THIS BOOK IS AN ACCOUNT of a journey which my wife and I made in the centre and south of Spain. The ground we covered was not entirely new to either of us. In my youth I had spent some six or seven years in Andalusia. When I married we bought a house near Málaga and from it we watched the confusion and horror of the opening phases of the civil war. Then, on our return to England, my wife wrote an account of our experiences, while I produced two large books – one on Spanish history and politics and the other (now in the press) on Spanish literature. But thirteen years is a long time – enough to make one wonder if one knows or remembers anything – and when we returned last year my mind was full of questions. What was Spain really like? What was the character of Spanish culture and civilisation? How did it compare with the French and the English? To answer these questions I decided to keep a diary in which I would record every day my experiences and impressions. I did so, and it is out of this diary that the present book has been made.
But Franco Spain, it will be said, has a special interest. We have been calling it names in Parliament and in the press for many years, but few English people have any idea what it feels like to live in it. To throw some light on that might be valuable. However it was by no means part of my original plan to do this. I was tired of politics – especially of the hopeless politics of the peninsula – and wished to give my attention to the more permanent and characteristic features of the country. Regimes, I said to myself, come and go, but what is really important in Spain never changes. It was with a certain dismay therefore that I was to find that such an attitude was impossible.
For this is what happened: from the moment of our arrival in Spain to the moment of our leaving it we were besieged by people who wished to talk to us about the political situation. Never have I been in a country whose citizens were so anxious to express their views on their government. And since many of those conversations got into my diary, I have passed on a selection of them to the reader – a sufficient number, I think, to give him a fair idea of how ordinary Spaniards feel and think at the present time.
The picture that emerges is a depressing one. Spaniards of all classes and of all political ideologies are discouraged and exasperated. Those who let their fanaticism get the better of them during the civil war are often obsessed by feelings of guilt, for no hangover is worse than that which follows a civil war and a reign of terror. The widespread corruption causes shame and dismay, the system of government controls is the despair of businessmen, while the severe inflation has reduced the middle and lower middle classes to great straits and the agricultural labourers to starvation. The feeling given out by Spain today is that of a country whose road to – I do not say prosperity – but simply to any humanly tolerable conditions is blocked. This raises a question for me. In the course of this book I have described what I have seen and reported what was said to me, but have made little comment. Am I to leave the matter there, or are some general remarks of a political sort called for? I fear that they are, and yet I am in some doubt how to put them. Let me all the same make the attempt.
The Franco regime a few years ago was a harsh and oppressive dictatorship of a Fascist kind. But its dominating clique, the Falange, had an idealism which in its own way was perfectly genuine. The bulk of its supporters belonged to the middle class, and it aimed at raising the level both of that class and of the working classes as a necessary step in the realisation of its more ambitious aims. But, opposed by the passive forces of the Church and of the landowners, as well as by the more or less liberal professional class and the businessmen – and, it must be added, betrayed by its own leaders – it was never in a position to carry through any of the measures which might in the end have given it a working-class following. Then came the shock of Hitler’s defeat, the irresistible growth of the black market and the postwar inflation. Cynicism spread rapidly through the party and most of the higher ranks, who had been greatly diluted by place hunters during the war, allowed themselves to be corrupted by the rewards which participation in the black market offered. Today the Falange is a body of men who cling to power because they fear to lose their jobs, but who are ashamed of themselves. Their shame, and the Allied victory, have made the regime much milder.
The inflation, the lack of foreign exchange and the black market are the causes of three-quarters of the terrible poverty and misery one sees in Spain today. Everyone blames the regime for them, though in fact such blame is only partly justified. These things are to a great extent the result of Spain’s political isolation, of two years of drought and of the civil war. The only cure lies in a substantial injection of Marshall Aid. Without that no government, however admirable, could restore the worn-down Spanish economy or break the black market. But how give money to a regime of this sort? Apart from the undesirability of propping up General Franco’s dictatorship and the serious effect that this would have on world opinion, there is the question whether such aid would be of any use in restoring the country. A British observer, by no means on the Left, with whom I discussed this was of the opinion that foreign loans would be as wasted on the present Spanish government as they have been on that of Chiang Kai-shek. But surely, it will be said, conditions could be imposed which would make it certain that the aid provided would go where it was needed? Apparently the Americans have already offered small loans on such conditions, and they have been refused.
But why should the Americans be anxious to put Spain on its feet? They have two motives for this, a good and a bad. The bad motive, which is that on which General Franco is relying, is military. Certain staff officers, attached to their embassy in Madrid, are reported to believe that Spain could be turned into a military fortress into which, in the event of a Russian invasion of Europe, the French army could retreat. At first glance the plan looks feasible, but can anyone who considers it carefully regard it as having much sense? The Pyrenees have never proved of any use as a military barrier. No lateral roads or railways exist on the Spanish side, whereas there are excellent ones on the French. Then how difficult it would be to maintain a large army in Spain! There is only one double-line railway in the country. From the seaports single-line railways and mountain roads climb painfully to the tableland. And how far could one count, under present conditions, on the Spanish people’s will to fight?
Yet there is a strong case for helping Spain to emerge from the pit into which she has fallen. It is a moral case and therefore a political one too. Spain forms a natural and inalienable province of Western Europe and her prosperity is of concern to all the Atlantic nations. How could such help be provided?
Before trying to find an answer, we inhabitants of the democratic countries must get rid of certain illusions. The first is that there is no reason for supposing that Franco can be got rid of by reducing the country to its last legs. Anyone who could survive the past two years, when the drought led to a general economic collapse and famine, can survive anything. The General’s method of allowing his key men to enrich themselves by corrupt practices and then keeping a dossier of their misdemeanours is an excellent security against revolt in high places. And since he believes himself to be the heavensent saviour of his country and has a full share of the famous Galician obstinacy, he is not likely to resign a second before he is compelled to do so.
The second illusion is that the alternative to Franco is parliamentary democracy. This is a very dangerous illusion, for so long as it is held in England and the United States it helps to keep together the people who brought the present regime into power, but many of whom are now longing to put an end to it. The Monarchist movement, which offers the only hope of any change, will remain a weak fronde of café politicians and grumblers so long as there is the least likelihood of a political democracy arising out of their efforts. The reason for this is surely not difficult to understand. Spain, after going through one of the most terrible civil wars in history, is a country suffering from shell-shock. One half of Spain won the war, and what would happen, these people say, if the sons and brothers of the men they killed were to be given the chance of striking back? And it is not only the winning side who say this, but many of the old Left as well. Anything, they say, anything rather than another civil war.
Now genuine elections might, at the end of a few years, go far to produce one. That is why, if for some reason they had to be held, they would be faked. And if that could not be done, then one may be sure that the first success of the Left would lead to another military rising, after which another dictatorship would be re-established. Spain for some time to come needs to live under an authoritarian regime.
But how, it may be asked, would a Monarchist regime of this sort be better than that of General Franco? In the first place it would invite the refugees to return and release the political prisoners. It would have the support of the Liberals and of most of the Socialists. The division between the two Spains, which is kept alive artificially by the Falange for its own ends, would be bridged: the bitterness left by the civil war would diminish. Then the new regime would come in on a great wave of popularity. It would not be obliged to buy and corrupt, as the present one does in its efforts to keep in power, but would be able to put down abuses and govern with a strong hand. Doubtless no sweeping reforms would be carried out: neither the land question nor that of education would be seriously tackled. But something would be done and the other nations of Western Europe would feel that there existed in Spain a government which, though not democratic, had a liberal orientation and could therefore be considered eligible for partnership with themselves.
Can such a government be brought in? It seems to me that at any time during the past two years it might have been done if the Americans and the British had come to a definite decision that this was the sort of government they wished to see in Spain and that they would not come to the assistance of any other. An open statement of this sort in Washington, coupled with a promise of generous aid, would in all probability have brought it about. The number of really corrupt people in Spain is small, the number of decent and sensible people is large – far larger than many of us in England, steeped in the propaganda of the civil war, suppose. It seems to me likely that, if the democratic nations had adopted a firm and unambiguous line, a movement of opinion would have been set up strong enough to bring about a change of regime peaceably and by agreement.
But today, with the danger of war all at once so much closer, it would be unrealistic to suppose that any such step as this is likely to be taken. Precious opportunities have been lost and one cannot expect that either the British or the American governments will adopt in a period of crisis a policy which they refused to apply when the world situation was less troubled. Besides, with every increase of the Communist threat, Franco becomes more strongly rooted. I would therefore suggest that some assistance should be made available at once to the Spanish people. Corn, fertilisers, cement and machinery are the most pressing needs and I imagine that, if goods rather than credits were provided and certain conditions attached, most of these goods would find their way to the places where they are needed. There can surely be no object in condemning the Spanish working classes to starvation and misery or driving naturally honest people into corruption and starvation. Hunger and corruption are precisely the soil in which Communism grows. And though by helping Spain today we may appear to be bolstering up the Franco regime, it may also be that precisely in this way, by the influence that economic help usually gives, we may be able in time to bring about the change of regime which, as I have suggested, is so much to be desired. At all events there is at present, I believe, no other positive policy open to us. I would ask anyone who is shocked by this suggestion to read this book and see what I have seen.
I would like to add a final word to the person who is meditating a trip abroad. The Spaniards are a remarkable people and their country is one of the most beautiful in the world. It has the advantage for the holidaymaker of offering the most complete contrast possible to England. Travel is easy and pleasant, hotels are excellent, the food in them is plentiful and good, and the prices in English money are reasonable. Above all, the Englishman will find everywhere kindness and hospitality, and even the Falangists, who during the war did not like us, will put on a pleasant face. The impression that abides from my visit is of how little, after all the vicissitudes of the last thirteen years, the character of the people has changed, and this, to anyone who knew Spain before the civil war, will be the best recommendation. To those who did not, let me say that there is something about this country and its way of life which makes a unique impression. For centuries a mixingbowl of the cultures of Europe, Asia and North Africa, Spain today gives off a note which is unlike any other. A sharp, penetrating, agridulce strain, both harsh and nostalgic like that of its guitar music, which no one who has once heard will ever forget. The northerner in search of new sensations has every reason for going there.
1950