Carmen Polo de Franco, the Spanish dictator's widow, who was considered a significant influence on some of the repressive policies of his 36-year rule, died today in her Madrid apartment. She was 87 years old.
Mrs. Franco's doctor, Dr. Vicente Pozuelo Escudero, said she died of complications from bronchial pneumonia contracted on Feb. 1.
Queen Sofia went to Mrs. Franco's Madrid apartment to deliver condolences to Mrs. Franco's daughter, Carmen Franco de Martinez-Bordiu, 60, and her husband, on behalf of King Juan Carlos and herself.
In 1969, Franco designated Juan Carlos to be his successor, and Juan Carlos resumed the Spanish monarchy two days after Franco's death on Nov. 20, 1975. Figurehead of Movement
When her husband died, Mrs. Franco became the figurehead of a loosely formed organization of Franco's political followers, called ''El Movimiento.'' Each anniversary of Franco's death prompts thousands of fascists to march in the streets.
Mrs. Franco annually attended a funeral Mass in her husband's memory at the underground basilica in the Valley of the Fallen outside Madrid, where thousands of Nationalists killed in the 1936-39 Spanish Civil War are buried.
Ill health kept her from attending the 1987 memorial. An estimated 5,000 people attended the Mass, at the end of which they gave the fascist salute and shouted ''Franco! Franco! Franco!''
Mrs. Franco was born Carmen Polo on July 9, 1900, in the northern city of Oviedo, the daughter of a wealthy businessman. She was educated by Salesian nuns. In Spanish Morocco
She married Francisco Franco, then an up-and-coming army lieutenant colonel, on Oct. 22, 1923, and the couple left soon after for Spanish Morocco, where Franco was responsible for much of the conduct of the Riff Wars and where he built the military power base that served his successful uprising against the Republican Government.
Mrs. Franco exercised a strong influence on her husband, particularly in connection with affairs of the Roman Catholic Church and public morality.
Social historians say her puritanical upbringing was responsible for the heavy censorship of anything touching on sex or sexual matters in Spanish literature, theater and cinema during most of the 1939-75 Franco regime.
A man who answered the telephone at the apartment of Mrs. Franco's daughter said burial was scheduled for Sunday in the village of El Pardo on the outskirts of Madrid.
In addition to her daughter, Mrs. Franco is survived by seven grandchildren and numerous great-grandchildren.