Resistance and Opposition to Franco’s Regime in Spain
Opposition to the Fascist Regime
After the Civil War, the new regime began a harsh crackdown against those defeated in the war. As a result, during the post-war period, many “anti-regime” individuals were harassed, arrested, and shot. Others went into exile or fled to the mountains for refuge, continuing their opposition to Franco from the underground.
The fugitive groups in mountain areas, called maquis, were disorganized groups from all parts of the political left (Doc.1), but mostly persecuted communist men (“…men of all stripes…”). They were later organized into guerrilla groups by the PCE and carried out actions such as sabotage, bank robberies, etc. One of the most important of these actions was a brief military occupation of the Aran Valley in 1944.
These groups had the support of people who lent them aid, giving them food, blankets, and even refuge, even though they ran the risk of doing so (“…knew perfectly well what they were exposing themselves to and nevertheless did not hesitate to take us in…”).
During the post-war period, some sectors of the Franco regime also began plotting to restore the monarchy in the figure of Don Juan de Borbón. They opposed the regime because they did not consider Franco’s dictatorship a transitional arrangement.
During the 1950s, opposition began to express itself through labor strikes and then a major university movement, which in 1956 protagonized some major student upheavals (Doc.2).
That year, the Minister of Education, Professor Joaquín Ruiz-Giménez, tried to liberalize the university, allowing students to hold a congress outside of the official Spanish University Union (SEU). This group triumphed in law school elections, defeating the Falangist union, and began demonstrations against the Falange (“…The cries of the students against the Falange and against the regime…”). They took over the university town for two days, ushering in street fighting, which ended with the university’s closure and Ruiz-Giménez being forced to resign.
In the late 1950s, due to the labor movement’s opposition to the regime and the pressure they exerted, a new law was created allowing the formation of works councils to solve problems. Thus, taking advantage of this law, Workers’ Commissions (CCOO) was born in 1962 (Doc.3: “…that was characterized by such permanent committees elected by the assemblies…”). UGT also continued its activities. Both team leaders and activists suffered repression, as happened in Ferrol in March 1972, where two workers died as a result of a confrontation with the police during a large worker protest. But the role of the unions increased significantly and contributed to the erosion of the regime.
In 1962, a meeting of various opposition groups from within Spain and in exile took place in Munich at the Congress of the European Movement. They decided to request Spain’s entry into the European Common Market, requiring the existence of democratic institutions and guarantees of rights and freedoms. The regime responded by taking reprisals against the participants of what it called the “Munich Contubernio.” The regime pursued the activity of political parties, but could not prevent their clandestine work. In 1974, a process of unification began (Doc.4) among various opposition forces, including the Communist Party of Spain, creating the Democratic Junta. It demanded an interim government, political freedom, freedom of association and the press, as well as recognition of the political personality of Galicia, the Basque Country, and Catalonia.
The Franco regime was in its final throes because it was not able to adapt to the profound changes that had occurred in Spain since the 1960s.