Hunger and the Consolidation of the Francoist Regime (1939-

1951)

Miguel Ángel Del Arco Blanco

University of Granada

Abstract

After the end of the Civil War, the Franco regime tried to consolidate itself in the tragic

socioeconomic context of the post-war years. How was it possible for a regime to

establish and implant itself in spite of an economic crisis and a desperate and

undernourished population? As this article demonstrates, a brutal policy of autarky

underpinned the consolidation of Francoism. Through the daily mechanisms of autarky

and the black market to which it gave rise, the ‘New State’ and its local representatives

repressed their Civil War opponents on a day-to-day basis. At the same time, the regime

secured the consent of its local supporters by offering them the chance to feather their

own nests. In this way, hunger formed the ballast of the new ship of state because the

regime was able to force some into starvation while allowing others to profit through the

control of much needed resources.

Key words

Francoism, Spain, consensus, repression

1
The Franco regime that ruled over Spain from 1939-1975 cannot be understood without

taking into account the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) which brought it to power. For it

was on the battlefield that those who grouped around General Francisco Franco destroyed

the elected government of the Spanish Second Republic (1931-1939). Meanwhile, behind

the front-line the myths and symbols that would ‘justify’ and ‘legitimize’ Francoism

found expression in a series of popular and collective beliefs.1

The purpose of the Civil War stood at the heart of these conceptions. For

Francoists, the war represented a crucial moment in the history of Spain in which a group

of ‘true Spaniards’ had taken up arms against a Republic controlled by ‘foreign’

Bolshevik, atheist, and criminal enemies. Thus, they painted the conflict as a ‘Crusade’

against foreign demons and the values of atheism, Freemasonry and Marxism. This is

why they protested that they had taken up the gun in defence of the real Spain and its

spiritual values. Indeed, for them the war constituted no less than the definitive fight

between ‘God’ and the ‘Godless’. From this perspective, they believed victory in the war

would bring an end to the decadence of the Second Republic and would usher in a reborn

‘New Spain’.2

This uncompromising attitude helps us understand why throughout the war the

eventually victorious Franco regime consistently demonstrated that it had no real interest

in reconciliation by shooting or jailing vast numbers of prisoners when areas of Spain fell

under their control. Behind these brutal incarcerations and executions, however, lurked

yet another layer of repression that crippled the everyday lives of those who fell into

Francoist clutches. From the first days of the rebellion against the Second Republic in

July 1936, the ‘New State’ had begun to develop its economic policy of ‘autarky’, or self-

2
sufficiency. This policy, influenced by the political economy of Nazi Germany and

Fascist Italy and guided by General Franco’s own hand,3 would lead to hunger and

misery for huge swathes of the population.

As the path-breaking works of Michael Richards have shown, Franco’s new

policy of autarky pursued political, social and cultural goals as well as economic

objectives. Partly, Franco’s decision to take up autarky can be explained by the fact that

victory on the battlefield did not suddenly herald the immediate arrival of the reborn

Spain. Millions of supporters of the defeated Popular Front government still remained to

be dealt with. This is an important reason why after 1939, Francoists kept alive their ‘war

culture’ and why they continued to fight the ‘Crusade’. Through the sacralization of

political discourse and the fostering of myths, symbols, ‘heroes’, ‘martyrs’,

commemorations and values, they battled to keep alive the ‘spirit of 1936’. In this way,

they preached victory not reconciliation and punishment rather than forgiveness.4 In this

context, ‘autarky’ became a form of ‘quarantine’: Spain had to ‘close in upon herself’ to

save herself from the ‘danger to her very being and substance’, represented by ‘the

sickness of Europe’ and ‘the secularization of life, laicism, naturalism, positivism,

humanism, rationalism, liberalism’.5

But while the work of Michael Richards has blazed a trail by setting out this

broader context, we still know less about the effects of autarky at the local level and the

way in which it played a cardinal role in allowing the Franco regime to consolidate its

power in the post-war period (1939-1951) at the very base of society. Accordingly, this

article helps further our understanding of the building of Francoism by exploring the

daily mechanisms of autarky. In so doing it contributes to the existing literature by

3
offering a solid base of evidence that reveals the reality of autarky on the ground.

Importantly, on the basis of this evidence it shows how the black market thrown up by

autarky blighted the lives of those from the defeated side in everyday life. Importantly,

the hunger and misery that afflicted this part of the population undermined its morale and

ability to resist the ‘New State’. This did not mean that the new regime won total control

over the population in this way. In fact, many who opposed the new authorities found

some space to express their opinions and dissent in less overt ways. Nor did it mean that

the regime operated simply by containing the opposition. Indeed, the article also

demonstrates how the regime secured the consent of its local supporters by offering them

the chance to feather their own nests by plucking the rich pickings offered to them by the

very black market system that benighted the lives of the defeated.

1. Rationing, hunger and cost of living

Control over resources sat at the heart of autarky as an economic policy. State

intervention in economic relations between citizens under the autarkic system was felt in

prices fixed by decree, government regulation of the labour market, and control of

industrial and agricultural production, supply and commercialization. Intervention

extended to the last phase of the economic process with the government regulating the

purchase of foodstuffs and food consumption through rationing. The highly coercive

labour system, outlawing all dissent and opposition on the part of wage earners, meant

that wages remained low. Moreover, the black market spawned galloping inflation with

4
which earnings could not keep pace. Hunger and subsistence therefore became key

political concerns.6

The rationing system had been established in the ‘New Spain’ on 14 May 1939,

one month after the end of the Civil War.7 At the beginning rationing seemed a temporary

measure, but in practice it lasted until 1952, twelve years later. Covering the entire

national territory, rationing affected every food product and many other basic items:

wheat and most other cereals, flour, bread, oil, vegetables, soap, sugar, fish, eggs, and so

on.8 While in fact presiding over great hunger, the theory of state control over food

allowed Franco’s ‘New State’, in a paternalistic way, to assume the task of ‘feeding

Spaniards’. Autarky thus gave Francoist authorities unprecedented power over society. At

all times in every municipality, it was the authorities that decided who would receive

better treatment in the distribution of food and ration cards - which were often denied to

ex-republicans. Although shortages affected sections of the middle classes as well as the

working classes, to a considerable extent, rationing marked out the boundary between the

Civil War victors and the defeated.

As the essential passport for survival for most of Spaniards in the 1940s, the

‘cartilla de racionamiento’ (rationing card) became an almost mythical document in the

post-war years. ‘Cartillas’ would be issued by every city and provincial council, giving

local authorities substantial powers of social control. In the beginning, ration cards were

issued to families (the ‘cartilla familiar’); each book of cards would include provision for

all family members. The system distinguished four different rationed types, with a

corresponding level of rationed supply: adult men; adult women; children (up to 14 years

old); and the elderly (over 60 years).9 Employing the notion of ‘social justice’ in its

5
propaganda, the state would classify Spaniards into three categories in terms of social

class (first, second and third, from ‘upper’ to ‘lower’ class). The potential for corrupt

practices by the authorities and by the public of this complex arrangement forced a

change of the rationing system in 1943 when the cartilla familar was substituted by a

ration card for each individual. Only minor further changes were then introduced until

rationing came to an end in 1952.10

There were several structural problems which led to the failure of rationing. First,

rations were simply insufficient to feed the population. Second, extreme scarcity created

a situation where food supplies could be manipulated by the corrupt and inefficient

Francoist administration. In short, under rationing the population was beset by food

shortages and long queues for poor quality items. As the British Consul in Málaga

reported in December 1939:

‘Rice, flour, sugar and many other essential foodstuffs are still practically unobtainable;

potatoes have once again disappeared from the markets; meat, which in June and July

could generally be bought, is now very seldom on sale, and prices of all commodities

have greatly increased. But the shortage of bread is the main concern of the multitude

whose main sustenance it is; for weeks during the months of August and September

queues waited all night outside the bakeries, more often that not only to be bitterly

disappointed by the meagre allowance they received in the morning, and there have

actually been a number of entirely breadless days. […] Although the established scale of

rations is very low considering the absence of other foodstuffs, it has never yet been put

into force and everyone receives considerably less than the prescribed allowance’.11

6
As it was impossible to live on rations alone, Spaniards began to search out other ways to

increase their food supply. Some did this with a view to enriching themselves financially,

but most simply sought to eke out a living and escape hunger. As in many other periods

of heightened economic interventionism, but perhaps especially in a capitalist system, a

black market emerged. In Spain’s case the illegal market, which became vast, went hand

in hand with the rationing system.

Virtually as soon as rationing began there was widespread fear that supplies

would run out. Crowds began to gather where even the miserable level of rations were

being distributed. The food queue became one of the main images of public life all over

Spain, even though when rationing was introduced the government had forbidden such

gatherings because, with state control of supplies, queues would be ‘unnecessary’.12

Large groups of people waiting for food became centres for discontent to grow as masses

of the hungry came together. Here they talked to each other, grumbled about the regime,

and shared their thoughts. Soon, these long lines became part of the post-war landscape

where starving mobs stood from dawn under the close watch of municipal and rural

guards and policemen. Sometimes, such arduous waiting was useless. Indeed, it was not

uncommon for women and men, standing in line overnight, to return home empty-

handed.13

The biggest problem with rationing, as already intimated, was the miserly quantity

of rations distributed. Several examples are illustrative: in the Balearic Islands, food

supplies for September 1941 were sufficient only for two or three days’ nourishment of

the population.14 Even as late as 1946, foodstuff rations throughout Spain were ‘very

inappropriate, spasmodic and in some cases even non-existent for many periods’ in such

7
staples as rice, potatoes, lentils or beans.15 By 1950, the food situation in the city of

Bilbao was ‘one of ever increasing scarcity’.16

The poor quality of products was another important feature of the food crisis. The

higher quality products, following the law of supply and demand, could be most

profitably traded on the black market. This meant that it was mainly low quality items

that were sold through the official rationing system at the much lower official prices. In

this situation, the temptation for traders and foodstuff producers to adulterate rationed

articles proved to be irresistible. Accordingly, it became extremely common for milk, a

basic element for nutrition, to be sold after being diluted with a substantial quantity of

water. For instance, in 1950, Madrid city council revealed that, at best, 40 percent of the

milk consumed in the capital city was, in fact, water. This grim fact is borne out by other

statistics which showed that, while 230,000 litres of milk entered the city of Madrid

daily, actual consumption reached 400,000 litres.17

Bread formed another staple element of the daily diet which profiteers adulterated.

As a result, the lower classes could rarely buy white bread and instead relied on inferior

‘black’ bread.18 Disreputable bakers profited from this situation by deploying a variety of

tricks, like adding too much water or using adulterated flour. Such strategies allowed

them to channel flour to the production of higher quality white bread which they could

dispose of on the far more lucrative black market. Thus ‘black bread’ became a symbol of

the Civil War defeat and white bread was largely enjoyed by those who were the victors.

This merely reflected the wider social divide. For while many people lived on the edge of

starvation, others enjoyed plenty. Indeed, a British traveller could not contain his

impression of the riches enjoyed by some: ‘Madrid and Barcelona showcases are

8
crammed: food and wine, clothes, gentleman goods, machines and all the luxury articles

are here nearly in flamboyant abundance’.19

Although the government tried to solve the food shortages for the poor by

substituting them with ersatz products, the cure turned out to be worse than the illness.

For a number of bizarre concoctions began to appear as rationed items. For instance, in

1946, the last dregs from the pressing of olives (‘orujo oil’) were used to produce olive

oil. Other items, which would not normally figure amongst daily necessities became a

staple part of the rationed diet including almonds, peanuts, hazelnuts, and cotton-seed

oil.20

Indeed, Spain, one of the world’s biggest olive oil producers, resorted to the most

unusual products for feeding its population, as a result of mismanagement and corruption.

In August 1947, the authorities began to distribute coconut oil in some provinces, giving

rise to critical remarks; by September, the populace was generally placated as the

authorities reverted again to distributing almond oil instead of coconut oil, the former,

though somewhat exotic in normal times, was of superior quality to the latter. During the

post-war years the exceptional became quotidian and normal.21

What were the physical results of such extreme and prolonged hunger and

nutritional deficit? It is possible to gauge the effects by drawing on some of the data of

the period. Though this archival material is inevitably scarce, it does allow a closer view

of the daily reality. Two of the following tables contain material relating to the official

rationing in the southern provinces of Almería and Jaén. Official rationing was very

rarely sufficient, and the expected levels of supply were not complied with, so we cannot

trust official rationing figures for calculating daily nutrition. The monthly reports

9
submitted to central government by Civil Governors have therefore been used. In fact,

these reports very probably over-stated the quantity of rations being distributed in order

to show the governors themselves in a good light. This indicates, of course, that the

suffering the governors paint in their reports could in reality have been worse. This

proviso aside, the data enables us to contrast the two provinces: the former provides an

example of the deep impact that autarkic policy, and its mechanics within the black

market, would have on the hungry. The latter, by contrast, portrays a situation in which

food provision had suffered somewhat less.

It is possible in both cases to reconstruct the nutritional diet supplied through

rationing, calculating the quantity in grams of food distributed daily to adult men between

16 and 60 years old. Tables 1 and 2 show the calorific and protein value and material

quantity for each foodstuff. Rather than selecting especially catastrophic years for the

harvest (such as 1941, 1946 or 1949), in both cases we have selected years that are

representative of the entire period: 1943 for Almería, and 1945 for Jaén. Because local

officials were so habitually implicated in black market dealings, Civil Governors seem

generally to have overvalued the amount of rations distributed, offering a rosier image of

the way in which their regions were being administered and ruled. Thus, the real

nutritional diet could well be even worse than that shown here.

[TABLE 1]

The Francoist authorities had particular generalized priorities with regard to

distribution. The simple understanding was that the greatest threat to the regime, should

any arise, would come from the cities, where the most populated areas had no access to

food production. Thus, the most intensively populated urban centres would have a

10
somewhat better food supply. It was recognized that daily diets in the countryside would

be completed with the harvest production, at least for those who were landholders or

leaseholders (though the problem of severe hunger remained for landless labourers).

Following generally accepted methodologies, it is possible to calculate how far

the calorific and protein value supplied by rationing met the basic requirements for

survival.22 If we compare these results with the physical activity of adult men and women

and their food energy requirements, we can estimate energy balance in relation to

rationing (Table 3).23 The greater the energy deficit, the greater would be the health risks

related to malnutrition. Weak and sickly people do not fulfil their potential and have an

increased susceptibility to disease.

[TABLE 2]

According to the data here, differences between city and countryside are

appreciable. While in rural areas daily rationing reached 917.5 calories per day (182.6

foodstuff grams), in the city of Almería official rationing supplied 2,672.8 calories (521.8

foodstuff grams). These differences are visible too in the protein balance. While barely

reaching the daily minimum level needed for an active existence, the provision in the city

was clearly greater than in the countryside. In the city of Almería, rationed provision

included products with a high protein value, such as codfish, meat or chickpeas. By

contrast, in rural areas, official rationing included only six products. If urban daily diets

therefore seem to have reached a basic minimum, the rural intake of calories and proteins

declined to levels which might have been expected of the nineteenth century.

Although supplies in Jaén in 1945 do not appear to have been as precarious as

Almería, basic rationing and nutritional intake followed a general pattern (Table 2). In

11
this case, supplies were differentiated according to the requirements deemed necessary in

three areas: the city of Jaén, the urban-industrial areas of the region (which would include

relatively important population concentrations, such as Linares, Baeza and Úbeda), and

rural areas. The capital city - the most populated area – received, on average, some 2,600

calories worth of rations per day. Rationing for the inhabitants of the intermediate urban

centres (areas often with some industry, such as mining) received some 1,625 calories;

and, finally, the smaller villages in the countryside had no more than 1,520 calories per

day. Again, differences are not only in quantity, but in the quality of the articles

distributed: while the citizens of the provincial capital had some access to luxury

products, such as chocolate, coffee, meat, and soap, (as well as vegetables), in urban-

industrial and rural areas the variety of articles was far narrower: the staple diet here was

limited to basic products such as olive oil, flour, bread, rice and sugar. Thus, the example

of Jaén shows that the authorities did not apportion supplies merely between provinces

but also to various social groups within provinces.

Although opportunities for political organization were limited, the differential

treatment of city and countryside did not go unnoticed. In Pontevedra (Galicia) some of

the peasants of several villages showed their dissatisfaction with rationing supplies and

explicitly made reference to the fact that the capital city received regular rationing while

the ‘villages received less’.24 In terms of the social effects, rationing differences provoked

a significant migration from rural to urban areas. In the city of Alicante (on the east

coast), the official ration supply was twice or even three times that of the countryside.

Those who had sufficient resources to do so therefore migrated to the provincial capital in

12
order to have the opportunity to be better fed.25 Escaping from famine ranked above

everything else.

[TABLE 3]

These results show the prevalence and depth of hunger in the provinces analysed

and particularly the effects on those involved in heavy, energy-intensive, activities. Both

in Almería and Jaén, social groups that in daily life carried out relatively light activities,

primarily located in the cities, would not have felt the calorific and protein shortage so

acutely. In this category we can include men and women carrying out activities while

sitting at a desk or behind a counter, with reliance on automated appliances (high rank

professionals, army officers, civil servants, employees, clerks, etc).

This relatively ‘comfortable’ vision begins to change once we explore those who

worked in moderate but continuous physical activity, such as light industrial production,

commerce, and off-season farm work. This group also includes small traders, craftsmen,

civil servants, the public order forces and even some small landholders and leaseholders.

In the main towns the calorie deficit appears not to be very important (less than 300

kilocalories), but in rural areas the shortage is much more dramatic: in Almería the deficit

is nearly 2,000 kilocalories and in Jaén around 1,350.

In heavier, energy-intensive activities, such as agricultural production, mining or

steel work, the figures suggest an even more calamitous situation. Included in this

category were the agricultural wage labourers (or ‘jornaleros’), many smallholders and

tenants, who worked the land directly, and industrial workers and miners. These were the

employed social groups languishing at the bottom of the Francoist social pyramid. In

Almería nutritional intake was far from satisfying the basic minimum, with a deficit of up

13
to 827 calories for men, and 538 for women in towns, and with a quite unsupportable

deficit of 1,906-2,582 calories in rural areas. In Jaén the situation was hardly any better:

the male diet suffered a deficit of 900-1,980 calories and that of women a deficit of 560-

1,425 calories.

Moreover, the daily diet was scarce in proteins too. Meat, fish and milk were

virtually absent on a daily basis. Again, the population of the main towns enjoyed a

higher protein intake than rural areas and the difference in protein was even greater than

that registered with calorie balance. There can be little doubt that such deprivation

affected the efficiency of labour in adults and children, led to disease and stunted

childhood growth.

By contrast, the wealthier social strata could avoid hunger; they had financial

resources, of course, but often also beneficial political contacts and safe access to the

black market. Many rural smallholders and tenants had a different way of escaping the

extremes of hunger: although it often required evasion of official intervention, in a

rationed economy they had the advantage of their own agricultural production to fall back

on. A substantial proportion of the harvest could be secreted away and relied upon for

subsistence. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these groups could also sell produce illicitly on the

black market, especially if they had political connections. It was precisely amongst these

social groups – the middle and lower middle classes - where Francoism found its broadest

social support. Urban workers and rural day labourers (‘jornaleros’) and people belonging

to the social groups weakened by the Civil War did not have the same opportunities to

escape from hunger. In effect, the labour market and food supply were controlled by

elements of the regime, and generally they did not have resources for escaping from this

14
extreme situation. This increased the reality and perception of these groups’ social

exclusion – a marginalization, in ideological terms, from the post-war conception of the

‘nation’; as the numbers of the indigent and itinerant poor grew, they were increasingly

associated with ‘the defeated’ and demonized ‘as the epitome of anti-Spain’. Extreme

economic exploitation was, in turn, justified since these groups were ‘alien to the

nation’.26

It is only with an appreciation of the scale of the black market that the reality of

shortages can be gauged. Probably 50 per cent of the food articles traded in Spain in

those years came from the black market.27 Inevitably, given the circumstances of shortage

and the political situation, the prices of products on the illegal market were much higher

than official rates. The cost of living would rise to unprecedented levels. Table 4

illustrates this situation in Spain between 1935 and 1947. Throughout the 1940s we can

observe an apparently unstoppable rise in the cost of living. The cost of basic items and

the gap between earnings and prices increased exponentially for the whole period,

regardless of the international context, the experience of world war and the end of the war

in Europe. Between 1935 and 1947 the cost of living increased five-fold, and this

according only to the official figures. 28

[TABLE 4]

Apart from suffering the rigours of such poor rations and infringing the law to buy

the basic necessities at sky-high prices, Spaniards had also to confront wage levels frozen

at the pre-war level. Basic survival became the key and always with the fear of a leftist

political background being unearthed. This situation was closely linked to the fascistic

corporative labour system established during the Civil War, which banned free trade

15
unions and gave employers effective and total control; capital and labour thereby ‘joined

together in working for the progress of the Patria’. This ‘abolition’ of class struggle was

inevitably a powerful weapon for repressing dissent and opposition. The famed ‘salarios

de hambre’ (famine wages) which people spoke of for years afterwards were no myth.

These relations of production would contribute decisively to capital accumulation in

agriculture and industry, in spite of the theoretically ‘bad’ economic situation.29

2. A world of misery

The socio-economic reality of 1940s Spain grew out of the prevailing pre-war poverty of

Spain, and was compounded by the effects of Civil War, and the establishment,

consolidation and continuity of Francoist dictatorship. In this environment, autarky – and

the rationing system that it entailed – had profound consequences for Spain and misery

would surround the most basic aspects of daily life during the post-war years, shaping

both Spaniards’ perceptions of, and attitude towards, the regime.

A housing shortage already existed in the era of the Second Republic (1931-36),

but war damage and the absence of any building activity in the 1940s transformed the

shortage into a crisis.30 The great demand for housing meant that the poorest groups

found themselves with little alternative but to live in ruined houses, caves, huts, and

shacks or, literally, in some cases, holes in the ground. Families ‘herded together’

wherever possible.31

16
 The situation in the southern city of Granada provides a poignant example. In

1944, with more than 160,000 inhabitants, the Civil Governor admitted that 27,750

people lived in accommodation unfit for human habitation. He identified 968 caves,

where around 5,800 of the poorest people were trying to find shelter. In addition, his

report showed that 2,640 houses were about to fall down and required urgent attention to

fix them.32 However, in other places the situation reached even worse proportions. For

instance, in Almería, also in the south, 18,200 Spaniards huddled for shelter in 2,520

caves in the belt of poverty that wrapped around the city. In short, 22.88 per cent of the

population lived in the most extreme poverty.33

The regime did little to ease the situation. Instead, pursuing a regressive tax

policy, the central government froze spending on public works and housing.34 By 1950

the situation stood at a standstill. Indeed, in a private conversation with the English

ambassador that year, the Minister of Interior confessed that 90,000 people in Madrid still

lived in caves or ruined houses without any water supply or sanitary services.35

The housing crisis led to huge numbers living on the streets. Indeed, the streets

and squares of the cities and provincial towns teemed with both vagrants and beggars. So

vast was the problem that it offered one of the most stirring and common mental images

of the post-war years:

The picture of the beggar in the city streets became a normal part of everyday life. They

would wait at the church gates, hang around street corners, approach the café tables […]

Sometimes, in the central cafés and restaurants, when a beggar appeared at the tables

pleading for alms, one of the waiters would come forward to get rid of them, with a

movement with a napkin, like removing annoying summer flies.36

17
Entire families begged for alms: the elderly, men, women, widows and children trodden

down by the consequences of war. In 1940 the first Falange authority in Jaén reported

that the province was a ‘a land of beggars’.37 Similarly, in 1941 the local authorities in

Granada drew attention to the ‘enormous plague of beggars’, and warned of the serious

challenge presented by the sheer number of street children afflicting the entire province.38

Such poverty starkly revealed the continuing social divisions. The government

could not tolerate the homeless on any account: they represented the most visible proof

that the promised ‘Bread and Justice’ proclaimed in the regime slogans were not about to

be granted. This is why all over the country, following Government instructions,

provincial authorities forbade begging in a concerted effort to brush the all-pervading

poverty under the carpet.39

Weakened by cold, need and hunger, the lower classes often found themselves at

the mercy of sickness and disease. Ill-health had been a pre-war problem which the initial

governments of the Second Republic had sought to confront, but the widespread famine

and hunger brought a threat in the 1940s of a different magnitude. Thus, many illnesses

that had begun to disappear before the war returned with virulence during this period:

typhus, pellagra, hunger oedema, trachoma and malaria. Others, such as tuberculosis,

influenza and diphtheria, reached unprecedented levels. In many cases, the authorities

lacked the resources needed to combat to the situation, let alone prevent it.

For instance, in April 1941, the British ambassador declared that a ‘virulent

typhus outbreak has broken out in Madrid’. The outbreak raised serious concerns among

the health authorities who worried that they did not have the means to fight it. The

ambassador noted that disinfectants were growing scarce and that ‘even soap supplies are

18
running out’ and that the soap factories had closed due to the shortage of raw material.

The number of victims of the epidemic quickly soared: 1,800 cases were registered in the

spring of 1941, increasing by 23 daily, and the mortality rate was ‘exceptionally high’.40

Of course, the true solution was largely to be found in better food supplies. However, the

economic policies and corruption of the regime prevented this.

Indeed, the regime’s policy of autarky allowed a variety of diseases to pick off

those most weakened by hunger. In Extremadura, for instance, in the south west, a great

number of people fell ill with ‘pellagra’ and ‘hunger oedema’. The Spanish authorities

themselves recognized that those who died from such diseases were victims not so much

of illness itself, but more to their low resistance to infection. In this sense, malnutrition

proved to be the real killer.41 Thus in Almería, one of the poorest regions of Spain, an

official report in 1948 confessed that 40 per cent of the provincial children were infected

by ‘trachoma’, a highly contagious eye disease caused by inadequate feeding and bad

hygienic conditions in overcrowded communities and which often resulted in blindness.42

Unsurprisingly, given such horrors, the 1940s were recorded in people’s

memories as ‘the hunger years’ (los años del hambre): hunger and the need to feed

families guided the daily lives of masses of Spaniards. Escaping hunger would be the

main obsession of most people in the 1940s. But is it possible to gauge the extent of the

hunger through the use of archival records? What were the dimensions of the

catastrophe? There are certainly many cases that bear witness to post-war starvation.43 In

impoverished regions, local government bodies would produce reports on deaths caused

by hunger. In Garrucha (Almería), the mayor pleaded for emergency aid in a telegram to

the central authorities. He pointed to a desperate situation in which between April and

19
September 1939, 39 inhabitants had simply starved to death. He requested urgent help,

arguing that the province had fallen into an abyss of misery and starvation and that

people continued to die.44 Similarly, in March 1940, the authorities from Rágol (Almería)

had already registered ‘several deaths from starvation’ and more than 50 people had

fallen seriously ill with ‘avitaminosis syndromes’.45 In a report to the central government

of October 1941, the Civil Governor in Cádiz noted how

the province is passing through an extremely grave situation because it is unable

to feed itself and is suffering among the worst shortages in the whole of Spain.

This crisis has led to an horrific rise in the number of deaths and as winter

approaches we can only expect the situation to grow much worse.46

In 1946, men, women and children near Córdoba were dying of hunger or from disease

resulting from malnutrition. As a report in the British Daily Telegraph noted ‘All the

usual revolting signs of famine are there - children with hideously swollen stomachs,

fragile limbs and wizened, emaciated faces, women like human scarecrows with

enormous eyes who are unable to move as their joints are swollen’.47

The situation hardly changed during the following years and the post-war misery

was not restricted to the traditionally poverty-stricken south of Spain. According to

British diplomatic staff, in Cantabria, in the north, for instance, rural workers in 1943

were amongst the most malnourished and stood on the brink of starvation.48 By 1946 a

British traveller reported that in Barcelona and Madrid the situation had improved

slightly, but he admitted that he had not visited the city slums. In the south famine

continued: in Seville there was widespread and extreme malnutrition and in Málaga

several deaths had been attributed to hunger.49

20
 Such extreme suffering led to desperation and a significant rise in the number

suicides. For some people, taking their own lives represented a conscious and decisive act

to free themselves from an unbearable situation.50 In the town of Líjar, in Almería, where

five deaths from starvation had been registered by September 1939, the mayor pleaded

for help from the Minister of the ‘Movimiento’. He argued that the situation in the town

had reached such a low point that a man in ‘the throes of hopelessness’ had killed

himself. Another tragic case of suicide occurred in February 1940. A government report

into the incident reveals the chilling reality of everyday life in the 1940s. It turns out that

the man had been driven to desperation by hunger and hours before killing himself he and

his wife had argued over how to feed themselves. The autopsy revealed that the man’s

stomach had been completely empty when he took his own life.51

The grim reality is, however, that all of these terrible hardships of the 1940s

played into the hands of the Francoist victors who strove to subjugate and prostrate those

from the defeated side. The suffering of the vanquished in everyday life pushed them out

of political activism and the Francoist control of the economy at the local level placed

them under the thumb of local officials.52 Indeed, after escaping from the Francoist firing

squads, military trials and prison, the defeated found themselves imprisoned by hunger

and at the mercy of the social, economic and political power of their Francoist

neighbours. 53

3. ‘Autarky’ as a political tool: securing the consensus of the victors and the

depoliticization of the defeated

21
The Franco regime won its support from the kinds of social groups that also supported

the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy. Importantly, the regime’s support base

hailed from all sections of society. This certainly included members of the upper-classes

who had thrown in their lot with the fight against the Second Republic. Perhaps the most

crucial base of support, however, came from the young men who had swollen the ranks

of the Franco side during the Civil War. On their return to their towns and villages at the

end of the war, they soon began to win control of local ‘New State’ institutions.54

It would be these groups who implemented, and benefited from, the policy of

autarky at the grassroots. Fervent adherents of the regime’s war culture, they found in

their control of autarky a powerful weapon to destroy their enemies. By giving them this

leeway, the regime also secured support for their control of local life and allowed them to

enrich themselves.

This was certainly the case with smallholders who coveted posts in the local

administration and who found they could keep back part of their harvest and thereby

assure their own survival. More lucratively they obtained better supplies under the

rationing system and could make a quick profit by safely selling their products on the

black market.55 As a representative of the British Embassy in Madrid reported in 1941,

those in charge of dealing with the food supplies took ‘advantage of the black market’.56

The regime’s authorities and its supporters in the rural areas not only avoided

hunger and all its consequences, but actually increased their landholdings, and sometimes

in a spectacular way.57 This can be seen clearly in the case of N.R.R.. His rise began in

1942 when he gained the post of town councillor in the village of Montefrío in Granada

22
province. At the time he owned no property of his own. In his favour, moreover, he could

claim association with the Falange since 1934 (an ‘old shirt’) and could portray himself

as a Francoist hero because he had suffered imprisonment at the hands of Republicans

during the Civil War. By 1946, he owned more than six hectares of land and had begun to

produce his own olive oil. His wealth continued to grow and by 1951 his landholdings

had risen to more than 10.5 hectares.58 Such a property portfolio represented real wealth

at the time.

N.R.R.’s growing prosperity was no isolated case. We can find many similar

examples in other villages. In April 1945, A.S.B., a 36 year old lawyer from Alcalá la

Real in Jaén province, gained the coveted post of village councillor. At this point he

owned no land of his own; however, he had aligned himself with the Falange in July

1936 at the start of the Civil War and could claim loyalty to the regime. His reward came

with office and by 1950 he had bought up three hectares of land which had risen to ten

and a half hectares by 1959.59

Autarky would also provide the local authorities with one of their biggest sticks to

beat their political enemies. Those who had lost the war clearly did not enjoy the same

tolerance as the regime’s supporters for breaking the law, working the black-market or

obtaining foodstuffs from the rationing system. For instance, about 90% of the people

found guilty of ‘estraperlo’ (peddling goods on the black market) in Almería and Málaga

provinces in mid-1940s belonged to the less prosperous social groups: rural day

labourers, workers, the unemployed, and poverty stricken housewives.60 Thus while the

regime’s grassroots supporters prospered, those from the defeated side suffered fines,

found themselves sent to prison and work camps. Local Francoists also capitalized on

23
their control of local resources to exert tight social control over those from the defeated

side. Those who risked incurring the wrath of the local authorities ran the risk of putting

vitally needed supplies in danger.61

Of course, the Francoist authorities did not seek deliberately to starve the defeated

to death or to destroy their health. But the scarcity brought about by their policies

combined with the logic of a war culture that legitimized the prosperity of the victors at

the expense of the vanquished. The cruel fate of those who had lost the war and now lay

at the mercy of their victorious neighbours both ‘justified’ and created those

consequences.62

In this regard it is important to note that autarky provided an effective tool for

pushing the defeated out of political life. Of course, hunger had already done much of

this work as vast swathes of the population were undernourished and exhausted. After the

Civil War, in Madrid, for instance, it was common to see men, women and children faint

in the street as a result of the food shortage.63 Meanwhile, in Bilbao two men ‘dropped

dead at their work from undernourishment’. Similarly, in Huelva, a British diplomatic

correspondent told a spine-chilling story: ‘we pay a woman to clean the chicken run

every day, but the poor soul can hardly walk, let alone work, for lack of food. Some men

can hardly stand… and they must go to work, or else they won’t get any money at all’.64

Thus, the defeated lacked both the will and the means to oppose the Francoist

State in public. In Álava (in the Basque Country), in spite of the economic situation,

Francoist authorities did not register any protests. Indeed, they commented that ‘if these

wretches ate, the number of protests would swell but for the moment empty stomachs

keep people quiet’.65

24
 4. Autarkic policy: activation and resistance

Although pushed out of public politics by hunger, some from the defeated side did

manage to resist the consequences of autarky. Their ability to do so means that power did

not simply flow from above, but was also exercised and resisted at the grassroots of

society. On the one hand, it meant, as we have seen, that those men who had fought in the

Civil War, and after its end took posts on city councils, were the ones who actually put

some of the most important parts of the autarkic policy into practice. Importantly, these

men both shared the regime’s ‘war culture’ and wanted to keep on fighting. Indeed they

believed that the ‘enemy’ still had to be punished in everyday life in order to purge Spain

of its sins and to bring about the rebirth of the nation. On the other hand, the defeated

were not simply passive victims of their Falangist neighbours. Instead, they developed a

spectrum of resistance against the regime. Having been forced out of mainstream politics,

the defeated did what they could to resist in the private sphere and in everyday life. As

anthropologist James Scott has shown, this type of resistance tends to be carried out by

single individuals who try to improve their poor socio-economic conditions the best they

can by finding loop holes in the system. In this way, they were able to survive as well as

demonstrate their disapproval of state policies.66 However, some dissident behaviour also

took place in the public sphere, in a refusal to accept certain policies the regime tried to

implement, although only a minority responded in this way.67

25
 More commonly, the hungry and defeated population managed to show its

resistance by grumbling even in public spaces. In spite of Francoist censorship, media

control, propaganda, physical and moral repression, defeated groups made clear that

autarkic policy damaged the interests of some and benefited the interests of others. It was

plain to everyone, for example, that the corrupt authorities were applying a double

standard when it came to prosecuting blackmarketeers. This is why, despite the regime’s

harsh suppression of dissent, it could not stop people grousing about food shortages.68

Such fault finding should lead us to question the notion that Francoism managed to

achieve ‘absolute’ control over its population.69

No amount of repression could stop the population worrying about shortages and

expressing their feelings against the authorities, sometimes even in public celebrations. In

1950, in Málaga, for instance, the Catholic Church organized one of its famous ‘Misiones

Evangélicas’ (Evangelical Missions), in order to win back to the Church souls lost to

‘ignorance’ and atheism. In response, in the working-class neighbourhoods in the city,

chalked signs began to appear: ‘MAS RACIONES Y MENOS MISIONES’ (better

rations and fewer missions).70

Discontent with food supplies was also shown through jokes made at the expense

of the regime and the authorities. In a ‘time of silence’, rumours, and biting irony

provided an alternative avenue to express displeasure. As the Barcelona authorities

admitted in 1941, in those days politics were ‘not active but passive, expressed in jokes’.

Jokes were even told in public events such as in 1941 when a ventriloquist at a Barcelona

Circus show chatted with his puppet and said: ‘If you misbehave I will fire you, if I fire

26
you won’t work and if you don’t work you won’t eat’. The puppet replied: ‘But now I

work and I don’t eat’. 71

Expressions of discontent and unrest about the socioeconomic situation went far

beyond jokes. Sometimes the weakest in society expressed their feelings by taking an

active stand against regime policies. Peasants of the village of O Saviñao (Lugo), for

instance, took matters into their own hands. When an industrialist went to the village to

claim the local wheat harvest for the State, more than 300 women, knowing his true

intention was to sell the grain on the black market, prevented him from taking it away. It

took the some days, and the help of the local police service, before the wheat could

finally be seized from the irate women.72

Sometimes, protest against autarkic policies went even further. The ‘Fiscalía de

Tasas’ was the institution especially created by Francoist State in 1940 with a brief to

ensure that people paid the official price for goods. Its much feared agents became the

bane of the lives of small scale traders dabbling on the black market. For this reason the

popular classes had become filled with a deep loathing for both the ‘Fiscalía’ and its

agents. So much so that some Francoist authorities would admit that ‘Fiscalía de Tasas’

was the agency that ‘has beaten all records of unpopularity registered in the history of

Spanish laws’.73 In the city of Antequera (Málaga), when ‘Fiscalía’ agents arrived in

1950 to control prices and trade, some inhabitants started to shout and protest, ‘hurling all

kinds of insults at agents’. This heated reaction by the impoverished classes grew out the

resentment they felt because Fiscalía agents pursued small scale traders in the

blackmarket, while turning a blind eye to the activities of the town’s wealthy and large

scale blackmarketeers.74

27
 As we have said, food queues were a common place for expressing discontent. In

1940, the Andalusian cities of Sevilla, Cádiz and Jerez, a number of ‘minor clashes’

between the hungry mob and policemen took place, while people waited for food.75 But

people’s unrest was shown too when, despite the socio-economic conditions, the Spanish

government exported food to Germany and Italy in exchange of their help during the

Civil War. In 1940, six German army lorries loading sugar and chocolate in Vitoria, in

northern Spain, were attacked by a crowd incensed by the export of food. The police

‘dispersed the rioters only with difficulty’.76

On occasions the population came out to the streets to demand better food

supplies or to criticize the corruption rife within local government. Perhaps the ‘Madrid

Bakery Association Case’ provides the best example. At the beginning of 1948, a big

case of fraud on the black market was uncovered in the capital in which some high

authorities were directly implicated. In the following days, people flowed spontaneously

on to the streets of Madrid clamouring for the prosecution of big black marketeers. The

regime found itself forced into a corner and responded by organizing a big rally and

exploiting its control of the media, to make it clear that its intention was to fight the black

market profiteers. But as usual, the regime brought only some of the guilty men to court

and allowed the most powerful to get away.77

The most telling examples of everyday resistance, however, concern the black

market activity of the poorest in society. These groups simply broke the law in order to

survive. They did this by selling small quantities of goods, mostly food, at markets or by

hawking on the street. These small scale traders came from among those groups which

had suffered defeat in the Spanish Civil War: people without economic resources,

28
without property, workers, day labourers, widows… This is exactly why the Francoist

authorities pursued and punished these groups without mercy. Thus it imposed heavy

fines that most of the time could not be paid and so led them to prison or even work

camps.78

Such dispossessed groups devised a number of tricks to obtain more food and get

by. A man in Mijas (Málaga), recounted one of these common tactics: ‘A man whose

wife was called Juana, crossed out the last letter and demanded another coupon for

tobacco’ (saying that her name was ‘Juan’).79 Many others simply forged ration cards or

used those that belonged to the sick or who had died.

The exhausted population also tried to resist by substituting an inferior food item

for another. Across Spain ‘alternative food’ began to appear to meet the basic needs of a

hungry and starving population. The sheer scale and diversity of cases seems to show that

popular ingenuity had no limit. In 1949, in Granada, for instance, some people ground

carob beans to produce a form of ‘flour’ used in bread making.80 In 1941, in Huelva

province poor people resorted to eating ‘acorns and chestnuts’. These, however, were in

short supply and commanded a high price.81 This meant that the majority of the most

hungry would make do with any organic matter. Thus in 1940, in the Almería province,

villagers were forced to feed themselves by cooking herbs they gathered in the local

countryside. The weakness caused by such a poor diet led to a mushrooming in the

number of tuberculosis cases.82

Every little chance was seized for obtaining food. During the ‘truly frightening

and catastrophic famine’ in El Campillo (Huelva), a donkey dropped dead and the people

started ‘fighting to get a part of it’.83 In Jerez (Cádiz) the starving picked ‘the banana and

29
orange skins from the streets’.84 A Cuban traveller, visiting Andalusia, threw a banana

skin onto a railway platform: just after it touched the ground a mob of desperate children

seized it and ate it.85 Fear of starvation would lead many to unbelievable extremes in

Andalusia: vagabonds and the very poorest started to eat cats, dogs, and even rats. In

Seville, it was discovered that a woman who supposedly cooked jackrabbits in her

restaurant was in reality serving cats to unwary customers.86 In some villages and towns,

cats and dogs ‘disappeared mysteriously’ in the hardest moments.87

Thus the poorest groups showed their feelings where they could. But their main

quest was survival and to achieve this they worked as best they could within the system

and within the sphere of the possible. Pushed to the margins by a brutal regime to

survive, they had to resist quietly in the small spaces of tolerated legality left by the

authorities.88

5. Conclusion: Hunger as a crucial element of repression and consensus in

Francoism

How was it possible that a society caught up in such a tremendous crisis would

tolerate or support a state that continued to apply and develop such a devastating

economic policy? As we know, socio-economic factors are essential in explaining the

‘consensus’ and social support given to fascist regimes in interwar Europe. Nazi

Germany reached full employment and economic advances were noticeable to numerous

social groups during the 1930s. Although Italy’s economic growth was less impressive,

Fascism enjoyed the support of most social groups in those years.89 However, the 1940s

30
in Spain can be considered one of the worst economic periods in the history of the

country. Is it possible, then, to argue that such an economic depression, crisis and

material hardship were a milestone for building and strengthening the Francoist system?

To answer this question we first need to take account of the interaction between

state institutions and society which was at the heart of the consolidation of interwar

totalitarian regimes. In the Spanish case, hunger and the misery of everyday life played a

fundamental role in this interaction. Hunger further divided Spanish society across the

chasm of the victors and the vanquished produced by the Civil War. This social division

took on institutional form as those who won the war began both to take over local

councils and to enrich themselves on the black market. It also reinforced social division

as those from the defeated side found themselves pushed into poverty and forced to put

survival before political activity. In such ways, hunger also helped shape social attitudes

towards the regime. By rewarding its supporters it won consent and by punishing its

opponents it helped silence opposition. Below the surface of this polarized society,

between the powerful and the passive, a range of social attitudes and efforts to resist

bubbled away.

This is not to argue that the Francoist authorities deliberately set out to starve the

masses. 90 It certainly made no political sense for the regime to keep masses of people on

the verge of starvation. But although Franco’s supporters did not aim to starve people,

many did gain personally from the situation and this helps to explain why these social

groups offered the regime their support. With better access to food and enjoying impunity

on the black market, these groups improved their own social and economic status through

31
the 1940s. In fact, it was these very same groups which put pressure on the regime from

below to continue with the policy of autarky.91

Beyond its reliance on supporters, the hunger and misery produced by autarky

created the conditions in which the regime could consolidate itself in power. One way it

tried to achieve these conditions was, paradoxically, by creating institutions to alleviate

hunger and poverty. Auxilio Social and la Sección Femenina, for example, carried out

much charity work trying to draw in the support or the acceptance of the poor.92

This is exactly why ideological explanations for the continuation of autarky do not

go far enough. Nor can we resort to economic explanations for a policy which so clearly

led Spain into ruin and which meant that economic production did not reach pre-war

levels until 1952, while agriculture stagnated.93 Instead, to gain a richer understanding,

we need to see autarky as part of the Francoist war culture which emerged from a refusal

to compromise and come to terms with the defeated. Indeed, the ultimate justification for

autarky for the regime was both a social and political one.

All this shows that Franco’s ‘New State’ was not simply imposed from above on a

passive and apolitical society. At the grassroots of society, rank and file victors staffed

Francoist institutions and carried out the regime’s policies. As this article demonstrates,

the way they deployed this power shows that the idea, propagated by the regime, that

Spain needed to turn in on itself to carry out a programme of purging enjoyed real

resonance among its grassroots supporters. Such support is also the reason why, as has

been shown in other studies, these same victors played such an active role in the post-war

repression by denouncing their enemies and testifying against them in the military courts

which passed sentence on hundreds of thousands of the defeated. These same men

32
continued this punishment outside the courtroom through their management of hunger

and by rewarding the victors and consigning the defeated to extreme misery. The

defeated, of course, understood that this constituted a form of repression and in a

desperate effort to survive resisted the ‘New State’ where they could. Thus, by exploring

the interaction of state and society over the politics of hunger we can better understand

the stability of Francoism precisely in the area where it seems, on the surface, to be so

unstable.

33
TABLES

Table 1. Nutritional Diet supplied by rationing in Almería: Rations, calories and daily proteins. 1943
Weekly ration Daily ration
Capital city Calories/day Proteins/day
(Grams) (Grams)
Olive oil 977.5 139.6 1256.8 0.0
Rice 350.0 50.0 177.0 3.8
Sugar 1137.5 162.5 617.5 0.0
Codfish 37.5 5.4 21.6 5.0
Coffee 37.5 5.4 0.3 0.0
Chocolate 37.5 5.4 27.8 0.4
Sweets 62.5 8.9 34.6 0.5
Chickpeas 187.5 26.8 96.7 4.8
Broad beans 62.5 8.9 30.6 2.1
Flour 125.0 17.9 63.0 1.7
Beans 325.0 46.4 153.2 8.8
Lentils 50.0 7.1 24.0 1.7
Lard 62.5 8.9 59.6 0.0
Bread 137.5 19.6 50.1 1.4
Bacon 62.5 8.9 60.1 0.8
Total 3652.5 521.8 2672.8 30.9
Weekly ration Daily ration
Province Calories/day Proteins./day
(Grms) (Grms.)
Olive oil 383.3 54.8 492.9 0.0
Rice 66.7 9.5 33.7 0.7
Sugar 316.7 45.2 171.9 0.0
Flour 333.3 47.6 168.1 4.5
Beans 83.3 11.9 39.3 2.3
Potatoes 95.0 13.6 11.7 0.3
Total 1278.3 182.6 917.5 7.8
SOURCE: AGA, Presidencia del Gobierno. Delegación Nacional de Provincias. Partes mensuales de
febrero, junio, noviembre y diciembre de 1943. Caja 20607.

34
Table 2. Nutritional Diet supplied by rationing in Jaén. Rations, calories and daily proteins. 1945
Weekly rationing Daily rationing
Capital city Calories/day Proteins/day
(Grams) (Grams)
Olive oil 1046.4 149.5 1345.4 0.0
Rice 180 25.7 91.0 2.0
Sugar 520 74.3 282.3 0.0
Codfish 90 12.9 51.8 12.1
Coffee 20 2.9 0.1 0.0
Chocolate 20 2.9 14.8 0.2
Noodles 80 11.4 39.1 1.4
Chickpeas 570 81.4 294.0 14.7
Flour 130 18.6 65.6 1.8
Soap 400 57.1 0.6 0.6
Beans 40 5.7 18.9 1.1
Lentils 80 11.4 38.4 2.7
Bread 0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Potatoes 2300 328.6 282.6 6.6
Bacon 80 11.4 76.9 1.0
Total 5156.4 736.6 2600.7 43.4
Urban-industrial Weekly rationing Daily rationing
Calories/day Proteins/day
areas (Grams) (Grams)
Olive oil 936 133.7 1203.4 0.0
Rice 160 22.9 80.9 1.7
Sugar 320 45.7 173.7 0.0
Coffee 10 1.4 0.1 0.0
Chickpeas 120 17.1 61.9 3.1
Flour 160 22.9 80.7 2.2
Bread 0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Potatoes 200 28.6 24.6 0.6
Total 1906 272.3 1625.3 7.6
Weekly rationing Daily rationing
Rural areas Calories/day Proteins/day
(Grams) (Grams)
Olive oil 940 134.3 1208.6 0.0
Rice 150 21.4 75.9 1.6
Sugar 200 28.6 108.6 0.0
Chickpeas 50 7.1 25.8 1.3
Flour 200 28.6 100.9 2.7
Bread 0 0.0 0.0 0.0
Total 1540 220 1519.6 5.6
SOURCE: AGA, Presidencia del Gobierno. Delegación Nacional de Provincias. Partes mensuales de enero,
abril, junio, septiembre y diciembre de 1945. Caja 20672.

35
Table 3. Energetic Balance in Almería (1943) and Jaén (1945) for adult men and women. Kilocalories
and proteins for physical activities

ALMERÍA 1943 Men Women

Cal./day Prots./day Cal./day Prots./day
Capital city 2672.8 30.9 2101.6 26.16
Province 917.5 7.8 734 6.24
Physical Activity
Men Women
Energetic balance Light Moderate Heavy Light Moderate Heavy
activity activity activity activity activity activity
(Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.)
Kcal/day
Lowest acceptable 2660 2870 3500 2100 2200 2640
Capital 12.8 -197.2 -827.2 1.6 -98.4 -538.4
Province -1742.5 -1952.5 -2582.5 -1366 -1466 -1906
Prots/day
Lowest acceptable 56 48
Capital city -25.1 -21.84
Province -48.2 -41.76

JAÉN 1945 Men Women

Cal./day Prots./day Cal./day Prots./day
Capital city 2600.7 43.4 2080.56 34.72
Urban-industrial areas 1625.3 7.6 1300.24 7.6
Rural areas 1519.6 5.6 1215.68 5.6
Physical Activity
Men Women
Energetic balance Light Moderate Heavy Light Moderate Heavy
activity activity activity activity activity activity
(Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.) (Cal.)
Kcal./day
Lowest acceptable 2660 2870 3500 2100 2200 2640
Capital city -59.3 -269.3 -899.3 -19.44 -119.44 -559.44
Urban-industrial areas -1034.7 -1244.7 -1874.7 -799.76 -899.76 -1339.76
Rural areas -1140.4 -1350.4 -1980.4 -884.32 -984.32 -1424.32
Prots./day
Lowest acceptable 56 48
Capital -12.6 -13.28
Urban-industrial areas -48.4 -40.4
Rural areas -50.4 -42.4
SOURCE: AGA, Presidencia del Gobierno. Delegación Nacional de Provincias. Cajas 20607 y 20672. Basilio
Moreno Esteban (Coord.), Manual del residente en endocrinología y nutrición. Vol. II: Metabolismo y
Nutrición. 2001, 1555.

36
Table 4. Cost of Living Index in Spain (1935-1947). (1922-26 = 100)
Year Points
1935 98.4
1939 194.8
1940 241
1941 309.9
1942 332.3
1943 323.9
1944 326.4
1945 320.9
1946 432.4
1947 509.8

Average 1939-47 332.37

SOURCE: TNA, PRO, FO 371/73342. Economic Report, 8-3-1948.

1
Francisco Cobo Romero and Teresa María Ortega López, ‘Pensamiento mítico y

energías movilizadoras. La vivencia alegórica y ritualizada de la Guerra Civil en la

retaguardia rebelde andaluza, 1936-1939’, Historia y Política, 16, 2 (2006). Francoism

was built around Civil War myths and justifications which were examined and debunked

some decades ago. See Herbert R. Southworth, Conspiracy and the Spanish Civil War:

the brainwashing of Francisco Franco (London and New York 2002).

2
Like other ‘fascist’ regimes, Francoism with concepts of past, present and future. See

Martin Sabrow, ‘Time and Legitimacy: Comparative Reflections on the Sense of Time in

the Two German Dictatorships’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, 6, 3

(2005), 351-69.
3
Paul Preston, Franco. A Biography (London 1993), 297-8, 344-5.
4
Michael Richards, ‘Presenting arms to the Blessed Sacrament: Civil War and Semana

Santa in the city of Málaga, 1936-1939’, in Chris Ealham and Michael Richards, The

Splintering of Spain. Cultural History and the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939 (Cambridge

37
2005), 196-222; Giuliana Di Febo, Ritos de guerra y de victoria en la España franquista

(Bilbao 2002).
5
Michael Richards, A Time of Silence. Civil War and the Culture of Repression in

Franco's Spain, 1936-1945 (Cambridge 1998), 23; Michael Richards, ‘From War Culture

to Civil Society. Francoism, Social Change and Memories of the Spanish Civil War’,

History and Memory, autumn (2002), 93-120.

6
Michael Richards, ‘Falange, Autarky and crisis: The Barcelona General Strike of 1951’,

European History Quarterly, vol. 29, no. 4 (1999) 547.

7
Orden Ministerial 14-5-1939 (Boletín Oficial del Estado, 17-5-1939)
8
Rafael Abellá, La vida cotidiana bajo el régimen de Franco (Barcelona 1985), 49.
9
Adult men would receive the regular ration. Children would get 60 per cent of it; adult

women and the elderly, 80 per cent.

10
Orden Ministerial 6-4-1943 (Boletín Oficial del Estado, 15-4-1943). For a more

exhaustive description of the rationing system, see Beatriz Pérez González, Estraperlo en

Cádiz. La estrategia social, (Cádiz, 2004), 158-9.

11
The National Archives (TNA), PRO, FO 371/24507, Malaga Consul Report, 22-12-

1939.
12
Orden Ministerial 14-5-1939 (Boletín Oficial del Estado, 17-5-1939), Art. 11.
13
TNA, PRO, FO 371/34786, Report February 1943, 89-101.
14
David Ginard I Ferón, ‘Las condiciones de vida durante el primer franquismo. El caso

de las Islas Baleares’, Hispania, 212 (2002), 1114-5.

15
TNA, PRO, FO 371/60412, Sir Mallet Report, 12-11-1946.
16
TNA, PRO, FO 371/89482, British Consulate, Bilbao, 10-4-1950.

38
17
Rafael Abellá, Por el Imperio hacia Dios. Crónica de una posguerra (1939-1955)

(Barcelona 1978), 137.

18
TNA, PRO, FO 371/24509, Economic Conditions, 26-12-1940.
19
TNA, PRO, FO 371/60377, Trip 11th March-2nd April 1946. 18-4-1946.
20
TNA, PRO, FO 371/60411. May 1946 Report, 10-6-1946.
21
Archivo General de la Administración (AGA), PG, DNP. Caja 20690, Parte mensual

Almería (agosto y septiembre, 1947).

22
Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO): The state of food insecurity in the World,

2000. (http://www.fao.org/docrep/x8200e/x8200e03.htm#P0_0 )
23
Results refer to men and women between 19 and 50 years old, assuming an average

body weight of 70 kilos for the former and 60 for the latter. We have calculated women’s

rations on the basis of 80% of the official adult rate.

24
‘Informe de la Dirección General de Seguridad’, 13-5-1942. Documentos inéditos para

la historia del Generalísimo Franco. Vol. III. (Madrid 1993).

25
Roque Moreno Fonseret, ‘Movimientos interiores y racionamiento alimenticio en la

postguerra española’, Investigaciones Geográficas, 11 (1993), 309-16.

26
Helen Graham, ‘Popular culture in the “Years of Hunger”’, in Helen Graham and Jo

Labanyi, Spanish cultural studies. An introduction (New York 1995), 237.

27
Carlos Barciela, ‘Franquismo y corrupción económica’, Historia Social, 30 (1998), 83-

96.
28
TNA, PRO, FO 371/73342. Economic Report, 8-3-1948. The government tried to ‘ban’

this data, taking as official the cost of living figures published by National Statistic

Institute, which were not an accurate image of the reality.

39
29
Carmen Molinero and Pere Ysàs, Productores disciplinados y minorías subversivas.

Clase obrera y conflictividad laboral en la España franquista. (Madrid 1998). For a good

example of how labour relations operated under Francoism in a province of Spain: Teresa

María Ortega, Del silencio a la protesta. Explotación, pobreza y conflictividad en una

provincia andaluza, Granada 1936-1977 (Granada 2003). For the city of Barcelona, see

Sebastian Balfour, Dictatorship, workers, and the city. Labour in Greater Barcelona

since 1939 (Oxford 1989), 1-8, 20-2.

30
Alfonso Fernández Carbajal, ‘La política de la vivienda en España durante el

franquismo’, Ciudad y Territorio. Estudios territoriales, 138 (2003), 639-53.

31
TNA, PRO, FO 371/34752, 15-3-1943.
32
José María Fontana Tarrats, Política granadina (Granada 1945), 69-73.
33
Alfonso Ruiz García, ‘Arquitectura y vivienda en Almería: urgencia social y

compromiso político’, in José Rivera Menéndez y Manuel Gutiérrez Navas, Sociedad y

política almeriense durante el régimen de Franco (Almería 2003), 92.

34
Francisco Comín, ‘Sector público y crecimiento económico en la dictadura de Franco’,

Ayer, 21 (1996), 169.

35
TNA, PRO, FO 371/89526. 7-2-1950.
36
Juan Gomis, Testigo de poca edad (1936-1943) (Barcelona 1968), 145.
37
AGA, PG, DNP, Caja 20553, 1940.
38
AGA, PG, DNP, Caja 20569, Parte mensual de Granada (abril, 1941). The British vice-

consul of Melilla, visiting Malaga in 1949 assured that he had ‘never seen so many

beggars’ in the streets. See: TNA, FO 371/79721, 21-7-1949.

40
39
Examples could be: Boletín Oficial de la Provincia de Granada, Circular número

1.544 del Gobierno Civil. Archivo Histórico Municipal de Montefrío, (AHMM), 1.7.

Correspondencia Oficial. Caja 1950. And Oficio Gobernador Civil 14-7-1942, AHMSF,

2960 Correspondencia Alcaldía.

40
TNA, PRO, FO 371/26890, 111-116, 2-4-1941.
41
TNA, PRO, FO 371/26891, 69-71, 22-8-1941.
42
Programa de necesidades de la provincia de Almería: extractado de los estudios

provinciales de ordenación económica, Madrid, Presidencia del Gobierno, 1948.

43
Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, ‘Morir de hambre: autarquía, escasez y enfermedad en

la España del primer franquismo’, Pasado y Memoria, 4 (2006).

44
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20495, September 1939.
45
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20495, 1-3-1940.
46
Ángel Viñas et al, Política comercial exterior en España (1931-1975), (Madrid 1979),

Vol. I, 318.
47
TNA, PRO, FO 371/60412, Daily Telegraph, ‘Starvation in Southern Spain. Starvation

where land is richest’, 26-9-1946.

48
TNA, PRO, FO 371/34788, 66-68, 20-7-1943.
49
TNA, PRO, FO 371/60377, Mr. Garran Report, 4-6-1946.
50
Conxita Mir, ‘La violencia contra uno mismo: el suicidio en el contexto represivo del

franquismo’, Ayer, 38 (2000), 205-10.

51
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20495. 5-2-1940, 21-2-1940.
52
Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, ‘Hambre de siglos’. Mundo rural y apoyos sociales del

franquismo en Andalucía Oriental (1936-1951) (Granada 2007).

41
53
Peter Anderson, Making Francoism: repression and complicity in Los Pedroches

(Córdoba), 1939-1953 (PhD, University of London 2006), chapter 7.

54
For an example of this tendency, see Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, ‘«Hombres

nuevos»: el personal político del primer franquismo en el mundo rural del sureste español

(1936-1951)’. Ayer, 65 (2007) 237-67; and Francisco Cobo Romero and Teresa Ortega

López, ‘No sólo Franco. La heterogeneidad de los apoyos sociales al régimen franquista

y la composición de los poderes locales: Andalucía, 1936-1948’, Historia Social, 51

(2005), 49-71.
55
Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, op. cit., Chapter 5.
56
TNA, PRO, FO 371/26890, 28-4-1941.
57
Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, op. cit, 183-187. Other members of the Francoist state

also did well. Serving soldiers, for instance, participated actively in a wide range of

illegal and profitable businesses. TNA, PRO, FO 371/60412, Economic Report,

November 1946, 12-12-1946.

58
AGA, Ministerio del Interior. Direccion General de Administracion Local. Personal.

Caja 2628.

AHMM, Matrícula industrial de Montefrío, 1936. 5.4. Impuestos estatales; Archivo

Histórico Provincial de Granada (AHPG), Catastro de Rústica, Cédulas de Propiedad de

Montefrío, sig. 192/4-192-6 y 193/1-193/3.

59
AGA, Ministerio del Interior. Direccion General de Administracion Local. Caja 2775;

AGA, Sindicatos. Delegación Nacional de Sindicatos. Caja 3988; Archivo Histórico

Provincial de Jaén (AHPJ), Hacienda, Catastro de rústica. Cédulas de propiedad. Cajas

17721-17739 y 8489-8497.

42
60
Archivo Histórico Provincial de Almería (AHPA), GC, 734, 735, Expedientes de la

Fiscalía Provincial de Tasas de Almería. Year 1945; and Archivo Histórico Provincial de

Málaga (AHPM), GC, 12580, Expedientes de la Fiscalía Provincial de Tasas de Málaga.

Year 1944.
61
Rural Galicia can offer a good example: Daniel Lanero Táboas, Sindicalismo agrario

franquista na provincia de Pontevedra (1936-1975) (Santiago de Compostela, 2005).

62
Paul Preston, The politics of revenge: fascism and the military in twentieth-century

Spain (London 1995).

63
TNA, PRO, FO 371/24509, Prof. Starkey Memorandum, November 1940.
64
TNA, PRO, FO 371/24509, Economic Conditions, 18-11-1940.
65
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20691, 1946-1947. Many examples confirm that survival was

the priority: A British diplomatic official visiting Andalusia affirmed that ‘the obsessing

problem is a domestic one: food’. Similarly, the British ambassador in Madrid noted that

the socioeconomic situation ‘converted in hay’ diplomatic affairs. And Italian diplomats

reported that Spanish labourers and peasants felt too overwhelmed by difficulties to ‘feel

and understand international problems’. See: TNA, PRO, FO 371/26890, Visit Report,

28-12-1940 to 8-1-1941; Samuel Hoare, Ambassador on Special Mission (London 1946),

30; and I Documenti Diplomatici Italiani. Decima serie: 1943-1948, Vol. VI. (Roma

1992), 507; and Vol. IV, 599.

66
James Scott, Everyday forms of peasant resistance (New Haven 1984); and ‘Everyday

forms of peasant resistance’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 13, 2 (1986).

43
67
Detlev J. K. Peukert, ‘Working-Class Resistance: Problems and Options’, in David

Clay Large (ed.), Contending with Hitler. Varieties of German Resistance in the Third

Reich (New York 1991), 36-37.

68
Francisco Sevillano Calero, Ecos de Papel. La opinión de los españoles en la época de

Franco (Madrid 2000), 127, 139.

69
Ana Cabana, ‘Minar la paz social. Retrato de la conflictividad en Galicia durante el

primer franquismo’, Ayer, 61 (2006), 267-88.

70
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20760, 11-3-1950.
71
‘Informe de mayo de 1941’. Documentos inéditos para la historia del Generalísimo

Franco. Vol. II. (Madrid 1992), 137.

72
María Jesús Souto Blanco, ‘Una “revuelta de hambre” en la Galicia del primer

franquismo: O Saviñao’, Pasado y Memoria, 2 (2003), 241-54.

73
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20676, 27-3-1946.
74
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20764, 1950.
75
TNA, PRO, FO 371/24509, Food Supply, 19-11-1940.
76
TNA, PRO, FO 371/24509, Food Supply, 19-11-1940.
77
Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, ‘El estraperlo en la memoria: el caso del Consorcio de

la Panadería de Madrid’, VII Congreso de la Asociación de Historia Contemporánea,

Santiago de Compostela, 2004.

78
Miguel Gómez Oliver and Miguel Ángel del Arco Blanco, ‘El estraperlo: forma de

resistencia y arma de represión en el primer franquismo’, Studia Histórica. Historia

Contemporánea, Vol. 23 (2005), 179-99.

44
79
Ronald Fraser, Mijas. República, guerra, franquismo en un pueblo andaluz (Barcelona

1985), 128.
80
TNA, PRO, FO 371/79721, Melilla viceconsulate, 21-7-1949.
81
TNA, PRO, FO 371/26890, Economic Conditions, 1941.
82
AGA, PG, DNP. Caja 20495. 1940.
83
TNA, PRO, FO 371/26890, Economic Conditions, 1941.
84
TNA, PRO, FO 371/31234, 14-2-1942.
85
TNA, PRO, FO 371/26890, Informe sobre las condiciones en España, 1941, 5-6.
86
Rafael Abellá, op. cit., 136.
87
TNA, PRO, FO 371/34786, Food Situation, 12-2-1943.
88
Michel Foucault, Vigilar y castigar. Nacimiento de la prisión (Madrid 1994), 87.
89
Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria 1933-

1945 (Oxford 1983); Simona Colarizi, L'Opinione degli italiani sotto il regime (1929-

1943) (Rome and Bari 1991).

90
This is a criticism that has been levelled at the work of Michael Richards. For example,

Carme Molinero and Pere Ysas, ‘El malestar popular por las condiciones de vida. ¿Un

problema político para el régimen franquista?’, Ayer, 52 (2003), 255-280.

91
For example, see Carlos Barciela, ‘El lobby agrario en la España franquista’, in

Glicerio Sánchez Recio and Julio Tascón Fernández, Los empresarios de Franco.

Política y economía en España, 1936-1957 (Barcelona 2003).

92
Ángela Cenarro, La sonrisa de Falange. Auxilio Social en la guerra civil y en la

posguerra (Barcelona 2006); Carme Molinero, La captación de las masas. Política social

y propaganda en el régimen Franquista (Madrid 2005).

45
93
Carlos Barciela et al., La España de Franco (1939-1975). Economía (Madrid 2001).

46