THE commemoration a fortnight ago of the 50th anniversary of Francisco Franco’s demise served as a reminder that the fascist dictatorship established in Spain in the late 1930s had endured until 1975.

That was 30 years after the end of World War II, in which Spain had technically not participated, although both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany had openly lent their support to the generals who sparked the Spanish civil war in 1936, in an effort to thwart an incipient democracy. None of the so-called Western democracies came to the Spanish republic’s aid, although plenty of individuals joined the international brigades striving to thwart the onslaught. American volunteers in the Lincoln Brigade were often tagged as ‘premature anti-fascists’ by the US authorities.

That attitude echoes the appropriation of Antifa as a slur under the Trump administration. Spain’s tragedy, meanwhile, is that its transition from a dictatorship to a democracy missed out on a necessary reckoning with its past. That might initially have been prudent, given the risk of a fresh military coup under Franco’s chosen successor as head of state, Prince Juan Carlos. Despite his fondness for Franco, the subsequent king leaned towards a constitutional monarchy whereby........

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