"Between 1939 and 1943, 200,000 people died of hunger in Spain, and it was a political decision."

BarcelonaHunger in post-war Spain, despite the dictatorship's attempts to mask it, is quite present in literature. We perceive it in novels such as Nothing (1945), by Carmen Laforet; The beehive (1951), by Camilo José Cela; Time of silence (1961), by Luis Martín Santos, and The Diamond Square (1962), by Mercè Rodoreda. The historian Michelangelo del Arco Blanco (Granada, 1979) goes a step further: it documents and demonstrates it in The Spanish famine (Crítica, 2025). He speaks of the victims of hunger but also of those responsible. "All the great famines of the 20th century are related to political decisions. In Spain, it was a weapon of war against the vanquished," he states.

Tracing the history of hunger in the archives has not been easy. "The Franco regime hid the figures and falsified the causes of death," says Arco. There are practically no death certificates that mention starvation; in most cases, natural causes are cited. "I have calculated the excess mortality, that is, when comparing years I have detected a dramatic increase in deaths, and I can say that between 1939 and 1942, 200,000 people died of hunger in Spain. It was a political decision, because these deaths could have been avoided," the historian states. In March 1941, the Madrid Slaughterhouse was inaugurated; it was a space where the homeless were confined. In just twenty days, it went from being a place for killing animals to housing human beings. Between 1,500 and 1,700 people were crammed in, many of whom had lost family members during the Civil War. Between April 1941 and May 1942, 838 died.

A perverse system

The regime controlled food through rationing. "It was a very effective system because it pushed the defeated to the brink of subsistence, and that also led to political demobilization. Those who won the war didn't go hungry and divided the spoils among themselves. It was a perverse system that also explains why the regime lasted so long; many people benefited from it, and the rest were too exhausted to question it, losing the capacity to dream or think about how to make a better world," the author states.

Hunger as a weapon of war is something the regime began to employ during the Civil War. For example, in Barcelona, warehouses and supply centers were bombed to leave the population without resources or food and provoke their resignation. "Hunger was a way to dehumanize prisoners. For example, the guards ate in front of the prisoners, who had to share a single spoon and had nowhere to sit," Del Arco explains.

The historian laments that some myths about Franco have persisted. "Franco was ultimately responsible for the famine that caused so many deaths. How can anyone say that the dictator was an honest person, when it was a corrupt regime that involved many people in the black market and the price gouging of food? It wasn't that there was nothing to eat, it's that many people couldn't afford anything," the historian states.

The famine left a deep mark. "Many people had to do things they couldn't talk about, out of shame, in order to survive. I think that relationship with food has also been inscribed in the collective memory," Del Arco asserts. There would have been many more deaths if it hadn't been for solidarity. "There was also a great network of mutual aid and many sacrifices. Mothers who went hungry so their children could eat," the historian says. "Single women who had to do things that were morally condemned for the survival of their children. There was prostitution for a plate of food."

Among these stories of sacrifice, there is one that particularly impacted Miguel Ángel del Arco. "There was a father and son imprisoned. Their diet wasn't enough, and the father stopped eating so his son could eat. The son tried to react and gave him food, but it was too late. The father died of hunger," he explains.

Ignorance about democracy

The book dismantles all the myths that have been perpetuated for decades. The first myth is that the famine was a consequence of the war. The second myth is international isolation. Franco aligned himself with the fascist powers and exported raw materials and food to aid them. One of the consequences was the economic blockade imposed by the Allies, but from 1945 onward, with the Cold War, relations were restored. Nor was the famine a consequence of a persistent drought, as the Franco regime claimed.

The Spanish famine He argues that there is no hunger in a democracy. Nor in times of peace, because hunger is a weapon of war. "There is a great deal of ignorance about what a democracy is and all that it offers us, with all its imperfections. More than the history of democracy, we should talk about the history of democratization, because it is something that has not ended," Del Arco concludes.