SPANISH SOCIALIST WORKERS' PARTY

Spanish Partido Socialista Obrero Espaol (PSOE) Socialist party that played an important role in 20th-century Spanish politics. The party was founded in 1879 by the Madrid typographer Pablo Iglesias. He was also the founder in 1888 of the party's affiliated trade union confederation, the Unin General de Trabajadores (UGT; General Union of Workers). The party grew slowly at first, partly because the UGT had to compete with the anarchist trade union confederation in organizing the working class. But by the time the Spanish Republic was proclaimed in 1931, the PSOE was the largest political party in the country. It participated in coalition governments during the years 193136. The Socialists were among the principal supporters of the Republic during the Spanish Civil War, and the head of the UGT, Francisco Largo Caballero, served as prime minister of Republican Spain during 193637. The PSOE was banned following the victory of the Nationalist forces and the fall of the Republic in 1938. The PSOE was revived within Spain during the 1970s as the Nationalist regime of Francisco Franco began to wane. The internal wing of the party took over the leadership from its aging, exiled leaders in 1972 and elected the young Felipe Gonzlez to be the party's secretary-general. The PSOE, along with other political parties, was legalized in 1977 and took about 30 percent of the vote in national elections that year. Gonzlez and other pragmatic leaders dropped the party's official Marxist-Socialist orientation in 1979 and thereafter managed to woo large numbers of middle-class and moderate voters, while the revived UGT successfully competed with the Communists in trade-union organizing. The Socialists won a sweeping victory in the 1982 national elections. The charismatic and highly popular Gonzlez became prime minister, and his party was easily retained in power in elections during 1986. By the time of their initial victory, the Socialists were a rather moderate party that spurned large-scale nationalization but favoured government planning and intervention to facilitate the equitable distribution of income. They were strongly democratic, and they advocated liberalizing the divorce and other social laws. They supported Spain's membership in the European Economic Community and, though initially opposed to Spain's membership in NATO, apparently began to favour it after coming to power.