The Would-Have-Been Spanish Revolution

A mostly forgotten event today is the attempted Spanish coup of 1981. Francisco Franco had died in 1975. Both the democratic process and the monarchy had been restored.

On February 1981 elements of the military stormed the lower house of the Spanish Parliament and held everyone there hostage. There was a parallel coup in the city of Valencia. What they wanted was a restoration of Francoism. The Spanish king, Juan Carlos, was credited with saving democracy in Spain by making an address turning public opinion against the coup.

This attempted coup is an ideal example of the events across the world that are reenactments of the French Revolution, which opened the modern political era, but how the elements of it get rearranged.

First, notice the storming connection. Members of the Spanish military stormed the Congress of Deputies. Remember that the signature event of the French Revolution was the Storming of the Bastille. The signature event of the October Revolution was the Storming of the Winter Palace. The signature event of the Iranian Revolution was the Storming of the U.S. Embassy. The signature event of the would-have-been Donald Trump Revolution was the Storming of the Capitol, on January 6.

The pieces tend to be there in every reenactment of the French Revolution, but may be rearranged and fall into different patterns. The pieces are the storming, the king, the one that overthrew the king, the institutions of democracy and, the place of religion.

In the French Revolution the king was overthrown and the monarchy abolished. The revolution was very hostile to the church. It resulted in the emergence of Napoleon, as a military leader, although that was not the intention of the revolution and he had nothing to do with starting it. After the time of Napoleon the monarchy was, at least temporarily, restored as a constitutional monarchy with the institutions of democracy. Napoleonism, France ruled by an emperor, was later temporarily restored by his nephew, known as Napoleon III or Louis Napoleon.

The October Revolution followed a course that was very similar to the French Revolution, with Lenin in the place of Napoleon. The major difference was that Lenin did initiate the revolution and was not from the military. The fabled execution of the Tsar and his family was a reenactment of the execution of the Bourbons, except that the Romanovs were shot privately while the Bourbons were guillotined publicly.

The Iranian Revolution followed a similar course to the French and October Revolutions except that the Shah and his family got away, instead of being executed. Khomeini returned to Iran on an Air France jet, as opposed to Lenin on a train. The major difference was the role of religion. The French Revolution was hostile to the established church and the October Revolution officially atheist, but the Iranian Revolution was about the reestablishment of religion.

Francisco Franco abolished the Spanish monarchy, reflecting the role of Napoleon, although it was later restored, the same as with France. The attempted coup of 1981, seeking to restore Francoism, was a reflection of Napoleon III declaring himself as emperor and seeking to restore Napoleonism. 

Ayatollah Khomeini had an element of Franco in that Franco had abolished the monarchy and supported the church and the 1981 coup had an element of the Iranian Revolution in that it came just after the Hostage Crisis had ended and took the Congress of Deputies hostage.

The Storming of the Congress of Deputies was a reenactment of the Storming of the Bastille, in neighboring France, but this time the king, Juan Carlos who was also of the House of Bourbon, was the one to end the crisis by turning public opinion against the coup.

There are a lot of parallels between neighboring France and Spain regarding coups that are inevitably attempted reenactments of the French Revolution. The Spanish Coup of July 1936 began in Morocco just as the French Coup of 1961 began in Algeria. An address by Charles DeGaulle ended that coup just as the address by King Juan Carlos ended the coup in 1981.

The French Revolution is considered as having opened the modern political era but was not entirely original. There were predecessor events in England, although these events were not lastingly successful.

Oliver Cromwell's execution of the king and abolition of the monarchy in the name of religion was later to be closely reenacted by Ayatollah Khomeini. It was also reenacted, although more moderately, by church-supporting Francisco Franco. It was certainly reenacted by the French Revolution, although against the church.

The Storming of the Bastille was preceded, in England, by the plot to set off a revolution that would reverse the Reformation and return the country to Catholicism by destruction the Parliament with barrels of gunpowder. We saw this in "The Far Reaching Story Of Guy Fawkes", April 2022.

What will be the next element added in this series of revolutions, where the elements get arranged in different forms? It might be the addition of a building and it might come from India.

The signature event of the turn of the Indian Government from secularism to Hinduism was the storming of the mosque in Ayodhya, in 1992. The Mughals once ruled northern India and had supposedly destroyed a sacred Hindu temple and replaced it with this mosque. The leader of the turn to Hinduism was Narendra Modi. This shows, again, that the Iranian Revolution, in contrast with the earlier French and October Revolutions, had turned the tide of revolution from secularism and atheism back to religion. The recent opening of a great Hindu temple in Abu Dhabi is a new signature revolutionary event. This is a mirror image of the Taj Mahal in that, just as the Taj Mahal is a Moslem structure built by the Mughals in a mostly Hindu country, the new Hindu temple is for Indian workers in a Moslem country.