José María Lamamié de Clairac

José María Lamamié de Clairac y de la Colina (16 August 1887 in Salamanca – 27 April 1956 in Salamanca) was a Spanish politician, lawyer, Salamancan landowner, a right-wing Catholic, a Carlist Traditionalist deputy during the Spanish Second Republic.

Having been educated by Jesuits in Valladolid he pursued further studies in Salamanca and Madrid. He was one of the founding members of the National Association of Catholic Propagandists (ACNdeP), (1908, in Madrid). This institution was part of the Church's aspiration towards "the fostering of an alternative Christian culture, offering the faithful different political, literary, and social choices from those provided by a liberal state." An uncompromisingly elitist organisation from the beginning, the Association insisted upon remaining 'a very select minority' as befitted its nature as one of 'the institutions called upon to lead'. Though hand picked by the founder Father Angel Ayala SJ however, he left the Propagandists accusing them of betraying the Catholic cause.

Clairac espoused the cause of Catholic agrarianism, becoming president of the Salamancan Catholic-Agrarian Federation and the Castilian-Leonese-Catholic-Agrarian Union. He also sat on the CNCA ( National Catholic Agrarian Confederation) directorate from 1921. "The controlling interest of the landowners in the new confederation was clear, if generally denied." ^[1]

Though Clairac was initially an enthusiastic supporter of the dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923–30), Primo forfeited much conservative and clerical support when in November 1926 he offered the socialist union Unión General de Trabajadores (UGT) a leading position in the reorganisation of labour relations.^[2] In common with many of those who were to emerge as leading figures on the Catholic right during the Second Republic, Clairac gained considerable political experience under Primo, sitting as a representative for the province of Salamanca in the dictator's National Assembly. As republicanism gained ground Clairac was part of a monarchist counter-offensive in which Catholic activists predominated. The Catholic Church continued to assert its primacy over matters affecting the morality of Christian people. Pius XI's 1929 encyclical Divini illius magistri for instance, on the Christian education of youth, said that the Church 'directly and perpetually' possessed 'the whole truth' in the moral sphere. Education was therefore, 'first and super-eminently' the function of the Church. The Spanish Church perceived its moral rights and duties to be divinely ordained and looked for the protection it felt was its due. (Despite the assurance of Leo XIII decades earlier that Catholicism was compatible with various forms of government, a preference for authoritarian rule remained deep-seated within the Spanish Church.)

Clairac introduced his new agrarian grouping Acción Castellana to an audience of 2,500 in the town of Macotera. The flag of Acción Castellana was that of the fatherland and written on it were the principles of 'religion, family, Order, Property and monarchy.' A lifelong supporter of the Carlist pretender, he launched his new party in the political confusion of 1930 to promote agricultural interests and conservative social values and " seemed unperturbed by the paradoxical position of a Carlist defending the Alfonsine incumbent of the throne. His party was dominated by Castilian landlords and displayed the authoritarian preferences so common among the contemporary Catholic right." ^[3] Acción Castellana's manifesto began with a declaration that there was no society without authority and that authority not of divine origin was not worthy of respect. Clairac's political grouping believed the idea of a republic was nothing more than an 'exotic implant'. Similarly, the possibility of a conservative republic was rejected - it would simply act as a bridge towards radicalism and atheism. The only true morals were Catholic ones and an absolute submission to the doctrines of the Church was essential in both private and public life. Clairac maintained that the introduction of 'false liberties and democratic absurdities' had been the 'great sin' of Primo de Rivera's dictatorship. Though Clairac did not like the word 'party' to describe his group, Acción Castellana quickly assumed a party political role.

Within the Carlist community Clairac, like his brother-in-law and fellow landowner Jaime Chicharro, were marked men for a new breed of radical activists, led by Jaime del Burgo Torres. The group favoured social reform and limitation of wealth to feudal egoism of the odious grandees of grain.^[4]

Between November 1934 and March 1935, the Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (CEDA) minister for agriculture, Manuel Giménez Fernández, introduced into parliament a series of agrarian reform measures designed to make conditions in the Spanish countryside better. These moderate proposals provoked a bitter attack from reactionary elements within the Cortes - amongst Giménez Fernández's most vehement opponents was José María Lamamié de Clairac. He took particular exception to draft legislation giving tenants of twelve years standing the right to buy the lands they worked. "Clairac persisted in construing even the mildest agrarian reform as an attack on property, maintaining that, despite his good intentions, the efforts of the CEDA minister would have exactly the same results as the Republican reform of 1931-32." ^[5] The proposed reform was not only defeated in the Cortes but also ensured a change of personnel in the ministry - "for all the social Catholic rhetoric, the extreme right had won the day."

Following the defeat of the CEDA in the elections of February 1936 and the victory of the Popular Front the Traditionalists took this for the CEDA's death knell - Traditionalist deputies severed their connections with both the CEDA and Calvo Sotelo's Bloque Nacional to form an independent grouping under the leadership of José María Lamamié de Clairac.

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