White Terror (Spain)

The White Terror (Spanish: Terror Blanco), also called the Francoist Repression (Spanish: Represión franquista), was the political repression and mass violence against dissidents that were committed by the Nationalist faction during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939), as well as during the first nine years of the regime of General Francisco Franco. From 1936–1945, Francoist Spain officially designated supporters of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939), liberals, socialists of different stripes, anarchists, intellectuals, homosexuals, Freemasons, and Jews as well as Basque, Catalan, Andalusian, and Galician nationalists as enemies. The Francoist Repression was motivated by the right-wing notion of social cleansing (Spanish: limpieza social), which meant that the Nationalists immediately started executing people viewed as enemies of the state upon capturing territory. The Spanish Catholic Church alleged the killings were a response to the similar mass killings of their clergy, religious, and laity during the Republican Red Terror. They presented the killings by the Civil Guard (national police) and the Falange as a defense of Christendom. Repression was ideologically hardwired into the Francoist regime, and according to Ramón Arnabat, it turned "the whole country into one wide prison". The regime accused the loyalist supporters of the Republic of having "adherence to the rebellion", providing "aid to the rebellion", or "military rebellion"; using the Republicans' own ideological tactics against them. Franco's Law of Political Responsibilities (Spanish: Ley de Responsabilidades Políticas), in force until 1962, gave legalistic color of law to the political repression that characterized the defeat and dismantling of the Second Spanish Republic and punished Loyalist Spaniards. The historian Stanley G. Payne considers the White Terror's death toll to be greater than the death toll of the corresponding Red Terror.