Tension in Spain

...In that movement, they have the backing of the Falange, and, what is even more dangerous, the younger officers, supported by a public opinion which is convinced that Franco's prolonged stay in power is due to American aid...

...The national feelings of Catalonia and of the Basques are running high again...

...And the more the Caudillo persists in his rejection of change, the more resolved the people become to do all they can to bring about a change...

...Though the Opus Dei, as an association of Catholic laymen, denies it possesses any power in Franco's regime and often emphasizes its non-political character, it is strongly attacked by the young revolutionary Catholics and by the Jesuits, who see the role played by Opus Dei in the State as a misfortune for the Church...

...The recent arrests of some of the most distinguished Spanish liberals and Socialists is a new warning not for the Caudillo, but for the West to help Spain to win her freedom...

...The Opus Dei has filled the Spanish ideological and political vacuum which was aggravated by the fall of international facism...

...That is not the case with the youngest group, the young students, who are sympathetic to the Communists...

...Western support of Franco in the face of growing popular discontent with regime may drive opposition forces into Communist camp Tension in Spain By Bogdan Raditsa The Spanish people are marking the 20th anniversary of Generalissimo Francisco Franco's rule by scarcely disguised contempt for the Caudillo and his regime...

...To them change means an unpredictable future and the specter of another civil war...

...Therefore, all the talk about the West being attached to the principle of democracy leaves us baffled...

...The decline of the Falange has had another and more complex result: The sons of the old Falangists are today the best recruits for the Communists, if not the most active elements in the Communist underground which the regime leaves free to act...

...They are often in conflict with Rome and some of the late Pope's encyclicals have been expurgated before publication in Spain...

...The enemy of the regime is not Communism, but socialism and liberalism...

...Together with these two traditional forces, a new class has arisen in Spain as the result of the economic transformation which has inevitably occurred despite the regime's inertia...

...This new class is not, as one might expect, the old fascist Falange which has died both as an ideology and a political movement...

...The Christian Democrats talk with enthusiasm of a revolutionary Christianity that would sweep away medieval feudalism and give Spain greater political and social freedom...

...When asked this question by one of the most distinguished of Spain's high clergymen...

...Most of the old generals and officer elite from the Civil War are dead, leaving Franco without any serious rival...

...Spain is a monarchy without a king...

...It offers Franco an impressive screen behind which he can cover his own passion for power...

...In the lower ranks of the Army, however, a new feeling of opposition is growing, and it could eventually turn against the dictator...

...Furthermore...

...Many predict a new civil war, a new conflict between the old and young, and a new period of anarchy and internecine social strife...

...What do the Spanish people seek from other nations of the West...

...Although not exactly a part of the new class—the term has been used in Spain, too, following the publication of Milovan Djilas' The New Class—the Opus Dei comes next as a powerful group in the State...

...Franco fights liberalism and Christian and social democracy...

...The Opus Dei has been publicized often abroad as a Christian Democratic movement...

...It now wants to be part of Europe, and the archaic...

...The young Christian Democrats with revolutionary tendencies and the Socialists have much in common...

...Will Franco finally step down and open the door to a peaceful succession...

...When I was in Spain I was very surprised to be introduced to a Socialist by a young Catholic clergyman and by young left-wing Christian Democrats...

...The forces behind Franco are still those that helped the Generalissimo establish himself in power 20 years ago...

...Yet the longer Franco stays in power, the more remote appears the possibility of a normal and peaceful transition to monarchy...

...This sickness of a decaying regime buttressed by obsolete and weary propaganda is probably the most depressing feeling one has after living in Spain for several months...

...Their feeling of social responsibility toward the people, primarily the peasantry, is limited to a paternalism reminiscent of the Middle Ages...

...The Spanish Monarchy, according to the Caudillo, is "traditional, Catholic, social and representative," and it could be established as soon as Franco says so...

...The Falange remains strong in the Government-controlled trade unions, the Sindicatos, whose aim is to keep the workers silent and acquiescent in a regime which has slightly improved their standard of living and provided a certain degree of social security...

...powerful in obtaining and delivering export and import licenses...

...As this answer did not satisfy the high clergyman, it does not satisfy the younger generation in Spain, who seem convinced that Franco's continued stay in power cannot contribute to the peaceful transformation of the State into a constitutional monarchy...

...Franco, with his policy of enforced assimilation, has merely helped strengthen these internal regional passions...

...The West can no longer ignore the new developments in Spain...

...The latest arrests are not the only example of Franco's eagerness to fight the liberals and the Socialists while permitting the Communists to continue their activities...

...Nothing could be more incorrect...

...Yet in no country of Europe is there such a tremendous drive for change and such a strong desire "to cross the Pyrenees"—the mountain barrier that still seems to hold Spain back from the rest of Europe...

...To them, Spain is still the old fortified castle that must fear God and remain aloof from the liberal and Protestant West...

...They are strongly opposed to any change...

...Those who still remember the Civil War and its horrors have been either resolute or tepid supporters of Franco...

...The Communists, on the other hand, seem satisfied to see Franco eliminate their opponents, for the sole Communist aim today is to promote action "against-the-for-eigner" so as to get the Americans and their bases out of Spain...

...What are the forces that keep Franco in power and what are those opposing him...

...It is a Roman Catholic laymen's association that claims to be socially minded and politically enlightened...

...Franco declared serenely that power lies in trustworthy hands...

...Their influence upon the young clergy is weak and diminishing...

...an internal separatist movement cannot be excluded...

...The Army, the strongest of those forces, has been rebuilt and has achieved such economic and political strength that it is still Franco's major support...

...the hands of the Council of the Realm, which would ensure the normal succession under a monarchy...

...The revolutionary movements sweeping the Middle East have had a direct impact upon Spain...

...The new generals and colonels are Franco's creatures and see in his perpetuation in power their own security...

...This...

...But to those who have grown and developed intellectually under Franco's shadow, change Bogdan Raditsa recently spent four months in Spain, where he was engaged in research on the philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno...

...Whenever the Soviet Union achieves a technological victory over the West, Franco is the first one to praise it as the achievement of a strong and totalitarian state and to accuse democracy of decadence...

...That Spain is the most backward country in the Atlantic community is clear to everyone who has lived there recently...

...Raditsa is a professor of European History at Fairleigh Dickinson University...

...The Spanish people have now only one alternative: to fight Franco and the West and free themselves from the foreigners whose attitude toward Franco is subservient and opportunist...

...The economic aid that has moved Spain out of stagnation has helped the new class of merchants, middle-men and managers more than the broad masses of the people...

...These opinions are repeated again and again, not only by the liberals and the Socialists, but by the Christian Democrats and nationalists...

...The question of Franco's succession is still an open one...

...They support the big landed proprietors in the South, and still teach the peasantry that to suffer is God's will...

...But Franco, a healthy and vigorous man at 66, who seems to desire power for power's sake, doesn't appear ready to move out...

...Franco fights the liberals and the Socialists with greater passion and conviction than the Communists...

...The opinion which the anti-Franco intelligentsia has of the West and its policy in Spain can be summed up as follows: "Spain is an underdeveloped country...

...thus becoming the strongest vested interest in the State...

...They were all united against the older generation and against Franco, of course—and against the Communists too...

...The West treats Spain as all the underdeveloped countries: It seems to think that it is easier to work out a policy through a monolithic dictatorship than through a constitutional democratic government...

...At least 50 years behind Italy, young Spain, aware of the progress taking place in all neighboring countries, yearns for advances in all directions: economic, political, social and cultural...

...The books that in the West have opened people's eyes about Communism are not obtainable in Spain...

...It is a Catholic "Masonry" as it is called even by the Catholics, and is a clearly anti-democratic movement which tries to control the education and, to a certain extent, the finances of the country...

...Many bishops are former military vicars, owing their position to Franco...

...The widespread arrests of liberals and Socialists all over Spain are not only the symptoms of Franco's unpopularity but one of the clearest signs of his weakness...

...I was told, who can organize successful underground action against the regime...

...Two generations of Spaniards, one over 40 years of age, the other under, are locked in silent conflict over the question of political and other fundamental changes...

...What are the prospects for the future in Spain...

...Against change stands not only an old decrepit regime but also the indifference of the West...

...In Barcelona I met some anarchists and syndicalists in the home of a priest and they spoke freely and without fear...

...Though offered assurances that he would be safe when out of power, he knows that his life in Spain would be endangered...

...too, explains the unrest and gives the Communists a useful source of propaganda against the West...

...The regime has given them a remarkable economic situation that makes them eager to postpone any change...

...traditionalist, autarchic and authoritarian Franco regime stands against its powerful desire to "European-ize...

...The old bishops and clergy fear that a change could expose the Church to widescale persecution...

...Two pretenders to the Spanish throne, Don Juan Bourbon, and his son, Don Carlos, one living in comfortable exile in Portugal and the other studying in Spain, are waiting for the succession...

...It has made the rich richer and kept the poor poor...

...It is a class of aggressive nouveaux riches whom the regime has made wealthy through corruption and through financial speculation and the use of foreign aid...

...For the Communists are the only ones...

...They all believe the time has come when they must break with the older generations which, according to them, have betrayed Spain's right to live as a modern democratic society...

...Though it is understandable that the Americans did not go to Spain to free it from Franco, as they did not go to Yugoslavia to free the Yugoslavs from Marshal Tito, it is nevertheless true that the indifference with which the West looks upon Spain is responsible for Franco's stability...

...backed by a corrupt police state, to a whole nation's desire for a new way of life...

...The only possibility of preventing Spain from moving toward a new civil war in which the Communists might benefit is change in the direction of democracy...

...means the way to put an end to apathy and backwardness...

...What would happen if Franco should die...

...A similar climate prevails in the old Church hierarchy...

...What, then, is the real possibility of a change in Spain...

...How could Franco eventually be overthrown...

...The most tragic paradox of the new Spanish drama is the opposition of one man...

...Franco's regime has done nothing to help the youth understand the real meaning of Communist action...

...This section of the Church still fights against the dead Immanuel Kant and Miguel de Unamuno as much as against the living Jacques Maritain or Luigi Sturzo...