Introduction

First let’s look at the impact of the last 70 years during which Spain changed from a war-torn economy to a modern democracy at the heart of Europe. Spain is a young country. It was 1976 when its constitutional structure was implemented and then only after years of hunger, poverty and deprivation.

This is not a historical account of Spain’s many invaders, of faded monarchies, religious persecution, conquering warriors laden with tons of gold or shipwrecked armadas. To understand modern Spain there is a need only to have knowledge of its recent past, in particular the Civil War, the 40-year dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, a brief period before tourists arrived and its transition to a new democratic government.

Understanding this short history is one thing; appreciating its effect on modern Spain will become apparent in subsequent chapters of this book.

Recent Social And Political History

The Civil War

Spain became a republic in 1931 when King Alfonso XIII suspended royal power and went into exile. Social and political tensions grew, along with economic problems. The accompanying confrontations between political factions finally erupted with a military uprising on 17 July 1936. Spain suddenly captured the world stage. It might have been just another of the many military uprisings characterising Spanish history, but this time the rebels received the immediate support of Hitler and Mussolini. The world took sides: Stalin lined up alongside the Popular Front government, which received only lukewarm support from France and Britain.

What could have been a failed coup thus led to a long war, in which an estimated one to two million Spaniards and thousands of foreign volunteers fought and died. The world interpreted the war as a struggle between fascism, communism and democracy, but it was first of all a civil war, in which the two faces of Spain confronted each other. Rural, nationalist, Catholic countrymen fought against urban Republicans. For three long years Spain’s war foreshadowed the horrors of the Second World War.

In modern times no Western European country has known such a merciless, bloody purge as that of Franco in the aftermath of the war. A calculation of the number of death sentences carried out until the early 1940s varies from 28,000 to 150,000. This frightening number reflects a desire to annihilate an enemy rather than any eagerness for revenge; more a continuation of the war than the pursuance of any political peace. The dominance of a military element over a political civilian one corresponded to Franco’s mentality. The regime was a carbon copy of Fascist regimes: finger printing people¹, the same ceremonies and the same institutional characteristics, a single party and a cooperative system.

Political feelings still run deep in Spain. Some Spaniards who fought in the civil war are still alive today. Many Spaniards lived out their lives in other countries rather than remain under Franco. Others stayed in Spain but suffered the brutal consequences of having been on the wrong side. As time passes, the combatants die off and a whole new generation exists who were was born after 1939. The Civil War

Applying for a residencia today still requires fingerprinting.

and the Franco era is the subject of many written memoirs but the entire episode sits uncomfortably in the minds of today’s Spaniards, who rarely discuss it and who continue to be acutely aware that their democracy is still relatively young.

The Years Of Hunger

During the Second World War Spain had remained neutral while actively favouring its old supporters, the Axis. At the end of the war Spain was in a strange position, not entitled to the rewards of victory nor at risk from the encroaching power of the Soviet Union. There was no incentive to give Spain aid and a very good reason for denying it. In fact the world powers punished Spain for supporting the Axis. In December 1946 the newly-created United Nations passed a resolution recommending a trade boycott. Coming on top of the deprivations brought about by the civil war, which had cut real income per capita to nineteenth-century levels, the boycott was a disaster for the country. While the rest of Europe benefited from the Marshall Plan, Spain did not. The Franco government was diplomatically isolated.

All of Europe suffered deprivation in the post-war era, but Spain², where the late 1940s are known as the years of hunger, suffered more than most. In the cities cats and dogs disappeared from the streets, having either starved to death or been eaten. In the countryside the poorer peasants lived off boiled grass and weeds. But for the loans granted by General Peron, the Argentine dictator, to purchase beef and cereals, it is possible there would have been a full-scale famine.

Spain was a dictatorship, but not a Communist one. Recognising the new enemy was Communism, Spain and the United States signed a mutual defence and aid treaty in 1953. Under this treaty four US bases were established in various parts of Spain, with about 12,000 military personnel. The issue was tied in with Spain’s membership of NATO but, more importantly, it also legitimised Franco in the eyes of the world.

Although the UN blockade was lifted, inward looking policies continued to be pursued. In spite of promoting rural economy as the way forward, agricultural output fell to a level lower than at the end of the civil war. Industry, insulated from the outside world by tariffs and quotas, was unable to buy the foreign technology it needed to modernise and could only grow at a painfully slow pace. National income

Today sons and daughters are often taller and thinner than their parents or grandparents whose stunted growth occurred in the years of hunger.

did not regain its pre-civil war level until 1951 and it was not until 1954 that the average income returned to the point it had reached in 1936.

To the villagers in Andalusia, which had been the scene of desperate poverty even before the civil war, the deprivations of the post-war era were the final straw. Individuals, families and in some cases entire villages packed up their belongings and headed for the industrial centres of the north. Once they reached the cities, migrants settled on the outskirts. With nowhere else to live, they built shacks out of whatever they could scavenge. The shacks were suffocating in summer and bitterly cold in the winter. None had running water.

Franco’s regime was bankrupt in thought and deed. The foreign exchange account was in the red, inflation was heading into double figures and there were serious signs of unrest for the first time since the war. It took a long time to persuade Franco that a radical change was required. Enter a new breed in Spanish politics – the technocrat, who came from a well-to-do background, had had a distinguished career in academic or professional life and belonged to, or sympathised with, the secretive Catholic fellowship, Opus Dei.