Francoism in Spain: Ideology and Power Consolidation
Immediate Postwar: Exaltation and Repression
Introduction
Franco was a dictator who wielded power unparalleled in the history of Spain. The feverish excitement surrounding him as a national leader helped to place him above all the political tendencies of the regime. This was reinforced by a brutal crackdown on the opposition.
On October 1, 1936, Franco was appointed Generalissimo of the three armed forces and head of the single party.
Until his death, Franco was convinced of his providential role as savior of the country. This was assisted by a laudatory propaganda spree that began in the postwar period. The ideologists of the regime coined the expression that the commander was only responsible “before God and before history.”
The Army and National Patriotism
The main contribution to the ideology of the military regime was national patriotism, a unitary and traditionalist vision of Spain that Franco assumed as his own, given his personal background and exclusively military training.
It was a conception of Spain in which the defense of the territorial integrity of the country was to be the priority of the government. Therefore, any hint of regional particularism was invariably labeled separatism and, eager for uniformity, the public use of any language other than Castilian was banned.
The army was the main stronghold of the new state. With a traditional spirit and deeply imbued with the totalitarian ideas of the moment, it assumed leadership of the Generalissimo, while getting to surround the highest levels of government. In the 1940s, a large percentage of ministers and secretaries were military.
The Falange and National Syndicalism
In the 1940s, the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and the JONS contributed the newest elements of social ideology and its external image to Franco’s regime. Anti-liberal, anti-Marxist, and anti-democratic, the Falange favored a totalitarian system called national syndicalism. The basis of this system was inspired by Italian fascist theories on the organization of the corporate state, a state controlled by a single party and a union that would exceed conflicts between social classes, promoting feelings of national solidarity.
The Falange provided, in addition to the memory of its leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was executed during the war, becoming a myth and a martyr for Franco’s regime. The cry of “Present!” to refer to the absent José Antonio became one of the slogans of the regime.
If at the outbreak of war the Falange had about 6,000 members, the so-called “old shirts,” during the 1940s it grew to about 600,000 members. It exercised its work of indoctrination and recruitment of cadres through parallel organizations catering to specific social sectors such as women (Women’s Section) and youth (Spanish Youth Organization, OJE).
In the union sphere and under its inspiration, the CNS (National Central Trade Union) was created, a cross-class fiction and the only union in which employers and workers were obliged to join.
The Falange occupied about one-third of senior officials of the Franco regime in the early 1940s. The defeat of Italy and Germany in 1945 advised concealing the fascist component of the regime.