The Francoist Repression in the Catalan Countries

Abstract

This article offers an overview of Francoist repression in the Catalan Countries from the outbreak of the Civil War to the first decade after the establishment of the dictatorship. It covers both physical violence and measures such as economic repression, imprisonment, professional purges and the social and moral control to which the population as a whole was subjected. First the type of violence and domination exercised by the insurgents in the territories occupied is briefly examined. Then the author offers an account of the events which commences in the summer of 1936 in Majorca, the only Catalan-speaking territory to remain in rebel hands, then proceeds to the Lleida region, which was occupied in the spring of 1938, and concludes with the final offensive against Catalonia and Valencia, launched in the winter of that same year. Special stress is laid on the repercussions of the 1939 Law of Political Responsibilities and the meaning attached by the occupiers to the pacification and reconstruction of the conquered territories.