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On the surface, hardly anyone suspected that Francisco Franco could become a authoritarian ruler capable of imposing a brutal dictatorship for 40 years. He appeared as a short, squeaky-voiced army officer with a shaky grasp of civilian affairs and zero charisma. But he did exactly that, prior to dying of natural causes in a hospital in Madrid, 50 years ago this week.

The Cautionary Tale of Outward Mediocrity

Even today, Franco stands as a warning that superficial averageness is not an obstacle to the ruthlessly ambitious. Beneath the unremarkable exterior lay a elusive, clever strategist. His drive was fueled by an unyielding determination, a glib indifference to brutality and unbounded self-esteem.

Those who praise and defend him – among them on the newly buoyant extreme right in Spain, the US and the United Kingdom – still claim Franco was not truly a autocrat, but instead a cherished saviour from communism. This is incorrect, but autocrats do not arise from nowhere.

"Some important part of any society consists of people who actively want tyranny," political thinker from France Jean-François Revel observed the following year Franco's death: "either to exercise it themselves or – much more mysteriously – to yield to it." Franco believed the identical thing: the true desire of people was to experience being ruled.

The Truth of Brutality and Suppression

Naturally, if Franco had been truly beloved, there would have been no need for his 1936 coup against an democratically chosen progressive administration, or for the 500,000 fatalities of the subsequent civil conflict. Nor would he have executed 20,000 individuals later.

Franco grabbed power in a Spain still slumped in post-imperial ennui – a mighty empire having vanished the century before. He aimed to restore Spain's greatness. He blamed foreigners. They were stealing Spain’s money, conspiring against it as part of a Marxist-Jewish-masonic plot, or poisoning Spanish minds with foreign ideas: democratic systems, socialism, communism, and his strange obsession, secret societies.

A Calculated, Brutal Conflict

His war was intentionally prolonged and violent behind the lines, accompanied by a bloody purging of opponents in an attempt to "cleanse" this contaminated Spain. His new Spain also had to be a place of allegedly "virile" men and obedient women, whose bodily autonomy, offspring, work and property were reduced, postponed, or handed over to husbands and fathers.

After a vengeful victory, Franco confined the nation into a corset of self-reliance and threw away the key. Economic self-sufficiency was adopted. Foreign capital and goods were avoided. "We possess all necessities," he said.

Starvation and Isolation

But he was wrong. The direct outcome was starvation, with people dying on city streets in 1940 and 1945. While traveling on a triumphal journey through the towns of Jaén and Málaga, people pleaded at his car window. "Please, Mr. Franco, some bread," they said. Even Nazi officials in Spain, his allies, complained that a impressive exterior hid the horrific reality. By supporting Hitler and Mussolini during the World War II, Franco made Spain a pariah state, but he refused to step aside afterwards. The Spanish people sank further into misery.

Overconfidence and Political Revival

Franco's conviction that he was both selected by God and always right meant he insisted on a permanent rule in charge. A UK diplomat complained that he lived in a "thick fog of self-satisfaction", blind to his own ineptitude. Luck, and a absence of clear doctrine, saved him. As the Cold War began, he polished his anti-communist credentials and the United States restored his reputation.

Consequently, a disastrous economy was ultimately saved and compelled to liberalize by the US and the IMF. During the sixties, Spain was swept into a regional economic growth that had begun earlier in Italy and Portugal. Suddenly, tourists were pouring on to Spanish beaches at coastal resorts or on the Costa del Sol. Many Spaniards still could not find work, but the remittances after emigrating to northern Europe also provided relief.

Authoritarian Control and Forgotten History

He gradually abandoned his most stupid ideas – from establishing a new realm to producing artificial fuel with a "magic" formula – but did not relinquish his central aim of making Spaniards tame, compliant and politically apathetic. He invested massively in state terror from the 1936 takeover onwards, implemented a strict, propaganda-based press law, and made sure generations of Spaniards were schooled in a deeply traditional and memory-erasing state-approved syllabus. As late as the 1970s, autonomous political groups, free and fair elections and labor organizations remained banned.

He also treated as children Spaniards, considering them unable of governing themselves. The scariest part of his legacy was that a large number believed him.

Reversion to Brutality and Ancient Methods

Once that fear-based agreement finally began to fall apart during the final years of his rule, he defaulted back to forceful control. Aggressive law enforcement, abuse, firing squads and even that medieval form of execution, the strangulation device, reappeared. This method saw a iron band fastened around a condemned person’s neck and constricted until it broke their neck or stopped their breathing; it was being used by a European administration on its population, in 1974.

Anxiety and Democratic Change

Nevertheless, the historian Antonio Cazorla Sanchez, a highly skeptical Franco chronicler, recalls feeling sad as a boy, upon hearing the news that Franco had died: "The grief of that youngster was felt at the time by countless citizens, who thought that the man who had just died had been the optimal answer for a country that was hard to rule," he wrote. "This was the narrative at educational institutions, in the press, on the television … "

The main feeling in response to Franco's demise was anxiety. Ultimately, what happens after the man at the centre of a long-standing autocracy dies? Authority was transferred to the monarch Juan Carlos, who oversaw three years of reforms that culminated in a public vote on the founding document that still holds today. The country continues as a vibrant, disputatious democracy.

Inspiring Stories and Distorted Heritage

Inspiring accounts emerged to explain this. For the left, it was the result of pressure from courageous demonstrators, youth and workers who fought continually with security forces. From the conservative view, it was a sign of establishment wisdom. For his supporters, in the most twisted version of all, it forms part of the dictator’s legacy.

And therein lies a issue. In a Madrid printing store where I produced drafts of my latest publication on the dictator, the leader, the owner kept insisting that his father claimed to have lived well under Franco. His parent recalled, naturally, only the economic boom of the 1960s.

The Danger of Ignorance

During the promotion of the Spanish edition of the book, I have also realised that the issues described by María Ramírez about childhood surrounded by silence about the regime are still present. College attendees inform me that their high school teachers were still avoiding the subject just a year or two ago. As a parent of Spanish youth, that is a huge worry.

Lack of knowledge is risky. It is not surprising that almost one in five young people think his regime was beneficial for Spain. The sole method to change that is to end the quiet and teach young Spaniards what the Franco era was truly like.