Spanish Post-Civil War Politics & Society Under Franco
Spanish Post-Civil War Politics & Society Under Franco
Maquis
The Maquis, a Spanish guerrilla movement, continued armed struggle against Franco after the Civil War. The name has French origins, as it was also used for French resistance fighters who hid in the woods. The Maquis were prevalent in the Cantabrian Mountains, the Pyrenees, and Andalusia. Although communists were the largest group, socialists and anarchists also participated.
Autarchy (1939-1959)
Autarchy, an economic policy promoting self-sufficiency and eliminating imports, was characteristic of totalitarian and ultra-nationalist regimes. This policy in Spain was accompanied by significant state interventionism, with the government becoming a major industrial employer (INI). Motivated by the Civil War’s consequences, international isolation, and Falangist political will, autarchy aimed to create a self-sufficient Spanish empire. However, it resulted in hunger, poverty, rationing, and a black market. It also hindered technological innovation and business productivity due to regulations and lack of competition.
Authoritarianism
Franco’s regime was based on authority and submission to those in power. While allowing private freedoms (residence, movement, economic), it suppressed political freedoms, such as membership in political parties, unions, or other groups.
Franco’s Censorship
Censorship was Franco’s instrument to control all media and, ultimately, Spanish society. It affected plays, musicals, movies, newspapers, radio, and television.
Juan de Borbón y Battenberg, Count of Barcelona (1913-1993)
The third son of Alfonso XIII, he became heir to the Spanish crown after his brothers Alfonso and Jaime resigned their rights. Residing in Estoril from 1946, he entrusted his son Juan Carlos’s education to Franco. He renounced his dynastic rights in 1977 after Juan Carlos ascended to the throne.
National-Syndicalism
A key element of the Falange’s agenda, National-Syndicalism was endorsed by the Francoist state until 1942. It rejected both capitalism and Marxism while respecting private property. High state interventionism fixed prices and wages, and vertical unions were created. As Allied victory in World War II became clear, the regime gradually abandoned these principles.
Spanish University Union (SEU)
The SEU, the student union under Franco’s regime, was controlled by the Falange. Following the events of 1956, its influence declined.
Technocracy
“is the set of politicians, mostly from Opus Dei, accessing the administration for its technical condition and trying to carry out effective management, even over a political ideology. Keep the design conservative authoritarian regime, but promoting a more liberalized economy and related to the global economy. They got inside a large economic and social development in the sixties.
Serrano – “El cuñadísimo” was born in 1901 in Cartagena. He was part of the CEDA and defended the need for a coup to liaise with Franco and Primo de Rivera. After 36 worked closely with Franco still in the early years his right hand. He was appointed chairman of single party and is responsible for the fascist shift from 1939 to 1943. After that date, falls from grace and out of government. They blew past.
THE EVENTS OF 1956 – In early 1956, the university’s intellectuals supported by opening them up, trying to get autoirzación unsuccessfully for a student conference. Then come Falangists serious clashes between the SEU and other students who do not accept the monopoly of the SEU. In a Falangist Calleros unrest is badly wounded with a bullet. The scheme takes emergency measures, close the university and, as always in this type of crisis, dismisses two ministers one Catholic, Ruiz-Gimenez, and other movement, Fernandez Cuesta. Those arrested included young family and Communists stand prorégimen Ridruejo Dioniosio (phalanges) Ruiz Gallardon (prorégimen) Mugica, Javier and Ramon Pradera Tamames. It is a new generation that has nothing to do with the war. It is the turning point for opposition