For this reason we could reiterate that perhaps the only defining and configurative constant of the Franco regime was the presence of General Franco as an absolute Bonapartist military dictator of unappealable judgement and sovereign ‘lifetime power’, only responsible ‘before God and history’. Thus it was appreciated and described long ago by the fine and insightful observer, the historian Salvador de Madariaga:
Franco’s political strategy is as simple as a spear. There is no action of his that is not directed towards his consolidation in power. Under the appearance of varied and even contradictory tactics (peace, neutrality, bellicosity; amnesty, persecution; monarchy, regency), the only thing that Franco believes in is Franco himself.85
This judgement by Madariaga must be always present when it comes to understanding the long times of Francoism and its political modulations. It was reiterated in 2010 by the historian Borja de Riquer in what is probably the most up-to-date global research on the Franco regime. His words may serve as the climax to this section and the whole of this work:
Franco was a chameleon-like character who, without ever renouncing his fierce authoritarianism, knew how to exercise it in successive forms of fascist caudillo, devoted national Catholic and modern technocrat. But the permanent and decisive fact was, that above all else, Franco acted always as a soldier. His main political ace consisted of keeping the army united, disciplined and loyal to himself. Although his regime was not strictly a military dictatorship, the armed forces always enjoyed a decisive role: they had won the war, raised Franco to head of state and accepted his dictatorship at the same time that they emerged as the main guarantor of his lifelong and unlimited power. The fascist and national Catholic components, which were always present in the regime, had a relative and temporary importance. At the end, Franco finished shaping the regime in his image and at his convenience.86
Notes
Introduction: Franco: An Uncomfortable Spectre from the Past
1 These were titles used in official publications. See, for example, the decree of the Junta de Defensa Nacional published in Boletín Oficial del Estado (30 September 1936); the article ‘Caudillo de España’ in Extremadura. Diario católico (1 April 1944); and the book by Luis de Galinsoga and Francisco Franco Salgado-Araujo, Centinela de Occidente. Semblanza biográfica de Francisco Franco (Barcelona: AHR, 1956).
2 José María Pemán, La historia de España contada con sencillez para los niños ... y para muchos que no lo son (Cádiz: Cerón y Librería Cervantes, 1939), vol. 2, p. 213.
3 Antonio Muñoz Molina, ‘La cara que veía en todas partes’, El País, 19 November 2000.
4 Vicente Sánchez-Biosca, ‘Introducción. Los iconos de Franco: imágenes en la memoria’, in V. Sánchez-Biosca (coordinator), Materiales para una iconografía de Francisco Franco, double issue of the journal Archivos de la Filmoteca (Valencia) 42–3/1 (2002–3), pp. 16–17.
5 The reluctance to call Franco a dictator or to address him by his official titles (Caudillo and Generalissimo) is systematic. For an example, see the text of the photographic exhibition sponsored by the Fundación Telefónica, 25 años después. Memoria gráfica de una transición, exhibited in Madrid between 16 November 2000 and 10 January 2001: ‘En noviembre de 2000 se cumplen veinticinco años de la muerte del anterior Jefe del Estado’.
6 Juan José Linz (ed.), Informe sociológico sobre el cambio político en España 1975–1981 (Madrid: Euramérica, 1981), p. 588.
7 The findings of the survey were published in El País, 19 November 1985.
8 Survey carried out by the Servicio de Estudios of El País. The fieldwork was completed between 6 and 11 November 1985. El País, 20 November 1985.
9 Jesús Rodríguez, ‘Ese fantasma de la historia’, El País, 19 November 2000.
10 Survey carried out by Demoscopia and published in El País, 19 November 2000.
11 Survey carried out by Sigma-Dos. El Mundo, 20 November 2000.
12 Estudio 2.401. 25 años después (Madrid: CIS, 2000), pp. 1–2.
13 Survey conducted by Sigma-Dos, El Mundo, 19 November 2005.
14 El Mundo, 18 July 2006.
15 Estudio CIS número 2.760. Memorias de la guerra civil y el franquismo (Madrid: CIS, 2008). For the debate opened up by this law in Spain, see the contributions of Sebastian Balfour, Julián Casanova, Ángela Cenarro, Enrique Moradiellos and Antonio Cazorla in International Journal of Iberian Studies 21/3 (2008) (Themed Issue: Historical Memory and Revisionism: The Spanish Civil War and the Franco Dictatorship).
16 Antonio Cazorla, Franco. Biografía del mito (Madrid: Aguilar, 2015), p. 320. English edition: Franco: The Biography of the Myth (New York: Routledge, 2014).
17 Both cited by Paloma Aguilar Fernández, Memoria y olvido de la guerra civil española (Madrid: Alianza, 1996), pp. 31 and 48. On this topic, see the reflections of Alberto Reig Tapia, Memoria de la guerra civil. Los mitos de la tribu (Madrid: Alianza, 1999). A review of the topic is in Helen Graham, The War and its Shadows: Spain’s Civil War in Europe’s Long Twentieth Century (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2012) and Gonzalo Pasamar (ed.), Ha estallado la memoria. Las huellas de la guerra civil en la Transición a la democracia (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2014).
18 Real Decreto-Ley nº 10/76 of 30 July 1976. Boletín Oficial del Estado, 3 and 4 August 1976. My emphasis.
19 ‘18 de julio’ (editorial article), El País, 17 July 1977.
20 El País, 15 October 1977.
21 Both quotations in El País, 24 May 1993 and 29 March 2001.
22 See in this respect the contributions gathered by Josefina Cuesta (ed.), Memorias históricas de España. Siglo XX (Madrid: Fundación Largo Caballero, 2007).
23 Francisco Ayala, ‘El sentido de una pregunta’, El País, 18 July 1996.
24 Santos Juliá was editor of the first serious study on this subject: Víctimas de la guerra civil (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 1999). The latest and most up-to-date analysis, which validates these figures in general terms, is in Paul Preston, The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth Century Spain (London: Harper, 2012).
25 Jon Elster, Closing the Books: Transitional Justice in Historical Experience (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Stathis N. Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).
26 Santos Juliá, ‘Echar al olvido: memoria y amnistía’, in Santos Juliá, Hoy no es ayer. Ensayos sobre la España del siglo XX (Barcelona: RBA, 2010), ch. 12, p. 313.
27 Fragment of the first speech by King Juan Carlos before the Cortes, 22 November 1975, reproduced in Laureano López Rodó, La larga marcha hacia la monarquía (Barcelona: Noguer, 1977), p. 497.
28 Anonymous report entitled ‘Vestigios mudos del pasado’, El País, 18 July 1986; and news on ‘la estatua del dictador’ in El País, 4 July 2008 and Abc, 19 September 2013. Pieter Leenknegt, ‘El Franco ecuestre de Capuz: una estatua, tres destinos’, in Archivos de la Filmoteca 42–3/2 (2002-3), vol. 2, pp. 13–29 (in the case of Valencia, pp. 26–9). The three equestrian statues in Valencia, Madrid and Santander are works by the same sculptor: the Valencian José Capuz.
29 José L. Lobo, ‘Así que pasen otros 25 años’, El Mundo, 20 November 2000. See Manuel Darriba, ‘Ferrol, huérfano’, El Periódico de Extremadura, 19 November 2000. News of the fate of the statue was in El Mundo, 18 March 2010.
30 Rafael Fraguas, ‘Franco, aún presente’, El País, 18 November 2000. Pieter Leenknegt, ‘El Franco ecuestre de Capuz: una estatua, tres destinos’, pp. 16–19. News on the withdrawal in El País, 17 March 2005. Jesús de Andrés, ‘Las estatuas de Franco, la memoria del franquismo y la transición política española’, Historia y Política 12 (2004), pp. 161–86.
31 Alberto Reig Tapia, Memoria y olvido de la guerra civil, p. 27.
32 Jesús Delgado, ‘El franquismo sigue vivo en el callejero’, El País, 18 February 2001. The study, commissioned by the city of Santander, was completed by Carlos Dardé (University of Cantabria), Miguel Ángel Sánchez (UNED)
and Benito Madariaga (official chronicler of the city). See Leenknegt, ‘El Franco ecuestre de Capuz’, pp. 23–6; and the news of the withdrawal in El País, 18 December 2008.
33 Santos Juliá’s statements included in the collection by Javier Valenzuela, ‘El despertar tras la amnesia’, El País, 2 November 2002.
34 See the reflections of Fernando Savater, ‘Lo que queda de franquismo’, El País, 20 November 1992; Javier Pradera, ‘Las huellas del franquismo. Los vestigios en la cultura política española de una dictadura de casi cuarenta años’, El País, 3 December 1992; and Tereixa Constela, ‘El franquismo. 40 años después’, El País, 28 March 2015. See Enrique González Duro, La sombra del general (Madrid: Debate, 2005).
35 Julián Casanova (ed.), 40 años con Franco (Barcelona: Crítica, 2014), p. 13.
36 Statements collected in El Mundo, 20 November 2000.
37 ‘Los papeles de Franco’, La aventura de la historia 38 (December 2001), p. 12. ‘Archivo de la dictadura’, El Mundo, 22 September 2002.
38 Rafael Fraguas, ‘Una sepultura para Franco en Mingorrubio’, El País, 16 October 2010. See Jeremy Treglown, La cripta de Franco. Viaje por la memoria y la cultura del franquismo (Barcelona: Ariel, 2014), pp. 63–73, published in English as Franco’s Crypt: Spanish Culture and Memory since 1936 (London: Chatto and Windus, 2014).
39 Quoted in David Lowenthal, The Past is a Foreign Country (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 68: Lord Acton, ‘Inaugural Lecture on the Study of History’, delivered in Cambridge in June 1895.
40 Ian Kershaw, ‘Introduction: Reflecting on Hitler’, in Ian Kershaw, Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris (London: Penguin Books, 2001).
1: The Man: A Brief Biography
1 J. Arrarás Iribarren, Franco (Valladolid: Santarén, 1939), pp. 303 and 314.
2 Luis de Galinsoga and Francisco Franco Salgado-Araujo, Centinela de Occidente. Semblanza biográfica de Francisco Franco (Barcelona: Editorial AHR, 1956).
3 José María Sánchez Silva and José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, Franco, ese hombre (Madrid: Lidisa, 1975), pp. 150–1 and 154.
4 Ricardo de la Cierva, Francisco Franco: un siglo de España, 2 vols (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1973).
5 Luis Suárez Fernández, Francisco Franco y su tiempo, 8 vols (Madrid: Fundación F. Franco, 1984).
6 Salvador de Madariaga, General, márchese usted (New York: Ediciones Ibéricas, 1959), pp. 10–11. The title is a play on words as in Spanish ‘sentinel’ and ‘leech’ are pronounced in a similar way.
7 Luis Ramírez, Francisco Franco: historia de un mesianismo (París: Ruedo Ibérico, 1964).
8 Amando de Miguel, Franco, Franco, Franco (Madrid: Ediciones 99, 1976).
9 Francisco Umbral, La leyenda del César visionario (Barcelona: Seix Barral, 1991). Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Autobiografía del general Franco (Barcelona: Mondadori, 1992). José Luis de Vilallonga, El sable del Caudillo (Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1997). Albert Boadella, Franco y yo. Buen viaje, Excelencia (Madrid: Espasa, 2003). Juan Luis Cebrián, Francomoribundia (Madrid: Alfaguara, 2003).
10 Juan Pablo Fusi Aizpurúa, Franco: autoritarismo y poder personal (Madrid: El País, 1985). Proof of the success of the book was its immediate translation into English with an introductory preface by the Hispanist Raymond Carr as Franco: A Biography (London: Unwin Hyman, 1987).
11 Stanley G. Payne, Franco, el perfil de la historia (Madrid: Espasa Calpe, 1992). Javier Tusell. Franco en la guerra civil. Una biografía política (Barcelona: Tusquets, 1992).
12 Paul Preston. Franco: A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 1993) pp. xx–xxi. Spanish translation published in Barcelona by Ediciones Grijalbo in 1994 as Franco. Caudillo de España.
13 A. Reig Tapia, Franco, ‘caudillo’. Mito y realidad (Madrid: Tecnos, 1995). B. Bennassar, Franco (Madrid: Edaf, 1996). A. Bachoud, Franco (Barcelona: Crítica, 2000). F. García de Cortázar, Fotobiografía de Franco (Barcelona: Planeta, 2000). Stanley G. Payne and Jesús Palacios, Franco: A Personal and Political Biography (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014). I would also like to mention my own contribution: E. Moradiellos, Francisco Franco. Crónica de un caudillo casi olvidado (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2002).
14 Confession of Franco in October 1973 to Luis Moreno Nieto. Reproduced in the extremely hagiographic biography by the journalist Rogelio Baón, La cara humana de un Caudillo (Madrid: San Martín, 1975), p. 49.
15 Franco’s response to a question in an interview published by a Madrid illustrated magazine: ‘Are you political? I am a soldier, he affirmed outright and definitively.’ Estampa, 29 May 1929.
16 Opinion in Franco visto por sus ministros (Barcelona: Planeta, 1981), p. 195. The previous quote is in Pedro Sainz Rodríguez, Testimonio y recuerdo (Barcelona: Planeta, 1978), p. 324.
17 M. Menéndez y Pelayo, Historia de España seleccionada en la obra del maestro (Madrid: Gráfica Universal, 1934), pp. 352 and 354. The book, a compilation of writings edited by General Jorge Vigón, was widely circulated in military and right-wing circles. On the impact of Menéndez y Pelayo see Juan Pablo Fusi, España. La evolución de la identidad nacional (Madrid: Temas de Hoy, 2000), pp. 188 and 241–2; and Jorge Novella, El pensamiento reaccionario español, 1812–1975 (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2007), ch. 9.
18 Quoted by Stanley G. Payne, Los militares y la política en la España contemporánea (París: Ruedo Ibérico, 1968), p. 80, originally published as Politics and the Military in Modern Spain (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1967). See Gabriel Cardona, El poder militar en la España contemporánea hasta la guerra civil (Madrid: Siglo XXI, 1983) and Geoffrey Jensen, Irrational Triumph: Cultural Despair, Military Nationalism and the Ideological Origins of Franco’s Spain (Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2002).
19 José Ortega y Gasset, España invertebrada (Cáceres: Universidad de Extremadura, 1999), p. 43.
20 The first quote is from a speech at the town hall of Baracaldo (21 June 1950). The second is from his declarations in Paris journal Le Figaro (13 June 1958). Both are quoted in F. Franco, Pensamiento político de Franco (Madrid: Servicio Informativo Español, 1964), pp. 54 and 57.
21 Payne, Los militares y la política en la España contemporánea, chs 7 and 9, pp. 428–9. María Rosa de Madariaga, España y el Rif. Crónica de una historia casi olvidada (Melilla: UNED, 2000).
22 Esteban Carvallo de Cora, Hoja de servicios del Caudillo de España (Madrid: Biosca, 1967). Also see Juan Blázquez Miguel, Franco. Trayectoria militar (Madrid: Almena, 2009).
23 Francisco Franco, Marruecos. Diario de una bandera (Madrid: Pueyo, 1922), pp. 57–8 and 89–90. Later editions eliminated passages of the original text: F. Franco, Papeles de la guerra de Marruecos (Madrid: Fundación Nacional F. Franco, 1986).
24 Sebastian Balfour, Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002). Gustau Nerín, La guerra que vino de África (Barcelona: Crítica, 2005).
25 Declarations of Franco, 31 December 1939 in Palabras del Caudillo, 19 Abril 1937–31 Diciembre 1938 (Barcelona: Ediciones Fe, 1939).
26 Judgement expressed by the Falangist leader José María Fontana, Franco. Radiografía del personaje para sus contemporáneos (Barcelona: Acervo, 1979), p. 28. Also see Stanley G. Payne and Jesús Palacios, Franco, mi padre. Testimonio de Carmen Franco (Madrid: La esfera de los libros, 2008).
27 Notes on his private life in Baón, La cara humana de un Caudillo, pp. 30, 37, 52 and 126. Vicente Gil, Cuarenta años junto a Franco (Barcelona: Planeta, 1981). José María Fontana would write of Franco’s friendships: ‘Very few friends, one could say none’ (Fontana, Franco. Radiografía del personaje, p. 28).
28 Good overviews of the period are in Francisco J. Romero Salvadó, Twentieth-Century Spain: Politics and Society in Spain, 1898–1998 (London: Routledge, 1999); Mary Vincent, Spain 1833–2002: People and State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007); and Julián Casanova and Carlos Gil-Andrés, Twentieth-Century Spain: A History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
30 Preston, Franco, p. 49.
31 Carlos Blanco Escolá, La Academia General Militar de Zaragoza (Barcelona: Labor, 1989). Carvallo de Cora, Hoja de servicios del Caudillo, p. 77. Ricardo de la Cierva, Franco (Barcelona: Planeta, 1986), p. 101.
32 José Antonio Ferrer Benimeli, ‘Franco y la masonería’, in Josep Fontana (ed.), España bajo el franquismo (Barcelona: Crítica, 1986), pp. 246–68. Herbert R. Southworth, Conspiracy and the Spanish Civil War: The Brainwashing of Francisco Franco (London: Routledge, 2000).
33 According to the judgement of Ricardo de la Cierva, Historia del Franquismo (Barcelona: Planeta, 1975), vol. 1, p. 102.
34 Confession of the minister of finance between 1957 and 1965, Franco visto por sus ministros, p. 88. The phrase about the arrogance of intellectuals is from José María Pemán and is reproduced in Baón, La cara humana de un Caudillo, p. 163.
35 The political crisis in the Republican period is analysed in Paul Preston, The Coming of the Spanish Civil War: Reform, Reaction and Revolution in the Second Republic (London: Routledge, 1994); Nigel Townson, The Crisis of Democracy in Spain: Centrist Politics under the Second Republic, 1931–1936 (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2000); and Manuel Álvarez Tardío and Fernando del Rey (eds), The Spanish Second Republic Revisited: From Democratic Hopes to the Civil War (Eastbourne: Sussex Academic Press, 2011).
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