Talk to older people and you will see respect for authority was more prevalent then everywhere. Young people did not talk back to adults, not because they were afraid the adults might beat them up but because it just was not done. There was a respect for authority and it is understandble. When life is so much harder people have little time to waste and little sympathy for trouble-makers.
In many ways I see China today as being where Spain was around 1970. A land of incredible growth and opportunity where some are becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams, many are doing very well and a few are left behind.
Franco and his regime were a product of their time and of preceding Spanish history. Franco and his generation grew up in the very lowest point of Spanish history, when Spain had fallen from being the most powerful empire to being a third world country which had just lost the last remnants of its empire. In the 19th and early 20th centuries Spain as a whole had failed to modernize. In the 1930s Spain had a history of a century and a half of political instability and continuous
coups. The worldwide economic depression hit Spain very hard and it was a very poor country to begin with. The 1930s were years of turmoil and violence. The fear of revolution and communism were much greater in Spain than they were in England or America and that is saying a lot. The level of political violence in Spain had reached very high levels and there was anarchy in the streets. Convents were being burnt, people were being killed, anarchy reigned and the government was unwilling or unable to do anything about it.
It was in this climate that the military coup took place and Franco was not even the main leader. It was a concerted effort by a group of generals of all stripes who only had one thing in common which was a desire to restore law and order. It was later that Franco emerged as the leader and was anointed Generalissimo.
So let us not blame Franco as much as the Spanish people as a whole who had become a third world country in need of a dictator. If it had not been Franco it would have been another general. If the coup had not happened Spain might have become another Albania and today might be coming out of the bold experiment of communism.
Those who paint the whole episode as Franco, an evil man, taking power by force illegally when everything was going just fine are being disingenuous.
One more thing that can be said about Franco is that he was basically an honest man who believed in law and order, as many did in those days. He served the Republic professionally until the coup. After he became Generalissimo he truly ruled in what he thought was the best for Spain. He was notably frugal and, unlike most Latin American dictators, did not amass a personal fortune through corruption.
Contrary to the caricature, his intention was not to keep Spain for the few rich and keep the masses poor and oppressed. Spain saw a rate of progress and development it had not seen ever before and the middle class which emerged shaped the country in the years after his death.
Franco was for law, order, stability because he thought that is what the country needed the most (and the majority of the country agreed with him). He would have compromised on almost anything else and he often did. That is why he managed to last so long.
Again, the changes over 40 years were phenomenal. You did not want to live in Spain in the 40s. Of course, you probably would not want to live in Germany in the 40s. Or in France…
The judiciary slowly and gradually gained some independence but the whole concept of the regime was that of the “unitary power” and that everyone was there to serve the unitary regime and purpose. Similar in a way to what you see in China today or, more distantly, to what Bush had in mind.
So, yes, there are many instances of the courts ruling against the government and the number increased as the years went by. A famous case was that of newspaper Madrid which was closed down in 1971 for publishing an editorial which, when reading between the lines and with huge doses of imagination, suggested it might be time for the old man to retire. The courts, after taking forever, ruled the closing was not according to law and ruled the newspaper should be compensated for the loss they had suffered.
It should be noted that dictatorships as much as democracies have to pander to public opinion; maybe even more so because of a lack of legitamacy. Its usually a trade off, loss of some political rights in return for perhaps more rights in certain areas, more security perhaps etc. One should not assume that people are literally in chains.
To expand a bit. The administration of Justice, when it came to political or common criminal matters, was not anything we could consider fair today. The first layer was the police and they had huge powers. Many cases never even reached the courts because police repression and intimidation were all that were needed.
The laws were also what they were so even the most impartial judge could do little but apply the laws as they were. Many crimes were judged under military laws. Anything which loosely had anything to do with “terrorism” automatically fell under military tribunals. Franco had quite a head start on George Bush. A famous case was Eleuterio Sánchez - Wikipedia
But most people had little or no problems with the police, they supported the tough approach on crime and appreciated the safety and security. Dissidents were labeled as “elitists” and “intelectuals” “out of touch with the needs and aspirations of ordinary people”. Useful fools who would destroy the country if given a chance. You can see all these things are not new and not restricted to America.
That is (for me) the most interesting thing. Nobody thinks about him at all. The Phalanx Party does not exist in any practical way. Only us foreign tourists go to the tomb. (Fascists from the rest of Europe make it a place of pilgrimage.)
I heard Madrid took down the last statue of the old guy a couple of years ago. People in the neighborhood did not remember the statue was of Franco.
Talking modern European history with young people in Spain is useless.
Further the current PC line about Franco overlooks one very big thing. He kept Spain out of the war. For that alone he deserves a (small, obscure) statue.
I just read the book How Soccer Explains the World (fun, quirky, worth reading, but flawed; more of a country-hopping survey than a deep analysis), which looks at fútbol’s place in various cultures, including some history. The rivalry between the Barcelona and Madrid teams gets a long look, which necessitates a bit of background on the social rivalry between the cities in general, including during the Franco regime. The author says he was mildly surprised to learn that while Franco was certainly an autocrat running a police state, he found it useful to slacken the reins inside Barcelona’s stadium, and allowed the crowd, during the course of the games, to scream in its own language and demonstrate alternate loyalties. He apparently viewed it as an outlet, with a practical function: people needed to feel some freedom, and blow off steam, so resistance wouldn’t take hold among the wider population. If we are allowed to speak our minds here, he apparently imagined the people saying to themselves, then the repression can’t really be all that bad. Besides, with the high emotions at these games, it’s not like he would have been able to crack down anyway.
That’s as reported in the book. I’d be curious to know if this is accurate, as it’s an interesting little detail about the regime (and corroboration of the statements above, that Franco governed with an eye toward stability, and was willing to compromise as necessary, as opposed to engaging in Stalinesque totalitarianism), or if the situation was more nuanced than that.
I’ve heard about that too, there was a lot of infighting amongst the opposition, trying to garner support in the papers for themselves and not their “comrade”, that kind of thing.
IIRC, when Hitler asked, Franco demanded in exchange for entering the war, tonnes and tonnes of grains, vast quantities of machinery and other such things. The idea being that he might make himself look willing to someone who might be master of Europe, but managed to put Hitler off with a very high price.
While this might have been Franco’s way of thinking, I suspect that to the Barça fans football meant a lot more and was more political. When Barcelona beat Real Madrid 0-5 (that means: in Madrid) in 1973 and went on to win the Primera Division later that season, that sure was seen as politically significant in Catalunya. Apparently, Cruijff, who joined Barça during that season and who was instrumental in winning the championship, is still considered ‘El Salvador’ in and around Barcelona.
Hitler allegedly said to an aide after meeting all day with Franco, “Next time I’d rather just have a few teeth pulled.”
There have been recurring rumors that Churchill paid Franco to ensure Spanish neutrality in WW2. And FWIW, Franco’s regime wasn’t officially anti-Semitic, and permitted Jewish refugees to enter and transit.
Spain played both sides against each other. Spain was a major producer of wolfram which the Germans desperately needed but America would buy it at hugely inflated prices even though it did not need it, only to deny it to Germany. Spain made a huge killing with wolfram exports.
Question-I know Franco started grooming Juan Carlos as his heir during the last years of his reign, (and probably is spinning in his grave now!), but what was the view of the royal family during his (Franco’s) rule? Was there a large royalist party?
I know that His Majesty ended up doing a 180, for the most part, instead of carrying on the dictator’s policies.
Franco was quite the sly fox-he played hitler like a violin. Logically, Spain would join the Axis, and close the Straights of Gibraletr. then the Royal navy was kept out of the the Med, and the AfikaKorps could capture Egypt. This didn’t happen, because Franco was too smart! He realized that Spain was weak (no modern arms), and siding with the Axis would have exposed Spain to tremendous destruction (allied bombs). So he sat back, and tacitly supported Hitler. he allowed a division of volunteers (the “Blue” Legion) to fight in Russia-and that was the extent of his commitment.
After the war, he liberalized things enough to attract investment.
But, was Spanish fascism such a bad thing? As long as you kept your nose clean, didn’t criticize the gov., and avoided bikinis, you were basically left alone-compare that to the anarchy in the USA (Boston has a murder every night)! The Guardia civil was pretty honest and non-corrupt-so was Franco all that bad? (I admit, I think pretty girls OUGHT to wear bikinis0, but think-safe streets, no crime, no need to lock your doors? pretty good.
I grew-up in the late fifties and sixties in Spain (left for good in '73 though I go back on a fairly regular basis) and to this day I have fond memories of the time. In fact, hard to find a better place for a kid to grow-up than those years…if only because of the very safety provided by the Dictatorship and the resulting peace of mind many parents felt, which in turn, gave most of us kids plenty of freedom in terms of where we could go and what we could do. I remember that by age 12, I was allowed to go to Sunday fútbol matches at the Bernabéu with a couple of friends of mine. As it turns out, forty years on the Bernabéu remains my favorite cathedral and Real Madrid my religion of choice. In general my life was totally unaffected by politics as I was way too busy playing basketball both at the American School of Madrid and with the development teams of Estudiantes – a first division club founded at a school close to my own house, Instituto Ramiro de Maeztu. Other than that, my time was spent going to awfully dubbed and heavily censored movies (didn’t much matter to me until I found out better at about 15 – I then started going to OV, “arte y ensayo” theaters, playing lots of footie in a plaza across the street from our apt and networking to get clandestine copies of Playboy from Torrejon air base (had a couple of Americans kids that were friends of mine there). There was also a huge billiards place at Plaza Callao that I loved going to for hours on end when b-ball season was over. Summers we spent half at the beach (Benidorm) to please my Mom, half at a country house my Dad had close to his tiny town of birth in Asturias. Lots of chasing after girls in both places, including my first ‘love.’ It wasn’t all idyllic of course, as nothing is. In our case, although I had little to no interest in politics, there was My Dad:
A hard-core “Franquista” if there ever was one, due to the ideology he was brought-up with, and the addendum of having had his own father bayoneted to death by the Republicans in front of own house, he was ready to “defend” the Regime and Franco’s reputation at the drop of a hat – angry, red-faced, sweaty upper-lip, he’d engage in these really puerile arguments with my Mom’s brother, who just happened to be charged with “Espionage and treason” at the tender age of seventeen while fighting for the Nationalist. After spending 13 years in the slammer and only avoiding execution through my Mom’s connections, he became just as rabid a Republican; which led to his migration to Canada where he became a college professor. Of course, nothing could keep him from coming back to Spain on a regular basis to raise bloody hell against the Regime – but these time as a Canadian citizen, he ‘only’ got deported. Not certain, but I am sure it happened at least twice.
I guess from my perspective at the time, neither one was either right or made much sense – the screaming certainly didn’t help, I just hated the whole thing.
OTOH, I did learn a ton of Spanish history from my Dad, as he was also a fanatic on the topic and took us on many road trips to all sorts of historical sites. He just wasn’t able to use all that knowledge when it came to arguing though – his temper wouldn’t allow it. Some might say that I’ve inherited a bit of that myself.
Couple of small anecdotes to close with:
I absolutely loved going to the “Desfile De La Victoria” with him – don’t think we ever missed one. In fact I can still recall the shake in the Paseo de la Castellana boulevard when the tanks paraded and the thundering ovation La Legion (and its mascot, a goat) always got.
Due to the aforementioned heavy censure in movies and almost total lack of er…erotic visuals, Peckinpah’s movie, The Wild Bunch, became an instant classic at the time, what with lines going around the block in order to watch it. Was it that good? Well, dunno, can’t really remember much of it…but I do clearly remember seeing my first female naked breast on screen. Think it might have had something to do with the collective repressed libido of my compatriots? Hmm…seeing how a few years later many of us took a specially made tour to Andorra just in order to watch The Last Tango and come right back** I suspect that yes, it was a factor indeed.
Having said all that, what makes me a ‘pinko-commie’ today according to some on this board? Simple. I evolved.
*Nava, soy tocayo de tu bisabuelo. O sea, de nombre Navarro…y algo de sangre tambien por parte de mi abuela materna, apellido Iriarte. A ver si somos familia?! :eek:
Note that Franco had a great source amoung the Germans- Admiral Canaris, the head of the Abwehr and a noted opponent of Hitler- had strongly advised Franco about getting in too deep with Hitler.
wiki; "A letter from a Spanish contact of his has been preserved and unambiguously confirms his opposition to the Nazi regime. He tried to hinder Hitler’s attempts to absorb Czechoslovakia and advised Franco not to permit German passage through Spain for the purposes of capturing Gibraltar. According to written sources, all of Franco’s arguments on this stance were studied and dictated in detail by Canaris, and that simultaneously, a significant sum of money had been deposited by the British in Swiss accounts for Franco and his generals to further convince them to be neutral"
Yes, I’d have to say it was not such a bad thing, considering that in most cases the choice was Communism. Franco was certainly a dictator, and not a nice guy. But at least he guided the nation into democracy and had set up things for a peaceful and democratic hand-over once he was dead.
Nava"… another one of the distortions that have been commited for the last 30 years is making it sound as if the Republic and the “Red” Army were paragons of liberty and nobility, while the “Nationals” were the worst thing ever. It’s as absurd to paint one side as “rainbows and fluffy carnations” and the other as “nettles and pain” as it is to do it the other way round." I agree, which is why the one-sided and biased portayal in “Pan’s Labyrinth ( El laberinto del fauno)” annoyed me.
**
sailor **" If the coup had not happened Spain might have become another Albania and today might be coming out of the bold experiment of communism. "
I hesitate to say anything in this thread, seeing that I’m not Spanish and was only 3 years old when Franco died…
But seeing that there have been some strong defenses of Franco and the Nationalist coup, I feel compelled to argue that there is far more blood on the hands of Franco and the Nationalists than on those of the Republic–at least when one is considering the history of the Civil War itself.
The Republic’s coalition, admittedly, was flimsy and dysfunctional, and probably doomed to failure–especially in the face of the better-organized and better-armed Nationalists. And certainly, by the end of the war, the Stalinists had become increasingly prominent on the Loyalist side, and had already ruthlessly dealt with anarchist and socialist rivals, and had set up a secret police force to purge their side of any perceived Trotskyist influences–not a good sign of things to come, had the Republic survived.
Nevertheless, I think it’s wrong to suggest that Franco got involved with the coup for the noble intention of preventing the spread of Bolshevism. The Nationalists would claim this was the reason post-facto, but when the war began in 1936, the Popular Front wasn’t dominated by Stalinist sympathizers–not even close. It included representatives from all over the left-side of the political spectrum (leftist republicans, socialists, Trotskyists), few of whom had any love for Stalin or even Soviet-style state communism.
I’m not going to defend the bad things that happened after the Popular Front was elected. I don’t think there’s any way to justify the executions of thousands of clergymen and clergywomen (even when one takes into consideration the traditional historical links between the Catholic Church and conservative State in Spain), that took place under the willfully blind eye of the Republic.
I will argue, however, that the Nationalists and their allies were responsible for far worse, and far more, atrocities. The bombing of civilian sites like Guernica, the murder of Garcia Lorca (probably shot to death with a gun shoved up his anus), the countless rapes of Republican women (particularly by the Moors, with the approval of the Nationalist commanders like Queipo de Llano)… these are just a few of the incidents for which Franco and his friends were responsible during the war.
I’ll admit that the Republic was probably a lost cause, and that the rise of the Stalinist secret police during the latter half of the war indicates that it could have become a very bad thing, indeed–and potentially could have committed atrocities as terrible as the Nationalists. But, just as it’s wrong to overly romanticize the Republicans (and especially the role played by the Communists, who to my mind betrayed the cause more than anything else), it’s wrong to characterize Franco as a decent guy who only did what he did in order to save Spain.
A “pox on both your houses” sentiment is what I tend to feel is most appropriate for both sides of the war (certainly following the incidents of the May Days in Barcelona).
Finally, I will concede that things do change a lot over 40 years, as sailor points out, and that what is to be said about Franco in the 1930s doesn’t necessarily apply to Franco in the 1960s.
I would also like to thank sailor, Nava, and RedFury for sharing their stories, and to apologize for sticking my nose into this thread.
Please feel free to tear me and my argument to shreds now.
Oh, no doubt that Franco was a rat bastard. It’s just that I think he is over-villianized (not even close to Hitler or even Mussolini), and things would have been worse had the Commies won.
As for Guernica:
*The number of civilian casualties was very controversial and a matter of propaganda.
A recent study by Raul Arias Ramos in his book La Legion Condor en La Guerra Civil states that there were 250 dead; and the study by Joan Villarroya and J.M. Sole i Sabate in their book Espana en Llamas. La Guerra Civil desde el Aire states that there were 300 dead [8] -— these sources have been cited by historians such as Stanley Payne and Antony Beevor as well as media such as the BBC and El Mundo.
…
a realistic estimate on the high side of bombing effectiveness (7-12 fatalities per ton of bombs) would yield a figure of perhaps 300-400 fatalities in Guernica. This is certainly a bloody enough event, but reporting that a small town was bombed with a few hundred killed would not have had the same effect as reporting that a city was bombed with almost 1,700 dead*
Franco was a bad man where the alternative was worse- and in the end, his government worked out OK for Spain today.
Oh my… Sorry for resurrecting this ages-old thread! But I chanced upon it, and I thought I had to contribute to it.
I am Spanish, born in the city of Albacete, my early childhood took place under Franco (born in 1967, I was 8 when the dictator died), and my father was an “enemy of the regime”. I want to contribute with the perspective of someone who, as sailor mentioned, was related to “dissidents”.
I am a late child – my father, a doctor, had me when he was 59. He had been born in 1908, and he fought in the Spanish Civil War, in the Republican side. I think that some backstory will be needed. I apologise in advance for the length of this post.
When the Civil War started, a LOT of old scores were settled. Lots of people were “taken for a ride” everywhere. Albacete remained firmly in Republican hands, and lots of sympathisers of the rebellion were shot. On the night of July 19, 1936, someone knocked at my father’s door. It was an acquaintance of his, a local right-winger, more or less well known, Navarro by name. “Pepe, please, help me! Do something! Your people are looking for me!” (my father, at that time, was actually a member of the Communist party). My father took him in and hid him in his home. About an hour or so later, a posse came calling to my father’s door, a mixture of anarchists, communists, and guys looking to settle scores. “Comrade, have you seen Navarro?” “No, I haven’t.” A short conversation ensued at the door, with my father convincing them in the end that he really hadn’t seen him (they knew that my father and Navarro were acquainted; they took time persuading. The status of my father as bona fide member of the Communist party helped convince them though.) They left, but said they would be back later on, and that if he saw Navarro, he should let them know.
After that, my father went to Navarro, hidden in a back room, and told him: “I won’t be able to keep you here much longer. Come along, I’ll take you out of the city, and with any luck you’ll be able to find your people if you go north”. He smuggled him out of Albacete, took him to another town, gave him some money and pointed him north as the likeliest direction to find “his” people.
Fast-forward to 1939. The war is over. My father made his way back to Albacete. At the time, immediately after the war, it was definitely unhealthy to be caught if you had been an officer in the Republican army. My father had been officially a medic (and had seen quite a bit of action in Aragón as well, when he had to fight), and had ended up with an officer rank. So he went into hiding. He spent from 1939 to 1942 in hiding in a small, windowless attic, arranged by some true friends of his (doctors as well, who knew him from before the war, were living in Albacete, and were in reasonable terms with the regime).
In 1942 somebody betrayed him (never found out who it was), he was arrested, and was tried for “sedition”.
Remember Navarro? By that time he was the top man for the Phalanx (Franco’s Party) in Albacete. He was the guy who moved the strings and arranged everything.
When my father was arrested, he moved everything he could to make sure that, (a) my father was given a beating while in custody that broke I don’t know how many of his ribs; and (b) my father was sentenced to death.
My father spent one month expecting every day to be his last. Fortunately, one of his doctor friends had very good contacts with the authorities in Madrid and managed to use his connections to arrange for a review of the sentence, having it finally changed to 30 years in jail. Were it not for that extremely fortunate circumstance, had it not been for Dr. Molina, I wouldn’t be here typing this.
He was in jail until 1948, when there was a general amnesty. However, although he was freed on that date, he was blacklisted: He was not allowed to work as a doctor in anything even remotely related to the government (public hospitals, etc… and the “etc.” could be interpreted VERY widely.) He was good enough that he was able to build himself a 100% private practice, but I think that it took a toll on his health. I think that it was more a case of pure bloodymindedness: “oh, so they don’t want me to be a doctor, eh? Let’s see who is more stubborn here”.
It was only in 1973 that he was allowed to begin working in a hospital, as an X-ray technician (again, thanks to the help of another doctor friend of his who was in good terms with the regime, Dr. Gotor).
OK, fast-forwarding to my childhood… I know for a fact that our telephones were bugged (and I remember my father speaking on the phone and, suddenly, leaving some “choice remarks” for whoever might be listening to the conversation). And sometimes I noticed some weird guys loitering near our home. A couple of them, I ended up recognizing them.
Digression: Later on, when I grew up, I got to befriend one of them. And the story in itself is funny… He was a policeman (he ended up becoming head of police in Albacete). He had been assigned to surveillance detail on our place – my father was a “notorious red”, after all. He was more or less well known in our city (Albacete was a small place. Still is, in many respects.)
By the late 1970s, after Franco was dead, during the turmoil of the early years of the democracy, we began receiving weird phone calls and death threats at home. After duly denouncing the thing, my father was afforded protection at his workplace. The guy who was assigned to guard him was the same guy who had been keeping tabs on him 5 years before. When my father asked him, “well, how do you feel about this? That you are now told to protect someone that you had been told before to spy on?”, he answered: “Well, I am a professional, and these are my orders, which I fulfill as best as I can.” They became very good friends in the end.
Well, the point of this meandering, rambling post? That, if you had the misfortune of being a “dissident”, or of having fallen afoul of the regime, the amount of horrid stuff that could happen to you was mindboggling.
And, to tie a couple of loose ends…
(1) Navarro died in 1982. He was buried “with his coffin wrapped in the flag of the Phalanx”, as the article in the local newspaper said. We still keep the newspaper clipping in question at home. My father in person cut it out, saying (and I quote): “Now I can die in peace”. My father died in 1983.
(2) When I say that the regime and its police could be nasty, it really could. “Desaparecidos”? Hmmm… I don’t think that this particular case counts, but… OK. A cousin of mine in the second degree, who was 24 in 1974, was taken away one day by the secret police. His family heard nothing of him for 3 weeks. He simply vanished in thin air. Finally, 3 weeks after having been taken, he is left in front of his home. A broken shell of the man he was. Also, he was some 5 cm shorter than he was when he was taken. To this day he refuses to speak about what happened during those 3 weeks.
Oh, I almost forgot! sailor wrote this in an earlier post:
Eeeehhh… Yeeeeeeah… That is the first part of the story.
The whole thing was as follows: In 1968, after Charles de Gaulle resigned, Calvo Serer (editor of the newspaper) wrote an op-ed article mentioning the fact and making extremely subtle allussions to the fact, by comparing the statesmanship of de Gaulle and Franco. Franco went ballistic and the newspaper was closed for two months.
Indeed, it was re-opened, but Franco was an expert in getting his revenge served cold and in humongous heaping platters. In November 1971 (to be precise, November 25), trumped-up charges of financial misdeeds were thrown at the publisher of the newspaper, and were used as an excuse by the government to cancel the publication of “Madrid”. Then, the trials were so expensive that the publisher was forced to sell all the printing machines and everything valuable in order to cover the expenses. Finally, on April 24, 1972, the building that had hosted the newspaper offices was demolished with a controlled explosion.
Moral: You didn’t piss off Franco, especially by trying to imply that maybe, perhaps, it was time to begin considering the off-the-wall possibility of stepping down.
