Taking text from previous things I have written, seeing how well longer texts will be received in the image heavy Tumblr format. Feedback very welcome and sorry again for yet another big gap in activity. This one taken from my answer here

Whilst Spain was quite close with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and the association with the fascist Falange, Franco’s Spain wasn’t really fascist. Franco himself can best be called, well, a Francoist - his main priorities were always the consolidation of his own power, from his climb to Generalisimo in the civil war to the consolidation of the fairly diverse nationalists under his own single party, FET y de las JONS, and the restoration of the monarchy without a monarch. His central ideology can be described as a mix of Spanish nationalism and reactionary Catholicism.

This involved the reestablishment of church power in Spain (after it had been drastically reduced during the Second Republic) over many areas of Spanish life, including education and legal matters. This is a key area where Francoism differs from fascism; a revolutionary element is a major part of fascist ideology, whereas with Franco, social policy was strictly traditionalist and reactionary, based off the power of the Catholic church in Spain and similar to the 1800s situation.

Another aspect that differs with fascism is the lack of a popular mass movement. In Italy the blackshirts, in Germany the brownshirts - both were mass movements loyal to their leaders. In Spain the fascist mass movement was primarily made up of the blueshirts (and before the war, Gil-Robles’ legalist fascist CEDA) of Falange. Whilst it was definitely a mass movement on the same side as Franco, Franco’s support base was rather in the military and clergy.

Falange itself quickly became marginalised during the war within FET y de las JONS after the death of their leader, Antonio Primo de Rivera, in a republican prison in 1937, which lead to a struggle within the party leadership. As the party chaos ensued, Franco, the opportunist he was, exploited to announce the consolidation of Falange into his own organisation, citing the need for unity, where they quickly became almost irrelevant.

Franco also had ambitious ideas to restore Spain to its former imperial glory at home and overseas. This first came to fore during Franco’s meeting with Hitler at Hendaye in 1940, where Franco included in his demands for entry into the war all of French Morocco and a suggestion of Portugal’s future seizure.

Domestically, Spanish nationalism came through with the centrality of Castillian Spanish and banning of Basque, Catalan and other regional languages, as well as the revocation of any autonomy they had during the Republic.

Economically, Spain under Franco gets its closest to traditional fascism. Initially, Franco advocated for a strictly independent economy that was entirely self reliant (links to the nationalism here too), much similar to Hitler’s ambitions for German autarky. The economy during this period also included the quite fascist single consolidated trade union, the Sindicato Vertical, which in theory united employers and employees in one structure, disallowing independence from the state.

Though much of this this changed after 1959 during the “Spanish Miracle”, sparked by the failure of the autarkic economy to rebuild the country and American promises of economic aid. This period saw the country being opened up to foreign investment and a free market introduced, dramatically boosting the economy and sending it far from the fascist similarities it once had.

Sources:

Preston, Paul. Franco and Hitler: The Myths of Hendaye 1940

Preston, Paul. The Spanish Civil War: Reaction, Revolution and Revenge

Jensen, Geoffrey. Francisco Franco: Soldier, Commander, Dictator

Seidman, Michael. The Victorious Counterrevolution

Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain

(Source: reddit.com)