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Late Spanish Fascists in a Changing World: Latin American Communists and East European Reformism, 1956–1975

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 August 2019

Miguel Ángel Ruiz Carnicer
Miguel Ángel Ruiz Carnicer*
Affiliation:
University of Zaragoza, Departamento de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea, 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

The main aim of this article is to show how the political evolution of Western and Eastern Europe during the Cold War cannot be fully understood without analysing the political experiences of countries like Spain, which were not at the centre of the period's political decisions but whose evolution was inspired and suggested by strategies outside the political mainstream. In this respect, the internal evolution of Francoist Spain from the mid-1950s through the 1960s portrays a peculiar political situation demonstrating the capillarity of political and social experiences across the Iron Curtain in Europe and Latin America. A minority of influential sectors linked to the Single Spanish Party, the Falange, pursued its own third way, ignoring the Cold War models. They instead looked to what was happening in Eastern Bloc countries, especially after the events in Hungary in 1956, as well as to the political experiments in Latin America, especially the Cuban revolution.

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Article
Information
Contemporary European History , Volume 28 , Issue 3 , August 2019 , pp. 358 - 371
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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References

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2 Paxton, Robert O., ‘Franco's Spain in comparative perspective’, in Carnicer, Miguel Ángel Ruiz, ed., Falange. Las culturas políticas del fascismo en la España de Franco (1936–1975) (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2012)Google Scholar. The classic and most influential work about the nature of the regime is Linz, Juan José, ‘An Authoritarian Regime: The Case of Spain’, in Allardt, Erick and Littunen, Arjö, eds., Cleavages, Ideologies and Party Systems: Contributions to Comparative Political Sociology (Helsinki: The Academic Bookstore, 1964)Google Scholar. The best biography about Franco is Preston, Paul, Franco: A Biography (London: HarperCollins Publishers, 1993)Google Scholar.

3 For the global dimensions of fascism, see Morgan, Philip, Fascism in Europe: A Biography 1919–1945 (London: Routledge, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The Falangist movement made its appearance with a certain degree of difficulty in the context of international debates about fascism. Some of the most recent books on this subject are: Pinto, Antonio Costa and Kallis, Aristotle, eds., Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe, 1919–1945 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014)Google Scholar. See also Iordachi, Constantin, ed., Comparative Fascist Studies: New Perspectives, (London: Routledge, 2010)Google Scholar. The historiography on the Falange is extensive. The first academic study is Payne, Stanley G., Falange: A History of Spanish Fascism (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1961)Google Scholar. More recent works include Thomàs, Joan M., Los fascismos españoles (Barcelona: Planeta, 2011)Google Scholar. Two informative reviews of Falangist historiography are Thomàs, Joan M., ‘Los estudios sobre las Falanges (FE de las JONS y FET y de las JONS): revisión historiográfica y perspectivas’, Ayer, 71, 3 (2008), 293–318Google Scholar; and Julián Sanz Hoya, ‘Falangismo y Dictadura. Una revisión de la historiografía sobre el fascismo español’, in Ruiz Carnicer, ed., Falange. There are a number of studies of a sectorial, local and regional character, but studies that integrate, in a comparative way and at a European level, the Falange into the wider Francoist dictatorship still remain to be done.

4 The Opus Dei, currently a personal prelature of the Catholic Church, was founded by father José María Escrivá de Balaguer, later canonised by the Vatican, who created a priestly society in 1928. On Catholicism and the Spanish Church in public life see Lannon, Frances, Privilege, Persecution and Prophecy: The Catholic Church in Spain, 1875–1975 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987)Google Scholar.

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6 The New Ley de Prensa e Imprenta provided an opportunity for the appearance of a number of new newspapers and editorial initiatives, but the elimination of prior but not later censorship resulted in innumerable fines against magazines and in entire books being pulled from shelves. See Richard Gunther, José Ramón Montero and José Ignacio Wert, The Media and Politics in Spain: From Dictatorship to Democracy (Barcelona: Institut de Ciencies Politiques I Socials, 1999).

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9 The magazine SP distributed 21,000 copies a week in the years 1966, 1967 and 1969, and 24,000 in 1968. For comparison, in 1968, an influential magazine such as Cuadernos para el Diálogo distributed 30,000 copies and the progressive Triunfo 60,000. See Javier Sánchez Aranda and Carlos Barrera del Barrio, Historia del periodismo español. Desde sus orígenes hasta 1975 (Pamplona: EUNSA, 1992), 495 and 453–4. Diario SP did not last long enough to gain reliable distribution but its influence can be confirmed in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ section, one of the most dynamic in the press at the time.

10 Gil Pecharromán, El Movimiento Nacional (1937–1977) (Barcelona, Planeta, 2013), 38.

11 For a classical view of the democratisation process, see Raymond Carr and Juan Pablo Fusi, Spain, Dictatorship to Democracy (London: Allen &Unwin, 1979). See also Paul Preston, The Triumph of Democracy in Spain 1969–1982 (London: Routledge, 1987) and Víctor Pérez Díaz, The Return of Civil Society: The Emergence of Democratic Spain (Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1998). For the end of Francoism from the inside, see Ignacio Sánchez Cuenca, Atado y mal atado, El suicidio institucional del franquismo y el surgimiento de la democracia (Madrid: Alianza Editorial, 2014), 15.

12 Alfonso Lazo, Historias falangistas del sur de España. Una teoría sobre vasos comunicantes (Sevilla: Espuela de Plata, 2015), 355.

13 On the SEU's magazines, see the important book by Jordi Gracia, Estado y cultura. El despertar de una conciencia crítica bajo el franquismo, 1940–1962 (Barcelona: Anagrama, 2006) and Miguel Ángel Ruiz Carnicer ‘La voz de la juventud. Prensa universitaria del SEU en el franquismo’, Bulletin Hispanique, 98, 1 (1996), 175–99.

14 Espacios (o islas) de libertad is widely used term in Spanish historiography to talk about the cultural exceptionality of the universities in a sea of repression and authoritarianism. This concept stresses the contrast between the cultural and political mobilisation of the campus and the conformist and repressed outside world.

15 For a relevant – and controversial – contribution to the debate around reformism inside Francoism see Cristina Palomares, The Quest for Survival after Franco: Moderate Francoism and the Slow Journey to the Polls, 1964–1977 (Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2006).

16 For further discussion of this point, see Luciano Cheles, Ronnie Ferguson and Michalina Vaugham, The Far Right in Western and Eastern Europe (London: Longman, 1995); Giuseppe Parlato, Fascisti senza Mussolini. Le origini del neofascismo in Italia, 1943–1948 (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006); and Ferrán Gallego, Neofascistas. Democracia y extrema derecha en Francia e Italia (Barcelona: Plaza&Janés, 2004).

17 For an overview of the Francoist university and the student movement, see Miguel Angel Ruiz Carnicer, ‘Spanish Universities under Franco’, in John Connelly and Michael Grüttner, eds., Universities under Dictatorship (Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania University State University Press, 2005). See also Elena Hernández Sandoica, Miguel Ángel Ruiz Carnicer and Marc Baldó, Estudiantes contra Franco (1939–1975). Oposición política y movilización juvenil (Madrid: La Esfera de los Libros, 2007).

18 Pamela Radcliff, Making Democratic Citizens in Spain: Civil Society and the Popular Origins of the Transition, 1960–1978 (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011); Tamar Groves, Nigel Townson, Inbal Ofer and Antonio Herrera, Social Movements and the Spanish Transition: Building Citizenship in Parishes, Neighbourhoods, Schools and the Countryside (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2017).

19 Nigel Townson, ed., Spain Transformed: The Franco Dictatorship 1959–1975 (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010).

20 Pradera (1934–2011) was a writer, journalist, political analyst and editor, who was also a communist militant in close contact with Semprún. Grandson of a well-known Carlist linked to the regime, in the 1950s he became a driving force within the University of Madrid's PCE. See Nieto, Felipe, La aventura comunista de Jorge Semprún. Exilio, clandestinidad y ruptura (Barcelona: Tusquets, 2014), 289Google Scholar. Juliá, Santos, Camarada Javier Pradera (Barcelona: Galaxia Gutemberg/Círculo de Lectores, 2012)Google Scholar.

21 Semprún (1923–2011) was a writer, politician and scriptwriter who was a militant Spanish communist until his expulsion in 1964. He was the main contact with the inner new opposition to the dictatorship. He was Minister of Culture between 1988 and 1991 in the government of Felipe González.

22 See Hall, Simon, 1956: The World in Revolt (London: Faber&Faber, 2016)Google Scholar.

23 Semprún, Jorge, ‘Memorias de nuestros personajes’, in Pina, Antonio López, ed., La generación del 56 (Madrid: Marcial Pons Historia, 2010), 169Google Scholar.

24 Juliá, Camarada, 53.

25 ‘Estudiantes, los que tuvimos la ingenuidad’, Jan. 1954, author's personal collection.

26 See Camilo Barcia Trelles, ‘El ayer, el hoy y el mañana internacionales’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 86–7 (1956), 200, and Camilo Barcia Trelles, ‘El ayer, el hoy y el mañana internacionales’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 94 (1957), 230. I would like to thank Professor Nicolás Sesma at the Université Grenoble-Alpes, an expert on the Instituto de Estudios Políticos, for his help finding some of these texts.

27 ‘Ha comenzado la conferencia de Bandung’, Arriba, 19 Apr. 1955, 1. The Bandung Conference (Apr. 1955) was the first attempt by several states (Egypt, India and Indonesia, among others) with a colonial past to coordinate and promote internationally their common interests outside of the political binaries of the Cold War.

28 ‘Imre Nagy y Rakosi’, Arriba, 20 May 1955, 13.

29 José Ignacio Gómez Tello, ‘Nota internacional. Krustchev inaugura el Congreso’, Arriba, 15 Feb. 1956, 9.

30 One of the few works to discuss the relationship between Spain and Eastern Europe before 1956 is Eiroa, Matilde, Las relaciones de Franco con Europa Centro-oriental (1939–1955) (Ariel: Barcelona, 2001)Google Scholar.

31 Rodrigo Royo, ‘Nuevo fascismo’, Diario SP, 30 May 1968.

32 Balfour, Sebastian, ‘“The Lion and the Pig”: Nationalism and National Identity in Fin-de Siécle Spain’, in Mar-Molinero, Claire and Smith, Angelo, eds., Nationalism and the Nation in the Iberium Peninsula (Oxford: Berg, 1996)Google Scholar. For a wider perspective, see Berman, Russell A., Anti-Americanism in Europe: A Cultural Problem (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 2004)Google Scholar. For Spain, see de Miguel, Daniel Fernández, El enemigo yanqui. Las raíces conservadoras del antiamericanismo español (Zaragoza: Genueve Ediciones, 2012)Google Scholar and Seregni, Alessandro, El antiamericanismo español (Madrid: Síntesis, 2007)Google Scholar.

33 Interview with Luis Ángel de la Viuda, 27 May 2015. De la Viuda was the director of SP from September 1967 to November 1968 and then to 1972 director of news for Radio Nacional de España, the only Spanish radio authorised to broadcast news. He was later appointed as assistant director and then director of Televisión Española (TVE), the Spanish national public television station.

34 ‘USA, sí. Bases, no’, SP, 58, 29 June 1969.

35 See, for example, ‘Egipto+Siria+Yemen: Nueva nación árabe’, SP, 40, 9 Feb. 1958.

36 ‘De Gaulle descubre la Falange’, Diario SP, 9 June 1968, 1.

37 On Spanish foreign policy and the United States, see by Viñas, Ángel, En las garras del águila. Los pactos con Estados Unidos, de Francisco Franco a Felipe González (1945–1995) (Barcelona: Crítica, 2003)Google Scholar.

38 How the notion of democracy was relativised is demonstrated in texts that aim for a certain theoretical relevance like Gaucher, François, ‘La crisis de la democracia en un mundo en mutación’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 106 (1959), 167–85Google Scholar; see also Heras, Jorge Xifra, ‘Democracia, despolitización y partido único’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 122 (1962), 63–84Google Scholar. In some way, these texts assume that the interwar period's notion of liberal democracy has been left behind and point to how open and varied the term was by then, encompassing regimes with very different practices, even being compatible with the existence of a single party.

39 On the Francoist regime's definition of itself and its visions of ‘democracy’, see Landrín, Nicolás Sesma, ‘Un alineamiento para el Movimiento. Rodrigo Fernández-Carvajal y la redefinición del sistema político franquista’, Rúbrica Contemporánea, 3, 5 (2014), 89–108CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

40 That is, according to Carlos Franqui, a key figure in initial propaganda work for Castro's regime. See Santiago Pérez Díaz, ‘Un amor tormentoso’, El País, 2 Dec. 1996.

41 For early interest in the development of the guerrilla movement, including focus on Castro, see ‘Cuba. Batista vs. Castro’, SP, 5 (9 June 1957), 13. For sympathetic reception of Castro's victory, see ‘Triunfó en Cuba el Movimiento “26 de julio” acaudillado por Fidel Castro’, SP, 88, 11 Jan. 1959, 13. The cover title of this issue is ‘Cuba: Fidel Castro Victorioso’.

42 ‘El vencedor: Fidel Castro’, SP, 88, 11 Jan. 1959, 19.

43 ‘Che Guevara . . . soldado . . . de fortuna’, SP, 93, 15 Feb. 1959, 14–6.

44 Manuel Cabrera, ‘¡Patria o muerte!’, SP, 369, 22 Oct. 1967, 11.

45 ‘Carta del Presidente-fundador. Más dinero’, SP, 411, 4 Aug. 1968, 17.

46 Rodrigo Royo, ‘Buenos días. La muerte del “Che”’, Diario SP, 17 Oct. 1967, 1.

47 ‘Diario del Che en Bolivia’, Diario SP, 12 July 1968, 1 and supplement.

48 ‘Soviéticos contra castristas’, SP, 372, 12 Nov. 1967, 23–6.

49 ‘Fidel Castro afirma que el “Che” fue rematado después del combate. Texto íntegro del discurso del primer ministro cubano’, Diario SP, 20 Oct. 1967, 9–12.

50 ‘Cuba. Diez años de soledad’, SP, 446, 13 Apr. 1969, 38–42.

51 Rodrigo Royo, ‘Carta de Bogotá. Ya viene la revolución’, SP, 89, 18 Jan. 1959, 5–7.

52 Landrín, Nicolás Sesma, Antología de la ‘Revista de Estudios Políticos’ (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y Constitucionales, 2009)Google Scholar, introduction.

53 Glejdura, Stefan, ‘La nueva constitución de Checo-Eslovaquia’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 117–8 (1961), 191–214Google Scholar.

54 García, Leandro Rubio, ‘Polonia ante el plan Quinquenal 1961–1965’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 116 (1961), 123–38Google Scholar.

55 Aranegui, Manuel D., ‘El régimen parlamentario en Polonia’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 169 (1970), 163–71Google Scholar.

56 Domes, Jürgen, ‘La estructura del Gobierno y de los grupos de mando en la China comunista’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 128 (1963), 103–36Google Scholar; and Lu, Juan C. L., ‘El sistema de gobierno Chino’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 149 (1966), 99–142Google Scholar.

57 de Aranegui, Manuel, ‘El régimen parlamentario en la URSS’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 176–7 (1971), 113–38Google Scholar.

58 de Pablo, Luis Santiago, ‘El XXII Congreso del PC de la URSS’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 122 (1962), 85–112Google Scholar.

59 Reboll, Antonio Lázaro, ‘Cuba: las leyes constitucionales de la revolución’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 119 (1961), 199–215Google Scholar; and Rodríguez, Emilio Maza, ‘Castro, la revolución cubana y la autodeterminación de los pueblos’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 124 (1962), 175–90Google Scholar. These articles, while critical of revolution's embrace of communism and alignment with Moscow, also underline the United States's responsibility and the involvement of Miami-based extremists, while paying attention to the peculiarities of the Caribbean political system.

60 Uscatescu, George, ‘Tres meditaciones sobre el comunismo’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 119 (1961), 105–16Google Scholar.

61 de Pablo, Luis Santiago, ‘El tránsito del socialismo al comunismo en la ideología soviética actual’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 121 (1962), 23–82Google Scholar.

62 Heras, Jorge Xifra, ‘Democracia, despolitización y partido único’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 122 (1962), 63–82Google Scholar.

63 Kirschbaum, Joseph M. K., ‘Hacia una nueva democracia para la Europa central’, Revista de Estudios Políticos, 125 (1962), 177–200Google Scholar.

64 Xifra Heras, ‘Democracia’, 68–9.

65 Not all of the mentions of the evolution of Eastern Europe are included, since they appeared in most weekly editions. But see, for example, ‘Rumanía. Presidente a la medida’, SP, 377, 17 Dec. 1967, 33. An extensive report on the topic of reformism, qualified as ‘revisionism’ in Soviet terminology, is found in ‘Europa del Este. La epidemia del revisionismo’, SP, 381, 14 Jan. 1968, 26–32, which reviewed the topic of economic and political ‘liberalisation’ in all of the countries in the Eastern Bloc.

66 See Santiago de Pablo, ‘El tránsito del socialismo al comunismo en la ideología soviética actual’.

67 ‘Europa del Este. La epidemia del revisionismo’, SP, 381, 14 Jan. 1968, 26–32.

68 Ibid., 32.

69 Ibid.

70 Williams, Kieran, The Prague Spring and its Aftermath: Czechoslovak politics, 1968–1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Navrátil, Jaromír, ed., The Prague Spring '68 (Budapest: CEU Press, 1998)Google Scholar. Dubček was elected by SP readers as man of the year in 1968, in the unlikely company of the Minister of Public Works, Federico Silva Muñoz. SP, 431, 29 Dec. 1968). The election followed the American magazine Time’s formula.

71 SP, 393, 7 Apr. 1968, cover. Six dense pages were dedicated to analysing the fall of the Czech leader and how the country was opening up: ‘Checoslovaquia. Cierto viento del Oeste’, SP, 7 Apr. 1968, 34–9.

72 See, for example, ‘Rumanía. Presidente a la medida’, SP, 377, 17 Dec. 1967, 33.

73 ‘Checoslovaquia, vuelta al redil’, SP, 414, 1 Sept. 1968, 31.

74 ‘Carta del director. Ottobre ruggente’, SP, 418, 29 Oct. 1968, 18.

75 ‘Informe. Siete días en Praga’, SP, 434, 19 Jan. 1969, 40–1.

76 ‘Entrevista con Manuel Cantarero’, SP, 262, 7 June 1968, in which he states: ‘among the political trends of the future, I foresee a wide socialist sector which left-wing Falangists should appear in’.

77 Manuel Cantarero del Castillo, ‘Enhorabuena por la mala hora de Praga’, SP, 415, 8 Sept. 1968, 12.

78 For use of the concept of post-fascism see Carnicer, Miguel Ángel Ruiz, ‘Fascismo, posfascismo y transición a la democracia. La evolución política y cultural del franquismo en relación al “modelo” italiano’, Itinerari di recerca storica, 28, 1 (2014), 67–88Google Scholar. For the Italian case, see also La Rovere, Luca, L'eredità del fascismo. Gli intellettuali, i giiovani e la transizione al postfascismo 1943–1948 (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2008)Google Scholar.

79 Among many examples, see his ‘La Falange y el socialismo’, SP, 445, 6 Apr. 1969, 36–46.

80 The subject of the relationship between Falangist doctrine and socialism has a continuous presence in the magazine SP and in Diario SP and Índice. Reports, copies of speeches and the defence of the need to move towards a socialism unrelated to the Second International, the socialism of the defeated parties in the Civil War, was a constant. Throughout 1969 the magazine Indice focused heavily on the definition of the left and of socialism and its relationship with the Falange in articles, collaborations and debates.

81 Carlos Iglesias Selgas, ‘Un socialismo de semblante humano’, Diario SP, 20 June 1969, 5; Rodrigo Royo, ‘La Falange es socialista y democrática’, SP, 416, 15 Sept. 1968, central supplement.

82 ‘Buenos días. El abuelo Franco’, Diario SP, 1 Oct. 1967, 1. About this ‘second revolution’ in Italy, see Parlato, Giuseppe, La sinistra fascista. Storia dia un progetto mancato (Bologna: Il Mulino, 2000)Google Scholar.

83 Kusin, Vladimir.V., ‘An Overview of East European Reformism’, Soviet Studies, 28, 3 (1976), 338–61CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The disappointment of some of these countries in terms of the expectations created was not unlike what happened in Spain and helps to understand why many people moved away from the regime.