La justicia como escarmiento. La revolución de octubre de 1934 y el Consejo de Guerra del sargento Vázquez

Abstract

During the Second Spanish Republic, Azaña’s military reforms includ- ed the reform of military justice in order to, among other aspects, to abolish the Supreme Council of War and the Navy and confer its powers to the 6th Chamber of the Supreme Court, leaving the 1890 Code of Military Justice in force for the most partículo In this context, General Sanjurjo’s uprising in August 1932 gave rise to various Supreme Court rulings on the crime of military rebellion, in which the Court set out their doctrine on the subject. The aim of this paper is to analyze, in the light of those sentences and new documents, the court martial of Sergeant Diego Vázquez, who partici- pated in the revolutionary events of October 1934 and was the only mili- tary executed for the crime of military rebellion during the Republican pe- riod, prior to the civil war. Using this paradigmatic case, we can see some of the defects of military justice at the time and how the new interpretation of the Supreme Court was not taken into account in this case.