Historians have argued that the incident sharpened antagonism between the political right and left in Spain, and was part of the reason for the later Spanish Civil War.

President Niceto Alcalá-Zamora decided not to invite CEDA leader José María Gil-Robles to form a government, possibly because his party had not yet adhered to the republican system.

[5] However, historian Salvador de Madariaga, himself a supporter of Manuel Azaña and an exiled vocal opponent of Francisco Franco, asserted that: "The argument that [Gil Robles] tried to destroy the Constitution to establish fascism was, at once, hypocritical and false".

Spain had been subject to constant clashes in the form of small incidents and short general strikes, which allowed the revolutionary movement to arrive on the eve of October in the fullness of its strength, with great confidence and extraordinarily united.

The revolutionary soviets set up by the miners attempted to impose order on the areas under their control, and the moderate socialist leadership of Ramón González Peña and Belarmino Tomás took measures to restrain violence.

[16] Historian Hugh Thomas asserts that Hidalgo said that he did not want young inexperienced recruits fighting their own people, and that he was wary of moving troops to Asturias, leaving the rest of Spain unprotected.

[20] Historian Javier Tusell argues that although Franco had a leading role, giving instructions from Madrid, that does not mean he took part in the illegal repressive activities.

[21] According to Tusell it was López Óchoa, a republican, who had been appointed by President Alcalá Zamora to lead the repression in the field, that was unable to prevent numerous atrocities.

[22] Stanley Payne estimates that the rebel atrocities killed between 50 and 100 people and that the government conducted up to 100 summary executions, while 15 million pesetas were stolen from banks, most which was never recovered and funded further revolutionary activity.

On 6 October, Companys decided to declare the Catalan State within the "Spanish Federal Republic",[24] and numerous heavily armed squads occupied the streets of Barcelona and other towns, supporting the initiative and capturing public offices.

Companys appeared on a balcony of the Palau de la Generalitat and told the crowd that "monarchists and fascists" had "assaulted the government", and went on: In this solemn hour, in the name of the people and the Parliament, the Government over which I preside assumes all the faculties of power in Catalonia, proclaims the Catalan State of the Spanish Federal Republic, and in establishing and fortifying relations with the leaders of the general protest against Fascism, invites them to establish in Catalonia the provisional Government of the Republic, which will find in our Catalan people the most generous impulse of fraternity in the common desire to erect a liberal and magnificent federal republic.

[26] [27] Lluís Companys also telephoned General Domènec Batet, who was deployed in Catalonia as chief of the IV Organic Division, asking him for support.

At 9 pm, Batet declared martial law, moving against trade union and militia headquarters, both of whom surrendered quickly, then brought light artillery to bear against the Barcelona city hall and the Generalitat.

Although the vast majority of the events happened in Asturias and Catalonia, there were strikes, clashes, and shootings in the Basque country, northern Castile and León, Cantabria, and Madrid.

The insurgency in Asturias sparked a new era of violent anti-Catholic persecutions, initiated the practice of atrocities against the clergy[15] and sharpened the antagonism between Spanish left and right.

[32] Franco described the rebellion to a journalist in Oviedo as, 'a frontier war and its fronts are socialism, communism and whatever attacks civilisation in order to replace it with barbarism.'

After the "miners" had surrendered the investigations and repression were carried out by the brutal Civil Guard Major Lisardo Doval Bravo who applied torture and savage beatings.

The independent journalist “Luis de Sirval” was arbitrarily arrested and shot dead in prison by a Bulgarian Legionnaire named Dimitri Ivan Ivanoff.

The soldiers who had taken part of the insurrection, the commander Enric Pérez i Farràs and the captains Escofet and Ricart, were condemned to death, their sentence being commuted to life imprisonment by the President of the Republic, Alcalá Zamora, in spite of the protests of both the CEDA and the Republican Liberal Democrat Party of Melquiades Álvarez, who demanded a strong hand.

[38] The government of Lerroux unleashed "a harsh repressive wave with the closure of political and trade union centers, the suppression of newspapers, the removal of municipalities and thousands of detainees, without having had a direct action on the facts", which showed "a punitive will often arbitrary and with vengeance components of class or ideological".

Support for fascism was minimal and did not increase, while civil liberties were restored in full by 1935, after which the revolutionaries had a generous opportunity to pursue power through electoral means.

[44] At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, López Ochoa was in a military hospital in Carabanchel and was awaiting trial, accused of responsibility for the deaths of 20 civilians at a barracks in Oviedo.