First Meeting of Franco’s Cabinet, 1938

On October 1, 1936, in the Captaincy General of Burgos, Francisco Franco Bahamonde was sworn in as head of state. Franco was a last-minute member of the military leadership that carried out the coup d’état on 17–18 July1936. A year later, the Technical State Board on the rebel side designated October 1 as the "National Day of the Caudillo." Thus began the official cult of the "Caudillo."

The Press Office and the propaganda services of the rebel faction played a crucial role in the construction of Franco's myths. Their initial goal was to legitimize Franco's leadership within the rebel camp, and their ultimate outcome was the creation of the "myth of the Caudillo" — a set of narratives built around his figure that partly explains the social support and general acquiescence he enjoyed throughout nearly forty years of dictatorship.

Franco's dictatorship was built during and founded on the Civil War. On 19 April 1937, he signed the Unification Decree, which merged the political groups that had supported the uprising into a single party: the Traditionalist Spanish Falange and National Syndicalist Offensive Committees (FET-JONS). In January 1938, Franco formed his first council of ministers while also enacting a Central State Administration Law, article 17 of which empowered him to "issue legal norms of a general nature." The photo shows him surrounded by his ministers. Finally, on 8 August 1939, a law was enacted granting the dictator the authority to exercise governmental functions, including issuing laws or decrees even without the involvement of the council of ministers.

The composition of that 1938 government, as well as those that followed, highlighted the three pillars on which Franco based his power: the Army, the Church, and the Falange. Beyond these three pillars, Franco, as a dictator, drew on the two major political cultures of the regime: the fascist and the national-Catholic.

Franco managed the absolute and total power he had acquired pragmatically. He allowed his collaborators a broad margin of maneuver. This flexibility, combined with the diverse interests and sensitivities within the ultraconservative coalition that governed, enabled the Generalissimo to assume the role of arbiter — an arbiter who demanded total loyalty. This system transformed power and politics under the dictatorship into a dense network of patronage and clientelism, a pyramidal structure that always converged on a single apex: the dictator.

OBR