1. The Long Night of Francoism¶
Core Argument¶
Franco's victory on 1 April 1939 inaugurated nearly four decades of brutal dictatorship, sustained by systematic terror and the alliance of a wealthy elite, the army, and the Roman Catholic Church. Savage repression continued long after the war's end: hundreds of thousands of republicans, communists, and socialists were arrested, interned in concentration camps, murdered, or disappeared. Fascist murder squads, guided by local priests and landowners, conducted paseos — summary executions down quiet lanes. Official executions numbered 35,000, but historians estimate up to 200,000; between 700,000 and one million prisoners passed through 296 prison camps. Political prisoners were forced into slave labour on fascist projects, including the Valle de los Caídos and Carabanchel Prison.
The dictatorship destroyed Spanish intellectual life. Darwin's books were banned, the Bible treated as infallible, and the Junta de Ampliación de Estudios, which had funded overseas scientific training, was replaced by the CSIC under Opus Dei to restore "classical and Christian unity of the sciences." Of 580 university professors, twenty were murdered, 150 expelled, and 195 exiled. The Church insinuated itself into every aspect of life, from naming children to policing confessions, while sexual abuse by clergy went unpunished. Poet Miguel Hernández died of tuberculosis in prison after Canon Luís Almarcha, a Franco confidant, refused his transfer to hospital; biographer Eutimio Martín calls it premeditated murder.
Living standards collapsed. Two-thirds of the population lacked plumbing or electricity; tuberculosis rates were the highest in Europe. Between 1940 and 1944, some 200,000 died of starvation. The education system was the most backward in Europe, with the highest illiteracy rates. Working-class children typically left school at fourteen for exploitative factory jobs; in rural Andalusia, agricultural labourers faced near-slavery, with wages so low that picking 1,500 kilograms of grapes daily was needed for a living wage.
The first signs of workers' revolt emerged in the late 1940s, including a 60,000-strong strike in Vizcaya in 1947, met with a state of siege and mass arrests. The 1951 Barcelona general strike began as a boycott of a 40% tram fare rise; 97% of tram users joined on the first day. The boycott escalated into a general strike involving 300,000 workers, lasting fourteen days despite the mobilisation of police, Civil Guard, troops, and four warships. The regime's 'Years of Development' (1961–1973), managed by Opus Dei technocrats, produced rapid industrial growth that strengthened the working class and ultimately undermined the dictatorship.