š Share this article Spain's Misguided Perception of Franco's Dictatorship: Revisiting the Atrocities On the surface, hardly anyone suspected that Francisco Franco might become a authoritarian ruler able to imposing a harsh dictatorship for four decades. He appeared as a short, high-pitched army officer with a poor understanding of non-military matters and no charisma. Yet he did exactly that, before passing away naturally in a Madrid hospital, 50 years ago recently. The Warning of Superficial Ordinariness Even today, Franco stands as a warning that outward mediocrity is no barrier to the extremely driven. Behind the dull facade lay a elusive, clever operator. Franco's ambition was underpinned by an iron will, a casual disregard to violence and limitless self-confidence. Those who praise and defend him ā among them on the resurgent far right in Spain, the United States and the UK ā continue to assert Franco was not truly a dictator, but rather a cherished rescuer from communism. This is incorrect, but autocrats do not emerge from nowhere. "A significant portion of any society consists of people who actively want authoritarian rule," political thinker from France Jean-FranƧois Revel observed the following year Franco's death: "to wield it personally or ā much more mysteriously ā to submit to it." He thought the same: the true desire of people was to see and feel themselves governed. The Truth of Brutality and Suppression Naturally, if Franco had been genuinely popular, there would have been no need for his 1936 coup against an democratically chosen progressive administration, or for the 500,000 fatalities of the ensuing Spanish civil war. Nor would he have executed 20,000 people afterwards. He seized control in a Spain mired in post-imperial ennui ā a powerful realm having vanished the previous century. He aimed to restore Spain's greatness. He accused outsiders. They were stealing Spainās money, plotting against the country as part of a conspiracy theory, or poisoning Spanish minds with external ideologies: democratic systems, socialism, communism, and his bizarre bugbear, Freemasonry. A Calculated, Brutal Conflict His war was deliberately slow and brutal in occupied areas, alongside a ruthless elimination of dissenters in an attempt to "purify" this tainted Spain. His new Spain also had to be a place of allegedly "masculine" men and obedient women, whose rights to their bodies, children, work and possessions were reduced, postponed, or transferred to male relatives. After a vengeful victory, Franco confined the nation into a corset of self-reliance and discarded the key. Economic self-sufficiency was adopted. Foreign capital and goods were shunned. "We have everything we need," he said. Starvation and Isolation But he was wrong. The immediate result was starvation, with people dying on city streets in 1940 and 1945. As he drove on a victory tour through the towns of southern regions, people pleaded at his car window. "Please, Mr. Franco, some bread," they said. Even Nazi officials in Spain, his supporters, complained that a impressive exterior hid the ghastly truth. By backing Hitler and Mussolini during the second world war, Franco made Spain a outcast nation, but he refused to step aside afterwards. Spaniards sank further into misery. Overconfidence and Political Revival Franco's conviction that he was both selected by God and always right meant he demanded a lifelong term in charge. A UK diplomat remarked that he lived in a "heavy mist of self-complacency", blind to his own ineptitude. Luck, and a lack of any definable ideology, came to Francoās rescue. As the Cold War began, he polished his opposition to communism and the United States rehabilitated him. As a result, a failing economic system was ultimately saved and compelled to liberalize by the United States and the International Monetary Fund. During the sixties, Spain was drawn into a southern European economic boom that had begun earlier in Italy and Portugal. Suddenly, visitors were pouring on to Spanish beaches at coastal resorts or on the Costa del Sol. Numerous citizens still could not find work, but the money they sent home after emigrating to northern Europe also helped. Authoritarian Control and Forgotten History Franco quietly dropped his most stupid ideas ā from establishing a new realm to producing artificial fuel with a "magic" formula ā but did not relinquish his central aim of making Spaniards docile, obedient and politically apathetic. He devoted extensive resources in government intimidation from the 1936 takeover onwards, implemented a strict, propaganda-based media regulation, and made sure multiple cohorts were educated in a deeply traditional and historically amnesiac state-approved syllabus. Even into the seventies, autonomous political groups, democratic voting and labor organizations remained banned. He also treated as children Spaniards, deeming them incapable of self-rule. The scariest part of his legacy was that so many believed him. Reversion to Brutality and Ancient Methods When that fear-driven consensus started collapsing during the last decade of his regime, he reverted to violent domination. Aggressive law enforcement, abuse, execution teams and even that medieval form of execution, the garrote, returned. This method saw a metal collar fastened around a convict's throat and constricted until it broke their neck or stopped their breathing; it was being used by a western European government on its own citizens, during the seventies. Fear and the Transition to Democracy Nevertheless, the historian Antonio Cazorla Sanchez, a deeply critical Franco biographer, recalls experiencing sorrow as a child, upon learning that Franco had passed away: "The sadness of that 12-year-old boy was felt at the time by countless citizens, who thought that the man who had just died had been the best possible solution for a country that was difficult to govern," he wrote. "This was the narrative at educational institutions, in the media, on the TV ā¦ " The main feeling in reaction to Franco's death was fear. Ultimately, what occurs after the man at the centre of a long-standing autocracy dies? Authority was transferred to the young king Juan Carlos, who supervised a period of change that ended with a referendum on the founding document that still holds today. Spain remains a vibrant, contentious democracy. Inspiring Stories and Distorted Heritage Heroic narratives emerged to explain this. For the left, it was the result of activism from courageous demonstrators, youth and workers who clashed repeatedly with riot police. For the right, it was a indication of institutional prudence. For Francoists, in the most distorted interpretation of all, it forms part of the dictatorās legacy. And therein lies a problem. At the Madrid copy shop where I printed out versions of my recent book on the ruler, El Generalisimo, the proprietor kept maintaining that his father claimed to have lived well under Franco. His parent recalled, naturally, only the economic boom of the sixties. The Peril of Unawareness During the promotion of the local version of the book, I have also realised that the issues described by MarĆa RamĆrez about childhood amid quiet about the dictatorship are still present. College attendees inform me that their high school teachers were still avoiding the topic just a year or two ago. As a parent of Spanish youth, that is a huge worry. Ignorance is dangerous. It is understandable that almost one in five youth think his regime was beneficial for Spain. The only way to alter this is to end the quiet and educate the new generation what Francoism was truly like.