That remains the case to this day, exactly 40 years after his death. However, unlike Hitler's Germany or Mussolini's Italy, where external defeat led to denazification processes, there was no equivalent in Spain - and the shadow of his regime still bedevils politics. Franco's vengeful triumphalism had been fostered in the military academies, where officer cadets were trained to regard democracy as signifying disorder and regional separatism.
As the dictatorship was rapidly dismantled, some of its senior military defenders did not share the massive political consensus in favour of democratisation and so endeavoured to turn back the clock at several moments in the late s and, most dramatically, in the attempted coup of Colonel Antonio Tejero on 23 February After the defeat of the coup in , the attitudes of the armed forces were changed by Spain's entry into Nato in , which shifted their focus outwards from their previous obsession with the internal enemy.
Scarred by the horrors of the civil war and the post-war repression, during the transition to democracy Spaniards rejected both political violence and Franco's idea that, by right of conquest, one half of the country could rule over the other. However, what was impossible in a democracy was a counter-brainwashing. Moreover, especially in his later years, Franco did not rule by repression alone: he enjoyed a considerable popular support.
There were those who, for reasons of wealth, religious belief or ideological commitment, actively sympathised with his military rebels during the civil war.
Then, from the late s onwards, there was the support of those who were simply grateful for rising living standards. Accordingly, no government has ever declared the Franco regime to be illegitimate. It was not until that the Law of Historical Memory made tentative efforts to recognise the sufferings of the victims of Francoism.
Equally slow has been the process of removing the symbols of the dictatorship, the Falangist equivalent of the swastika - its emblem of the yoke and arrows - on church walls, street names commemorating Franco's generals and, above all, the huge basilica and towering cross of the Valley of the Fallen where the dictator is buried.
Call for removal of Franco's remains from Valley of Fallen. UN presses Spain over Franco-era crimes and mass graves. Fate of Franco's Valley of Fallen reopens Spain wounds. Today, along with the still open wounds of the civil war and the repression, two other shadows of the dictatorship hang over Spain - corruption and regional division. The Caudillo's rigid centralism and its brutal application to the Basque Country and Catalonia had left more powerful nationalist movements there than had ever existed before The democratic constitution of enshrined rights of regional autonomy for Catalonia and the Basque Country with which the right has never been comfortable.
Mass pressure in Catalonia for increased autonomy met with an intransigence that has fuelled a campaign for independence. Drawing on a residual Francoist centralism, the Popular Party has fomented hostility to Catalonia in particular for electoral gain. Franco was also the focus of a personality cult which taught that he had been sent by Divine Providence to save the country from chaos and poverty.
Bullfighting and flamenco were promoted as national traditions, while those traditions not considered Spanish were suppressed. All cultural activities were subject to censorship, and many were forbidden entirely, often in an erratic manner. Francoism professed a strong devotion to militarism, hypermasculinity, and the traditional role of women in society. A woman was to be loving to her parents and brothers and faithful to her husband, and reside with her family.
Most progressive laws passed by the Second Republic were declared void. Women could not become judges, testify in trial, or become university professors. The Civil War had ravaged the Spanish economy. Infrastructure had been damaged, workers killed, and daily business severely hampered.
Franco initially pursued a policy of autarky, cutting off almost all international trade. The policy had devastating effects, and the economy stagnated. Only black marketeers could enjoy an evident affluence. Falangism is widely considered a fascist ideology.
Under the leadership of Francisco Franco, many of the radical elements of Falangism considered fascist were diluted, and it largely became an authoritarian, conservative ideology connected with Francoist Spain.
Falangism emphasized the need for authority, hierarchy, and order in society. He married Carmen Polo in and was a general by , at age 33 the youngest in Europe to have achieved this rank.
Even as a young man, he possessed a "calm self-control, practical and impersonal attitude, courageous example, and insistence on order and discipline," US historian Stanley Payne wrote in "The Franco Regime" In he led from Madrid the repression of a revolutionary miners' strike in the northern region of Asturias. In Franco was one of the leaders of a military revolt against a democratically elected leftist government that heralded the start of the civil war.
Adopting the title of "El Caudillo' The Leader , Franco persecuted political opponents, repressed the culture and language of Spain? In the five years after the war ended in , Franco and his right-wing regime, supported by the Roman Catholic Church, had tens of thousands of Republican prisoners executed. Franco managed to keep the country out of World War II but his leanings towards the Axis powers of Adolf Hitler later led to his ostracisation by the victorious Allies.
During the Cold War years, anti-communist Franco's relations improved with the United States, which opened military bases there.
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