A Source of Inspiration and Lessons for Today's National Revolutionary
By Vibeke �stergaard
Before one can talk about the original Falange Espanola one must first take briefly into account the forerunners of that party. An authoritarian Spanish nationalism not wed to monarchism first arose in 1909 with the leader of Juventudes Mauristas led by Antonio Maura who sought to hold back the rising tide of Marxism and Anarchism by curtailing liberal parliamentarianism via electoral reforms and the limited implementation of moderate labor reforms and quasi-Listian inspired welfare and labour reforms. A far more idealistic and Romantic and Liberal form of nationalism came from the so called "generation of '98" style intellectualism of Miguel de Unamuno and Antonio Machado who offered a literary passion/style to nationalism and nothing else.
General Miguel (father of the founder of Flangism Jose Antonio) Primo De Rivera led a coup in '23 which put an end to the massive leftist inspired violence and social upheaval that started in 1917 and had threatened to engulf the nation. His regime lasted 7 years was basically an ideologically void based upon nothing more then autocratic reaction and a never defined institutionalism meant simple to maintain the last century's socio-economic status quo. He was a simple, unpretentious and honest man totally uninterested theory which I liken to an autocratic version of an idealized Eisenhower.
He did create a "constitutional association" which was open to all Spaniards of "Good moral character wishing to uphold the constitution of 1876"called the Union Patriotica which was nothing more then a means for those conservatives that backed the regime to voice support and seek patronage and it was never a mass party in any form.
In fairness, the regime did give legal representation to the largest trade union of the time (the UGT) along with a means for arbitration know as "comites patitarios" and was backed by the church. He thought highly of Mussolini and signed a treaty of support for his regime but had no knowledge of or interest in Fascism. However, Jose Calvo Sotelo, who latter helped to found the Maurassian Accion Espanola, was the finance minister for the regime and it is likely that what reforms were enacted came from his efforts and intellect.
For several years, a withdrawn, paternalistic nature combined with the return to stability gave regime middle and upper class support and the socialists never actively opposed it and were given a fair degree of freedom while the communists and anarchists were repressed only to the extent that they seemed to threaten public order. The depression of '29 combined with the poor health of the autocrat led to socialist agitation and upper class dissatisfaction which resulted in the military withdrawing support in 1930 and the collapse of the regime . The Rivera regime was followed by two short lived juntas and the disastrous return of Alfonso XIII which ended when the depression mounted in '31 and the monarchy fell after doing very poorly in elections it should never have called starting the Republican era.
Ramiro Ledesma Ramos was philosophy graduate student/postal clerk taken with German thinkers like Fitche and Spengler and the revolutionary syndicalism of the anti Marxist and anarchist CNT, the revolutionary nationalism of the NSDAP and Mussolini and the theories of Don Jose Ortega y Gasset. He founded a small Madrid based paper called La Conquista del Estado in '31. The theory organ promoted a maximal leader theory and a state directed (not owned) form syndicalism as means of protecting the working classes but doing so for the purpose of national economic modernization which never seemed to me to be fully developed and overly academic .
An advocate of small farmers in Valladolid inspired mainly by Hitler and the Austrian clerical National Socialists named Onesimo Redondo Ortega promoted a Catholic version of National Syndicalism which was broadly compatible with Ledesma's notions. He published a fiercely anti-jewish and folkish paper called "Libertad" which served as the basis for the creation of his small and locally centered party the Juntas Castellanas de Actuacion Hispanica (JCAH).
Redondo merged his JCAH with Ledesma's La Conquista del Estado near the end of '31 to form the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Syndicalista (JONS) whose members were known as the Jonsistas. The party was very small, poorly run and in perpetual financial crisis as a result of endless feuding between Redondo and Ledesma as well as the fact that both totally lacked any willingness to compromise or forge links with like minded organizations or people or fully develop their ideology. In this sense, they were rather like the American paleo-con and racial scenes of living memory.
The traditional basis of radical counter establishment Spanish nationalism remained with the Carlist party Communion Tradicionalista which was a monarchist group opposed to the Alfonso's Bourbon line and in favour of traditional corporatism and theocracy. They had a very impressive theoretical canon stretching back several generations, plenty of money and an excellent militia know as the "Requetes" or "Boinas rojas" which was conditionally supportive of and given limited material assistance by Fascist Italy. The Bourbon monarchists were led by the Renovacion Espanola which while vaguely supportive of traditional corporatism was essentially reactionary and establishmentarian. The remainder of the right consisted of timid middle class based parties perfectly happy with the restrained left socialism of the republic funded by the church which wished to use the respectable right to restore it's privileges and wealth and hoped that genuine Bolshevism failed to gain more influence within the republic.
Jose Antonio Primo De Rivera was from a minor aristocratic line, a very esthete intellectual and in possession of stunning public speaking skills and leadership ability. He was inspired by Spengler, Keyserling and Ortega from his days at university. He was concerned with the destruction of cultural brought by the rise of the twin materialisms of modern capitalism and social democracy as well as the hardships faced by the Spanish working class and objected to the staid, corrupt and cynical nature of the old right and the nillistic internationalism of the Marxist left. He was always interested in the promotion of passionate ideas and often times said that his intellectual preoccupations left him unsuited to be a "caudillo del Fascio". He was angered by the betrayal of his father by the military and aristocracy which he never trusted and saw as disinterested in nationalism outside of how well it served their financial interests.
He ran for the Constituent Cortes from Madrid in '31 on behalf of the Union Monaquica and while losing did better then expected and started up a legal firm. Even then he was disillusioned with the old regime and inspite of defending his father readily admitted that reform of the old order was impossible and that revolutionary change was needed that was free from simplistic reaction from the right and dogmatic pipe dreams of the left.
Borrowing from Ortega y Gasset's elite theory came Jose Antonio's notion of a "creative minority" which held that a small authoritarian ruling clique driven by self sacrifice, social justice and nationalism could bring about revolutionary change and economic modernization. Jose Antonio also was an advocate of a dialectic view of national renewal called "destino en lo universal" and decline which bore some similarity to those of Ortega y Gasset and Mosca although I am aware of no indication that he had been exposed to the latter's writings.
He fell in with a former Union Patriotica propagandist named Manuel Delgado Barreto who founded a newspaper in '33 called El Fascio for promoting Fascist and National Socialist thought from else where in Europa. Ledesma and Jose Antonio half heartedly contributed to the paper which they both viewed as unoriginal and staid whose ownership they viewed as self serving and establishmentarian. The paper was immediately shutdown by the Republican government, the presses destroyed and most of the print run burned publicly.
The main value of El Fascio is that it put Jose Antonio in touch with the famous aviator Ruiz de Alda whom during an interview with the paper expressed opinions very similar to Jose Antonio and together they founded the Falange Espanola near the end of '33. Jose Antonio provided the ideology, leadership and image while de Alda provided fund raising and organizational skills courtesy of his industrial connections. The new party was violently condemned by the left, harassed by the state and ignored/rejected by the right save the high brow radical and influential Catholic corporatist journals ABC and Accion Espanola. The former was edited was the famous Carlist theoretician Victor Pradera who viewed the party quite positively. Pradera's qualified support for the F.E. combined with the prestige of the De Rivera name and the indorsement of the ultra radical proponent of Fascistic monarchism Juan Antonio Ansaldo brought large numbers of supporters of the old regime and the more radical elements of the monarchist movement into the party with hopes of supporting a Spanish Fascism. The other wing of the party was university students enraptured with the charisma and poetry of Jose Antonio fervently struggling for National Revolution.
He won a seat in the Cortes from reactionary Cadiz on a combined rightist list but he never was an active office holder as he was sickened by the corruption of the time. Instead, the region was dominated by Ramon Carranza, the so called Marques de al Pesadilla (i.e. the Marquis of the Nightmare) who was the last of the old style political bosses (caciques) notorious for his brutal private militia and ruthless corruption.
Ledesma's JONS went bankrupt due to the growth of the F.E. and the resurgence of the establishment right in the election of '33 which left the JONS with just three hundred members. This forced Ledesma to seek a reluctant merger with the F.E. as both favoured radical nationalism and National Syndicalism (although of very different varieties) in early '34. The new party was called the FE de los JONS and took the yoked arrows (a classic symbol of imperial Spain) on a black and yellow background which was used as the banner by JONS from day one. The party was ruled by a triumvirate of Jose Antonio, Ledesma and de Alda. This union never benefitted the Falange as it alienated many Fascists within the party and led to constant maneuvering for organizational influence between Ledesma and Jose Antonio.
Earlier I mentioned the "generation of '98" who Jose Antonio sought to emulate making the FE a literary as well as a political movement inspite of being ignored by the leading intellectuals of of that era. He did attract a literary following of poets like Rafeal Sanchez Mazas, Samuel Ros, Dionisio Ridruejo and others which helped to cement the Romantic tone of the group which provided a major draw for idealistic and violent Fascist university students which was always a major element of the FE. The tenor of the material putout by the FE became heavily laden with ultra-traditionalistic rhetoric of sacrifice, transcendence, violence and ancestral idolization which is best remembered by Jose Antonio's famous metaphor about the "dialects of pistols and fists" which was wrongly viewed by the government and the radical left, and some of the less high brow Falangists, as an incitement to terrorism which encouraged government repression and leftist violence.
National Syndicalism as advocated by Jose Antonio and the original FE differed from Italian corporatist arrangements in which the firms with a given industry were placed within a "corporation" governed by an administrative board comprised equally of workers, capitalists and state selected representatives. By contrast the syndicates advocated by the FE were organized by the state to be "vertically integrated"( i.e. all private firms within a given industry belonging to a single syndicate) organizations run by the worker themselves with governmental macro economic planning intended to end usury and stock market speculation while maintaining private property and protecting small land owners and shopkeepers. The state intended for the syndicates to run themselves via a populist "industrial democracy" whose purpose was to reduce class conflict, raise wages and end the feudal nature that defined Spanish capitalism of the era. Labor disputes were meant to be handled by an arbitration system similar to the "comites patitarios" system practiced by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship.
National syndicalism as promoted by the FE differed from the libertarian/anarchist syndicalism pushed by the CNT. Libertarian socialism of the day advocated localized worker ownership with no "rationalization of production" on an industry wide scale. Libertarian socialism of the era was violently anti-clerical, opposed to any national state formation or traditionalism or any form of capitalist enterprise on any level. Any contact between communities would be one basis of independent worker councils with no over arching institutional frame work directing societal or industrial affairs.
The cycle of political violence of the era started was in large measure an outgrowth of the battles between the Marxist-socialist Federacion Univeritaria Espanola (FUE) and the FE's student syndicate the Sindicato Espanol Universitario (SEU). SEU militants started murdering FE members and supporters culminating in the murder of 20 year old Matias Montero who was an early JONS supporter and founder of the SEU. Jose Antonio's genteel intellectualism combined with the lack of party militia opened the FE up to attacks from the right when the response to the spat of killings was press releases saying that the FE rejected terrorism. The leading radical monarchist journal ABC said the FE seemed more Franciscan then Fascist and took to calling the FE "Funeraria Espanola".
Facing a revolt within the FE and the lose of the SEU Jose Antonio agreed to establish a militia (Falange de la Sangre or Blood Falange) led by a violent Fascist activist from the fringes of the Renovacion Espanola and long time friend of de Alda named Juan Antonio Ansaldo. Ansaldo hunted down and executed infiltrators within the FE and led endless, bloody battles with leftist militias. The Blood Falange was dissatisfied with Jose Antonio's rejection of violence and plotted a coup in which he would be murdered. Instead, Jose Antonio and fellow FE Cortes member the Marques de al Eliseda were arrested during a raid on the party headquarters along with many other but when Jose Antonio was released he rejected freedom and took a short jail sentence with numerous other party members. He latter had Ansaldo thrown out of the party leaving the Blood Falange operating as local units taking revenge for leftist violence with no interaction with the national leadership. Ansaldo went to France in exile where he continued to be involved with a French National Socialist militia/party and countless intrigues in Spain and endless violence.
It was at this time that the FE attracted it's most prestigious member Jose Calvo Sotelo who was finance minister for the De Rivera dictatorship who was forced into exile in '30 but allowed back under an amnesty in '34. He was a major figure within the Fascist wing of radical Maurrassian monarchism and drifted into the National Socialist circles that orbited around Leon Daudat who vocally supported him inspite of his arch Catholicism as did many other secular Fascists and National Socialists outside of Spain and such is still the case today. Jose Antonio hated Sotelo for personality reasons as well as for lacking sufficient support for his father's regime. Sotelo left the FE and used his money and connections to found a rival and quickly growing Fascist group called the Bloque Nacional which was set to become the principle force in Spanish National Revolution prior to his assassination by Marxist militia men in July of '36 which helped started the civil war.
Ledesma attempted to split the party in '35 and was thrown out. He then attempted to take over the small industrial syndicates started by the FE and in a dramatic show down between angry proletarian Jonsistas, Ledesma and himself Jose Antonio won over almost everyone present with a passionate, improvised speech and plenty of physical courage . That event ended Ledesma's career in politics and he went back to being a postal clerk but was arrested and executed by the Republican government towards the end of '36 in any case. Jose Antonio survived a couple of assination attempts during early '36 as well.
The FE was formerly banned in March of '36 and Jose Antonio jailed on bogus charges and spent some time in prison attempting to run the FE via letters and visits from loyalists. The FE grew rapidly during this period but the local branches were basically self sufficient which meant that ideological training was non-existent for new members. Jose Antonio's long time comrade Raimundo Fernandez Cuesta ran the party in Madrid (till his captured by the Republicans in early '37) with several other Jose Antonio loyalists while former JCAH founder and JONS leader Onesimo Redondo was the chief rural FE leader and a Germanophile mechanic named Manuel Hedilla ran the party militia which had absorbed the SEU. Onesimo Redondo also published his own Clerical National Socialist theory organ which made him and J.Perez de Cabo (author of the first Falangist theory book "Arriba Espana!") the other major leadership figures of the time.
Jose Antonio was martyred for his beliefs by the Republican government while in captivity on November 20th of '36. Manuel Hedilla worked with a NSDAP advocate that joined the FE named Victor de la Serna who brought the Hedilla faction of the party limited training and support from Germany which he used to help publish a series of high brow journals written by a circle of pro - German intellectuals that supported him. They were opposed by Jose Antonio loyalists who disapproved of foreign interference in party matters centered in Madrid and another faction in Andalusia. Redondo was quickly run out by a Falangist militia run by Luis Vicen and Jose Giron and the party became more fractionalized with intrigues abounding. In the Spring of '37 a group of Jose Antonio loyalists attempted to take control of the party and expel of Hedilla. The attempt end with gun battle in which one of the would be usurpers, Sancho Davila, was proven to be a sodomite as was rumored when he was captured in bed with a fellow pervert. This affair left Hedilla the single most powerful party leader and he was elected Jefe Nacional by party leaders three days latter.
The FE became closely intertwined with the Carlist Communion Tradicionalista during the civil war as they comprised the civilian militias which were a very important segment of the Nationalist military force. While the Carlists and the FE differed dramatically in terms of style, temperament and religion they held similar hatreds of the establishment, promoted a fierce nationalism and comparable economic thought. Also, the collapse of the Bloque Nacional after the death of Sotelo filled the FE with plenty of new militants inspired by Austrian & French clerical Fascism and National Socialism and the more radical segments of Fascistic monarchism.
In any case, of this infighting was for not as the nationalist segment of Spain was controlled by Franco's army which one day after Hedilla election decreed that the FE was to merge with the Communion Tradicionalista and form a new state authoritarian party which he named the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sydicalista (FET-JONS) and Franco became the new Jefe Nacional and declared support for the 27 point manifesto of the original FE and offered Hedilla the chairman of the party's Junta Politica which was an advisory board to Franco consisting of Carlists and Falangist picked by Franco. The FET-JONS also had "technical sections" which were made up of local party leaders assigned by the military to administer civil order within the nationalist controlled zones. Hedilla refused the post and attempted to keep the party independent which resulted in his arrest as well as supporters real and imagined but most were released after a short jail stay .
Hedilla was sentenced to death on trumped up charges of conspiring against the Caudillo but official protests from the German government, numerous Falangists and the pro Falangist General Yague as well as Franco's brother-in-law and eventually successor Serrano Suner got the sentence changed to life imprisonment with four years of solitary confinement and harsh treatment which never broke his spirit. Hedilla was released in '47 and continued to agitate ineffectively against the regime on behalf of genuine Flangism till his death while living under internal exile.
The original Falangist activists, the so called "camisas viejas" (i.e. old shirts), were very dissatisfied with the new arrangement and gained little solace from Franco's pledge to attempt to enact the National Syndical program of the old FE. Franco's bid to raise the FET-JONS in the minds of populace was in large measure based upon starting a cult of Jose Antonio in which his death was observed by the regime yearly, his writings placed into schools and chairs named after him at universities while Franco falsely claimed that Jose Antonio was an unqualified supporter of the regime. Carlists were very unhappy with the FET and the ascendance of Falangists within the new regime's bureaucracy so they abandoned the FET in droves.
The FET-JONS and the entire syndical structure that it supposedly controlled was detached from the regime's Council of Ministers which held the real authority within the regime leaving the party as nothing more then a bureaucracy that dispensed patronage positions to regime loyalists. The exception being General Yague's endless intrigue to gain influence within the regime in which he was supported by old line Falangists and the veteran's associations of Falangists and Carlist militiamen that felt betrayed by the Franco regime who faced periodic purges.
The only significant camisas viejas presence worth mentioning at this time was the famed poet and Jose Antonio loyalist Dionisio Ridruejo placed in charge of the regime's propaganda which was heavily censored by the military and thus largely negated his chances for promoting genuine National Revolution. Instead, most camisas viejas decided to work within the Franco regime hoping to gain influence. Some FE loyalists started an underground group called the Falange Espanola Authentica (FEA) which carried out secret organizing amongst the Falangist militia and governing "technical sections" right up till the end of the regime in '75 while facing heavy state repression. During the Civil War 60% of the camisas viejas who made up most of the party militia died fighting for a regime that was controlled by people that had zero interest or disdain for National Revolution and ironically established a regime very much like the ideologically free paternalistic dictatorship of General Miguel Primo De Rivera so disliked by Romantically inspired Fascists.
During the Second World War over 45000 Spaniards served in the Waffen SS "Blue Division" on the Eastern front under the command of the Falangist General Munoz Grande. The vast bulk of those volunteers that served on the Eastern Front were FE loyalists that fought with great distinction and effectiveness suffering 47% losses while battling infinitely superior Soviet forces. In '43 the division was reduced to 3 battalions by order of Franco and renamed the Blue Legion which was formally disbanded in late '44. However, the soldiers within that unit volunteered to stay and fought valiantly right through the Battle of Berlin receiving new enthusiastic Falangist volunteers right up till the bitter end.
After the war the FET-JONS was quickly marginalized along with any Carlists left within the regime. The party had become irrelevant in practice as well as theory by the late '50s as the regime openly embraced simplistic Catholic reaction and quasi-libertarian economics ending the myth that the syndicates were anything other then a declining means for dispensing largesse to sycophants of the regime.
Not surprisingly, the quasi-libertarianism of the '50s transformed Spain into just another crassly materialistic nation which slowly undermined the autarchic interests upon which the regime depended. As Spain became secularized conspicuous consumption became the popular faith of the land. Predictably, these societal changes encouraged resulted in a massive up swing in cultural Bolshevism which in turn encouraged the rise of far left insurgency during the '60s. When Vatican II gutted nearly two thousand years of tradition and the very essence that faith in favour of contemporary banalities the last bastion of support for the regime outside of the military vanished. The economic crisis of the early '70s combined with the poor health of Franco and a growing campaign of leftist terrorism left the regime tottering. Serrano Suner ran the regime as a care taker from '73 to '75 which transferred power to the liberal Borbon Price Juan Carlos who in turned quickly called elections that transformed Spain into a perfectly typical example of a decadent European social democracy. The destruction of Spanish traditionalism by the Franco regime set the stage of the current and on going devolution of Spain into a third world nation via immigration and the rise of an anti-Spanish ruling establishment in which jews have risen to prominence.
Twenty years after the death of Jose Antonio in '56 his long time comrade Jose Luis de Arrese described the sorry state of the Falangist vision by saying
"Jose Antonio: are satisfied with us?
I don't think so.
And I think not because you struggled against materialism and egoism, while today men have forgotten the grandeur of your words only to run like madmen down the path of materialism and egoism.
Because you wanted a fatherland of poets and dreamers eager for a difficult glory, while men seek only a catering, round bellied fatherland, full of starch, though it possesses neither beauty nor gallantry.
Because you sacrifice, while men look from one side to the other to hide themselves.
Because men confound your slogan of being better with getting along better.
Because you called a cortege of thousands of martyrs that they might serve us as standard and guide, and yet men have not seen in of your followers an example, and they find its memory uncomfortable and they are annoyed when we repeat in there ears, closed to all martyrs, to the extent that some exploit the fallen as a platform on which to climb or a springboard for business and self-indulgence.
Jose Antonio, you not satisfied with us. You who watch from your place, from twentieth of November, with a profound sense of melancholy and scorn.
You can not be satisfied with this mediocre, sensual life."
* Falangism.
http://wsd.matriots.com/trisk/pages/Flangism.html
