It all started with the Servicio Universitario del Trabajo (SUT). The Dirección General de Seguridad’s surveillance of SUT and Frente de Liberación Popular

Abstract

Once the Dirección General de Seguridad (DGS) was restored to the Ministry of Government in 1939, it launched a deep, systematic surveillance of groups and individuals deemed enemies or threats to the new Francoist State. The reports containing the information collected and the actions undertaken by the police forces were published unevenly in internal bulletins, now preserved at the Archivo Histórico Nacional. Although not all are available for consultation, they shed essential light on the vision and level of knowledge acquired by the highest agency for sociopolitical control. The analysis of this collection is complemented with specialized literature on the groups that were monitored. I argue that, despite the regime’s concern with student opposition, no action or reference in this regard appears in the agency’s internal volumes until 1962. The conclusions summarize the process by which the DGS became aware of the reorganization of the Frente de Liberación Popular, involving a significant number of members of the Servicio Universitario del Trabajo (SUT), and the way in which this danger was gauged.