First Francoism

The first Francoism (1939–1959) was the first stage in the history of General Francisco Franco's dictatorship, between the end of the Spanish Civil War and the abandonment of the autarkic economic policy with the application of the Stabilization Plan of 1959, which gave way to the developmentalist Francoism or Second Francoism, which lasted until the death of the Generalissimo. This phase is characterized by scholars as the totalitarian or quasi-totalitarian and the fascist or quasi-fascist phase of the dictatorship. It is usually divided into three sub-stages: the first from 1939 to 1945, which corresponds to the Second World War and during which the Franco regime underwent a process of fascistization already begun during the civil war to resemble Nazi Germany and, above all, Fascist Italy, and which was aborted by the defeat of the Axis powers; the second sub-stage, from 1945 to 1950, was the most critical period in the history of the Franco dictatorship because of the international isolation and the opposition's offensive, but the "cosmetic" changes it introduced and above all the outbreak of the Cold War ended up reintegrating it into the anti-communist Western Bloc; the third stage, from 1951 to 1959, has also been called the hinge decade (in Spanish: decenio bisagra) for being an intermediate period between the stagnation of the "autarkic" 1940s and the "developmentalist" 1960s, and has also been characterized as the period of the "splendor of national Catholicism".