1. The agony of the Franquismo

Around the end of the years sixty had very few Spanish politizados, among the franquistas as well as among their/its enemies, capable of anticipating that, after Exempt, there would be a transition to the democracy.

To the sight than what occurred, the step of the dictatorship to the June elections of 1977 was converted in an intensive search of the control among the united forces of the opposition antifranquista and some of the most qualified and liberal elements of the franquismo.

Would have been difficult to prophesy the nature of such process from the perspective of 1969. The opposition, in spite the frequent communist initiatives, was appearing then yet more divided than when Pulley launched for the first time the National Reconciliation idea of 1956. For an occasional observer, the left was seeming be very weakened by the gymnastics for Chinese of the groups ultraizquierdistas of recent appearance. Weigh to the strengthening of the clandestine unions and to the increase in the student dissatisfaction, the forces of the regime were seeming to have a future relatively assured.

The possibility of the fact that could be established the democracy in Spain, thanks to a consensus among the united opposition and the political representatives of the progressive middle class, was in 1969 a concept confined to the pages of an exiles magazine, conscience of the erudite left, Iberian Turn Notebooks, where Fernando Claudín, expelled of the PCE by heresy in 1964, proposed precisely a similar stage, though their/its/your/his vision I had then scarce echo.

While the new left were exercised in the terrorist tacticss of the nechayevismo (*), the moderate left was accepting, in greater or minor measured, the communist point of view, according to the one which the democracy only would arrive when existed a sufficiently wide front as to sweep to the dictatorship and to their/its beneficiary by means of the bulks action through strikes and demonstrations.

For the side of the right, was existing the determination of saving what is salvageable. From would be, the elite franquista was seeming to have confidence in which never would be seen obligated to negotiate with their/its enemies of the left. In any case, had already signs of the fact that the elite was fearing that the gilded times of the corruption and of the unpunished repression were walking toward their/its/your/his end.

The dread than what would occur when Exempt muriese affected from the different sectors of the forces of the different way regime. The falangistas of the hard line, entrenched in the state and union bureaucracy, the Policeman and the Civil Custody, had intention of defending the dictatorship and their/its own privileges until the end. From the fat fish that they had accumulated immense thank fortunes to the regime, the calls cleptócratas, until the simple serene and janitors that were believing that the continuity of their/its/your/his employment was consustancial with the dictatorship, was existing a growing feeling of the fact that the franquismo there was of be defended as the hitlerismo it had been in the last days of Berlin: from a búnker.

Such dreads would not make but increase in intensity after 1973, but the siege sensation grew before the evidence of the fact that other elements of the regime were trying to surviving and preparing some type of understanding with the of yesterday enemies.

The long ago sure supports of the regime were seeming be relinquishing. From the most humble worker cure until the members of the hierarchy, the catholic church was showing signs of a disquieting benevolence toward the aspirations of the regionalistas and of the working class. Was known that some entrepreneurs were negotiating covertly with the illegal Worker Commissions instead of with the state unions. Even in the most closed circles of the Government there was aperturistas that were wanting to liberalize what is sufficient to permit than the regime survived. To difference of the búnker, the aperturistas were verifying that the notable social and economic changes of the ten previous years had converted the political structures of the franquismo in something totally obsolete.

With any type of liberalization, the búnker stood a chance of losing and the aperturistas of earning. The aperturistas were wishing to adapt the political forms of the regime to one of the aspects, at least, of the changing Spanish reality, that is to say, the emergence of a capitalism on a large scale, national as well as multinational, dominant economic force of the moment. That reality was bringing with himself the growing political immateriality of the forces of the búnker.

After all, the civil war had been gained by a right-wing forces coalition, emerged in response to the balance of prevailing socioeconomic power during the II Republic. Thus, the principal objectives of the political regime established by that coalition were the protection of the structures of for - piety of the existing land and a ferreous control on the rural and urban proletariats defeated in the war. These tasks were carried out by a political bureaucracy - formed soldier therefore members of the middle classes and working, that was constituting the class of service of the franquismo. For various reasons, such as the geographical loyalty during the war, by genuine ideological conviction, by opportunism or by need, were tried to people that shared the luck of the regime and that remained bound to this therefore Raymond Carr it has called a blood agreement, the corruptions and complicities net throughout the great repression during the years of the hunger. The function of these forces was quite evident among 1939 and 1959, but in 1969 was beginning to be increasingly debatable.

After the civil war, the union bureaucrats of the Phalanx, supported by the armed power of the forces of the order, served conscientiously to their/its/your/his chiefs disciplining to the working class and to the peasants through the corporative unions. It can be thought that the similar political structures adoption on the part of franquismo, in order to preserving the socioeconomic balance of the Spain prior to 1931, were carrying with himself the seeds of their/its/your/his own destruction, even though this was not evident until later of 1969.

If before 1959, the official unions and the weight of the restrictive forces resulted advantageous for the dominant economic classes, toward 1969 the economic development that these had in part sponsored, began to make them unnecessary. The restrictive occupational legislation, with the high benefit margins that permitted, had made of Spain a place extremely interesting for the investing foreign, encouraging the emigration abroad or to the new industrial cities of the own Spain, the economic growth was reducing the intensity of the fundamental conflict of the Spain of the years thirty and forty among the landowner oligarchy and what was a real despaired laborers army. Around the end of the sixty, the class landowners had remained displaced of the power by the financial and industrial sector, more dynamical.