Franco Dictatorship

The Francoist Dictatorship or Francoist Spain was the authoritarian, catholic, semi-fascist right-wing dictatorship that ran Spain from 1939 to 1975. It is named after Francisco Franco, a general turned dictator of Spain who won the Spanish Civil War and ran Spain until his death in 1975.

History

Isolation

Born out of the victorious Nationalist faction of the Spanish Civil War, Franco After the war, Spain was devastated.

Very quickly after the end of the Spanish Civil War, World War II broke out, which Franco wanted to stay out of.

Entering the Cold War

Spain began to warm up to France and Britain in 1948, and developed a close relationship with the US in 1950 as the US re-established diplomatic relations with Spain, and in 1953 a formal alliance was declared and soon the US began constructing several (still operational) military bases in Spain. Despite it being a fascist near-ally of Nazi Germany that engaged in horrific atrocities against its citizens and restricting free speech, the US was fine with allying with it.

Spanish Miracle

From 1959 to 1974, Spain became an economic miracle, it enjoyed the second highest growth rate in the world, only slightly behind Japan and became the ninth largest economy in the world, just behind Canada. In 1946 there were 72,000 private cars in Spain, in 1966 there were over 1 million. This growth rate had no equal in the world.The economic boom had three main factors:

• Political stability
• Protectionist policies
• State-ownership of key industries in shipbuilding, car manufacturing, petrochemical, textiles