The 20th century brought little peace; Spain played a minor part in the scramble for Africa, with the colonisation of Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea. The heavy losses suffered during the Rif war in Morocco helped to undermine the monarchy. A period of authoritarian rule under General Miguel Primo de Rivera (1923–1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galicia and gave voting rights to women.
General Franco and US President Eisenhower in Madrid (1959)
The Spanish Civil War (1936–39) ensued. Three years later the Nationalist forces, led by General Francisco Franco, emerged victorious with the support of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Popular Front government side was supported by the Soviet Union and Mexico and International Brigades, including the American Abraham Lincoln Brigade, but it was not supported officially by the Western powers due to the British-led policy of Non-Intervention.
The Civil War claimed the lives of over 500,000 people[39] and caused the flight of up to a half-million citizens.[40] Most of their descendants now live in Latin American countries, with some 300,000 in Argentina alone.[41] The Spanish Civil War has been called the first battle of the Second World War; under Franco the country was neutral in the Second World War, although sympathetic to the Axis.
The only legal party under Franco's post civil war regime was the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS, formed in 1937; the party emphasised anti-Communism, Catholicism and nationalism. Given Franco's opposition to competing political parties, the party was renamed the National Movement (Movimiento Nacional) in 1949.
After World War II Spain was politically and economically isolated, and was kept out of the United Nations. This changed in 1955, during the Cold War period, it became strategically important for the U.S. to establish a military presence on the Iberian peninsula as a counter to any possible move by the U.S.S.R into the Mediterranean basin. In the 1960s, Spain registered an unprecedented rate of economic growth in what became known as the Spanish miracle, which resumed the much interrupted transition towards a modern economy.
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