The Franco Regime
The main points of the Franco regime are:
* The severe economic problems faced by Spain as a consequence of the Civil War.
* The regime’s repression of supporters of the Republic and/or its political organizations and/or Catalan and Basque nationalists, including imprisonment, forced labour and execution, and the judicial systems created for this purpose such as military courts.
* Franco’s handling of the competing political groups that had supported the Nationalists, such as the Falange, industrialists and the Church.
* The role of censorship and propaganda in the first decades of the regime.
* Franco’s relations with Germany and Italy, especially with regard to his wartime neutrality.
* The role given to the Church in Franco’s Spain.
* The role of the Falange and its overall decline in importance.
* The attempt to create a corporatist state through state intervention in industry and labour relations.
* Unsolved economic, political and diplomatic problems faced by the regime by the 1950s.
* Opus Dei technocrat economic reforms of the 1950s and their role in delivering economic growth and consumerist prosperity to Spaniards.
*Relaxations of censorship and other political controls in the 1960s.
* The growth of underground opposition movements to the regime, such as Comisiones Obreras and ETA.
* The search for a successor to Franco, especially the selection of Prince Juan Carlos.
* The rapid transformation of Spain into a democracy after Franco’s death.
Example Questions
Why did the reforms of the Republican-Socialist government fail?
To what extent can the outbreak of the Civil War be blamed on hostile figures within the military?
Was the collapse of the Republic into Civil War inevitable?
To what extent was the Republican defeat in the Civil War a result of foreign intervention and non-intervention?
Why did the Nationalists win the Civil War?
‘The Republic was doomed to lose the Civil War before a shot had even been fired.’ Discuss.
To what extent did Franco have control over Spain between 1939 and 1975?
Why was Francoism replaced by democracy so soon after Franco’s death?
Recap: The Big Questions
* The political polarization of Spain during the Second Republic.
* The reasons why the Republic was defeated and the Nationalists won the War.
* The nature of the regime set up by Franco after the Nationalists had won the War.
* The evolution of the Franco regime during Franco’s rule.
Key Information
Using our revision guide and your own notes, note down key information relating to the principal questions above, dividing it into the following areas:
The Second Republic
The Civil War
The Franco Regime