Spain’s Right Ascendant: A New Political Era Takes Shape

The approaching 50th anniversary of the death of General Francisco Franco, the conservative, traditional Catholic authoritarian leader of Spain who ruled from 1939 until 1975, is reviving nostalgia and praise for the “generalissimo.”

Few in America today remember or know much about the Spanish Civil War, which began as a conservative right-wing Nationalist revolt by the army against the far left-wing communist “Republican” government, which was, in many ways, a prelude to WWII and the Cold War.

Or its aftermath in Spain.

The left and media generally call Franco’s authoritarian rule a fascist dictatorship and a dark period in Spain.

But half a century after Franco’s death, rising support for Spain’s conservative right is reviving Franco’s legacy, especially among younger voters, prompting official (far-left wing) commemorations to warn of the dangers of “fascism.”

The current far-left socialist-led government is using the anniversary to highlight Spain’s 50-year transformation into a modern, “progressive” (and I would add, also debauched) European democracy.

Through “democratic memory” legislation, successive socialist administrations have tried to force the country to challenge its Francoist past.

Yet the year-long series of events now intended by the socialist government to commemorate 50 years of democracy since Franco also serves as a reminder of the power of traditional conservative ideologies, which are increasingly appealing to a generation.

 A survey conducted last month by Spain’s state pollster CIS found that more than one in five Spaniards (21.3%) view the Franco era as “good” or “very good” for the country — a sharp rise from 11.2% who said the same in 2000.

Among those aged 18-24, this figure was the highest recorded since tracking began, with some young people questioning the benefits of democracy compared to Franco’s authoritarian rule.

While a solid 65.5% describe his rule as “bad” or “very bad,” many expect that during this year of commemoration, people across Spain will gather in churches and cafes everywhere to pay their respects to Franco.

And some, as they increasingly have in recent years, will raise their hand in a fascist salute, sing the regime’s anthems, and shout “viva Franco.”

Franco seized power after overthrowing Spain’s so-called democratic republic — actually led by a faction of socialists, anarchists, and communists — in a brutal civil war from 1936 to 1939, which claimed upwards of a million lives. He then ruled the country with a strong hand until his death in 1975.

The conflict that brought Franco to power began in 1936, when the highly respected and apolitical general — the youngest general in Spanish history — reluctantly launched a military uprising against Spain’s communist “Republican” regime, which chaotically came to power democratically.

The revolt sparked a devastating civil war that tore the country apart and drew in foreign powers, turning Spain into a proving ground for the brutal modern warfare that would soon engulf Europe and would come to define war in the 20th century.

It was also the quintessential battle between right and left.

Franco became a reluctant ally of Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Germany’s Adolf Hitler since the USSR’s Joseph Stalin supported the Republicans. Even so, after his victory, Franco’s Spain was mostly neutral in World War II — though 45,000 Spanish anti-communist Catholic volunteers formed the “Blue Division” which fought for Germany, or more accurately, against the Soviet Union near Leningrad.

By the time Franco emerged victorious three years later in 1939, Spain’s short-lived and flawed democratic republic, already subverted by the communists, was dead.

During his four-and-a-half decades of governance afterwards, Franco relied on the army, the nominally fascist but more monarchist and traditional Catholic Falange party, and the Catholic Church, rather than elected bodies to rule. The country was united, and the economy grew.

But thousands of communists and their allies were imprisoned or executed. Laws were ruthlessly enforced. Crime was negligible.

When Franco died, his government agreed to relinquish power peacefully with the implicit condition that no one from either side would be held to account for atrocities committed during the Civil War and Franco’s rule.

A deliberate political “pact of forgetting” by the Spanish people and institutions after the transition to democracy left the Franco legacy largely unaddressed for decades.

While the left insists that Franco ruled Spain with an iron fist, presiding over a regime marked by repression, censorship, and the persecution of political opponents, the real story is much more nuanced.

This is why half a century later, perceptions of his rule remain polarized.

Still, rather than leave the issue in the past, the socialist government has actively worked to confront the “end the culture of forgetting” and discrediting Franco and his legacy.

Among those acts was what many saw as the insulting exhumation of Franco’s remains in 2019, with his body being moved to, and reinterred, at a private cemetery.

His remains had been respectfully entombed at the state-funded mausoleum at what used to be called the Valley of the Fallen, Spain’s grandest public monument, which I visited in the 1980s. It was created by Franco in the 1940s as a place of reconciliation to honor the fallen from both sides of the Civil War.

The site features the tallest cross in Christendom and an interior décor that pays homage to the “glories” of Spanish civilization, such as the Reconquista, Spain’s 700-year-long victorious holy war against Muslim invaders in the late Middle Ages.

Then, in 2022, the Socialists passed the Law of Democratic Memory to expand reparations for families of victims, remove remaining Francoist symbols, ban the Francisco Franco Foundation (legal action is pending), and dramatically change how the Franco era is taught in schools.

“They can extinguish it and outlaw it, but they’ll never extinguish ideas. They’ll keep on flowing with time, so it’s a totalitarian measure that won’t lead us anywhere,” the foundation’s president, Juan Chicharro, told Reuters.

Chicharro accused the leftist government of frequently drawing the “Franco card” to divert attention from other problems, including current corruption scandals.

Ironically, the left’s heavy-handed actions have likely fueled interest in and support for Franco. Ultra conservative parties like Vox, which openly praise Franco’s authoritarian rule, have a growing presence, especially among young people on social media platforms like TikTok.

Meanwhile, historical revisionism and “Make Spain Great Again” narratives are increasingly circulating online by social media influencers.

With many of the Franco regime’s harshest aspects a faded memory for most of the younger generations, and many struggling with modern issues like lack of faith and spirituality, crime, drugs, social decadence, economic instability, inflation, and high youth unemployment, the young are looking more favorably on the solid economic growth, order, and traditional values of the Franco era.

Many are also remembering Franco’s public works, such as dams, hospitals, and housing, as well as his efforts to contain the spread of communism and preserve the country’s unity, challenged by separatists and political divides in recent years.

All this compares favorably, in their eyes, to the socialists’ far left record of legalizing abortion, euthanasia, and gay marriage, and other LGBT, especially pro-trans agendas, in a historically traditional Catholic country.

Socialists have also enacted some of the world’s most reckless and dangerous open borders immigration policies, prompting some to call it a second Muslim invasion.

Maybe Spain doesn’t need another Franco, but it is certainly time for Spaniards to drop the corrupt, dangerous, and decadent far-left socialists, and “Make Spain Great Again.”

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

READ NEXT: Johnson Pushes Rule Changes After Discharge Petition Forces Action On Epstein Files