The Roots of the 1909 Republican-Socialist Alliance: Changes in the Class Emotional Regime in 1903 in Biscay

Abstract

This article explores the roots of the 1909 Republican-Socialist Alliance with the theoretical and methodological tools provided by the emotional turn. This alliance has been considered in most of the historiography to be the product of a political context. In analyzing the Basque case in this article, I will examine how the central ingredient of that coalition was the change in the class emotional tone and emotional regime starting in 1903. The hegemonic “Red Socialist emotional regime” was challenged for the first time that year, and the definition of class, class emotional tone and class political goals were brought into question at that moment, which is where I situate the roots of the Republican-Socialist Alliance. The anticlerical events of that time, the approval of the Proposición Quejido (Quejido Proposal), and the founding of the Socialist Youth organization all provide evidence of the shift in the working-class movement.

Keywords

• Author: history of emotions
• working-class movement
• spanish socialism
• Republican-Socialist Alliance
• socialist emotional regime