
Borja de Riquer describes Cambó's complex relations with Alfonso XIII, riddled with misunderstandings. In 1913, Cambó tried to convince the monarch of the merits of the Commonwealth project, presenting it as harmless to the integrity of the Spanish nation and saying that it was only a question of allowing Barcelona's surplus resources to be used for the other three Catalan provinces. Alfonso XIII replied that he saw no inconvenience, but why didn't they form a Commonwealth between Barcelona, Girona, Lleida and Huesca, for example, leaving out Tarragona? So no one could say that they endangered the unity of Spain. Pissed off, Cambó, who didn't have much of a left hand, told him that it 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 conservative Catalan nationalism (and, it must be understood, that he stop promoting autonomy). Cambó not only refused the offer, but was offended. Alfonso XIII must have been perplexed. He was offering power to a man who had fought all his life to get it. But Cambó was not the typical politician of the Restoration, ready to change his position when it suited him. If he gave up continuing to act as leader of the League, he would lose his political base, the only real power he had.
Cambó was a politician of exceptional stature and management capacity, deeply regenerationist, and reading his biography one cannot avoid the feeling that, if he had had 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 got the central government to accept the Commonwealth and always defended a statute of autonomy to go further, and despite everything he did for Catalan culture, with a work of patronage unprecedented until then and never repeated.
In Madrid, despite the hundreds of speeches in Congress projecting the vision of a strong Catalonia within a prosperous and modern Spain, they saw him as a dangerous independenceist.
Riquer's biography brims with current resonances: the confrontations between republican Catalanism and the League; the discussions between the possibilist sector of the League, in favor of intervening in Spanish politics to achieve the Commonwealth as a first step, and the more fundamentalist sector, which considered it too little and did not want to play politics in Madrid; the discussions at the Barcelona City Council every time Alfonso XIII visited the city. Today's problems are not the same as yesterday's, but there are moments that are eerily similar.
The law enforcement never thanked Cambó for his support. The indifference with which the Francoist establishment treated him, during and after the war, makes us think of Luis Berlanga and the salesman of automatic doors from La escopeta nacional. They took his hair from day one. The more he contributed to the success of the cause – with political support, with money, with a network of information outside – the more they laughed at him and the more they humiliated him (him and all those who followed him , such as Josep Pla or Gaziel).
His naivety is surprising. The documentation provided by De Riquer is irrevocable. Cambó hoped that, when it came to governing, the insurgents would call on the League 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 cede power to him, that he would limit himself to being the bad cop and ask him to be the good cop. He did not understand that for Franco the priority was to retain power, not for Spain to be a modern and prosperous country. In exchange for their support, Cambó and the League only managed to get Franco to abolish Catalonia's autonomy, to launch a fierce campaign against Catalan and to condemn them to a sad silence. Of business, they could do as many as they wanted. But politics, no.
What would have happened if Cambó and his people had had a little more clairvoyance, if they had considered that, in order to preserve order, it was first necessary to respect it and had remained faithful to the Republic, without departing from the constitutional framework current?
Maybe nothing would have changed. After all, Cambó and the League were not the fundamental pieces of the table. Or maybe it is. Perhaps history – the sad history of those years – would have gone down a different path. Who knows. But today the figure of Cambó would shine with a greatness that he lost forever the day he supported Franco.
