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The return of the social subject in Spanish Historiography

Carlos Barros

University of Santiago de Compostela

� The aim of this paper is to briefly overview historiography on social conflicts, revolts and revolutions starting off with the heyday that took place in the 70s until the current recovery of the genre from two points of view:

����� 1) An inter-historical viewpoint[1] : by trying to link the evolution of the object of study in the� various academic fields of different historical knowledge ( especially Medieval, Modern� and Contemporary History). In Contemporary History, no doubt, reflection is more frequent, but it� always appears �in a paralel , interwoven fashion, in so far as it is a consequence of common conditionants both internal (disciplinal) and external ( mental, political and social).

������ 2) A Spanish Historiographical viewpoint[2] . Spanish Historiography boasts of a rich tradition on this field ( something similiar is true of South America) that dates back to the early 20th century[3]� making it equal to other foreign historiographies, whose positive influence� in some cases ( Past and Present and Annales schools) we acknowledge, well aware of its innovative contributions to the historiography on social conflicts. These contributions, far from being exhausted, take us back several decades. It is also our belief that nowadays reflecting and discussing on the situation of Spanish historiography is not only possible but necessary as well. This should be conducted directly, without the habitual mediation of authors and schools from abroad, beyond the necessary mention that becomes imperative in this time of historiographical globalization which demands, more than ever, paying attention to our own historical profile[4] as the only way of being present in the current processes of recomposition of the international community of historians.

��� The expression history of the social movements, borrowed from sociology , became widespread in the eighties among contemporary historians who, by trascending the history of the working class movement,� widened the interest of� researchers into other social, interclass, religious, and political� movements. Nonetheless, this label is barely transferible to historical periods as a whole. What is it we come across throughout history ? Minor and major conflicts and revolts rather than social movements with a certain degree of organization, ideology and continuity. It is for this reason that we mantain, in order not to limit to the most inmediate historical time, the old - and in the least ambiguous - common term of social conflicts, revolts and revolutions[5],� so as to refer in a interhistorially coherent fashion to this aspect of the socio-historical subject. Social history has long ago restored the ways of social protests denounced as primitive, apolitical �or �spontaneous , which, in turn, have given rise to the most valuable efforts in� historiographic innovation, both French and British, in the field of social history[6] . The current tendency in sociology has otherwise returned to define social movements as a function of the collective actions and of the conflicts generated, linking them to the concept of social change[7].

The heyday of the seventies

��� The parity of Spanish historigraphy with the most advanced currents abroad, which dates back to the fifties (Vicens Vives), is consolidated in the seventies and eighties with the thrust of the new generation- the irruption of the 1968 generation into the faculties results in a break- the �first break �with traditional history understood as political, institutional and biographical. One of the most productive branches of this new socio-economic history is the history of social conflicts.� It is undoubtly the most radical politically as well as from a historiographical point of view in proposing what later came to be called �history from below . The struggle for historiographic renewal and the struggle in favour of a democratic reform within the university and against Franco s dictatorship went together in those times. A great deal of young historians - and not so young, let s think, for instance, of Tu��n -, who in the seventies did research on the history of the workers movement, the conflicts and revolts in the history of Spain, had a bias towards left, marxist and communist parties, which then dominated the political scene at universities. The more or less active participation - the academic career and� political affiliation did not go well together- in the� thriving student movement both before and after 1968 as well as a sympathy towards the upcoming workers movement[8] contributed to the appearance of the historical social movements as the subjects of dissertations and doctoral thesis, which in turn benefited from the growing influence of the historigraphical �trends [9] prevailing then at the academy: Annales and Marxism.

��� The rediscovery[10] of the conflicts, the revolts and the revolutions[11], therefore, is part of the historiographic revolution of the 20th century both in Spain and internationally. Jaume Vicens Vives s prologue to his Historia de los remensas en el siglo XV is dated in 1944 ( a subject he� had already devoted his attention to during the republic). In 1954 he publishes El gran sindicato remensa ( 1488-1508). His desire to widen the scope of contemporary history takes Vicens Vives[12] and his collaborators from medieval revolts to the workers movement . In 1959 Casimir Marti s Origenes del anarquismo en Barcelona is published. In 1960, he[13] works in colaboration with Vicens and Nadal on Los Movimientos obreros en tiempo de depresi�n econ�mica ( Las Huelgas 1929-1936). But it will be, as we know, in the seventies when the new ways of approaching history, in general, and social history, in particular, will flourish and become widespread.

�� A cooperative work representative of the momentum of the new line of research is Clases y conflictos sociales en la historia ( 1977) . It is the result of a joint effort at a week-length conference� on historical methology in Oviedo during the 1974-5 academic year with the contribution of� J.M. Bl�zquez ( ancient istory), J.Valde�n (medieval history), G. Anes ( modern history) and M. Tu��n ( contemporary)[14] . Julio Mangas (ancient history), in the prologue, opens with� a categorical claim , no doubt shared by most authors: �historical materialism is in my opinion the only methology that has at its disposal a coherent and accurate theoretical framework [15] . The book ends with an appendix, made by students, on �Modos de producci�n capitatistas �[ capitalist ways of production], indebited to Karl Marx s� Formaciones econ�micas Pre-capitalistas[16],� (published by� Ciencia Nueva in 1967 and by Ayuso in 1975). Its prologue was written by Hobsbawm, who draws on� Althusser and Balibar s structuralist Marxism, a necessary reference for� young eager Spanish Marxists. It is from Althussser- rather than from Marx himself-� that the whole conceptual framework Mangas refers to originates. The structuralist leanings of the work can be perceived in its very title, which brings to the forefront the conflicts of the objective existence of the (conflicting) classes. In the discussion following the presentations, Valde�n is asked one of those questions that, in those days, puzzled us: �Throughout your presentation and so far in the discussion, I have noticed that the topics related to the evolution of History seem to come down to objective movements, regardless of consciousness or structures. What is then the role of man ? You cannot limit the history of mankind to mathematic formulas! [17]� The categorical� answer, common by then[18], would be to blurt out that �Marxism is different from humanism . Julio Valde�n, however, like most historians whose background does not readily admit the role of a� structuralist that denies a subject-within-history� approach, pointed out: �I don t see that contradiction . Nonetheless, he eventually reverts, true to his time (hence his representativity) to structural determinism by quoting the objetivist Marx: ��the conscience of mankind is determined by its social being . . . man makes history but amidst conditions he has not chosen [19]. Surprisingly enough, or perhaps not so much, we do not hear of the Marx who wrote for the Communist League in 1848: ��the history of mankind is the history of the class struggle , nor of the young Marx who wrote Manuscritos : econom�a y filosof�a ( Madrid, 1968)[20], nor the Marx turned into a historian of his time in Las luchas de clases en Francia ( Madrid, 1967) y El 18 Brumario de Luis Bonaparte ( Barcelona 1968). Beyond the subjectivist will and even its praxis, sometimes global, of� the new historians of social conflicts, the political and intelectual atmosphere imposed a structural economic approach[21] which eventually led to a neglect of a line of research which could ultimately (and not only could but should) contribute to overcoming (dialectically ) the dichotomy object / subject in history and the social sciences. But let s go ahead with our brief review.

�� In medieval history the characteristic paradigm is Julio Valde�n s Los conflictos sociales en el reino de Castilla en los siglos XIV y XV ( 1975), which begins by claiming that a knowledge of the social conflicts is �fundamental if the historical process is to be correctly apprehended. He also adds the conflicts that should attract our attention �are basically those reflecting the� fundamental contradictions in society , that is to say, the antagonistic-structural contradictions, �the conflict between lords and� peasants [22] and concludes by putting Castilla y Le�n on a level with the rest of Late Middle Ages Europe as far as this intensification of social tensions is concerned. This is an extremely innovative claim if we take into account that the prevalent paradigm in those days was to deny the feudal nature of medieval Castillian society. Valde�n stresses that it is necessary to go beyond a mere typology to link conflicts with their context by introducing social struggles, especially those against lords, into the historical interpretations of Late Castillian Middle Age. This was already present in both Vi�as Mey s bourgeoisie /nobility and Luis Su�rez s[23] nobility /monarchy dynamics. These proprosals were, in turn, influenced by social history and are not flatly rejected by Julio Valdeon. Valde�n s innovation, whose work encouraged and is representative of a remarkable series of papers on the struggle of the subject individual in Middle Age Spain [24], trascended medieval studies and history itself[25]. This is not to say that the influence of the intelectual mileau , both Marxist and non-Marxist was not taken into account. Julio Valde�n welcomes the markedly unidirectional classic threefold framework: economic crisis / social inestability� / civil war,or to put it in other words, economy / society / politics, which he argues, was advocated by Vicens Vives in the case of 15th century Catalonia as the �line to pursue �to establish a model study of the social tensions. Vicens Vives, nonetheless, was aware of some flaws in his proposal (the neglect of �such important aspect as ideologies and collective mentalities �together with its �determinism �in the economy). As a consequence , in order to fully understand social revolts[26], he refers us to �baseline structures �thus self-limiting his historiographic approaches, more prone to seeking causes[27] than� historical effects on social structures[28]. The latter are clearly undervalued[29], except - and this distinguishes Valde�n from other Spanish Marxist historians- in the almost unexplored field of mentalities: �obviously no substantial changes took place in the structure of society, at most rebels obtained some partial gains. But the fundamental consequence of� people s riots at the end of the Middle Ages registered in collective mentalities [30] . For all these reasons the desired contextualization of the social actor remains suspended, without being proven, rather the contrary, �the driving role �of the class struggle Marx defended in some his writings and in his political praxis.� The slow reaction of Western Marxist historiography against the structuralism� prevailing- which in Spain was more remarkable since translations into Spanish[31] were not readily available- came about when the history of the social conflicts was already on the wane [32]. In 1981 E.P.Thompson s� Miseria de la teor�a is published in Spanish. It is a direct criticism of Althusser s �new Marxist idealism . His criticism also extends to sociologists Hindnesss and Hirst, who were responsible for some statements that infuriated Thompson: �history is bound to empirism by� the nature of its purpose (...) Marxism, as a praxis both� theorerical and political, does not at all benefit from either its association with written history or with historical research. The study of history is devoid not only of� scientific value but also of practical value [33]. It could be said that by adopting structuralism, like in the case of other social and human sciences, we �left the fox to care for the hens .

��� Also in 1975, Ricardo Garc�a C�rcel published Las German�as de Valencia. This book is based on a doctoral thesis supervised by Joan Regl�[34]- which plays a role in the historiographical� vanguard[35] similar to that of� Julio Valde�n s[36] in the field of modernist historians, and is therefore subject to the same constraints derived from the paradigms shared by Marxism and the social sciences of the aftermath to the Second World War� that reached Spain in the seventies. Garc�a C�rcel work is an updating -not yet superseded[37]- of the research into the german�as revolt. Its antecedents were the traditional historiographical approaches, from liberal romanticism to positivism . He used the typical structural-functional paradigm of the sixties : structural and temporary preconditions ( subordinate to the former) and poor historical effect ( in his conclusion the author speaks of the �paucity �of the agermanada revolt[38]), and between both extremes, so unevenly tackled, the cronological development of events and the sociologic and geographical structure of germanias.

�� For the upcoming contemporary history, the paradigmatic reference is, no doubt, Manuel Tu��n de Lara, who apart from his work - not merely empirical but also attentive to methodological and historiographical reflection[39], like Valde�n s- carried out year after year throughout the seventies a key organizative effort to understand the flourishing in Spain of the social history of the 19th and 20th: Los Coloquios de Pau[40]. His most significative book, as regards� this critical review on the historiography of social conflict, is El movimiento obreo en la historia de Espa�a ( 1972) that follows the well-known threefold framework- which somethimes becomes fourfold by including ideology - that is to say, economy ( structure and temporary), society (workers conditions) and politics of the events ( strikes and conflicts), of the organizations and of several events explicitely political ( elections and wars). He pays special attention to the context, in line with a common paradigm, focused more on coincidences than on effects, which is somehow contradictory with the title of the book, which then became - and is even today- a major and innovative reference , a solid baseline for what would later be the history of the working class movement in Spain[41] .

��� Tu��n has also been an example in both his biography - something not frecuent among scholars- and� his professional career for his compromise as a historian - something in decline in the eighties[42] - ( ��national life cannot be conceived aside from the working class[43] , he claimed in 1972, undoubtly with the present and the future in mind).

�� In his methodological works, Tu��n de Lara explicitely acknowledges his debt to Labrousse, Braudel and historical materialism.� Determinant factors, latent structures, overt situations - with their sparking functionalism , quantitative methods� and -� to a certain extent in contraction with this - the principle of centrality of the class war[44]: �The study of conflicts and their originanting factors, at all levels, is nowadays the backbone of historical studies[45] . Without being explicitely acknowledged, as it is the case of the Manifiesto Comunista, that this controversial historical constant is the �motor of history (or it may be , but then we are not before a compulsory law), it is impossible to see the incidence of� social actors in history if they do not grow bigger or �are detached �from the structures. This is an epistemologic problem that has often reduced socio-historical studies to mere positivist descriptions. How could social change be explained if social conflicts do not affect social structures ? Well, there are two explanations and both neglect common people, the social individual, in favour of either the technological- economic change (the structural proposal) or the political change (traditional proposal). A synthesis able to find the subject/object historical interface is yet to be worked out.

�� The pioneer works so far analysed, however, and many others that preceded or followed them have amounted to a breakthrough (something often forgotten) in the evolution of Spanish historiography in four senses: a) they introduced the history of the working class movement and the social revolts into universities, issues that were not academically prestigious; b) they� contributed to spreading - or� recovering - outside the academy social themes such as the social struggles , in favour of a dignified life and freedom[46] ( history in the service of the recovery of the collective memory); c ) they created the conditions to supersede the old-fashioned liberal-romantic approaches that made these events into enduring myths ; and d) they provided new socio-economic explanations, perhaps incomplete but scientifically sounder than scholarly or old-fashioned conspirative interpretations on the �manipulation of the masses �by leaders, organizations or parties with �hidden agendas .[47] These socio-econonic explanations will have in their novelty their greatest contribution, while their greatest flaw will be their deterministic approach to the social historiography of the seventies.

��� Common people, workers, peasants did not exist for history until a group of young - or not so young- historians - especially Marxist and annalistes- soon acommodated into the academic world- decided to devote their attention to them.� This is indeed a great achivement if we bear in mind that, meanwhile, sociology, political sciences and psychology considered social revolts as �deviant behaviour , the work of social crimminals[48], and their protagonists were seen as masses moved by irrational motivations[49]. History, therefore, anticipated to sociology and the rest of the social sciences in� recovering the social individual before May 1968, and there lies the problem. The other social sciences stifled the premature subjectivity of the new history, which proved unable to export its counter-current experience to these sciences for a number of reasons, the most important one we have been burdened with ever since the first paradigmatic revolution, positivism: a certain theoretical incapacity.

�� To summarize, the very flaws of historiography, together with the influence of the economy, the structural funcionalism and� scienticism imposed an objectivist and economicist interpretation of history from the end of World War II[50] that rendered futile our early historiographical efforts in favour of a history with a subject, in other words, in favour of a more global approach[51].

�� The minor role attributed to the subject of history in the objectivist paradigm prevailing almost leads to its banishment from the historiographical scene.� Hobsbawm himself, in his well-known� paper, �De la historia social a la historia de la sociedad �(1971) where he shows his regret for a total history he fails to see developing in the foreseeable future[52], maintains the notion of a �strong link between social history and the history of social protest which �is still the perfect laboratory for the historian. Nonetheless, he also notices the ��pre-eminence of the economic over the political �due to the influence of Marxism and the �German historical school ; the overwhelming superiority of economy over the other social sciences; the tacit agreement by historians on starting the study of the social and economic structure �outwards and upwards �pointing out that �it is far from my intention to discourage those interested in these issues [revolutions] . Not in vain have I devoted a great deal of my professional time to them.� ��However. . . �, he eventually sugguests that revolutions be approached in longer temporal periods in an attempt to �capture the structrure [53].� This would be fair enough were it not that by acknowledging the objectivist impact without confronting it directly ( as Thompson will do later),� what it is being favoured, regardless of the author s intention[54], is the neglect of the collective action, academicism and the hostility toward this theory[55].

���� What is the problem ?Basically that structural socialism was developed to effectively� integrate the social conflict within the structure and to prevent, in the short term, the posibility of a radical social change[56]. Its hegemony in postwar social sciences favoured the spread of the mature Marx who wrote the prologue to Cr�tica de la econom�a pol�tica ( 1859) where he presented the social revolution as the result of the (objective) contradictions between productive forces and the relations of production instead of� young Marx s Manifiesto Comunista ( 1848) where the history of mankind was seen as the result of a class war. As a consequence, Marxism was not only adulterated, handicap�. Historians found themselves, as well, almost without realizing, due to� the tacit agreements characteristic of the academy ( that Kuhn explained so well and that is mirrored in Hosbsbawn s paper), without such important topics of research as conflicts, revolts and revolutions. But for history, ignoring the subject amounts to suicide as a� discipline. It is for reason that the traditional subject ( individual, political, narrative) forced its way back in an attempt to fill the gap left by the social actor.

The 1982 turn

��� In 1982 two young historians, Jos� Alvarez Junco and Manuel P�rez Ledesma, published a paper �Historia del movimiento obrero. )Una segunda ruptura? [57], which for its daring, ambitious approach[58] and its representativity [59]and consequences deserves a privileged position in Spanish historiographical reflection[60].

��� The authors claim that they do not abandon �the centrality of working-class struggles . They� add that it is possible to mantain the study of the working class movement but with new orientations as it is not possible to ignore their decisive importance in the last one hundred and fifty years of European history. Workers did not carry out the revolution they dreamt of, but they forced a number of changes that have profoundly marked societies . Curiously enough, these changes have been played down by the classic history of the working class movement, thus, �fouling their own nest [61]. That centrality, however, was not such since the history of the working class movement was deprived of its �priviledged epistemological status �and was replaced by �the history of the social movements [62].

�� The criticisms the history of the working class movement in the seventies has received are threefold: a) a commited, semiclandestine[63], teleological, working-class-oriented, overpious[64], and self-indulgent history, pure �social realism ; b) a simplifying history, economically-determined, based on preconceived patterns that rule out previous hypothesis and domanied by popular socialism [1]; c ) a traditional history , focused on the study of ideology, institutions unions and workers �parties- and the individuals - the workers s leaders. The excess of their criticism and their unilaterality[1] is as obvious as necessary: �you cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs .

�� The proposals of these two authors are, therefore, to depoliticize Spanish social history, making it more academic, free from ideological preconceptions, providing new themes ( such as studying workers and their life and work conditions, other social and political movements, the employer s organizations, non-labour parties, the relationship of the different classes with the State) and new methods (by learning from sociology and the other social sciences as well as from British and French historiography[65] - the history of mentalities[66])- in other words, �to get away from the sometimes stifling framework historography of the social movement has so far been inmersed [67].

���� As an innovative project, what has been said so far still holds true: there remain many new ways of approaching the Spanish history of the social movements to be worked out, especially now with the revival of social conflicts in historiography. But it is also necesary to supersede the 1982 hypercritical, iconoclastic approach.

��� Firstly, it is necessary to further support� the recovery of the history of social conflicts and revolts, ostracized by the innovative excesses of the eighties. This was against the will of� their promoters but, as historians, we know that historical results, like the historiographical� ones, are, to a great extent, involuntary. Apart from our �rational choice , other factors, both internal and external, come into play.

�� Secondly, to do historiographical justice - personal recognition has already been granted in the famous paper[68] - to Tu��n de Lara after the unavoidable �death of the father �performed by our critics. It does not seem suitable, however, to portray Tu��n de Lara as dogmatic, teleological and traditional, except� as far as the historical and ideological constraints and limitations of the time are concerned.� Especially when his essential role in the �first break[69] �is not always conveniently remaked upon. That we choose as subject matter strikes or conflicts, the ideology of unions and political parties, or their leader s does not in itself amounts to qualifying� it as old or new history. It is the innovation in the approaches - apart from the quality of the results- that counts[70]. Moreover, did not Tu��n himself write in 1973 that ��the episodic approach of labour history ( that is, a content relatively new and accurate, but with old methology) which, to a greater or lesser extent, we all have succumbed to, seems to be about to be definively superseded[71] . It has not been so but it would be unfair to blame exclusively Tu��n - or� for that matter the authors above mentioned for� the ultimate effects of the renovation- who saw clearly the need to be open to new methods and themes to tackle the history of the working class movement as his critics themselves acknowledge - with quotations- so as to strengthen its foundations[72], especially in the case of the history of social mentalities[73]. It is true, however, that if we set aside the history of the working class movement[74], the situation would be very different. Tu�on de Lara s works - and the authors �of the paper themselves - would not be as useful.

��� The third point I would like to make is to criticise the advocates of the �second break �for focusing on content and methodological renovation� leaving, however, the underlying paradigm untouched. Because the main flaw of the social history of seventies is in the economicism-structuralist -objectist paradigm that informed , contradicted and hindered it, the authors put into question economic reduccionism, but say nothing of the structural and objectivist constraint[75], which agrees with the final conclusion of our criticism ( of their criticism). Either by design or chance the boy was drained away with the water in spite of the centrality formally proclaimed of the social struggle, of a wider scope in subject matter, and the appearance of the first hints of what Ignacio Ramonet some years later,called �unique thought �pushed into the background the academic research on workers movements, revolts and revolutions[76] in the eighties. This objective tendency of the socio-political context, that is, of the neo-conservative wave led by MargaretThatcher and Ronald Reagan has been a decisive factor in the relegation of the social subject in both reality and historical research. The critical function of the historian by insisting on those issues that, having a scientific relevance,� could be negatively affected by the political and ideological situation was missing .

�� The need for a content and methodological renewal seen on the article of Revista de Occidente was shared, in the early eighties, by a great number of social historians[77]. In the issue 2/3 (1982) of the journal Debats, the conclusions of a round table on �Social Movements �are published at the time of the first� meeting of social historians in Valencia in 1981 with the collaboration of the following historians: J.J. Castillo, J: Termes, P. Gabriel, J. �lvarez Junco, S. Castillo, S. Juli�, C. Forcadell, M. P�rez Ledesma, J.A. Piqueras , A. Bosch, J. Paniagua,M. Cerd� y S. Forner. The conclusions are similar to those in the preceding meeting. Some innovative lines were added, such as oral history and the history of women - even today poorly developed - and �lvarez Junco and P�rez Ledesma s paper s call for a break is significatively qualified in the sense mentioned above. Carlos� Forcadell finds it more accurate to speak of a �second reception �of the European historiography of the working class movement, taking into account that - in comparison with Europe - the history of the Spanish working class movement is scarce: even if we limit ourselves to the institutional field, to the study of the parties, and of their leading groups . Santos Juli� adds: as an example that here institutional history has not been conducted , let s remember that we do not have a history of the comunist party as italians do [ and we still do not have it ]. I have the impression that we are using up a history not yet made[78].

�� In this conference some other interested proposals were submitted: the publishing of a journal[79], the elaboration of our own models of research[80], the need for a sociology of the researcher �that analyses the social class he/she comes from, his/her ideology and what would be more complex,� who this history has served to[81] , argues �lvarez Junco, who, later, sincerely and profetically� admits that ��we, intellectual� middle-class urban people , aspire to power and are competing with others who already have it[82] .

�� In Valencia, Santiago Castillo complains that �most attendants have to work on something that has nothing to do with historical research, having only their spare time to devote to them. Besides, they spend the little money they have on files, paper sheets and photocopies. . . . [83].� Well, having been able to conduct innovative research in these conditions should be an example for the new generations, who no doubt have it more difficult[84]. Despite this, most contributors at Debats were� still assistant lecturers[85]. I say �still �because, in that time a great deal of the political and economic historians, in the most traditional areas of historical knowledge, and of the same generation, had attained the status of government employee[86] , some of them were even professors. If the truth be told, being Marxism or contemporary historian was not an asset at Spanish univestities in the seventies[87]. The change on this respect that took place in the eighties thanks to the historiographical renewal,� the political transition and the coming to power of� PSOE together with the consolidation of democracy, in and outside university, was so dramatic that we have rectify saying that we are in a more balanced position[88], thus helping the new generation.

�� The political situation is , indeed, essential to understand the historiographic and academic turn of 1982 . It is not a coincidence that the first great victory of the socialist party by absolute majority, only three years after its abandonment of Marxism[89], takes place in 1982. It is not so much a direct influence, as the historiographical change we are analyzing occurs before the electoral change towards the left as the fact that both events , of radically different characteristics, share the same intelectual and mental context. History� is daughter to her time, and suffers , like all human and social sciences ��weather changes �especially in such a delicate� field as the history of the working class movement and social conflicts, which, was originally, �a way of� fighting Francoism[90].

���� In 1982, therefore, the change in social, political and cultural hegemony consolidates. It goes from the PCE to the PSOE[91], from the social struggles of the seventies to the electoral confrontation in the eighties. The thwarting of the revolutionary tendencies ( through pacts by� antifrancoist oposition /francoist reforms) originated at universities in the sixties and the seventies and the virtual banishment of a number of political parties ( PTE, ORT, MCE, LCR....) of great influence among university students. These parties were characterised by a schematical and dogmatic classical Marxism , which paradoxically was as structuralist as well-intentioned[92].� The end of the political transition brings about the gradual banishment from the political arena of one of the social movements - the working-class movement becomes institucionalized and the student movement fades- reappearing only briefly to legitimately denounce the labour, economic and educative policy of the socialist governments. All these frustrations, what came to be known as the �disenchantment ,� the need for some people to �start everything all over again �in their careers, the ideological �transformation of almost everyone, put an end in the eighties to the political commitment of the intellectual ( the �swan song �was, undoubtedly, the referendum on whether to join NATO in 1986) that contributed to draining of ideology the academic lines more sympathetic to Marxism by proposing the �second breaks[93] . Paradoxically, the political and ideological moderation did not put an end to the anachronic �frentepopulismo �in the political and university context following transition. On the contrary, it was continually fueled by faction struggles for academical and electoral power that tended to become polarized ( �reds �and �blues �and of late �nationalists and �non-nationalist ).

������� Amidst the recovery of the interest in the history of the social conflicts in the nineties, the 1982 historigraphic turn was reintroduced in several occasions[94].� It was reassessed by their defendants - as well as by younger colleagues- by redefining[95] or �forgeting [96] some arguments, advancing and refurnishing the innotative spirit and /or reacting against it; trying, in short, to find their place in this last decade and a half characterized from a historiographical viewpoint for a deep crisis of the common postwar paradigm - where our discussion on the history of the working class movement should be placed- ; for the increasing fragmentation of object and approaches; for the chaotic development of our discipline; for the return to the traditional genres; for the appearance of new potential paradigms...

��� The apprisal of the innovative movement of the eighties is negative for most authors that have� resumed the issue between 1990 and 1995. �ngeles Barrio speaks of scarce output; Carlos Gil,quoting the former, among others, points out �that the conclusions reached do not stand up to the expectations[97] ; Pere Gabriel admits ��that we have not attained much , and criticises the overreaction against the history of the social history and the ��reduccionist clich� �used when assessing the social history between 1959-1982; Carlos Forcadell, who had already pointed out his criticisms in Valencia, insists again; ��the impression that the results of the 1982 methodological proposals are well behind our intented aim is widespread [98]; Jos� Antonio Piqueras asks himself about how social history is conducted is Spain and attacks in his answer ��the entrenchment of empirism and the absence of a theory in the historical work [99]. Jos� �lvarez Junco, at the I International Meeting History Under Debate is more direct and selfcritical. He admits the (relative) failure of the innovate movement[100] and hits a raw nerve : �routine or the lack of an alternative model with a similar capacity to provide a global explanation is the reason why the historiographical treatment of the social movements in Spain remains faithful to this approach [ the received paradigm]. [101]

���� One of the authors of the paper in Revista de Occidente is right in his criticism- self criticism. The old paradigms - and the new history- that reached Spain in the sixties and the seventies is nowdays ( time and tide wait for no man), an old paradim- are still valid. Historians fail to agree on a replacement, though. As I see it, however, we are missing the point. If social historians have not so far� fully accepted the substitution of working-class history for history of the social movements. If we have failed to work out an alternative global paradigm , it is , in our view and to be brief, because several �mistakes �have been made: a) the abandonment of a history of the working class movement was, voluntarily or not, favoured[102]. This is unavoidable if we are after a history of the social movements worth its name, which, being denied in everyday work, the first innovative thrust by Tu��n the Lara and the Coloquios de Pau, tends to revert into traditional approaches; b)� the structuralism, objective and scienticist distortion of the common paradigm of 20th century historians , thus neutralizing their efforts to free from economicism, innovate contents and methods so as to mantain the interent in social factors; c )� dissociating the discussion on working-class movement and the� social movements from historiographical discussion as a whole.However attention is paid to dicussions pertaining sociology- transcending contemporary historians as� a great number of problems can only be solved if we move outside the narrow margin in which social historians of the 19th and 20th century work: d) forgeting global history, a mistake common to most western historiography of the late decades and, to a certain extent, justified by the complete failure of �total �history, especially of the structuralist and determinist interpretation of this fundamental historiographical construct; e) having been critical with the political context that has given raise to �the first break �( a history rethought by the 1968 generation ��in a hasty,semi-clandestine fashion and , to a great extent, politically-minded [103]) but not with the political ideological conditionants and the mentality that contributed to the 1982 turn[104] and its later influence on the social history of the eighties and without which it is not possible to understand its relative failure[105]. Well, above I wrote �mistakes �between inverted commas because around 1982 - a year of great hopes of renewal after the 23-F attempted coup d etat ( 1981) and the occupation of Valencia by Mil�ns del Bosch- , it was not easy to foresee the flourishing of a historiographical postmodernity[106] or the return to traditional history, the breaching of the Berlin Wall or the negative evolution in domestic politics[107]; and especially because, it is in this way, by learning from our past, that we can work out more sensible proposals for the (foreseeable) future.

The return of the nineties

��� Although in the eighties, interest of history as a whole and social history in particular in conflicts, revolts and social movements diminished notably it does not mean that research works were not published, some of them most interesting, on medieval[108], modern[109] and contemporary[110] history� in the wake of the preceding �boom �and/or because of the decision of some researchers who, regardless of �fashions[111] �still considered -and consider - the study of the most dymanic part of history of great historiographical interest . Papers[112] rather than books are predominant -the typical result of doctoral thesis - and in general, works on local history in keeeping with the growing marginalization of the Spanish sphere[113] and of the history of Spain[114] in academic research.

��� The turning point will take place somewhere between the late eighties and the early nineties, and a number of conferences, meetings and workshops will be the force behind - as well as the� symptoms-� of this new flourishing of the history of the social conflicts - and of the working class movement. In these conferences, in which due to their collective nature and immediacy reflect best the different historiograpical situations, there was a tendency to adopt a interhistorical approach as there were� historians from different areas of historical knowledge .

�� Volumes VII and VIII of the I Congreso de Historia de Castilla-La Mancha are ( Toledo, 1988) devoted to Conflictos Sociales y Evoluci�n econ�mica en la Edad Moderna, although the contents do not altogether correspond with the title, a problem common to other conferences, given that historians in the eighties were not used to tackling these issues.

�� In 1989, within the framework of the summer courses at El Escorial, a workshop is held under the title of Revoluciones y alzamientos en la Espa�a de Felipe II ( Valladolid, 1992), where, again,� not all contritubions conform to the title, something which will not happen again in the future meetings - especially in the open papers submited in conferences. Commemorating the bicentenary of the French Revolution, that same year, the Jornadas de Estudios Hist�ricos , which the Department of Medieval, Modern and Contemporary History organizes annually open with� a cycle of conferences on Revueltas y revoluciones en la historia (Salamanca 1990). Nonetheless, the first great conference in which the return of conflicts is apparent is organized by Instituci�n �Fernado el Cat�lico �in Zaragoza, also in 1989, on Se�or�o y Feudalismo en la Pen�nsula Ib�rica (Zaragoza, 1993).

� In 1990, four meetings on revolts and social unrest take place : a summer course organized by the Universidad Complutense at El Escorial on Resistencias hisp�nicas al imperio: Comuneros, agermanados y erasmistas; a workshop at the UIMP in Cuenca on Asociacinismo conflicto agario en Espa�a (18th, 19th and 20th centuries) and the First Meeting of the Association of Social History, also in Zaragoza on La historia social en Espa�a: actualidad y perspectivas (Madrid 1991) with contributions manily by contemporary historians[115].� To this should be added� the papers by Gonzalo Bueno, Juli�n Casanova, and Julio Arostegui on Revoluciones y reformas: su influencia sobre la historia de la sociedad submited that same year in the section �Grandes Temas �of the 17th International Conference of Historical Sciences that took place in Madrid.

��� In 1993, Ignacio Ol�barri and Valent�n V�zquez de la Prada organized the V Conversaciones Internacionales de Historia, Para comprender el cambio social, enfoques te�ricos y perspectivas historiogr�ficas ( Pamplona, 1997) with the explicit purpose, as they write in the prologue,� of �recovering one of the major questions of mid-century historiography - the explanation of social change - in the knowledge that we lack an �-ism �that can answer that question �in order to oppose extreme postmodernism through a recovery of� Athe �sociocientific �methodologies �that have� rendered fruitful throughout this century .

��� In 1995,two important conferences and a workshop were held: the 7th Conference on Agrarian History at Baeza, organized by the Seminario de Historia Agraria, on rural unrest in the Middle Ages, Modern and Contemporary history ( published in Noticiario de historia Agraria , 12 13 1996, 1997); 2nd Conference of the Association of Social History, in C�rdoba, on El trabajo a trav�s de la historia ( Madrid, 1996), where most papers were devoted to the history of the working class movement ans social unrest[116]; and the workshop at the UIMP in Valencia on Conflictividad y represi�n en la sociedad moderna published in the issue 22 (1996) of the journal Estudis. Revista de historia Moderna, the consequence of a research project ( 1992-1995) on La dimensi�n conflictiva de la sociedad Valencia moderna.

��� Lastly, in 1997, I will mention the third Conference of our assoctiation of Social History, on Estado, protesta y movimentos sociales, that has forced us to reflect on the current situation and the perspectives of our field of research which, for many colleagues, belonged with a kind of historiography, that of the sixties and seventies, that would never return , which even if possible would not be desirable . A different matter is that its objects of investigation are still there and are even unavoidable so as to leave behind the current paradigmatic crisis and be able to give our field a thurst into the new millenium.

��� As far as journals are concerned, the most remarkable one is, of course, Historia Social from Valencia which has devoted five dossiers to the history of the working class movement, the conflicts and social revolts: no.1, 1988, �Anarquismo y sindicalismo ; no 5, 1989, �Huelgas ; no 15, 1993, ��Estado y acci�n colectiva ; no 17, 1994, �conflictividad obrera y conducta social , no. 20, 22, 1994 and 1995, ��Debates de la historia social de Espa�a �( with papers on conflicts, revolutions and �class struggle �by Garc�a C�rcel, M. Chust, J. Casanova y P. Gabriel)[117]. Paradoxically, the two social historians, Santos Juli� and Carlos Forcadell, who at the meeting in Valencia in 1981, were more reluctant to the �second break �claiming that we using up a history not yet made , that is, the history of the working class movement, the political parties and their leading groups[118], now undervalue as �classical social history �(without even considering whether we are before traditional or renovated approaches), Historia Social s remarkable dossiers on conflict, revolts and social movements[119]. In my view, it is not the objects - we need them all- that define historical validity but its methods and its results[120]. Renovating histrory through a change or a widening of contents , discovering new objects, is internationally exhausted. It is now the turn to innovate in a more challenging but also more decissive way. Through method, historiography and theory. We will come across old topics presented with new approaches or new topics dealt with tradional approaches.

�� Other journals have, recently, paid attention to the social subject and his history . Issues no. 3 and 4, both of 1990, of �Historia Contempor�nea ( edited by Tu��n de Lara) that monographically deal with �Movilizaci�n obrera entre los siglos, 1890-1990 and Cambios sociales y modernizaci�n respectively. Issue no. 4 of Ayer ( 1991) is devoted to La huelga general since it is seen as a topic of �current �interest. The strikes staged in the Russian Federation in August 1991; in Italy, Gaza-Cisjordania, in Asturias in October or in the Republic of South Africa in November are good �contemporary �examples of� it. Issues no. 56 ( 1991) and 69 (1994) of Zona Abierta were devoted to Fluctuaciones econ�micas y ciclos de conflicto and Movimientos sociales , acci�n e identidad; the introduction to the issue no. 69, subtitled ��some old reasons �opposes those who ��get together to certify the death of the social movements �and� adopts that favours a concept of �social movement �devoid of adjectives such as �new �or �old �that should be redefined. Furthermore, issues no. 12 ( 1996) and 13 ( 1997) of Noticiario de Historia Agr�cola and issue no.22 ( 1996) of Studis where the conference and workshops acts mentioned have been published.

��� As to books, there are some �end-of-century novelties �that confirm the new thrust of the history of conflicts and revolts[121], especially by the new generation[122].� I believe, however, that , if the data and hypothesis at out disposal are right- that there will be greater advances in the future� because the gaps are still many and important. Is it not true that� monographical research applying the new methologies to the study of such impotant revolutions as the remensas, the german�as, the comunidades, or contemporary peasants, workers or people s uprisals is still to be conducted? Such has been my personal experience. I have tried to refocus , in several works[123], linking the different epochs form a history of the mentalities approach, oral history and the history of crimminality, the Irmandi�a revolt ( 1967-1469), its antecedents, its outbreak and its impact on the collective mind� ( 1467-1674).

����� There were two things that worried me ( but did not dissuade me[124]) when, in the mid-eighties, I opted for researching into a social revolt[125] as the central point of my project letting my innovative concerns �run free without abandoning a classical subject, decisive however for a comprehensive understanding of history. First, to be a alone in no-man s land as I was moving among the fuzzy edges of severals academic areas. Secondly, to be thought of as an �odd fish �in writing a doctoral thesis on a medieval revolt. But I also had one hope: to contribute to the historiographical and historical� revival of the social subject. Good evidence that I am not exaggerating is what Fern�ndez de Pinedo writes in 1992 in the prologue to Joseba de la Torre s thesis-� read in 1989 and supervised by Fontana - on the antifeudal struggle in Navarra: ��sometimes it seems as if� writing on struggles and conflicts is not in good taste [126]. Well, here the old saying springs to mind �the last shalt be the first .� It is for this reason that when I was about to write this paper, sorting out my files and doing the last readings, I decided to change its titlef rom a vindicative one ( �Conflicts, revolts, and revolutions. For a history with a subject ) to one more neutral ( �The return of the social subject �).

��� Why this renewal in Spain of the history of the social conflicts and revolt[127] ? There are several possible historiographical reasons: a ) the good moment of Spanish historiography in the nineties[128] both in output and growth, despite difficulties for young historians to enter the labour market as well as in the innovative spirit[129] and the reflective effort[130]; b) we are in a historiographical moment in which we are trying to assess results in search of alternatives , backwards and forwards where everything is renovated and recovered in such a way that we accumulate conflict, revolts and revolutions- that are historical events and give rise to important ways of conducting history- with biography, political history and narrative, so far the protagonists of the historigrafical revivals; c ) the relative failure of the unfinished 1982 turn� that got to be known as a social history without subject , without conflict[131]; the influence of the new sociology of the collective action, of the racional action, of the social actors that rediscover the subject, much later than history and �throws him back to us through the window a decade after� having wished him out of the door .

��� Then, we have the domestic and international contexts of which we cannot prescind in order to understand the recoverey of the old Spanish historiographical tradition of the conflicts, revolts� and revolutions at the threshold of the 21st century.

���� From a domestic point of view, the most powerful factor, in my view, is the consolidation of democracy under the socialist governments and, as a consequence, the normalization[132] of the conflict and the strikes, the general strike as well, thus losing the �subversive �implications they formely had with Franco and even during the transition. This contributes to their recovery in the academic world and to the positive reassessment of social facts as subjects of study class unions and local institutions, which in the interim have established foundations, centres of study and research in order to recover their historical memory and legitimize their respective identities.

���� From an international point of view, we cannot but recognise the spectacularity of� collective action in the history of the last decade of the 20th century. Let us consider four moments: 1) 1989-1991, democratic revolutions in East Europe with a decisive protagonism of the people, beginning with the industrial workers� ( in Poland) that take advantage of all the �classical �means to bring down the so-called �real socialism : rallies, general strikes, armed uprisings ( Romania);� 2) 1994 - peasant revolt in Chiapas , at the very same moment that Mexico joins the Treaty of Free Commerce with the USA and Canada that triggers off a wave of sympathy in - and outside - Mexico and resulted in many academics and historians recovering their non-party political commitment[133] ( as it had previously been the case in Eastern Europe); 3) 1995-1997 social movements ( major strikes and rallies) in France of an unknown magnitude since the sixties, first against Chirac and Jupe neoliberal policy and later, more aggresively in favour of inmigrants - and against Le Pen monte�- which forced an influential group of intellectuals led by film-makers, writers and artists[134] into social commitment and had an influence in the surprising victory of the left in June 1st 1997 and of the fact that social Europe is beginning to be discussed about at EU meetings; 4) March 1997 a popular uprising in Albany, that adds to its �classicism , radicality and� spontaniety[135] , like in the case of France and without taking the comparison too far, having achieved their more political aims[136], namely, bring down Belisha and give the power - through votes- to the left oposition led by former comunists. This confirms a slight change in the political filiation of �mass �interventions- either political or electoral- in Eastern Europe.

�The new, unexpected role of social revolts in democracies[137], as it is showing up in a number of such different European countries as France and Albany after the �end of history �and �unique thought �and, in general, the �return of the social issue [138] challenges history and the other social sciences to understand - historically- the world ahead. In order to successfully accomplish this task, it is necessary to recover and reformulate the scientific function and the social sensiblity� of history by newly analysing the past so as to build up a better future; by , first of all, placing the unquestionable return of conflicts, revolts and revolutions at the threshold of the 21th century within its historical context ; to summarize by, accepting the change in the construct of historical time that stems from these accelerated events of the end of the century, when what seemed to be the past turns out to be the future. Such is the case of conflicts and revolts from the point of view of the writing of history. Interest in these issues has been recovered as they have taken on renovated topicality.� The case of Spain is special, though. With the exception of the December 14th 1988 general strike and� several demonstrations by secondary students, we are far from seeing , as it is the case of France, a renotaved socio-political� protagonism of what - in our youth aware of the long tradition of social struggle in Spain- used to be called the �masses . Nonetheless, the historiographical return is more evident in Spain than in France[139]. We may, then, be before yet another instance of the differences in rhythm between the realm of historiography and the social political situation. But if history was ever the daughter of her time, that is the case of the history of the social movements: either �global village �has made national situations unimportant or we are anticipating the future of the country...[140].

�� Time and space limitations - this paper is already beyond the usual length alloted - will not allow� a critical and self-critical analysis on recent Spanish research on social struggle, nor to link in more detail this return to the history of social conflicts with the more general historiographical debate. I would like to note, however, its importance. The dynamics of the historiography of movements and revolutions plays a significant role in in the evolution of historiography as a whole. It is a �central �issue, whose ebbs and flows accurately portray historical and historiographical changes. How is, will or should the �third break �in the historiographicy of the movements and social conflicts be ? What is its historiographical relation with the change in paradigms ? What role will the subject play in building up the new paradigm of history ?