The leading role of the party: Catalan communism and the Franco regime, 1939-1975

Prior to the Spanish Civil War, the Catalan national movement had been regarded with deep suspicion by organized labour, and society had been torn by social and political conflict. The rise to dominance of Catalan communism and the impact this movement had on the Catalan opposition to the Franco regime enabled the over-coming of pre-war divisions. Furthermore, the defence of Catalan national identity became a key component in the left’s strategy of opposition to the dictatorship. Thus a new correlation of forces, as well as demographic change, ensured that the opposition in Catalonia was unified before any other territory in Spain. This article concerns itself with the structural changes in Catalan left political culture that determined a distinctive outcome to late Francoism