The authoritarian regimes in inter-war Europe were not imposed from above on an immobile and passive society. On the contrary, their emergence, installation and consolidation came about due to the mobilisation of different social groups who, through their actions and perceptions, constituted and gave life to the new states. That is why, in order to understand their true nature, and the reasons behind their creation and consolidation, we need to analyse the interaction between those regimes and the societies in which they took root.

This article argues that, as regards internal factors, the stabilisation and later consolidation of Franco's regime can be explained by the interpenetration of society and the institutions of the ‘New State’ in three overlapping areas. This was achieved, first, through the shared and unifying culture of the community of civil war victors, forged by means of the construction of a sublimated imaginary. This imaginary was founded on two great myths: that of victory, which conferred a regenerative and sacralised nature on the military struggle, and that of the Refundación Nacional (National Refounding), a foundational myth that granted the dictatorial regime a new stage of glory and splendour, built on the ruins of the ‘ignominious’ republican experience. Secondly, repression, which had the decisive collaboration of those supporting Francoism, destroyed any possible opposition on the part of their potential enemies. Francoism proclaimed itself to be the new political order that would return to the nation its lost greatness, bringing relentless justice to enemies of the Fatherland (Patria). The dehumanised image of the vanquished that the dictatorship managed to impose came together with the heralding of a new era in which there would be space only for the religious, Catholic and spiritualised values of the Eternal Fatherland. We argue that this set of idealisations allowed the creation of a new emotional climate of identification with the new regime's essential aims, contributing to the adoption by many Spaniards of an attitude of adhesion to, and even loyal co-operation with, the ‘New State’ and its repressive institutions.Footnote ¹ Thirdly and finally, in the socio-economic sphere, those making up the groups supporting the ‘New State’ saw their personal interests fulfilled, while the defeated were enclosed in a maze of misery and silence, abandoning any political concerns and concentrating on survival.

It is commonly accepted nowadays that, as with other inter-war authoritarian regimes, Francoism enjoyed a broad consensus among the population.Footnote ² However, as in other European cases, the population's attitudes were not divided in any sharply differentiated way between consensus and dissent.Footnote ³ There was a broad range of behaviour, from unconditional agreement to support with some moral or political dissent, to acceptance, passivity, demobilisation, accommodation, private disagreement and even direct opposition to the regime.Footnote ⁴ However, as this article suggests, Francoism's policies would achieve stability for the regime, ensuring support among a heterogeneous set of social groups, as well as eliminating open opposition among dissidents. Furthermore, the consent that the regime enjoyed among a large section of the population existed alongside depoliticisation and the repression of possible opponents, who were forced to withdraw to the private sphere in search of support that would allow them to survive the terrible economic conditions of the post-war period. Therefore, it is impossible to understand Francoism without an understanding of ‘consent’ and ‘repression’, which were not opposites, but a consequence of each other: both were present in the interconnection between the regime's institutions and society, in the active participation of the victors in the work of repression and the punishment meted out to the vanquished.

It is at local level, looking ‘from below’, that we can most vividly see the interaction between the regime and society. With this perspective, we focus our study on the south of Spain, assessing the emergence of a ‘culture of victory’ in different Andalusian cities of the Francoist rearguard during the civil war. Using the vantage point of various locations and provinces in eastern Andalusia, namely Málaga, Jaén, Granada and Almería, we show how this culture was a key element in creating a ‘national community’, looking first at the repression instituted by the victors and, second, at an autarchic political economy that punished the defeated and acted in the interests of the regime's supporters. The links between local realities and regional and national politics can thus be brought into relief, demonstrating how it was in the interaction between these spheres that the Francoist regime was culturally and socially mobilised.

The ‘cultural community’ of the victors

The ‘culture of victory’

The civil war changed everything, becoming seen as a providential, mythical and regenerative event. The ‘Crusade’ was understood as the decisive moment when Spain would be reborn from its ashes, becoming once again what it had been, purified by the blood of true Spaniards. After 1 April 1939, the war would not be forgotten, but would become a focus for the propaganda and politics of Francoist memory, legitimising the regime's existence and its policies.Footnote ³⁰ In this way, a ‘culture of war’ developed that considered the fight to be unfinished, at least implicitly: Spain should complete its resurgence by purging its weakened body by means of sacrifice and isolation. An autarkic economic, cultural and political programme would achieve this. An interventionist policy was implemented by which the country renounced all imports and any international contact, closing the doors on pernicious external economic and cultural influences and looking inwards. After all, its borders contained not only all the economic and natural resources that would allow the nation to become great, but also the ‘spiritual resources’ that had once made it an empire.Footnote ³¹

Spain had to return to its roots, to the ‘eternal essence’ that had once made it great. It had to close in on itself, looking to the countryside, ‘Spain's eternal breeding ground’.Footnote ³² Aware of its agrarian social origins, the ‘New State's’ discourses and proclamations contained extensive references to the Spanish countryside, praising its virtues and the peasants who lived there.Footnote ³³ The countryside and especially Castile were identified as all that was truly Spanish, with the purity, Christian faith and courage that characterised the Hispanic race. This rural salvation was contrasted with the cities, those sites of republican evil, dens of Marxism, liberalism, atheism and anarchy. Agrarian policy would guarantee that the urban evils would be cleansed, nourishing ‘the Spanish resurgence with sap’. Hence, the extreme protection of and intervention in prices and production in the 1940s: it was nothing less than a way of halting the city's profit-making and setting a limit on the hidden interests of private capital.Footnote ³⁴

In terms of everyday life after the war, the ‘New State’ kept alive the spirit of the civil war and created a true ‘culture of victory’. However, this was not merely imposed ‘from above’. Received, and indeed formed in the local sphere, it allowed Francoism's followers to participate in and feel part of the ‘community of victors’. The symbols and rites that constituted Francoism's official culture had already appeared during the conflict; over the course of the 1940s, they would come to dominate everyday life.Footnote ³⁵ These highlighted the existence of an exclusive national community, emotionally linked to the postulates of national regeneration, the rejection of the past democratic–republican experience and the exaltation of traditional Catholic values. This became evident, for example, in the ritualised politico-religious celebrations and commemorations of the military victories of the civil war. For example, the recollections of the military uprising against the Second Republic, held in 1937, 1938 and 1939 throughout Francoist-held territory in Andalusia, turned into episodes of fervent communion, exalting a new era and a new state.Footnote ³⁶ The Falangist militias’ street parades were attended by crowds of people who professed their religious faith and nationalist ardour. Here, Catholic cult united with the symbols of a new secular religion that joyfully worshipped the Liberated Nation and blessed the providential return of the One Fatherland's imperial and Catholic splendour.Footnote ³⁷ At many of these expressions of unconditional adhesion to the incipient Francoist state's principles, the populace participated in a celebration loaded with aesthetic, liturgical, mystical and almost sacralised components.

From this point of view, it is easier to understand the vigorous drama of the open-air mass or misa de campaña. These were held in public spaces, dominated by monumental stages with insignias and emblems that illustrated the fusion between ‘the cross and the sword’, and given a moving sensory and emotive theatricality. This is, at least, what can be gathered from the many bombastic celebrations of the ‘Third Triumphal Year’ held on 18 July 1938 both in the city of SevilleFootnote ³⁸ and in the other main towns and cities of ‘nationalist’ Andalusia.Footnote ³⁹ These celebrations culminated in the ostentatious commemoration of victory in the civil war that took place in Seville on 17 April 1939 in the presence of Generalisimo Franco and General Queipo de Llano, with around 60,000 uniformed men and more than 300,000 people attending.Footnote ⁴⁰

The symbols that made up the ‘culture of victory’ were forged at these events. These provided a means by which people could express their adhesion to the ‘New State’ even as they participated in its symbolic construction. Thus, the monarchical flag was adopted as the national flag and raised over official buildings after territory was taken. On 15 August 1936, in the city of Granada, the ‘fervent crowd’ saluted the flag solemnly to the sound of applause and shouts of ‘Viva España’ in a ceremony at the cathedral.Footnote ⁴¹ The flag was also used in other important ceremonies. In Cogollos (Granada), the bereaved used it to cover the coffins of their ‘martyrs’ during the civil war, which the villagers saluted with the Roman salute during the funeral.Footnote ⁴² In later years, the flag presided over official, popular and religious festivals, adorning the streets and squares of towns and cities. Many of their inhabitants would hang it from their balconies and windows, bearing witness to their support – or perhaps fear – of the Francoist regime and making it part of the day-to-day scenery in those years.

The war meant the return of the national anthem (Marcha de Granaderos), as well as the use of other, secondary anthems (the Falangist Cara al Sol, the Carlist Oriamendi, the Spanish Legion's anthem, etc).Footnote ⁴³ These were insistently present at official ceremonies, processions and religious events, showing that the ‘true Spain’ was inseparable from the Catholic religion. In Granada, for instance, a local newspaper stated that ‘the populace stand and sing [all the anthems] together, with the same enthusiasm, because all sing to the great, noble, just and strong Fatherland, to which they have consecrated their effort and their lives’.Footnote ⁴⁴ The use of war anthems was extended into the ‘years of peace’, paying homage to the martyrs of the ‘Crusade’ in their lyrics and indicating that those who remained alive and active in the regime were continuing to combat the enemy, lining up with their fallen companions, who – in the words of Cara al Sol – stood ‘guardia sobre los luceros’ (‘guard over the stars’).

It was necessary to recover, through Catholicism and its Baroque and counter-Reformation spirit, the traces of the true Hispanic tradition and elements that could purify the ‘Fatherland's sins’.Footnote ⁴⁵ From early in the war, liturgical acts of reparation took place, masses were said at the front and in the rearguard, processions and pilgrimages were held, and, of course, crucifixes were returned to schools and public buildings. Religion and God, identified with nationalist Spain, were returned to their place, making them omnipresent in everyday life during the post-war period. Not even condemned republicans could escape these symbols: in January 1937, a ceremony was held to replace the crucifix in Granada Prison, with political prisoners lined up in the courtyard to listen to the head of the institution's triumphalist speech.Footnote ⁴⁶ In towns and cities, masses set the rhythms of daily life: attending Sunday mass became an act of support for the regime and, for some, a way of avoiding reprisals or being marked politically. Parish priests and clergymen became judges of the moral, religious and political conduct of their parishioners.Footnote ⁴⁷ With the notion that Spain's ‘purification’ was only possible through penitence, a great many religious celebrations were held during the civil and post-war periods at which the political and the religious went hand in hand. These became acts in which the population participated, showing their Christian faith and patriotism. All these manifestations fitted in with the desire expressed by both the Catholic Church and the Francoist ‘New State’ to remove the deep roots of secularism and atheist materialism fostered by the Second Republic. In this way, Spanish society was re-Catholicised, offering Francoism's supporters an opportunity to participate in and show their adhesion to this ‘culture of victory’. These supporters used gestures to combine the religious and the political in ways that reflected the identification between the two that lay at the very heart of the crusade.Footnote ⁴⁸ Particularly noteworthy were the missionary campaigns carried out in remote rural areas, the dramatised mass missions in large population centres and the group celebrations of christenings or Catholic weddings held to make amends for the damage suffered by the Church under the Republic's secular and anti-religious legislation. Most of these ritualised representations were intended to stage the return of that traditional, essentialist and anti-modern religiosity upon which large parts of the middle classes and the oligarchies had been building their particular status. In this frenzied anxiousness to re-Catholicise, an important element was the consecration of many towns and cities to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which had a clearly expiatory aim. Some of these consecrations became tremendous manifestations of the crowd's Catholic fervour, as in June 1945 in Guadix (Granada) where an impressive throng of 50,000 people crowded around the cathedral, which was crowned by a majestic image of Christ.Footnote ⁴⁹

However, the most intense public liturgies were those that formed a glorious climax to the re-Catholicisation of the 1940s, the two Great Popular Missions held in the cities of Jaén and Granada. The Holy Mission in Jaén took place between 18 February and 9 March 1947. This involved the participation of a total of twenty-six Redemptorist and Claretine missionaries, presided over by Bishop García y García de Castro. During the event, the priests, stationed in numerous places of worship, preached to the different guilds, trades and corporations of the city, to representatives of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry and to workers in general (bricklayers, carpenters, railway workers, peasants, mechanics, etc). The Holy Mission ended with two grand, crowded events: the Stations of the Cross on 26 February that ended in the Plaza de Santa María, in front of the cathedral, with a huge gathering of more than 40,000 of the faithful, and the concluding masses held on Sunday 2 March, at which more than 15,000 communions were given.Footnote ⁵⁰

The Holy Mission in Granada took place from 16 to 30 October 1949, and 103 missionaries from all over Spain took part. Religious events were held day and night in all of the city's churches as well as in improvised spaces, with pious lectures intended for all sections of society. So that the ‘missionary's voice would reach to the last house and the most remote and secluded corner’, the majority of the churches and religious buildings were fitted with exterior loudspeakers. Even the busiest streets and squares of the city centre (Puerta Real, el Embovedado, Plaza del Campillo, Plaza de la Mariana, Plaza Bib-Rambla, Calle San Matías and Calle Navas) were provided with giant loudspeakers, broadcasting the speeches that Archbishop Balbino Santos y Olivera gave on Radio Granada. At the end of each day, a general gathering of missionaries and parishioners took place in el Embovedado, an iconic location in the city centre where the Granadan bourgoisie strolled and chatted during the evening paseo, now transformed by an altar with a foliage cross, five metres high and two metres wide. After two weeks of hectic liturgical activity, the triumphant balance sheet drawn up by the Granadan church documenting the scope of the ‘Great Mission’ was the following: average attendance at each of the general gatherings, 70,000 to 80,000; communions given during the mission, 120,000; illicit matrimonial unions convalidated, 544.Footnote ⁵¹

These devotional and patriotic ceremonies were directly related to memories of the civil war. For this reason, the regime took care to fill public space with symbols and rites closely linked to memory of the conflict. The civil war occupied the streets and squares: the changing of place names began very early on, erasing any trace of the republican period and putting in place new myths and heroes of the ‘anti-Spain's’ defeat. For example, in February 1937, shortly after taking the city of Malaga, the Francoist authorities announced that street names would be changed, removing indications of those ‘men who were rebelling because of the poison of their ideas; because of the cruelty and ferocity of their instincts; because of the ruin they brought upon our Fatherland’, in this way cleansing any trace, even the names, of this ‘false Spain’.Footnote ⁵²

Remembrance of the war's martyrs and heroes became a central element of the post-war liturgy. These men would be the ideal models for the new regime: an example of masculinity, courage, heroism, purity, faith and sacrifice. They had fertilised the future of the ‘New Spain’ with their blood.Footnote ⁵³ They should not be forgotten and were to be ever present in the victors’ imaginary. A good example of this is their presence in the public sphere, with their names being given to the new streets and roads of the resurgent Fatherland. Now, victors and vanquished would live in and travel through streets inscribed with the names of the victors. This was not merely the case for exalted and far-off names such as José Antonio Primo de Rivera or Francisco Franco, but also provincial and even local heroes. In the town of Santa Fe (Granada province), next to a street bearing the name of José Antonio we find others with the names of the two soldiers who led the coup in the nearby provincial capital, and two more streets dedicated to inhabitants of the town itself.Footnote ⁵⁴ The civil war and its memory ‘made equal’ those who fought and gave their blood for Spain, perpetuating their memory and binding together the community of the victorious.

Crosses were erected in honour of the fallen in every town and city. They occupied the most important places, bearing the names of those who had ‘fallen for God and Spain’. The crosses linked past, present and future: they placed the living and the dead on the same temporal plane. As in other European nations during the inter-war period, the nation was not only made up of those alive at that time, but also previous generations who had died, and future generations who were yet to come and who were to ensure the eternity of the ‘Fatherland’.Footnote ⁵⁵ On many occasions, the construction of the crosses was promoted by those who identified themselves with the victorious group, for example by spontaneously undertaking popular subscriptions to honour the memory of their relatives.Footnote ⁵⁶ The crosses to the fallen dominated local life, occupying the main streets or squares. One example is that of Montefrío (Granada), whose council agreed in 1943 to raise theirs on the hill overlooking the place, so that it could be ‘visible from everywhere in the town’.Footnote ⁵⁷ The reminder of the civil war cast its shadow over the lives of all the residents.

On a great many occasions, these inaugurations became acts of desagravio (‘redress’) and support. For example, the inauguration of the Cross for the Fallen in Alcalá la Real (Jaén) in 1941 was preceded by a mass-funeral in the important abbey church of Santa María la Mayor. This was attended by the town's fuerzas vivas or local worthies, relatives of martyrs, ex-combatants, those persecuted or imprisoned by the republican authorities and all fervent supporters of Francoism: the ‘community of victory’. After the service, which was led by the vicar-general of the diocese, all those present filed out and met before the monument; here speeches were made, flags were raised, anthems were sung and the spirit of the ‘Crusade’ was revived once again.Footnote ⁵⁸

As in other inter-war Fascist regimes, Francoism reordered time to legitimise and perpetuate itself.Footnote ⁵⁹ The long shadow of the civil war was extended, with the reorganisation of the calendar to perpetuate and celebrate remembrance of the conflict. It would be impossible to escape reminders of the victory, which conveyed meanings that distilled the victors’ shared culture in each discourse, ceremony and newspaper item. Popular and secular festivals were abolished. Religious festivals and ones linked to the Francoist regime were imposed: National Catholicism was established in the public sphere, creating a space for and transmitting its ideology – but also penetrating into the private sphere, into families and into individuals’ faith, beliefs and morals.Footnote ⁶⁰

Political and religious commemorations suffocated the lives of Spaniards: the anniversary of the Glorious National Uprising, ‘Victory’ day, the death of El Ausente (the Absent One), the Caudillo's saint's day, commemoration of St Theresa, etc. In parallel with this, local religious festivals were spectacularly revitalised. All these involved the remembrance of those who had died in the conflict as well as the iconoclastic attacks of the Republic and civil war. As in Christian tradition, it had been necessary to sacrifice some of their sons to save Spain and ensure a new order. In Malaga, for example, these religious manifestations were presented as a way of purifying the streets, the bodies and the minds of Spaniards. In this way, the myths and the spirit of the civil war were perpetuated, making them part of the language, memory and symbology of post-war Spain, perpetuating the division into victors and vanquished.Footnote ⁶¹

The 1940s were marked by this ‘culture of victory’, exemplified by rites, symbols, festivals and celebrations. As in fascist Italy, such rites became integral elements of society, which, by participating in their representation and confirmation, felt identified with the regime that carried them out.Footnote ⁶² In fact, these ‘victory rites’ gave shape to an integrated community of victors that was separate from those who had lost the war.Footnote ⁶³ The ‘New State's’ social base was present at these ceremonies, thus creating an imagined community identified as the ‘true Spain’, which awaited ‘justice’ against the abominable republican enemies, contaminated beings who were remote from God and pernicious to the Fatherland's health and future.

The time of ‘justice’: repression and destruction of the enemy

This thick sediment of cultural, allegorical, liturgical and discursive components conferred stability on the Francoist regime. However, its importance lay not only in this, but also in its interaction with society, as well as in its pervasiveness and effects over time. Its fluidity allowed it to overlap with and give meaning to the repression and socio-economic interests that were also essential to the ‘New State's’ survival. Some towns in Eastern Andalusian offer us a perfect vantage point for observing this interaction, revealing not only the links between culture and reality but also those between local and national politics.

We cannot understand Francoism without repression, a true pillar of the ‘New State’.Footnote ⁶⁴ The machinery of terror and annihilation – extra-judicial killings, military trials, the Law of Political Responsibilities, exile, prison, concentration camps – was essential for the paralysis and elimination of possible opponents. The violence was so brutal that in 1999, one study estimated that Francoist repression, including the civil war and post-war periods, claimed a startling 150,000 victims. Even today new local studies are appearing, increasing this figure and recovering the names of those who disappeared.Footnote ⁶⁵

In inter-war authoritarian regimes, repression and violence were not simply imposed from above: in Nazi Germany, the civil population played an active role in policing, control and repression, participating and collaborating ‘from below’ by means of denunciations, reports and testimony.Footnote ⁶⁶ In the Spanish case, recent studies have shown the decisive and enthusiastic participation of the population in the annihilation and punishment of the republicans. By analysing military trials in Los Pedroches (Cordoba), Peter Anderson has shown that in 70 per cent of cases, proceedings began on the initiative of members of civil society who, keen to obtain ‘Franco's justice’ and fair retribution for the death of family members, were quick to denounce their neighbours. Their denunciations and statements show a view of the republican enemy as monstrous and unnatural, the civil war as a unique event and the punishment and annihilation of the vanquished as the reward expected from Franco's regime.Footnote ⁶⁷

The application of the Law of Political Responsibilities created similar tendencies. As is known, this measure went beyond the mere physical punishment of the vanquished: in addition to the death penalties and prison sentences imposed by military courts, the Political Responsibilites tribunals determined the confiscation of the accused's property, in this way making the future difficult for that person's family.Footnote ⁶⁸ With the head of the family dead or in prison and his property confiscated, his family members would be plunged into poverty, another corridor in Francoism's maze of repression. In Andalusia, the municipal authorities did not hesitate to publish reports regarding the political activities and ideas of the accused, using residents’ testimony to this end. Mayors, local Falange leaders, Civil Guard officers, parish priests and even military commanders wrote an enormous number of reports, reproducing that official discourse that presented the republican enemy as subhuman, cruel and barbarous. For example, in the file of the socialist day labourer José María Arco Soto, of Montefrío (Granada), all the authorities gave evidence against him. According to the local Falange head, ‘during the period of red domination, he was the leader of the hordes’; the Civil Guard said that ‘under Marxist rule he committed all kinds of outrages’; and the mayor stated that this ‘enthusiastic propagandist and perpetrator of Soviet ideas’ opposed the ‘Glorious Uprising’ with the ‘aim of achieving the installation of a Marxist regime’.Footnote ⁶⁹ Arco Soto was taken to the Provincial Prison in Granada. Even in 1945, when repression was still underway, some residents of the town added to the reports of the authorities and inspectors by stating that he had no property.Footnote ⁷⁰

The participation of a section of society in repression went beyond denunciations and reports. Some individuals would even form part of the machinery that ensured residents were stripped of their property by participating in the process of confiscation. The judge would appoint an inspector from among the local inhabitants to carry out the appropriate investigations, asking for information from banks and land registry offices, speaking to neighbours, etc.Footnote ⁷¹ This arduous task meant an obvious political commitment to Francoism: these men would visit the houses of relatives of the accused, making an inventory of items of value and further terrifying the families. Given their common values and ideas, they did not hesitate to participate in a punishment they considered just and appropriate for the annihilation of a ‘subhuman Republican enemy’. In the town of Montefrío, of the twenty-eight complete files analysed, we found no fewer than twenty different inspectors; some of them even lent their services to different proceedings.Footnote ⁷² Both right-wing inspectors and technicians, marked by the experience of the war and the ‘culture of victory’, did not hesitate to participate in the processes that dispossessed republican or socialist families of their property. For instance, Alfonso Pérez García acted as an inspector in various actions against his neighbours. A farmer and small property owner, he had been a councillor for Acción Popular (Popular Action) and head of the Catholic trade union in the town during the Second Republic. At 38 years old, after the uprising, he was arrested by the republicans; nonetheless, he managed to escape and fled to the rebel area, where he joined the Falange and took up office in one of the ‘New State's’ first town councils. By 1940 he was already head of the Montefrío Hermandad de Labradores (Brotherhood of Farmworkers), the agricultural trade union of the Francoist regime.Footnote ⁷³

The division between victors and vanquished was stark. The socio-economic profile of the accused fitted with that of the republicans, who belonged to the lower and lower-middle classes: of the twenty-eight defendants, only ten of them had any kind of property and these people had only small or very small properties.Footnote ⁷⁴ On the other hand, the inspectors belonged to the heterogeneous middle classes: eighteen out of twenty of them had urban or rural property.Footnote ⁷⁵

It is thus clear that Francoism's social supporters shared both the regime's values and beliefs, and the morality it advocated. Many people's behaviour was conditioned by fear and coercion: in Franco's Spain, too, there existed a ‘self-policing society’.Footnote ⁷⁶ It was the very residents of Spanish towns and cities who became the censors of the ideas, attitudes and habits of their fellow citizens. Francoism granted them the possibility of participating in social and moral control, watching over the country's ‘health’ and many did not hesitate to make the most of this opportunity. The fear of being denounced, of being singled out for negative treatment by the authorities, became widespread and everyday: the early post-war was the beginning of self-censorship, internal exile and, above all, silence. Francoism's supporters thus became repositories of a disciplinary and sovereign power that was able to seal their enemies’ fate with the ability to decide between life and death.Footnote ⁷⁷

The political economy of ‘Franco's justice’: satisfying the interests of the victors and destroying the vanquished

By participating and collaborating with the regime's institutions, Francoism's supporters would obtain their own ‘justice’ in material terms. In the context of the terrible economic crisis of the post-civil war period, they would see their private interests fulfilled, obtaining a just reward for their contribution to installing and maintaining the regime. In this sense, too, those who had lost the war would also face their neighbours, the victors, and suffer the terrible consequences of political autarchy.

There has been criticism of the irrationality of the autarchy's economic model.Footnote ⁷⁸ Yet, these arguments not only fail to consider the autarchic model's cultural and political goals, but also focus on the results for the Spanish economy as a whole, which show that economic growth came to a halt and that economic crisis characterised the post-war years. However, a more careful local analysis shows the cultural and political coherence of autarchy: Francoism's social base avoided the poor economic conditions and, in some cases, progressed economically; in contrast, the most disadvantaged classes came face to face with poverty.Footnote ⁷⁹ Meanwhile, the ‘culture of victory’ legitimised and sanctioned the enrichment of those who had won the war, justifying the lenience of the authorities towards fraudulence and corrupt practices even as it legitimised the punishment of those outside the regime's social bases, demanding from them the sacrifice necessary for the economic independence and redemption of Spain.

Autarchy meant the adoption of a highly interventionist system. For the regime the civil war was unending and controlling their neighbours’ food supply provided its lieutenants with an unprecedented weapon. These new men, drawn from Francoism's social base, ex-combatants marked by the experience of the civil war and imbued with the official culture of Francoism, controlled the production, sale and distribution of food and products in each area.Footnote ⁸⁰ The administration of ration cards, which lasted until 1952, was in their hands: the survival of their neighbours depended on their decisions.

The regime's supporters enjoyed the authorities’ indulgence. Perhaps the best example of this was the estraperlo or black market. According to an English traveller writing in 1946, the entire Spanish nation, rich and poor alike, was involved in the black market, yet the army, the authorities, the large Francoist bureaucracy and the regime's supporters were not punished for this.Footnote ⁸¹ Those who were caught out were almost always from the lowest classes: in Almeria province, almost ninety out of 100 of those charged with black market-related offences belonged to the lowest classes: unemployed, day labourers, workers and a striking number of widows. Out of 100, eighty-six had no property or economic capacity at all.Footnote ⁸²

Furthermore, Francoism's social bases were better equipped to face the situation. The heterogeneous rural middle classes (some small- and medium-sized businessmen and industrialists, but above all small and large farmers and even landlords) had access to food and resources, ensuring their survival through direct consumption or by means of a small black market tolerated by the authorities. It was even possible for some to enrich themselves spectacularly. The municipality of Santa Fe produced some surprising results. Between 1936 and 1951, of the twenty administrators with agricultural interests, twelve became property owners or increased the size of their land holdings (more than 44 per cent), twelve maintained their properties intact (44.4 per cent) and only three saw their properties reduce in size (11.11 per cent).Footnote ⁸³ One example is Fausto Rodríguez Rodríguez who, in 1936 at 40 years of age, did not work his own land. After joining the Falange, fighting the civil war, holding party positions (assistant local head in 1940, head of the Hermandad de Labradores from 1944 to 1960) and being a local councillor between 1944 and 1947, his prospects improved remarkably. His defence of the ‘values of the Crusade’ and close adherence to the regime bore fruit: in 1945 he obtained just over 2 hectares of land; in 1951 this had increased to over 12 hectares of agricultural land in Santa Fe alone.Footnote ⁸⁴

The socio-economic repression provides evidence that the culture of victory went hand in hand with harsh social realities. The Montefrío smallholder Pérez García, referred to above, collaborated with the Political Responsibilities Tribunal in persecuting the town's left-wing families. He acted as an inspector in most of the actions against the defeated, actively delivering and directing the processes. He shared that ‘culture of victory’, participated in a number of the regime's local institutions and was also rewarded for repressing the vanquished. The socio-economic results of his political loyalty are evident: owning just 0.15 hectares in 1936, in 1946 he farmed 3.72.Footnote ⁸⁵

Meanwhile, for the vanquished there was only hunger and misery: in short, socio-economic repression. The lowest classes did not have productive resources. Many families had been destroyed by the execution of the head of the family and/or the exile or imprisonment of family members. Away from the prisons and cemeteries, life went on: the families of those on the losing side had to avoid hunger and it was necessary to struggle to survive. Great political dreams were forgotten and replaced with a day-to-day fight that often involved breaking the laws of the day in order to cling to life, carrying out silent resistance that would mark the terrible years of the 1940s.Footnote ⁸⁶ People resorted to the black market in order to survive, although the authorities, informed by the regime's active supporters, were a constant obstacle in this regard. While the regime turned a blind eye to the bourgeois black market, with its large goods vans of wheat, the ‘black market of the poor’ was punished with fines that, if unpaid, would mean the accused were taken straight to labour camps.Footnote ⁸⁷ Repression also occurred outside the prisons: the very legal system was a weapon ready to be used against the weakest.Footnote ⁸⁸ However, the constant fight against legality would alleviate the conditions of the most underprivileged, as it involved silent resistance and protest which showed that those who remained outside the community of victory were still present in society.Footnote ⁸⁹

The extreme economic situation conditioned post-war life. Dying of hunger became a sad possibility for some. The perpetuation of the regime undermined the majority's dreams of redemption, to the advantage of Francoism. The regime's social policy was aimed at creating support: institutions such as Auxilio Social (Social Aid) were intended to attract the population, not only by attempting to instil the regime's ideology in those who received aid, but also by offering paternalist services that would alleviate the difficult post-war conditions.Footnote ⁹⁰ In Almeria, the Frente de Juventudes (Youth Front) also carried out this welfare role, and perhaps for this reason the majority of its militants belonged to the lowest classes or were children of those on the losing side of the civil war.Footnote ⁹¹ Francoism was not averse to carrying out a social or ideological policy in order to integrate and recruit the masses.Footnote ⁹² Recent research into Seville province seems to indicate that sometimes the regime was successful: we should not ignore the Falangist programme's powers of integration, as shown by the large number of Falange members belonging to the lowest classes.Footnote ⁹³ Nevertheless, what is certain is that the ‘discourse of victory’, designed to exclude and differentiate, made the integration of the vanquished highly problematic.