The Catalan Opposition to the Franco Régime between 1962 and 1975

Abstract

The development of Catalan society in the 1960s and 1970s posed a serious challenge to the Franco regime. Its aim was to ensure not merely the survival of Catalan culture but its reconstruction and modernization. The opposition was successful, furthermore, in establishing areas in which collaboration between parties was possible and in creating the first large-scale organizations within the new labour and student movements. Apart from isolated events, such as the 1950 general strike, a few local or sectorial disputes, and the student meeting held in the university assembly hall in 1957, there had been no movement of sufficient scope or duration to allow the transition from clandestinity to illegality to occur. The process began in the mid-1960s and gathered strength during the declining years of the dictator and his régime.