Catalan Revolutionary Separatist Party
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The Catalan Revolutionary Separatist Party was a political movement in Catalonia from approximately 1906 through at least 1931. Originally meeting in secret they became public in 1928.
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[edit] Background
The same way the Irish Republicans prepared their revolts against England until reaching the Easter uprising of 1916, holding meetings, collecting funds and sending weapons from the different support committees based abroad, specially from the United States… and they still do through the Noraid (Irish Northern Aid), and their lobbies spread around the world, in Catalonia they also had, during the times of the Catalan radical nationalism, various support committees of Catalan exiles who published nationalist magazines and who made all they could to help in the freedom of our land. They helped the struggle by giving money and even supplying weapons to the future Catalan army… This was the way how was funded in Cuba the “Club Separatista Català” (Catalan Separatist Club), in March 1922…his club acted and sheltered under the Catalan Centre of Havana, but in a small scale and with autonomy.
This way, if they acted outside the law, the stability of the Catalan centre would not be broken.
[edit] History
This society was able to start thanks to patriots like Josep Pineda i Fargas, president of the Catalan centre. And between the most outstanding members, Josep Conangla i Fontanilles, Claudi Mimó, Joaquim Muntal, Marià Grau, Joan Arana, Josep López Franch, Pere Pons Cercós, Emili Sánchez Martí…
The first public meeting of this group was held in the Catalan centre common room, but the necessity of making them in secret moved them to the grocery shop La Americana of Josep Murillo.
The Catalan separatists abroad organized through a general assembly celebrated in Havana (Cuba) from the 4th to the 22nd March of 1922, reaching this conclusions:
- We consider that Catalonia has the right to its absolute independence.
- On this declaration, we can not accept any blackmail of its freedom, in theory or practical.
- In consequence to the last principle, we do not agree with making Catalonia French or Castilian.
- We will recognise, like they deserve, all of the efforts made by other nations to help us to obtain our maximum freedom.
- We are ready for the first shout for the independence of Catalonia, a time signalled by history.
In Havana was where it was formed the Catalan Separatist Club nº1 …coordinating from there all the rest of delegations, collecting funds, and keeping contact with Macià; given that the identification of ideas and struggle was total.
[edit] Principles
Out of all these contacts with Macià and Estat Català, is born the 10 principles of the Catalan Separatist Revolutionary Party:
1-You will recognise Catalonia as your ONLY homeland
2-You will never deny wherever you are, your condition of Catalan that aspires to free Catalonia; but all the opposite: you will be proud of being one and of knowing that you are.
3-Consider the Catalan language as beautiful and rich as any other, and you will not fall on the shame of communicating with other Catalans, verbally or in writing, in any other language that is not the Catalan.
4-You will spread in all your occasions the ideals of freedom, and to make your arguments the most convincing, you will try to acquire historical knowledge, statistics, and others, and also making the best of the means and instructions received in the Catalan Separatist Club to which you belong.
5-You will enlighten your culture; and will strength your body; and will guide your actions by the path of the moral and justice, because by raising our race to a level of perfection no inferior to any other, you will highlight the land where you were born and the cause you defend.
6-You will spread that Catalonia has got its own literature, characteristic agriculture and important industry, and you will not accept any produce of which you do not know, which Catalan origins is hidden under a foreign brand.
7-You will help in all the actions to coordinate the Federation of Catalan Separatist Clubs, by means of the Catalan Separatist Club, to which you belong, without need of acknowledging anyone your condition of member.
8-You will sacrifice your self-esteem and your particular convenience in benefit of the unification and cohesion of the brotherhood, to avoid weakening its action.
9-You will give preference to all associates in all social treatment, commercial and of all kinds, who let you know under justified need, and you will help them in all you can.
10-You will not spread the organization of the International Federation of the CSC or the name of any of its associates, and you will consider high secret the passwords and emblems established to know your brothers, if it is needed.
…Think that once you accept this, if you fail on your loyalty, besides the dangers that may fall upon you, your name will be spread around the clubs all over the world, and you will be declared a man without honour and a traitor to the homeland.
…The secret is the base of our success, we have to give security to the fighters and the forces will be equilibrated, in disorienting the enemy. The day we can pass our bill face to face will come. Without fear from the backstabbing revenges of those that now would use their strength…
[edit] In public
At last the great day came and in 1928 Macià in Cuba presided the Catalan Separatist Assembly that took place from the 30th September to the 2nd October.
Were published up to 10.000 numbers of the principles (a big quantity for the epoch). The idea of independence was in all the paragraphs. There was exposed the process to follow to reach an agreement with the diverse tendencies in the exiled sepatatism, with help from some personalities in the interior of Catalonia (let’s remember that in that epoch the Spanish head of state was Primo de Rivera…).
Out of this meeting comes the project of the Constitution of the Catalan Republic. This document has 36 headlines, divided in 302 articles. The text declared “the indestructible unity of Catalonia” and the decision of using “revolutionary means to reach the independence”…
In going back Macià to Europe, he established himself in Brussels, from where he worked to enforce all the agreements, proposed in the Havana Assembly…Which means to transform Estat Català with the Catalan Revolutionary Separatist Party. He soon realised that the organisation he had left in Europe was not the same.
Macià received in 1922 1.000 francs from Havana. In 1924 he received 10.000 francs from the Group of Santiago, more than 10.000 from the Separatist Club of Havana, making a total of 920.302,85 francs received from America (228.113,90 from Havana and 172.524,50 from Santiago de Cuba). It is thought that half of the necessary funds came from America and the other half from the personal fortune of Macià.
The Catalan separatists received a good drive when Primo de Rivera retired; and later on with the abdication of Alfonso XIII in april 1931. But the fact that Macià passed from a potential independent Catalonia on the 14 April of 1931 to a Generalitat of regional profile, shattered his relationship with the Separatist clubs.
