During the Spanish Civil War, many Catalan writers were forced into exile and, with the exception of Salvador Espriu, ceased to publish new works until after democracy (had been) established.

Answer is No Error. Why? I thought “had been” needed to be changed to “was” because the sequence is:

1) Catalan writers ceased to publish new works
2) Democracy was reestablished.

Since (2) occurred after (1), shouldn’t it be “was” instead of “had been”?

They started publishing again after democracy was established. This is a great use of the past perfect–it clearly shows that they ceased publishing, then democracy was established, and then they began publishing again.

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