Franco And Saazar Case Study

State repression in both Spain and Portugal throughout the Francisco Franco and Antonio Salazar regimes compare with each other in more ways than not. It may be due to the fact that their geographical location is so close together, or that Franco and Salazar both ruled around the same timeline in history, but nonetheless, each country faced similar difficulties in dealing with their leaders. In Spain, Franco had seen backlash from the guerrillas that were left over from the Spanish Civil War, which occurred in 1936 and ended in 1939. Portugal had many of its citizens unhappy with the way Salazar was policing their country. While the two countries had both successful and difficult periods of time during the Franco and Salazar regimes, they

These guerrilla groups were spread out across the country and were stationed primarily in the mountains, away from many of Franco’s troops. While the majority of these resistance fighters were consistently being hunted and persecuted, the other fighters had fled to France to escape an inevitable political prosecution. Guerrilla fighters opposed Franco largely because of his methods of spreading fear to the people and his tight grip on the Spanish government, which was weak to begin

The most common course of action seemed to be execution or incarceration, but regardless of their punishment methods, they handled these groups with swift penalties. Although a handful of the resistance fighters backed down when they saw the discipline of others, numerous organizations continued the bombings, assassinations, rallies, and protests that they had encountered before. Perhaps the largest resistance associations were the communist supporters, and while they were dealt with severely by both Franco and Salazar, “…Portuguese communists were treated gently compared to their brethren in Spain”. Regardless, these people had a goal in mind and would likely stop at almost nothing to ensure that they meet their objective and hopefully change their country for the