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- Upon his rise to power, Franco implemented policies that were responsible for the repression and deaths of as many as 400,000 political opponents and dissenters, through the use of forced labor and executions in the concentration camps his regime operated. Despite maintaining an official policy of neutrality during World War II, he provided military support to the Axis in numerous ways: he allowed German and Italian ships to use Spanish harbors and ports, the Abwehr gained intelligence in Spain on Allied activities, Spain imported war materials for Germany and the Blue Division fought alongside the European Axis against the Soviet Union until 1944. His regime has frequently been identified as fascist, but Spanish history books typically categorize it as conservative and authoritarian. Spain was isolated by the international community for nearly a decade after World War II. By the 1950s, the nature of his regime changed from being openly totalitarian and using severe repression to an authoritarian system with limited pluralism. During the Cold War, Franco was one of the world's foremost anti-Communist figures: his regime was assisted by the West, and it was asked to join NATO. After chronic economic depression in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Franco presided over the Spanish miracle, abandoning autarky and pursuing economic liberalization, delegating authority to liberal ministers.