The Asturias Rebellion of 1934: A Community Revolution

The Revolution of October 1934 in Asturias is the most famous episode of Spain’s Second Republic period, but it is more often the subject of legend and propaganda than historical study. In this episode, Matthew Kerry, a lecturer at the University of Stirling and the author of the recent book Unite, Proletarian Brothers!: Radicalism and Revolution in the Spanish Second Republic, discusses the history of the local mining communities behind the uprising and how they radicalized within the turbulent context of the 1930s in Europe. In so doing, he considers larger questions about the nature of ideas like community, radicalism and revolution.