Swyngedouw 2008 Technonatural Revolutions

Trans Inst Br Geogr

NS 32 9–28 2007ISSN 0020-2754 © 2007 The Author.

Journal compilation © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2007

Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Technonatural revolutions: the scalar politics of Franco’s hydro-social dream for Spain, 1939–1975

Erik Swyngedouw

In this paper, I seek to document and substantiate the notion of the production of socio-natures by elaborating how Spain’s modernization process after the Civil War became a deeply and very specific scalar geographical project, articulated through the production of a specific technonatural hydraulic edifice. I shall focus on the momentous transformation of the hydraulic environment during the Franco period (1939–1975) and seek to reformulate Spain’s socio-hydraulic reconstruction in the context of a double and partly contradictory ‘scalar’ politics. Two theoretically interrelated arguments guide this endeavour. On the one hand, Franco’s ideological-political mission was predicated upon national territorial integration, the eradication of regionalist or autonomist aspirations, and a concerted discursive and physical process of cultural and material national(ist) homogenization and modernization. On the other, the production of the technonatural material infrastructures of this modernizing programme was predicated upon re-scaling the ‘networks of interest’ on which Franco’s power rested from a national visionary to an internationalist geo-economic and geo-political imagination, articulated through Spain’s integration in the US-led Western Alliance.

key words

technonatures society and nature Fascism Spain hydraulic politics

historical geographical materialism

Department of Geography, School of Environment and Development, Manchester University, Manchester M13 9PL email: [email protected]

revised manuscript received 13 September 2006

On my shoulders rests . . . the responsibility to make anew Spain. (F. Franco, 29 April 1961)

Contested hydro-social modernization

In 2000, more than 400 000 people gathered inZaragoza and 250 000 in Madrid and Barcelonaprotesting against the second National HydraulicPlan that had been approved by the conservativegovernment of José María Aznar’s Partido Popular.In subsequent years, protests spread to many othertowns and cities around the country. The movementbrought together an often-uneasy alliance ofenvironmentalists, regionalists, socialists andlocal activists. In their heterogeneous claims anddemands, they mobilized a diverse set of humanand non-human issues: the rights of fish and

fishermen, the fate of river sediments and seashorelines, the life of birds and plants, thepreservation of wetlands and biodiversity, theprotection of local livelihoods and regionalcultures, ecological concerns, water’s mythicalvalues, and nature’s or people’s rights to water(Arrojo Agudo 2001 2004; Pons Múria 2003). Theactivists’ primary target was the Pharaonic plan totransfer large quantities of ‘surplus’ water from theEbro river basin to the ‘deficit’ basins of the semi-arid Southeastern regions of the Levant on the onehand, and to Barcelona on the other. At the otherend of the spectrum, irrigation-based farmers,urban boosters, golf course enthusiasts andpolitical elites of regions that would receive the‘new’ water raised their voices in dissent againstthis protest, and manifestations in support of the

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NS 32 9–28 2007ISSN 0020-2754 © 2007 The Author.Journal compilation © Royal Geographical Society (with The Institute of British Geographers) 2007

water transfer schemes were organized in citieslike Almeria and Valencia. When, on 14 March2004, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero from thesocialist PSOE (Partido Socialista Obrero Español)unexpectedly won the elections (a few days afterthe train bombings in Madrid), one of the firstmeasures the new government took was to scrapthe controversial water transfers.

This conflict over the future organization ofSpain’s hydraulic landscape reflects the enduringlegacy of the radical socio-environmental transfor-mations engineered during the long dictatorial ruleof Franco that lasted from 1939 (the end of theCivil War) until his death in 1975. Under GeneralFrancisco Franco Bahamonde, more than 600 damswere built in Spain (Vallarino 1992, 67) leading toa complete retooling of the ten river basins ofmainland Spain. Throughout the Franco years,water infrastructures and the transformation ofthe technonatural edifice of Spain would be con-tinuously mobilized by the propaganda machineryto such an extent that a popular nickname forGeneral Franco was, and still is, Paco Rana(Frankie, the Frog). The most popularly omnipres-ent image of Franco is he being ‘on water’, whileinaugurating yet another hydro-technical project.By the time Franco died virtually all river basinswere exploited to the full and Spain would havethe highest number of dams per capita in the world(29 per million). Southern river basins were used‘to the last drop of water’ by water-intensive irriga-tion agriculture and tourist-based development. AsGomez De Pablos puts it,

[I]t is during the decades after the 1940 Plan when theSpanish rivers were actually ‘created’, and the principalhydraulic regulation structures . . . were constructed orinitiated. (1973a, 242)

So, grappling with the production of Spain’s fascisttechnonatures is vital in order to situate contemporarysocio-hydrological debates, strategies and projects(see, for example, Bakker 2002).

While the early twentieth century has alreadybeen documented (see Swyngedouw 1999 2003a),the study of the fascist period needs urgent atten-tion.

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In this paper, I seek to document how Spain’shydrosocial modernization process after the CivilWar became a deeply and very specific scalar geo-graphical project. I shall consider the transforminghydraulic environment during the Franco period(1939–1975) in the context of a double and partlycontradictory ‘scalar’ politics. On the one hand,

Franco’s ideological-political mission was predi-cated upon the creation of a nationally integratedSpain, the eradication of regionalist or autonomistaspirations (Carr 1995) and a concerted discursiveand physical process of cultural and materialnational(ist) homogenization. On the other, Franco’smodernizing programme required a re-scaling ofthe ‘networks of interest’ on which his powerrested from an exclusively national(ist) visionary toan international geo-economic and geo-politicalimagination. This was articulated through Spain’sintegration in the US-led Western Alliance thatemerged during the Cold War politics of the sec-ond half of the twentieth century. I shall firstbriefly situate the theoretical concerns that guidethe subsequent analysis.

Scalar revolutions: remaking technonatural networks, producing new geographies

I view Spain’s hydro-social development between1939 and 1975 as a particular socio-physicalprocess of producing new technonatures, throughwhich symbolic formations are forged, socialgroups enrolled, and natural processes and ‘things’entangled and maintained (see Löwy 1994; Castree2000 2002; Gandy 2002). Such ‘productions ofsocio-nature’, largely through techno-naturalarrangements (Luke 1999; White and Wilbert2006), are not socially or politically neutral, butexpress and re-constitute physical, social, cultural,economic or political power relations (Harvey 1996;Castree and Braun 2001; Desfor and Keil 2004;Swyngedouw 2004a; Heynen

et al.

2006). Partsof nature become enrolled in and reconstitutedthrough the ‘networks of power’ that animate thisprocess (Castree 2002 2003; Kirsch and Mitchell2004). Ultimately, the ‘success’ or otherwise of suchtrajectories depends on socio-political strugglesand the emergence of a ‘hegemonic’ dynamic thatpermits the socio-environmental transformationprocess to become concrete-in-the-world (Kaika2005). In other words, the litmus test resides in themobilization of a sufficiently large and allied groupof social elites, together with particular discursiveand material enrolments of nature, around adistinct socio-environmental project (Mitchell 1996;Speich 2002).

This ‘production of nature’ is an integral part ofa process of ‘producing scale’ (Smith 1984; Swyn-gedouw 2003b; Sneddon 2003; Brown and Purcell

Technonatural revolutions

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2005). I argue that Spain’s hydrosocial technonatu-ral transformation is predicated upon specific andcontradictory scalar re-arrangements. Notwith-standing the theoretical controversies over scalethat I cannot rehearse within the context of thispaper (see, for example, Marston 2000; Uitermark2002; McMaster and Sheppard 2003; Purcell 2003;Heynen and Swyngedouw 2004), I start from theview that scale is not ontologically given, but socio-environmentally mobilized through socio-spatialpower struggles. In other words, socio-spatialrelations have a ‘scalar’ constitution as relational

networks

are forged that produce spatial geometriesthat are more or less long, more or less extensive. Yet,at the same time, these relational scalar networksarticulate with produced

territorial

or geographicalconfigurations that also exhibit scalar dimensions(Zimmerer 2000a 2000b; Natter and Zierhofer 2002;Sneddon 2003; Swyngedouw 2004b). In the Spanishpost-war context, the remaking of Spain’s hydrosociallandscape was part of an effort to create a socio-culturally, politically and physically integratednational territorial scale and to obliterate earlierregionalist desires. Yet, this nationalistic socio-physical remaking of Spain was predicated uponforging networked national and, in particular,transnational socio-political and economic scalararrangements.

I shall briefly document the failure of Spain’searly twentieth-century hydraulic mission that sawnational redemption in embracing a ‘HydraulicPolitics’. I shall then outline the fascist hydraulicproject that mobilized nature and water in a partic-ular manner. The elite networks on which thenationalist hydraulic vision rested, the enrolment ofnature and technology, and their place within thenetworks of power will be charted, together withthe mobilization of cultural-symbolic power andpropaganda. In the final part of the paper, I shallexplore the changing geo-political and geo-economicmatrices and scalar networks that were instrumen-tal in bringing the hydraulic project to fruition.

Paco Rana’s wet dream for Spain: re-scaling water flows

The contradictions of failed modernization during the early twentieth century

‘Hydraulic politics’, a term coined by JoaquinCosta, emerged in the late nineteenth century ata time that Spain was going through a profound

political, economic and socio-cultural crisis (seeCosta Martínez 1975 (1892); Swyngedouw 1999).The end of Spanish colonialism with the ‘disasterof 1898’ ‘closed definitively our ultramarine horizonsand made us return our gaze to the old lands andto analyse their condition’ (Gonzalez Paz 1970,983–4). The hydraulic ‘mission’ was originallyconceived as a strategy and integrated action planto ‘remedy’ the national economic and social malaiseand disintegration, to redeem and ‘re-generate’Spain’s troubled geography. It aimed at resolvingthe agricultural crisis and the proliferating socialtensions arising from an increasingly discontented,revolting and impoverished peasantry and ataddressing the failure to ‘modernize’ agriculturalproduction from the part of the landed elites(Swyngedouw 1999). Hydraulic interventions andthe mobilization of the country’s erratic waters wereconceived as a means to rationalize production, toserve as a wedge to permit structural land reform,and to facilitate access to land and water for thelandless peasants.

However, the early twentieth-century proposalsto implement Costa’s ‘Hydraulic politics’ failed tomake the envisaged impact. The limited achievementsof this embryonic ‘democratic’ hydro-modernizationand the resulting deepening of inequalities raisedsocial mobilization, and accentuated social conflictand polarization.

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The outcome of the Civil War(1936–1939) would turn the tide in favour of thetraditional elites. The hydraulic politics of theFranco era would abandon the radical social reformsthat were originally part of the regeneracionistplatform and concentrate instead on the ‘engineer-ing’ of reservoir and irrigation water.

The regeneracionist discourse of the early twen-tieth century had opted resolutely for a state-leddevelopment of hydraulic works. The availabilityof water became articulated and experienced as aproblem of state ‘voluntarism’, rather than result-ing from ‘natural’ scarcity. If problems of scarcityexisted, this was simply because of the incapacityof the state to perform its functions adequately.State management of water generated a sense ofunlimited potential availability. A ‘natural’ limit,therefore, became interpreted and ‘scientifically’defined as a ‘deficit’ between the regionally desiredvolumes and the nationally available quantities.Indeed, from the early twentieth century, the ‘natu-ral’ distribution of rainfall and water availabilitywas increasingly decried as a ‘disequilibrium’that required ‘rectification’ (Sánchez de Toca 1911,

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299–300). And the means to achieve this was ‘tocriss-cross the country with an arterial hydraulicsystem, a national network of dams and reservoirs,and, by doing so, to create Nature’ (Costa Martínez1975 (1892), 259; Gómez Mendoza 1992, 241). Aninternal war against drought had to be fought sothat ‘idle’ rivers would provide ‘drink to the drylands of Spain’ by means of a ‘surgical remedy’ torebalance the socio-ecological matrix of the nation(Rodríguez Ferrero 2001, 126). It is this constructedmythology that would be effectively captured byFranco’s regime and elevated to ‘official’ hydro-social doctrine.

Enrolling water: rectifying nature’s injustice

In the first National Hydraulic Plan of 1932, Spain’shydraulic geography had already been defined assuffering from a ‘hydrological disequilibrium’between river basins with a water ‘deficit’ andthose with ‘excess’ water (Pardo 1999 (1933); ArrojoAgudo 2000, 44). The regions with water shortagesuffered an ‘injustice of nature’, which demandedthat the state dealt with this ‘discrimination’ by‘rectifying this natural disorder’, resulting from theview that ‘Spain would never be rich as long as itsrivers flowed into the sea’ (Maluquer de Motes1983, 96). The nationalist hydro-social projectbecame formulated as a ‘hydrological correction ofthe national geographical problem’ (Gómez Mendoza1992, 236) that would make ‘a hydraulic arterysystem cross the whole country – a national networkof dams and irrigation channels’ (Gómez Mendozaand Ortega Cantero 1992, 174). By the late 1930s,this socio-physical construction of water as thesource of Spain’s precarious condition becauseof its erratic temporalities and uneven spatialdistribution, which can be ‘rectified’ throughappropriate technonatural structures, was capturedeffectively by Franco:

We are prepared to make sure that not a single dropof water is lost and that not a single injustice remains.(F. Franco 1959, 1)

The propaganda machinery effectively played onthis twin position of water, i.e. as simultaneouslythe source of Spain’s problems as well as the‘thing’ from which salvation could be wrought. Forexample, R. Cavestany de Anduaga, minister ofagriculture, stated: ‘not a drop of water that we tryto get will later be lost to the sea’ (1958, 192).Franco and his supporters continuously invokedthe image of persistent drought (‘pertinaz sequia’)

to explain away socio-economic difficulties. At thesame time, creating a new socio-nature that wouldremedy this ‘persistent drought’ was staged as oneof the vital projects for realizing the fascist utopia(see, for example, Sabio Alcutén 1994). Water issueswere constructed as the main collective challengefacing Spain, thereby deflecting attention from issueslike social justice or land distribution. The extractbelow is just one among dozens in which Francomobilizes water as an integral part of his politics:

Spain hurt us because of its drought, its misery, theneeds of our villages and hamlets; and all this pain ofSpain is redeemed with these grand national hydraulicworks, with this Reservoir of the Ebro and all othersthat will be created in our river basins, embellishing thelandscape and producing this golden liquid that is thebasis of our independence. (F Franco, 6 August 1952 indel Rio Cisneros 1964, 122–3)

The debate over water and its engineering becamesquarely structured around the desire to constructa nationally more equitable and just distribution ofwater resources by means of a grand geographicalreorganization of its flows. Inter river basin watertransfers would become the backbone of this imaginednational grid. The skeleton of this system, theTajo-Segura transfer, was built during the Francoregime. As Martínez Gil contends, the doctrinalnucleus of the hydraulic imaginary, forged duringthe long second half of the twentieth century, was:

[t]he thesis of the natural hydraulic disequilibrium inthe country, with a dry Spain and an other humidSpain, which resulted in an age-old situation of deficitriver basins that lack the water social demand requires,in the face of surplus river basins where the circulatingvolumes of water are greater than present and futuredemand. . . . Our treacherous torrential waters are thedefinitive image of a country in which the Creator hasmade a mistake. (1999, 110)

Rectifying this ‘error’, and restoring a nationalhydraulic balance, demanded the up-scaling of themanagement and planning of water resources fromthe scale of the river basin to the national scale,national integration, a centralized hydraulic admini-stration and a strong national state that had centralizedand absolute power over the waters of the country,a mission Franco promised to deliver.

The making of a new Spanish hydraulic world

Spain pioneered the establishment of river basinauthorities. As early as 1865, attempts were madeto establish river basin based organizations (see


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Cano García 1992; Swyngedouw 1999). During theDictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923–1930), thepowerful Confederaciones Sindicales Hidrográficas(River Basin Authorities) were gradually established(The Ebro Confederation was the first to beestablished on 5 March 1926; see Pardo 1930). Fivemore river basin authorities were set up between1926 and 1929, one during the Republic (1934), andthe remaining four between 1948 and 1961. Theinitial structure of the Confederations was basedon four principles: the unity of the river basin asthe proper territorial scale for the managementof water resources, the water basin as integratedplanning unit, the participation of the water usersin the management of the river basin, and thedecentralization of State functions to the scale ofthe river basin (Pardo 1930). However, after thefascist victory, this perspective was replaced by acentralist national territorial vision.

Indeed, the political significance of the ‘regional’scale became marginalized.

3

The originally intendedlocally organized, democratic, participatory andcollective structure of the existing Confederationswas abolished in 1942 and replaced by a nationaltechnocratic-bureaucratic organization in charge ofimplementing technically nationally ordered publichydraulic works (Alcarez Calvo 1994). The Con-federations became a ‘mere technical appendage’ ofthe central Dirección General de Obras Hidráulicas(DGOH) (Pérez Picazo 1999), financed and control-led by the national state. The final blow came in1959 when National Water Commissioners wereinstituted and put in charge of the very powerfuladministration of water concessions, policing andallocating irrigation water (Palancar Penella 1960).‘Hydraulic Politics’ became ‘a sublimated expres-sion of the political economy of the nation’ (FrutosMejias 1995, 185) that turned the hydraulic futureof Spain into a ‘national, patriotic, and trans-political mission’ (del Moral Ituarte 1996, 181). TheDGOH became a well-funded and extraordinarilypowerful state department, highly corporatist inideology and closely associated with key nationaleconomic sectors such as engineering offices, con-struction companies, cement factories, electricitycompanies, etc. (Martínez Gil 1999, 107). The ‘con-crete and steel fever’ and the obsession to leave nota single river ‘in freedom’ shaped the actions andstrategies of the DGOH, driven by the totalizingvision of the need to engineer the whole of thenation’s river basins as a single, integrated, unified,national-territorial system. The river basin authorities

lost their judicial autonomy, their representationalorganization and their integrated planning func-tion. The ‘jumping of scale’ of the institutional andpolitical powers of water management from theriver basin to the national scale reinforced anational geographical perspective at the expense ofthe regional scale and contributed to the repressionof any remaining regionalist aspirations. In the pro-cess, all manner of power relations were rekindledand re-networked (see below).

Y hombre creó los ríos! (And man created the rivers! Molina 2005)

In 1937, before Franco had even consolidated hispower, he had already instructed engineer AlfonsoPeña Boeuf (who would become Minister of PublicWorks after 1939) to prepare a General Plan forPublic Works, a large part of which would bededicated to hydraulic infrastructures. His pro-posals were officially approved in 1941, and pro-vided the backbone for hydraulic developmentduring the subsequent decades (Peña Boeuf 1955,615). The proposal re-iterated the outline of thenational plan of 1933, but re-oriented its strategymuch more decisively to a nationally programmedsystem aimed at guaranteeing Spain’s self-reliantdevelopment. The disastrous financial and political-economic conditions of autarchy during the earlyFranco reign prevented, however, the massivehydro-social revolution that had been envisaged.Until the mid-fifties, there literally was not enoughsteel, concrete, money and machines available tomake the waters flow uphill. The only thing thatwas not in short supply during the early years wasa cheap (occasionally free – see below), docile,defeated and impoverished working class. AsFigure 1 shows, dam and reservoir constructiontook off during the second half of Franco’s rule,and Franco would indeed realize his wet dream forSpain. Over the 35 years of his rule, the number ofdams grew from about 180 in 1939 to over 800, andreservoir capacity expanded exponentially.

There are indeed two phases in the making ofthe fascist hydro-social landscape. The first period,between 1939 and 1955, was characterized by asustained rhetoric of the urgent need for dams andirrigation, but with few major achievements. While106 new dams were built between 1941 and 1955,the capacity of reservoir water only rose fromabout 4000 hm

3

(cubic hectometres) to 8000 hm

3

.The acceleration of the scalar remaking of Spain’shydro-social network would have to wait until a

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repositioning of the geo-political relations and theirassociated political economic networking. Indeed,flows of capital, expertise and steel would take aradical turn after the secret Spanish–US agreementsof 1953 (see below). This moment would prove tobe a ‘watershed’ in terms of permitting the realizationof Paco Rana’s hydro-vision for Spain. Between1955 and 1970, 276 dams were built with reservoircapacity skyrocketing to 37 000 hm

3

by 1970 and to42 000 by 1980. Mega-dams built during this periodmassively increased the regulatory, hydro-electricaland irrigation capacity of Spain. In his speech to

commemorate the twentieth anniversary of ‘OurMovement’ and ‘The Victory’, Franco himself insistedhow his ‘great hydraulic and irrigation works arechanging the geography of Spain’ (Franco 1959, 1).The backbone for a nationally integrated system forinter-river basin transfers that would permit con-sidering the hydrosocial cycle as an integral andunitary national cycle (Hernández 1994, 15) wasalso under construction at the time of Franco’sdeath (the Tajo-Segura water transfer):

If the ideas of Joaquin Costa were based on the unity ofthe river basin as the framework for the implementation

Figure 1 Evolution of dams constructed and volume of reservoir water in Spain, 1910–2000Sources: Diaz-Marta Pinilla (1997 (1969)); Dirección General de Obras Hidraulicas (1990); Toran and

Herreras (1977, 259–66); Martín Mendiluce (1996, 7–24); Ministerio de Medio Ambiente (2000b)


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of hydraulic projects, Hydrologic Planning [after 1933]extended this framework to the national scale, by advanc-ing as one of its objectives the correction of the existingdisequilibria on the Iberian Peninsula by means of inter-connecting the river basins. (Melgarejo Moreno 2000, 273)

The political decision to go ahead with the transferwas taken by the council of ministers in 1955, butthe actual works did not start before 1968 (LópezBermúdez 1974). In its first phase, 600 hm

3

wouldbe transferred annually to the reservoirs of theSegura river basin with an eye towards irrigationand urban supply in the provinces of Murcia andAlicante. In a second phase, the transferred volumewould increase to 1000 hm

3

/year. When, in 1963,Franco inaugurated the Centre for HydrographicalStudies (Centro de Estudios Hidrograficos) (ROP1963, 553; Urbistondo 1963), one of its first missionswas to undertake preliminary studies for the Tajo-Segura and other possible water transfers. This vision

announced the end of the old concept of the hermeticboundaries of river basins. Water was from nowonwards considered to be a national good that has tobe taken to where it is most productive and mostscarce. (Saenz Garcia 1967, 190)

On 30 July 1966, the government ordered thepreparation of a transfer project proposal (MartínMendiluce and Pliego 1967). On 5 February 1968,the project was formally approved, and the Councilof Ministers approved the beginnings of the workson 13 September of the same year (Gonzalez Paz1970, 987). Water is pumped over a height of 300metres and flows over a distance of 286 kilometres,with 69 kilometres tunnelled (of which 32 throughthe Sierra de Hellín, which separates the Júcarand Segura basins, at a depth of 300 metres), 11kilometres in aqueduct and the remainder in anopen-air canal (Gomez De Pablos 1972, 471). In1971, the then Minister of Public Works, GonzaloFernández de la Mora, invoked again the metaphorof ‘hydraulic surgery’ to refer to these ‘mostimportant works in the hydraulic history of Spain’(Fernández de la Mora 1971, 338, 339).

The Chairman of the Spanish and InternationalCommission on Large Dams saluted Franco, in1971, in a speech presented to him, as

the great builder of great dams and an example, unique inthe world, of a statesman who creates the hydraulic founda-tions for the progress of his people. (Torán 1971, 314)

Paco Rana had indeed directed and overseen thecomplete socio-hydraulic revolution of his fatherland.

Of course, this achievement depended crucially onthe loyal support of a series of powerful interlockednational and international ‘networks of interests’and coalitions (Melgarejo Moreno 1995, 7). They oftenoverlapped partially, were occasionally antagonisticand required careful massaging and ‘managing’within an overall ‘Falangist’ programme and ideology.I shall now turn to these national networks ofinterests that supported and consolidated theFranco regime, and together with the mobilizationof water, produced the assemblages that wouldrender the socio-hydraulic edifice possible and, in aLatourian sense (Latour 1996), permit it to standand endure.

Producing ‘networks of interest’

The socio-economic and religious alliances thatFranco forged generated a maze of power relationsthat supported the regime and secured its lon-gevity. After his victory, Franco eliminated throughexecution, imprisonment or exile the most activistparts of the oppositional movements, while secur-ing the loyalty of many royalists, nationalists, thechurch hierarchy, the military and significantparts of the national industrial bourgeoisie. TheFalange became the only legal political party andthe conduit for Franco’s political support.

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Thestrong state–economy linkages would cement acorporatist state structure that could count on anendogenous capitalist sector, whose success andprofit was closely tied up with the state’s investmentflows. The importance of some of these regime-supporting networks has been well documented.

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However, in the context of this paper, I shallconcentrate on those networks that have beenneglected in the literature, yet were vital forrevolutionizing Spain’s hydro-social geography.These were networks of key ideologues andpractitioners that provided the technical, scientificand discursive support that would build andmaintain, both materially and symbolically, theexpanding national and integrated networks ofdams, pipes, hydro-machinery and irrigationsystems in a unified and fascist Spain. Thesegroups are the large landowners, the electricians,the engineers and the media.

Water for the latifundistas

While the rise of popular movements early in thetwentieth century raised the problem of peasantlabourers and their right to land and water, the

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outcome of the Civil War solidified the interests ofthe large landowners (

latifundistas

), particularly,but not exclusively, in southern Spain (Bernal 1990;Ortí 1994, 243). While there was a technocratic-engineering continuity, the socially reformistrepublican agenda was radically altered. In parti-cular, the defeat of the Left in the Civil War hadbroken the relationship between social reform andhydraulic infrastructure development (del MoralItuarte 1991, 508; 1994), thereby restoring thehegemony of the landowners (del Moral Ituarte1999, 186–7). Major land redistribution programmesstopped. The Instituto de Colonización (INC), setup originally to provide land to landless peasants,became a great propagandistic tool, but realizedrelatively little. Ultimately, the INC acquired only149 358 hectares of irrigated land and settled 24 047colonists on these lands between 1939 and 1975.Another 323 385 hectares of non-irrigated landwere acquired, which were offered to a total of23 773 peasants (Ortega 1975, 240).

Yet, an estimated total of 1635 million hectares ofnewly or improved irrigated lands were servicedby the state during the Franco era (Ortega 1975, 223).Indeed, the earlier socially motivated hydraulic

regeneracionism

was transformed into an ultra-protectionism of the

latifundistas

(Acosta Bono

et al.

2004, 112; Ortí 1984). As Sánchez-Albornoz maintains,

the land owners received the double gain of both anincrease in production from irrigated lands as well as therevalorization of their land, without much counterpartother than to support the regime, something theyunfailingly offered. (2004, xxv)

Indeed, the state covered the cost of infrastructure,while the landowners reaped the benefits, with anestimated 1200–2000 per cent improvement of theireconomic return (Bernal 2004, xxxvi). It is hardlysurprising that large landowners became one of thesocial pillars on which Franco’s political and socio-cultural edifice would rest. While internal colonia-lism (Ortega 1975) and the ‘social land problem’ wouldstill be rhetorically mobilized, Franco’s hydro-politicshas to be characterized as an agricultural ‘counter-reform’ that guaranteed the long-term stability ofthe

latifundia

system (Martinez Alier 1968). However,while large landowners would be able to expandtheir irrigated land, rhetorical attention paid to thesocial ‘mission’ of the state’s hydraulic project

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served primarily as part of the propagandamachinery mobilized to legitimize grand hydraulicinfrastructures (Díaz-Marta Pinilla 1997, 73).

Irrigating the south, hydro-electrifying the north

However, a closer analysis suggests that theemphasis on irrigation was actually only one aspectof a much larger and arguably more importantproject, the hydro-electrification of Spain (GomezDe Pablos 1973b, 338; Simpson 1995, 261). Indeed,between 1940 and 1963, 322 dams were constructed,of which only 132 had irrigation as their principalgoal (Melgarejo Moreno 2000, 302; Barciela Lópezand López Ortiz 2003, 65). Until the late 1950s,more than 75 per cent of the energy needs of Spainwere generated through hydro-electrical power.Between 1939 and 1957, installed hydro-electriccapacity increased from 1400 MW to 5200 MW,generating a total production of 2844 million kWhin 1939, expanding to 18 790 million kWh in 1957.The bulk of the expansion took place after themid-1950s, representing a total value of approxi-mately US$458 million (in 1957 parity terms)(Garrido Moyron 1957). After 1964, the relationshipbetween irrigation and hydraulic works was furthersevered in favour of hydro-electrical developments.Only 96 (38.2%) of the dams constructed between1964 and 1977 were destined for irrigation purposes,while 57.6 per cent of the created capacity wasearmarked for energy generation. In addition, 29hyper-dams were constructed, many of which werealso vital for the regulation of electricity production(Vera Rebollo 1995, 313). By the end of Franco’srule, total energy capacity was over 25 000 MW andproduction had reached 82 000 GWh (Antolín Fargas1997, 202). Although the contribution of hydro-electricity had fallen from 78 per cent in 1949 to astill significant 46.9 per cent in 1975, hydro-energywas absolutely vital for Spain’s modernization(see Figure 2). Moreover, the industrialization ofthe north, in particular in the Basque country andCatalonia, required substantial energy inputs. Thisdevelopment, in turn, fostered migration from therest of Spain to the north and diluted further theremaining anti-fascist regionalist cultures in thesetwo regions.

The electricity production sector was closelyallied with the ‘network of interests’ that producedthe fascist polity (Núñez 2003). The immediate postcivil war period saw an intense process of verticaland horizontal integration of electricity companiesand an interlacing of the state with the oligopolisti-cally organized companies (Buesa 1986; Antolín1999). The geographical integration of capital andorganizational structures was paralleled by anational territorial physical integration of the


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electricity network through the production of anational high-voltage grid (Puente Diaz 1949). Theacute energy shortages during the autarchic periodof ‘development’ did not stop the electricity com-panies (and their banking allies) to be among themost profitable businesses in the country. Thestate’s policies and interventions generated asignificant transfer of state capital from the publicto the private sector, either indirectly throughconstructing hydraulic capacity that permittedcontinuous production, or through subsidies, cheaploans and cross-capitalizations (Antolín Fargas 1997).Although the private companies did invest in theconstruction of dams and electricity generationunder concession from the state, this contributioncovered only a small part of the total cost of regu-lating the flow of water. For example, massiveregulatory dams were constructed by the state that

permitted the electricity companies to build theirown infrastructures downstream. Some of the larg-est energy oligopolies were created in Spain duringthis period, with the public works and industrialpolicy administrations as their main protagonists(Núñez 1995). A symbiotic relationship developedbetween the state and the energy producers,something openly presented as a mutually bene-ficial undertaking (see Vicens Gomez-Tortosa 1961,438–9).

While much of the rhetoric concerning hydraulicworks centred on the irrigation needs of the south,in practice, as Table I suggests, the largest numberof dams during the 1950s and 1960s were con-structed in the north, which had the greatesthydro-electrical potential. The ‘regeneracionist’discourse of ‘agricultural modernization’ throughirrigation played a powerful ideological role to

Figure 2 Evolution of installed electricity generation capacity and production in Spain, 1915–1975Sources: García Alonso and Iranzo Martín (1988, 344–5); Vallarino Cánovas del Castillo and

Cuesta Diego (1999, 200); Ministerio de Medio Ambiente (2000a, 311)

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legitimize large-scale hydraulic engineering, yet asignificant share of the actual works were directlyrelated to increasing energy production.

A Faustian pact: the Corps of Engineers’ ‘hydraulic sensitivity’

The civil engineers would of course become keyprotagonists of the preparation and implementationof the regime’s hydro-political agenda (Gil Olcina2003, 56). The quest for a newly manufacturednational hydraulic geography by means of the‘rebirth of public works and the success of anefficient hydraulic politics’ (Sánchez Rey 2003, 26)propelled the engineering fraternity (they were allmen) to the forefront of Spain’s fascist moderniza-tion. The pages of the

Revista de Obras Publicas

(ROP), the mouthpiece of the Corps of CivilEngineers, reflected the views and visions of theCorps in relationship to the social, political andengineering themes of the time (see SongelGonzález 2003, 83).

Right from the beginning of the twentieth century,the civil engineers embraced the need for a hydrau-lic renewal and actively defended a modernizingpolitics that would replace the old traditional order,its corrupt elites, and their conservative longing torecover a transcended past (ROP 2003a). However,they were hostile to the radical and revolutionarymovements that swept through Spain in the 1920sand the 1930s. During these two decades of revolu-tionary zeal and reactionary counter-currents, theeditors of the ROP would regularly voice politicalopinion, while insisting on technocratic neutralityand administrative service to the state. They cau-tiously welcomed the dictatorship of Miguel Primode Rivera in 1923 (ROP 1923), but in an editorialto mark the end of the dictatorship in 1929, they

celebrated the accomplishments of the dictatorshipand the grand works undertaken by its minister ofdevelopment, de Conde de Guadalhorce (ROP 1930).With the inauguration of the Republic in 1931, the

Revista

published a formal and not excessivelyenthusiastic endorsement of the newly establisheddemocratic regime (ROP 1931). The Popular Frontgovernment of 1936 ‘was welcomed with even lessenthusiasm’ (Sáenz Ridruejo 2003, 11).

The engineers, as much as any other segmentof society, were politically divided during theCivil War. After the beginning of the Civil War, theengineering school and its associated

Revista

wastaken over briefly by members of the left Union ofArchitecture and Engineering. In an editorial of15 August 1936 (ROP 1936), entitled ‘Establishingpositions’, they called for closing ranks in fightingoff the fascist enemy and for building a modern andcivilized Spain (ROP 1936, 1). Under their editorshiponly six, reduced in size and badly distributed,issues of the

Revista

appeared in 1936. However,when ‘official’ publication resumed on 1 March 1940,ranks had closed hermetically around the fascisttriumph. Indeed, by early 1940, the engineeringprofession had rallied solidly around the newregime. Never before had the Spanish engineersendorsed and unequivocally supported a politicalregime with such unmitigated enthusiasm. Aspecial issue, dedicated to the ‘Spanish Crusade –1936–1939’, was published, with a portrait ofGeneral Franco on its front page, subtitled‘FRANCO! FRANCO! FRANCO!’ The articles paidhomage to colleagues that had fought and diedduring the ‘brilliant campaign of liberation’ on theside of the Generalisimo (ROP 1940a 2003b, 53),celebrated the new regime, and pledged uncondi-tional support to the nationalist cause. The issue also

Table I Dams constructed, by river basin

River basin <1940 1941–1955 1956–1970 1971–1980 1981–1986 Total

Norte 11 22 67 25 11 136Duero 9 15 29 5 3 64Tajo 37 21 51 52 20 184Guadiana 27 3 15 28 15 85Guadalquivir 15 11 28 16 3 86Sur 8 0 2 8 7 25Segura 8 1 7 7 1 24Jucar 13 9 16 4 0 42Ebro 59 24 61 8 16 168Total 187 106 276 169 76 814

Source: Dirección General de Obras Hidraulicas (1990, 33–4)


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reproduced a speech delivered by Civil EngineerTomás García-Diego de la Huerga on 17 October1937 as emblem of the ideological principles to befollowed. He stated the need to:

recuperate the imperial vocation of Spain. . . . Againstthe false dogmas of the rotten democracies, the mottosof our Golden Age, now embodied by the Generalissimo.Against freedom, service. Against equality, hierarchy.. . . a brotherhood which presupposes the commonpaternity of God. (ROP 1940a, 51)

The first official issue of the revamped engineeringjournal of 1940 also opened with a portrait ofthe Chief of State and confirmed the Corps ofEngineers’ support of the falangist cause in‘restoring the eternal Spanish tradition’ (ROP1940b, 1). Those amongst the engineering fraternitywho were not exiled, jailed or killed would puttheir collective efforts in modernizing the countrywithin the collective national enterprise shaped bythe new regime. Public Works became one of thepillars of the regime – in Franco’s words – ‘anexcellent means of protection and a stimulator ofits prosperity’ (ROP 1940b, 2). Indeed, ‘the Corpsof Engineers constituted consequently one of themost solid supports of the policies of the newregime’ (Songel González 2003, 84). During thefollowing 45 years, no explicit political statementswere made by the Corps of Engineers, but theirjournal filled many of its pages with celebratory

articles extolling the virtues of dam constructions,recounting the technical details and achievements ofnewly built dams, providing annual summariesof dam constructions and progress in the executionof grand hydraulic projects, and providing detailedcelebratory and hagiographic reports of Francoor other government dignitaries visiting andinaugurating major water projects.

In the issue of June 1961, for example, in a self-congratulatory hymn to the virtues of the Spanishhydraulic engineers, José Luis Mendoza Gimenooffered a poetic evocation of how the Spanishhydraulic engineers, serving the national(ist) cause,possessed a

hydraulic sensitivity, a sort of sixth sense, that permitsto intuit the comportment of water and its movements. . . to be a good hydraulic engineer one has to know,see, hear, touch the water with the eyes, the ears, thehands . . . To all those, those who have passed andthose that today continue their work so brilliantly, thegratitude of Spain is theirs. (1961, 364–7)

The same issue included a catalogue of all damsconstructed, together with a list of all thecompanies that had contracted hydraulic works(see Table II). All but one of these companies wasestablished during the dictatorship and theyworked almost exclusively for state-funded PublicWorks programmes. In addition to providing adetailed list of the companies’ technical capacities,

Table II The nine dam construction companies and their workforce in Spain, 1961

Name of companyActive since Engineers

Other technical staff

Administrative staff

Manual workers (average) Total

Agroman Empresa 1927 101 300 394 10 207 11 002Constructora S.A.Termac Empresa 1943 12 51 78 2072 2213Constructora, S.A.Cimentaciones Especiales S.A. 1936 16 33 47 888 984Agrupación para Estudios y 1953 60 267 716 6335 7378Proyectos de ObrasDragados y Construcciones 1941 80 169 379 10 944 11 572Empresa Auxiliar de la 1945 52 187 117 7300 7656Industria S.A. (AUXINI)Obras y Construcciones 1942 15 45 60 3952 4072Industriales S.A.San Roman S.A. 1943 4 12 29 197 242Helma S.A. Empresa 1952 18 100 92 2780 2990ConstructoraTotal 358 1164 1912 44 675 48 109

Source: NN (1961)

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the data also show the importance of hydraulicworks for employment. Nine companies providedjobs for 358 engineers and a total of more than48 000. The sector made an important contributionto the economy, particularly during the earlyperiod, when jobs were a scarce commodity.

In 1971, the chairman of the Spanish Committeefor Large Dams, saluted, in front of Franco, theengineering contribution

of raising the flag, the Spanish flag of grand dams,sustained by 20 years of glorious history, and adornedby the ribbons of 360 battles [i.e. newly constructeddams] that your Excellency succeeded in winning.(Torán 1971, 315)

This self-congratulatory, state-centred and Franco-adoring style of the

Revista

continued for another17 years, together with the uncritical defence ofmajor public works programmes and the relentlesssupport for the further consolidation of thehydraulic project for Spain.

7

Only from 1992onwards would a more critical and sociallyengaging style gradually begin to emerge (NárdizOrtiz 2003, 104), although the ‘steel and concretefever’, fed by the drive to restore Spain’s hydraulicequilibrium by constructing more, remained anobsessive theme.

Galvanizing the nation: propaganda and hydraulic works

As in Germany and Italy (see Caprotti 2004), inFranco’s Spain too, sophisticated propagandamachinery was quickly put in place after the fascistvictory. The tried tactic of controlling and censoringthe press was implemented swiftly, together withthe establishment of NO-DO (Noticiario EspañolCinematográfico), an official state institute fordocumentary film-making. Grafted on the popularcultural success of cinema, NO-DO produced ‘news’and general interest film reels that wereobligatorily screened in the country’s cinemas.Highly subsidized, this propaganda instrumentserved to celebrate the regime personalized byFranco, galvanize the enthusiasm of the people forthe regime’s efforts, extol the virtues of Spanishtraditional cultural values, and mythologize the‘crusade’ for a new, re-invigorated, conservativeand catholic Spain (Rodríguez 1999). Between 1943and 1981, when NO-DO was finally abolished,about 3925 documentary reels were produced.Until 1956 (when television entered the scene), itwas the main cinematographic information source

available to the wider public. In his analysis of thecontent of NO-DO’s reels, Rodríguez (1999, 223–4)points out that above all, inaugurations filled thescreens. A symbiotic relationship was systematicallyinstilled between Franco and the great nationalpublic hydro-electrical and irrigation mission.NO-DO publicized widely Franco’s procession ofinaugurations and the spectacle was also coveredin great hagiographic detail in magazines, newspapers,and in the specialist engineering and professionaljournals. On each occasion, Franco was presentedas ‘the victorious Caudillo of Spain’, welcomed bythe ‘grateful and admiring masses’ that celebratedthe ‘enormous social works’ and the ‘great techn-ical achievements’ of the country. The followingoff-screen text from the reel of 8 March 1943 (reelNumber 10) is symptomatic of such exaggeratedexaltation:

The

Caudillo

of Spain, who during the hours of the warled our troops to Victory, is also the soul of this labourof reconstruction, with which Spain heals its wounded,saving Spain from all the difficulties that the currentinternational circumstances pose against her.

Inaugurations, the deployment of the regime’sactivities and the support of the people fusedtogether in NO-DO’s reels, which resembled amonographic documentary, a festival of laudatoryimages and commentaries. Inaugurated damsbecame the most iconic image associated withFranco (hence the nickname

Paco Rana

), whooversaw the new hydraulic landscape, listened tothe adulations of his entourage and receivedgraciously the ovations of the grateful masses.Franco’s frequent public appearances suggested aleader close to the pulse of the nation and attentiveto the transformations taking place in the country(Tranche and Sánchez-Biosca 2002, 215). NO-DO’snewsreels conveyed an image of inaugurationsites and rites as geographical symbols of andmaterial referents to the unmitigated success ofthe fascist project, embodiments of a technocraticdevelopmentalism

8

and emblems of the beauty,unity and tradition of the Spanish landscape. Thenewsreel images celebrated the solidaristic, spir-itual and moral values of traditional Spain, the tenacityof its workers, the power of the regime and thevirtues of technical modernization (see Tranche andSánchez-Biosca 2002).

Newspapers and other print media were equallymarshalled to espouse the virtues of the regimeand its achievements. On a daily basis, the press


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would report ecstatically about yet another greatspeech from the Caudillo as yet another sublimeachievement was inaugurated. The quote belowoffers a sample from a typical speech by Francogiven on 1 July 1959, inaugurating yet another‘transcendental grand hydraulic project’:

We have come to visit your province, to inauguratevarious important works . . . and with this to satisfy thethirst of your fields, to regulate your irrigations, whichshall increase your welfare and multiply production . . .The whole of Spain has to be redeemed, sealing thebrotherhood between the land and the men of Spain.(F. Franco, inauguration of the hydraulic works inLérida,

Diario ABC

, 1 July 1959, 1)

The reproduction of Franco’s speeches in thenewspaper was invariable accompanied by equallyexalted, triumphant and jubilant commentary byjournalists:

[W]e are tightening the siege against the misery and thethirst of Spanish men and lands, because against theold sterility of the rivers, Franco’s program built wallsof steel to bring light, and veins of concrete to canalisethe water and to take it to fulfil its irrigation mission,redeeming the old peasant thirst. And the peasants, fullof joy, offer Franco today the expression of theirunlimited gratitude and their unconditional allegiance.(Del Corral 1959, 1–2)

This heroic mission, thus visualized and narrated,was spread throughout the country through printmedia and cinema, galvanizing the hearts andminds of the Spanish people and urging them toembrace the remaking of the Fatherland and thuswiden the networks of interests that would solidifyand maintain the fabric of the fascist modernizingcause.

Reworking the nation, re-scaling the networks of interests

Almost a quarter of a century has passed since a greatand brave nation begun, under the leadership of asoldier-statesman, its heroic and successful campaign torepel for ever all the roots of communism. I amreferring to Spain, our friend and ally, and its leaderand Chief of State, Generalissimo Franco. (US SenatorStudes Bridges,

Diario ABC

, 18 July 1959, 35)

Autarchy and geographical integration: blood, sweat and tears in the pursuit of a wet dream

Enrolling the flow of water within a newtechnonatural hydrostructure that would achieve

the restoration of a great Spain required more thanjust a determined dictator, popular appeal, engineeringplans, corporate support and ‘God’s will’. Concrete,steel, machinery, capital and specialist know-howwere equally vital for securing success. However,the early Franco era was economically one of relativeparalysis, enduring shortages, untold misery formany and sluggish accumulation. As Figures 1 and2 show, up until the mid-1950s, very little of whatwas promised was actually implemented. Thischanged dramatically after 1953. This shift coincidedwith a profound re-scaling of the political-economicnetworks on which the stability of Franco’s regimerested.

The political-economic vision of the politicalelites around Franco was one that centred onnational autarchic development by means of themobilization of endogenous resources. The rhetoricand practice of a nationally integrated develop-ment became incorporated in ‘the permanent idealof autarchy’ (Carr 2001, 156). A strictly regulatedmarket, frozen wages and the control of the labourforce were the response to Spain’s imposed inter-national isolation because of Franco’s war-timesupport for the Axis powers. The regime turnedthis isolationism into virtue. Self-reliant develop-ment and international trade restrictions were seenas the way to restore Spain’s lost

grandeur

. In thecontext of this autarchic vision of development,rapidly increasing irrigation and mobilizing Spain’snational hydropower potential were considered tobe absolutely vital (Sudría 1997). However, absenceof materials, energy, equipment and, above all,capital made progress in constructing the desiredautarchic landscape excruciatingly slow. Electricityblackouts were rampant until the mid-1950s (Pérez1999, 649). Madrid suffered from a disastrouswater shortage in 1948–9. Irrigation progressedslowly (Barciela López and López Ortiz 2000, 362).The speed of new dam constructions was far belowexpectations, food was rationed, peasants becameeven poorer and migrated (Reher 2003). The aver-age income per capita fell from index 100 in 1935 to82 in 1950 (Gallo 1974, 192–3).

The only commodity not in short supply waslabour power. Salaries were only a fraction of whatthey had been before the war and any kind of pro-test was quickly smothered by ruthless repression.Tens of thousands of socialists, communists, anar-chists and assorted other undesirables were heldas political prisoners in concentration camps andforcibly put to work, primarily in Public Works

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(Lafuente 2002; Molinero

et al.

2003). For example,for the construction of the Canal del Bajo Guad-alquivir in Andalucia, over 2520 political prisonerswere mobilized between 1940 and 1962 (AcostaBono

et al.

2004), very often under inhuman condi-tions. Prisoners were not only used by the state,but also put at the disposition of large farmers andprivate public works companies. Some of the great

construction companies (see Table II) establishedduring the Franco period also used political prison-ers. Table III summarizes the available information(which is only now gradually emerging) on themobilization of political prisoners in the realizationof Franco’s wet dream for Spain. However, Spain’sautarchic political-economic model did not generateenough capital and equipment to move the earth

Table III Documented use of political prisoners for the construction of hydraulic works (selection) (1936–1962)

LocationDocumentedperiod

Number of workers and (year of reference) Controlling organization Type of work

Villatoya (Albecete) 1944– 140 (1944) Cimentatiaciones y Obras Construction of bridgeSan Adrián del Besós 1944– 70 (1944) Cimentatiociones y Obras Construction of bridgeCelis (Cantabria) 1949–1950 54 (1949) – Hydro-electrical

138 (1950)Celucos (Cantatbria) 1949– ? Dragados y Construcciones Hydro-electricalPálmaces de Jadraque 1942–1946 50 (1942) Private: ECIA Dam construction(Guadalajara) 50 (1945)Irún (Guipúzcoa) 1944– 134 (1944) Ferrocarriles y Construciones ABC CanalBarasona (Huesca) 1946–1949 180 (1948) Dam constructionGuara (Huesca) 1962– 20 (1962) Cimentaciones y Obras Dam constructionMadiano (Huesca) 1943–1955 50 (1943) Vías y Riego; Dragados Dam construction

68 (1954)Barrios de Luna (Léon) 1952–1955 40 (1954) Herederos de Ginés Navarro Tunnel for

dam hydro-electricityBuitrago del Lozoya (Madrid) 1944–1952 250 (1945) State Dam construction

123 (1949)Escorial, El (Madrid) 1944 50 (1944) Private: San Román Water supplyPatones (Madrid) 1957–1960 62 (1958) Construcción AMSA Water supply

94 (1961)Cenajo, El (Murcia) 1952–1957 30 (1952) Construcciones Civiles, SA Dam construction

70 (1955)Orense 1952–1953 400 (1952) Dragados y Construcciones Dam constructionReinoso de Cerrato (Palencia) 1944– 50 (1944) Cimentaciones y Obras Bridge over riverAnguiano (La Rioja) n/a 170 (1944) Construcciones ABC Dam constructionMansilla (La Rioja) 1949–1958 65 (1949) Ingeniería y Construcciones Dam construction

50 (1955) Marcor, SAOrtigosa de Cameros (La Rioja) 1953–1962 60 (1956) Ereño y Cia., SA Dam construction

555 (1958)88 (1961)

Arroyo (Santander) 1943–1949 258 (1943) Vías y Riegos Dam constructionRevenga (Santander) 1947–1950 100 (1949) State Dam constructionSegovia ? ? ? Dams and irrigationPuebla del Rio (Sevilla) 1952–1955 105 (1953) State and Private Agricultural transformationCastillejo (Toledo) −1954 42 (1954) Cimentataciones y Obras Bridge over TajoPuerto del Rey (Toledo) 1944– 50 (1944) Hnos. Nicolás Gómez CanalizationTalavera de la Reina (Toledo) 1942– 342 (1942) Hnos. Nicolás Gómez Dam constructionChelva (Valencia) 1941– 300 (1941) Portolés y Cia. Dam constructionValladolid ? ? Dam and irrigation canalsRentería (Vizcaya) 1944– 135 (1944) Construcciones ABC CanalizationFreson de la Rivera (Zamora) 1945–1946 95 (1945) Don Ramón Echave IrrigationTauste (Zaragoza) 1956–1959 11 (1959) Bernal Pareja SA Irrigation

Source: Based on Acosta Bono et al. (2004, 65–75)


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and enrol the powers of its waters. While manyhands dug canals and built dams, lack of capitalproved a major stumbling block. For that, theregime had to turn elsewhere and re-arrange thecoordinates of its geo-political spatial imagination,its networks of interests and its scalar articulation.

Yankee dollars: weapons and dams

By the early 1950s, the rhetoric of national autarchysounded increasingly hollow as the country’ssocio-economic conditions continued to deteriorate(Catalan 2003; Miranda Encarnación 2003). Spain’spolitical and economic elites realized that ‘openingup’ new spatial links and pursuing the geo-politicalinsertion of Spain into the Western Alliance wasvital in order to secure not only the modernizationof Spain, but also the longer-term sustainability ofthe dictatorial regime. Strategically re-scaling the‘networks of interests’ on which the regime restedwas pivotal to pursue the project envisaged for Spain.The modernizing economic elites grasped the potentialfor Spain of the consolidating geo-political orderchoreographed by Cold War strategies and lookedtowards the US, whose geo-political gaze alsogradually turned to Spain as a possible ally in theirgeo-political strategizing.

Indeed, between 1950 and 1953, the institutional-ization of the Cold War permitted a rapprochementbetween the US and Spain. The US chose to forgetits earlier hostility towards fascism, and conserva-tive forces within the US gradually began to playthe role of Spain’s ambassador in internationalforums. In 1952, Spain scored its first internationaldiplomatic victory when she was admitted toUNESCO. In December 1955, Spain entered the UN.The most significant moment was undoubtedly thesigning of the secret ‘Pact of Madrid’ in September1953 by Alberto Martín Artajo, Spanish Minister ofForeign Affairs and James Dunn, US ambassador,in which Spain agreed to let the US use parts ofSpain’s territory for military bases in exchange foreconomic, military and technical aid (Viñas 1981;Guirao 1998; Liedtke 1998). After that, US financialaid and investment started to flow into Spain. Thispact secured the financial bedrock for the years ofrapid growth and modernization of the late 1950sand the 1960s (Niño 2003). Indeed, while primarymaterials and industrial equipment used to bescarce, the inflow of US aid permitted the rapiddevelopment of infrastructure after the mid-1950s.Dam construction also skyrocketed. The end ofSpain’s geo-political isolation and its insertion into

a new scalar gestalt of Atlantic geo-political andgeo-economic networks contributed thus to theterritorial rescaling of the country’s hydrauliccartography.

The financial support of the US was earmarkedas follows: 10 per cent for administrative expenses,60 per cent for military bases and 30 per cent forfinancial aid. From 1958 onwards, 90 per cent ofthe funds would take the form of financial aid(Fernández 1984, 72–3). Between 1951 and 1963,more than 1.3 billion aid dollars were granted toSpain (Calvo 2001). The assistance of the US per-mitted to modernize the country militarily, openedup the economy and consolidated the regime whiledemoralizing and further marginalizing internalopposition and the international anti-fascist move-ments (Niño 2003, 26–7). From the mid-1950sonwards, modernizing and internationalizing elites,often recruited from Spain’s conservative, mainlyOpus Dei led, catholic universities, would graduallytake over the commanding heights in the stateapparatus. Liberal economic doctrine would fuseseamlessly with Franco’s authoritarian rule (Preston1995; Termis Soto 2005). For the US, the economicstabilization of Spain would further entrenchthe power of Franco and ensure the continuinganti-communist stance of Spain.

A significant share of the financial aid went toagricultural machinery, steel, electrical equipmentand infrastructure, while most of the Spanish counter-part funding was directed to agricultural irrigationprojects, railroads and hydraulic works (Fernándezde Valderrama 1964; Puig 2003, 114). Americansand Spaniards ‘wove and strengthened social net-works with local, national and international reach’(Puig 2003, 117). The scalar extension of Spain’spolitical and financial networks facilitated andnurtured the hydrosocial transformation of Spain’sphysical and socio-economic geography. Spainmodernized quickly during the 1960s and early1970s, a process that further ensured the longevityof the regime. Franco’s death in 1975 announcedthe end of what was one of the most repressive andlasting dictatorial-fascist regimes Europe has known.

Conclusions: surviving Franco and re-networking Spain’s technonature

This paper attempted to bring together twotheoretical perspectives that have been largelytreated separately in the literature. It mobilizedrelational and territorial notions of scale in the

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context of an analysis of the socio-naturalproduction of nature. The historical-geographicalreconstruction of the production of specific fascisttechnonatural assemblages that fuses the mobilizationof nature and technology together with the socialnetworks of power that shaped and maintainedFranco’s reign showed not only how every politicalproject is also an environmental project, but alsohow such socio-environmental projects are predic-ated upon scalar tactics and strategies. The politicaland the technical, the social and the natural, becomemobilized through socio-spatial arrangementsthat shape distinct geographies and landscapes;landscapes that celebrate the visions of the elitenetworks, reveal the scars suffered by the dis-empowered and nurture the possibilities and dreamsfor alternative visions.

The revolutionary geographical re-ordering ofSpain, articulated through the remaking of itshydraulic technonatural landscape, mobilizeddiscursive, symbolic and material processes andenrolled H

2

O in a specific manner. This processwas made possible and held together throughproducing particular national and internationalsocial networks. The networks of landowners, largeindustrialists, engineers and media produced aunitary national territorial complex, and eliminateddissenting political voices, regionalist impulses andalternative configurations. The extension of thesescalar arrangements after 1953 secured the capitalflows that would sustain rapid hydro-modernization.These national and international scalar configurationswould both implode and explode after Franco’sdeath, although his legacy proved resilient tochange as vested interests and existing elitestried to hold on to their powers. The hydraulicengineers and bureaucracy, and the agriculturaland southern elites wished to perfect the systeminitiated by Franco, but, of course, the voices,scales and actors around the hydrosocial nexusbegan to multiply as democracy took root after1978. The voices of regionalists, the actions of envi-ronmentalists, the financial might and regulatoryorder of the European Union (rather than the US)are increasingly entangled with newly enrolledactants such as birds, wetlands, sediments andlocal cultural rights, demanding new and differentscalar organizations and forcing new networkedarrangements, around which radically differentsocio-environmental and technonatural projectscrystallize (see, for example, Fundación NuevaCultura del Agua 2005).

Spain’s hydrosocial and technonatural land-scapes that produce many of the strawberries,tomatoes or salads we consume in the rest ofEurope and sustain the landscapes of recreation onthe Spanish Costas are simultaneously heroicachievements of a modernizing desire, new geo-political arrangements and products of the legacyof a brutal authoritarian regime. It is on this edificethat contemporary socio-ecological movements,innovative political visions, new scalar arrange-ments and alternative socio-technical projects aredebated and framed. But this is another story.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the British Academy forfunding the research on which this paper is based.My Spanish friends and colleagues have providedinvaluable help and support. In particular, I wouldlike to thank Leandro del Moral, Juan Martinez Alierand David Saurí for their hospitality and advice.Esteban Castro, Michael Ekers, Maria Kaika, SarahGonzalez, Josep Garí, Federico Caprotti, Nik Heynen,Alex Loftus and Ame Ramos Castillo commentedon earlier versions of the paper and helped toshape the argument. Of course, they are not to blamefor any remaining errors of fact or reasoning.These are mine only.

Notes

1 In Swyngedouw (1999) I argued that the political inco-herence and turmoil during the first decades of thetwentieth century stalled Spain’s hydromodernization.Franco’s political project succeeded in bringing togetherdisparate political, cultural and socio-economic forces,producing a hegemonic vision and galvanizing a mod-ernizing project that permitted the realization of thegrand hydromodern dream. In this sense, this paperimplicitly argues against Wittfogel’s thesis (1957) thatassumes a necessary relationship between grand hydrau-lic infrastructures and despotic rule. The Spanish case,although apparently fitting the Wittfogelian thesis,suggests the central importance of political strugglerather than a necessary link between despotism andlarge-scale hydromodernization. The paper is thereforealso intended as a critical engagement with Worster’smagnificent work on US hydropolitics (Worster 1985).

2 For a detailed analysis, see Swyngedouw (1999).3 For a more detailed discussion of the politics of scale

around the provincial, river basin and national scale,see Swyngedouw (2003b).

4 The Falange (Falange Española Tradicionalista y de lasJONS) was the unified (by Franco) and unitary party


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consisting of the fascist parties, traditionalist andultra-catholic carlist movements.

5 For detailed analysis of these alliances and consolidatingnetworks, see among others the magisterial books byPreston (1995), Preston and Lannon (1990), Carr (19952001), Fusi and Palafox (1989), Gallo (1974).

6 Most of the literature on hydraulic policies duringFranco focuses on irrigation and internal colonization.Expanding those was indeed the refrain endlesslyrepeated by state officials and Franco himself. Forreviews, see, among others Ortega (1975), Gil Olcinaand Morales Gil (1992), Barciela López and LópezOrtiz (2000), Rodríguez Ferrero (2001), MelgarejoMoreno (1995 2000).

7 See, for example, Martín Mendiluce (1996).8 See, for example, Kaika (2006) on Greece, or Caprotti

(2004) on Italy.

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