Dictatorship from below: Local politics in the making of the Francoist State, 1937-1948

Journal of Modern History

Volumn 71, Issue 4, 1999, Pages 882-901

  Cazorla Sánchez, Antonio ^a  

^a YORK UNIVERSITY   (Canada)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33646821991     PISSN: 00222801     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1086/235362     Document Type: Review

References (91)

1. Studies of the Civil War have been especially prone to polemics that are as heated as they are sterile. The controversy has centered on the way in which the Republic fought the war and the causes for its defeat and, more specifically, on the binomial "war/revolution." For a recent analysis, see G. Esenwein and A. Shubert, Spain at War: The Spanish Civil War in Context (London, 1995), pp. 274-84.
2. See, as a recent and opportune example, Sebastian Balfour, The End of the Spanish Empire (Oxford, 1997).
3. For the Right's use of the myths and ideas of the debate, see especially pp. 84-85. For a more extended analysis of the Right's reformism and its imprimatur on the Francoist ideology, see Raul Morodo, Acción Popular: Orígenes ideológicos del franquismo (Guadalajara, 1980).
4. For a recent overview of the role and importance of caciquismo in Spanish politics and society, see Antonio Robles Egea, ed., Política en penumbra (Madrid, 1996).
5. See a good but slightly dated summary of the debate in "El régimen franquista," Papers: Revista de sociología 8 (1978).
6. More recently, and briefly, see Manuel Pérez Ledesma, "Una dictadura por la Gracia de Dios," Historia social 20 (1994): 173-93.
7. See J. J. Linz, "An Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Spain," in Cleavages, Ideologies, and Party Systems, ed. E. Allardt and Y. Littunen (Helsinki, 1964), pp. 291-341.
8. Julián Casanova, El pasado oculto (Madrid, 1992), pp. 1-28.
9. Paul Preston, author of an extraordinary biography of Franco, recently declared to the Spanish press that the coining of the term "authoritarian" for Franco's Spain was promoted by American foreign-policy interests during the Cold War. This term was adopted so as to make the newly found ally more acceptable. According to Preston, "Juan José Linz and Stanley G. Payne are the Spanish side (sic) of this operation of sanitation" (El País (Madrid, Edición internacional) [December 8, 1997]). Preston also claims that many scholars have been too greatly influenced by the evolution of the regime after 1943 or, even more, after 1957, thus ignoring its openly Fascist period. See his The Politics of Revenge (London, 1990), pp. 10-11.
10. For an overview of the relationship between old and new elites, see Martin Blinkhorn, ed., Fascists and Conservatives (London, 1990).
11. This author also proposes a working approach that recognizes the impossibility of achieving a universally accepted or "correct" definition of Fascism (pp. 2-3). For a comparative analysis of the different Fascist/authoritarian regimes, see Enzo Collotti, Fascismo, Fascismi (Florence, 1989).
12. More recent, and from the "periphery" of Europe, is a study by Antonio Costa Pinto, Salazar's Dictatorship and European Fascism (New York, 1995), pp. 1-41.
13. Many doctoral dissertations presented in the last fifteen years or so have disclosed much new documentation that has led to old, established views on Francoism being called into question. It is ironic that their young authors quite often fit their discoveries into precisely the same theoretical categories about which they are raising doubt. The quest for easily accepted research sometimes leads to a zeal for orthodoxy. In a recent and otherwise excellent book, two young scholars describe the political nature of Francoism in Zaragoza (Aragon) as follows: "Nothing hinders the imposition of a new National-Syndicalist order . . . and what can be observed is, on the contrary, the re-implantation of the traditional Right." These historians belong to the research team of Julián Casanova - the leading Spanish proponent of Francoism as a Fascist regime - which may explain why they write afterward, without any apparent sense of contradiction, that "the Fascist regime not only failed to transform the cacique system but actually institutionalized it" (Julia Cifuentes and Pilar Maluenda, El asalto a la República [Zaragoza, 1995], pp. 88, 222).
14. As a recent example (in an otherwise excellent book), see Jean Grugel and Tim Rees, Franco's Spain (London, 1997).
15. Sholomó Ben Ami, Fascism from Above: The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain, 1923-1930 (Oxford, 1983), p. 20.
16. The mechanisms of such infiltration in the new city councils and the Unión Patriótica have been described in María Teresa González Calbet, La dictadura de Primo de Rivera: El directorio militar (Madrid, 1987), pp. 219-20.
17. See Manuel Tuñón de Lara, Poder y sociedad en España, 1900-1931 (Madrid, 1992), pp. 297-308.
18. An opposing view is put forward by José Luis Gómez Navarro, El régimen de Primo de Rivera (Madrid, 1991), pp. 251-60.
19. For him, caciquismo was practically eradicated by Primo de Rivera. However, he is speaking of caciquismo in a narrower sense as the corruptor of the electoral system. As he also recognizes, in many provinces old politicians managed to control the Unión Patriótica. He lists Almería as one province free of the cacique influence, but my own data suggest the opposite (Antonio Cazorla-Sánchez, Desarrollo sin reformistas [Almería, 1999]).
20. See a description (though a bit outdated) of how this campaign was conducted by the Right in Eduardo Sevilla Guzmán and Paul Preston, "Dominación de clase y modos de cooptación social del campesinado en España: La Segunda República," Agricultura y sociedad 3 (1977): 147-56.
21. Many studies about the uniting role of Social Catholic thought are quite unsatisfactory because they give ideology too much autonomy from the material interests that drive its political use. If we follow strictly the "ideological path," we end up describing political realities that spring from nowhere, thus giving the political groups that use them a reformist credit they probably do not deserve. This is the mistake that José Ramón Montero makes when explaining the ideology and program of the CEDA. See his La CEDA: El catolicismo social y político en la II República (Madrid, 1978), pp. 166-68.
22. See Rafael Valls, Derecha Regional Valenciana (Valencian, 1992).
23. Luis Miguel Moreno Fernández, Acción Popular Murciana: La derecha confesional en Murcia durante la II República (Murcia, 1987).
24. Miguel Angel Mateos Rodríguez, La República en Zamora (1931-1936): Comportamiento electoral de una sociedad tradicional (Zamora, 1995).
25. The bitter infighting in Lerroux's party, where local groups and leaders as well as new and old militants attacked each other as opportunists lacking scruples, reflects the extension of the political culture that flourished during the Restoration. These conflicts are very similar to those that took place in the local sections of the FET-JONS and in city councils in the first years of Franco's dictatorship. See Octavio Ruiz-Manjón, El Partido Republicano Radical (Madrid, 1976), pp. 624-27.
26. A remarkable exception to this dominant tendency can be found in M. Ballbé, Orden público y militarismo en la España constitucional (1812-1983) (Madrid, 1983).
27. Martí Marín i Corbera, "Franquismo y poder local: La puesta en marcha de la democracia orgánica municipal en la Cataluña urbana, 1945-1957," in El régimen de Franco, ed. Javier Tusell (Madrid, 1993), p. 576.
28. For a summary of the legislation, see Glicerio Sánchez Recio, Los cuadros políticos intermedios del régimen franquista (Alicante, 1996), p. 38.
29. The retreat of the army did not mean the disappearance of army officers from public administration. Between 1936 and 1945, 35 percent of the civil governors were provided by the military (Carlos Viver Pi-Sunyer, El personal politico de Franco, 1936-1957 [Barcelona, 1978], pp. 66-67). Between 1938 and 1969 the Ministry of the Interior (the Ministry of Public Order in 1938) was occupied by an officer except for the period 1939-41.
30. For a superb firsthand account of the difficulties and limitations of Serrano's Falange by one of his closest collaborators and friends, see Dionisio Ridruejo, Casi unas memorias (Barcelona, 1976).
31. Even if this is not the center of my argument, a closer view of these events results in a less homogeneous picture of the convictions, loyalties, and interests of the just-mentioned authorities. Ramón Serrano Súñer was never truly accepted by the old Falangists, for whom he was an usurper. See, e.g., Manuel Valdés Larrañaga, De la Falange al Movimiento (1936-1952) (Madrid, 1994), pp. 96-97 and 105-6. Serrano's work and that of his second in command at the Ministry of the Interior, José Lorente (also not an old Falangist), had the counterweight of the presence of a Carlist, Antonio Iturmendi. The latter, from his key post of General Director of Local Administration, was in charge of appointing civil governors. The next Minister of the Interior, Valentín Galarza, was openly against the Falange. His successor, the efficient Bias Pérez, had previous links with republican circles and was primarily a member of the army legal services, which were completely loyal to Franco.
32. For a closer view of Franco's main collaborators, see Ramón Garriga, Los validos de Franco (Barcelona, 1981). The party leadership was also far from being a nest of pure Falangism.
33. The secretaries general between 1939 and 1945 were the following: the old but weak Falangist Raimundo Fernández Cuesta, General Agustín Muñoz Grandes, and José Luis de Arrese, the prototype of a political sycophant with the mission of serving his master, in this case Franco. Between 1945 and 1948 the dictator decided to keep the post vacant, leaving in charge of the daily affairs of the party a former judge, Rodrigo Vivar Diaz, a man of such feeble Falangist convictions that he asked Franco to dissolve the FET-JONS. See Stanley Payne, Falange: Historia del fascismo español (Barcelona, 1985), p. 236.
34. Archivo General de la Administración, Sección de Gobernación (AGA-G), box 2.790.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. AGA-G 2.792.
38. Ibid.
39. Ibid.
40. AGA-G 2.791.
41. AGA-G 2.792.
42. AGA-G 2.791.
43. AGA-G 3.503. The members of the party in this province were "traditional, well-known right-wing people" (Encarnación Barranquero, Málaga entre la guerra y la posguerra [Málaga, 1994], p. 91).
44. AGA-Presidencia del Gobierno (AGA-P) 228.
45. Roque Moreno Fonserret, La autarquía en Alicante (1939-1952) (Alicante, 1994), pp. 82-83.
46. "At the moment of the Liberation, the local municipal councils were appointed by the military authorities or local heads of the Civil Guard without taking any advice. That allowed the infiltration of these city councils by some old-fashioned, little caciques, almost all of whom I tried to depose from their privileged situation. In this way, I demoted a number of local chiefs who were trying to take advantage of their posts to carry out political maneuvers and old tricks" (AGA-G 2.790).
47. AGA-P 227.
48. Ibid.
49. Documentos inéditos para la historia del Generalísismo Franco, 5 vols. (Madrid, 1992), 1:548-50.
50. Recio (n. 21 above), p. 93.
51. Documentos inéditos, 3:492-95.
52. For an overview of the relationship between the Church and New State contextualized in recent Spanish history, see Frances Lannon, Persecution, Privilege and Prophecy: The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875-1975 (New York, 1987). I am not aware of any specific study of the Church's position in the different Fascist regimes, but many references can be found in Blinkhorn, Pinto, and Collotti (all in n. 8 above).
53. Angela Cenarro, "El control de la sociedad aragonesa, campo de batalla entre la Iglesia y FET de las JONS (1939-1945)," in Tusell, ed. (n. 20 above), pp. 41-54.
54. Juan Jesús Virto, "El conflicto de 1948 entre la Diputación Foral de Navarra y el gobernador civil de la provincia," in Tusell, ed., pp. 151-64.
55. Emilio Grandío Seoane, "El primer personal político del franquismo en la provincia de La Coruña: Cambio y continuidad de las élites políticas municipales durante la guerra civil en la retaguardia nacional," in Tusell, ed., pp. 69-88.
56. Documentos inéditos, 3:252-253.
57. Documentos inéditos, Ibid., pp. 234-36.
58. Documentos inéditos, Ibid., pp. 275-76.
59. Documentos inéditos, Ibid., pp. 399-400.
60. This is an argument widely accepted for Portugal in the first years of Oliveira Salazar's "Estado Nuovo": "In the early phase at least, the National Union's efforts were more clientelistic than properly ideological. There appears to have been an attempt to adopt a good part of the conservative republicans' networks. . . . The government was never minimally concerned with cries of 'infiltrations.' Most of these were not 'political infiltrations' but simple patronage, in any case," Pinto, pp. 177-78.
61. Recio (n. 21 above), pp. 87-89.
62. AGA-P 228.
63. Ibid.
64. AGA-P 227.
65. Ibid.
66. Ibid.
67. Documentos inéditos (n. 40 above), 3:259.
68. Documentos inéditos (3:259. Ibid.
69. Cazorla-Sánchez (n. 12 above).
70. AGA-G 3.310.
71. "A first cause of instability was the fight for political power in each town. . . . But there was a second cause of instability. This was the high level of corruption around food supplies. So-called estraperlo (black-market trading) was practiced by many local authorities and became the cause of their downfall when it was made public or was used as an instrument during the mentioned fights" (Marín i Corbera [n. 20 above], p. 574).
72. Antonio Calzado and Ricardo Torres, "La formación de un poder omnímodo: La Falange en la Ribera Baixa (1939-1945)," in Tusell, ed. (n. 20 above), pp. 29-40.
73. Joan María Thomas, "El régimen de Franco en Cataluña: Conflictos entre franquistas en la Tarragona de los años 1939-1940," in Tusell, ed., pp. 123-34.
74. María Encarna Nicolás, "Los Gobiernos Civiles en el franquismo: La vuelta a la tradición conservadora en Murcia (1939-1945)," in ibid., pp. 29-40.
75. Borja de Riquer, "El Nuevo Estado i l'ajuntament de Barcelona: La clase política del primer franquisme, 1939-1957," L'Avenç 126 (1989): 16-23.
76. For a firsthand account of such openly displayed corruption in the forties among both politicians and industrialists (while political dissent was ruthlessly repressed), see Dionisio Ridruejo, Escrito en España (Buenos Aires, 1962), pp. 92-106.
77. See Pi-Sunyer (n. 22 above). Also see Miguel Jerez Mir, Elites políticas y centros de extracción en España (1936-1975) (Madrid, 1982).
78. Recio (n. 21 above), pp. 44-50.
79. Stanley Payne, El primer franquismo, 1939-1959 (Madrid, 1977), p. 36.
80. See, e.g., the case of Zaragoza: "The city council of 1939 confirmed the orientation taken by its predecessor and in many ways improved on it. If many former monarchist politicians had belonged to the previous city council, by 1939 they were the dominant bloc. Many of these authorities had political experience that went back to the Restoration period. . . . But others had joined right-wing organizations during the Republic, thus trying not to be left out of the institutions of power" (Cifuentes and Maluenda [n. 9 above], pp. 90-91).
81. AGA-P 227.
82. Valls (n. 15 above), pp. 248-52.
83. Xavier Marcet, "Terrasa, 1939; Exploració d'una continuïtat," L'Avenç 126 (1989): 56-59.
84. Ana Rosa Frías, "Una aproximación al análisis del personal político y del Movimiento Nacional en la provincia de Soria," in Estudios sobre la derecha española contemporánea, ed. J. Tusell, J. Gil, and F. Montero (Madrid, 1993), pp. 643-54.
85. Documentos inéditos (n. 40 above), 3:324-27.
86. Angela Cenarro Lagunas, El fin de la esperanza (Teruel, 1997), p. 96.
87. Cándida Calvo Vicente, "Los gobernadores civiles en Guipúzcoa durante el primer franquismo," in Tusell, ed. (n. 20 above), p. 24.
88. Recio (n. 21 above), pp. 50-71.
89. Lagunas, p. 96.
90. See Nicolás (n. 64 above).
91. Payne (n. 69 above), pp. 131-255.