Juan Díaz del Moral (1870-1948): historia social y reforma agraria

This article aims at suggesting a fresh reading of a book considered as a model for social history since its publication in 1929. Its author, Juan Díaz del Moral, was not a professional historian, but a notary of a village in Córdoba, Bujalance, and an olive grower. In Historia de las agitaciones campesinas andaluzas he analyzed the reasons of the social struggle in the countryside of Córdoba -inspired by anarchism- at the beginning of the 20th century, especially in the triennium 1918-1920. As a member of the parliament that passed the constitution of the II Republic in 1931, he played a major role in the design of the project of agrarian reform, rejecting the demands of land redistribution that according to him were popular among small peasants. Inspired by the reforms carried out after the Great War —a subject he dealt with in a book published posthumously by one of his sons— he underlined the will to foster a modern agriculture based upon large estates and the gradual access of leaseholders to land property. He belonged to the pro-European bourgeoisie that, relying on a differential analysis of productive structures, found in the collaboration between capital and labour the possible way to appease social tensions.