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NATION AND CONFLICT IN MODERN SPAIN 
with defense of the socioeconomic status quo. This chapter describes the
origins and devel- 
opment of this authentic working-class Carlist movement and shows how, under
the right 
circumstances, Carlism could successfully adapt to the exigencies of the
modern industrial 
age. 
The Social Failure of Mainstream Catalan Carlism 
Catalonia was one of Carlism's first and strongest bastions: the Guerra dels
Malcontents 
(1827-1828) was a kind of Carlism avant la lettre, and the Second Carlist
War was an 
almost exclusively Catalan affair. By the end of the nineteenth century,
however, Catalan 
Carlism had fallen on hard times. It seemed incapable of adjusting to the
political realities 
of the Alfonsine Restoration and still indulged in futile insurrectionary
gestures such as the 
"Badalona movement" of 1900.2 The failure of this opera bouffe
revolt impressed upon the 
party the need to move from armed struggle to electoral politics. Catalan
Carlism reorga- 
nized itself and joined other forces in the Solidaritat Catalana alliance
to fight the parlia- 
mentary election of 1907, which won the Carlists six out of their national
total of seventeen 
deputies, the party's all-time high for the Restoration period. 
The leadership of revived Carlism quickly made peace with Catalonia's conservative
Catholic elite, forging a long-term partnership with the Lliga Regionalista
of Enric Prat de 
la Riba and Francesc Camb6. Although electoral cooperation with the Lliga
enabled the 
Catalan Carlists to maintain a parliamentary presence in Madrid, there were
disadvantages 
to longstanding and intimate cooperation between such unequal partners. Catalan
Carlism 
became politically dependent on the Lliga and lost much of its dynamism and
distinctive 
character. It came to differ little from conservative Catalanism, save for
its quaint loyalty to 
an exiled pretender and a more militant defense of religion. 
Just as in politics mainstream Catalan Carlism became a Lliga satellite,
its social views 
revolved around those of the Catholic hierarchy and Barcelona's bourgeoisie.
Although 
Carlist leaders were theoretically opposed to political and social liberalism,
long association 
with bourgeois parties and interests undermined their hostility to the liberal
social order. 
Like their counterparts in the wider Catholic community, these Carlists were
eager to resolve 
social problems through "love and harmony between social classes."3
They condemned most 
strikes and all truly independent, worker-run trade unions as instruments
of godless social- 
ism, the "principal enemy of the worker."'4 
The Carlist elite supported Acci6n Social Popular (ASP), the social Catholic
organiza- 
tion that created Catholic trade unions in Catalonia from 1908 to 1916.s
ASP's founder, 
Father Gabriel Palau, had been a Carlist, as were several of his closest
collaborators. The 
Duque de Solferino, the regional party chief, served on the ASP's directorate;
in 1911 at 
least four of the nineteen members of its board of governors were party leaders.
The ASP 
unions were characterized by lack of combativeness, paternalism, submission
to clerical au-