This Marxist interpretation of sixteenth-century Spain was written by an Argentine historian whose previous studies have dealt with the economy and party polities of the River Plate. Puiggrós argues one principal thesis: that the discovery of the New World was for Spain a major disaster, since it provided the moribund Castilian aristocracy with the resources for crushing the bourgeois and democratic elements which were carrying Spain from medieval “feudalism” into modernization and progress. In a series of essays averaging from three to five pages and virtually uncontaminated by footnotes, Puiggrós first seeks to establish the conditions existing at about 1492. By then, he states, a prolonged class struggle by townsmen and serfs against the nobles had resulted in the latters’ defeat; the country had been unified; and it had arrived at the take-off point into capitalism.
The acquisition of the Indies radically transformed this whole picture. Despite the key role of the Catalán-Aragonese bourgeoisie in launching Colón’s voyages and its recognized expertise in Mediterranean techniques of commerce and banking, it was barred from Castile’s America. This permitted the previously vanquished Castilian “feudalism” to revive, monopolize the wealth and power of the New World, and reimpose its reactionary, parasitic grip upon the Spanish people. With Charles V, an alliance of Crown and nobles crushed the uprising of the Comuneros, a bourgeois-democratic movement that could have anticipated the English and French Revolutions by creating in Spain the first modern middle-class state. The result was the decadent Spain of Charles V, the prey of Fugger and Weiser exploitation, sunk for centuries to come in poverty and apathy.
This often inaccurate and misleading account fails to convince, for it grossly oversimplifies the effects of the Empresa de las Indias upon Spain. Puiggrós, indeed, despite his six-page bibliography, shows himself inadequately equipped to bring off such a radical reappraisal of the Siglo de Oro. In many respects his book represents a curious amalgam of outdated scholarship, traditional prejudices, and Catalan-Aragonese bias against Castile. He also shows a horror of unbalanced budgets, deficit financing, and international borrowing that would do credit to an economic conservative and a doctrinaire formulism that compares unfavorably with recent more skillful Marxist analyses.
There are many other misconceptions. To claim that it was the nobles who largely enjoyed the profits of the American empire is to misunderstand the nature of Spanish absolute monarchy and its controls over wealth and power overseas. To imagine that barring the Catalán bourgeoisie meant turning the Indies over to the reactionary aristocracy is to ignore the significant native and Italian middle-class trading and financial elements in Castile. It is not surprising that the bibliography omits the works of Lapeyre, Verlinden, and Chaunu. A simplistic nineteenth-century view of the Comuneros as champions of progress, liberalism, and nationalism can no longer be accepted in the face of abundant evidence of their regionalist, traditionalist, and isolationist motives. Charles V’s policies are often open to criticism, but any balanced appraisal of this reign would note also the demographic, urban, and commercial growth, the striking religious, intellectual, and cultural advances, and the astonishing display of Spanish energies in Europe and America by many social groups ranking well below the high aristocracy.
This work was first published in Mexico in 1961. The second edition appears without change except for a prologue in which the author reaffirms his contentions. But while properly informed and competent Marxist scholarship can be expected to yield fresh and provocative results, Puiggrós ’ polemic does not measure up to such a standard.
