[1939 - 1975] Francoist Dictatorship

1939 - 1975 The war was over. On the first of April, 1939, the guns fell silent across Spain. But the quiet that descended was not one of peace. It was a weighted, watchful silence, the stillness of a nation holding its breath. For the next thirty-six years, Spain would live under the absolute authority of one man: General Francisco Franco, *El Caudillo*, the Leader. The initial years were a grim epilogue to the Civil War. They are remembered as *los años del hambre*, the Years of Hunger. The conflict had shattered the country’s infrastructure and agriculture, leaving a legacy of scarcity. Daily life was a struggle defined by the *cartilla de racionamiento*, a ration book whose meagre offerings of oil, beans, and bread were seldom enough. A black market, the *estraperlo*, thrived in the shadows, a desperate game of risk and reward. In the cities, the grand avenues might be swept clean, but in the side streets, the air was thick with the smell of cheap, thin stews and the quiet desperation of families mending clothes that were already threadbare. The state's brutal efficiency was reserved for its enemies. The 1939 Law of Political Responsibilities retroactively criminalized support for the defeated Republic. Prisons overflowed, and it is estimated that in the first decade of the regime, up to 200,000 people were executed, their bodies often dumped in unmarked mass graves that still scar the landscape today. Franco envisioned a new Spain, built on the pillars of "National-Catholicism." The state, the military, and the Catholic Church were fused into a single, unyielding authority. Society was rigidly hierarchical. At its apex was Franco himself, his portrait a mandatory feature in every school, office, and public building. His power was absolute. He was the head of state, the head of government, and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. Below him, the traditional elites—landowners, industrialists, and high-ranking clergy—flourished. For everyone else, life was defined by duty and obedience. For women, this meant a retreat into the home. The progressive laws of the Republic were erased. Divorce was outlawed. A woman's life was governed by the *Guía de la buena esposa* (The Good Wife's Guide), which instructed her to be subservient and devoted. She needed her husband's or father's written permission—the *permiso marital*—to open a bank account, sign a contract, or even get a job. The regime’s ideal was the pious, self-sacrificing mother, a stark contrast to the female militias who had fought for the Republic just years before. Initially, Franco's Spain was a pariah, isolated from a world rebuilding after World War II. But the frost of the Cold War changed everything. In Franco, the United States saw a staunch anti-communist, a valuable strategic asset. The 1953 Pact of Madrid saw American money and military bases arrive in Spain in exchange for international legitimacy. This influx of capital, combined with a radical policy shift in 1959 orchestrated by a new generation of technocrats often linked to the conservative Catholic group Opus Dei, ignited what became known as the "Spanish Miracle." The transformation was dizzying. From the mid-1950s into the early 1970s, Spain's economy experienced the second-fastest growth in the world, just behind Japan, averaging nearly 7% GDP growth annually. The symbol of this new era was a car: the SEAT 600. This tiny, bug-like vehicle, affordable on a payment plan, put Spain on wheels. On Sundays, the roads out of the cities would be clogged with families heading for a picnic in the countryside, the drone of thousands of little engines a soundtrack of newfound prosperity. Towering, functionalist apartment blocks, often built hastily and with little aesthetic grace, shot up on the outskirts of Madrid, Barcelona, and Bilbao to house the flood of migrants from the impoverished rural south. The first televisions flickered to life in living rooms, and refrigerators replaced cool cellars. Simultaneously, another invasion was underway. Sun-starved Northern Europeans discovered Spain's coastline, giving birth to the mass tourism of *sol y playa*. The Costa del Sol and the Balearic Islands became sprawling construction sites. This brought a clash of cultures. The sight of foreign women in bikinis on the beach was a profound shock to the strict moral code of National-Catholicism, creating a strange duality: a country marketing itself as a modern, sunny paradise while still being governed by an authoritarian, deeply conservative regime. Yet, beneath the veneer of prosperity and sun-drenched beaches, the silence of 1939 had not disappeared; it had merely been suppressed. The regime's iron fist remained. Dissent was not tolerated. University students who protested were met with the grey-uniformed riot police, the infamous *grises*. Basque and Catalan languages and cultures were suppressed, fostering a deep-seated resentment that fueled separatist movements, most violently ETA in the Basque Country. By the early 1970s, the regime itself felt old. Franco was an aging autocrat, his health failing. The system he had built was entirely dependent on him, and the question of what would come after—*después de Franco*—hung over every political discussion. The illusion of absolute control was shattered on a cold December morning in 1973. Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, Franco's hand-picked successor and hardline Prime Minister, was returning from mass in Madrid. As his car passed over a specific spot on Calle de Claudio Coello, ETA militants detonated over 80 kilograms of explosives packed in a tunnel beneath the street. The blast was so powerful it sent his car hurtling over a five-story building, landing in the inner courtyard on the other side. The assassination, codenamed "Operación Ogro," decapitated the regime's line of succession and sent a tremor of shock through Spain. The system was vulnerable. Franco never recovered from the blow. He lingered for two more years, a ghost haunting his own regime. On November 20th, 1975, after a prolonged and public agony, Francisco Franco died. The nation once again held its breath, just as it had thirty-six years earlier. But this time, it was not in fear of what was, but in a profound, dizzying uncertainty about what was to come. The long, quiet, and often brutal chapter of the dictatorship was over. The story of modern Spain was about to begin.