Alexander Baunov: The end of the regime

Alpina Plisher Publishing House represents Alexander Baunov’s book “The End of the Regime. How the three European dictatorships ended. ”

In the second half of the twentieth century, the last three dictatorships of Western Europe ended - Franco's regimes in Spain, Salazar in Portugal and Black Colonels in Greece. Their citizens ultimately preferred a democratic system to authoritarian. In his book, political researcher and journalist Alexander Baunov talks about how they tried to extend their existence and ended with the dictatorships of these three countries, about the differences and similarities of this transition as a result of peaceful transformation in Spain, revolutionary events in Portugal and military adventure in Greece and about people, thanks to which this transition took place.

We offer to read a fragment from the chapter telling about the last years of Francian Spain.

Carrero Blanco at the head of the government

Process 1001

Parkinson's disease and other ailments Franco progressed, and in June 1973 he took another step towards the transfer of power and strengthening institutions. For the first time in almost four decades, he ceased to combine the posts of the head of state and government, and his closest ally, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, turned from the deputy prime minister from the Deputy Prime Minister. Carrero patronized the reformers and was involved in the change of the country's economic model, now he has to think about what to do with citizens who were less and less interested in the preservation of the political regime.

By the beginning of the 1970s, vertical trade unions finally lost control of the labor movement by illegal independent trade unions. In the trade union elections, workers began to elect representatives of unofficial trade unions to the official trade unions. Employers increasingly preferred not to deal with nominal, but with real working leaders, and the most part of the church went over to the side of the workers. It got to the point that the assembly of independent trade unions, sometimes with hundreds of participants, took place in the temples, and their activists, hiding from the police, lived in monasteries. In June 1972, in a monastery near Madrid, the police detained ten leaders of illegal “workers' commissions”, one of the detained trade union activists was a priest.

Shortly before this, during the acceleration of the Pervomaisky demonstration organized by illegal trade unions, a policeman was killed. Conservatives demand to restore order. Carrero Blanco is gaining a cabinet of ministers, which meets the task of restoring order, not reforms. It contains fewer technocratic reformers and more supporters of a rigid line than in the last government under the leadership of Franco himself. But this office has one feature: almost all ministers, like Carrero Blanco himself, supporters of Juan Carlos as the future head of state. Unless the family manages to drag Carlos Arias Navarro to the key post of the Minister of Internal Affairs: he is the enemy of Juan Carlos, but is friendly with Carmen Polo, wife Franco. He is the only direct appointment of Franco in the government of Carrero.

Three years earlier, the authorities tried to teach the lesson to Basque nationalists at the trial in Burgos, now the loud process of washed to show the working leaders: the price of illegal trade union activity remains high. The arrested trade union activists after a year of preliminary imprisonment are judged in Madrid, they are threatened with a lot of prison terms. The opening of the process was scheduled for December 20, 1973, on the same day, Carrero Blanco is going to submit a software document justifying the return to the tough authoritarian methods of previous times. The document also appears in the “besieged fortress” and a complete ban on hostile ideologies, and even claims that alien ideology can spread through music and dance, and therefore television should show real men, and not long -haired creatures of the indefinite gender.

Before the government meeting, Carrero goes to take communion in the Jesuit Church of St. Francisco Borha. He does this every day on the way to work and, contrary to the recommendations of the Ministry of the Interior, does not change the route and time of this daily trip. At 9:36 am under the car of the prime minister, part of the street explodes, named after the artist of the XVII century. Claudio Coelho. The explosion of enormous power throws the “doj” of the Spanish assembly by 20 m and throws through the roof of the five-story monastery building to the courtyard (their figurative posthumous tonsure of the Catholic politician), so the police do not immediately find the car.

At the site of the explosion, the deep funnel is instantly filled with water from torn pipes. The neighbors and owners of the car parked nearby tell reporters about their luck, because they could also suffer. Basque-terrorists from this one prepared the Opera Operation for five months: they rented a basement, dug a tunnel under the street, laid tens of kilograms of explosives stolen in a military warehouse. “This could not go unnoticed, but they were not stopped,” conspiologists argue.

The ministers come to the morning meeting of the government by 10:30, and most only there will learn about the death of the prime minister. The Minister of Internal Affairs Arias Navarro goes to Franco for instructions, radio and television transmit classical music, the streets are empty. The Spaniards are alarmed: what is the war, the death of Franco, the coup? In the first reports of the death of Carrero Blanco, its cause is not named, but the truth spreads quickly: this is a terrorist attack. The farmers are going to a rally in front of the Palace of Justice, where there is a process over the trade union leaders, and require revenge and the introduction of martial law. The opposition are sure: the "night of long knives" is coming.

Close to the “bunker”, the commander of the Civil Guard, General Iniesta Kano sends the country an order to open fire on demonstrators and “subversive elements”. Deputy Carrero, mentor of Juan Carlos Torkuato Fernandez Miranda, together with the heads of other law enforcement agencies, forces the cano to cancel the inconsistent order and puts the head of the gendarmes for house arrest.

Embassies of the United States and European countries make it clear that they do not want violence and revenge in relation to the opposition, and receive the appropriate assurances of the Spanish authorities. The Secretary Generals of the prohibited committee Santiago Carrillo, living in exile in France, is surprised to accept a call from Madrid “on behalf of the head of state”. At the other end of the wire, firstly, they want to hear that the Communists do not support terrorism, and secondly, they reassure: “There will be no long knives”.

Only after midnight, the government tells the Spaniards about the attack. Fernandez Miranda appears before the nation: “Our pain will not confuse our calm. We forgot how to build a world, but we have not forgotten and do not forget our victory. ” Carrero Blanco Vice President Gerald Ford, who will soon become the president, arrives at the funeral.

The question is seriously discussed whether the deceased Madrid archbishop Vicente Enrique-i-Tarankon can be funeral, because he sympathizes with the enemies of the Fatherland. Despising the threats of the reactionary part of the regime, the bishop firmly decides to personally serve the memorial service. During a funeral procession with a coffin on a carriage, the ultra -right meets the appearance of the head of the metropolitan church with a disapproving rumble and the cries of “Power - Army!”.

The archbishop moves calmly behind the coffin. In the crowd, a high, on the head above the rest, is a straight, as if swallowed a sword, the figure of Prince Juan Carlos in a overcoat is an ideal target. At an emergency meeting of the government on the day of the funeral, many see how Franco cries: "They cut off the last thread that connected me with life." All this happens on Christmas Eve.

No hood without good

Everyone expects that the new prime minister will be Fernandez Miranda or one of the technocrats-heavyweights, such as Lopez Bravo, who holds the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs. Suddenly, Franco appoints the head of the government of the Minister of Internal Affairs, his wife Carlos Arias Navarro, an inexpressive old man with a colonel antennae of a brush. Supporters of change are shocked. Arias Navarro is an old -regime francoist. In addition, he is the Minister of the Interior, who did not protect Carrero Blanco from terrorists. State media try to soften the negative impression of their appointment, emphasizing: but this is the first civilian prime minister of Spain under Franco.

The appointment of Arias Navarro for the post of prime minister is the first serious personnel decision that Franco does not make on his own. The aged leader lost his main support for recent decades in the person of Carrero Blanco and is now even more affected by the “kitchen cabinet” - his own family, which is increasingly concerned about his safety, status and power when Franco does not become.

Any cabinet can now be the first after the death of Franco. Neither Juan Carlos, nor his candidates (he offers frag or Miranda), nor even the candidates of Franco himself seem to be able to provide her with guarantees of security and maintaining status. Another thing is Arias, the leader of the leader’s wife, a good friend of the Bunker leaders and a real supporter of a hard line. The enemies have just killed the prime minister, it is not up to liberalism. The first candidate of the family is generally the leader of the Bunker Hiron, but everyone understands that the more pragmatic faction in the power of the bones will fall, but he will not miss him. To push Arias to the premier post, the family organizes a whole home special operation.

Any cabinet can now become the first cabinet of Juan Carlos, but so far they are advised with it at the last moment and only for a box. The death of Carrero Blanko, the head of the “Operation“ Prince ”, revives the hope of family that you can change the successor and instead of Juan Carlos to make him Kuzen Alfonso de Bourbon-I-Dampier, the husband of the granddaughter of Franco, who now lives in the El-Pardo palace and is an integral part of the palace click.

The death of Carrero Blanco has one important consequence. The decrepit Franco was about to transfer the post of head of state in the near future, as he had just transferred the post of head of government, but now the question is again postponed: to leave after the attack means to show weakness, and who will take care of the new head of state without Carrero Blanco and monitor the political line?

In the traditional New Year's appeal (“Attention, the Spaniards! Says the head of state!”) Franco pronounces the mysterious phrase: “There is no such evil that would not turn for good.” There is no thin one without good. This is the only phrase inscribed by Franco's hand before speaking into a text printed by speaker. The whole country discusses what he means. After broadcasting the circulation, a nightly New Year's concert begins. A pop ensemble, looking as too well -ironed, combed and excessively sprinkled with sparkles of ABBA, performs the hat “Life continues”.

Arias forms a new government, not consulting Huan Carlos. He only inflicts a dry protocol visit to the official successor. It is clear to everyone that the new prime minister intends to keep the prince away from real politics. Perhaps, with his mysterious New Year's phrase, Franco wanted to say that now, without Carrero, the succession scheme can be replayed? Or did you mean that now that the “Opus dei” was left without the protection of Carrero Blanco, you can get rid of her dominance in the office of ministers and generally close the period of a technocratic thaw, which is now, when the country is invoyed and the howl with separatists has begun, many consider a mistake? Or that Carrero was not the person who would deal with the task of maintaining the regime when the successor Franco will receive power?

In the office of Arias on important posts there are no allies of Juan Carlos. For the first time since the late 1950s, the government has no Lopez Rodo-a key figure in economic reforms. After the post of Foreign Minister, which he barely managed to occupy, Rodo goes to Austria as an ambassador - a disproportionate and humiliating appointment with the political role that he played in recent years. There is no Fernandez Miranda in the government, a prince’s mentor who, in the previous four years, worked as the Minister of the Ruled Party.

Spirit on February 12. The conservative is wrapped in liberal

Shortly before these events, a group of reformist -minded intellectuals and functionaries begins to publish an article in the Catholic magazine YA under the collective pseudonym Tacito. The Spanish "Tacitus" writes that the revolutionary transition of power to the opposition is impossible, but the continuation of the regime is also unthinkable without changes. So, a smooth transformation is needed. The idea is impressed by many: the Spaniards remember civic howl, well, they are afraid of new shocks, and after a decade of economic miracle they have something to lose.

To the surprise of the “bunker”, the Arias government is more balanced than we could expect: it has a couple of liberal ministers, and on the second and third roles there are representatives of the Tacitus group, authors of articles in YA magazine. Arias’s balance, like Franco himself, pushes the logic of deduction of power.

On February 12, 1974, Prime Minister Arias makes unexpectedly liberal speech in Cortes. He says that the load of political renewal cannot lie on the shoulders of one person - “our leader”, which has come when the country's unity should not be expressed in the subordination of power citizens, but in their participation in politics, and proposes to legitimize political associations, return the elections of city mayors and increase the share of legislators chosen by citizens from then 17 to 35 %.

Some phrases from Arias’s speech become winged: “Our goal is to add up, not to subtract”, “We need to take into account opinions, and not force them”, “unite forces, and not spray”. After this speech, journalists begin to write about the “Spirit February 12”, referring to the hope of a liberal turn of the regime under the new premiere. The Tacitus group participated in the preparation of speech. The Bunker, who considered Ariasa, now sees almost a traitor in him. The family is also alarmed: it turned out that it is not enough to appoint the guardian as head of government.

From the Prime Minister, who replaced Franco in this post, is waiting for actions. Carrero Blanco spent the prime minister too long and did not have time to imagine his demo version of Spain after Franco, which means that the queue of the next. Arias contrasted himself with the supporters of Juan Carlos (he also made the knowledge of the official successor on the February speech), now he needs to demonstrate visionary, energy, show that he is not just a conservative and former security security department, then the appointed mayor of Madrid, the Minister of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in a long -standing past, the brutal pacifier of the Republican Malagi), and modern A politician who can show where and how to move. In the “overripe” modes, no matter what, the reform attempt turns out: Franco himself went through this.

Illustrating the liberal “Spirit of February 12”, the living classic of Spanish literature returns the Republican writer Ramon Jose Joser, who left his homeland in 1936. He is ready to teach at the university if he is allowed to say what he thinks.

The Royal Theater opens the season with a play by 1926. Tyran Banderas Ramon Valle-Inclan about the collapse of a cruel dictatorial regime. “We are talking about the Latin American dictatorship,” the state press specifies just in case.

The return of Luis Bunuel to the official Spanish culture ended with a scandal with the film “Viridian”. Now his son Juan Louis begins in Madrid to shoot the film “A Woman in Red Boots” with Katrin Deneuve in the lead role and with Erotic scenes hated by Franco.

The fourth year in a row in the resort of Sithsa is held by the International Festival of Film and Fantasy. The world -famous Spanish dancer Antonio Hades, director of his own dance theater, was accused of blasphemy during the filming of the film “Triangles” and sentenced to two months of prison. Two weeks later, Franco personally pardon the artist, provided that he will ask for forgiveness from the image of the Virgin.

The fundamental division into winners and defeated once is less and less. In 1974 and 1975 In Spain, a century of two large poets celebrate - the brothers Manuel and Antonio Machado. The first adopted the Franco regime, the second fled from him and died shortly after the fall of the republic.

Now the anniversaries of both are officially celebrated. The works of the poet, the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, have long returned to the Spanish stage and bookstores. Only his homoerotic “sonnets of dark love” do not print, but not only the state, but also the family of geniuses against their publication.

The further premiere of Arias develops as two parallel processes: careful liberalization of the regime and brutal struggle with those whom “democracy with adjectives” - a special, national form of sovereign democracy - does not suit. Arias rushes between his own conservative instincts and the need to win the sympathies of citizens, maintain an elite balance, and please Franco. He is not enthusiastic and asks for loved ones: what kind of “spirit of February 12” is this, is the date of the base of the regime - not on July 18?

Simultaneously with the liberal exercises of Arias, Franco clearly denotes borders from which he does not intend to retreat. Он утверждает смертный приговор двум ультралевым боевикам: потомственному республиканцу Сальвадору Пуч Антику и восточному немцу Георгу Михаэлю Вельцелю, который при аресте назвал себя поляком Хайнцем Чесом и осужден под этим фальшивым именем. Оба виновны в гибели полицейских. Просьбы Ватикана, иностранных лидеров и послов не помогают: обоих казнят старинным испанским способом при помощи гарроты — металлического обруча с винтом, ломающим шейные позвонки. Государственная пресса уверяет, что гаррота гуманней электрического стула, виселицы и гильотины, используемых в западных демократиях.

Меньше чем через два месяца после казни и всего через три после либеральной программной речи премьер- министра Ариаса охранители получают важное, как им кажется, доказательство того, что с врагами режима нельзя церемониться. В апреле 1974 г. группа офицеров среднего звена и левых взглядов при поддержке столичной толпы свергает правительство в соседней Португалии. Антикоммунистический режим-близнец, построенный на идеях особого пути, традиционных ценностей и на критике либерализма, правил в Лиссабон е с 1933 г., но рассыпается за один день.

Министр печати Пио Кабанильяс, главный либерал в правительстве Ариаса, шлет в Лиссабон съемочную группу. Репортаж не пускают в эфир, но тысячи испанцев сами отправляются в Лиссабон посмотреть на революцию, побыть в ликующей толпе, подышать воздухом внезапной свободы. С ними едут агенты испанских спецслужб и добровольные соглядатаи ультраправых — изучать, как в случае чего бороться с такой напастью. Отец Хуана Карлоса дон Хуан по-прежнему живет в Португалии: он поддержал революцию и гордится дружбой с генералом Спинолой, который стал президентом после свержения диктатуры.

Летом того же года после неудачной попытки аннексировать Кипр пала хунта «черных полковников», которая с 1967 г. правила Грецией. В некоммунистической части Европы Франко остается единственным диктатором.