After the proclamation of the Second Republic in April 1931, far-right groups began to conspire against the new regime, in which they claimed to see the embodiment of Bolshevik ideals. Spain, in his opinion, was heading towards communism.
Faced with this supposed danger, extremist conservatives defended anti-parliamentarism, convinced that the time for democracy had already passed. The future belonged to totalitarianism, along the lines of what Hitler in Germany and Mussolini in Italy represented.
In October of that year, the National-Syndicalist Offensive Boards (JONS) appeared, an ultranationalist organization under the leadership of Onísimo Redondo and Ramiro Ledesma Ramos. According to the latter, the country, prostrated by leftist politicians, needed the “violence that would generate a new State.”
For Ledesma, this was the way to oppose a ruling class made up of traitors manipulated by Freemasonry and Judaism. The Republic, from this perspective, represented the anti-Spain.
Meanwhile, José Antonio Primo de Rivera (1903-1936) moved into politics with his sights set on vindicating the legacy of his father, Miguel, the dictator who had occupied the Government for much of the 1920s.
His will be a rapid evolution in which he will cease to be a classic far-rightist to become a supporter of fascist doctrines, in which he saw a tool to recover lost national essences: “Fascism is like an injection that had the virtue of resurrect”. As the historian Ferran Gallego points out, José Antonio had found an ideology that did not seem to him to be a simple political project, but rather a “meaning of life.”
So, how to interpret his words when he assured that Falange was not a copy of fascism? We should not take him literally. In many countries, leaders of the same tendency distanced themselves from Mussolini because, as nationalists, they could not admit that they were inspired by an ideology of foreign origin.
On the other hand, after the Second World War, the Falangists did not want to be associated with a defeated ideology; hence they insisted that they were not fascists. But, if we stop to read the press of the 1930s, we draw a very different conclusion.
Thus, with his sights set on Italy, José Antonio founded the Spanish Trade Union Movement, which a few months after its emergence would become the Spanish Falange. The founding of the new party had to be celebrated on October 7, 1933, the anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto, in line with its imperialist nostalgia, but the event had to be delayed until the 29th of that month.
During the inaugural rally, at the Comedy theater in Madrid, participants spoke against the democratic system. For José Antonio, authority could not be subject “to the duration and whim of the voters.”
His message insisted on an anti-capitalism that was more rhetorical than real. Economic liberalism produced the slavery of the weakest, by forcing them to accept starvation wages: “The poor bear the brunt and are forced to give up.” For this reason, according to Primo de Rivera, socialism had been justified in its origin. The problem was that he had gone astray by defending a materialist philosophy and the practice of class struggle.
Without these defects, Falange would fight for social justice even if it had to impose harsh obligations “on those above.” This language was typical of populism. Although Primo de Rivera knew perfectly well that many considered him a “little gentleman,” he took pains to emphasize that he had no intention of defending the privileged.
The leader of the new party incurred the same contradictions into which other similar politicians have fallen, sooner or later. He assured, on the one hand, that the solutions to collective problems would not come from elections. However, he ran as a candidate for Congress and, with the influence of his family, won a seat for Cádiz.
Thus, thanks to the system that he sought to destroy with the “dialectic of fists and guns”, he obtained a salary as a deputy and parliamentary immunity. All thanks to the same universal suffrage against which he directed fierce criticism. The parties, in the future, had to be suppressed for constituting “elements of disintegration in the great national family.”
In the name of the unity of the country, José Antonio opposed non-Spanish nationalism. However, he also criticized those who claimed that the problem of Catalonia was artificial, or was reduced to the selfish demand for a series of economic advantages.
The Catalans, in his opinion, were distinguished by their sentimental character and there was no reason to deny that they had their own history and language, as well as customs different from those of other parts of the peninsula. But focusing the debate on these features constituted a mistake for him, because it implied admitting the legitimacy of one’s own State, if the existence of a differential fact was demonstrated (El Adelantado de Segovia, November 19, 1938).
In his opinion, Spain, on the contrary, was not based on a particular identity, but on its ability to unite different peoples in a “universal destiny”, whatever the latter meant.
Falange’s DNA was violent. Primo de Rivera had justified acts of violence against those who, in his opinion, offended justice and the country. Hence, his followers carried out a wave of attacks against leftists. One of them was the socialist Luis Jiménez de Asúa, professor of Law, who managed, unlike his bodyguard, to save his life in March 1936.
Falange, shortly after, had the judge who was in charge of investigating the case killed. His gunmen also killed Lieutenant Castillo, a supporter of the PSOE. In retaliation, the deceased’s companions murdered José Calvo Sotelo, the well-known right-wing leader. Five days later the Civil War broke out.
Falange was a reactionary party, even though it insisted that it did not identify with either the right or the left. But, unlike the traditional far-right, it presented itself to the world as a spokesperson for rebellion and political incorrectness in the face of an unjust system. He thus sought to attract the vote of young nonconformists.
However, until 1936 it remained a very marginal group, just as the Communist Party was at the other end of the political spectrum. Both forces only gained prominence when the Civil War, by disrupting everything, favored their rapid growth. Falange, merged with the Carlists, ended up domesticated by Franco. His “revolution,” in this way, was postponed without a date.
