Abstract
In the present article we intend to explore the symbols and the ritual action of the basque nationalist trade union, Eusko Langileen Alkartasuna (ELA), from 1911, year in which the workers’ organization was founded, to 1936. We study in details the period of the Second Republic, during which the weak and traditional symbolic-ritual apparatus, built up in the previous years, was severely tested by the sudden transformation of ELA in a modern mass organization. We argue that, despite the radicalization of union demands and the progressive proletarianization of the organization’s social bases, until 1935-1936, the symbolic politics and the ritual action of ELA was marked by the absolute predominance of nationalist-religious features according to a traditional ideological view. Only at the eve of the Spanish Civil War, especially during the May Day celebrations, ELA liturgy finally adopted a workerist outlook that best reflects the process of class evolution started since the second half of 1933.
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