EUROPE : 20 Years After Franco’s Death, Spain Proudly Forgets Him

When Generalissimo Francisco Franco died in 1975, he left a detailed blueprint designed to keep Francoism alive for generations to come. But the Spanish citizenry simply ignored it, almost instantly relegating Franco’s brutally repressive, 39-year rule to the history books.

So when the 20th anniversary of Franco’s death passes Monday, there will be no big memorial celebrations. Instead, the country will quietly cast a proud eye on its post-Franco accomplishments--the installation of democracy, economic growth, acceptance in Europe and new accommodations with its powerful regional separatist movements.

“It seems like a century ago that he died,” said Helga Soto, an official in the ruling Socialist Party of Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez. “Nobody discusses that past much. We never even really faced the past. And people now believe we have totally overcome it.”

That broad feeling is particularly important these days in Spain, where Gonzalez’s government is under fire for a series of corruption scandals. Under pressure, Gonzalez has called early elections for March, and his Socialists are expected to be supplanted by the conservative Popular Party, which some still associate with Franco.

While some here are worried about the future, many Spaniards see the governmental crisis as an example of democracy in action. An unpopular government will be replaced, they point out, and life will go on.

“I think we don’t realize--all of us in Spain--how much our country has changed for the better in the past 20 years,” said Joaquim Molins, a member of Parliament from the Catalan Socialist Party. “We are still a young democracy, but we are now a country that counts in Europe. We have international value.”

In 1982, just seven years after Franco’s death, Gonzalez’s Socialists came to power on a promise to stabilize democracy. For all the Socialists’ current woes, they have succeeded in that mission.

Of the major parties on the political scene today, the Popular Party would seem to carry what is left of the mantle of Franco, though its conservative platform is decidedly more centrist. But only its most ardent critics would try to link the Popular Party with the dictator.

“The Franco era is a prehistoric era,” said Federico Trillo, justice spokesman for the Popular Party. “He isn’t present in politics or social life today. We have managed to receive the political heritage of the right without the connotation of Francoism.”

Franco was, to be sure, the most important figure in 20th-Century Spain. When the military anointed him chief of state in 1936, at the beginning of the three-year Spanish Civil War, Franco’s propaganda machine went to work.

At the end of the war, he consolidated power by executing or imprisoning hundreds of thousands of his opponents.

When Franco died, at age 82, the successor he had appointed, Juan Carlos, grandson of Alfonso XIII, took power. Franco had intended to create an entirely Francoist monarchy, but Juan Carlos called elections in 1977, the first since 1936. Franco’s party was dismantled.

On the anniversary of Franco’s death, a few dozen die-hard Francoists usually gather to chant: “Franco, rise up. The people need you.” But the numbers in recent years have been small.

“There may be a few hundred nostalgic people,” Trillo said. “But they aren’t passionate. Not even the young people. Young people may be disappointed in the political class today, but they don’t believe in Francoism. He’s no longer a relevant political factor.”

Kraft was recently on assignment in Madrid.