Unit 11.

Franco´s dictatorship in the Basque Country(1939-1975)

Civil War’s end in Euskadi divided the society into winners and losers. Winners were Falangists and military,
and there were the old dynastic parties, the traditionalists, and representatives from the business world and
industry. The losers were the nationalists, socialists and communists.

Early Francoism was marked by political repression. At the same time, the activity of the factories started
again. During the Francoism, economic growth and the clandestine activities of resistance to the dictatorship
were combined, both by unions and political parties that existed before the Civil War as organizations such
as ETA.

1. Basque economy under Francoism

Economic recovery in Euskadi was slow. There were serious problems such as the lack of fuel, raw materials
and skilled labour or transport problems, prices… Also, the demand of industrial products (iron and steel,
chemicals, cement) was very high due to national reconstruction. There were very developed sectors in
Euskadi that helped the economic development to be higher and earlier than elsewhere.

There were more problems that caused by the intervention of the state and its policy of autarchy, as well as
the international isolation of Spain at the end of the WW II. They prevented economic growth. Therefore, until
the 50´s were not achieved the production levels that existed before the Civil War.

From the Stabilization Plan (1959), the economic rise started. This coincided with the expansion of
cooperatives in Gipuzkoa that were created in all sectors: capital goods, companies, domestic appliances…

Economic development in the 60´s and early 70´s was extraordinary:

• Álava: Industrial rise

• Biscay: Creation of a powerful chemical industry. The shipbuilding and iron and steel industries
maintained their importance.

In Alava, Biscay and Gipuzkoa, the “desarrollismo” had demographical consequences: arrival of immigrants
who came from other provinces looking for a job in the industry. For example, Biscayan population doubled
between 1955 and 1973.

Since 1973, Basque economy suffered a deep crisis due to:

• International oil crisis (1973)

• Terrorism: Many businesspersons were forced to leave the Basque Country because of ETA
threats.
• Spanish political transition, full of uncertainties in those years.

The 80´s will be witnesses of breaking down and harsh industrial rationalization.

2. Political and social situation. The exile, conflicts and opposition to Francoism

Since the fall of Bilbao (June 1937), in the Basque Country began a period in which the Basque
Government, the Statute and institutions created during the Second Republic disappeared, and severe
repression won. Exile, death penalty and imprisonment were common during the Postwar period. Any
expression of Basque culture was prohibited, including the Euskera, which could only be spoken at
home,church or cuadrilla. Biscay and Gipuzkoa were proclaimed “traitor provinces” and punished with the
abolition of their Economic Agreement.

After the war, between 1939 and 1945, nationalist activity was restricted to foreign groups. Several attempts
were made by newly exiled Basques in France, Great Britain and the United States, together with more
established communities in Argentina, Uruguay, and Mexico.

So, any political activity had to be carried out underground. Nevertheless, some clandestine networks were
reconstructed trying to maintain the resistance against the regime. They thought that the Italian and German

History of Spain. Unit 11. Baccalaureate 2. El Salvador School. Marists.

defeat in the Second World War would mean the end of Franco´s dictatorship. However, the political parties
and unions had to change their strategy and rely on their own strength.

The 40´s were years of low wages, starvation and harsh living and working conditions. The result of this
unrest was the strike of 1947: thousands of workers, from La naval, Altos Hornos de Vizcaya, Euskalduna,
…, followed a call to celebrate the May 1 with a strike against the Franco dictatorship.A few days later, a
group of businessmen negotiated with the government the liberation of the arrested strikers in the end to the
strike.

Despite the success of the joint initiative, reflected in the pact of Bayona, the strike of 1947 marked the end
of the unity of political forces opposed to the dictatorship. Furthermore, the police repression ended the
structures of the UGT and CNT, whose effort was used by the Basque Government in exile and nationalist
trade union Solidarity of Basque Workers.

In the 50´s opposition to Francoism failed. The nationalists tried to spread the Euskera and the Basque
culture, collaborating with the Basque church, which protected associations such as J.O.C. and H.O.A.C.
As it was not possible to do something against the dictatorship, a new group appreared: EKIN, a group of
nationalist young people, that belong to the PNV and had split up from this group in 1958 and the following
year created ETA. Initially, it was focused on the ethnical and cultural aspects of nationalism. Then, they
approached to the armed activism.

In the 60´s there were conflicts and strikes of students and workers. The hardest was the 1962 in Asturias,
Biscay and Gipuzkoa, the end of the strike did not mean the end of the conflicts.Perhaps the most important
strike of the period was “Huelga de Bandas” which lasted from November 1966 to May 1967. This conflict
was lead to a general strike of the dictatorship. Since then, the workers´ movement gained strength and
importance.

The tension experienced in Euskadi throughout 1967 increased with the emergence of the first casualties as
a result of ETA activity. In June 1968, Txabi Etxebarrieta (the first member of ETA) and the civil guard José
Pardines were killed in a shootout. A few days later, in vengeance Melitón Manzanas, commissioner of the
political police of Guipuzcoa was assassinated at the door of his house.The repression of the basque country
rose.

ETA was largely a political phenomenon of the Franco regime, although its activity lasted until 20 October
2011. Its birth in 1958 was the result of; the first was Basque nationalism, and the second, internationalism,
was inspired by liberation struggles in the developing world. Revolutions and liberation processes such as
Cuba, Algeria, and China served at the background for the first programmes of an organisation that
combined nationalist heritage with revolutionary mystique. ETA defined itself initially as a Basque movement
for national and social liberation and, later, as a “revolutionary socialist organisation for national liberation”

3. The crisis of the dictatorship in the Basque Country.

In the 70´s there were a lot of political tensions and demonstrations against Francoism. It was the beginning
of the opposition coming from some sectors of the Basque clergy and ETA´s strategy “action-repression-
action”

The Francoist regime intensified the repression and decided to prosecute sixteen members of ETA accused
of the death of Melitón Manzanas and other violent acts. The trial took place in Burgos (Burgos Trial), in early
December 1970. Legal irregularities, tortures and request of death penalty for some of the arrested, caused
protests in Euskadi, Spain and abroad. Among the 16 accused persons would arise several political
organizations of the Basque left during and after the Spanish Transition (Jokin Gorostidi and Itziar Aizpurua,
form Herri Batasuna.)

In addition, the economic crisis began, and with it, the actions of the clandestine unions, especially
Comisiones Obreras.In 1973, the head of the government, Luis Carrero Blanco, was killed in an attack by
ETA. His successor would be Carlos Arias Navarro. Euskadi, at the end of Francoism, was a modern and

History of Spain. Unit 11. Baccalaureate 2. El Salvador School. Marists.

industrial country, but political uncertainty and social unrest created a very negative situation. In those
unfavourable conditions, the Spanish Transition to democracy began.

History of Spain. Unit 11. Baccalaureate 2. El Salvador School. Marists.