The nature of the regime that was to be ushered into history by the final victory of the Nationalist cause on 1 April 1939 was clearly signalled by the Law of Political Responsibilities of early in the same year, which included a clause on ‘grave passivity’, making even simple residence in the Republican zone a possible crime. Under the dubious legal umbrella of this retroactive law, anything from 22,000 (Carr:1982) to 200,000 (Alvarez:n.d.) Spaniards were executed in the following few years, and this wave of revenge was accompanied by the cruel economic coercion of countless others, who were either summarily sacked from their jobs or compelled to work long hours by the threat of political retribution (Candel:1968): by Article 11 of the Labour Charter ‘any collective or individual action which prejudiced the rhythm of production was considered a crime against the State’, and the translation of this principle into Article 222 of the Penal Code made any strike or labour protest tantamount to treason (FSM:1959).