Franco’s Spain: Political, Economic, and Social Evolution (1939-1959)
Franco’s Spain: Political, Economic, and Social Evolution until 1959
Political Developments
The New State was established based on the ideals of July 18th, the day the Spanish Civil War began:
“The victors established a strong and highly centralized state to guarantee the unity of Spain and impose a social order based on the doctrine of the Church and the Falange ideology.”
The New State was characterized by the absolute concentration of power in Franco’s hands. He controlled all sources of authority:
Read MoreKey Historical Events and Concepts: 18th-19th Centuries
Key Historical Events and Concepts
The Inquisition
The Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal created by the Catholic Monarchs. Its function was to monitor and ensure that the only official religion in Spain was Catholicism.
Social Class: Proletariat
The proletariat is the social class constituted by proletarians, i.e., the working class.
The Bubble Act
The Bubble Act was a British Parliament act that prohibited all corporations from unauthorized actions by Royal Charter. It was approved on June 9,
Read MoreUnderstanding the Partition of India: Causes and Consequences
Q3: Comparing the scale of destruction during the Partition to the German Holocaust.
The Partition of India witnessed immense suffering, with hundreds of thousands killed, countless women raped and abducted, and millions uprooted and displaced. Estimates of casualties range from 200,000 to 5,000,000. Approximately 15 million people were forced to move across newly formed borders between India and Pakistan. Stripped of their cultural identities, they had to rebuild their lives from scratch. This immense
Read More19th Century Europe: Napoleon III and Spanish Political Turmoil
Napoleon III and the Second Empire
Louis Napoleon was elected president of the new republic. In 1851, he organized a coup, and in 1852, he declared himself Emperor Napoleon III, starting the Second Empire. Napoleon attempted to modernize France by encouraging free trade and building new railways and harbors, which reduced unemployment and produced strong economic growth. In the late 1860s, this led to a crisis. In 1870, Prussia provoked a war with France, and with the help of the German states, they
Read MoreCold War: Peaceful Coexistence & Internal Bloc Conflicts
The Years of Peaceful Coexistence
The First Signs of Thawing
The new Party Secretary General, Nikita Khrushchev, publicly denounced the mistakes and crimes of Stalinism. A decolonization process was launched. Congress approved new directives, such as not exporting revolution and the possibility of accessing multiple paths to socialism, and also tested the dissolution of Kominform. In the United States, Republican President Eisenhower was re-elected. The government was left to anticommunist radicals,
Read MoreThe Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): Causes and Consequences
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939): Origins and International Repercussions
In 1936, the deep contradictions of Spanish society culminated in an armed confrontation. This conflict marked a departure from the democratic path and resulted in a dictatorship lasting almost 40 years, isolating Spain from European democracies.
Military Uprising and International Conflict
The causes were:
- Remote Cause: The manner in which the liberal revolution was conducted in Spain, the army’s frequent intervention, and the