Category: Articles

AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 5 The aftermath… On the 20th November 1975 General Franco died in La Paz hospital, Madrid.  He was 82 and had long outlived Hitler, Mussolini and Stalin, his contemporary dictators.  He had also managed to die in bed surrounded by physicians, after a long life, something that he had so cruelly denied many Spaniards during his 36 years of power. Right to the end of his life, Franco remained in charge.  However, to some extent, his power had been diminished by the death of the one man who may have ensured the continuance of his regime.  This was Admiral Carrero Blanco, a hard line Francoist and member of the Opus Dei,…

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 4 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Fiestas may not be emblematic of Spain but they do spring to some people’s minds when the country is mentioned.  They occur annually everywhere in Spain, in every town and village, last several days and take a bewildering multitude of forms, some of which are very bizarre.  However, most have a religious basis, and many can be profoundly moving. Interestingly, fiestas are not some artifice created by Franco or his tourist department.  Most fiestas date back into the mists of time and are usually highly ritualised events that celebrate the Catholic faith.  A fine example is the Easter (Semana…

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST Part 3 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Needless to say, the building boom has had an extraordinary affect upon the demographics of Spain. In fact, since 1960, well over a million Spaniards have left the countryside for the towns and coast.  This has been encouraged by Franco after his adoption of conventional economics and his issue of the Stabilisation Plan of 1959.  This explicitly recognised that Spain could no longer remain an agricultural society (Franco’s natural instinct) and needed to expand into industry and tourism, if it was to evolve into a modern, successful state. However, for many Spaniards, particularly from rural areas, the tourist industry is a shock.  Indeed, this…

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST (Spain from dictatorship to democracy) Part 2 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain… Of course, in some ways, life is better than it has ever been in Spain.  There is negligible crime, the economy is undergoing miraculous growth and there is more money in the country than ever before, which is producing a burgeoning middle class.  This is an extraordinary phenomenon within a traditionally impoverished state, noted for the wealth of a few and the poverty of the vast majority. After the Second World War (1939-45), Spain (along with the UK) received no help from the USA’s far sighted and extraordinarily successful Marshall Plan, which was aimed at regenerating a ruined Europe. …

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AWAITING THE TEMPEST Part 1 Imagine it is the early 1970s and you are in Spain, with the country still firmly in the grip of General Franco (El Caudillo).  He is in his late 70s (he was born in 1892) and has held absolute power for the past thirty plus years, since the end of the brutal Spanish Civil War (1936-39). Over 500,000 Spaniards were killed during the Civil War and memories of it are still fresh, with many Spaniards having first-hand experience of the war.  Almost everyone is scarred by this and the awful White Terror, during which Franco sought to cleanse the country of any opposition or past opponents of the Nacionales. From 1936 to 1945 there were…

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The Spanish Civil War 1936-39 was a conflict notable for its brutality and for the way it savagely divided Spain.  It resulted, of course, in General Franco’s long dictatorship (which only ended in 1975) and was a defining moment for Spain – the results of which can be felt even now. However, the Civil War in Spain was also notorious for being incredibly ‘messy’ politically – so much so that understanding what was happening can be extremely difficult.  Everyone, it seems, was fighting everyone, at one time or another, as a bewildering array of political views sought dominance in Spain from extreme anarchists through to communists, socialists, fascists and republicans.  Different areas, different members of families and competing regional interests…

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El Cid is one of the great heroes of Spain and, unlike Britain’s beloved King Arthur, he is someone who really existed. Born sometime in 1040, close to Burgos in the kingdom of Castille, El Cid was a true adventurer who had an extraordinary life, during which (somehow) he managed to survive despite fighting, at various times, for both the Moors and for the Spanish.  By the end of his life, this remarkable soldier had carved out his own fiefdom in Valencia.  This he ruled with little more than cursory attention to King Alfonso VI – the most powerful Christian king in Spain at the time. Of course, to many people, the image of El Cid that springs to mind…

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