Franchism

Franquism was the dictatorial regime that ruled Spain from the end of the Civil War in 1939 until the death of the dictator Francisco Franco in 1975. Its origins lie in the coup d'état of 18 July 1936, a military uprising against the government of the Second Republic that started the Spanish Civil War. After the victory of the rebels, Franco established a totalitarian dictatorship based on Catholicism, Spanish nationalism and the systematic repression of the opposition. This period of almost 40 years of dictatorship brought great social and cultural backwardness to the country.

Franco's repression was one of the most brutal characteristics of the regime. It was not limited to the war period, but extended throughout the dictatorship, with the persecution of political dissidents, intellectuals and anyone considered an enemy of the regime. This included executions, torture, imprisonment and mass exile. The struggle for historical memory has made visible the thousands of victims found in mass graves, popularly known as "cunetas". The most widely accepted estimates place the number of disappeared and/or murdered during the war and post-war period at between 100,000 and 114,000 people, although the exact figure is still under investigation.