Editing Totalitarianism (section)

====Christian====
{{See also|National Catholicism|Christian fascism|Clerical fascism}}
[[File:RETRATO DEL GRAL. FRANCISCO FRANCO BAHAMONDE (adjusted levels).jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of [[Francisco Franco]]]]
[[Francoist Spain]] (1936–1975), under the dictator [[Francisco Franco]], had been commonly characterized as totalitarian until 1964, when [[Juan Linz]] challenged this characterization and instead described Francoism as "authoritarian" because of its "limited degree of political pluralism" caused by the struggle between 'Francoist families' (Falangists, Carlists, etc.) within the sole legal party [[FET y de las JONS]] and the ''[[Movimiento Nacional]]'' and by other such features as, according to Linz, lack of 'totalitarian' ideology, as Franco relied on [[National Catholicism]] and traditionalism. Such revision caused a major debate, some critics of Linz felt that his concept may be a form of acquittal of Francoism and did not concern its early phase (often called "[[First Francoism]]"). Later debates focused on whether the regime could be described as 'fascist' rather than whether it was totalitarian; some historians stressed the traits of a military dictatorship, while the others emphasized the Fascist component, calling the regime a [[Para-fascism|para-fascist]] or 'fascistized' dictatorship. While [[Enrique Moradiellos]] notes that "it is now increasingly rare to define Francoism as a truly fascist and totalitarian regime", although he writes that the debates on Francoism haven't finished yet,<ref name="franco"/> [[Ismael Saz]] notes that "it has also begun to be recognised that" Francoism underwent a "totalitarian or quasi-totalitarian, fascist or quasi-fascist" phase.<ref name="saz">{{Cite book |last=Saz |first=Ismael |author-link=Ismael Saz |title=Fascismo y Franquismo |publisher=Universitat de València |year=2004 |isbn=978-84-370-5910-5 |location=València |language=es}}</ref> The historians who continue to criticize Linz and describe the regime as totalitarian usually limit such characterization to ten to twenty years of the "[[First Francoism]] ."<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=D32PCwAAQBAJ | isbn=978-1-317-29422-1 | title=European Dictatorships 1918-1945 | date=12 February 2016 | publisher=Routledge }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JzAKEAAAQBAJ | isbn=978-84-8102-695-5 | title=La construcción de la dictadura franquista en Cantabria | date=20 November 2020 | publisher=Ed. Universidad de Cantabria }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=angGEAAAQBAJ | isbn=978-84-95886-89-7 | title=El Franquismo y la apropiación del pasado: El uso de la historia, de la arqueología y de la historia del arte para la legitimación de la dictadura | date=2 July 2016 | publisher=Editorial Pablo Iglesias }}</ref><ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=F5MXzFIHWmMC | isbn=978-84-259-1008-1 | title=Estado y derecho en el franquismo: El nacionalsindicalismo. F. J. Conde y Luis Legaz Lacambra | date=1996 | publisher=Centro de Estudios Constitucionales }}</ref>
[[File:Pla y Deniel marzo 1942.jpg|thumb|[[Francoist Spain|Francoist]] minister [[Esteban Bilbao]] (left) and Catholic archbishop [[Enrique Pla y Deniel]] (center) doing the Roman salute in [[Toledo Cathedral]], Spain, March 1942]]
Linz wrote that "the heteronomous control of the ideological content of Catholic thought by a universal church and specifically by the Pope is one of the most serious obstacles to the creation of a truly totalitarian system..."<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8cYk_ABfMJIC | isbn=978-1-55587-890-0 | title=Totalitarian and Authoritarian Regimes | date=2000 | publisher=Lynne Rienner Publishers }}</ref> This argument is also debated: "The frequent and saturated references to Francoist Catholic humanism... coming from Christian theology, could hardly conceal the fact that the individual was only understood as a citizen to the extent of his adherence to the Catholic, hierarchical and economically privatist community that the military uprising had saved";<ref name="fr3">{{cite book |last1=Contreras |first1=Guillermo Portilla |title=El derecho penal bajo la dictadura franquista: Bases ideológicas y protagonistas |date=2022 |publisher=Editorial Dykinson, S.L. |location=[[Madrid]] |url=https://ruja.ujaen.es/server/api/core/bitstreams/1ff15109-4ea2-4949-967c-2183fc8000c8/content |access-date=17 January 2025 |language=es}}{{page needed|date=March 2025}}</ref> "Catholic values that permeated the conservative ideological substratum... were precisely what was wielded by the Francoist Spanish political doctrine of the late thirties and early forties to justify the need for the constitution of a totalitarian State at the service and expansion of the Catholic religion."<ref name="fr4">{{cite journal | url=https://revistaderecho.posgrado.unam.mx/index.php/rpd/article/view/170/330 | doi=10.22201/ppd.26831783e.2021.14.170 | title=La voluntad totalitaria del Franquismo | date=2021 | last1=González Prieto | first1=Luis Aurelio | journal=Revista del Posgrado en Derecho de la Unam | issue=14 | pages=44 | doi-access=free }}</ref>

Franco was portrayed as a fervent Catholic and a staunch defender of [[Catholic Church in Spain|Catholicism]], the declared [[state religion]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Viñas |first=Ángel |url=https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=511206 |title=En el combate por la historia: la República, la guerra civil, el franquismo |year=2012 |publisher=Pasado y Presente |isbn=978-8493914394 |language=es |access-date=2020-09-15 |archive-date=2020-10-05 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201005174834/https://dialnet.unirioja.es/servlet/libro?codigo=511206 |url-status=live }}</ref> [[Civil marriage]]s that had taken place in the Republic were declared null and void unless they had been validated by the Church, along with divorces. Divorce, [[Birth control|contraception]] and abortions were forbidden.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Franco edicts |url=http://search.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1954/198/A04862.tif |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080626065607/http://search.boe.es/datos/imagenes/BOE/1954/198/A04862.tif |archive-date=26 June 2008 |access-date=16 December 2005}}</ref> According to historian [[Stanley G. Payne]], an opponent of describing Francoism as a totalitarian system, Franco had more day-to-day power than [[Adolf Hitler]] or [[Joseph Stalin]] possessed at the respective heights of their power. Payne noted that Hitler and Stalin at least maintained rubber-stamp parliaments, while Franco dispensed with even that formality in the early years of his rule. According to Payne, the lack of even a rubber-stamp parliament made Franco's government "the most purely arbitrary in the world."<ref name="Payne1987">{{cite book |last1=Payne |first1=Stanley G. |title=The Franco Regime, 1936–1975 |year=1987 |publisher=Univ of Wisconsin Press |isbn=978-0-299-11070-3 |pages=323–324 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mgDWLYcTYIAC&pg=PA323}}</ref> However, from 1959 to 1974 the "[[Spanish Miracle]]" took place under the leadership of [[technocrats]], many of whom were members of [[Opus Dei and politics#Opus Dei members in Franco's government|Opus Dei]] and a new generation of politicians that replaced the old [[Falangist]] guard.<ref>Jensen, Geoffrey. "Franco: Soldier, Commander, Dictator". Washington D.C.: Potomac Books, Inc., 2005. p. 110-111.</ref> Reforms were implemented in the 1950s and Spain abandoned [[autarky]], reassigning economic authority from the isolationist [[Falangism|Falangist movement]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.forbes.com/sites/timreuter/2014/05/19/before-chinas-transformation-there-was-the-spanish-miracle/#f5da6133b3e1 |title=Before China's Transformation, There Was The 'Spanish Miracle' |work=Forbes Magazine |access-date=22 August 2017 |date=19 May 2014 |first=Tim |last=Reuter |archive-date=24 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191224061157/https://www.forbes.com/sites/timreuter/2014/05/19/before-chinas-transformation-there-was-the-spanish-miracle/#f5da6133b3e1 |url-status=live }}</ref> This led to massive economic growth that lasted until the mid-1970s, known as the "[[Spanish miracle]]". This is comparable to [[De-Stalinization]] in the Soviet Union in the 1950s, where [[Francoist Spain]] changed from being openly totalitarian to an authoritarian dictatorship with a certain degree of [[economic freedom]].<ref>[[#Payne2000|Payne (2000)]], p. 645</ref>{{full citation needed|date=February 2025}}{{failed verification|date=January 2025}}