Franco's Dictatorship: Consolidation & Crisis (1959-1969)

Franco's Dictatorship: Consolidation and Crisis (1959-1969)

1st Stage: The Stabilization Plan

1. Economic Changes
   • Importance of the Stabilization Plan of 1959, proposed by technocrats in government and new members of Opus Dei that assumed important posts in Franco's cabinet. Opus Dei aspired to economic integration in Europe, but Spain would be exposed to democratic influences.
   • Measures proposed by these technocrats:
     • Curb inflation, reduce government control of the economy, bring Spanish economic procedures in line with European standards. Spain's industrial production and standard of living increased.
   • Effects:
     • Foreign investment, attracted by low production costs, launched a process of industrialization, not only in Catalonia and the Basque Country, but also in Madrid and its growing satellite towns (“Desarrollismo”).
     • Tourism took off, and Spain became a world-leading provider of beach holidays.
     • Emigration to Europe to find better salaries and a rural exodus from the rural areas to Catalonia, Madrid, and the Basque Country.
     • The great need for new technology and machinery produced a chronic deficit in the balance of trade, but it was financed by the large influx of capital from tourism, foreign investment, and money sent by Spanish workers in Europe.
   • This new model produced high growth in production and national income and transformed Spain into a country undergoing rapid industrialization.
2. Social Changes
   • Economic development had political and social consequences.
     • Larger and better-educated middle class and a new urban working class.
     • Foreign cultural and political influence.
     • Increased dissatisfaction with the restrictions of Franco's regime, seen as impediments to further growth and modernization.
3. Opposition to the Regime
   • Economic prosperity did not eliminate hostility towards Francoism, and the oppressive regime resulted in growing domestic opposition in the 1960s.
     • The workers in the industries organized clandestine commissions (CC.OO).
     • Regional violent protests in Catalonia and the Basque Country.
     • Agitation among university students.
     • Opposition among some groups within Francoism, the clergy. The Vatican II Council brought new, renovating movements to the Church, creating a crisis in National-Catholicism.
   • This opposition did not affect Spain's stability while Franco, in a period of economic growth and prosperity, solidified his regime. He also approved by referendum in 1966 the Organic Law of the State, the Law of Religious Freedom (1967), and the Press Law (1966), and named Prince Juan Carlos de Borbón as his successor (1969).
   • Munich Conspiracy (1962) - In the city of Munich, the moderate opposition in Spain (Christian Democrats, Socialists, Republicans, etc.) met with the opposition in exile to make clear that it was an indispensable condition to impose a democratic model to be able to integrate Spain into European institutions.
   • Nationalism: In the Basque Country, the birth of ETA (1959) must be highlighted, and at the State level later, the FRAP and GRAPO. The Trial of Burgos (1970), where 10 ETA members were sentenced to death, would bring great protests.
   • The response of the regime was always repression: councils of war, states of exception, executions.
     • Highlight the executions of the communist Julian Grimau (1963), the Trial of Burgos (1970), the 1001 Trial against members of CC.OO (1973), and the last executions by Franco of members of the FRAP and ETA in September 1975.