Overview
- A recent CIS survey reports that 65.5% of respondents view the Franco years as bad or very bad, while 21.3% consider them good or very good.
- Franco’s 36-year rule is described as an autocratic system that suppressed political freedoms through state coercion, censorship and repression.
- Economic accounts highlight early autarky and hardship, followed by the 1959 Stabilization Plan, subsequent growth and the departure of roughly two million emigrants to Europe.
- The transition milestones include the legalization of the Communist Party under Adolfo Suárez, Spain’s first free elections in June 1977 and a 1978 Constitution ratified by 88% of voters.
- Exile narratives emphasize that tens of thousands of Republican Spaniards fled after the Civil War, with Mexico receiving an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 by 1942 and restoring diplomatic ties with Spain in 1977 after a 1945 break.