HISTORICAL MEMORY AND THE PAST:

THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN CURRENT-DAY SPAIN

by

Melanie M. Oates

A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of

The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College

in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of

Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences

with a Concentration in International Studies

The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of

Florida Atlantic University

Jupiter, Florida

May 2016

ii

HISTORICAL MEMORY AND THE PAST: THE SPANISH CIVIL WAR IN CURRENT-DAY SPAIN

by

Melanie M. Oates This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Dr. Carmen Cañete-Quesada, and has been approved by members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of The Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: __________________________ Dr. Carmen Cañete-Quesada __________________________ Dr. Timothy Steigenga __________________________ Dr. Jeffrey Buller Dean, Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College _____________ Date

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my thesis

advisor, Dr. Carmen Cañete-Quesada, for the endless support and reassurance she has

provided me throughout the researching and writing processes of my thesis project. Dr.

Cañete-Quesada’s genuine positivity and patient endurance throughout this project have

been a true blessing to my life. I would also like to extend my sincere appreciation to my

academic advisor and second reader, Dr. Tim Steigenga, for his continued guidance and

encouragement throughout my undergraduate studies. Without the help of these two

brilliant professors my undergraduate experience would not have been nearly as

rewarding as it has been.

Special recognition is given to each of the participants from Spain who took part

in the survey that I conducted. I truly appreciate the time and effort that each of them

took to provide thoughtful and detailed answers to each of the questions that were asked

in the survey. The responses given by these participants were instrumental to my research

and understanding of the topic of the Spanish Civil War in current-day Spain.

I am especially grateful to my mother, Chrispine Oates, and to my stepsister,

Odalis Cruz, for their tireless assistance throughout the translation process of my thesis

project as well as for their constant moral support throughout my undergraduate studies.

Likewise, I would like to give an additional thanks to my mother for the ceaseless

strength and determination she has shown as a single-mother raising my younger sister

and I. My mother is, and will continue to be, an astonishing role model for myself, my

family, and for each and every one of her students.

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ABSTRACT

Author: Melanie M. Oates

Title: Historical Memory and the Past: The Spanish Civil War in Current-Day Spain

Institution: Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University

Thesis Advisor: Dr. Carmen Cañete-Quesada

Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences

Concentration: International Studies

Year: 2016

The legacy of the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) and its implications have

stipulated a major point of contention in contemporary Spanish society. While the

historical accuracies of the war had been silenced during General Francisco Franco’s

dictatorship (1939-75), the exhumation of mass graves in recent years has revived a

general interest in rescuing the historical memory of those who lost the war. Accordingly,

in 2007, the Historical Memory Law (“Ley de la memoria histórica”) was passed.

However, while there are many Spaniards who strongly support the recovering of the

historical memory of this tragic period in Spain, there are others who find it unnecessary

to reopen old wounds. This historical episode of the Spanish Civil War remains a

stringent controversy in today’s Spanish society. Through observing both historical and

present-day rationales, this research project analyzes how the contending political

ideologies in Spain today (“las dos Españas”) are rooted in its past conflict.

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DEDICATION

To my late aunt, Kymberly Laura Holbert, I would not be half of the woman that I am today without you

“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” –John Lennon

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CONTENT

I.   Introduction

The Scars of the Spanish Civil War ……...……………….………..… 1

The Spanish Civil War ……...…………………………….……..…… 5

Francisco Franco’s Regime ...…………………………….………..…. 8

The Pact of Forgetting (El pacto del olvido) …...…………………… 11

The Historical Memory Law (Ley de Memoria Histórica) …............. 14

Spain Today ..…………………………………………………........... 19

Thesis’ Chapters …………………………………………….……….. 22

II.   The Spanish Civil War

War Between Brothers ..…...……………………………….………… 25

The Roots of the Conflict ..…...…………………………….………… 26

The Outbreak of the Civil War ..…...………………..……………....... 30

The Republicans ..…...…………………….……………….…………. 31

The Nationalists ..…...………………………..……………………….. 35

The Denoument of the Civil War ..…...………………….…………… 37

III.   Propaganda and Censorship

An Obscured History ..…...………………………..………………...... 40

Wartime Propaganda ..…...……………………………..……………... 44

The Franco Regime’s Cultural Control & Social Amnesia …..........….. 51

A Reprisal of History ..…...…………………...……………………….. 59

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IV.   Spain Today

Exhuming Hidden Truths …………………………………………….... 64

Reconciling the Historical Memory Law ……………………………… 66

The Nature of the Survey ……………………………………………… 70

The Outcomes of the Survey …………………………………………... 73

V.   Conclusion ..…...…………………………………………………………… 82

Bibliography ……………………………………………………………………….. 85

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INTRODUCTION

The Scars of the Spanish Civil War

As one might expect, it is anything but easy for a nation to collectively move

forward after facing an issue as devastating and alienating as a civil war. As a citizen of

the United States, I have personally observed how the occurrences and post-

representations of a civil war—even one that occurred well over a hundred years ago—

can inexorably disturb a society. One matter in particular that seems to draw a plethora of

irrepressible sentiments is the concern of symbols from a nation’s bygone civil war. For

instance, today in the United States, one of the most widely and fervently debated issues

is the Confederate battle flag and whether or not the emblazonment of this flag should be

deemed illegal. Current news articles regarding the issue display seemingly eccentric

headlines such as: “The great US divide over the Confederate flag” (Lovett) or “The New

Civil War: Culture war fights over the Confederate flag…” (Schlesinger).

However, as peculiar as these statements may seem, they accurately represent

how the remnants of a country’s past conflicts may continue to disgruntle its society for

decades upon decades. While ex-member-states of the Confederacy, located in the south,

see the Confederate battle flag as an emblem of their heritage and tradition, the more

liberal states of the north view the flag as a symbol of racism and white supremacy. Thus,

despite it being approximately 150 years since the end of the American Civil War (1861-

65), the nation stands divided by the very conflict, which threatened its solidarity to begin

with.

2

Bearing in mind the legacy of the American Civil War in the present-day society

of the United States during a visit to Madrid, Spain, I was both astonished and intrigued

to find that today’s Spanish society is currently facing similar cultural conflicts regarding

its own bygone civil war. Whereas the U.S. society is struggling with the issue of whether

or not it will continue to allow its southern states to fly a former battle flag, a divided

Spanish society is attempting to reconcile the vestige of its past civil war as well as the

remnants of Franco’s dictatorship.

One may go so far as to presume that many U.S. citizens are interested in the

proposal of a law that is similar to Spain’s Historical Memory Law (2007) in regards to

the Confederate battle flag. For instance, an article published by Time Magazine states

the following, “The confederate battle flag, once a mainstay on state flags in the South,

has seen backlash in recent years. The alleged June killing of nine black churchgoers in

South Carolina by a white supremacist who posed with the flag prompted national

discussions about the flag’s place and led the state to remove the symbol from state

grounds” (Worldland). Thus, the U.S. citizens who are advocating for the removal of the

battle flag are seeking to pass a law that will remove the symbol and the harmful

memories of the civil war, which it provokes, from public spaces. This concept of public

symbol removal mirrors Spain’s Historical Memory Law, which has called for the

removal of all representations of Spain’s past dictatorship throughout public spaces in

Spain.

Unlike the United States, however, a convalescent Spain is additionally striving to

recover, and simultaneously further conceal, its own forgotten history. While, from a

3

foreigner’s perspective, a country’s historical past may not be perceived as a debatable

topic, such is certainly not the case in present-day Spain. As historian Omar G.

Encarnación reveals in his article titled, “Pinochet’s Revenge: Spain Revisits Its Civil

War”:

…The freshly minted Law of Historical Memory (2007) [in Spain] has

unleashed a civil war all of its own. Mariano Rajoy, the leader of the

rightwing Popular Party, has declared the new memory law “an enormous

mistake,” insisting that ‘the vast majority of the Spaniards do not want to

talk about the civil war… [On the other hand,] Leftwing defenders of the

law accuse the Right of wanting to keep a veil over ‘the Spanish

Holocaust’ and promise to press on with their mission to help Spain

“recover” its historical memory. (39)

Such a notion of a divided Spain is further exemplified in current Spanish news articles

concerning the mayor of Madrid, Manuela Carmena, and her plans to fully comply with

Spain’s Historical Memory Law (2007) by removing any and all insignias of Spain’s

former dictatorship from Madrid’s streets. For instance, in one exposé published by a

conservative Spanish newspaper ABC on July 14th, 2015, a reporter states that, “The

National Francisco Franco Foundation (FNFF) will reprove and sue all mayors and

councilors who approve the removal of monuments, stained glass, [and] shields for

damaging the historical artistic heritage of the Spanish people… [According to] FNFF,

4

that is not the priority in comparison to other serious problems that were claimed in the

electoral campaign such as child malnutrition and evictions” (García).1

By making reference to “other serious problems” in the abovementioned

quotation, the FNFF is alluding to the societal issues that were brought forth by Spain’s

financial crisis, which began in 2008. Due to the proximity of this financial crisis to the

Historical Memory Law of 2007, the FNFF has appropriated the crisis as a form of

denouncing the new law. Moreover, the FNFF contains such strong sentiments against

the Historical Memory Law that is has gone so far as to publish an online petition titled,

“Repeal the Historical Memory” (“Derogue la Ley Memoria Histórica”) on a popular

website known as Change.org. Through this webpage, the FNFF seeks to collect a total

of 7,500 signatures from all of those who would like to send a letter to Prime Minister

Mariano Rajoy regarding the revocation of the Historical Memory Law.2 The petition

currently boasts roughly 7,000 supporters; while this is not the total amount of supporters

that the FNFF wishes to see, these numbers certainly demonstrate the political and social

division that Spain is suffering through today.

All in all, through the aforementioned illustrations of today’s Spanish society, one

may readily identify present-day Spain as a nation that is substantially alienated over its

own historical past. However, in order for one to truly comprehend the complexities of

1 Original quotation in Spanish: “La Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco (FNFF) reprobará y demandará a los alcaldes y concejales que aprueben la retirada de monumento, vidrieras, escudos y estelas por daños al patrimonio histórico artístico del pueblo español… Para la FNFF, eso no es lo prioritario ante los graves problemas contra los que clamaron en la campaña electoral como la malnutrición infantil o los desahucios.” Translation is mine. 2 This petition can be found on the following webpage: change.org/p/solicitamos-la-derogacion-de-la-ley-de-memoria-historica.

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this historical issue in Spain, one must first recognize and understand the Spanish Civil

War as well the many laws and political decisions, which were produced after this

traumatic event. In other words, properly distinguishing Spain’s war in 1936, the

successive dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, and laws such as the Pact of

Forgetting (1975) and the Historical Memory Law (2007) are vital in order for one to

truly fathom Spain’s difficulty in reconciling its own past.

The Spanish Civil War (1936-39)

The Spanish Civil War, not unlike the civil wars of other nations, is quite the

confounding topic to discern. Therefore, it is only after openly exemplifying the reasons

for and participants of the Spanish Civil War that I will be able to accurately investigate

the issues that Spain is facing today with its contemporaneous recognition and refusal of

its own Historical Memory Law, which was implemented in 2007, more than 30 years

after the death of Franco. Spain’s civil war was comprised of several divergent issues that

begged for some form of resolution over a substantial amount of time.

Thusly, although the Spanish Civil War officially began in July of 1936 due to a

military uprising, which fragmented the Spanish Army and its security forces, many

historians have noted that Spain’s civil war was the result of additional unresolved and

complex societal issues. For instance, scholar Julián Casanova has argued that the war

was, more significantly, “a class war between differing conceptions of social order; a war

of religion, between Catholicism and anticlericalism; a war revolving around the idea of

patria and nation; and a war of ideas, beliefs that were at the time at loggerheads on the

6

international stage.” Casanova has further contended, “This war was a war that was

impossible to reduce to a conflict between Communism and Fascism, or between Fascism

and democracy… the Spanish Civil War was a melting-pot of universal battles between

bosses and workers, Church and state, obscurantism and modernization, settled in an

international context that had been thrown out of balance by crises of democracies and

the onslaught of Communism and Fascism” (Casanova 3).

Although Casanova’s description of the Spanish Civil War may instigate readers

to view each of the two contending sides of the war as independently multifaceted and

perplexing, such an affect is justly warranted. This is because, while many historians

typically prefer to consolidate the ideologies or motivations of the two opposing sides of

a war into two succinct elucidations, such is practically impossible to accomplish when

explaining the opposing sides of the Spanish Civil War. For example, it is illustrated in

military historian Antony Beevor’s work titled, The Battle for Spain, that the Republican

side was itself made-up of—and by no means limited to—a conglomeration of

adolescents, Communists, members of the Workers Party of Marxist Unification

(POUM), and Anarchists.

Moreover, while this diverse faction shared the same mission to trounce the

rebels, the disparities between their ideologies were cause for a considerable amount of

internal turmoil. For instance, the British International Brigade member George Orwell

has evoked in his civil war testimony that the Communists and the POUM were

prominently at odds with one another, despite their civil war alliance. In fact, due to their

conflicting war tactics—particularly the POUM’s use of propaganda—the Communists

7

went so far as to accuse the POUM of being a group of covert Fascists and eventually led

to the POUM’s international dissension. The Nationalist side of the war, on the other

hand, consisted of Monarchists, Carlists, and Falangists. Given these complexities, it is

altogether unfeasible to explain the rationale of each of the two sides of the Spanish Civil

War in simple and terse words.

Furthermore, through Casanova’s illustration of the Spanish Civil War, it is plain

to see that the roots of the Spanish Civil War were both extensive and exceedingly

arduous. However, aside from grasping the complex nature of the origins of the civil war

in Spain, it is equally essential for one to comprehend the breadth of the violence, which

occurred all throughout the war. As historian Hugh Thomas has affirmed in his work on

the Spanish Civil War, “2,000 [Republicans] were shot in the first few weeks in the city

of Córdoba, about 3,000 [Republicans] in Sevilla, 5,000 [Republicans] in Saragossa and

its surroundings, 2,000 [Republicans] in Navarre and 2,000 [Republicans] in the Canary

Islands… The numbers for all of Spain must have been in the tens of thousands: possibly

50,000 for the first six months of the war, and perhaps half that again for the subsequent

months” (Thomas 254). Additionally, Beevor has concluded that “the victims of the red

terror in the Republican zone during the civil war rose to some 38,000 people, of whom

almost half were killed in Madrid (8,815) and in Catalonia (8,352) during the summer

and autumn of 1936” (87). Thus, with the Spanish Civil War consisting of such high

death tolls, Spain’s difficulty in grasping the occurrences of its past becomes clear.

8

Francisco Franco’s Regime (1939-75)

Beyond the civil war’s complicated origins and utter violence, what has made

these three intense years from Spain’s past as troubling as they have been for the Spanish

society to grapple with is the actions that took place in Spain after the victory of Franco

in 1939. In fact, Encarnación has argued that, “Spain was more deadly after the end of the

Civil War than during the war itself. The estimated 200,000 ‘red’ prisoners who died of

execution, hunger, and disease in the concentration camps established by Franco in 1939-

1943 far exceeds the number who died in the battlefield” (Democracy Without Justice

36). Additionally, under Franco’s rule, thousands of defeated Republicans were forced to

leave Spain and seek refuge in neighboring countries as well as in countries overseas.

Although the Republican extradition had certainly commenced while Spain was still

enduring the war with approximately 15,000 refugees emanating from the Basque

country after several rebel attacks, the end of the war exhibited a far greater number of

exiles. For instance, in “El exilo republicano español,” Dolores Pla Brugat argues that the

greatest exodus of the Spanish Civil War was caused by Catalonia falling into the hands

of Franco’s troops. This seizure of Catalonia provoked around 470,000 people to cross

the Catalan border over to France between late January to early February in 1939.

Though, by the end of 1939, more than 140,000 exiled Republicans had decided to return

to Spain, roughly 300,000 remained in exile in various countries throughout Europe and

Latin America.

Furthermore, not only did Franco succeed in creating a Spain that was more

menacing than one, which was enduring a war, but he also implemented a damaging and

9

ignorant mindset upon the Spanish people during his reign. This is because, as

Encarnación further discerns in his text, “For Franco an absolute military victory over the

Republican army was not sufficient; it was imperative to cleanse the country of the

foreign virus of liberalism that had infected the nation” (Democracy Without Justice 37).

Thus, it is quite evident through the actions of the Francoist regime that Franco did not

seek to assuage those who opposed him by any means and through his dictatorship

ensured that all of those who followed him shared in this complete lack of repentance for

his victims.

Perhaps the most palpable evidence of Franco’s injustice towards those who

opposed him in battle was the creation of his civil war monument known as the Valley of

the Fallen (El Valle de los Caídos). The Valley of the Fallen was authorized to be built on

April 1st, 1940 and was constructed mainly by Republican prisoners over the span of

approximately 20 years; some of which died during the construction of the memorial.3 As

scholar Noël Valis has conveyed, the Valley of the Fallen was meant to “serve as the

final resting place for those who had died fighting for the Nationalist crusade,” however,

“it was also a monument to Franco himself and to the power of the regime” (Valis 427).

Therefore, although Franco had claimed that the monument’s purpose was to

memorialize all of those who had lost their lives during the civil war, his true intention in

creating the monument was to provide a testament to his own power that would live

beyond his time.

3 The documentary The End of Silence provides an in-depth investigation of how the Valley of the Fallen neglects to pay tribute to the fallen Republican soldiers who remain inhumed in mass graves all throughout Spain.

10

Moreover, due to the post-war politics of the Francoist regime, there are now

“two sets of historical memory [in Spain]: the homogenous Francoist one imposed on the

country during four decades of dictatorship and the diverse Republican ones, repressed

until recent years” (Preston 519). Although the formulation of a certain historical

narrative regarding the Spanish Civil War was indeed shaped by Franco and his

collaborators from the very beginning of the war, it was during his reign over Spain that

he was able to solidify his own contrived version of history in the minds of the Spanish

people.

Along such lines, Preston has clarified that, “By dint of totalitarian control of the

education system and of all the means of public communication, press, radio and the

publishing industry, the Franco regime made a powerfully sustained attempt to brainwash

its population” (Preston 520). Furthermore, “Through endless reiteration in the press, in

schools, in children’s textbooks and from church pulpits, a single historical memory was

created and disseminated over three and a half decades. The rewriting of history—and

denial of the experiences and recollections of both victors and victims—absolved the

military rebels of guilt and sanitized the regime abroad” (Preston 520). Due to the rising

conventionality of both radio and television during the 1940’s and 1950’s, the creation

and dissemination of a contrived history was particularly effortless for Franco to execute.

Likewise, the primitiveness of television in the 1950’s facilitated the regime’s control

over what television audiences in Spain were occupying their minds with and thus

allowed Franco to insidiously shape the reality of Spain in his own image. Unlike today,

where the majority of television viewers have the ability to personally select their

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television entertainment, television channels in the 1950’s were both ran and owned by

the government. Accordingly, Franco’s distinct control over mass media is clearly

illustrated in the following excerpt:

Under Franco’s censorship (censura) legislation, both national and

regional newspapers were kept under strict control. Radio was dominated

by the state company Radio Nacional de España (RNE) which broadcast

alongside private stations sympathetic to the regime, while television,

which started to broadcast in 1956, was in the hands of the government-

owned Televisión Española (TVE). All the state’s media interests had as

their prime task the dissemination of propaganda. (Ross and et al 264)

Having control of any and all media outlets throughout the country allowed for Franco to

wholly captivate the Spanish mindset. Moreover, as a result of this forceful manipulation

of the Spanish mind—and hence the historical narrative of the Spanish Civil War in

particular—Spain has, to this very day, harbored the inability to perceive and understand

its historical past in an impartial and conscientious manner.

The Pact of Forgetting (El pacto del olvido)

Today, if one were to visit the official website of the Association for the Recovery

of Historical Memory (Asociación para la recuperación de la memoria histórica—

ARHM), he or she would be greeted by a photograph of five out of the seven political

leaders who crafted the Pact of Forgetting (El pacto del olvido) over 30 years ago. The

officials who are shown in this photograph are more prevalently known as “the seven

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fathers of the constitution” (“los siete padres de la constitución”). More specifically, “the

fathers of the constitution” (“los padres de la constitución”) is comprised of Jordi Solé

Tura, Miguel Roca Junyent, José Pedro Pérez-Llorca, Gregorio Peces-Barba, Miguel

Herrero y Rodríguez de Miñón, Manuel Fraga Iribarne, and Gabriel Cisneros Laborda.

This histrionic image of the “fathers of the constitution” is, nonetheless,

accompanied by bold text that reads as follows: “Why did the fathers of the constitution

leave my grandfather in a ditch?”4 Such a depiction of the initiators of the Pact of

Forgetting strives to hold these leaders accountable for the injustices experienced by the

victims of Franco after his death. This disquieting portrayal represents the sentiments of

the many Spaniards who had presumed that, after the death of Franco, those who had

suffered at his hands would be fairly requited. However, the political decisions that were

made in the consecutive years after the death of General Franco in November of 1975

only served to further obstruct an already thoroughly befuddled Spanish perspective on

its own civil war in 1936.

Although one may hold the assumption that the death of General Franco would

undoubtedly lead way to a proper restoration, or at least reconsideration, of the events

that took place during the Spanish Civil War and all throughout his regime, essentially

something quite disparate occurred after his death. Rather than recognizing all of the

atrocities that were committed during and after the war by Franco, the most influential

figures and political figures of Spain agreed that it was in their best interest to overlook

4 This image and caption can be found on the following webpage: memoriahistorica.org.es. Original quotation in Spanish: “¿Por qué los padres de la constitución dejaron a mi abuelo en una cuneta?” Translation is mine.

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the erroneous actions of the past and move forward without any contemplation. Hence, in

an effort to ease the transition from dictatorship to democracy after Franco’s death, Spain

implemented a political agreement between all political parties known as the Pact of

Forgetting.

This agreement, which essentially structured Spain’s transitional period (1975-

82), was predominantly driven by a popular demand for amnesty. Unquestionably, those

who had been widely oppressed under Franco’s dictatorship were the most vocal

advocates for exoneration during this time. Spain’s Amnesty Law of 1977 thus served as

a necessary form of substantial authentication for Spain’s unspoken agreement to

overlook all that had happened in the previous decades. Additionally, however, the law’s

impartial terms served as a means for Nationalists to furtively evade retribution for the

anguish they had induced during the dictatorship under the guise of a permanent

armistice. According to scholar, Madeleine Davis:

Spain chose amnesty and a kind of institutionalized amnesia. The

Amnesty Law of 1977 secured the release of all political prisoners and

contained articles preventing the prosecution of Francoist repressors.

Discussion of the law in parliamentary debates was couched in terms of

forgetting, pardoning, and reconciliation… Described by a deputy of the

PNV (Partido Nationalista Vasco—moderate Basque Nationalist Party) as

an amnesty “from everybody to everybody, a forgetting from everybody to

everybody,” it was passed by an overwhelming majority. (863)

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With the development of a political compromise such as the Pact of Forgetting, which

offered a vindication of all forms of political injustice that had occurred in Spain over the

past few decades, its eventual social and political backlash was inevitable. Although the

Amnesty Law did provide some forms of restitution to those who had been unjustly

persecuted under Franco’s dictatorship; in the eyes of Franco’s victims a sincerely

adequate form of atonement would have been for their persecutors to receive some

semblance of castigation for their shameful actions.

Along such lines, while many Spaniards feared the reprisal of a civil war and thus

chose to forget the past, “those who claimed to feel less fear were also the least inclined

to forget” (Brito and et al 97). Moreover, several political parties, such as the Basque

Nationalists, “attached least importance to ‘order’ and ‘peace’ in the polls and were more

critical of the transition model, precisely because their hopes for a radical break with the

past were most intense and their rejection of the dictatorship greatest” (Brito and et al

97). Additionally, the perseverance of monuments and memorials from the late

dictatorship and civil war was yet another fatal flaw in this political decision. Such

tangible commemorations indubitably served—and continue to serve—as constant

reminders of a devastating past in a Spanish society, which was presumably attempting to

forget that such incidents had ever occurred.

The Historical Memory Law (Ley de Memoria Histórica)

Nearly three decades after the Pact of Forgetting had cemented in the Spanish

society, Spain began to recover its memory of the atrocities of its past war and

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subsequent dictatorship. Although the Pact of Forgetting had been respectfully followed

for approximately 30 years, by the mid-1990’s, “a number of factors [had] combined

further to reactivate suppressed histories and memories, to force a reconfiguration in the

way the past is constructed in Spain’s collective memory, and most significantly of all, to

force these issues onto the political agenda” (Davis 867). In other words, a growing

interest in historical retrospection and resolve had begun to take hold in Spain as

associations comprised of both victims and their descendants, such as the ARMH, as well

as some minor leftwing political groups from Catalonia, the Basque country, and other

regions began to call out for the condemnation of Franco’s regime.

Mainly, however, this abrupt collective recollection was triggered by a

combination of the “collapse of elite consensus on the past” and, more significantly, the

“indictment in 1998 of Chilean general Augusto Pinochet for his role in the bloody

military coup that crushed the democratically elected government of Salvador Allende in

1973” (Democracy Without Justice 132). According to Encarnación, the condemnation of

Pinochet for his past crimes against humanity awakened Spain in two ways, “First was

the advent of ‘an eruption of memory,’ an instance of public consciousness reminding the

nation that questions about the past had not been fully resolved.” Additionally, the arrest

of Pinochet “effectively served not only to bring back memories of the Franco

dictatorship and repression, but also to highlight the limitations of Spain’s approach to

dealing with the past” (Democracy Without Justice 138-39).

Consequently, at the end of October in 2007, a point in time, which signified

approximately 13 years of democracy in Spain, the socialist administration of Spain

16

enacted the Law of Historical Memory. Scholar Carolyn P. Boyd has explained that “the

bill laid out the process whereby individuals sanctioned for political commitments and/or

their cultural or sexual identities could seek a ‘Declaration of Reparations and Personal

Recognition’; it enhanced the pensions of survivors of Republican soldiers and Fraquist

political prisoners; and it instructed local administrative units to facilitate location and

identification of those buried in common graves” (Boyd 145). Moreover, the law also,

“stipulated the removal of partisan commemorative symbols and prohibited political acts

at the Valley of the Fallen (the Franquist monument to the regime’s war dead)” (Boyd

145).

Unsurprisingly, this new law was met by political strife between the rightwing

and leftwing representatives of Spain. Whereas the leftwing saw the law as a positive

form of restitution for the wrongs committed against the leftwing representatives

throughout the past few decades, the rightwing believed that the law was simply serving

as a method for the leftwing political parties, such as the Spanish Socialist Workers’

Party (Partido Socialista Obrero Español—PSOE), to conceal their ulterior political

motives. According to leftwing representatives, however, this wide-scale rightwing

opposition of the Historical Memory Law was simply an attempt at defending Franco’s

regime once more. Thus, for the next few years following the establishment of the

Historical Memory Law, many of the actions, which the law called for, were either

ignored or avoided almost completely.

Moreover, Spain’s 2008 financial crisis gave those who opposed the law all the

more reasoning to denounce the law. Promoters for the law’s denunciation, such as the

17

FNFF, maintain the argument that few Spaniards would agree to allocating the country’s

funds towards understanding and reconciling the past when the country’s present-day

societal issues are being ignored. While such arguments may, in fact, properly reflect the

rationale of some Spaniards—namely those from the rightwing—there are,

unquestionably, many who maintain the view that the law is vital in order to permit the

overall rehabilitation and amelioration of the Spanish people.

For instance, the chair of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade Archives (ALBA),

Sebastiaan Faber, has relayed affirmative sentiments in regards to ALBA’s decision to

present the ARMH with a human rights award for their tenacity in exhuming and

recovering the remains of the victims of Franco’s regime. Faber has argued that Spain’s

transition to democracy in the late 1970’s resulted in an abandonment of the past that, in

theory, granted everyone a “clean slate”. Yet, in the absence of investigations, trials, or

purges, those who held power under Franco continued to hold power after his death and

tens of thousands of bodies remain in unmarked graves across the country. While Spain

did indeed achieve some semblance of peace during the transition, this peace came at a

high moral price (Faber). Accordingly, the Historical Memory Law seeks to provide

Spaniards with the opportunity to regenerate the integrity of their country and to

potentially achieve genuine armistice.

Nevertheless, aside from providing right-wingers with further justification for

their vilification of the Historical Memory Law, Spain’s financial crisis also brought forth

new political leadership. This, in turn, led to further disregard for the amendments that

the Historical Memory Law had called for. For instance, during the enactment of the

18

Historical Memory Law in 2007, the PSOE party was in power and headed by Prime

Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Prime Minister Zapatero was particularly

approving of Spain’s new Historical Memory Law because “his own grandfather [was] a

captain in the Spanish army [and] a civil-war victim” who had also “stayed loyal to the

Republican government after the 1936 rebellion and, like thousands of other loyalists

captured over the next three years, was shot” (The Economist).

However, with the financial crisis of 2008, came a shift in Spain’s political office

from the leftwing PSOE party to the rightwing Popular Party (Partido Popular—PP),

headed by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Subsequently, under the leadership of a

rightwing political party—which originated from the People’s Alliance (Alianza

Popular—AP) party that was founded in the 1970’s by Francoist ministers—the

Historical Memory Law was only further neglected by the political leaders of Spain.

Along such lines, in February 2008, Rajoy guaranteed the following in an interview with

20 minutos: “I would remove all of the articles of the Historical Memory law, which

speak of giving public money in order to recover the past. I would not give a single

public euro for such purposes” (Junquera).5 Rajoy certainly kept to his word throughout

the next few years by severely cutting the funds to projects, which sought to comply with

the Historical Memory Law. Moreover, Rajoy’s government has also disregarded the

law’s demand to convert the Valley of the Fallen into a museum and to remove Franco’s

5 Original quotation in Spanish: “Yo eliminará todos los artículos de la ley de memoria histórica que hablan de dar dinero público para recuperar el pasado. No daría ni un solo euro público a esos efectos.” Translation is mine.

19

remains from the site. All in all, as the Historical Memory Law is still in effect in Spain,

the lack of action taken by the Rajoy government is undeniably a violation of the law.

Spain Today

Although in the past eight years that the Historical Memory Law has been in

place, many aspects of the law have not been fully implemented; today, several of the

changes that the law called for are being realized. This recommenced compliance with

the Historical Memory Law has brought forth many optimistic notions from the leftwing

contenders, negative sentiments from members of the rightwing, and mixed sentiments

from the rest of the population. Furthermore, in order to fully comprehend the political

actions that are taking place today in Spain, as well as the backlash that such actions may

or may not be receiving from the Spanish population, one must first recognize the most

influential political parties that currently exist in Spain. Although the three parties that

have dominated Spain for the past few decades are certainly the PP (which represents the

conservative, rightwing), the PSOE (which represents the workers’ leftwing), and

Izquierda Unida (United Left—IU)—which represents the leftwing socialists—

throughout recent years, new political parties have been emerging throughout Spain. Two

of these new parties are known as Podemos (We Can), which is considered an alter-

globalization, direct democratic, democratic socialist party, and Ciudadanos (Citizens),

which is identified as a centrist party. Additionally, the Union Progreso Y Democracia

(Union, Progress and Democracy—UPyD), a progressive, social liberalist, centralist

party has also emerged and gained esteem in recent years.

20

Following along such lines of innovation and evolvement that are urged by some

of Spain’s newest political parties, Manuela Carmena, Madrid’s mayor, has become the

political embodiment of the progressive mindset in Spain. Although Carmena is not

technically affiliated with any political parties, she is indeed supported by the Podemos

party. Not only is Carmena’s association with the democratic socialist party viewed as

controversial, but her political history as a labour rights activist during the Franco

dictatorship is a major point of contention as well in the eyes of rightwing

representatives. Nonetheless, the election of Carmena as Madrid’s mayor in June of 2015,

“reflects splintering political allegiances in Spain… After six years of economic crisis

and a series of corruption scandals, voters are opting for new parties to break up the two-

party system that has dominated the country since it became a democracy in the late

1970s” (The Guardian).

To further add to Carmena’s contentious portrayal, the new mayor is now

determined to comply with the Historical Memory Law by pressing forward with the

eradication of street names that represent and glorify the former dictatorship throughout

the city of Madrid. Undoubtedly, the decision to move forward with the full eradication

of Francoist street names and monuments—as well as the subsequent criticism from

certain organizations on the matter—is exemplary of the social discord and upheaval that

is occurring in Spain today.

Additionally, however, the distinct rhetoric that has been utilized by various

newsprint publications throughout Spain on Carmena’s proposal are also telling of the

social divide that exists in Spain when confronting issues regarding its own past. For

21

instance, when the information was released on Carmena’s future plans for Madrid’s

streets; two local publications employed two vastly disparate methods of publicizing the

information to their readers. The liberal publication known as El País, titled their article

on the matter as: “Madrid City Hall to change street names linked to Franco Regime…

The governmental team wants to fulfill the promise of its electoral program and abide by

the Historical Memory Law” (Sevillano).6 Hence, through the use of the phrase “abide by

the Historical Memory Law” it is presumed that the publication views Carmena’s plans

as just, lawful, and perhaps even positive.

Contrastingly, the conservative/centralist publication known as El Mundo took a

more skeptical approach to revealing Carmena’s proposal to its readers. The article states,

“The list [of over 200 street names that will be removed from Madrid’s streets], the

largest so far, includes not only Francoist politicians or generals who fought with Franco,

in it there are also artists, journalists, writers and people who died even before the start of

the dictatorship” (Mucientes).7 By emphasizing the notion that perhaps some of the street

names glorify individuals who were not actually Francoist, El Mundo is suggesting that

Carmena is not properly applying the law. Thus, it may be presumed that the publication

is skeptical solely because the proposal is a more liberal venture rather than a

conservative one.

6 Original headline in Spanish: “Madrid retirará los nombres franquistas de las calles… El equipo de gobierno quieren cumplir una promesa de su programa electoral y que se acate la Ley de Memoria Histórica.” Translation is mine. 7 Original quotation in Spanish: “La lista, la más extensa hasta ahora, incluye no sólo políticos franquistas o generales que lucharon junto a Francisco Franco, en ella también hay artistas, periodistas, escritores y personas que murieron incluso antes de que comenzara la dictadura.” Translation is mine.

22

These divergent forms of news media regarding Carmena’s plans to comply with

the Historical Memory Law speak volumes on Spain’s current political and social

character. Observing the specific rhetoric and characteristics of the media outlets within a

nation is a decisive way of observing a nation’s agenda as well as where public opinion

lies. With that being said, Spain’s relentless clash between conservative media and liberal

media reveals that Spain is indisputably divided, especially in regards to how it confronts

its own historical past.

Thesis’ Chapters

The first chapter of this project will provide the reader with a detailed explanation

of the Spanish Civil War itself. This chapter will include an investigative background on

the roots of the conflict, an in-depth portrayal of the two opposing sides of the conflict,

and an elucidation of the most crucial events and adversaries from either side of the war.

In other words, the first chapter will give the reader a comprehensive understanding of

the war itself and its precedents, which will allow him or her to recognize the significance

of the Spanish Civil War on today’s Spanish society as well as why it has remained such

a widely debated topic across Spain.

The second chapter of this project will give the reader a conceptual awareness of

what occurred during the Spanish Civil War, throughout the subsequent years of Franco’s

Regime, and during the transition to a democratic state. More specifically, this chapter

will focus on the political and cognitive tools that the Spanish intellectuals and leaders

utilized in order to formulate a certain narrative during and after the war. Thus, this

23

chapter will additionally explore how Franco was able to heavily influence the Spanish

mindset through his control and censorship of the media and the education system.

Recognizing such implements are fundamental in investigating whether or not Spain will

someday possess the ability to come to an agreement on its own historical memory.

Conclusively, the third chapter of this project will include a survey that I have

personally conducted on a sample of distinctive Spaniards who are living in the country

today. The questions that are explored in these surveys will reveal how Spaniards feel

about their own history and whether or not they believe that the reconciliation with their

past is vital in order for Spain to move forward. This survey will also reveal the effect

that the past conflicts and strained implementations of distinct ideologies and/or belief

systems has had on the Spanish society in general. Through this survey I hope to uncover

the impact that Spain’s widely debated past has had on modern-day Spain as well as to

use it as a point for further discussion on the topic.

Nevertheless, as Encarnación has stated, “reconstructing history in Spain will

hardly make for an uncomplicated experience since there is no broad societal consensus

on what exactly is to be remembered. This suggests that the collective memory of the past

in Spain is likely to remain contested for many years to come, maybe forever”

(“Reconciliation after Democracy” 459). That is to say, once a historical narrative has

been established in a society, it is exceedingly difficult to legitimize an opposing version

of its history. Such an endeavor must contain the proper tools and momentum in order to

challenge the narrative that has been thoroughly instilled in the mind of society. Perhaps,

in the case of Spain’s predicament, if its people seek to recognize their similarities to one

24

another, as opposed to pointing out their differences, Spain can move forward together

while learning from the mistakes of its ancestors. In other words, Spaniards must

recognize that there is no need to continue engaging in the creation of an enemy, the time

has come for the atrocities committed by both sides to be recognized so that the country

may truly move beyond its turbulent past.

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Chapter 1

The Spanish Civil War

War Between Brothers

“At the beginning of the civil war, I felt Republican and I was a supporter of the

concept of a Federal Spain. Therefore, I did not want then, nor do I want now, a

confrontation without harmony. I suffered a lot, spiritually, because I suffered on both

sides” (Espriu 174).8 This modest yet confounding quotation by the late Catalan writer

Salvador Espriu seamlessly illustrates the utter complexity of the Spanish Civil War.9

More specifically, it sheds light on how a civil war can completely misconstrue one’s

own sense of national, or even personal, identity. Battling a war inevitably requires those

who are fighting to engage in the creation of an enemy who is drastically different from

themselves; however, when the enemy originates from the same land and heritage as

one’s own self, the consolidated establishment of this foe is both difficult and vital. While

the concept of enemy creation is one that is certainly familiar to any individual whose

country is undergoing a civil war, such is predominantly true for those who lived through

the Spanish Civil War. Therefore, the beginnings of the Spanish Civil War, may be

demonstrated as the gradual commencement of a painful, psychological war between

several divergent ideologies and belief systems.

8 Original quotation in Spanish: “Al iniciarse la guerra civil, yo me sentía republicano y partidario del concepto de una España federal. Por tanto, no deseaba entonces, ni deseo ahora, el enfrentamiento sino la concordia. Sufrí mucho, espirtualmente, porque sufrí por ambos bandos.” Translation is mine. 9 Salvador Espriu is a world-renowned post-war writer and poet from Catalonia. His work is representative of the passive opposition and hopefulness of Catalonia after the Spanish Civil War. Espriu was also a founding member of Associació d’Escriptors en Llengua Catalana (Association of Catalan Language Writers).

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Throughout this chapter I seek to incorporate the foundations and occurrences of

the war. Hence, this chapter consists of several sections; the first is a thorough

consideration of the causes of the war, the second is an elucidation of how the war began,

the third and fourth serve to elucidate the complexities and actions of the two contending

sides of the war, and the fifth provides a recollection and explanation of how the war

ended. All in all, my most significant intention is for the reader of this chapter to gain an

in-depth understanding of why the Spanish Civil War ensued and the tremendous damage

that it caused Spaniards to suffer both mentally and physically.

The Roots of the Conflict

Although the Spanish Civil War’s close proximity to World War II may lead one

to believe that it was not as comprehensive nor as calamitous as the other highly

promulgated dilemmas that were occurring in Europe at the time, the casualties of over

500,000 in Spain from the years 1936 to 1939 reveal otherwise. Moreover, the both

covert and direct assistance from international actors in Spain ascertains that the war was

not sequestered from the rest of the international community by any means. However,

before one can fathom the breadth of the violence and overall intensity of the Spanish

Civil War, one must first acknowledge the political and social circumstances in Spain,

which plagued Spaniards and imminently led to an all-inclusive conflict amid its own

people.

From an outsider’s perspective, prior to the commencement of the Second

Republic, Spain had ostensibly evaded the international issues that had plagued much of

27

the rest of Europe since the time of the First World War. Nevertheless, despite the fact

that Spain had remained uninvolved with World War I (1914-18), the country was ripe

with its own domestic quandaries. For instance, as scholar Adrian Shubert has revealed,

“Labor conflict [in Spain] increased slowly between 1910 and 1918 before rocketing

upward in 1919 and 1920, the most conflict-ridden years before the Second Republic.”

However, “Conflict began to fall off in 1921 and then dropped radically during the Primo

de Rivera dictatorship (1923-130)” (132). Such occurrences were mainly due to imposed

political restraints such as the prohibition of involvement in the CNT and Communist

parties. Additionally, the Unión General de Trabajadores’ (UGT) agreement to comply

with the Primo de Rivera’s regime led to the provisional decrease in conflict.

Yet, while Prime Minister Miguel Primo de Rivera maintained moderately

constructive and suitable intentions for the working class of Spain, he “lacked firm

support from either the left or the right, and his attempt to forge a new political middle

ground foundered on the competing interests of a deeply divided society” (Rial 69).

Furthermore, as Spain felt the strains of the Great Depression in the 1930’s, Primo de

Rivera was incapable of solving Spain’s financial troubles and thus his political demise

was inescapable. As Casanova elucidates in his work on the Spanish Civil War, “The fall

of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship [in Spain] on 28 January 1930, in power from

September 1923, led to a process of political radicalization and an upswing in

republicanism” (1). Likewise, the end of Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, led to a coalition

of republicans and socialists who all wished to abolish the Monarchy and establish the

Republic as the new sanctioned government of Spain.

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On April 14th of 1931, the revolutionary committee became the interim

government of Spain’s new parliamentary constitutional Republic with Niceto Alcalá

Zamora as president. Nonetheless, although the Republic had indeed succeeded in

becoming the newly elected government of Spain, the leaders of the Republic

encountered vast societal issues including, “agrarian reform, the intransigence of the

armed forces, the Catalan and Basque questions, and the issue of relations between the

Catholic Church and the state” (Beevor 21). Moreover, Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship

had left the new government with multiple financial issues to confront due to the

regime’s multitude of economic follies. In other words, the Republic was confronted with

considerable deficits in the form of substantial financial obligations from various public

spending schemes as well as the repercussions of the devaluation of Spain’s archaic

currency, the peseta.

Subsequently, the societal issues confronted by Spain’s Second Republic led to a

growing and irrepressible divergence of the Republic due to its leaders’ conflicting

resolutions for the country’s dilemmas. Thus, throughout the next four years of the

Republic’s governance, the government experienced a capricious cycle of relative

stability shadowed by sheer administrative ambiguity. This varying degree of volatility

within the republican legislation “brought into the open some of the tensions that had

been germinating during the previous two decades, with industrialization, urban growth

and class conflicts,” which, in turn, “opened up a breach between various clashing

cultural worlds, between practicing Catholics and hardline anticlericalists, bosses and

workers, Church and State, order and revolution” (Casanova 2).

29

These pervasive disputes between those of differing ideologies resulted in various

forms of social turmoil beginning with public protests and ending in the form of outright

insurgency from radical political factions such as the anarchists. Although these

incidences of revolt were quickly halted by Spain’s military forces, such reprisals would,

by no means, mark the end of the social and political disorder in Spain. Moreover, by

1936, the people of Spain had, for two years, suffered through a “combination of falling

production, high wages (obtained by intimidation), the collapse of business confidence,

and rising unemployment.” Thus, these factors, “left the country with only three

alternatives: revolution, counter-revolution, or civil war” (Thomas 180).

Consequently, the very military that had obstructed the development and ferocity

of the lesser forms of rebellion that the Republic had been facing, took full advantage of

its ability to control the people and seized full power of the state. In other words, Spain’s

military forces, with the support of Spain’s elite—whom were often admonished by the

Republic—declared a state of war on its own government. However, this assemblage of

revolutionists’ bold refusal to support the legitimacy of the Republican government was

not executed carelessly. The rebels were mindful, in the looming onset of World War II,

that neighboring countries such as Italy and Germany, under the Fascist leaders

Mussolini and Hitler, would be willing to offer some degree of provision as a part of their

mission to help spread their Fascist ideology throughout the rest of the globe.

30

The Outbreak of the Civil War

A recounting of the initial actions that took place in what marked the beginning of

the Spanish Civil War in July of 1936 is lamentable at best. The following is Thomas’

description of the event, which took place on July 19th, 1936, that constituted the

onslaught of the civil war in Spain:

[Revolutionary officers] occupied all the public buildings of Melilla

(including the aerodrome), in the name of General Franco as commander-

in-chief in Morocco, closed the casa del pueblo and left-wing centres, and

arrested the leaders of republican or left-wing groups… the workers were

taken by surprise and had no arms… Anyone known merely to have voted

for the Popular Front in the elections of February was in danger. Melilla

was henceforth ruled by martial law. The manner of its insurrection was

the model followed throughout the rest of Morocco and Spain. (205)

Although the rebels were unable to achieve an absolute seizure of the Spanish

government within the first few days of their revolt, the annexation of various regions of

Spain, such as Melilla, was a substantial conquest for the rebels as well as a debacle for

the Republic. This rebel occupation was later referred to as the initiation of the coup

d’etat, which was led by José Sanjujo, Emilio Mola, and General Franco. Irrefutably, the

rebellion saw a greater amount of success in regions of Spain that had traditionally voted

conservatively.

Despite the sudden takeovers, the Republicans were quick to incite those who

were falling victim to the annexation of the military rebels with the notion of unhampered

31

resistance at all costs. For instance, on July 18th, 1936, the morning after the rebel

occupation of Melilla, the government issued the following statements to the people of

Spain: “…there is a military uprising in Morocco, and no one follows in the Peninsula…

whoever provides weapons without my consent will be shot” (Tuñón 532-36).10 Thus, the

war amongst Spaniards had officially begun; an imminently bloody war between

colleagues and brothers alike that would go on for the next three years.

The Republicans

One crucial aspect of the Spanish Civil War, which considerably differentiates

itself from most of the civil wars that occur in other nations, is that the Spanish

government was essentially fighting against its own military forces. Therefore, when the

conflict between the Republic and the rebels escalated to corporal vehemence, the

Republic was severely lacking in the facilities that are necessary to properly fight a war.

Bearing this prominent issue in mind, the Spanish Republic, led by Prime Minister

Santiago Casares Quiroga, “had to decide whether or not it should give arms to the

people” (Buckley and Preston 211). Inevitably, the government decided it was in the

nation’s best interest to arm its civilians for battle against the rebels.

Moreover, in retrospect, “if they had not done so, the rebellious Generals would

almost certainly have triumphed within a few days and thus, abruptly, the whole situation

in international politics would have been changed… The friends of Germany and Italy

10 Original quotation in Spanish: “…que hay un alzamiento militar en Marruecos, y que nadie lo sigue en la Península… Quien facilite armas sin mi consentimiento será fusilado.” Translation is mine.

32

would have been in power in the Peninsula” (Buckley and Preston 211). Although the

Republican leaders were, of course, quite hesitant to form this militia—considering the

clear vulnerability and hazard of arming and mobilizing laymen—such actions were

deemed absolutely vital in preventing a complete military takeover by the self-

proclaimed Nationalists.

Hence, throughout the entirety of the Spanish Civil War, the Republican side

consisted of a non-traditional assembly of loyalists from diverse political parties, regions

of Spain, and ages. The following is a comprehensive catalogue of the Republican forces

generated by Beevor:

Popular Front Parties and Affiliated Organizations: Union Republicana

(UR), Izquierda Republicana (IR), Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya,

Partido Socialista Obrera de España (PSOE), Union General de

Trabajadores (UGT), Juventudes Socialistas (JJSS), Partido Comunista de

Espana (PCE), Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas (JSU), Partido Socialista

Unificado de Cataluña (PSUC), Partido Obrero de Unificacion Marxista

(POUM). Allies of the Popular Front: The Libertarian Movement,

Confederacion Nacional de Trabajo (CNT), Federacion Anarquista Iberica

(FAI), Federacion Iberica de Juventudes Libertarias (FIJL), Mujeres

Libres. Basques: Partido Nacionalista (PNV), The Basque Nationalist

Party of conservative Christian Democrats, Accion Nacionalista Vasca

(ANV), Solidaridad de Trabajadores Vascos (STV), Solidarity of Basque

Workers. (xxx-xxxii)

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In addition to the aforementioned organizations who fought alongside one another in the

Popular Front, the Republic was also able to gain a significant amount of volunteers from

fellow Democratic states. Although the nations that these volunteers were coming from

did not financially or morally support the Republican cause—unlike the Fascist nations

who were overtly aiding the Nationalists’ efforts—the international volunteers remained

tremendously eager to support the Republic. For instance, the British novelist George

Orwell joined the Republican fight in December of 1936 in order to fight against the

spread of Fascism.

Orwell’s memoir titled, Homage to Catalonia details his own personal experience

with the Spanish Civil War. More importantly, however, Orwell’s work displays the utter

diversity of the international volunteers; through his mention of French, American, and

other British volunteers like himself. Unfortunately, however, Orwell’s account also

displays the incompetence of the majority of the Republican army in regards to its

military experience and training. In one scene from Orwell’s memoir, for example, he

recounts his time spent engaging in trench warfare. Orwell states, “At Monte Pocero I do

not think there was anyone younger than fifteen, but the average age must have been well

under twenty… Boys of this age ought never be used in the front line, because they

cannot stand the lack of sleep which is inseparable from trench warfare” (26). Through

this quote from Orwell’s time in battle during the war, it can be understood that the

Republican army’s military skills were so minimal that the Republic had no choice but to

place young and amateurish men at the front lines of the conflict.

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Yet, despite the Republic’s critical deficiency in trained armed forces, they were

still able to continue their fight for three long years. In an article titled, “War, Modernity

and Reform: The Premiership of Juan Negrín,” scholar Helen Graham argues the

following in regards to the Republic’s perseverance:

It was, nevertheless, the reconstruction of state structures and national

mobilization through the Popular Front which allowed the Republic under

Negrín to fight a long war in extremely unfavourable conditions… The

Republic under Negrín struggled not only to combat the Axis-equipped

Nationalist armies but also a crippling economic embargo. This not only

prevented the Republican army from ever engaging on an equal military

footing, but in the end also savagely undercut Negrín’s attempts to sustain

the physical fabric and morale of the home front, crucial to its war of

resistance—the only war that the Republic’s limited resources allowed it

to fight. (193)

Although Graham credits the Republic’s economic complications as the most significant

hardship that they faced, I would argue that—although the Republic’s resource shortage

was quite detrimental—the near absence of concurrence among the Republic was what

led to the Popular Front’s ultimate failure. Furthermore, the wide disparity between these

ideologies led to a great divergence among the Republican side. For example, the

Communists within the Republican forces were seeking to incite a complete socialist

revolution in Spain. On the other hand, the International Brigades were fighting to uphold

democracy and to prevent the onslaught of Fascism. Although each organization fighting

35

for the Republican cause was, undoubtedly, against the intentions of the rebels, they were

not fighting for the same end-goal. Nonetheless, these conflicting goals led to small-scale

civil wars within the Republican army itself and, thus, proved to be a major impediment

to the Republican army.

The Nationalists

The Nationalists, on the other hand, did not only contain a great deal of military

strength and expertise, but they were also a highly consolidated assemblage.

Additionally, the Nationalists’, “individual reputations of valor, courage, and

efficiency—Mola, Millan Astray, Quiepo Llano, Sanjuro, Varela, Orgaz, and of course

Franco himself—provided a model and a mystique for their troops that their Republican

enemies completely lacked” (Seidman 25). Although the Nationalists did not begin their

uprising with a well-defined concept of how they would rule Spain once they obtained

the full power of the state, each member of this revolutionary aggregation was

determined to stop at nothing to achieve a successful coup.

Whereas the Republicans consisted of various left-wing organizations who held

widely differing values and beliefs, each organization that fought for the Nationalist

cause cherished both the concepts of traditionalism and conservatism. The following text

is an alternative catalogue compiled by Beevor, which showcases the Nationalist forces:

Monarchist (Alfonsine): Accion Espanola and Renovacion Espanola.

Carlist: Communion Tradicionalista, Requetes (the Carlist militia),

Pelayos (Carlist youth movement), Margaritas (Carlist women’s service).

36

Falange: Falange Espanola de las JONS, Flechas (Falangist youth

movement), Auxilio Social (Falangist women’s service). Pre-war Right:

Confederacion Espanola de Derechas Autonomas (CEDA), Accion

Popular (AP), Juventudes del Accion Popular (JAP), Popular Action

Youth, Partido Agrario (mainly Castilian landowners), CEDA (the

Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right), Partido Republicano

Radical (PRR), Derecha Liberal Republicana (DLR), Lliga Catalana (LC).

(xx-xxx)

From the length of Beevor’s index on the organizations who supported the Nationalist

cause alone (in comparison with the Republican catalogue) it is evident that the

Nationalist force was much less miscellaneous than that of the Popular Front. Moreover,

the types of organizations that were involved with the Nationalist army were more similar

in form. For instance, the Alfonsine monarchists and the Carlists were both monarchist

groups with slightly differing views on the specific types of monarchies that they

believed were capable of efficiently ruling the country.

Furthermore, in regards to the Nationalists’ shared intentions, Graham has

contended, “the military coup against the democratic Second Republic in Spain was

intended to have the same function as the fascist take-overs in Italy and Germany… All

those who supported Spain’s military rebels in 1936 had in common a fear of where

change was leading—whether their fears were of material or psychological loss… or a

mixture of these things,” (The Spanish Republic 1).

37

Yet another stark contrast between the Nationalists and the Republicans was

certainly the amount and forms of support that the Nationalists received from

international actors. More specifically, while the Republicans only received informal

assistance from other nations in the form of honest volunteers, the Nationalists were sent

trained soldiers from Fascist Italy. Likewise, Fascist Germany provided the Nationalists

with military aid to assist them in the alleged Spanish struggle against Communism.

More specifically, “Mussolini supplied men known vaguely as the Corpo Truppo

Volontarie; the Germans supplied material and specialists… [Moreover,] Italian fighter

and bomber units played an increasingly important part in the war… [Yet] the German

contribution proved the highest value. Hitler did not send infantry, but machines and

instructors—particularly tanks and aircrafts” (Turnbull and Burn 10).

Hence, between the military expertise, extensive breadth of foreign aid, and

overall amalgamation of the Nationalists it seems preordained that—despite the utter

persistence and fervor of the Republican forces—the revolutionaries, led by Franco,

would be the champions of the war in Spain. Nonetheless, while the Republicans were

well aware of the overwhelming advantage that the Nationalists had over them, the

Popular Front never ceased to put everything that they had into the three-year-long war;

an undeniably noble struggle.

The Denouement of the Civil War

Ultimately, the highly-trained, consolidated, and well-equipped Nationalist force

proved fatal to the Republicans who had a drastic inadequacy in both resources and

38

unification. After withstanding nearly three years of bombings and mass bloodshed, by

1939, the Republican army was at its breaking point. In the following depiction, Preston

details the Republican predicament towards the end of the civil war:

Divided in two, demoralized by the bombing and suffering badly from

serious lack of food, the Republic was in dire straits. The Soviet Union

had begun to ease off deliveries of armaments. Indeed, so bleak did the

prospects seem that unhappy Idalecio Prieto had come to share Azaña’s

long-held conviction that all was lost and that a negotiated peace was

necessary to avoid the senseless loss of more lives… The Republic would

never recover and the Francoists would soon sweep into Catalonia. (283-

92)

In one final effort to promote armistice with the Nationalists, Negrín announced to the

League of Nations, on September 21st of 1938, that the Republican forces would formally

withdrawal all International Brigades from the Republican forces. While this

proclamation may be viewed a Republican attempt to establish peace with the Nationalist

forces, it also served to provoke the Nationalists to disengage their foreign support as

well.

Nonetheless, by October 28th of 1938 the International Brigades gathered in

Barcelona and gave their final farewells to the Republic. However, in many ways, the

withdraw of the International Brigades from the Republic left the remaining Republican

troops wary of their inevitable defeat. Likewise, the Nationalists neglected to display any

39

intentions of negotiating peace with the Republicans and, in turn, exploited the

Republic’s weakened state by further subjugating their forces.

Decisively, after successfully conquering Catalonia—namely Barcelona—the

Nationalists’ overall domination of Spain was inevitable. With that being said, on March

28th, 1939 the Nationalist troops occupied Madrid and hence indicated the victory of the

rebels and the end of Spain’s civil war. Accordingly, “On 31 March Franco’s armies

reached their ultimate objectives… Ciano wrote in his diary that ‘Madrid has fallen and

with the capital all the other cities of red Spain. It is a new formidable victory for

fascism, perhaps the greatest one so far,” (Beevor 397).

All in all, although the conflict was technically over, the scars of the civil war

would be felt by Spaniards for decades to come. The maltreatment and oppression of all

those who opposed Franco, the new dictator of Spain, would remain a deep trepidation

that would far surpass the end of the civil war in Spain. As follows, while the battle

between Spaniards was over, the war lingered on for the next decades to come.

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Chapter 2

Propaganda and Censorship

An Obscured History

For well over 30 years after Spain saw the end of the Spanish Civil War in 1939,

the country was both governed and utterly controlled by Franco. Perhaps the most

palpable testimony to Franco’s overall domination of the social, political, and cultural

aspects of Spain from 1939-75 is the distinct adversities historians have encountered

when attempting to amass accurate facts and figures regarding the casualties of this

conflict. More specifically, throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, it was challenging for

historians to assemble precise data on the amount of casualties that had occurred in Spain

from 1936-39. For instance, in 1961, Thomas determined that the Nationalists had only

killed 40,000 of their opponents and that the Republicans had executed roughly 75,000.

Contrastingly, in 1965 Gabriel Jackson ascertained that approximately 400,000

Republicans had been killed in the war and that only 20,000 Nationalists had been

executed (Ruiz 452).

While such divergences in the approximation of civil war casualties are

undoubtedly due to the varied sources that each historian had relied on for their figures,

such discrepancies may be blamed more precisely on the overall censorship of the

Francoist regime in Spain from 1939-75. In other words, Franco’s suppression of

published sources in Spain during his dictatorship effectively made gathering the details

of the war practically insurmountable. This wide scale overpowering of historical and

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political accuracies took place all throughout Franco’s dictatorship in the form of

propaganda, censorship, and a partisan educational system.

Furthermore, the introduction of the Law of Political Responsibilities towards the

end of the civil war in 1939 ensured the overall exclusion of any and all individuals who

opposed the Nationalist side of the war from taking part in the political, cultural, and

even social landscape of Spain. According to Beevor, this law declared “the political

responsibility of those who from 1 October 1934 and before 18 July 1936 contributed to

create or to aggravate the subversion of any sort which made Spain a victim, and all those

who have opposed the nationalist movement with clear acts or grave passivity” (385).

Thus, the law effectively removed all of those who did not stand alongside Franco from

the nation’s cultural workforce and, in turn, allowed Franco to replace these individuals

with Falangists. Namely, through this law, Franco was able to gain control of Spain’s

news centers, media outlets, and educational system and thus the overall historical

narrative of Spain.

Moreover, as Graham has asserted, those excluded were “defeated Republican

constituencies who could not leave Spain: urban workers, the rural landless, regional

nationalists, liberal professionals, and ‘new’ women—groups that had challenged the

established order culturally, politically, or economically. For the Franco regime they were

all ‘reds’ and, once placed beyond the nation, they were deemed to be without rights”

(The Spanish Civil War 129). Accordingly, “tens of thousands were executed—judicially

murdered after summary military trials” while hundreds of thousands more men, women,

and children were put into reformatories and prisons, concentration camps and forced

42

labor battalions. Likewise, those confined to such areas were “subject to a sustained and

brutal attempt to reconfigure their consciousness and values” (The Spanish Civil War

129).

Nonetheless, in order for one to truly comprehend why Franco so fervently and

maliciously sought out the historical and intellectual termination of all individuals who

did not identify with the Nationalists, one must first thoroughly comprehend the concept

of enemy creation, which had taken place in the Spanish mind since the beginnings of the

Spanish Civil War. As stated in Chapter 1, in order for one to engage in battle during a

war, one must view their opponent as entirely disparate from one’s self. Oftentimes this

task is accomplished through viewing one’s adversary as inherently corrupt or perhaps

even subhuman. While, in the case of war amongst nations, such an undertaking may be

less arduous to achieve due to the intrinsic differences between the opponents of varying

nations; such is certainly not the case when it comes to fighting a war against

compatriots. Combatting adversaries who originate from the same country as one’s self

thus requires a substantial amount of calumniation in the form of propaganda. Hence, a

massive amount of political propaganda was promoted by both the Republicans and the

Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War; so much so that once the war had finally

reached its conclusion, the Nationalists were incapable of viewing the Republicans as

anything more than their immanent foe.

Along such lines, throughout the length of this chapter I seek to reveal the

political propaganda that was appropriated during the Spanish Civil War—which

inevitably transferred over to the Francoist regime after the war had ended—as well as

43

the monstrous consequences that such a brazen spread of disinformation has had on the

historical consciousness of Spain. More specifically, I seek to recognize the effects that

such thorough inculcations have had on the present-day Spanish society both socially and

politically. As follows, the first section of this chapter will consist of a reflection of the

propaganda that was utilized by both the Republican and Nationalist sides of the Spanish

Civil War, which was then conveyed to Franco’s dictatorship of Spain. The second

section will then expand upon the extensive censorship and disinformation that Franco

implemented in both the media and the educational system during his regime as well as

how this omission and subsequent distortion of Spain’s recent history affected political

decisions such as the Pact of Forgetting after Franco’s death. Conclusively, the final

section of this chapter will demonstrate how the Francoist regime’s false narrative of the

Spanish Civil War—which was highly promulgated through the aforementioned

propaganda and censorship—has led to a significant demurral of Spain’s Historical

Memory Law (2007). Altogether my objective for this chapter is to incite a conceptual

understanding of the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship in the mind of

the reader. Considering that in order for one to accurately investigate the social and

political division that is present in today’s Spanish society, one must first recognize the

viscous indoctrination of deleterious symbolism and rhetoric that ensued during the

Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship.

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Wartime Propaganda

Unquestionably, the concept of propaganda is known as an individual’s—or a

group of individuals’—attempt to either intentionally or unintentionally control the

mindsets and attitudes of a distinct populace. While such a chore may be accomplished

by a variety of means, it is conventionally accomplished through the use of inimical

imagery and discourse. Moreover, the concurrent usage of imagery and symbolism as a

form of disseminating propaganda is explicitly common in the case of war propaganda.

As scholar Bertrand Taithe has elucidated, wartime propaganda “puts modes of

representation at the centre-stage in an attempt to enthuse many normally peaceful

citizens to make them act with more brutality” and “serves as a way of excluding

competing understandings of the same events” (203). Bearing such an implication of

wartime propaganda utilization in mind, one may conclude that the emphasis of such

representations are only further augmented when targeted at adversaries belonging to the

same nation.

Accordingly, during the Spanish Civil War, both the Republicans and the

Nationalists struggled to maintain resilient images of their particular sides while

simultaneously attempting to destroy and deprave any and all representations of the other.

Perhaps the most overt instances of such exertions being made by the contending sides of

the Spanish Civil War are perceived in the documentary films known as The Spanish

Earth (1937) and Defenders of the Faith (The Spanish Civil War in Colour) (1938),

which were promoted, respectively, by both the Republicans and the Nationalists

throughout the course of the war. Not only do each of these films seek to construct an

45

abundantly valiant and morally superior image of each party, but they also strive to vilify

and invalidate the opposing side.

The Spanish Earth is a film, which was written by Ernest Hemingway and John

Dos Passos in 1937. Through the utilization of footage from the Spanish Civil War and

glimpses of rural Spanish life, the film represents the struggle of the Spanish Republican

government against a rebellion by Franco’s right-wing forces, who were backed by none

other than Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Throughout the film, the Republican soldiers

are characterized as “freedom fighters” who are fighting for the “government that they

themselves have chosen”. Whereas the Nationalists are depicted as both immoral and

corrupt through the exhibition of images of the desolation caused by the Nationalist

bombings of Madrid. Consequently, the film’s chief image is of Spanish communities

being severely harmed and exterminated at the hands of the Nationalists.

Moreover, through the film’s ardent anti-Fascist stance, it is clear that the film

was also an attempt for the Republicans to gain the support of democratic foreign entities

such as Great Britain and the United States. All in all, however, it is without a doubt that

the film’s main purpose is to portray the Republican front as a unified and progressive

democracy that is struggling to fend off a vindictive and oppressive Fascist uprising by

the Nationalists. In other words, the film was a fervent attempt for the Republicans to

establish a heroic image of themselves whilst representing the Nationalists as both

villainous and archaic.

Defenders of the Faith (The Spanish Civil War in Colour), on the other hand, is a

pro-Franco documentary, which was directed and narrated by Russell Palmer in 1938—

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precisely one year after The Spanish Earth was released. The film was billed as the first

film of ‘actual warfare to be made in colour’ and focuses on the conflict through the

utilization of air-to-air action footage. However, while The Spanish Earth emphasizes the

unification and devastation of Spain’s people, Defenders of the Faith chooses to focus on

the damage that the Republicans had inflicted on the country itself. For instance, the film

mainly concentrates on the destruction of Spanish buildings and especially of Spanish

churches. In this way, the film accentuates the religious aspects of Spain, which had been

damaged by the Republicans, and further represents the Nationalists as the pseudo-

crusaders of a Catholic Spain. Hence, whereas The Spanish Earth depicts Republican

soldiers as “freedom fighters,” Defenders of the Faith attempts to portray the Nationalists

as patriotic warriors who are striving to maintain a traditional and religious Spain in the

wake of a governmental occupation by the liberal, Republican menace. Thus, it remains

clear throughout the duration of the film that its distinct purpose was to depict the

Nationalists as courageous heroes who were earnestly toiling to defeat the allegedly

godless and malevolent Republicans.

Despite the significant differences between the two films in terms of their

justifications, both films may be observed as attempts for both the Republicans and

Nationalists to gain more financial and moral support from international actors. While the

representation of the Republicans as democratic and the Nationalists as Fascist in The

Spanish Earth is an overt representation of the Republicans’ attempt to garner backing

from democratic nations, the fact that both films were narrated in the English language is

perhaps the most candid verification of both the Republicans and the Nationalists desire

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for foreign support. In other words, through presenting both films in the English

language, it is made clear that the films were intended to be viewed by foreign audiences

who may or may not have understood the Spanish language.

Regardless of this intentional use of the English language in both films, however,

scholar Stephen M. Hart has argued that, while language and symbols were certainly

important to both sides of the war, “the major contrast between the two sides was the

Nationalist cult of individual leaders—Franco, inevitably above all—in contradistinction

to the Republican emphasis on the mass of the people” (30). Nonetheless, while both of

these films made use of virtually identical methods of propaganda; observing the

discrepancies between the imagery that is presented to the viewer in each film allows the

viewer to further comprehend what each side was contending for as well as the effect that

such images may have had on Spanish and international viewers alike during the Spanish

Civil War.

Although the use of motion picture technology—especially color motion

pictures—during the time period of the Spanish Civil War was both a compelling and

highly effective method of swaying public opinion, the use of poster art was yet another

prevalent device for propagating partisan information during this time. For instance, on

October 11th of 1936, the Spanish newspaper ABC published an issue with an article titled

“Anti-fascist propaganda in Madrid” (“La propaganda antifascista en Madrid”). The

entire article was focused on the utilization of Republican propaganda posters in Madrid

and, in that regard, stated the following: “Madrid awakens every day with a new cry in

every space free of its facades… Everything, in short, that is necessary to definitively

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crush Fascism.”11 Alongside these words were several images of poster art that had been

found throughout the city of Madrid; these posters boasted phrases such as: “Discipline

and Unity of Action… To Crush Fascism!” (“¡Disciplina y unidad de acción… Para

aplastar al fascismo!”) and “Forward Freedom Fighters! (“¡Adelante luchadores de la

Libertad!”). Thus, similar to the rhetoric utilized in The Spanish Earth, these posters

strove to present the Republicans as freedom fighters who were battling against Fascism.

Accordingly, by referring to all Nationalists as Fascists in these propaganda

advertisements, the Republicans were endeavoring to unite all of those who opposed this

ideology into a conflict with the Nationalists. Likewise, the use of such rhetoric may also

be observed as the Republicans’ attempt to gain support from Democratic nations who

were also fighting against Fascism.

Whereas the Republicans’ primary propaganda technique was to incite the

portrayal of a Fascist Nationalist in the mind of the mainstream Spaniard, the Nationalists

opted to promote images of a traditional Spain in turmoil as a means of attracting

supporters. Likewise, the Nationalist propaganda focused primarily on the destruction

that the Republicans had caused to well-established Spanish institutions, and more

specifically, Spain’s Catholic ecclesiastical. Along such lines, historian Brian D. Bunk

has asserted that the Nationalists’ representations of martyrdom had “helped divide

society and politics into two immutable blocs that viewed the contest for political power

as a life-or-death struggle where defeat equaled nothing less than annihilation” (150).

11 Original quotation in Spanish: “Madrid amanece todos los días con un nuevo grito en cada hueco libre de sus fachadas… Todo, en fin, lo necesario para aplastar definitivamente al fascism.” Translation is mine.

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Additionally, Bunk stresses that this symbol of martyrdom was swiftly utilized as an

essential form of propaganda for the Nationalist cause. For instance, one notorious poster

that was disseminated by the Nationalists during the war expresses the following

statement: “Crusade… Spain, the Spiritual Guide of the World” (“Cruzada… España,

orientadora espiritual del mundo”).12 In addition, these words are spread across an

emblematic image of a large cross hovering over the planet and, more precisely, directly

above a red-colored Spain. Not only does this poster unquestionably serve as a metaphor

for the self-proclaimed Nationalist crusade of Spain, but it also exemplifies the notion of

a “red invasion” of Spain. In other words, the Nationalists, who oftentimes referred to the

Republicans as “reds”, were implying that the Republicans had both ceased and corrupted

Spain with their liberal, progressive ideology.

While it remains true that both the Republicans and the Nationalists maintained

their respective images of the “freedom fighter” and the “crusader” throughout the

majority of their time in war; towards the end of the war the Nationalists began to place a

more substantial emphasis on their gallant leaders—namely, Franco—in the materials

that they propagated. For instance, as Miriam M. Basilio has noted, “Among the earliest

propaganda images produced to promote Franco’s leadership were postcards and

stationary featuring his photograph…. These photographs were the first sign of the

prominent place [Franco] would give to photographic imagery to promote his cult of

12 Cruzada, Durham University, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, Department of Hispanic Studies: Introduction to Hispanic Studies, lithograph color print, 1937. https://community.dur.ac.uk/m.p.thompson/civwar/cruzada.htm

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personality” (131). Nonetheless, perhaps the most notable evidence of this blatant

Nationalist promotion of Franco—and thus the Spanish elite in general—is in the

widespread victory poster of Franco posing valiantly whilst donning his military uniform

and a lavish fur collar.13 In this classical-styled portrait, Franco is triumphantly leading

his troops while pointing towards a modest inscription, which is dated April 1st, 1939.

The inscription reads as follows: “Official War Statement… On this day, with the

captivation and disarmament of the Red Army, the national troops have reached their

final military objectives… The Civil War Is Over.” 14 While using this image of Franco

as a form of broadcasting the Nationalists’ victory of the Spanish Civil War may not be

particularly alarming, one must consider this metaphoric announcement in contrast with

the Republicans. In other words, had the Republicans won the war, it is doubtful that they

would have announced their victory with an extravagant image of a Republican leader.

Although, as Hart has disclosed, the Republican leader Azaña did indeed appear on a few

Republican posters, his face was not nearly as promulgated as Franco’s was in Nationalist

propaganda (31). As follows, the fact that the Nationalists utilized such an image to

express their achievement only further highlights the disparities between the Republicans,

who sought to embody the aspirations of the masses, and the Nationalists who

represented the Spanish elite.

13Franco, Durham University, School of Modern Languages & Cultures, Department of Hispanic Studies: Introduction to Hispanic Studies, lithograph color print, 1939. https://community.dur.ac.uk/m.p.thompson/civwar/franco.htm 14 Original quotation in Spanish: “Parte Oficial de Guerra… En el día de hoy, cautivo y desarmado el ejército rojo, han alcanzado las tropas nacionales sus últimos objetivos militares… La Guerra Civil ha terminado.” Translation is mine.

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The Nationalists’ use of Franco as a cult personality was then only further

exemplified after the defeat of the Republicans in 1939. In fact, Basilio has revealed that,

“through exhibitions and other public events Franco’s government and supporters sought

to foster a new collective identity for the Spanish people,” however, such exhibitions

“presented historical narratives that positioned Spanish viewers as subjects of Franco’s

Spain” (173). Moreover, these demonstrations also functioned as a form of coercing

Republicans to surrender unconditionally to the new regime. Although one may infer that

such a form of nation-building may only be employed at the onset of a new government,

such was certainly not the case with the Francoist regime. In contrast, one may argue

that—through a meticulous censorship and flagrant spread of disinformation—the

forging of a national identity, which positioned Franco and the rest of the Nationalist side

as the ultimate protagonists, continued on until the death of Franco in 1975. That is to say

that, in a manner, the Nationalist propaganda, which commenced with the outbreak of the

Spanish Civil War, never fully ended.

The Franco Regime’s Cultural Control & Social Amnesia

After the war had ended in 1939, the Franco regime incessantly strove to separate

the victors of the war from the defeated by any and all means possible. Thus, as I have

previously stated in the beginning of this chapter, Franco sought out absolute control of

Spain, and its national identity through the subdual of the political, cultural, and social

spheres of Spain. The following excerpt from Graham’s work on the Spanish Civil War

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provides an insightful analysis of the Franco regime’s motives and intentions following

the end of the war:

Franco legitimized his violent new order by reference to an ultra-

conservative reading of Spanish history—one that had, significantly, been

challenged under the Republic. He erected a repressive myth of a

monolithic Spanish “nation” born in the 15th century with the Catholic

Kings, where hierarchy and cultural homogeneity, guaranteed by integrist

Catholicism, had generated imperial greatness. Although the empire was

gone, metropolitan Spain under Franco would be great again as a bulwark

against the “sins” of modernity epitomized by the Republic: enlightenment

freethinking, the acceptance of levelling change, and a tolerance of

cultural difference/heterogeneity. (133)

Therefore, in an effort to set the new regime apart from the recently vanquished

Republicans, as well as to recapture Spain’s historic identity as a conservative and

Catholic nation, Franco established several institutions within Spain whose primary

purposes were to expurgate the nation of any and all viewpoints that were unaligned with

his precise vision. Accordingly, Franco’s domination of Spain’s cultural and historical

narratives took place in the form of a mass censorship on all forms of media and

entertainment as well as through the comprehensive indoctrination of Catholic principles

upon the Spanish populace.

The first instance of the regime implementing a rigid governmental control over

Spain’s means of communication may be observed through a statement, which was

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released by the Ministry of Government on July, 15th 1939 (Boletín Oficial del Estado

1939). This proclamation announced the creation of “una Sección de Censura”

(Censorship Department), which would function through the “Jefatura del Servicio

Nacional de Propaganda” (Head of the National Service of Propaganda). Furthermore,

the order relayed the following sentiments: “On several occasions the need has been

exposed for a zealous and constant State intervention in order to politically and morally

educate Spaniards.”15 Thus, shortly after the war had ended, the Franco regime had

ascertained that in order to ensure that Franco’s distinctive national agenda would remain

unobstructed, they would need to indoctrinate Spaniards directly. More specifically, by

monitoring and revising all of the information that Spaniards retained access to, Franco

could effectively shape the collective intellectual and cultural mindset of Spain.

The relentless and insidious promulgation of Falangist ideals and notions upon the

Spanish population was only furthered with the introduction of the “Newsreel and

Documentary Films” (Noticiario y Documentales Cinematográficos — NO-DO) in

December of 1942 by Spain’s General Secretariat of Movement (Boletín Oficial del

Estado 1942). Accordingly, the implementation of NO-DO newsreels essentially

safeguarded the governmental possession of all news and documentary films and,

consequently, the overall intellectual cognizance of the Spanish people. In a work that

serves as a biography of Franco, Antonio Cazorla-Sanchez asserts, “both Franco’s public

image and the building of an imposed Historical Memory were greatly helped by [this]

15 Original quotation in Spanish: “En distintas ocasiones ha sido expuesta la necesidad de una intervención celosa y constante del Estado en orden a la educación política y moral de los españoles.” Translation is mine.

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new powerful tool of propaganda and manipulation” (135). This power that the NO-DO

newsreels had over Spain was mainly due to the fact that they were required to be shown

in all theatres prior to any films that were to be presented. Moreover, as Sanchez

concludes, “Spaniards were among the world’s most frequent moviegoers, and because

television did not reach the majority of households until the late 1960s, Franco’s likeness

greeted many millions of Spaniards via NO-DO newsreels” (135).

One NO-DO newsreel in particular, which adamantly displays the effects of

societal control and manipulation that the NO-DO newsreels were intended to impose,

was created in order to celebrate the inauguration of El Valle de los Caídos (The Valley

of the Fallen) in 1959. In this NO-DO, the Valley of the Fallen is presented as a glorious

and religious tribute to those whose lives were lost during the Spanish Civil War.

Likewise, in the NO-DO, it is mentioned that during the inauguration Franco himself—

who is presented as “his excellency, the Head of State”—stated the following in regards

to the memorial:

Our war was no more a civil war, but a crusade that then ratified our

reigning pontiff. The great epic of a new and more important

independence for us. Throughout the development of our crusade, there

was a lot of providential and miraculous occurrences. Because only then

can one qualify for the aid received by so many vicissitudes of divine

protection. The inculcation of the interest of your children and the

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projection over the generations, that will happen, is the permanent reason

for our movement in order to fulfill the sacred mandate of our dead.16

The conveyance of this speech given by Franco alongside the venerating imagery of the

monument itself may be noted as a blatant attempt to depict the Valley of the Fallen as a

commemoration of the war as well as an effort to further promulgate the Nationalist

struggle as a religious crusade. Yet, as stated in the Introduction, despite Franco’s

assertions that the monument was created as a tribute to all of those who had died during

the war, the Valley of the Fallen was, in reality, a testament to the supremacy of both

Franco and his regime.

Aside from the NO-DO newsreels, perhaps the most crucial cinematic tool for

Franco’s enforced historical memory are the postwar films that were released in the first

two decades of his dictatorship. While all of the major film genres during this time period

(Civil War films, religious films, spectacular historical films, and traditional musicals)

attempted to reassure that the recent conflict had not altered the distinct cultural aspects

of the country, it was the Civil War films, in particular, which most adamantly strove to

endorse a Francoist Spain. Hence, as Virginia Higginbotham has noted, “War films

16 This NO-DO newsreel may be observed in the following documentary: Los Años del NO-DO. Dir. Xavier Gassió. Prod. Eva Zalve and Rafael Bardem. NO-DO, Planeta-Agostini, Radiotelevisión Española, 2007. Rtve.es. Original quotation: “Nuestra guerra no fue una contienda civil más. Sino una verdadera cruzada que ratificó entonces nuestro pontífice reinante. La gran epopeya de una nueva y para nosotros más trascendente independencia. En todo el desarrollo de nuestra cruzada, hubo mucho de providencial y milagroso. Porque solo así se puede calificar la ayuda recibida en tantas vicisitudes de la divina protección. Interesa que inculquéis a vuestros hijos y que proyectéis sobre las generaciones que os sucedan, la razón permanente de nuestro movimiento para que cumpláis el mandato sagrado de nuestros muertos.” Translation is mine.

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exhorting the values and triumph of Franco’s forces served not only to justify the Civil

War but also to extend sympathy for the fascist victory into the postwar peace” (18).

One of the most well-renowned of these postwar films is certainly the film Raza,

which was written by none other than Franco himself under the pseudonym Jaime de

Andrade in 1941. Not only did Franco write the screenplay of the film and personally

select the film’s director, José Luis Sáenz De Heredia—the nephew of Spain’s former

dictator Primo de Rivera—but Franco also oversaw the casting and final editing of Raza.

In other words, the film was, unquestionably, a significant form of Francoist propaganda.

The storyline of the film focuses on a fictional family who fights alongside the

Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War. Thus, the gallantry of the Nationalists and the

immorality of the Republicans are inevitably stressed all throughout the film.

Additionally, however, it has been argued that, “by foregrounding historical

scenes, the film also establishes a link between Spain’s supposed ‘legitimate’ history and

the newly established regime… In other words, the ‘official’ history depicted on the

screen legitimized the establishment of the new state, illustrating its propagandistic

essence” (Pavlovíc and et al 70). Along such lines, it is worth noting that the final scene

of the film makes use of legitimate footage of the Nationalists’ victory march through

Madrid from 1939. The utilization of authentic footage thus serves to further promulgate

the notion that what is presented to viewers throughout the film is an accurate portrayal

of the what occurred during the Spanish Civil War. Nevertheless, it remains clear that the

film was emphatically produced as a tool for Franco to further validate and exalt the

Nationalists’ victory of the war and therefore his own rule over Spain.

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Although Franco’s complete manipulation of Spain’s cinematic sphere was a

highly effective means of inculcating his own historical narrative upon the Spanish mind,

his control over Spain’s educational system was yet another profound means for this

dissemination. Furthermore, while Franco’s ideal version of Spain was a Catholic Spain,

the Francoist regime reinstituted the Catholic Church as an influential and commanding

establishment in Spain. Likewise, under Franco the Catholic Church played an intricate

role in the Spanish educational system. For instance, “Most schools at the intermediate

level were directly operated by the Church, and religious instruction became a required

part of the curriculum from the elementary through the university levels, in both public

and private schools” (Gunther and et al 21). Nonetheless, from Franco’s perspective, the

educational system provided a seamless structure for the indoctrination of Nationalist

ideals upon Spain’s youth.

The use of Spain’s educational system as a propagandist scheme is made apparent

through the textbooks that were used in schools during the Francoist regime. Nearly all of

these textbooks, focused on the themes of Catholicism, Nationalism, and Franco’s

personality cult. One textbook in particular, which exemplifies each of these concepts is

España nuestra: el libro de las juventudes españolas (Our Spain, the Book of Spanish

Youth), written by Ernesto Giménez Caballero in 1943. Caballero, a prominent advocate

for Fascism in Spain all throughout the Francoist regime, was sure to implement

Falangist principles in the textbook. In other words, the textbook served to

comprehensively endorse Franco and his vision for Spain. While Catholic values and

moralities are apparent throughout the book in the form of both rhetoric and imagery, the

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promulgation of a unified Spain and of Franco himself are also thoroughly noted in its

pages. For instance, the following passage from España nuestra, which is accompanied

by an illustration of Franco, functions as both a glorification and validation of the

dictator:

Franco is a General, the most glorious of the past century… Franco: is the

hero of romance as the Cid—and thus is called by his beloved Moors:

Sidi—, who followed the route of Burgos, Valencia. And Franco has the

destiny of Reconquista, as the first Christian kings who left their native

homeland. (172)17

Through this passage it is clear that Caballero was attempting to portray Franco as

Spain’s ultimate leader whose struggle during the Spanish Civil War was in the nation’s

best interest. Additionally, the text’s section on the Spanish Civil War is referred to as

“The Revolution” (“La Revolución”) and is described as follows: “France and other

European powers had managed to corrode our youth, remove their enthusiasm for

Tradition, for the Army, for the Faith, for the Homeland” (66).18 Such a description of the

Spanish Civil War strives to depict the war as a minor stall in Spain’s cultural tenacity

and place the blame for the conflict on the progressive influence of neighboring

countries. Moreover, labeling the war as a “revolution” serves to further credit Franco as

17 Original quotation in Spanish: “Franco es un General, como los más gloriosos del pasado siglo… Franco: es el héroe de romance como el Cid—y así le llaman también sus queridos moros: Sidi—, que siguió la ruta de Burgos Valencia. Y tiene Franco destino de Reconquista, como los primeros reyes cristianos que salieron de su propia tierra natal.” Translation is mine. 18 Original quotation in Spanish: “Francia y otras potencias europeas habían logrado corroer a nuestra juventud, quitarla su entusiasmo por la Tradición, por el Ejército, por la Fe, por la Patria.” Translation is mine.

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the “savior” of traditional Spain during a time when liberal influences were threatening

the unity of the country.

Given the aforementioned examples of Franco’s both insidious and transparent

endorsement of himself and his national agenda over the course of his dictatorship over

Spain, it is quite predictable that the majority of Spaniards would soon adopt Franco’s

contrived historical narrative as both valid and rational. In other words, Franco’s

manipulation of Spanish culture became a distinct feature of Spain’s national identity.

This meaning that the historical accounts and recollections of the Republican side of the

Spanish Civil War were not only repressed from Spain’s historical memory but were

thoroughly comminuted under the weight of Franco’s forged nationalism. Along such

lines, it is unsurprising that—following the death of Franco—Spain’s political leaders at

the time would choose to simply “forget” the wrongdoings of the Francoist regime in

order to facilitate a smooth transition to democracy. Although these leaders certainly

recognized that Franco’s complete subjugation of Republicans after the end of the war

was indeed unfair, such was not considered a pressing issue by those who had been

educated, and thus indoctrinated, under Franco’s regime.

A Reprisal of History

After approximately three decades of silence in regards to the cruelty and

repression that was faced by the Republicans over the course of Franco’s regime from

1939-75, many Spaniards began to condemn Spain’s expurgation of the Republic from

Spain’s history. Thus, in 2007, the Law for the Recuperation of Historical Memory was

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established. While this law focused primarily on the restoration of the Republic’s history

as well as reparations for the victims of the Francoist regime—in the form of mass grave

exhumations, the removal of Francoist symbols from public spaces, and the overall

condemnation of Franco’s dictatorship—it has been met with perpetual social and

political strife from its onset. While critics of the law have given numerous justifications

as to why the law should be denounced, each reasoning, whether it be factual or arbitrary,

may be traced back to the notion that this law directly challenges the historical narrative

that Franco had so thoroughly ingrained within the Spanish mind during his regime.

In other words, there are many Spaniards who view the castigation of Franco’s

regime, which the law calls for, as an act of betrayal in regards to Spain’s national

heritage and identity. While to foreign onlookers such an identity crisis may seem

subjective, this cognitive rejection of a new historical memory is an emblematic reaction

to the challenging of a nation’s collective amnesia. In Yael Zerubavel’s work on

collective memory and the formulation of national identity, she addresses the

complications that arise when a nation’s “master commemorative narrative” is contested.

Zerubavel defines the master commemorative narrative as, “a story about a particular past

that accounts for this ritualized remembrance and provides a moral message for the group

members” (237).

Thus, in the case of Franco and his rule over Spain, the Francoist regime’s

flagrant glorification of the role that the Nationalists played in the Spanish Civil War may

be perceived as the master commemorative narrative. Accordingly, Zerubavel goes on to

explain how the master commemorative narrative may conflate historical events and

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place an emphasis on the “great divide” between one group (the Nationalists in Spain’s

case) and the others (the Republicans) in order to dispel any denial of the group’s

legitimacy (238). Hence, through the aforementioned actions that took place under the

Francoist regime it is clear that the Francoist regime had strove to undermine the validity

of the Republican cause in order to further justify the Nationalist cause.

Zerubavel also introduces the concept of the countermemory, which she describes

as the result of the alternative commemorative narrative that directly opposes the master

commemorative narrative, operating under and against its hegemony (240). Zerubavel

also adds that, “if the master commemorative narrative attempts to suppress alternative

views of the past, the countermemory in turn denies the validity of the narrative

constructed by the collective memory” (240). Therefore, once again in the case of Spain,

the Historical Memory Law, and each of its proponents, represent the countermemory to

Franco’s master commemorative narrative. However, because the commemorative

memory is oftentimes implemented by a nation’s political elite in order to serve specific

interests—as is certainly the case with Spain—and the countermemory is often evoked by

the nation’s marginalized individuals and groups, the commemoration of the past can

“thus become a contested territory in which groups engaging in political conflict promote

competing views of the past in order to gain control over the political center” (241).

Along such lines, it is clear that the political and social struggle, which has been

occurring in Spain over the Historical Memory Law, is one that is inescapable when a

nation’s historical narrative is the point of contention.

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Scholar Michael Richards emulates this rationale in his work on the public uses of

the past in Postwar Spain. Richards asserts that, in regards to recent movements in Spain

to recover its historical memory, historians should not condemn them but instead

confront them critically. More specifically, Richards states the following in regards to

Spain’s current historical memory struggles:

Collective memories in Spain cannot be properly understood without

accounting for the totality of postwar experience. The way in which the

Civil War years and the early years of the dictatorship are currently

remembered fragments the unity of the Spanish twentieth-century past,

which can, in fact, be reconstructed through the methods of social

history… The process of change from memory to history is complex and

not unilinear. It is affected by influences other than the passage of time.

Memory has a public use that is liable to be recycled over centuries. (142)

Thus, Richards affirms that, given the ever-present conflict regarding Spain’s own

history—which has occurred as a result of the repressiveness of its past dictatorship—it is

necessary for historians to take a more ardent stance in articulating Spain’s history. In

other words, historians must consider all social and political aspects of the recent

resurgence of history in order to fully interpret Spain’s own historical memory.

All in all, as Zerubavel elucidates, “collective memory can successfully suppress

an oppositional memory or hold it in check; but countermemory may also gain

momentum and, as it increases in popularity, lose its oppositional status… In such cases

countermemory is transformed into a collective memory” (241). This is to say that, in

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regards to Spain’s contested historical memory, it is possible that the challenges, which

have been brought forth with its Historical Memory Law, may be accepted as the genuine

historical narrative for the nation. However, this change in Spain’s collective memory

will be fully dependent on the public opinion and discourse of today’s Spaniards. Thus, it

will ultimately be the people of Spain’s decision as to whether or not they will choose to

accept a restoration of its past or continue on in silence.

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Chapter 3

Spain Today

Exhuming Hidden Truths

Since the year 2000, the Asociación para la Recuperación de la Memoria

Histórica (Association for the Recovery of Historical Memory—ARMH) has discovered

a total of 158 unmarked mass graves and, from those graves, has unearthed over 1,300

victims who were executed by the Nationalist forces between the years of 1936 and 1975.

Although such numbers alone may come across as alarming, the ARMH has ascertained

that there are over 400 mass graves scattered throughout Spain that have yet to be found

and that these graves may contain the bodies of well over 60,000 Republican victims.19

The association itself functions through the notion that by discovering and excavating

these mass graves, they are dignifying Spain’s past, yielding justice to those who

deserved and did not have it, and deepening Spain’s democracy. Hence, the organization

was one of the main driving forces behind Spain’s implementation of the Historical

Memory Law in the year 2007. While the Spanish government, under the leadership of

the socialist Prime Minster Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, applied the Historical Memory

Law and respected its various stipulations, once the conservative Popular Party headed by

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy took office in 2011 the government began to disregard the

law and its provisions. Accordingly, the ARMH’s mass grave exhumations, which had

been partially funded by a government grant ranging between 45,000 to 60,000 euros

19 All facts and figures regarding the ARMH’s mass grave exhumations can be found on the ARMH’s webpage: http://memoriahistorica.org.es/que-es-la-asociacion-para-la-recuperacion-de-la-memoria-historica-armh-2000-2012/

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annually, starting in the year 2007, stopped receiving such grants in the year 2011 when

Prime Minister Rajoy came into office.

While these government funds only covered approximately 20 percent of the mass

grave exhumation costs—the rest of which were satisfied by the work of hundreds of

volunteers—the Rajoy government’s indifference toward this specific condition of the

Historical Memory Law is quite telling of the political and social climate within Spain

regarding the revival and reparation of its own history. Thus, bearing in mind this blatant

divide within Spanish politics concerning the Historical Memory Law and all that it

stands for, I chose to explore the opinions held by common Spaniards throughout the

country on the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist regime as well as the movements that

are currently taking place to both revisit and atone the actions that had taken place during

these critical moments in Spanish history.

With that being said, this chapter focuses primarily on a survey that I have

conducted on a small group of Spaniards who live in the country today as well as some

foreigners who are direct descendants of Spaniards. While the results of this survey are

indeed insightful, they by no means reflect the overall attitudes and opinions held by

Spaniards throughout the country. The results of these surveys do, however, provide the

reader with an idea of how Spaniards are dealing with current-day issues regarding their

own past. Nonetheless, in order for one to properly consider the questions that are asked

in the survey as well as the various conclusions that may be drawn from the results of the

survey, the reader must first have a basic conception of the Historical Memory Law itself,

some of the major provisions of the law, and the contention that is has stirred in Spain.

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Therefore, the first section of this chapter will consist of a brief overview of the

Historical Memory Law itself and Spain’s general responses to the law. The second

section of this chapter will then describe the nature of both the survey that I have

conducted as well as the participants who took part in the survey. Lastly, the final section

of this chapter will consider the outcomes of the survey and how these results at least

partially reflect the current temperament of Spain regarding the issue of its own past. All

things considered, the main purpose for this chapter is to invoke a more intimate

understanding of the opinions held by Spaniards regarding the Historical Memory Law

and Spain’s simultaneous acceptance and rejection of the provisions that the law calls for.

Reconciling the Historical Memory Law

Although the Historical Memory Law was passed into Spanish law in October of

2007, nearly 30 years after the death of Franco, the adoption of this law may be perceived

as the final political and social culmination of the critical debates and deliberations that

had been burgeoning in Spain since the first mass grave exhumation had taken place in

the year 2000. As scholar Ignacio Fernández de Mata argues, “the opening of Franco’s

mass graves has brought the intimate experience of defeat—the history of the

vanquished—into the open, challenging the hegemonic history of the victors. Bones,

visible and palpable and imprinted with violence, testify that Francoist repression was

virulent and widespread—something that many Spaniards had as yet refused to accept”

(280). Thus, given the reality of the violence and maltreatment administered by Franco’s

regime, which these mass grave exhumations reveal, the relentless toil of Republican

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descendants to conduct these exhumations and to restore the country’s history becomes

clearer for one to understand. Likewise, the negative light that such excavations shed

upon the bombastic Francoist dictatorship also allows observers to more thoroughly

comprehend the rightwing government’s overall opposition toward both exhumations as

well as several other provisions that are called for in the Historical Memory Law.

In order for one to fathom what exactly the rightwing government, as well as

average Spaniards who associate themselves with rightwing ideology, are so vehemently

opposing, it is crucial for one to become well-acquainted with the most prominent

stipulations of the Historical Memory Law. Foremost, as declared in Article 1 of the act,

which is titled, “Objeto de la Ley” (“Purpose of the Law”), the “law seeks to recognize

and broaden the rights for those who suffered persecution or violence for political,

ideological, or religious belief, during the Civil War and the Dictatorship… all in order to

promote cohesion and solidarity between different generations of Spaniards around the

principles, values, and constitutional liberties.”20

Furthermore, the following is a list of the main provisions of the Historical

Memory Law along with brief descriptions of each:

20 The various articles of the Historical Memory Law and their descriptions can be found on the Historical Memory Law page of Spain’s Ministerio de Justicia (Ministry of Justice) website: http://leymemoria.mjusticia.gob.es/cs/Satellite/LeyMemoria/es/memoria-historica-522007 Original quotation in Spanish: “La presente ley tiene por objeto reconocer y ampliar derechos a favor de quienes padecieron persecución o violencia, por razones políticas, ideológicas, o de creencia religiosa, durante la Guerra Civil y la Dictadura… todo ello con el fin de fomentar la cohesión y solidaridad entre las diversas generaciones de españoles en torno a los principios, valores y libertades constitucionales.” Translation is mine.

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Article 2: General recognition of the victims of personal violence for

political, ideological or religious belief during the Civil War, as well as

those suffered by the same causes during the dictatorship […] Article 3:

Declaration of illegitimacy of the courts judges and any other criminal or

administrative bodies during the Civil War, as well as during the

Dictatorship, which had been constituted to impose political, ideological

or religious beliefs, convictions or penalties […] Article 4: Declaration of

reparation and personal recognition to those during the Civil War and the

Dictatorship who suffered the effects of the resolutions referred to in

Article 3 […] Article 12: Measures for identifying and locating victims…

The government, in collaboration with all public administrations, is to

develop a protocol on scientific and multidisciplinary action to ensure

institutional collaboration and proper intervention in exhumations […]

Article 13: Public administrations, in the exercise of their powers, are to

establish the procedure and the conditions under which the direct

descendants of the victims, or entities acting on their behalf, can recover

the remains buried in the corresponding pits for identification and eventual

transfer to another place […] Article 15: Symbols and public

monuments… Public administrations are to take appropriate measures for

the removal of shields, badges, plaques and other commemorative objects

or references of exaltation, personal or collective, of the military uprising,

the Civil War and the repressive Dictatorship without exaltation of

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opposing, or where there are artistic, architectural or artistic-religious

reasons protected by law […] Article 16: Valley of the Fallen… No where

in the enclosure may be carried out acts of political or exalting of the Civil

War, its protagonists, or Francoism nature.

While there are many additional provisions to the Historical Memory Law, the

abovementioned articles have certainly brought forth the most substantial amount of

debate and political scrutiny. Aside from the controversial mass grave exhumations, for

instance, recent endeavors by municipal Spanish governments to remove public symbols,

which commemorate the Francoist regime, have been met with a significant measure of

social and political contention. Namely, as stated in the Introduction, Mayor Manuela

Carmena’s latest plans to remove all street names relating to the Francoist regime in the

city of Madrid have been met with both negative and positive responses from various

political organizations and leaders throughout Spain. Though the sentiments held by

associations such as the Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco (Francisco Franco

Foundation—FNFF) are candidly featured throughout various media outlets, the thoughts

of every day Spaniard are not as openly displayed in the media. Thus, the survey that I

have conducted on a sample of Spaniards living in the country today, reveals a portion of

the opinions held by a variety of ordinary Spaniards on what are considered to be some of

the most controversial aspects of the Historical Memory Law.

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The Nature of the Survey

In an effort to comprehend the rationale and justification for the opinions held by

the Spaniards who took part in the survey that I created, I began the questionnaire with a

few personal questions for the participants to respond to. More specifically, I first asked

whether or not the participant was religious or a follower of Catholicism. While such

inquiries may initially come across as irrelevant or perhaps even insignificant, in the case

of Spain, whether or not a person is religious or a follower of the Catholic faith is

oftentimes directly related to his or her political affiliation. In other words, generally

when one practices Catholicism he or she tends to be more aligned with Conservatism

and thus Francoist ideology. As observed in the previous chapters, Franco presented the

Nationalist struggle as a religious crusade and was strongly backed by the Catholic

church of Spain. Therefore, many followers of the Catholic religion in Spain are prone to

associate Franco and the rightwing government as the defenders of a religious and

predominantly Catholic Spain.

Accordingly, I followed the question of religion with a question regarding

whether the participant was educated in a private or public school and whether or not he

or she was formally educated on the topic of the Spanish Civil War. Although such

questions may, again, be perceived as unrelated, the type of school that a Spaniard

attended in his or her youth is a crucial component of the knowledge that he or she may

have, and thus the opinions that he or she may hold, on the Spanish Civil War. Similar to

the notion that adamant followers of Catholicism in Spain tend to display support or

admiration for Franco, those who attended private schools in their youth are also more

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inclined to associate themselves with Francoism and rightwing politics. This connection

between the private school education system and Francoism is a result of the power that

the Catholic Church has over most private schools, given the fact that most private

schools in Spain are run by Catholic entities or associations.21 Likewise, investigating the

type of schooling a Spaniard received during adolescence is crucial to in order to fully

grasp the individual’s outlook on the Spanish Civil War and the issues surrounding it in

the present-day.

The subsequent questions, which I presented in the survey, are far more overtly

pertinent to the topic of the Spanish Civil War in today’s Spanish society than the initial

few questions. Expressly, I considered whether or not the Spanish Civil War was

discussed in the participant’s household during his or her childhood, whether or not the

participant or any of his or her friends and/or family members contain strong sentiments

regarding the war, if any of his or her family members were directly affected by the war,

and whether or not he or she believes that the topic of the Spanish Civil War remains a

prominent issue in the country today. I then went on to explore the participant’s personal

opinions on the mass grave exhumations taking place throughout Spain, his or her

thoughts on the new political parties in Spain such as Podemos and Ciudadanos, and

whether or not he or she agrees with Mayor Carmena’s plans to remove all signs and

symbols associated with the Franco regime from the city of Madrid. Nonetheless, to

conclude the questionnaire, I questioned whether or not the participant believes that it is

21 For more information on the funding and management of private schools in Spain see Mancebón and Muñiz (892-901).

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important for young students to learn and/or speak openly about the Spanish Civil War,

the successive Francoist dictatorship, and their repercussions.

While the answers that were given to the questions in the survey—namely, the

answers given to questions pertaining to the participant’s religious affiliation, opinions on

the new political parties in Spain, and thoughts regarding the mass grave exhumations

and Carmena’s recent plans—were quite telling of the type of person that the participant

may or may not be, I maintain the conviction that providing a general description of the

participants who took part in the survey may prove useful to the reader.

Thus, the list of participants included sixteen Spaniards all above the age of

eighteen who each contained distinct educational backgrounds, professions, political

affiliations, and religions. More specifically, some of the participants consisted of

individuals from prominent organizations such as the Asociación de Amigos de las

Brigadas Internacionales (Association of Friends of the International Brigades—AABI,

Manos Limpias (Clean Hands) organization22, and the FNFF. Accordingly, this diverse

sample of Spaniards provided a complex array of answers, which not only reveal their

own sentiments regarding the Spanish Civil War, but also allow the reader to better

comprehend and analyze the current divide in Spain over its past civil war and

dictatorship as well as the rationales and beliefs held by those on either side of this

divide.

22 The Manos Limpias organization has been described as a “far-right group” in an article by the New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/truth-on-trial-in-spain.html?_r=2&ref=baltasargarzon

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The Outcomes of the Survey

First and foremost, the data used in the following analysis was collected with

permission from everyone involved, including the thesis advisor, the survey participants,

and Florida Atlantic University’s Internal Review Board (IRB). Through evaluating the

answers that were given throughout the length of the questionnaire, it was made

abundantly clear what side the participant stands on in respect to Spanish politics

regarding the revival of historical memory in Spain. Namely, the divide was made

evident through the answers given regarding Mayor Carmena’s plans for Madrid’s street

signs. Those who identify more with rightwing politics are starkly against such endeavors

while those who associate themselves with leftwing politics view her plans as a positive

step forward. However, while the answers that were given could easily be partitioned into

separate bodies of thought, each individual contains diverse considerations, and

justifications for such opinions, on nearly every query. In this section I will emphasize

the general reactions to particular questions from either camp as well as individual

quotations from those who associate themselves with either side of the divide, which

serve as a rationalization for these collective responses.

Foremost, the overall reactions to the questions regarding the participant’s

knowledge of and sentiments toward the Spanish Civil War proved to be both interesting

and telling. Generally, those who align themselves with leftwing politics tend to maintain

the view that the Republicans had suffered great injustices throughout the Spanish Civil

War and subsequent dictatorship. In fact, when questioned on whether or not the

participant had any family members from either side of the war, one individual

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responded, “It is not right to talk about ‘sides’. There was only one side, the one of the

over throwers against a loyal government, the Spanish Republic.” Such individuals also

argue that the truth about the war has remained unclear and express an interest in better

understanding the war itself. For instance, a representative of the AABI stated, “I am very

passionate about [the Spanish Civil War] because I feel I was not told the truth about

what happened. I grew up in a very traditional household and was told the reds were

terrible people. So anything that relates to Historical Memory evokes my sentiment of

unfairness and search for truth.”

On the other hand, those who are more aligned with rightwing politics tend to

convey sentiments of either indifference or exasperation in regards to the topic of the

Spanish Civil War. Such emotions are revealed through the following response to the

question of whether or not the individual contained strong or negative sentiments towards

the Spanish Civil War, “None. Ojalá que (I wish) Franco would return to put a little order

in place.” Additionally, a member of the FNFF expressed the view that Franco’s victory

of the Spanish Civil War offered a “safe release of Communist tyranny that had led to the

Popular Front policy and the failure of the Republican regime.” This individual went on

to state, “Thanks to the Civil War and the triumph of Franco, Spain got rid of that horror

[Communism] although Historical Memory proponents do not want to acknowledge it.”23

Accordingly, it may be inferred that those who associate themselves with rightwing

23 In this response the individual also referred me to the particular webpage on the FNFF’s website which, “shows the triumph of Communism in Eastern Europe and particularly in Romania.” The link is as follows: http://www.fnff.es/El_mapa_de_la_represion_comunista_en_Rumania_3020_c.htm

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politics are inclined to maintain the view that the Spanish Civil War was perhaps a

necessary evil in Spanish history. Nonetheless, those aligned with rightwing politics each

perceive the war as an issue that does not need to be revisited in today’s Spanish politics.

Along such lines, the question of whether or not the participant believes that the

topic of the Spanish Civil War is a prominent issue today was met with similar responses

from the individuals who identify with rightwing politics. However, this question was

met with far stronger and far more negative responses than the previous query. One

individual, for instance, asserted, “[The Spanish Civil War] is very alive. Many of the

existing political parties are reviving/rekindling it. They will lose the war again.”

Likewise, another individual answered, “There is a sector (the losers) who insist on

keeping it alive based on lies and silencing the atrocities committed by the Republicans.”

Perhaps the most thought-provoking rightwing participant response, however, went as

follows:

The period of the Civil War was completely taken over and forgotten, but

in recent years an ultra-left politician [Zapatero], with the help of some

media sectors, has revived the tension of hatred and ill-feelings again.

They were surpassed in Spain and they have launched an effort of

impossible vendettas. As for further research and reviewing this issue, I

consider it worthwhile whenever it is done in an academic and intellectual

form. Not in the public squares as some of the Historical Memory

proponents want to see it.

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Contrastingly, the responses of those who associate with leftwing politics were entirely

divergent from those who are aligned with rightwing politics when asked about whether

or not the Spanish Civil War remains a prominent issue today. Whereas rightwing

contenders view the Historical Memory Law as something that has “reopened wounds,”

those on the other side of the divide view the topic of the Spanish Civil War as relevant

and in need of further research and development, which the Conservative party “tries to

keep buried.” For example, one participant indicated, “I definitely agree [that the Spanish

Civil War is a prominent issue in today’s society]. More research is needed to get to the

truth of the facts. I believe that the war is still very present in today’s society because

even though it is calmer, it remains divided by ideologies.” Along such lines, another

individual responded, “I believe that it is very alive and there is so much to say about it.”

Following the question of whether or not the Spanish Civil War remains a

prominent issue in today’s Spanish society, the responses given by either side of the

divide regarding their opinions on the mass grave exhumations that are taking place

throughout the country today further revealed the division that remains in present-day

Spain. While nearly all of the individuals who associate themselves with rightwing

politics argued that there are “more urgent and pressing matters” that exist in Spain

today, some of the individual responses were quite intriguing. One participant, for

example, asserted, “Mass graves were forgotten. The recovery of historical memory is an

invention of Zapatero to distract the country from his inability to govern. This is not

important to me. But it has rekindled hatred and rancor. Of course there are more urgent

matters to attend to in the country.” Similarly, another individual responded, “It was a

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sectarian idea of revenge of former Prime Minister Rodríguez Zapatero when already

there was a transition with new protagonists, who accepted a new regime. Of course there

are many more pressing issues in the country such as unemployment and corruption.”

While the individuals aligned with rightwing politics view the mass grave

exhumations as a leftwing political ploy, the participants who maintain leftwing

perspectives provided more sympathetic responses to the question of the mass grave

exhumations. For example, one individual, who has himself taken part in a mass grave

excavation, countered such arguments of mass grave exhumation irrelevancy by stating,

“The treatment of urgent matters and the exhuming of the mass graves of the murdered

Republicans and Franquistas, if there are any, are not incompatible.” Furthermore,

another individual expressed, “I think that it is an issue to consider, since many people do

not know about the whereabouts of their dead relatives from the war. I can understand the

sadness of people, so I think it is a very important issue that must be resolved.”

Whereas the divide between rightwing and leftwing ideologies became well-

defined through the answers that were given regarding the mass grave exhumations, the

responses collected for the query on whether or not the participant agreed with Mayor

Carmena’s plans to remove all names relating to Franco’s regime from streets and

squares across Madrid only further accentuated the social division. It was made clear that

the individuals who closely identify themselves with rightwing politics view such

endeavors as unnecessary and perhaps even as damaging to Spain’s cultural heritage. For

instance, one participant argued, “No, no one is in agreement of Spanish history and there

are thousands of streets and squares and throughout the entire history of Spain, then you

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should change everything.” Moreover, another individual expressed his discontent with

Carmena herself for even suggesting to put the specific provision of the Historical

Memory Law into affect, “Of course not. This is a mayor who still belongs to the

Communist Party, is an appalling mayor, and of course revanchist and sectarian.”

On the other hand, participants who agreed with Carmena’s plans perceive her

proposed removal of Francoist street signs as an adherence to the law and to democracy.

One participant affirmed, “[I] completely agree. It is not democratic to live with a fascist

symbol that endures because of the fearful passivity of the people that remember Franco

and the shameless pressure of the elites and the Catholic Church in Spain.”

Correspondingly, another individual stated, “I agree that these plates, street names, and

symbols should be removed since they offend many victims of the dictatorship.” All in

all, those who are more supportive of leftwing politics maintain the view that Carmena

“meets a law and is respectful of the law.”

When questioned about the new political parties in Spain, namely Podemos (a

party affiliated with leftwing politics) and Ciudadanos (a party affiliated with rightwing

politics), the answers given by participants were surprisingly similar from both sides.

While those who are more closely associated with leftwing politics were inevitably

inclined to agree more with Podemos and those who identified more closely with

rightwing politics related more to Ciudadanos, individuals from both sides of the divide

gave responses that appeared both critical and wary of the new political parties. More

specifically, all of the participants conveyed suspicions of the corruption and faultiness of

both Podemos and Ciudadanos.

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For example, one individual, who is more aligned to leftwing politics, expressed

the following sentiments regarding the new political parties:

I am not certain about them. I know for sure that Ciudadanos is very

conservative and there are worrying links to fascist attitudes amongst

them. Podemos held my hope for a bit but I soon realized that they are also

embroiled in a few financial scandals, so I do not trust them blindly

because they are preaching about fighting corruption yet they seem to be

tainted themselves. I do not identify with any of them. I do not follow their

proposals because I know they are not Republican, so I am not interested.

Likewise, one participant who identifies more with rightwing politics, rather than

leftwing, conveyed a similar reproach, “Podemos seems to me like an ancient and

dangerous party. Ciudadanos does not inspire confidence in me because I cannot see

clearly their intentions.” Moreover, yet another participant who aligns with rightwing

politics stated, “I don’t identify with either of the new parties. The political parties in

Spain are contaminated with corruption and they enjoy complete and utter discredit.”

Although all of the previous questions—and the responses to such questions—

illuminated and clarified the current political and social division that exists in Spain,

perhaps the most significant query that I included in the survey was the question of

whether or not the participant believes that it is important for young students to learn

and/or speak openly about the Spanish Civil War, Franco’s regime, and their

repercussions. While nearly all respondents acknowledged the important of knowing

one’s history, each individual contained their own distinct reasoning for why they believe

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it is important for Spaniards to learn about the Spanish Civil War and subsequent

dictatorship.

For instance, one individual who associates with rightwing politics, claimed the

following:

It should be studied although it is studied wrongly/badly because nobody

dares to mention all of the achievements that Franco made in Spain, nor all

of the atrocities that were committed. It gives the feeling that the war was

won by others and that the Republicans were nuns of charity and that only

the fascists did wickedness. It is a shame how two or three people can

change history with lies.

Furthermore, yet another respondent who aligns more closely with rightwing politics

reasoned, “I think it would be appropriate to consider the whole story, not just the civil

war and the Franco regime but also the Second Republic and always from a balanced and

non-sectarian way. Considering some good and others bad is the purpose of the ill-fated

Law of Historical Memory.”

Contrarily, a Spaniard who identifies more with leftwing politics conveyed the

following sentiments regarding the teaching of such topics:

Teaching about the Civil War in schools is only part of it. You have to

teach recent Spanish history, the reasons for the Second Republic, the

coup, the war of Spain, and of WWII to a large degree anticipated by

Spain. During the dictatorship, there did not exist more knowledge than

that which was taught by Franco and his repressive movement, associated

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with the moral defense of the Catholic Church. The church converted the

war into a religious crusade.

Along such lines, a participant who is also associated with leftwing politics responded,

“Yes. Indeed, a big part of the problem in Spain is ignorance about the war among

younger generations. This ignorance stems from a failure of much of the education

system to address the Spanish Civil War and the subsequent dictatorship.”

While the rationales of those who associate themselves with either side of the

political spectrum in Spain may be completely divergent, it appears as though nearly all

Spaniards involved in this survey, at least to some degree, recognize the importance of

teaching the Spanish Civil War and subsequent dictatorship of Franco to young students

in a non-partisan and informative manner. Although the responses that were given to

these questions in no way represent the whole of Spain, I believe that this sample of

Spaniards provides a small window into the overall sentiments that are felt by Spaniards

on either side of the social and political divide in Spain. All in all, through these opinions

and speculations it may be inferred that while Spain is indeed divided by the issue of

historical memory regarding its own begotten civil war, there is hope yet that, through

teaching a factual and unbiased history of the Spanish Civil War and the Francoist regime

to future generations, Spain may one day have the ability to look back at its past without

conjuring troublesome and alienating disputes throughout the public and political sphere.

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CONCLUSION

Although the notion of a debatable national history may at first come across as an

inconceivable concept, the current deliberations that are occurring in both the social and

political spheres of Spain prove otherwise. Likewise, distinguishing how such arguments

regarding a nation’s own historical memory are able to be culminated in the first place

may also present a zealous challenge. However, in the case of Spain, through observing

the Spanish Civil War, which occurred from 1936-39, the consecutive dictatorship of

Franco from 1939-75, and the prominent political acts and decisions known as the Pact of

Forgetting (1977) and the Historical Memory Law (2007), such a task of comprehending

the current-day arguments in Spain regarding its own past becomes more feasible.

Moreover, through considering the flagrant spread of propaganda, which ensued

throughout the Spanish Civil War and Franco’s dictatorship as well as the imperious

censorship, which was put into place by the Francoist regime, the social and political

divide over historical memory that exists in Spain today may be perceived as not only

fathomable but as a legitimate outcome of what has occurred in Spain throughout the past

few decades.

Along such lines, the Spanish Civil War itself, and all preliminary actions that had

occurred on both an individual and national level before the war took place, served as the

origin of “the two Spains,” which remain in existence today. In other words, the ever-

present divide, which exists in Spain, can be traced back to the great disconnect Spain

experienced at the onset of its war in 1936. Though such an effect of a war may seem

reasonable through the extensive violence and desolation that occurs in both the personal

83

and communal spheres during a conflict between the members of the same nation, the

conceptual estrangement that occurred in Spain during this time was arguably far more

damaging than the corporeal destruction that had emanated during—and a result of—the

war.

More specifically, the formulation of a “red”, Communist enemy by the

Nationalist front as well as the creation of a Fascist and non-democratic enemy by the

Republican front divided the country almost indefinitely. This perpetual alienation

between Spaniards was then ensured by General Franco after the Nationalist triumph of

the Spanish Civil War. Rather than embracing those who had fought for the Republican

cause during the war as fellow Spaniards, Franco chose to maintain the attitude that those

who did not support the Nationalist cause during the war were not only his enemies, but

enemies of Spain in general. The subsequent promulgation of disinformation regarding

the war itself as well as Franco’s comprehensive censorship throughout Spain, which

omitted any and all information that was unaligned with his vision of Spain, cemented the

social and political divide of the country that remains in existence today.

Thus, after the nearly forty-year dictatorship of Franco, during which a blatant

indoctrination of Francoist values and historical misrepresentations had occurred,

Spaniards viewed a sweeping amnesty and overall disremembering of the wrongs

committed by its former dictatorship as the most straightforward and painless form of

transitioning Spain into a democratic nation. While it remains true that such actions of

what is now known as the Pact of Forgetting indeed allowed for a smooth transition into

democracy, descendants of the Republican victims of the war and successive dictatorship

84

were unable to, and unwilling to, forget the injustices that had been done under Franco’s

rule. Accordingly, throughout the years, leftwing representatives—many of which who

are themselves descendants of Republicans—began to place more focus on rectifying

such injustices. Therefore, in 2007, the Historical Memory Law was put into place by

Spain’s leftwing government.

Despite the legitimacy of the Historical Memory Law, however, rightwing

representatives—who are rooted in a thoroughly Francoist ideology—view the law as

both unnecessary and, in some cases, as damaging to the cultural identity and solidarity

of Spain. Though such perceptions of the law are apparent through the actions, or lack of

actions, taken by the current rightwing government of Spain, this discontentment with the

law is also observable through the opinions held by every day Spaniards throughout

Spain. On the other hand, there exists Spaniards who maintain that the law must be

followed more adamantly. Hence, the divide between rightwing and leftwing ideology in

Spain remains today.

All things considered, in spite of the ideological differences that have remained in

Spain, in one form or another, since the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, it may be

observed that most Spaniards share the view that understanding and contemplating their

past in an impartial and open-minded form is important to the future of their nation. In

other words, despite the disparate views that Spaniards may hold on how exactly to

approach their own historical memory, there is a general agreement that educating the

Spain’s future generations on its own past in an honest and rational way is of the utmost

importance to the cultural heritage and overall solidarity of their country.

85

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