Beyond They Shall Not Pass. How the Experience of Violence Reshaped Political Values in Franco’s Spain

Abstract

The Francoist dictatorship gathered support from more Spaniards and earlier than is often admitted. The foundations for this support had little to do with the actual achievements of the New State but can be initially explained by the violence experienced by civilians before, during and after the Civil War, and the lack of viable political alternatives following the regime’s consolidation after the second world war. The experience of violence and the discredit of party politics became fundamental pillars in the social rooting of the dictatorship. By the mid-1940s, the regime also profited from the limited improvement of the internal socio-economic situation and the fact that direct repression was falling upon a diminishing number of people. Values changed and political demobilization widened, fuelled by a desire for peace that was as genuine among most Spaniards as it was opportunistically exploited by the regimen. In the process of accommodating to the new internal and external situation (Cold War), the New State looked for legitimacy by presenting Franco as the guarantor of national independence, stability and normality, in the midst of a ruined Europe, against the risks of foreign intervention and of renewed social and political strife.