Its possible to despise the Communists, despise the utter romantic claptrap about the International Brigades and also at the same time greatly dislike Franco. I think either side’s victory would have been/was a tragedy for a great country and a lovely people.
And before we all get weepy about old Frank, lets not forget that he happily sent Spanish troops eastwards in 1941, to fight alongside the Nazis in the USSR and Eastern Europe. Sorry, but I am struggling to gather the admiration for him that you and others here clearly have.
And I say that as an avowed Spanophile.
Franco was the lesser of two evils if that is how he is to be judged. I do not see moral equivalence between the Falangists & the communists. Look at communist rule in Portugal after the 1910 revolution to see what a communist Spain would have looked like.
The Blue Division was a sop to Hitler & nothing more; disbanded by 1943. Franco kept Spain out of WWII, the devastation of the Civil War was bad enough.
A true dictator sees to who will succeed him. Now...is Spain still a dictatorship?