Franco

by Enrique Moradiellos

  The consequential and necessary work of historical periodization requires, of course, a determination of the existence of stages, phases or periods differentiated by that combination of relevant significant and substantive factors of social, political, cultural or economic order. The historiography on Franquismo has confronted this task of periodization in meaningful temporary fragments, although the results are not always consistent.

  Among the historians and other analysts of Franquismo, there is near unanimity that the whole stage of the dictatorship can be divided, at least roughly, into two distinct periods – articulating a periodization based on a binary scheme. The year 1959, with the adoption of the economic measures of the Plan de Estabilización, is often considered the crucial milestone between the two phases. In fact, almost no one denies that economic decisions taken in that year (required by the previous political and statutory measures and their given immediate social and economic consequences) were a crucial watershed in the evolution of the Franco regime. These measures represented the end of the first stage (still characterized by the political and material effects of the Civil War, with its sequels of repression, misery, autarky and isolation) and the start of a second phase (defined by rapid economic development, profound social change, incipient material well-being and international openness).66

  In short, a first, ‘backward’, Franquismo existed, with socio-economic stagnation, political rigidity and international isolation, replaced by a second, ‘modernizing’, Franquismo, devoted to social and economic development, political easing and foreign openness. It is still debated among specialists whether 1959 is the date best suited to discriminate between the two stages, or if it is more appropriate to set the year at 1957 (with the resolution of a serious political crisis through a new government) or even 1960 (with the first tangible and positive effects of that stabilization and liberalization) as key milestones in this transformation. In any case, what is not subject to discussion is the relevance of the years 1957–60 as decisive ‘hinge years’ between these two great stages of the historical evolution of the dictatorship.

  A brief review of the historiographical debate bears out the general acceptance of the binary division of Francoism taking as its axis the year 1959. For example, Javier Tusell, a staunch supporter of that binary schema, used four criteria for highlighting two stages defined by 1959:

  If I had to point out a cardinal date in Spanish history during the Franco period, without a doubt, with all the reservations of the case, that date would be 1959. Firstly, this year witnessed a fundamental change in economic policy through the Plan de Estabilización, which, in turn, made it possible for further economic development. […] In domestic policy, this is a moment when the institutionalization of the regime had definitely abandoned the Falangist proposals […]. As for the opposition, formed only by the vanquished, it had touched its lowest point of activity […]. Foreign policy had abandoned any attempts at imperialism and had already confronted with flexibility the first problems of decolonization (Morocco) or those even more serious (Ifni).67

  That is why, in 1993, the first major international conference on Franquismo organized in Spain, directed among others by Javier Tusell and titled ‘El Régimen de Franco (1936–75)’, took a historiographically far-reaching organizational decision. Its session was divided into two different parts for the purpose of presentation of papers and communications. The first part, under the heading ‘Primer Franquismo’ (‘First Franquismo’), collected all the work relating to the years ranging from 1936 to 1959. The second part, under the heading ‘Tecnocracia y crisis’ (‘Technocracy and Crisis’), collected all works whose scope went from 1959 to 1975. Of course, the corresponding proceedings were divided into two volumes dedicated to the two phases of Franquismo.68

  Another influential author, the economist Gabriel Tortella, could also be considered an ardent defender of this binary scheme, taking into account, where appropriate, economic factors of socio-political impact. In his often-reprinted 1994 economic history textbook El desarrollo de la España contemporánea, Tortella argued for the binary periodization with these compelling reasons:

  From an economic point of view, Francoism divides into two clearly distinct periods: the first 15 years [1939–55] of economic stagnation and slow recovery; the two following decades, [1955–75] of rapid economic growth, intense industrialization and profound social change. The first period saw radically interventionist and autarkic economic policy; the second, a lukewarm liberalization. […] The history of Franco’s economy can be divided into two major periods: until 1959, a fascist-autarky economy; from 1959 until its end in 1975, an economy with open and liberal connotations. It was the dismal failure of the first stage which determined the second step.69

  One might say that the influence of this binary periodization on the historiography of the Franco regime was formalized by the reputed Historia de España Menéndez Pidal, the huge collection started in the 1930s by the historian Menéndez Pidal and revised during the past decade under the general direction of José María Jover Zamora. The volumes dedicated to Franquismo were published in 1996 in Madrid. For example, volume 41/1, edited by the British Hispanist Raymond Carr, under the title ‘La época de Franco, 1939–1975’ divided its political analysis of the Francoist regime into two major stages defined precisely by the crucial year of 1959: a first stage initially called ‘De la posguerra a la tecnocracia’ (From postwar to technocracy); and a second stage that culminated with the death of the Caudillo.70

  Significantly, a few years later, one of the first general studies on the opposition to the Franco regime also adopted this binary criterion. It was a work written by Encarna Nicolás and Alicia Alted Vigil and titled Disidencias en el Franquismo.71 According to its analysis, that book considers the year 1960 as a landmark division. The authors established a binary timeline under the following headings: ‘1. 1939–1960. Repression, clandestinity, exile’ and ‘2. 1960–1975. Old and new disagreements in the second age of Francoism’.

  As a demonstration of the historical survival of this binary scheme, two further influential works that have dealt with the study of ‘El Primer Franquismo’ (1939–59) should be noted. The first is the book edited by the economic historian Carlos Barciela with the title Autarquía y mercado negro. El fracaso económico del Primer Franquismo (Autarky and Black Market: The Economic Failure of First Francoism).72 In its preface, the prominent economist Luis Ángel Rojo (governor of the Bank of Spain between 1992 and 2000) gave the following definition of what is to be understood by ‘first Franquismo’: ‘Historians say that students today show great curiosity in the Spanish economic reality during the “first Francoism”, i.e. the period ranging from the Civil War up to the Plan de Estabilización of 1959.’ The second book which proves the widespread dissemination of this binary scheme is a work that does not belong to the field of economic history, but to socio-political history: the special issue of the respected Madrid journal Ayer, organ of the Asociación de Historia Contemporánea, edited by the historian Glicerio Sánchez Recio, which appeared in 1999 and carried the significant title: ‘El Primer franquismo (1939–1959)’. The abstract is revealing: ‘it deals with the phase in which the regime was imposed by force, was shaped, and links were established between the state, the single party and society to create the instruments to ensure its existence.’73

  It does not seem necessary to put more emphasis on this issue. It is evident that the Franco regime as a historical stage divided into two distinct phases defined by the caesura of 1959 is a general historiographic and almost undisputed fact. It is also a timely and convenient teaching resource, at least in the first instance of a general overview.

  However, if the lens of analysis zooms in, the generic binary periodization described in no way exhausts the need to define more precisely and rigorously the time of Franquismo – particularly if one looks at the chronological demarcation of political, socio-political and cultural criteria over other economic criteria. In thi
s respect, the opinions and available alternatives are much more varied and controversial because the criteria and factors are more heterogeneous or, at a minimum, debatable.

  Thus, for example, one must begin by pointing out that a minority of authors considered that the nearly three years of civil war were not properly part of the period of the Franco dictatorship, but a previous and different stage (of the Civil War). Javier Tusell, in his canonical study La dictadura de Franco, defended this thesis with great aplomb:

  In the opinion of the author of this book, it would not make sense to include, as the first of these stages [of Franco’s regime], the Spanish Civil War: it would be something like including the Russian Civil War in a history of Stalinism. Not only at the time was it not clear what would be the final result of the contest, but also that if anything characterized Franco’s regime it was the almost exclusive, precise focus on the conduct of the war in a way that the few institutional measures taken during the war period followed most of all a propaganda purpose.74

  Following this advice by Tusell, many historical accounts of Francoism begin in 1939 and not 1936. However, this position is not unanimously accepted. A large majority of researchers believe that the war was decisive in the configuration and the establishment of Franco’s dictatorship. Thus, for example, Stanley G. Payne in his 1987 study on Franquismo, started in 1936 with the Civil War as the first stage of the history of the regime, as did the organizers of the already mentioned conference of 1993, in their title ‘El Régimen de Franco (1936–1975)’. And much more recently, Giuliana Di Febo and Santos Juliá, aforementioned authors of one of the latest and best introductory textbooks on the subject, restated the case:

  Undoubtedly, the fundamental peculiarity of Franco’s regime lies in the fact that it had been structured during the Civil War, that occurred by the attempts of some generals to overthrow the Republican government which had won the elections of 1936. This beginning and incipit for a long time marked the institutions, political orientations and the very conception and management of power.75

  Aside from the inclusion or exclusion of the war phase in the chronology of the Franco regime, the remaining alternatives of periodization of the regime basically rest on a structure that ranges from the use of three stages to a preference for six, passing through four and five as intermediate options.

  One scheme of six is, for example, the analysis of Franquismo by two authors, Carme Molinero and Pere Ysàs, an influential ‘political history’ of the dictatorship that is part of a famous collection of ‘Historia de España’.76 According to them, the history of the regime might be ordered through the following periodization:

  1 1939–45: First Franquismo.

  2 1945–50: Franquismo surviving.

  3 1950–60: Franquismo forgiven.

  4 1961–9: Franquismo exultant.

  5 1969–73: Franquismo retreating.

  6 1973–5: Franquismo in crisis.

  A good example of the alternative scheme of five stages is the periodization offered by this author in a global study of the regime (including the period of the Civil War):

  1 1936–9: Initial configuration of the regime during the Civil War.

  2 1939–45: Stage of national-syndicalist hegemony in the course of World War II.

  3 1945–59: Stage of National Catholic predominance in the context of isolation and subsequent subordinate reintegration in the Western arena.

  4 1959–69: Stage of authoritarian technocratic development, economic expansion and attempts at political opening up.

  5 1969–75: Stage of late Francoism defined by the crisis and terminal agony of the regime.77

  The scheme of periodization in four stages has a unique example in Manuel Tuñón de Lara’s contribution to a general history of Spain with Julio Valdeón and Antonio Domínguez Ortiz.78 This four-phase scheme again combines political, social, cultural and economic criteria (excluding the three years of the Civil War):

  1 1939–50: The years of the ‘first Francoismo’ or ‘blue’ stage of ‘penchant for fascism’, dominated by the impact of the war and its consequences.

  2 1951–60: The decade of external consolidation of the regime and the first flare-up of internal rebellion.

  3 1961–73: The stage of economic development and growing worker and university conflict.

  4 1973–5: The ‘epilogue’ – the two years characterized by the world economic crisis and internal political crisis.

  A slightly different version of this four-part scheme has been suggested by the British Hispanist Paul Preston in different works on the Franco regime. For example, in his 1995 book on fascism and militarism in twentieth-century Spain, Preston points out the existence of four basic stages in the evolution of the dictatorship:

  1 1939–45: The so-called ‘blue era’ of apparent Falangist dominance.

  2 1946–57: The period of ‘dour Christian democrat rule’.

  3 1957–69: The burst of economic modernization presided over by the technocrats associated with Opus Dei.

  4 1969–75: The break-up of the regime coalition.79

  Also attached to the quartet model is the notable manual on Francoism produced by Giuliana Di Febo and Santos Juliá, already quoted. This version has the virtue of incorporating the Civil War as a crucial constituent part of the regime. According to this study, the periodization of Franquismo should follow these four stages:

  1 1936–45: The new state.

  2 1945–57: Catholic hegemony.

  3 1957–69: Authoritarian state and social change.

  4 1969–75: The crisis of the regime.

  Finally, one of the authors that have better defined the tri-part structure of periodization of the dictatorship is Stanley G. Payne.80 According to his 1987 introductory study, the story of the Franco regime can be divided into three distinct eras:

  1 1936–45: The semi-fascist phase, potentially imperialist.

  2 1945–57: The decade of National Catholic corporatism that witnessed the hopeless and final subjugation of the fascist component.

  3 1957/9–75: The developmental phase of the so-called technocrats and a kind of bureaucratic authoritarianism.

  It should be emphasized that this preference for tri-partition by Payne had a notable precedent in the work of the historian Juan Pablo Fusi in his 1985 biographical essay on Franco.81 In it, Fusi said that the socio-political evolution of the dictatorship should be studied under the premise of three distinct stages:

  1 1939–45: A stage of certain Falangist hegemony.

  2 1945–57: A stage of the ascendency of political Catholicism.

  3 1957–73 (expandable to 1975): A stage of strong Opus Dei and technocratic presence.

  Everything seems to indicate that the tri-part option is still very much alive and even that it is experiencing a noticeable resurgence in recent times. This can be proved by an examination of two very significant and recent cases. First, the new studies of economic history are eclipsing the less accurate binary scheme that saw 1959 as the central dividing point. By way of example, José Luis García Delgado and Juan Carlos Jiménez, in a famous book on Spanish economic history published in 1999, challenged the idea that there had been only two historical stages in Francoism. According to García Delgado and his collaborator, ‘three stages are easily distinguishable.’ They propose a first stage, defined as ‘the first Franquismo’, from 1939 until 1950, characterized by ‘the harshness of the postwar’. Their second stage is ‘the hinge decade’, from 1951 until 1959, characterized by ‘the zigzaging of economic autarky’. The third and final stage is called ‘the years of development’, from 1960 until 1975. To justify this tri-part periodization, García Delgado and Jiménez wrote:

  The distinction of these three fundamental stages has, however, unquestionable advantages for the study of Spanish economic evolution during Francoism. First, it singles out the 1950s, avoiding therefore the excessive simplification that is sometimes incurred in distinguishing just two great periods in the Francoist
economy, divided by the crossroads of 1959: first, autarky; later, economic openness and development. It also has in its favour the facility to make meaningful comparisons at an international level, adjusting to chronological compartmentalization which, broadly speaking, can be seen in the evolution of Western European economies: war and recovery in the 1940s; openness, cooperation and growth in the decade of 1950, and integration and continuity of development in the 1960s until, at the end, unmistakable signs of exhaustion of the prolonged previous expansion cycle are evident. Tri-partition simplifies, in the end, the selection of the determining factors of the route of the Spanish economy in the Franco regime.82

  It is not only new economic histories of Francoism that have unveiled the 1950s as an age of notorious growth, installed as a kind of hinge between the autarky and misery of the 1940s and the development and well-being of the 1960s. For example, the three-part structure is also the one adopted by a renowned study on the cultural and everyday life of Franquismo written by Jordi Gracia and Miguel Ángel Ruiz Carnicer.83 In the opinion of these authors, the evolution of Spanish society and culture under the Franco regime should be studied according to three basic phases which mainly take into account cultural factors and daily life:

  1 Postwar Spain: Terror and gasifiers.

  2 1950s: From desolation to hope.

  3 1960–75: Social control and articulation of protest.

  In short, this summary of the varied and divergent attempts at periodizing the Franco dictatorship suggests something notorious and relevant: the difficulty of establishing definitive historiographic agreement on the precise phases that were outlined in the chronological evolution of the Franco dictatorship. Above all, regardless of the type of analysis exercised (political, social, economic or cultural), it is clear that none of the alternatives raised is fully satisfactory – all lack nuance and generate difficulties.

  In any case, one needs to remember that the proposed hypothetical evolutionary stages correspond to the development of a political regime defined from beginning to end by a common and persistent factor: the huge concentration of almost absolute and unlimited political power in the hands of a single man, General Franco, in his capacity as Caudillo of Spain by the grace of God. This is already a common and accredited thesis, confirmed by an opinion as little suspected of being anti-Francoist as that of Stanley G. Payne in his contribution to the corresponding volume of the accredited Historia de España Menéndez Pidal, published in 1996: ‘In 1939, Franco had concentrated in his hands much more power than any previous Spanish ruler, since no medieval or early modern monarch enjoyed an authority as absolute as his.’84