In Spain, one of the first authorities to react was the civil governor of Barcelona, who prohibited strikes and workers' meetings and ordered an attack on the premises of "Las Tres Clases del Vapor" and arrested its main leader, which led to the fact that on 22 May several Catalan federal republican deputies presented a protest in the Cortes.

They were answered by the Interior Minister Práxedes Mateo Sagasta who said that the internationalists were foreigners "whose mission is to disturb order and proselytize" —in reality they were "communard" refugees fleeing from the repression that followed the defeat of the Commune.

[4] After the fall at the end of July 1871 of the government of Francisco Serrano, in which Sagasta was the Minister of the Interior, and his replacement by another chaired by Manuel Ruiz Zorrilla, who was more tolerant towards the activities of the International, the Federal Council decided to return to Madrid - although González Morago preferred to remain in Lisbon.

[7][8] On the other hand, the question of the integration of the peasants in the FRE was addressed for the first time, agreeing to the creation of the Union of Rural Workers, which held its first congress a few months later.

The budget on which its creation was based was the assimilation of the tenant, and even the small owner, to that of the day laborer, a point of view defended, for example, by Francesc Tomàs Oliver.