The Political-Social Brigade ( es, Brigada Político-Social, BPS), officially the Social Investigation Brigade ( es, Brigada de Investigación Social, BSI), was a
secret police
Secret police (or political police) are intelligence, security or police agencies that engage in covert operations against a government's political, religious, or social opponents and dissidents. Secret police organizations are characteristic of a ...
in
Francoist Spain
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Sp ...
in charge of
persecuting and
repressing opposition movements. The brigade was a section of the
General Police Corps
The General Police Corps ( es, Cuerpo General de Policía, CGP) was a law enforcement force of Spain established by the Francoist regime in 1941 to conduct criminal investigation and enforce political repression. They should not be confused with ...
(CGP). During the
Spanish transition to democracy, it was restructured and replaced by the
Central Information Brigade (BCI). Among the anti-Franco opposition, it was known colloquially as "the Social", "the Secret" or "the Brigade".
History
Origins
The Political-Social Brigade originated at the beginning of the 20th century, with the creation of the Information Brigade and the Brigade of Anarchism and Socialism as units to combat
anarchism and the growing
labor movement
The labour movement or labor movement consists of two main wings: the trade union movement (British English) or labor union movement (American English) on the one hand, and the political labour movement on the other.
* The trade union movement ...
. At the end of the
dictatorship
A dictatorship is a form of government which is characterized by a leader, or a group of leaders, which holds governmental powers with few to no limitations on them. The leader of a dictatorship is called a dictator. Politics in a dictatorship a ...
of
Miguel Primo de Rivera
Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja, 2nd Marquess of Estella (8 January 1870 – 16 March 1930), was a dictator, aristocrat, and military officer who served as Prime Minister of Spain from 1923 to 1930 during Spain's Restoration era. He deep ...
, the Social Investigation Division was created by General
Emilio Mola
Emilio Mola y Vidal, 1st Duke of Mola, Grandee of Spain (9 July 1887 – 3 June 1937) was one of the three leaders of the Nationalist coup of July 1936, which started the Spanish Civil War.
After the death of Sanjurjo on 20 July 1936, M ...
and headed by Commissioner
Santiago Martín Báguenas
Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...
.
The brigade's immediate roots were in the
Nationalist faction during the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlism, Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebeli ...
. A 24 June 1938 decree created a bureau for "the control of matters in political action" and the "prevention and repression" of any activities which "obstruct or deviate" the "general guidelines of the government". Many of its first members came from the
Information and Military Police Service
Information is an abstract concept that refers to that which has the power to inform. At the most fundamental level information pertains to the interpretation of that which may be sensed. Any natural process that is not completely random ...
(SIPM), the Francoist secret service during the war which was led by General
José Ungría Jiménez. In 1940, during his visit to Spain,
Nazi
Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hit ...
leader
Reichsführer-SS
(, ) was a special title and rank that existed between the years of 1925 and 1945 for the commander of the (SS). ''Reichsführer-SS'' was a title from 1925 to 1933, and from 1934 to 1945 it was the highest rank of the SS. The longest-servi ...
Heinrich Himmler
Heinrich Luitpold Himmler (; 7 October 1900 – 23 May 1945) was of the (Protection Squadron; SS), and a leading member of the Nazi Party of Germany. Himmler was one of the most powerful men in Nazi Germany and a main architect of th ...
ensured that , an officer in the
Schutzstaffel
The ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS; also stylized as ''ᛋᛋ'' with Armanen runes; ; "Protection Squadron") was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany, and later throughout German-occupied Europe d ...
(SS) and the
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one or ...
who was stationed in Spain, would train the new Spanish secret police. Winzer instructed new agents of the Political-Social Brigade until 1944.
It was created in 1941 with the Law on the Operation of the Superior Police Headquarters and the Law on Surveillance and Security. In addition to its own investigative work, the brigade could count on reports from the
Falange's Information and Investigation Service, which also functioned as a political police.
A 1949 British report described the brigade:
Blas Pérez González
Blas Pérez González (13 August 1898 – 7 February 1978) was a Spanish politician who served as Minister of Governance of Spain between 1942 and 1957, during the Francoist dictatorship
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the F ...
, Minister of Governance from 1942 to 1957, was the main organizer of the brigade and the Francoist police.
Repression
Commissioner
Roberto Conesa, appointed to head the brigade during the last years of Francoism and the
transition to democracy
Democratization, or democratisation, is the transition to a more democratic political regime, including substantive political changes moving in a democratic direction. It may be a hybrid regime in transition from an authoritarian regime to a full ...
, was notorious among the clandestine left-wing sector for his brutal methods of interrogation and torture. A prominent police officer,
Melitón Manzanas
Melitón Manzanas González (born 1906 in Donostia-San Sebastián – 2 August 1968) was a high-ranking police officer in Francoist Spain, known as a torturerIglesias, María Antonioa"Hablan las víctimas de Melitón Manzanas" ''(The victims of ...
(head of the brigade in
Guipúzcoa
Gipuzkoa (, , ; es, Guipúzcoa ; french: Guipuscoa) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the autonomous community of the Basque Country. Its capital city is Donostia-San Sebastián. Gipuzkoa shares borders with the French dep ...
), was also known for brutal torture during interrogation.
Manzanas was assassinated in 1968 by
ETA
Eta (uppercase , lowercase ; grc, ἦτα ''ē̂ta'' or ell, ήτα ''ita'' ) is the seventh letter of the Greek alphabet, representing the close front unrounded vowel . Originally denoting the voiceless glottal fricative in most dialects, ...
. Another police officer who stood out for violent methods during interrogations at Directorate-General of Security (DGS) headquarters was
Antonio González Pacheco
Antonio González Pacheco (10 October 1946 – 7 May 2020), known also as Billy the Kid (''Billy el Niño''), was a Spanish police inspector in Francoist Spain who was charged with 13 counts of torture and sought for extradition by an Argentine ...
(known as "Billy the Kid"). González Pacheco became Conesa's lieutenant in the brigade.
Antoni Batista Antoni is a Catalan language, Catalan, Polish language, Polish, and Slovene language, Slovene given name and a surname used in the eastern part of Spain, Poland and Slovenia. As a Catalan given name it is a variant of the male names Anton (given nam ...
and the Democratic Justice group of judges, prosecutors and lawyers deepened the Political-Social Brigade's repression. Democratic Justice reported that police torture was practiced with impunity and civil rights were suspended during multiple states of emergency from the 1960s to
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 19 ...
's death in 1975, primarily in three regions: the
Basque Country,
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the no ...
and
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), an ...
. According to the reports, the brigades presented their reports and petitions for a judge's signature with undue haste. The possibility that a judge would refuse was remote; although they could investigate complaints by detainees and victims of torture, the judges were also subject to the brigades.
Torture, ill-treatment and humiliation of detainees (including "beatings with a baton and wet towels,
cigarette burns
Cigarette burns are usually deliberate injuries caused by pressing a lit cigarette to the skin. They are a common form of child abuse
Child abuse (also called child endangerment or child maltreatment) is physical, sexual, and/or psychological ...
and cuts with razor blades") were still frequently carried out in BPS offices as late as 1975, near the end of the
Francoist Spain
Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Sp ...
.
Dissolution
The powers of the BPS were restricted by decrees which were approved in 1976, 1977 and 1981. The last decree was issued after the
1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt
The 1981 Spanish coup d'état attempt ( es, Intento de Golpe de Estado de España de 1981), known in Spain by the numeronym 23-F and also known as the Tejerazo, was an attempted ''coup d'état'' or ''putsch'' in Spain on 23 February 1981. Lieut ...
.
Although the brigade was restructured and replaced by the
Central Information Brigade (BCI) in 1978, but its dissolution was not completely formalized until
Organic Law
An organic law is a law, or system of laws, that form the foundation of a government, corporation or any other organization's body of rules. A constitution is a particular form of organic law for a sovereign state.
By country France
Under Articl ...
2/1986, of March 13, of Security Forces and Corps was approved during the
first government of
Felipe González
Felipe González Márquez (; born 5 March 1942) is a Spanish lawyer, professor, and politician, who was the Secretary-General of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) from 1974 to 1997, and the 3rd Prime Minister of Spain since t ...
. The transition did not include debriefing former members of the brigade; after it was disbanded, many its members continued their careers with the Spanish police (including commissioner Roberto Conesa, head of the newly-created BCI). Brigade members known for their brutality, however, tended to be assigned to background positions or were encouraged to leave the force.
According to some sources, the
Ministry of the Interior
An interior ministry (sometimes called a ministry of internal affairs or ministry of home affairs) is a government department that is responsible for internal affairs.
Lists of current ministries of internal affairs
Named "ministry"
* Ministr ...
archives contain about 100,000 political files from the Franco era (including Political-Social Brigade files). Other archives, such as those identifying members of the secret police responsible for the surveillance and monitoring of opposition members, were presumably destroyed.
Structure and function
The brigade was integrated within the General Commissariat of Public Order, dependent on the
General Police Corps
The General Police Corps ( es, Cuerpo General de Policía, CGP) was a law enforcement force of Spain established by the Francoist regime in 1941 to conduct criminal investigation and enforce political repression. They should not be confused with ...
(CGP). This, in turn, depended on the Directorate-General of Security (DGS) and the Ministry of Governance. During its early years of history, it also had
Falangist
Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS) and afterwards the Fal ...
elements. When the
Civil Guard operated in cities, it was integrated into the brigade.
Spanish Maquis
The Maquis were Spanish guerrillas who waged an irregular warfare against the Francoist Spain, Francoist dictatorship within Spain following the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republican defeat in the Spanish Civil War until the early ...
guerrilla activity, such as the 1944 urban
guerrilla warfare
Guerrilla warfare is a form of irregular warfare in which small groups of combatants, such as paramilitary personnel, armed civilians, or irregulars, use military tactics including ambushes, sabotage, raids, petty warfare, hit-and-run ...
in
Granada
Granada (,, DIN: ; grc, Ἐλιβύργη, Elibýrgē; la, Illiberis or . ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the c ...
. occasionally triggered intervention by special BPS units.
[This intervention took place after the death in strange circumstances of the inspector ]Julio Romero Funes Julio is the Spanish equivalent of the month July and may refer to:
* Julio (given name)
* Julio (surname)
* Júlio de Castilhos, a municipality of the western part of the state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil
* ''Julio'' (album), a 1983 compilation a ...
, during a shooting with republican guerrillas .
Its agents depended on the governors and the Ministry of Governance, and its repression was directed at opposition to the Spanish state and based on the
Law of Political Responsibilities
The Law of Political Responsibilities () was a law issued by Francoist Spain on 13 February 1939 two months before the end of the Spanish Civil War. The law targeted all supporters of the Second Spanish Republic and penalized membership in the Pop ...
and similar statutes. Their actions consisted of surveillance (including wiretapping), unregulated control of private and business correspondence, indefinite government detention, confiscation of property, and torture as an instrument of interrogation and punishment. The (which theoretically guaranteed
fundamental rights
Fundamental rights are a group of rights that have been recognized by a high degree of protection from encroachment. These rights are specifically identified in a constitution, or have been found under due process of law. The United Nations' Susta ...
) remained in effect without enforcement. The Spanish government was also allowed to suspend the Fuero for long periods of time in specific regions. Police housing records were a common (and feared) BPS practice. Many of the brigade's activities were examined by two courts created specifically for
political repression: the
Tribunal Especial para la Represión de la Masonería y el Comunismo and the
Tribunal de Orden Público
The ''Court of Public Order'' (Spanish: atribunal de Orden Público) was a court created in Francoist Spain to deal with most political crimes. It was instated as the supreme body in the newly created Public Order Jurisdiction, which also comprised ...
(TOP). Other courts and judges knew little about the brigade's activities.
See also
* Geheime Staatspolizei (
Gestapo
The (), abbreviated Gestapo (; ), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe.
The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of Prussia into one or ...
) of
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
* Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'Antifascismo (
OVRA
The OVRA, whose most probable name was Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism ( it, Organizzazione per la Vigilanza e la Repressione dell'Antifascismo), was the secret police of the Kingdom of Italy, founded in 1927 under the ...
) of
Fascist Italy
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the ...
and the
RSI
* The
Kenpeitai
The , also known as Kempeitai, was the military police arm of the Imperial Japanese Army from 1881 to 1945 that also served as a secret police force. In addition, in Japanese-occupied territories, the Kenpeitai arrested or killed those suspecte ...
of the
Empire of Japan
The also known as the Japanese Empire or Imperial Japan, was a historical nation-state and great power that existed from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until the enactment of the post-World War II 1947 constitution and subsequent for ...
* Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado (
PIDE
The International and State Defense Police ( pt, Polícia Internacional e de Defesa do Estado; PIDE) was a Portuguese security agency that existed during the '' Estado Novo'' regime of António de Oliveira Salazar. Formally, the main roles of ...
) of
Estado Novo (Portugal)
The ''Estado Novo'' (, lit. "New State") was the corporatist Portuguese state installed in 1933. It evolved from the '' Ditadura Nacional'' ("National Dictatorship") formed after the ''coup d'état'' of 28 May 1926 against the democratic bu ...
*
Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa
The Centro Superior de Información de la Defensa ( en, Superior Center of Defense Information; CESID) was the Spanish intelligence agency before the current Centro Nacional de Inteligencia (CNI) took over as its successor in 2002.
History
Fo ...
(CESID) of democratic Spain
Notes
References
Footnotes
Bibliography
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
* VV. AA. (Justicia Democrática) (1978); ''Los jueces contra la dictadura. Justicia y política en el franquismo'', Tucar Ediciones, Madrid.
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Political-Social Brigade
Defunct Spanish intelligence agencies
National security institutions
Political-Social Brigade
Political repression in Spain
Defunct law enforcement agencies of Spain
Francoist Spain
1941 establishments in Spain
1978 disestablishments in Spain
Anti-communist organizations