On caudillos: Fidel Castro and Francisco Franco

Anne Louise Bardach wrote a piece on “Fidel Castro’s Long Goodbye” for the Los Angeles Times today, including a note comparing the caudillo/dictator qualities of Fidel and Francisco Franco. Her interesting comment is excerpted here:

Castro’s reluctant leave-taking—with its periodic near-finales—fits into a long tradition of Hispanic caudillos or dictators. Consider, for example, the life—and death—of Francisco Franco, Spain’s dictator of almost 40 years. Both Castro’s father and Franco hailed from the rugged northern countryside of Spain, a region renowned for its fierce and stubborn citizenry. And notwithstanding divergent political ideologies—Franco was a zealous anti-communist—the two men had a good deal in common. Both were willing to forge unpalatable and unpopular alliances with totalitarian states to shore up their power—Franco with Nazi Germany and Castro with the Soviet Union.

And Franco’s shrouded last days neatly foreshadowed Castro’s. Franco became grievously ill in 1974 and was forced to turn over his rule—“temporarily,” he insisted—to Prince Juan Carlos. Castro also initially ceded control to his brother only “temporarily.” Like Castro, Franco had an unexpected recovery, though his lasted only a year before he died at the age of 82.

Read the full article here.