El PSUC y la Universidad. Organización, movimientos y movilización universitaria durante el franquismo (1956-1977)

Abstract

This thesis studies the relationship between the Partit Socialista Unificat de Catalunya (PSUC) and the university social movements and mobilization during Franco's regime, focusing specifically on the second half of the dictatorship, i.e. the period 1956-1977. Of particular relevance in our perspective on this relationship is the practice of the PSUC's grassroots activist at the university-. A point of view, therefore, "from below". Through the militants of the PSUC we approach the configuration and development of the university and the university students as "agency" of opposition to Franco's dictatorship. This phenomenon developed from the mid-1950s onwards on the basis of a political practice of opposition that placed social mobilization and social movements at the center. That is to say practice of "war of position", in which the PSUC identified work inside civil society as a determining element. It was, therefore, a practice of hegemony that would lead the PSUC to be, ad first, the party of the social movements and, later on, to become the party of anti-Francoism. The PSUC would in did became the main collective intellectual of the opposition to Franco's regime. We analyzed this practice by the members of the PSUC at the University, which was one of the first social spaces of opposition to the dictatorship in which the communists would not only had a prominent presence, but even, in decisive years, leading and directing role. This role was manifested both in terms of the configuration of the university movement and in the achievement of some of its main successes, including the creation of the Sindicat Democràtic d'Estudiants de la Universitat de Barcelona (SDEUB). At the same time, based on case of the members of the PSUC at the University of Barcelona, we also take a look at the social changes that took place both in the universities and in the communist movement in the decades between 1956 and 1977.

Date of Award	12 Jul 2021
Original language	Spanish
Awarding Institution	Universidad Autònoma de Barcelona, UAB.
Supervisor	Carme Molinero Ruiz (Director)