The Twentieth Century (1900–1975)

The loss of Cuba in 1898 caused serious turmoil in Catalonia, because it entailed the loss of a substantial part of its protected market for textiles. Catalan nationalism became strong and aggressive. This is the period when Spain knuckled under two military dictatorships: that of Primo de Rivera (1923–1930) and that of Franco (1939–1975). Although Spain remained neutral during the Great War, it suffered the inherent social tensions, especially those of the postwar crisis in Catalonia, which in the end precipitated the coming of the first dictatorship. Another cause of tension was the trouble in the Spanish Moroccan protectorate. Both played crucial roles in the coup that installed the first dictatorship, in the fall of the monarchy and the coming of the Republic in 1931, in the breakdown of the Republic in 1936, and in the loss of the civil war to Franco in 1939. After 20 years of quasi-stagnation, the Franco dictatorship undertook economic reform that brought about some 15 years of economic boom from 1960 onward. In spite of many later complaints, the Franco dictatorship benefited Catalonia economically, although it repressed (not suppressed) the use of the Catalan language and other cultural manifestations.