El franquisme i els catalans. Els informes del Consejo Nacional del Movimiento (1962-1971)

2006, 162 pp.

The social acceptance of catalanism, the creation of their own political parties’ system, the achievement of institutional spaces such as the “Mancomunitat” or the “Generalitat”, and the definition of a specific cultural space, went through a major setback at the end of the war in 1936. The Pro-Spanish proclamations of the rioters included the attack to the Pro-Catalan programmes and also the attack to the simple use —even in private— of the Catalan language. The Francoism and the Catalans talks about the reflections tha were made in some pro-Franco areas when the official rhetoric could not continue hiding that the strategy of the banning and repression on Catalanism for more than two decades had not reached its purpose: erase the autochthonous political culture and the Catalan sentiment. In fact, during the Franco regime the failure of that policy was not manifested from the official sphere, which was evidenced by the process of democratic transition. The documents collected in The Francoism and the Catalans are a clear testimony of this perception:  it  specifically deals with a number of meetings that the National Council of the Movement —which was called Consejo Nacional de Falange Española Tradicionalista until 1967— celebrated in the 1960s and 1970s. Half of the work was devoted to the Catalan question. Therefore, the book presents materials that were deliberately destroyed and unknown. They also highlight the woes that —despite the official discourse— existed in significant nuclei of the Francoist political class regarding Catalonia.