Although, Franco did a nice job. Is his considered a totalitarian regime?
I don't even know if you're kidding here. Please tell me you're kidding.
As I mentioned in other posts, it's not even like Spain doesn't have dictators which actually had a better reputation, Primo de Rivera was really well loved at the time and most critique only came after the fact. But Franco? Even the actual original conspirators hated the guy, they only followed him because the british secret service forced them to, the army hated him, they actually tried to coup him but he sent the conspirators to the blue division and Hitler stopped them. Again, only reason he got where he did was because he sold Gibraltar to the british, morocco to the french, a shitton of production and manpower to the german and multiple bases to the USA so every fucking foreign power was backing him.
He was really stupid to boot btw, his mismanagement of shit like Doñana, the hydroelectrics to the north, etc. Is LEGENDARY. Fucker wasn't just pure evil, which he also was, he was a fucking idiot too. Forget comparisons with Hitler, he looks bad even when compared with MUSSOLINNI! Like literally, the army literally said he was just a bad copy of Primo de Rivera. Just think about that, not even his generals could stand the guy for the most part. Echoing a lot of what Hitler said in his letters, which in case you didn't notice started with the term "INSUFERABLE." He was a petty, egotistical, greedy, corrupt, dumb as bricks little man. Literally the worst person to be in his place. But with foreign pressure backing him and spreading rumors of how spain would collapse into communism if he wasn't in power, well, can't do shit to take him out.
He certainly was a totalitarian regime, or at least as totalitarian as he could be 'cause he sure as shit didn't manage to stop the strikes despite trying to persecute them with actual kidnappings, murders, concentration camps and machineguns. (Terror Blanco, look it up.) Which again, in big part was because, well to begin with the "greys", which nowadays are the national police, at the time were his fucking anti-strike corps, were the remnants of the "guardia de asalto", the republican police force, so while a lot of the... newer higher ups were absolutely abhorrent (billy el niño, look it up), the lower ranks in many areas did everything they could to turn a blind eye to their orders. So again. Literally no one liked the guy, we only stood him because we had to, because the USA, UK and French secret services propped him up, and turned a blind eye to his concentration camps, mass slaughter, and collective graves. Kinda fucking hard to go against agents of all of those countries at once during WW2 and the cold war you know.