The Franco Regime and its Opposition
Objections to the System
The final years of the sixties and early seventies were marked by strong growth of the opposition in factories where illegal trade unionism had been reborn. Strikes and labor unrest grew in intensity from 1960 to 1975.
The Franco authorities considered all labor protests as a problem of public order, so the response was purely repressive through the political police, the Political-Social Brigade, which did not hesitate to use torture in police stations.
In the field of association, the birth of the Workers’ Commissions in 1964 is noteworthy. Mediated by the Communist Party, it was an independent and democratic union urging industrial and political struggle, combining illegal actions, such as strikes, with legal ones, taking advantage of the election of union representatives within the Francoist union (CNS). Historical unions, the UGT and the CNT, had little presence during the dictatorship. In 1967, the Unión Sindical Obrera (USO) was created.
The student protests were consolidated in the 60s as the second front in social conflict, leading to the first student riots in 1956 and 1957 at the Universities of Madrid and Barcelona, with major incidents and serious injuries. These protests led to the establishment of democratic student unions, confronting the dictatorship and the official union, the SEU.
Different political and labor groups adapted differently to the harsh repression of the Franco regime and the evolution of Spanish society. While the PSOE party became weak and divided among its leaders in exile and inside, renewing their membership after the 1974 Congress held in Suresnes (France), the PCE rose to become the main opposition party with a strong illegal structure. Meanwhile, the anarchists and Republicans virtually disappeared.
The liberal and royalist opposition appeared only at the end of the dictatorship in a few media outlets. One group was the moderate opposition Christian Democrats, bringing together parties of the center, with prestigious leaders such as Joaquín Ruiz Jiménez. In 1962, they participated in the Congress of the European Movement, which agreed with the clandestine opposition and dissidents of the regime to claim a democratic Spain.
Nationalist movements were strengthened in various strata of Catalonia. In the Basque Country, with an increasingly influential PNV, ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna) made its appearance in 1959 and would increase its prominence with its terrorist actions, mixing and socializing ideas of radical nationalism and defending its strategy of armed struggle since 1968.
The Second Vatican Council encouraged the extension of basic Catholic movements from the parishes, including worker-priests critical of the Franco regime who collaborated with the opposition parties and the labor movement. Even influential sectors of the Catholic Church showed an increasing remoteness from the dictatorship.
In the late ’60s and ’70s, social changes and the proximity of the dictator’s death facilitated the extension of the activities of opposition to the dictatorship. In short, unable to overthrow the Franco regime, opposition movements were able to create a broad social network in response to the dictatorship, which would emerge after the death of Franco and that was key to the transition to democracy.
The Final Crisis of the Authoritarian Regime
The advanced age of the dictator and the growing pressure from the opposition led to the formation of two tendencies within the regime. On the one hand, those who began to call for “openness”; that is, without questioning the figure of Franco, they defended the need for small reforms on a democratic and parliamentary basis. On the other hand, what came to be called the “bunker”, the hardliners. Here were grouped sectors opposed to any change, including some military commanders and recalcitrant Falangist politicians of the old regime. The division between them was evident in 1969 with the Matesa scandal.
To alleviate the senile Franco of the daily tasks of government, in 1973, Carrero Blanco, a military hard-liner, was appointed prime minister. Carlos Arias Navarro was appointed Minister of Interior.
The new government made its debut with the organization on December 20 of that year of a trial, the Proceso 1001, against leaders of the clandestine union CCOO.
That same day, ETA was able to deliver the biggest blow in its history: Carrero Blanco was assassinated in Madrid. The death of his principal collaborator and the person responsible for maintaining continuity without regime change was a blow to Franco, who was ever closer to his end.
In January 1974, a new government was formed, headed by Arias Navarro. The hard-liners sought to unite the government and the openness, whose program was summarized in the “spirit of February 12.” With no grip on power and with Franco seriously ill, his government opted for political paralysis.
Franco died on November 20, 1975, leaving behind an anachronistic regime in deep crisis.