The Twenieth Century

Malaga in the twentieth century

The early twentieth century, in terms of economy, involved a period ofadjustment with the gradual dismantling of industrial development andfluctuating trade.

This was placed within a backward society which was nowbarely literate and led by a small oligarchy with total economic and politicalpower. Economic depression, social unrest and political domination enabledpetit bourgeois republicanism and the labor movement to strengthen theirpositions.

In 1933, during the Second Spanish Republic, the first leftMalaga Member formed the Communist Party of Spain. Because of this and thelarge number of active militants linked to socialism, anarchism and communismduring this period, they were called Malagathe Red.

Despite the very conservative wing of the city. In 1936, at the startof the Spanish Civil War, the province was almost isolated from the rest of thearea loyal to the Republic.

In February 1937 the factious army, composedlargely of Italians launched an offensive against the city which was thenoccupied on February 7. The repression of the Franco dictatorship was one ofthe toughest of the war, about 20,000 were estimated shot, and buried in massgraves at the cemetery of San Rafael.

During the military dictatorship, the cityexperienced a growth in foreign tourism to the Costa del Sol with a boom in thecity’s economy in the 1960s, supported by the mass migration to the north of Spain, and northern countries of Europe.

Despite anti-marxist trends that dominated education in the 1940s, after themilitary dictatorship, the first mayor was a member of the Malaga SpanishSocialist Workers’ Party, and remained in office until 1995 when he won themunicipal elections People’s Party, and who still governs today (2009).