Franco’s Regime: Repression, Laws, and International Relations
**Legal Basis**
During this stage, the legal basis of the new scheme was established:
- In 1938, the **Fuero del Trabajo** was approved, introducing the right of Spaniards to work.
- In 1942, the **Constitutive Act of the Cortes** was proclaimed, which formed a legislative chamber, although it never truly had such a capacity.
- One year later, the **Fuero de los Españoles** was adopted. This excluded individual rights such as freedom of expression or assembly, although in practice, it was impossible to enforce.
- In 1945, the **National Referendum Act** was approved, regulating a direct voting system for all Spaniards to approve fundamental laws.
- The first law approved in the referendum was the **Law of Succession to the Head of State**.
**The Instruments of Repression**
The new order imposed by Franco aimed to systematically destroy all those who opposed the regime. For this purpose, he proceeded to institutionalize repression.
The first general repressive law was the **Law of Political Responsibility**, which governed the treatment of people who had collaborated in one way or another with the Republic. In 1940, the **Law for the Suppression of Communism and Masonry** was added, allowing for the investigation of the accused “to defend their ideas against religion, the homeland, and its fundamental institutions.”
The army was the main executing arm of the repressive policy until 1963, when the **Court of Public Order** was created. Regarding the figures of repression, it is estimated that around 150,000 Spanish people were executed for political reasons, and 4,000 in Catalonia. As for the prison population, some inmates were sent to worker battalions. The set of repressive measures taken by the authorities was characterized by its willingness and exemplary punishment.
**Confiscation of Goods and Purges**
Repressive measures were accompanied by a comprehensive process of seizing and plundering. On the one hand, properties of political exiles and most Republicans were confiscated. On the other hand, goods of all parties, unions, associations, and institutions linked to the Republicans went to enlarge the heritage of the regime’s institutions.
The Franco regime also expelled from the workforce everyone who had emphasized in favor of the Republican cause. A purge of officials was conducted. The exercise of certain liberal professions was also subject to control from obligatory filters for professional associations and private companies.
**Franco’s Policy Towards Catalonia**
The Franco regime imposed a centralist uniformity and wanted to forge a new “Spanish Catalonia,” seeking to definitively remove Catalan identity. Identifying symbols of Catalonia were prohibited, new street signs were implemented, and public monuments were removed. The use of Catalan was banned in public administration, schools, media, economic and social life, and its use outside the family was subject to fines and penalties. Measures were also employed to prevent the publication of books, newspapers, and magazines in Catalan. The Catalan language was shut into the strictly domestic sphere, and Spanish was imposed as the only official language and culture.
**The Second World War and the Hegemony of National Syndicalism**
Franco showed his support for the Axis powers. He declared Spain’s neutrality. In domestic policy, the **Falange Española de las JONS** and the **Traditionalists** reached a hegemonic role in the new state, aiming to build a National Syndicalist Spain in imitation of fascist regimes.
**Non-Belligerence**
The German victory over France led to the transition from neutrality to non-belligerence, a situation that involved economic and diplomatic support to the Axis powers. Spain did not enter the war, although it collaborated in the war effort with the shipment of strategic materials and provisions. In addition, in 1941, a unit of volunteers was dispatched to the USSR to fight alongside German troops.
**The Return to Neutrality**
In October 1943, the war began to be clearly unfavorable to the fascist powers. With the defeat of Germany in 1945, Franco had to assume that his survival required distancing himself from fascism. The official discourse began presenting the Franco regime as Catholic, conservative, and anticommunist. This new phase led to the marginalization of Falangism.
**The International Boycott of the 1940s**
The end of World War II led to an era of international isolation and rejection of Franco. The French government closed the border with Spain, and an agreement of the UN General Assembly recommended the withdrawal of ambassadors from Madrid. The persistence of the Franco regime after the war had an enormous political and economic cost to Spain, which received only minimal aid in comparative terms. Franco’s Spain was unable to benefit from the U.S. aid program in Europe, the Marshall Plan, and was excluded from the North Atlantic Treaty.
Technocratic Stage, Decomposition of the Regime (1969-1975)
Franco began to suffer the effects of illness.
**International Recognition and Dominance of National Catholicism**
From 1947, the configuration of two antagonistic blocs and the beginning of the Cold War significantly altered the international situation. Although verbal condemnations of Franco remained, the international acceptance of the system gradually took hold. In 1951, France decided to undertake a restructuring of the government. The firm opened a new phase in Franco’s regime, characterized by a predominance of National Catholicism. Luis Carrero Blanco was named undersecretary of the presidency. In 1953, Franco won definitive international recognition of the regime through agreements with the United States and the concordat with the Holy See. The Americans obtained from Spain the right to establish and utilize a number of military installations in Spain. In return, Spain received military equipment and economic and technical aid. The agreements with the United States were used to regulate diplomatic and commercial relations.
**The First Attempts at Opening**
The economic situation was very difficult. U.S. aid failed to save the internal crisis. Between 1956 and 1958, a wave of worker protests occurred in some cities, along with the first movements of dissent in the university. In 1957, Franco proceeded to remodel the executive, promoting the Falange and the Catholic sector. So-called technocrats, who were men from Opus Dei, came to occupy ministerial positions in the country’s economic direction.
**Fundamental Laws**
The establishment of basic political laws began during the Civil War and ended with the promulgation of the Organic Law of the State.
- In 1938, the **Fuero del Trabajo** was established, the first fundamental law, utterly fascist and based on the Italian Carta del Lavoro.
- In 1945, after the defeat of the Axis powers, the **Fuero de los Españoles** and the **National Referendum** were established.
- In 1947, the **Law of Succession** allowed Franco to appoint his successor “with the title of King.” This law created the Regency Council and the Council of the Kingdom.
- In 1958, the **Law of Principles of the National Movement** was promulgated.
**Organic Democracy**
The new state was inspired by the Italian corporatist state. The system was called organic democracy. Popular representation in state institutions was regulated by the Constitutive Act of the Parliament, with all representatives called prosecutors. It was, therefore, a representation of corporate thirds. Territorial power was transmitted through the old institution of civil governors. Each province also had a military governor. The structure of military headquarters was also reset. In local councils, mayors were directly elected by the civil governor. Another power of the state was the vertical unions, later called the Spanish Trade Union Organization. The Trade Union Act of 1940 integrated employers and workers into the same union, organized by branches of production. The state dictated working conditions without any possibility of collective bargaining or strikes.