51
- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Spain under Franco
By the war’s end Franco had sole control of the army.
He duly assumed leadership of the country, moulding
himself as Spain’s godly protector against the left. A
dictatorship rapidly unfurled.Thousands of Republicans
who failed to flee the country in time were rounded up
and shot, jailed or sent to labour camps, their children
given away.The world turned its back on Spain, Germany
included, when Franco snubbed Hitler’s personal
invitation to the Second World War. Bitter, unresolved
divisions scarred communities, the infrastructure was in
ruins and recurrent famine plagued the 1940s, theaños
de hambre. Only when Franco did a deal with the USA
in 1953 to accommodate some of its troops (their eyes
met over a mutual distrust of the USSR) did Spain get
economic help.Two years later they joined the UN.
An economic miracle
In some ways Spain’s ensuing volte-face was dramatic.
Irrigation schemes fuelled agriculture, industry grew
apace and, over the next two decades, Spain established
itself as northern Europe’s favourite place in the sun.
By 1965, 14 million tourists a year were flying in – ‘Spain
is Different’ shouted the posters without a hint of irony.
Only the rural interior appeared to decline as people
drained from the land and moved to northern cities.
Somehow Franco kept social change, economic growth
and foreign eyes remote from political freedom. Spain
remained a one party state (the party being his Falange-
descended Movimiento Nacional), trade unions were
under Franco’s thumb and political literature was
outlawed. All regionalist tendencies and languages were
banned.The dichotomy began to unravel in the final
decade of Franco’s rule as separatist groups became
more active, students more vocal and unions more
defiant. Spain looked poised for anarchy when Franco
died after a lengthy illness in 1975.
The Dei job
Spain’s economic miracle in
the late 1950s and 60s was
masterminded by a dynamic
group of technocrats aligned
to the Catholic organisation,
Opus Dei, founded in 1928
by Spanish priest Josemaría
Escrivá de Balaguer.
“FRANCO
PROCLAIMED
HIMSELF TO BE
ELECTED BY THE
GRACE OF GOD,
BUT ONLY 25 YEARS
AFTER HIS DEATH
HE IS BUT A FOGGY
MEMORY IN THE
ANNALS OF HISTORY”
La Vanguardia
(Barcelona newspaper).
