Comentario de un artículo de Fernando de los Ríos sobre los orígenes del censo de población

Abstract

The article by Fernando de los Ríos analysed here was written in the context of the social convulsions which took place during the so-called “Bolchevik Trieniun”. Concerned as it is with the population census, the article includes a brief historical synopsis of this institution created after the resettlement of the Kingdom of Granada undertaken by Phillip II after the expulsion of the Moors. The article attempted to link the limitation of igualitarian access to the land, brougth about by the census, with the development and persistance of Feudalism in institutions such as Latifundismo and in social groups such as the Terratenientes which were, ultimately, the cause of the poverty and undervelopment of rural Andalucía and of the corruption of the political system by the caciques. Some biographical notes and comments on the author’s intellectual and political context are provided in the introductory commentary, in an attempt to discover the reasons for Fernando de los Rio’s reformist and antifeudal attitudes. The commentary concludes with an analysis of de los Rios’s ideas on agrarian matters, of which this article forms a part, and points out the tactical importance of the support of peasant small-holdings both for him and for the PSOE, when Spanish socialism was strategically in favour of large estates and the agrarian doctrine of Karl Kautsky.