The strong dissensions around the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death recall that Spain is far from having finished with “ This past that does not pass ».
In this year of commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Franco’s death by the socialist government, we must salute the publication of Sophie Baby’s work and thank La Découverte editions as the works on Spanish history are rare in France. Spain is indeed very often absent from public debates, except to refer to social advances so important and numerous for twenty years, in particular laws against macho violence and those for rights LGBT who place this country as one of the pioneers worldwide. On the other hand, it is very rare to hear about “ Historical memory In France, that is to say the memory of the victims of the civil war and the Franco dictatorship, when it is an extremely publicized subject in Spain. There is not one day without a newspaper or television refers to the exhumations of common pits of the more than 150,000 estimated victims and still today in pits, ditches, under roads or elsewhere. The most famous case is perhaps that of the poet Federico García Lorca murdered by the putschists at the start of the civil war during the summer of 1936 and whose body was still not found despite the numerous research almost 90 years after the war and 45 years after the return of democracy.
How is it possible that there are still nostalgics of Franco and dictatorship and that it was not judged in a country considered as a model of democracy ? Indeed, despite the return of democracy in 1982, the crimes committed during the civil war and the dictatorship were never judged. Franco has never been tried either and it is a recurring debate in the Spanish public space which has its fervent defenders but also – and that will not be surprised by the French -speaking reader – his opponents. It is this “Spanish paradox” that the historian Sophie Baby interrogates. To answer it, the author has stripped extremely diverse and varied sources for many years: interviews, documents from parties and unions, governments, national and international institutions, associations of associations, correspondence, private archives of actors, in Spain and France (country of exile of the majority of refugees).
Against the presentist reading of the transition
It should be noted that since the victory of the socialists in the 1982 legislative elections, the transition has been considered the founding myth of democracy thanks to the “reconciliation” between the winners and the vanquished civil war almost 40 years after the conflict. This reconciliation is symbolized by the 1977 amnesty law which allows the return of political exiles and the exit from prison of political condemned, but it also allows for amnesty people who have committed crimes during the civil war and dictatorship. It is for this reason that this account of exemplary reconciliation has been criticized since the emergence of social movements in the 2000s which struggled for “the recovery of historical memory”. Consensus has been broken since the exhumation of thousands of common pits. Sophie Baby retraces this “irruption of the past in public space”. Against current presentist reading “saturated with emotions”, the author shows that the law of amnesty was only a first step in reparation, and not an obstacle as it is considered today. She came to close the past and found democracy. By historicizing this famous and so much decried the amnesty law, the author shows that mutual amnesty was a necessary step to guarantee peace. Indeed, forty years after the end of the war, a simple return to what was before the dictatorship was not possible. All institutions were led by Francoists. The left had therefore renounced the restoration of a Republic and the Spanish Communist Party accepted the monarchy in exchange for its legalization in April 1977. In an uncertain and violent context, the law of amnesty therefore seemed necessary to the actors to found democracy and get out of the war.
On the other hand, and this is an important contribution of Sophie Baby’s book, the transition was not a brake in favor of the vanquished as it is considered today. The question of repairs was for example an important issue. Many restorative measures in favor of the vanquished were taken between 1975 and 1982 then from the boom of the 2000s, but no punitive measure. The author returns to the various measures taken: the return of professional and social situations known as “despair” ; The restitution of the union heritage in 1986 and the political heritage in 1998, although the restitution of goods was generally excluded. It also returns to the question of the repair of former prisoners, local memory practices to remedy the injustices of the past. Exhumations also took place in villages between 1978 and 1980. It therefore did not start in 2000, as we often tend to think. In addition, this idea of criminal reconciliation of criminals was not shared by all. Intellectuals in exile were hostile to reconciliation and wanted to judge the criminals. There were for example two attempts to constitute an international tribunal for Spain in 1972 from opposition unions and in 1978 since exile, because international solidarity was still important. Baby exhumes a few sources to show that amnesty did not consensus and especially that the question of reparation has been envisaged.
Criminalization requests before the memorial wave
In addition, Sophie Baby underlines a reversal of the situation in the late 1990s. Spain came to support Chile and Argentina against the dictatorships of the South cone, in particular thanks to the Spanish left. The famous arrest of Pinochet by judge Baltasar Garzón in 1998 is the most significant example. However, it underlines a “incongruity”. It was possible to judge Pinochet in the name of universal justice, but not Franco in his own country ? Garzón tried in 2008. He considered the crimes committed as crimes against humanity, which therefore do not prescribe, while the Spanish amnesty law considers that these are prescribed crimes. The judicial soap opera ended with a suspension of judge Garzón, and the victims then turned to Argentina in the name of universal justice.
Where the work is truly original, it is when Sophie Baby shows that requests for reparation and criminalization did not arise from the memorial wave of the 2000s. In reality, these requests have existed since the war in both republican exile and in domestic opposition, which had been completely forgotten by historiography. It shows for example that the draft amnesty law has existed since 1937, and therefore did not expect 1977. It thus returns to the origins of the criminalization of Franco from the war until international justice in XXIe century. This work makes it possible to break with the binary vision between “amnistant trend” and “punitive trend” which has dominated since the 2000s. For this, the author refocuses Spain in the Euro-American space and the memorial debates and criticizes the myth of isolated Spain, by historicizing the question of criminalization and repair.
To do this, it analyzes solidarity actions internationally thanks to exiles in France, the United Kingdom and Latin America in the face of Franco propaganda which criminalizes the Republic. It retraces the interest of democrats on an international scale with regard to the fate of Spanish democracy has been undermined since the coup of July 18, 1936. It analyzes the three main fields of this fight against Francoism: on the humanitarian, legal and political levels. It also shows the intense communication battle in Spain and beyond its borders between the Francoists and the Republicans in exile. There were precursors of the truth commissions in the 1940s to analyze the possible human rights violations. The intellectual David Rousset organized a public court in 1951 and reconciliation has always been put forward by political actors in exile, for example the Socialist Party in 1957. The author shows that these fights have been forgotten so that crimes do not remain unpunistent in favor of the reconciliator paradigm since the transition when it has always existed with different nuances. This mobilization in favor of reconciliation did not only exist in republican exile, it existed in Spain as well. Intellectuals like Ramón Menéndez Pidal, then director of the Royal Academy, mobilized for example in 1959.
Repair before transition
Sophie Baby also underlines the inequalities of treatment between winners (celebrated) and defeated (at best relegated). Exiled Republicans were not considered victims of Francoism, but those who participated in the Second World War were recognized as victims of Nazism. There was a right to compensation or even compensation for Spanish fighters and deportees from the Second World War thanks to transnational networks and the author gives some examples.
In addition, Franco nevertheless knew very skillfully in power despite international pressure and its support for Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. This strategic skill against the psychologist myth of a single and isolated man is restored in a precise and documented way, which explains how he was able to govern Spain until his death. The historicization proposed by Sophie Baby, on the contrary, restores complex and multiple strategies implemented.
It is really difficult to account for all the richness of Sophie Baby’s work. But do not hesitate to say it: Judge Franco ? is a great book that will be a date and which, doubt no, will be translated very soon in Spain.