Catalan state and Esquerra Republicana

In the working-class district of Sants, three men made a decision in March 1931 that would shake the foundations of Spanish politics. Francesc Macià, Lluís Companys, and Joan Lluhí merged their movements into one powerful force: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia. The historic Plaça Sant Jaume, where two grand palaces face each other across ancient cobblestones, became the stage for what happened next.

Just three weeks after founding their party, they swept the municipal elections on April 12, winning more than 3,200 council seats across Catalonia. Two days later, Macià stepped onto the balcony of the Generalitat palace and did the unthinkable. He proclaimed a Catalan Republic within an Iberian Federation, hours before Spain itself became a republic. Madrid panicked. Within three days, government ministers rushed to the city to negotiate.

Macià backed down, accepting autonomous government status instead of full independence. His party dominated Catalan politics through the 1930s, implementing progressive reforms for workers and peasants. The Spanish Civil War destroyed everything. Franco's forces captured Companys in France in 1940. The Gestapo handed him over to Franco, who executed him by firing squad, making him the only democratically elected head of government in European history to be executed.