“Not a home without a light, nor a family without bread.” This promise, repeated by General Franco in his speeches during the Civil War, was not fulfilled. The “new Spain” forged by the victors suffered cold and hunger. So much so that the situation experienced in the 1940s can be described as famine.
According to estimates, between 1939 and 1942, at least two hundred thousand people died in Spain from starvation or diseases derived from malnutrition. Taking into account that the period of famine lasted for more than a decade, until 1952, the figures could greatly exceed the number of deaths during the war on the front, also estimated at about two hundred thousand people.
Why did Spain die of hunger? According to the Franco regime's discourse, the causes were three: the consequences of the Civil War, the "persistent" drought and the international blockade. Franco blamed, first, the destruction caused by “the reds”: he alleged the organizational chaos unleashed in the republican zone, the destruction caused by the “Marxist revolution” and the selfishness of the “red bosses”, who had stolen the gold from the national coffers and lived luxuriously in Paris.
When this argument stopped making sense, heaven was blamed. The prolonged drought that the country suffered in the agricultural cycle of 1944-1945 served to justify the food shortages during the following years. A shortage that was aggravated, according to the regime, by international isolation. This third reason was present in official speeches throughout the 1940s.
The Franco government did not lie: there was destruction, drought and international isolation. But he didn't tell the whole truth. The material destruction of the war was not as much as the regime intended and it did not affect the entire territory in the same way. The impact was felt, above all, in transportation and infrastructure, and not so much in the countryside or industry. In the case of the home, the damage was extensive, but very localized.
As for the prolonged drought, the lack of water seriously affected the agricultural season of 1945 (the “bad year” was called by the farmers of the time) and, in a less general way, that of 1949. But it was not a phenomenon persistent throughout the decade.
And as far as isolation is concerned, it was not as lasting or obligatory as was reported. Firstly, because this ostracism was caused, in large part, by the regime itself with its adoption of an autarkic economic policy. When, at the end of the 1940s, the government assumed that this system did not work, it justified it by stating that it had been imposed from abroad, that they had been forced to apply it due to the international blockade.
Secondly, because this international blockade did not become effective until 1946. Previously, Franco maintained commercial relations with Italy and, above all, with Germany, with which he had contracted important war debts. During the time of greatest famine, Spain exported large quantities of basic necessities to Rome and Berlin.
The Spanish dictatorship was condemned by the UN, being excluded from post-war recovery plans. Even so, Spain's foreign trade did not come to a standstill. In 1947, Franco signed an agreement with Juan Domingo Perón's Argentina, which allowed him to supply himself with wheat and alleviate the consequences of the poor harvests of the previous years.
The main reason to explain why the Spanish post-war depression was so deep and lasting is found in the economic policy adopted by the Franco regime. Traditionalist nationalism, militarism and illiberalism of the rebel forces were the ideological engines that drove it.
Postwar Spain, poor, backward and largely illiterate, was for Franco “a privileged country that can be self-sufficient.” This idea translated into total interventionism in the economy by the State, which implied “disciplinary” control of prices, according to the regime's rhetoric.
The dictatorship intended to alleviate the post-war shortages and achieve self-sufficiency for the country. The reality was very different. The control of prices, set below those of the market, discouraged producers, causing a reduction in the production of intervened items (those of basic necessity) and, therefore, in supply.
To bridge the price difference, producers used two strategies. On the one hand, they reduced production costs, which ended up having an impact on the quality of the products (for example, black bread). And, on the other hand, they sold their most valuable merchandise (white bread) at higher prices outside official channels, causing a shortage of products in the regular market and favoring the appearance of the black market, the black market.
Another consequence of these economic measures was corruption. The control of the distribution of products by the institutions led to favoritism. The managers tended to benefit the people affected by the regime. Furthermore, prominent figures of the dictatorship, in connivance with the bureaucratic bodies of the regime, used their position to profit from the black market. Thus arose a class of great black marketeers (landowners, governors, businessmen, high military commanders, Falangist leaders) who accumulated great fortunes at the expense of the misery of a large part of the population.
Social Assistance was the main state instrument of charity during the first years of the dictatorship. Created during the Civil War on the rebel side, in 1937 it became part of the Women's Section of the Falange. Canteens, nurseries and asylums sprang up throughout Franco's Spain.
After the end of the war, Auxilio Social continued its activity. However, despite being an institution protected by the regime, it hardly received state financial support. Most of the financing was provided by the organization itself.
During the post-war period it was very common to see volunteers from the Women's Section asking for donations on the street, selling almanacs or entries for raffles and organizing charity events, such as “patriotic” snacks, folk performances or bullfights. The so-called “blue token” was also established, that is, a periodic subscription to the organization with a minimum amount set by the State.
The dictatorship, through propaganda, urged Spaniards to contribute to Social Assistance as another moral and patriotic duty. Despite state pressure, the organization's funding began to decline after 1940, as did its activity. A decline that coincided with the hardest years of the postwar period. Starting in the 1950s, Auxilio Social lost its prominence in favor of the charitable organizations of the Church, revealing the disputes between Falangists and National Catholics within the regime.
Auxilio Social not only carried out charitable work, but also ideological work. The situation of extreme need of many families generated a relationship of dependency with relief organizations, used by the dictatorship to spread the values of the new regime – particularly among children –, naturalize social and gender inequalities and promote submission to the governmental, military and ecclesiastical hierarchies. The soup kitchens and daycare centers, decorated with Falangist and Catholic symbols, offered bread and shelter, but also pedagogy and ideological discipline.
The perception among the most needy population that the regime was doing something for them to alleviate their hunger – even though this was being caused, to a large extent, by the regime itself – had very positive effects for the dictatorship: it created new loyalties and favored its legitimation and consolidation.
This perception was fundamental for the dictatorship to successfully take credit for the improvement in economic conditions starting in the 1950s. This issue has opened a debate on the political intention of hunger management, on whether the control of the distribution of the most basic products was used as a weapon of repression, as a punitive strategy to subdue the defeated and control the popular strata.
The impact it had on the population and its duration have led some researchers to point in that direction. Was it a deliberate strategy to prop up the dictatorship, another form of post-war Francoist repression? Or, as others maintain, a fatal miscalculation of the population's needs, due to the regime's negligence in economic matters? Be that as it may, the consequences for hundreds of thousands of Spaniards were devastating.
This text is part of an article published in number 658 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
