History is usually written by the winners, but Miguel Primo de Rivera is one of those rare figures who managed to lose so thoroughly that almost nobody wants to claim him. To some, he was the "iron surgeon" Spain desperately needed in the 1920s. To others, he was a bumbling military man who paved the way for a bloody civil war.
Honestly, he was probably both.
Miguel Primo de Rivera wasn't your typical scowling, cold-blooded tyrant. He was a flamboyant, hard-drinking Andalusian aristocrat who genuinely thought he could "fix" Spain in 90 days. He stayed for seven years. By the time he left, he hadn't just ruined his own reputation—he’d basically handed the Spanish monarchy a shovel and watched it dig its own grave.
The Coup That Everybody Wanted
In September 1923, Spain was a total mess. Imagine a country dealing with a disastrous colonial war in Morocco, constant strikes in Barcelona, and a political system so corrupt it was basically a revolving door of useless ministers.
When Primo de Rivera staged his coup, the weirdest thing happened: nobody stopped him.
King Alfonso XIII actually liked the idea. He was tired of politicians investigating military failures—specifically the "Annual Disaster" in Morocco where 10,000 Spanish soldiers were slaughtered. The King saw Primo as a way to shut down parliament and bury the evidence. Even the public was sorta relieved. They wanted order. They wanted the "brief parenthesis" Primo promised.
He pitched himself as a temporary fix. "Give me three months," he basically said. He ended up ruling until 1930.
What He Actually Did (The Good, The Bad, and The Expensive)
You’ve got to give the guy some credit: he was a builder. If you drive on a major highway in Spain today, or use a large-scale irrigation system in the countryside, you’re likely looking at the DNA of his regime.
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He was obsessed with modernization. Under his watch:
- The Moroccan War ended. He pulled off a massive naval landing at Al Hoceima in 1925 with French help, finally crushing the Riffian rebels.
- Infrastructure boomed. Thousands of miles of roads were paved, and hydraulic dams started popping up everywhere.
- Monopolies were born. He created Telefónica and CAMPSA (the oil monopoly). He didn't trust "free markets"; he wanted the state to run the show.
But here’s the catch. He paid for all of this by borrowing money like there was no tomorrow.
He tried to tax the rich, but they screamed so loud he backed off. So, he turned to public loans. This worked fine while the 1920s were roaring, but when the global economy started to wobble in 1929, the Spanish peseta tanked.
The "Mild" Dictator
It's funny, because compared to Mussolini or what came later with Franco, Miguel Primo de Rivera was almost "dictator-lite." He didn't have a secret police or mass executions. He was paternalistic. He saw himself as the father of a rowdy family who just needed a firm hand.
But he was also incredibly annoying to the intellectuals. He censored the press. He shut down universities. He even tried to ban the Catalan language in public life, which—surprise, surprise—only made Catalan nationalism stronger.
He created a political party called the Unión Patriótica, but it had no soul. It was just a bunch of bureaucrats and "yes men" who wanted jobs.
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Why It All Fell Apart
By 1930, Primo was a broken man. He was suffering from severe diabetes and realized that he’d managed to annoy every single person who originally supported him.
The landowners hated his labor laws. The army was furious because he tried to change their promotion rules. The students were rioting. And the King? Well, Alfonso XIII realized that the "dictator ship" was sinking, and he didn't want to go down with it.
On January 28, 1930, Primo sent a telegram to the top military commanders asking if they still backed him. Their response was basically "new phone, who dis?"
He resigned and fled to Paris with just a few suitcases. Six weeks later, he was dead.
The Legacy Most People Get Wrong
People often group Miguel Primo de Rivera with Francisco Franco. That’s a mistake. While his son, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, went on to found the Falange (Spain’s fascist party), Miguel himself wasn't a fascist. He was an old-school conservative military officer who thought he could run a country like a barracks.
His biggest failure wasn't his policies—it was that he destroyed the old political system without building a new one to replace it. When he left, there was a massive vacuum. A year later, the King was forced into exile, the Second Republic was born, and the countdown to the Spanish Civil War officially began.
Actionable Insights for History Buffs
If you're looking to understand modern Spanish politics, you can't skip this era. To get a real feel for the man and his impact, here is what you should do next:
- Visit the 1929 Exhibition Sites: If you're in Barcelona (Montjuïc) or Seville (Maria Luisa Park), go look at the massive pavilions built under his regime. They are the physical embodiment of his "Great Spain" ego.
- Read "The Spanish Labyrinth" by Gerald Brenan: It’s an old book, but it’s still the gold standard for explaining how the social tensions of the 1920s led to the explosion of the 1930s.
- Watch Documentaries on the Moroccan War: To understand why Primo was so popular at first, you have to understand the trauma of the "Disaster of Annual." Look for archival footage of the Al Hoceima landing to see early 20th-century military tech in action.
- Analyze the Peseta’s 1929 Crash: If you’re into economics, look at how the failure of the "Gold Standard" in Spain during this period mirrors modern currency crises. It’s a textbook example of how infrastructure spending without a tax base creates a bubble.
The story of Miguel Primo de Rivera is a reminder that "stability" bought at the price of liberty is usually a loan with a very high interest rate. Eventually, the bill comes due.