Les invito a que se acerquen al palacio de El Pardo, que, aunque sea desde la lejanía, contemplen esa luz permanentemente encendida en el despacho del Caudillo, donde el hombre que ha consagrado toda su vida al servicio de España sigue, sin misericordia para consigo mismo, firme al pie del timón, marcando el rumbo de la nave para que los españoles lleguen el puerto seguro que él les desea. - Carlos Arias Navarro (1974)
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Modern Spain cannot be understood without the Civil War and certainly not without Franco and Francoism. The regime, which began in 1939, was never quite as stable nor as static as either its supporters or its adversaries claimed it was. In fact, despite its attempts at institutionalisation, at its core, the Francoist regime was neither ideological nor institutional, but rather a personalist regime. This trait of the dictatorship would, paradoxically, become stronger as Franco lost touch with the day-to-day management of the country in the 1960s and onwards.
Nevertheless, the dictatorship can be relatively and neatly divided into two periods. One associated with the failed attempts at economic autarky, the imposition of National Catholicism, the massive and widespread repression of the opposition and in many ways the attempt to develop a totalitarian state dominated by
Falange, which represented rather closely Franco’s own ideological tenets. The second half of the regime can be traced from 1959 until 1975.
If the late 1950s marked the heyday of Falangist influence in government, due to Arrese´s plan to intrinsically link the Regime and the party in the most fascist of manners, they were also times of dire economic problems and social unrest, as evidence by the university riots of 1956, or the strikes that took place against inflation, the price of life or any of the many other economic issues of the time. Indeed, the late 1950s were a period of considerable internal struggle within the Regime, between the Falangist left and the Catholic-monarchist right [1], who had their stronghold in the Army and the Church and were organised around the
Opus Dei and the ACNP. [2] As a sign of the wide divergence between the political elites and the mass of the Spanish population, the big political cleavages at the time were of a constitutional matter, and not economic, despite the abject failure of autarky.
Indeed, by 1957, the economy was on the brink of collapse and the State about to go bankrupt, and Spain was yet to reach the industrial and economic levels that it had had in 1936, right before the Civil War, and indeed in 1957, more people lived in the countryside than in 1936. Although the best known date to mark the economic turnaround is 1959, the cabinet that would undertake the changes was sworn in in 1957.
Although the new cabinet had been designed in order to deal with the internal problems in dealing with both monarchist and Falangist opposition, something extremely important took place. A new, yet to develop faction appeared. The technocrats, trained in technical schools and belonging to the Opus Dei were given the economic ministries' control. The trio of Mariano Navarro Rubio (Finance), Alberto Ullastres Calvo (Commerce) and Laureano López Rodó (secretary to Carrero Blanco) would have two key objectives: To bring the Spanish economy and society towards modernity through prosperity, economic growth and modernisation and administrative efficiency; and to end the link between
Falange and the State while reducing the role of Franco himself by turning political problems into administrative ones.
The economic changes would soon take place. In the summer of 57, the first economic liberalisation measures were undertaken, by devaluating the peseta and ending price controls, soon to be followed in 1958 by an economic stabilisation plan that marked a complete U-turn on previous economic policies. It was however very harsh, and served as a step prior to the IMF-backed stabilisation plan of 1959. But the harsh correction of the economic course, accompanied by austerity and price hikes caused worker unrest and criticism from Falange. Not to mention that Franco himself did not like either IMF interference [3] or devaluation and denied Ullastres the permission to request IMF aid. To that, the ministries asked Franco of what would happen if the oranges froze during a bad winter and the country had to go back to food rationing. Franco caved in.
The aspects of the IMF stabilisation plan are not particularly complicated. Through austerity, credit restriction and devaluation, the government would reduce internal demand, and as a result, the extra production would be exported in order to pay for the import of capital goods in order to modernise the Spanish economy. The downsides of this were wage freezes and unemployment, but even these were seen as a potential positive, as low labour costs (including no unions) would make Spain a more desirable investment opportunity. Alongside this plan, came also the "Development Plan", modelled on the French model that sought to guide the economic investment and modernisation while trying to reduce regional inequalities between the Spanish regions.
The Seat 600. Perhaps the most iconic symbol of the
desarrollismo era.
The 1960s marked a complete realignment of the political situation, as not only did Franco slowly transitioned from an active politician to a sort of final arbiter who spent most of his time in leisure activities, much like the Habsburg monarchs he admired. The Francoist political class had matured and no longer needed much of him, nor would they come to, as he started showing the first signs of Parkinson's disease. If in the 1950s Falange had been dominated by ideological fascists - like Arrese or Dionisio Ridruejo - after 1957, the
Movimiento Nacional - as the term became to displace Falange, had been largely become apolitical instead serving as a mechanism to scale up from administration to politics. Indeed, politics in the 60s were dominated by an aristocracy of high-ranking, pseudo-meritocratic civil servants, like Fraga, Torcuato Fernández Miranda, Rodolfo Martín Villa or Fernando Herrero Tejedor among others. Much like them, their main opponents, the
Opus Dei-linked technocrats, like López Rodó himself, were also university-trained bureaucrats who had passed their state exams with very high scores. That is not to say that the 1960s were an easy time.
The first major political crisis of the 1960s is still remembered. In 1962, the Spanish Foreign Minister, Fernando María Castiella, supported by the technocrats sought to obtain either admission or a commercial agreement with the EEC as a way to bring Spain closer to the European - booming - economic dynamic. Although the economic negotiations had been concluded, the political part - for obvious reasons - had not. Instead, the EEC had commissioned the Spanish branch of the European Movement, which was to meet in Munich in its IV Congress to discuss. To the congress went Socialists, monarchists, Christian democrats and Catalan and Basque nationalist. The final report was a very moderate condemnation of the regime and calling for evolution. The reaction of the regime - or more appropriately, Franco, was one of fury. Franco would order the launch of a massive press campaign against the Munich meeting, using the term 'contubernio' and punishing those who had gone to the meeting from Spain, like Gil Robles or Joaquín Satrústegui and Álvarez de Miranda, with internal exile or deportation. On top of the meeting, 1962 represented the year of the first major striking activity since the 1940s, with simultaneous strikes in Asturias' mining areas and in the Basque Country, later spreading to Madrid and Barcelona, and demonstrating, this time for good, that the Francoist single union, the Sindicato Vertical no longer worked neither to defend nor to repress the workers' interests. And although all these events were unconnected and in fact the strikers´motivations were not political, Franco could not help himself but to see a conspiracy.
As a result of the crisis and the exaggerated reaction of Franco, that had caused the regime international embarrassment, in August 1962, a new cabinet was sworn in, bringing important political figures to this day, like Manuel Fraga in the Information and Tourism Ministry, but more importantly the new cabinet had more technocrats. The new cabinet sought to soften and polish the image of the dictatorship, reduce censorship and double down on economic growth and prosperity. The new cabinet, like the 1965 and 1969 ones saw a clear divide between 'falangists' [4], who favoured political modernisation (laxer censorship, political pluralism within the single party framework) against the technocrats linked to the Opus, who favoured economic modernisation, whether because they believed it was a necessary precondition to democracy (López Rodó) or as a way to buy off the survival of the regime (like Carrero Blanco or Camilo Alonso Vega). Naturally, the political divisions of the 1960s within the ruling class were also reflective of their growing concern about the post-Francoist world, which was getting closer and closer, especially as the evidence of Franco's Parkinson's disease was clear, if hidden from the public.
The big fight between the economic modernisers (
continuistas) and the political modernisers (
aperturistas) was clearly won by the former, given the predominance of the technocrats - whether from the Opus Dei or the ANCP - in the 1969 cabinet, the so-called "gobierno monocolor". That is not to say that theirs was a completely rout of the adversary. Despite very considerable opposition, Fraga managed to push through a much laxer censorship law, the
Ley de Prensa, which abolished censorship before publishing to
a posteriori censorship, putting the the responsibility - and blame - regarding what was published on directors and editors. Although certain issues remained banned from criticism - Franco, the Army, Falange or the ideological principles of the Regime - it was a very considerable improvement for press freedom. This new, freer press environment was used by the single party's press [5], directed by their Minister, Solís to criticise the technocrats' economic policies. Indeed, the war between the factions was waged publicly [6].
From left to right: Manuel Fraga , Laureano López Rodó, José Solís, Federico Silva Muñoz
The best example was the MATESA scandal. MATESA was a company that produced textile mills for export, but has been reported of obtaining credit fraudulently by falsifying its production reports. As several of the company's stakeholders were Opus Dei members, or linked to the technocrats, it was used as an excuse to attack them on the press, creating a political scandal, which was not stopped by the Information Minister. Consequently, the technocratic ministers resigned in protests and Franco dismissed the two responsible ministers, Fraga in Information (for not censoring [7]) and Solís from his post as Minister-General Secretary of the National Movement.
The new government sworn in in 1969 as a result of the dismissals and resignations was dominated by technocrats, while Carrero Blanco acted as
de facto Prime Minister. This was the government that was expected to deal with the transition into the post-Francoist wilderness. Nevertheless, after the passage of the new institutional framework in the Ley Orgánica del Estado and the proclamation of Juan Carlos as Prince of Spain [8], it seemed as if the future was guaranteed. Nothing further from the truth.
From 1969 onward however, political and social unrest increased, even before the start of the economic malaise of 1973-1985. The imminence of Franco´s death created an environment of constant rumours and intrigues in Goverment, in El Pardo, and a return of the political opposition and the increase of students' and workers' mobilisation against the dictatorship. And although the cabinet was largely moderate, both Franco and Carrero Blanco, instinctively brutal and reactionary, responded to the new challenges with a brutality unseen since the 1940s, to such a degree that Carrero funded far-right terrorists to attack the opposition when the police could not due to image issues.
By the 1970s, as Franco and Carrero Blanco resorted to extreme measures, the Francoist coalition was breaking apart, not only had many Francoist politicians essentially jumped ship to the moderate opposition, but even the Church had stopped supporting the Regime, and instead had become to become one of its critics. Although this process had commenced with the Second Vatican Council and the poor relations between Franco and John XXIII and especially Paul VI, the real break had come in 1971 when the Bishops' Council had officially apologised for not serving as an actor of national reconciliation in the past. Indeed, the relationship had become so tense, and the priests' involvement in the opposition so active that the Regime had opened a special priests-only prison in Zamora. [9]
But Franco still had someone he could trust entirely. That was Carrero Blanco. But in what was probably ETA's most successful - and stupid - attack ever [10], he was killed. The death was perhaps well-timed, as only a few months only Carrero had named a new Government, including several prominent hardliners that had put an end to the liberalising course of the 1960s. On December 20th 1973, a Dodge car flied for the first time ever.
The interim Prime Minister, Torcuato Fernández Miranda, alongside the Interior Minister, Carlos Arias Navarro, the eldest Military minister, Admiral Pita da Vega and the chief of the Army's High Command, General Díez Alegría set out to prevent a brutal counter-action from pro-Francoist elements. This was not a unfounded fear. Indeed, soon after Carrero's death had been reported as a political murder, the director of the
Guardia Civil [11] had ordered its troops to actively repress subversives without the least restriction in the use of firearms. It could have been a bloodbath.
But Carrero's death opened the future up. The race to replace had started and it would last a week. The main candidates were the interim PM, Fernández Miranda, Pedro 'Pedrolo' Nieto Antúnez, a personal friend of Franco's and a high-ranking naval officer and Carlos Arias Navarro, the Interior Minister and known as a hardliners on law and order issues [12], and a good friend of Carmen Polo and hence favoured by Franco's entourage, composed of hardliners. And although Antúnez was going to be Franco's new president, his relationship with Fraga - similar to that of Franco with Carrero - made El Pardo's entourage nervous and managed to convince last minute Franco to name Arias Navarro instead.
But Arias would prove a disappointment for the hardliners, as although Arias was one, he was vain enough to realise the need for a good public image and conscious of the future enough as to have a politically balanced cabinet. Indeed his government was formed evenly by both
aperturistas and
inmovilistas. This dilemma was a part of his government's every undertaking: Whereas his government was the most tolerant with the moderate opposition since 1936, it was brutal against street demonstrators.
But this duality was to prove short-lived. Through 1974 and 1975 as the economy got worse and Franco more senile, the far-right, very influential in the palatial chambers of El Pardo become more important. After Portugal's revolution in 1974, José Antonio Girón published a damning condemnation of the liberal ministers while sparing Arias, essentially forcing the resignation of the liberal ministers of Information (Pío Cabanillas) and of Labour (Licinio de la Fuente). In 1975 in order to balance out these resignations, Arias had forced Franco to dismiss the hardcore Falangist ministers from his cabinet to restore the balance, but the government had already been too damaged by its failure to live up to either the hopes created by the liberalising Espíritu del 12 de Febrero or those who saw in him the ideal person to crush the regime's enemies.
Fast-forward to November 1975, as Franco died so did his regime, and one had to be blind not to see that Arias's government had been a failure, no matter whether this was seen from an economic, a politically liberal or a politically Falangist perspective. Ironically enough, Franco's long agony, probably extended for political reasons, served society well, as it psychologically prepared Spaniards for his death, whereas the blow of a sudden death would have been, in all likelihood, rather traumatising.
The technocrats had always said that in Spain, democracy was impossible until the Spanish GDP per capita had reached the thousand dollars. By 1975 it had, with a GDP per capita of about 80% that of the EEC average. Spain was ready for democracy, except no one knew what it would be like nor who would lead it. It would be quite surprising.
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[1] Or Falangist far-right and Catholic right. It´s hard to place in a regular political spectrum the positions of the factions of a right-to-far-right dictatorship. But there was a lot of "
sinistra fascista" in the Falange but they were never very influential. Or like Ridruejo ended up moving towards pro-democracy positions and stopped endorsing the Regime.
[2] Asociación Nacional Católica de Propagandistas. A Conservative Catholic group that appeared in 1909 around the El Debate newspaper.
[3] He didn't trust foreigners and thought that the chief of the World Bank delegation in Spain was a mason - despite being a Catholic Irishman.
[4] Now understood as personnel stemming from the single party and its bureaucracy, not necessarily due to any fascist ideological conviction. These I refer to as 'ultras', 'bunker' or hardliners.
[5] Ya, Arriba, Informaciones, and other newspapers.
[6] In fact, Franco is reported saying that the only press that did not do their owner's bidding was Falange's.
[7] Officially Fraga was dismissed for allowing the press to 'erroneously' depict Spain as a "politically immobilist, economically monopolistic and socially unjust" country. Go figure.
[8] Not Prince of Asturias. Franco did not want to restore the monarchy, but to create a new, Francoist one. A restoration would have implied a return to the liberalism of the 19th and early 20th century and that was unacceptable.
[9] That is, ignoring the Basque idiosyncrasy whereby many ETA members came from the seminaries and the local clergy tended to support the organisation.
[10] The aim of
Operación Ogro was to free in exchange for Carrero, the many ETA prisoners. By killing him, as opposed to using him for an exchange, they destroyed their chance for their actual aim.
[11] General Iniesta Cano, a hardliner.
[12] He was known as the 'butcher of Málaga' for his brutal purges of the city when he was a DA (fiscal) there in the post-war period.
