Spain’s Transformation: Society and Politics 1960-1975

Posted on Jan 26, 2025 in History

Spanish Society in the Sixties

  • The society of the 1960s showed a significant delay in relation to Europe and major imbalances in the distribution of wealth. The situation began to change in the mid-sixties due to improvement and economic modernization. Between 1960 and 1973, agrarian, rural, and traditional Spain gave way to an industrial, urban, and modern one.
  • During years of strong population growth by birth (the baby boom), there was massive emigration to Europe, reducing unemployment, and a rural exodus that created strong urban growth in metropolitan areas. These areas absorbed neighborhoods, suburbs, and outlying towns, while in the suburban areas, outbreaks of slums and substandard housing grew, isolated in the midst of entire neighborhoods.
  • There was an increase in the middle classes, while younger generations were accessing amenities and a homogenization of social norms with those of developed countries. Women joined the workplace, and living conditions improved with the General Law of Education (1970), which increased enrollment, and the Framework Act on Social Security (1963), which made the state a guarantor of sickness, retirement, and unemployment benefits.
  • A consumer society emerged, and young people, tourists, technological advances (such as the SEAT 600), and the official television of Spain (despite censorship) were gaining a worldview more open and tolerant than the traditional one. This is evident in the progressive relaxation of the importance of the Church in the new society and the change in values.

The Agony of Franco 1970-1975: The Predominance of Technocrats and Carrero Blanco

  • In 1969, Franco proclaimed Juan Carlos as his successor. Monarchists and conservatives in favor of a democratic regime began to approach the democratic opposition.
  • A confrontation arose within the regime between the immobile or “bunker” faction and the openness faction (Opus Dei). In the late 1960s, the MATESA scandal evidenced the infighting of the regime.
  • Carrero Blanco (Franco’s personal assistant) formed a new government with members of Opus Dei, while some of the reforms failed. The most important were the Education Act of 1970 by Minister Villar Palasí, reforming the education system, and the Trade Union Act of 1970, which sought social peace.
  • Social peace was thwarted by the rise of the Workers’ Commissions (Comisiones Obreras) and the vastness of strikes in that year, as well as the resurgence of the opposition, with many repressions by the Public Order Court (TOP). The bishops called on the government for more freedom, leading to the enactment of a State of Emergency. In 1970, the Burgos Trial took place against ETA members, who were sentenced to death. In 1973, a new terrorist organization emerged, the FRAP.

Governments of Carrero Blanco and Arias Navarro

  • Franco appointed Carrero Blanco as Prime Minister. He formed a government of members of Opus Dei and Francoist hardliners, such as Arias Navarro in the Interior Ministry. The crisis situation deepened. The labor movement shifted from social demands to political awareness against Franco, and leaders of the Workers’ Commissions were tried in the “Process 1001”. In 1973, ETA assassinated Carrero Blanco at a time when Franco was weak.
  • The new Prime Minister, Arias Navarro, showed a spirit of repression and immobility. Opposition parties coordinated to force the fall of the dictatorship. The first was the Assembly of Catalonia in 1971, followed by a Democratic Junta around the Communist Party of Spain (PCE) and the Platform of Democratic Convergence around the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). In 1976, both became a unitary organism, bringing together all the opposition, the Platajunta.
  • From 1975, events rushed, especially from the summer: a) death sentences were imposed on members of ETA and FRAP, b) the Green March by Hassan II on the Sahara (in November, the Sahara was ceded to Morocco and Mauritania), and c) on November 20, 1975, the death of Franco.