ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an account of how the International Union of Socialist Youth (IUSY) responded to the US rehabilitation of Francoist Spain during the period from 1945 to 1955, with a special focus on the role of its influential Nordic member organisations. It discusses the IUSY–among others due to eager Scandinavian efforts–continued to campaign against the authoritarian regime in Madrid even though the Franco government had considerable success in achieving international diplomatic recognition and establishing trade relations with the West during the late 1940s and the 1950s. The US initiative to integrate Franco’s regime into the Western Bloc nonetheless challenged any ideas that the East-West conflict was simply a conflict between democracy and totalitarianism. While the banner of anti-fascism was kept high in the IUSY, the International and its member organisations were busy dealing with issues related to the Eastern Bloc, and these issues seemed more and more pressing for each day that passed in the late 1940s.
