Under autarky, the [bourgeois] State sought to exert an iron‐fist control over production and trade with a view towards fostering industrialisation and turning Spain into a strong imperial power. The régime aimed to create a balance of payments surplus by stepping up domestic industrial and agricultural production, regardless of their opportunity costs, renouncing imports and promoting exports.⁵

Nevertheless, during the war and in its aftermath, the [parafascist] régime and the […] Third Reich set strong economic links. In the worst years of the famine, Spain exported raw materials (especially minerals) and agricultural products to Germany as a way to pay for war debts.⁶

[…]

The famine affected the southern peninsular area in particular, comprising agricultural regions and poverty‐stricken areas: the arc between the provinces of Murcia, Castilla La Mancha, Andalusia and Extremadura. The famine affected both the rural and urban areas, despite the villages being closer to those fields used for agricultural production and the cities receiving a better supply of rations provided by the régime.

Its main victims hailed from the lower classes, who lacked control over the means of production or resources to survive, in particular, day labourers and workers, as well as the poor, elderly, women and children from the poorest sectors of society.

[…]

It was not so much the destruction caused by the war, as claimed by the régime, but rather this policy which disrupted the advances that had improved Spanish agriculture in recent years.²⁵ A reduction in harvested areas and yields took place. There was also a decrease in the use of fertilisers, which, unsurprisingly, spurred a decline in production.²⁶ The imposition of poor wages and the rigid control of the workforce lowered costs but took away incentives to raise productivity.²⁷

Livestock levels also fell during the postwar period, mainly due to the difficulties in finding pastures for grazing, since these areas were destined to agricultural production, but also due to a decline in demand for an expensive product at a time of hardship: this entailed a drop in meat production (with its corresponding proteins) and the restricted availability of natural compost with which to increase yields.²⁸

[…]

In reality, the scarcity was somewhat fictitious: any item could be found in the black market if one had enough money to pay for it. Further, those with access to any state‐controlled product could hide it from the authorities and sell it as estraperlo (illegally) in the black market. This was the case of many farm workers, who formed a key social pillar of support for the dictatorship [of the bourgeoisie] and were able to control supply and even profit from trading on the black market.²⁹

[…]

The arrival of [parafascism] signified a complete halt to social progress in labour relations. The dictatorship [of the bourgeoisie] banned all unions, persecuting, imprisoning and executing Republican union leaders. It established a single union under state control in the same vein as fascist régimes.

A fall in wages and the deterioration of working conditions soon followed. In the agrarian sector, wages remained frozen and day labourers suffered extreme exploitation in an asphyxiating working environment which simultaneously served the interests of large, medium and small landowners.³⁶

[…]

At the worst stages of the famine, a British traveller who was passing through Spain reported that ‘the poor live off acorns and chestnuts’. He also mentioned that, once in El Campillo (Huelva), a donkey perished and people jumped at it to get any piece of its flesh they could lay their hands on. In some areas, ‘the hungry poor are eating cats and dogs, which they steal whenever they have a chance’.⁵⁵

It was not uncommon, of course, to resort to herbs or any type of plant found on the side of the road, in the mountains or next to sown fields. A neighbour in Mijas (Málaga) claimed that ‘there was no food’, so ‘common people ate whatever they could find: cardoons and herbs of all kinds’.⁵⁶ In Lucena (Córdoba), herbs were even commercialised and sold ‘at one or more pesetas per kilo’.⁵⁷

[…]

The conditions were not at all favourable in the aftermath of the war. José Alberto Palanca (Director General of the Department of Health of the New State) showed his concern in a late‐1939 report, underscoring the presence of diseases such as smallpox, exanthematic typhus, diphtheria or typhoid fever and blaming the Republican population in the conquered territories for spreading them. The Rockefeller Foundation also described an exacerbation of this situation since 1939, as a result of the emergence of infectious diseases immediately after the civil war.⁶²

Health conditions in the country declined after the war. The [bourgeois] state was incapable of tackling the misery due to the lack of available resources (hygiene and sanitation), food deprivation, poor housing and the disarray of healthcare structures caused by the war. In that context, the Spanish Department of Health prioritised relations with [the Third Reich] over the interests of the Spanish health system instead of establishing a cooperation with Allied countries.⁶³

An acute development of infectious diseases took place, which affected both morbidity and mortality (especially in infants).⁶⁴ The régime’s official sources, which tended to conceal information, point to a re‐emergence of exanthematic typhus, malaria, smallpox, diphtheria, tuberculosis and typhoid fever, particularly between 1939 and 1942 (see Figure 2).

We should also highlight the massive rise in deficiency diseases as a result of a poor‐quality diet, such as pellagra or paresthetic‐causalgic syndrome, which increased the vulnerability of the poorest social groups to epidemics.⁶⁵

(Emphasis added.)