From 1939 to 1975, Spain was ruled by the general and dictator Francisco Franco (1892-1975) . Franco, known as “el caudillo” came to power during the Spanish Civil War after his nationalist forces succeeded in overthrowing the democratically elected Second Republic. A period in the history of Spain known as Francoism began then, of which we now explain its characteristics and stages.
Francoism: when it began, and its characteristics
The Spanish civil war led to a dictatorship of almost forty years that began in October 1936 at the same time that Franco was invested with all civil and military powers in the rebel zone. Indeed, from October 1936, General Franco combined the titles of Head of State, Head of Government, Generalissimo of the Armies and, since 1937, Head of the Unique Party.
But Franco was not the only architect of the Franco regime. It had the support of the two most important institutions in the historical development of contemporary Spain, the Army and the Church, as well as that of the Unique Party, the “National Movement” set up by Franco himself. Of the Falange, the fascist party and the Carlist.
Franco was surrounded by the reactionary coalition of political forces that had supported the uprising against the Republic. The components of this coalition would give rise under Franco to “political families” (Falangists, Catholics, monarchists …), whose members came to power or were deposed by the will of the Caudillo. Indeed, Franco cleverly manipulated the rivalries and oppositions of these factions so that none of them succeeded in overshadowing his personal power.
How the Franco regime was characterized
Franco’s ideology exalted a traditionalist and anti-modernist Spain , founded in particular on the Catholic religion and corporatism. Much initially owes to the Falange founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in the movement of Italian fascism. It was like a repeat of the traditionalist thinking that had seduced the ruling class after the Bourbon Restoration of the late 19th century. Other contributions will complete this «Francoist ideology» such as the mythical evocation of a glorious past (the spirit of the reconquering crusade of the Catholic Monarchs), the illiberal reflection inherited from the absolutism of Fernando VII or the visceral hostility that ‘inspires Marxism, free thought and Freemasonry in Caudillo.
Franco’s propaganda emphasized traditional nationalist and religious values, whose apex is the term “Crusade”, which is his leitmotif. Franco’s motto “Spain one, great and free” emphasizes the unity, greatness and independence of Spain.
Along with the aforementioned, the main characteristics of this period were:
- Excessive Spanish nationalism and the abomination of separatism. Denial of all political, linguistic or cultural rights to the regions (Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country in particular).
- Rejection of liberalism . Restriction of political freedoms: of association, of assembly, of opinion …
- Anti-communism . Denial of the class struggle.
- National Catholicism: The Church that legitimizes the dictatorship joins the construction of the State.
- Single party system: the only authorized party is the National Movement.
- Replacement of parliamentary democracy by the corporatist system known as organic democracy.
- Concentration of powers in the only person of the Caudillo .
- Authoritarian state . The definition of the nature of the State born from the victory of 1939 has raised a bitter controversy among Spanish historians: an authoritarian regime for some, totalitarian for others, even frankly fascist. However, what is not in doubt is the dictatorial, undemocratic and repressive character of the regime from beginning to end.
The main stages of the Franco regime
Despite being maintained for 40 years, there were several stages through which the Franco regime passed.
The first Francoism (1939-1959)
In 1939, Spain was a demographically ruined and decimated country . The postwar years were marked by a significant decline in the economy. The collapse of agricultural and industrial production was accompanied by leaps and bounds: the primary sector once again exceeded 50% of national income. Hunger and extreme poverty were the daily reality of a large part of the population.
The solution that the Franco regime gave to economic scarcity was similar to those created by Mussolini’s Italy, and consolidated by Nazi Germany: autarky , an economic policy based on the search for economic self-sufficiency and state intervention.
Interventionism largely extended to the national economy. The state set agricultural prices and forced peasants to donate their surplus crops. The National Institute of Industry (INI) was created in 1941, to better control the bloodless Spanish industry and establish a rigid control over foreign trade.
Different legal standards were enacted even before the official end of the war to orchestrate the post-war “sanitation”: firstly, the Political Responsibility Law of February 1939 , with retroactive effects, which allowed the prosecution of all those who wanted to have belonged. to organizations of the Popular Front or separatists or that had opposed the “Glorious National Movement”, and this since October 1934. This law was followed and supplemented in March 1940 by the Law for the Repression of Freemasonry and Communism , and by the State Security Act of 1941.
As a result of this legislation, tens of thousands of political opponents were shot (the most recent investigation gives the figure between 40,000 and 50,000 shot during the first decade of the dictatorship).
Francoism during World War II
The process of fascization initiated by the Franco dictatorship during the years of the civil war would become clearer with its alignment with the Axis powers on the eve of World War II: thus, in 1939 Franco signed the Anti-Comintern Pact and Spain was leaving the League of Nations . However, the situation in Spain did not allow him to participate in the conflict due to the economic and human exhaustion of the country after three years of civil war. In September 1939, Spain officially proclaimed its neutrality, which did not prevent it from developing a vast pro-German propaganda and participating, albeit modestly, in the German war effort by providing it with labor, labor or certain essential raw materials such as tungsten.
In October 1940, Franco met with Hitler in Hendaye , but the excessive conditions demanded by the Caudillo for his military support caused the negotiations to fail. The start of the German offensive against the Soviet Union in June 1941 gave Spain the opportunity to participate in the conflict. Therefore, a division called the Blue Division (47,000 men) was sent to fight alongside the Wehrmacht on the Russian front.
During this period, the role of the Falange in the exercise of power is decisive. It controls the political police, national education, union action, the press, radio, propaganda, and all economic and union life.
But the defeats of Germany, especially in Stalingrad, and the pressure of the allies, who threatened Spain with a blockade, led Franco to once again proclaim Spain’s neutrality in October 1943 .
The Cold War
The Cold War, which began in 1947 , allowed Franco to benefit from American aid . In 1953, Franco signed a treaty with the United States, the Madrid Pacts, which granted this power access to various Spanish military and naval bases in exchange for military and economic aid that made Spain an important member of the anti-communist bloc. In 1953 a new concordat was signed with the Vatican, by virtue of which the Catholic Church as an institution participated in the direct management of the State and officially imposed its moral code, as a compulsory religious practice, on all Spanish society. In 1955, the country was admitted to the international community when it officially joined the United Nations (UN).
The 1950s marked the end of autarky . The evident failure of the isolationist model led the Franco regime to opt for a change of course in economic policy since the early 1950s. We are witnessing a partial liberalization of prices and trade and greater freedom in the trade of goods. In 1952 food rationing was ended. These measures returned a certain economic growth, and in 1954 the per capita GDP of 1935 was finally redeemed, so Spain had lost twenty years in terms of economic development.
Economic development (1959-1973)
The nascent economic growth led to high inflation which, added to poor living conditions, led to strong social unrest. The need for structural economic reforms was obvious. Finally, after twenty years of failed economic policies, Franco allowed a group of Opus Dei technocrats to enter the government in 1957. These new ministers drew up the Stabilization Plan (1959) which, by reducing protectionism and state intervention in the economy, guided Spain towards the liberal system and integration in Europe.
With the Stabilization Plan a new period opens: that of developmentalism , which will replace Franco’s “original legitimacy” as the winner of the civil war with an “exercise of legitimacy” as the architect of Spain’s economic prosperity.
The country’s economic recovery is underway. There is an incentive for mass tourism with 14,000,000 visitors in 1955 and 33,000,000 in 1972 and the development of industrial production that went from an index of 100 in 1962 to a 379 in 1976. Since the late 1960s, GNP had increased more than 7% annually: it was the “Spanish economic miracle.”
Despite this, as of 1967, the opposition to Franco grew stronger: strikes, student demonstrations, attacks by Basque autonomists. The Catholic Church ceased to be a supporter of the regime and joined the opposition as of 1970. It is not uncommon to see that Catholic groups openly sided with the workers in their fight against the Franco government.
3. Final crisis (1973-1975)
In June 1973, Franco gave up the presidency of the government for the first time since 1936 and Admiral Carrero Blanco was appointed to this position . The function of the new government, chaired by Carrero, was to ensure the continuity of the Franco regime, preserving it from any liberal inclination. But this project was to be pulverized by the brutal attack by ETA that killed Admiral Carrero Blanco in December 1973. Carrero’s death opened the most important and profound crisis of the dictatorship, putting an end, in fact, to the possibility of Franco without Franco. The period from the death of Carrero to that of Franco himself can be seen as a long agony of the dictatorship, where it definitely lost all possibility of perpetuation under the reign of Juan Carlos.
