AHC / WI : Spain turned into North Korea?

Yuelang

Yuelang

Banned
obviously not literally since we aren't in ASB section.....

More about politically and figuratively, I mean somehow King Juan Carlos decides to be dick and instead of returning Spain into democracy, practically make it into an absolute monarchy / royal dictatorship all over again, just like Franco, with crowned dictator...

And to prevent their people from revolting due to outside influence, they end up resorting to corral all their people and severely limit movements and such, just like North Korea, witg self reliance doctrines and such...

Bonus points if the Spanish Dynasty is regarded as nut as OTL Kim dynasty.

Extra bonus points if they end up as friends after 1990s
 

Drakker

Banned
I don't know how close a right wing state like Spain was could have gotten to North Korea.....

My best guess for how this could happen is that due to a series of increasingly effective terrorist attacks by ETA or another group, Spain cracks down harder and harder, with the king giving the Falangists free reign to stop the terrorists.... maybe a member of the monarchy is killed to cause this.
 
Chris Oakley

Chris Oakley

Banned
Yuelang said:
obviously not literally since we aren't in ASB section.....

More about politically and figuratively, I mean somehow King Juan Carlos decides to be dick and instead of returning Spain into democracy, practically make it into an absolute monarchy / royal dictatorship all over again, just like Franco, with crowned dictator...
Click to expand...

Cue Second Spanish Civil War in 5...4...3...2...
 
Yuelang

Yuelang

Banned
Chris Oakley said:
Cue Second Spanish Civil War in 5...4...3...2...
Click to expand...

if the Republican rebels actively identify themselves as communists in 1970s, NATO will reluctantly back up Juan Carlos' Royal Dictatorship...

Cue NATO still has an embarassing member, practically shunned but treated politely after 1991... especially if they had nukes...
 

Alex1guy

Yuelang said:
of course, US is atl China... and both US and China still glares to each others' embarrasing allies...
Click to expand...

But the US doesn't border Spain. China backs North Korea for two main reasons, one because the North acts as a buffer for a major US ally who hosts US bases, two because if North Korea collapses, it becomes China's problem in a big way in terms of spillover of refugees and potential civil conflicts. Neither exist with Spain and the US. If Spain started slipping that absurdly into... Jucheness I don't see the United States being that comfortable with maintaining an Alliance. I mean I assume we are talking Spain going completely isolationist, threatening it's neighbors, building an unsanctioned nuclear program, devoting all it's resources to the military etc. The US isn't going to maintain military relations with a state that only serves to disrupt it's other, more useful allies like France or Britain. Doesn't make any sense that Spain in this scenario would have US backing.
 

aktarian

I don't think it can go too far. Simply because EU/NATO/West will not tolerate crap like that on their wings. Tolerable right wing dictators are one thing, full on craziness another. DPRK is pretty much in the ass end of the world, not on European periphery.
 

Byzantion

Yuelang said:
obviously not literally since we aren't in ASB section.....

More about politically and figuratively, I mean somehow King Juan Carlos decides to be dick and instead of returning Spain into democracy, practically make it into an absolute monarchy / royal dictatorship all over again, just like Franco, with crowned dictator...

And to prevent their people from revolting due to outside influence, they end up resorting to corral all their people and severely limit movements and such, just like North Korea, witg self reliance doctrines and such...

Bonus points if the Spanish Dynasty is regarded as nut as OTL Kim dynasty.

Extra bonus points if they end up as friends after 1990s
Click to expand...

Maybe a fascist General like Suarez comes to power (the King as a puppet) and maintains some sort of clerical fascist regime. I could imagine, that right winged South American Junta dictators like Pinochet,Videla, Stroesser etc approve such a government.
 

Nanwe

Byzantion said:
Maybe a fascist General like Suarez comes to power (the King as a puppet) and maintains some sort of clerical fascist regime. I could imagine, that right winged South American Junta dictators like Pinochet,Videla, Stroesser etc approve such a government.
Click to expand...

How? You are speculating, not really giving even examples. The military's upper echelons was pro-Franco (most had been trained by Franco and served under him in the Civil War) but they were not hardcore Falangists who'd menace economic development and international recognition for nothing. With Yagüe's death there were no fascist generals or admirals or anything, the military was conservative, authoritarian and very monarchist. Definitely not fascist.
 
Athelstane

Athelstane

Yuelang said:
obviously not literally since we aren't in ASB section.....

More about politically and figuratively, I mean somehow King Juan Carlos decides to be dick and instead of returning Spain into democracy, practically make it into an absolute monarchy / royal dictatorship all over again, just like Franco, with crowned dictator...
Click to expand...

I don't see how that would make Spain into North Korea - even at its most....autocratic, Franco's Spain was never anything like that, never that pervasive in its control, never that isolated, and its standard of living was never that bad. Anyhow, if you want to go hard reactionary, Juan Carlos is not the man to do it with; Franco would need to pick a Carlist heir.

Now, if the Stalinists had won the Civil War, you might be able to achieve something close to the DPRK...but even then, Spain would be harder to so completely isolate than North Korea is, just due to sheer geography.
 
Last edited:
Athelstane

Athelstane

Nanwe said:
How? You are speculating, not really giving even examples. The military's upper echelons was pro-Franco (most had been trained by Franco and served under him in the Civil War) but they were not hardcore Falangists who'd menace economic development and international recognition for nothing. With Yagüe's death there were no fascist generals or admirals or anything, the military was conservative, authoritarian and very monarchist. Definitely not fascist.
Click to expand...

Yes, it is a common gloss, but not an accurate one , to have Franco called "Fascist." Yes, the Falange were fairly fascist, but they were just one component in his coalition, and not the dominant one; yes, his foreign backers (Italy, Germany) were fascist, but that didn't make Franco one, any more than it did Mannerheim in Finland. Franco fits the mold of the old Caudillo rather than the Great Leader.

Reactionary, authoritarian, certainly. But these are different things from fascist.
 

Nanwe

Athelstane said:
Yes, it is a common gloss, but not an accurate one , to have Franco called "Fascist." Yes, the Falange were fairly fascist, but they were just one component in his coalition, and not the dominant one; yes, his foreign backers (Italy, Germany) were fascist, but that didn't make Franco one, any more than it did Mannerheim in Finland. Franco fits the mold of the old Caudillo rather than the Great Leader.

Reactionary, authoritarian, certainly. But these are different things from fascist.
Click to expand...

Well I wasn't talking of Franco though but of the composition of the Army (note, the Land Army). That being said by the 70s, the Falangists were a dead thing, except for a couple of them here and there. The two main families were the Opus Dei and the 'azules' (usually associated with the ANCP and the Movimiento).

As for Franco himself, it's hard to say, he was pro-Axis and had a borderline obsession with Masons but besides a general very harsh authoritarian approach typical of battle-hardened officers from the African campaigns he had no big ideological attachment to much stuff (maybe the Monarchy if it wasnt an obstacle to keeping himself in power), besides keeping himself in power. At which, he excelled, masterfully, he played families against each other and made them all dependent on him for patronage. I'd recommend, if interested, to look into an obscure incident known as the Matesa scandal.
 

Unknown

Maybe, if Blanco lives, a reactionary state can happen (there's a reason many citizens in Spain think that Blanco's death was the only good thing the ETA did (1)), but not a North Korean-like state.

(1) Dr. Strangelove even said that nobody that he knew regretted the "flying lesson" that the ETA gave Blanco...
 
Last edited:

EternalCynic

Alex1guy said:
But the US doesn't border Spain. China backs North Korea for two main reasons, one because the North acts as a buffer for a major US ally who hosts US bases, two because if North Korea collapses, it becomes China's problem in a big way in terms of spillover of refugees and potential civil conflicts. Neither exist with Spain and the US. If Spain started slipping that absurdly into... Jucheness I don't see the United States being that comfortable with maintaining an Alliance. I mean I assume we are talking Spain going completely isolationist, threatening it's neighbors, building an unsanctioned nuclear program, devoting all it's resources to the military etc. The US isn't going to maintain military relations with a state that only serves to disrupt it's other, more useful allies like France or Britain. Doesn't make any sense that Spain in this scenario would have US backing.
Click to expand...

Just a thought...what if the US goes Rumsfeldia and views a batshit insane right-wing Spain as a useful tool to destabilize Europe and subvert European integration? Domestic US propaganda claims Spain is the only freedom-loving God-fearing ally against the Bolshevik hordes who are gaining influence in Britain and France.
 

oreocruncher

EternalCynic said:
Just a thought...what if the US goes Rumsfeldia and views a batshit insane right-wing Spain as a useful tool to destabilize Europe and subvert European integration? Domestic US propaganda claims Spain is the only freedom-loving God-fearing ally against the Bolshevik hordes who are gaining influence in Britain and France.
Click to expand...

Well, according to some evangelical thought, the EU and the United Nations are seen as machinations of the Antichrist...:eek:
 

EternalCynic

oreocruncher said:
Well, according to some evangelical thought, the EU and the United Nations are seen as machinations of the Antichrist...:eek:
Click to expand...

The kink is that the Vatican (especially after the Vatican II reforms) has always been viewed by the evangelical right as a tool of the Antichrist.

Having a regime whose spiritual authority is outside of Spain is, understandably, dangerous. If Spain goes North Korea even further, maybe the Spanish bishops will declare Vatican II a heresy and themselves as the true successors of the Church...
 

overoceans

EternalCynic said:
The kink is that the Vatican (especially after the Vatican II reforms) has always been viewed by the evangelical right as a tool of the Antichrist.

Having a regime whose spiritual authority is outside of Spain is, understandably, dangerous. If Spain goes North Korea even further, maybe the Spanish bishops will declare Vatican II a heresy and themselves as the true successors of the Church...
Click to expand...

I don't know if the evangelical right would be any more supportive of an anti-V2 Spanish regime than a pro-V2 regime. I've read a fair bit of protestant anti-Catholic propaganda, and I've never really gotten the impression that they regard Vatican II as a turning-point where the church got really evil as compared to before. If anything, V2 would have toned down a few of the supposed excesses(eg. Latin liturgies) that made Catholicsm seem so foreign to many protestants.

I suppose that with Vatican II, the RCC became a little bit more open to left-wing ideas, which might seem somewhat sinister in a Cold War context, but when you were already believing that Rome is the font of all evil, whether the Church issues a few concilliatory statements about Moscow is probably beside the point.

Which is not to say that a Rumsfeldian US regime wouldn't back a hyper-fascist Spain, but I think it would mostly be along pragmatic lines, the way Republicans support Saudi Arabia in OTL: "Okay, sure our hick fundy supporters think Islam is Satan incarnate, but the House Of Saud is way more conducice to our interests than anyone likely to take power from them, so what the heck. BFFs all the way."
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top