The purpose of this research article is to study the processes of resistance to the Franco regime developed by Basque nationalism within the Basque Country between 1937 (the year of the fall of Bilbao in the hands of Franco) and 1959 (the year of the emergence of the ETA group). Based on the dual typologisation of resistance to power developed by the anthropologist James C. Scott in the already classic work of the Dominados and the Resistance Art, the article seeks to carry out a historical analysis looking at both public resistance and activists (acts of sabotage, guerrilla preparation, propaganda, etc.) and resistance based on hidden and centralised discourse in creating the breeding sites of a dissenting to power culture (quadrilla, coral and folkloric groups, parish, etc.). The documentation consulted in the specialised archives, mainly the press and correspondence of militants and various nationalist political groups (especially youth groups), has made it possible to discover the importance of the first type of nationalist resistance to Francoism within the Basque peninsular territories, and to draw a historical sequence between this activist resistance and the original formation of the Ekin group, later converted into ETA.