Chapter 1: The internal contradictions of Francoism 1939–69

"From the vantage point of 1969, the eventual scenario after the death of Franco in 1975 would have seemed unlikely in the extreme. Franco and his political advisers had by the late 1960s prepared the ground for a succession to a Francoist monarchy, to be personified in Juan Carlos and to be irrevocably tied to the principles of the military uprising of 18 July 1936. Those principles involved belligerent opposition to communism, socialism and liberalism, to democratic pluralism and to any form of regional devolution."

"Gradually, Carrero’s cabinets of technocrats and hard-liners found themselves forced to seek assistance even further to the right of the political spectrum. In the early 1970s, the government was seen to be permitting the squalid organizations of the extreme right to do its dirty work."

"The cumulative effect of the Carrero and Arias periods was to demonstrate to moderates in both the regime and the opposition that only compromise could avoid bloodshed."

"The most profound of those contradictions had arisen out of the economic growth over which the dictatorship had uneasily presided. The backward-looking rhetoric and authoritarian mechanisms of the regime were inappropriate to the needs of a modernizing state on the doorstep of the European Community. The Francoist incapacity to respond to the demands for liberalization coming from many sectors of a newly dynamic Spanish society was the most notable feature of the period 1969–75. The fact that the blind inflexibility of the regime drove its more liberal servants to consider dialogue with the opposition was, of course, only an inadvertent part of the Francoist legacy."

"Equally damaging was the deliberate and dogged maintenance of the Civil War division of Spaniards into the victorious and the defeated. The belief that democracy engendered chaos and national disunity was a central tenet of the regime’s educational and cultural policy. Especially vehement in the military academies, it was behind the instinctive and violent rejection of democracy by the army and Franco’s more extreme supporters after 1975."

"Military interventionism, the virulence of the extreme right and the violence of the Basques, obsolete industries and uneven development have all conditioned Spain’s political trajectory since 1975. What they have in common is that they are all symptoms of the fact that, under Franco, Spain was governed as if it were a conquered territory in the sway of an invading army."

"The central function of the Franco regime was to institutionalize the Nationalist victory in the Spanish Civil War. The war had been provoked and fought by a coalition of right- wing forces in order to defend their sectional interests against a series of reforming challenges posed by the Second Republic. Landowners wished to preserve the existing structure of landed property; capitalists wished to safeguard their right to run industry and the banks without trade union interference; the army wished to defend the centralized organization of the Spanish State and the Church wished to conserve its ideological hegemony. 1 "

"After the Civil War, these variegated forces of Francoism were united in various ways. There were networks of patronage and corruption and, above all, the so-called ‘pact of blood’ which linked them in complicity in the repression.3 The triumph of Franco had divided Spain into the victors and the vanquished and the war between them smouldered on. This was apparent in the post-1939 repression. The regime admitted to 271,139 political prisoners in 1939. Prisons, concentration camps and labour camps remained full well into the 1940s. Until the tide turned against the Axis at the battle of Stalingrad and the Francoists began to fear for their own futures, executions continued on a large scale. 4 A sporadic guerrilla war took place all over Spain, reaching its peak between 1945 and 1947 and coming to an end only in 1951. It was hardly surprising therefore that the several ‘families’ or political groups which made up the Francoist alliance were held together by a fear that any relaxation of institutionalized repression might lead to renewed civil war and acts of revenge by their victims."

"However, within the narrow circle of the victors, there was competition for power and influence. 5 The regime families, Catholics, monarchists, soldiers, clergymen, Falangists and technocrats, were formally united within the amalgamated single party known as the Movimiento."

"In consequence, rivalries grew more intense towards the end of the Franco period and even developed, or degenerated, into a barely concealed scramble for survival. 8 The forces which united in 1936 to save themselves were to split in 1976 in order to save themselves yet again, albeit this time with an accommodation to, rather than the destruction of, the forces of democracy. In death, as in birth, the legacy of Francoism was political opportunism."

"The ultimate disintegration of the Francoist forces could barely have been foreseen in the 1940s. The main efforts of the regime were then devoted to eradicating the memory of the Second Republic, repressing its political cadres and harshly disciplining the working class and the peasantry. The traditional trade unions were destroyed, their funds and property seized by the state and the Falange. They were replaced by non- confrontational corporative or ‘Vertical’ syndicates for various branches of trade and production. Within their confines, management, government and workers were theoretically represented although in practice they tended to be instruments for the elimination of strikes and the maintenance of low wages. A system of safe-conducts and certificates of political reliability made travel and the search for work extremely difficult. It thus turned those of the defeated who escaped prison or execution into second-class citizens."

"The lower classes were thus forced to bear the cost of economic policies aimed at rewarding the regime’s forces for their wartime support. Commitment to the southern latifundistas saw the maintenance of starvation wages and precluded the agrarian reform necessary for self-sustained growth. Autarkic tariff, currency and trade policies cut off the regime from the locomotive of Marshall Plan aid which contributed so much to the rebuilding of Europe’s post-war economy. There was little about 1940s Francoism to justify later assertions that it was a developmental dictatorship. Indeed, by providing landowners with a passive and cheap labour force and with protection from foreign imports, the regime confirmed agricultural inefficiency and deprived industry of a peasant market. Autarky became a strait-jacket which confirmed the dominance of agriculture while simultaneously preventing it meeting any new demands placed upon it. "

"Some Francoist ‘families’ adapted to economic change, but others remained locked in a 1940s time-warp. The Falange maintained a vacuous rhetoric of social concern. It remained committed to the self-evidently hollow ideology of peasant sovereignty, despite evidence of the privileged position of the big landowners, and for long was oblivious to the massive social changes brought about by industrialization."

"In a sense, the Caudillo was bringing the political superstructure into line with the social and economic changes already instituted. However, he was also acquiescing in a difficult gamble. Economic liberalization in a context of political authoritarianism implied a bid to create sufficient affluence to obviate strikes and deflect opposition. For a reactionary, agrarian regime like that of Franco, to make such a bid was to sow the seeds of its own disintegration. It signified acquiescence in the creation of a mass industrial proletariat whose political loyalty or apathy would depend on continuing prosperity. It also signified a gradual switch of power towards bankers and industrialists whose interests were far more internationally orientated and determined than those of the narrow Francoist élite. 12"

"For the Opus Dei technocrats led by the Minister of Commerce, Alberto Ullastres, the solution to all Spain’s problems lay in its full integration into Western capitalism. In pursuit of that goal, application was made in February 1962 for associate membership of the EEC, a development fiercely opposed by die-hard Falangists. Integration into a modern democratic Europe signified the end of their uniquely Spanish ideological concoction. For them the free interplay of political parties was a recipe for civil war. They preferred the safely authoritarian form of non-elective ‘organic democracy’ bestowed by Franco. Europe and democracy would expose the farce of the great paternalistic umbrella known as the Movimiento within which all the ‘families’ co-existed to the exclusion of the masses outside. Only after traumatic internal crises did the Falange withdraw its opposition to the capitalist expansion of the economy."

"With a tightly censored press, the brutality of the dictatorship did less internal damage than might have been expected. Burgeoning prosperity and the football triumphs of Real Madrid and the Spanish national team made a far greater impact. The tourist industry, with an elaborate series of tax concessions, credits and building licences, generated economic growth as well as improving Spain’s image abroad. Tourism helped attract foreign exchange but it also channelled investment away from productive industry. In fact, the Development Plans of the 1960s left vast areas of backwardness unresolved, not least by failing to tackle the two central problems of agrarian reform and overhaul of the fiscal system. "

"Economic growth in the 1960s was something of a political time-bomb, creating as it did the structural problems which would eventually sweep away the Francoist political edifice. In the short term, however, despite the far-reaching deficiencies of the Development Plans, the immediate prosperity thereby generated brought respite to the regime. Sectional opposition continued to grow but there now existed a large middle segment of society, a depoliticized majority, which was willing to accept better food and clothing in lieu of those political liberties which could not in any case be remembered."

"The newly confident working class would not easily relinquish the improvements in living standards that took place in the 1960s. By moving away from autarky, the regime had made itself vulnerable to changes in the international economy. It would not be long before Spain’s more perspicacious capitalists realized that the social strains attendant upon economic recession could be better absorbed within a more open political system. Even in the heady days of the mid-sixties, growth was driving a wedge between certain sectors of the economic élite and the regime. It was known that some businessmen were secretly dealing with the illegal Communist-dominated unions, the Workers’ Commissions, rather than with the stultifying bureaucracy of the state-controlled Sindicatos. "

"Those Francoists who perceived that prosperity’s short-term political advantages could not last for ever were still a minority. Even the more far-sighted of them remained optimistic that it would be possible to adjust the Francoist system without root-and- branch change. Thus, although economic growth was creating profound dangers for the regime, the sixties were largely a decade of confidence for Francoists, however misplaced. "

"Despite the growing scale and intensity of anti-regime feeling, the hope of the technocrats was that rising standards would gradually eliminate hostility to Francoism and that, in the meanwhile, its repressive mechanisms could stifle awkward problems."

"The Opus Dei assertion that prosperity would permit painless liberalization and thereby guarantee the survival of the regime was hardly tenable in the face of strikes, demonstrations and the emergence of terrorism in the Basque Country. Many regime figures, especially in the armed forces and the Falange, concluded that modernization had been a mistake and that their safety lay in a return to the hard-line Francoism of the immediate post-Civil War period. Others, however, began to reflect that liberalization would have to go much further if a revolutionary deluge was to be avoided."

"The emergence of the Basque revolutionary separatist organization ETA during the 1960s was merely the most spectacular of the problems facing the regime. The assassination of a well-known police torturer, Inspector Melitón Manzanas, in San Sebastián in August 1968, was the beginning of a long process whereby ETA began to destroy the myth of the regime’s invulnerability. 23 With opposition apparently resurgent on various fronts, the dictator exposed the limitations of liberalization by declaring a ‘state of exception’ in the Basque Country."

"Nothing more graphically underlined the contradictions of the effort to maintain an antiquated political structure at the same time as sponsoring a frantic economic boom than the situation in the universities. Student agitation had been intermittent since 1956 and virtually continuous since 1962. By the end of the decade, police occupation of campuses was almost permanent.24 In the light of events elsewhere, especially in France and Italy, the regime regarded student demonstrations with intense concern. After all, not only were students in general being educated to be the future bureaucrats of the Spanish State and the managers of Spanish industry, but many of the individuals falling under police batons were the sons and daughters of the wealthy middle classes and even of senior Francoist functionaries."

"The economic growth of the 1960s had brought increased prosperity to the workers but they received a disproportionately low share of the benefits of the boom. An intensification of class consciousness was reflected in the growth of various clandestine unions, especially the Comisiones Obreras, and the politicization of strikes. Solidarity stoppages, which had constituted only 4 per cent of labour disputes between 1963 and 1967, rose to over 45 per cent from 1967 to 1971. 27 The inadequacy of the official Organization Sindical, whose primordial function was to prevent strikes, was being exposed more starkly every day. Moreover, the problems of the working class were driving a wedge between Francoism and the Catholic Church. In the 1950s, organizations like the Hermandad Obrera de Acción Católica (Workers’ Brotherhood of Catholic Action) and the Juventud Obrera Católica (Catholic Workers’ Youth Movement) had been a refuge for working-class activists. In consequence, many young priests attached as chaplains to these branches of Acción Católica were radicalized. Moreover, in the 1960s, some members of the clergy, impelled to share the plight of their congregations, had become worker-priests. A survey of over 18,000 priests in 1969 revealed that 24.8 percent considered themselves to be socialists, while only 2.4 per cent were Falangists. 28 Awareness of the conditions in which workers lived pushed increasing numbers of priests into anti-Francoism. In the same way, identification with persecuted regional minorities was driving many Basque and Catalan priests into the opposition."

"The growth of progressive elements within the Church was not confined to the lower ranks of the clergy. In the aftermath of the Second Vatican Council, and especially as the Civil War generation dwindled, the Church adopted ever more liberal stances. On 24 July 1968 the Bishops’ Conference had condemned the government-controlled corporative or vertical syndicates and issued a call for free trade unions. Moreover, the Vatican had put its weight behind the creation of a more liberal hierarchy. This was made clear during the course of the negotiations held in 1969 to renew the Concordat between Rome and Madrid. Progress was blocked by Franco’s refusal to give up his right to nominate bishops, a recognition of the extent to which episcopal independence was becoming a political irritant. The Vatican and the Spanish hierarchy replied by exploiting the fact that, under the terms of the Concordat, the regime could not interfere in the appointment of auxiliary bishops or Apostolic administrators. To the chagrin of hard-line Francoists, more liberal nominations became the norm, although not without a fierce rearguard action by the regime and the reactionary members of the hierarchy. "

"Moreover, as the clandestine contacts between factory owners and the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras) showed, the new capitalism had altered the nature of the working-class threat to the oligarchy. The relationship between, on the one hand, workers paying hire-purchase instalments on a car, a flat or a television and, on the other, bankers and industrialists dependent on continued productivity, was clearly different from that between landless labourers and landlords in the 1930s and 1940s. The needs of a complex economy had created a new proletariat with relatively high levels of skill and income. With many of the larger and more competitive enterprises looking forward to integrating the working class into the capitalist system through reward-based productivity agreements and to expanding their operations into the EEC, the institutionalized social conflict of the Franco system was becoming a major obstacle to future growth."

Chapter 2:Holding back the tide the Carrero Blanco years 1969–73