ABSTRACT
When the Civil War ended on April 1, 1939 Francisco Franco took control of a country devastated by three years of military conflict. The human losses were staggering: over half a million dead and another half a million in exile. Many thousands more were to die in the postwar repression. The destruction of the economy was no less thorough. Agricultural production was a third below prewar levels and the number of livestock reduced by 30 to 40 per cent. Transportation had been devastated: a tenth of shipping and about 40 per cent of railway equipment had been destroyed. Industry, which had been retooled for military needs and had had to suffer a shortage of raw materials, especially in the Republican zone, was disrupted. Real per capita income would not regain its prewar levels until 1952.
