Propaganda in Franco's Time

Abstract

This paper probes the power and endurance of Franco's propaganda from 1939 to the present. It examines the press, the foreign policy in Latin America, and the workings of the Tribunal para la Represión de la Masonería y el Comunismo. Altogether, a picture emerges of a national campaign that simultaneously persecuted, demonized and, inconsistently, banished the public mention and memory of exiles, at the same time silencing the collective punishment of defeated Republicans. The method employed by the regime to expose its enemy's image had three contradictory aims: first, the dissemination of their evil nature, second, the suppression of information about their fate and whereabouts, and third, a deliberate policy of oblivion and silence. These conflicting messages became a strategy that constantly reminded Spaniards of the Civil War's horrors and the need to contain dissent in order to forestall another conflict. Its endurance and long life are illustrated by the survival capacity of the communist myth, the occultation of state crimes until very recently unreported, and the disregard of the Masons’ persecution well into the late 1960s. In October 1975 Franco reiterated the essence of his propaganda. The paper demonstrates that Franco's propaganda continues to evolve into a contemporary exoneration of the regime.