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Counter-Currents
Counter-Currents Editor's Note: For José Antonio Primo de Rivera in honor of his birthday, April 24, 1903.
The Falange Española was preceded by several similarly oriented
organizations which favored a corporate state, nationalism, and respect
for tradition and social justice, while vigorously opposing
parliamentarianism, class struggle and the money power. One such group,
the Partido Nacionalista Español, was founded in 1930 by a neurologist
named José María Albiñana and patterned after the French Camelots du
Roi.
Violently nationalist and authoritarian, it introduced the Roman
salute into Spanish politics. In 1932 it was reorganized as the Spanish
equivalent of the movements of Hitler and Mussolini, but it supported
the monarchy and religion. Repeated arrests of Albiñana kept his party
in the small-fry category.
The most important pre-Falange Fascist organization was put together
by Ramiro Ledesma Ramos, a young, unkempt, opinionated postal clerk and
philosophy student who in the spring of 1931, just before the end of the
monarchy, started a political weekly
La Conquista del Estado.
Although Ramos and his band received help from the monarchist propaganda
fund of Admiral Aznar’s government, the journalistic venture lasted
only seven months. In this short time, however, the paper established
the essential features of Spanish National Syndicalism and exerted a
strong influence over a growing number of intellectuals who were
dissatisfied, as Stanley G. Payne has written in
Falange (1961, p. 12), with “both the atomistic individualism of liberal systems and the fatalistic impersonality of Marxism.”
Meanwhile, another young crusader, Onésimo Redondo Ortega, who came
from a family of peasants and priests, was organizing workers in his
native Castille. His experience as a lecturer in Mannheim, Germany, had
acquainted him with National Socialist thought, which he attempted to
reconcile with his own intense Catholicism. Youthful, vigorous, handsome
and passionate, Redondo was obsessed with three goals: national unity,
the primacy of traditional Spanish values and social justice. In June
1931, he founded the weekly
Libertad.
A few months later, Ledesma and Redondo agreed to combine their efforts and launched the
Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista
(JONS), the first Spanish National Syndicalist organization. What JONS
lacked in coherent ideology, it made up for in enthusiasm and spirit.
While the Jonsistas chose the yoked arrows of the Catholic kings to
symbolize their goal of a restored Spanish empire, Ledesma coined the
slogan
Arriba! The group also adapted the red-black-red
anarchist banner to signify its radical aims. All of these trademarks of
National Syndicalism would later be adopted by the Falange, and even
today they are still recognized as official symbols of the Spanish
state.
Ledesma and Redondo worked poorly together, so JONS made only limited
progress in its first two years of independent existence. The two
leaders had little understanding of practical or tactical questions and
failed signally to make their ideology attractive to the general public.
The General’s Son
The birth of the Spanish Republic in 1931 brought disarray to the
nationalist Right. The middle class wanted neither to accept the new
political realities nor to return to the past. The Confederation of
Autonomous Rightist Groups (CEDA) was organized around the conservative
Catholic Action and led by the uninspiring José María Gil Robles who
could not rouse the dissident students, bourgeois and workers to
recognize him as an alternative to the lackluster conservatism of the
traditionalists and the antinational and antitraditional forces of the
Left.
It was at this crucial moment that José Antonio Primo de Rivera made
his dramatic entrance into politics as a man of the Right. Born in 1903
in Andalusia of an upper-middle-class family with a long tradition of
military service, José Antonio differed sharply from his father, General
Miguel Primo de Rivera, who ruled Spain from 1923 to 1930. Whereas the
latter had been a sensual, jovial Babbitt, José Antonio was modest,
serious and given to intellectual pursuits. Educated in literature,
modern languages and the law, he was, among many other things, an
amateur poet, especially fond of Kipling.
José Antonio was an excellent student at the University of Madrid,
where he dabbled in student politics. Despite his background, he favored
the liberal faction, but was careful not to become too involved in too
much political activity during his father’s rule. Emotionally, though
not politically, attached to the General’s career, he could not help
being dismayed when his father’s supporters forced his resignation after
he no longer served their interests. As time went on, he found himself
agreeing with his father’s scorn of politicians, the liberal
intelligentsia, parliamentarianism and middle-class democracy.
In 1928 and 1929 José Antonio developed a serious interest in
politics and began studying Spengler, Keyserling, Marx, Lenin, Ortega y
Gasset and the Spanish traditionalists. By the early 1930s his rejection
of the abstract vapidity of class-ridden liberalism with its accent on
internationalism and equalitarianism was as vehement as his
reaffirmation of the old European values of nation, culture and
personality.
Because of his close bond to his family, José Antonio was incapable
of objectively evaluating his father’s seven-year rule. This, and his
hatred for liberalism, led him to take an active role in politics as
Vice-Secretary General of the newly formed Unión Monárquica. Several
months later he announced as a candidate for the Cortes solely to
“defend the sacred memory of my father.”
His showing was good in liberal Madrid, but not good enough. After
the election he returned to private life, concentrating on his private
law practice. He was often discouraged, and thought about emigrating to
America. He spent much of his free time thinking about social and
political questions, searching for an alternative to traditional
conservatism and old-guard liberalism. He was particularly antagonistic
to the political bosses and landlords of the provinces, to the
privileges of the wealthy and to the Spanish Right, which tolerated
these social injustices.
The Fascist
José Antonio first publicly revealed his Fascist leanings in an article for a new weekly
El Fascio,
which the government confiscated before it appeared. This act of
suppression reinforced his new political stance. He would dedicate the
few remaining years of his short life to a Hispanicized National
Socialism.
Although aware of his talents, José Antonio thought that his
intellectualism and his relationship to Primo de Rivera prevented him
from becoming the
Caudillo of Spanish Fascism. He knew that he
was not a “man of the people” and declared that he “had too many
intellectual preoccupations to be a leader of masses.” Yet he felt he
must do what he could.
During the spring of 1933 José Antonio began to build contacts with
like-minded men, including the famous aviator Julio Ruiz de Alda, an
ardent nationalist who distrusted the established parties. They quickly
became close comrades. Together they distributed a considerable number
of leaflets in Madrid and began to win converts to what José Antonio
wanted to call the Movimiento Español Sindical. But Ruiz de Alda printed
“FE” on the leaflets, which could stand for either Fascismo Español or
Falange Española.
On October 29, 1933, José Antonio launched the Falange Española at a
political rally held at the Teatro Comedia in Madrid. Two thousand
sympathizers, including Ramiro Ledesma, were present and many more heard
the meeting on the radio. Three speeches were given, the high point
being José Antonio’s heavily rhetorical and tensely poetic address, in
which he denounced the “economic slavery” of the liberal state, the
“materialistic” and “class struggle” dogma of socialism, and spoke for
the “irrevocable unity of destiny” of the Spanish Patria, for “the
deeper liberty of man,” and for “a system of authority, of hierarchy and
of order.” Above all, he called for a “poetic movement” of struggle and
sacrifice.
Although the founding of the Falange Española was largely ignored by
the establishment press, over a thousand members signed up in the first
month. The Falange quickly overshadowed JONS as
the Spanish
movement of National Syndicalism. José Antonio won a seat in the Cortes,
where he appeared only rarely. His impressive oratory, personal charm
and handsome appearance were vital to winning the financial support and
popular respect essential to the success of a political movement.
On February 11, 1934, the leaders of JONS met and agreed to merge
with the Falange, although still condemning what was termed “its
reactionary features.” From then on, the Falange would be known as the
Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva National-Sindicalista—for
short, “FE de las JONS.” The JONS’ slogans and emblems were adopted, and
a troika of José Antonio, Ramiro Ledesma and Julio Ruiz de Alda took
over the direction of the unified movement. Ledesma was gambling that
the “social revolutionary” emphasis of JONS would triumph over the
“reactionary-monarchist” elements within the Falange. He was more right
than wrong. “Falange ideology henceforth took its esthetic tone from
José Antonio and much of its practical content from Ramiro Ledesma”
(Payne, p. 48).
Enemy Reprisals
To celebrate the new unity, a rally was held on March 14, 1934, in
Valladolid. More than three thousand raised their right arms as Falange
leaders entered the hall. José Antonio again gave the main speech,
stressing the differences that distinguished the Falange from other
parties of both the Right and Left. As the meeting ended, a brawl broke
out with some pistol-packing assailants outside. Although one Falange
student died, the rally was declared a success. Actually, the fight
provided a kind of baptism of fire for the newly unified movement.
In late 1933, the Falangist weekly
FE (
Falange Española)
appeared. Socialists put intense pressure on vendors to prevent sales,
and fights were frequent, some resulting in death. Despite increasing
violence, José Antonio ordered the Falange not to retaliate. Although he
had stated that
just ends justify violent means, he was
against drawing the sword of political terrorism. Eventually, however,
growing resentment against the movement’s passivity forced José Antonio
to countenance violent reprisals, even though he never personally
involved himself in such acts.
Oppression by the Rightist government, and terror on the streets by
the Left, dampened the Falange’s initial burst of growth. Party
headquarters were regularly invaded by the police,
FE vendors were eventually banned from the streets of Madrid, and Falangists were often arrested.
In June 1934, José Antonio was called up for impeachment in the
Cortes for unlawfully possessing firearms. Since most political leaders
were either armed or had a bodyguard, the impeachment motion was nothing
more than an effort by the Center-Right factions to silence him. He was
saved by the help of a moderate socialist leader, who personally liked
José Antonio and detested the underhanded methods being used to unseat
him.
Strategy
In line with its program of “social justice” the Falange set up a
workers’ organization, the Confederación de Obreros
Nacional-Sindicalistas (CONS), in August 1934. A previous JONS
association of Madrid taxi drivers became the first CONS syndicate.
These syndicates began with only a few dozen members each, a rather
limited membership compared to the massive trade union organizations
like the powerful UGT and CNT, which exerted irresistible pressure on
the Falangist workers. Unable to effect any significant benefits for its
own members, CONS groups failed to have any impact on the tightly
organized Spanish working class.
Ridden by factions and under blistering attack from both the Left and
the Right, the future of the Falange looked bleak in the summer of
1934. Nonetheless José Antonio’s personal power and popularity within
the movement grew. The students idolized him. His physical courage,
personal charm, vigor and eloquence made him the
Caudillo despite his official position as only one triumvir among equals. Eventually his supporters started pushing for a
jefatura unica,
which would confirm him as party leader. In October 1934, the National
Council of the Falange voted by the narrowest of margins, seventeen to
sixteen, to establish an authoritarian structure with José Antonio as
Jefe Nacional.
In November the Falange issued a program of twenty-seven points
written by Ledesma and modified and polished by José Antonio. This
systematized statement of National Syndicalist principles was not really
anything new, but the twenty-fifth point, dealing with the Church,
kicked up a furor. It declared that while the Falange was faithfully
Catholic, it would not allow the Church to interfere in its secular
affairs. More than a few Falangists quit and went over to the Monarchist
youth organization.
Meanwhile Ledesma tried to persuade José Antonio to make an effort to
win Leftist, working class and military support in preparation for an
unspecified coup d’état. Knowing that the 5,000-member Falange was much
too weak to become committed to such a foolhardy project, José Antonio
stuck by his strategy of slow, organized, peaceful growth. Unconvinced,
Ledesma sought to gather what support he could within the Falange to
rebuild a “revolutionary” National Syndicalist movement. But the other
leaders refused to go along and reaffirmed their loyalty to the
Jefe. The Falange was now entirely José Antonio’s.
The Falange
Falange membership was divided into two parts: the “first line”
active members; the “second line” passive collaborators. The most active
component of the “first line” were in the Falangist Militia, a
paramilitary group. At the beginning of 1935 the “first line” numbered
no more than 5,000 and was concentrated largely in Madrid, Valladolid
and Seville. By February 1936, “first line” membership had grown to
10,000, while the total number of Falangists was approximately 25,000,
quite a gain over previous years but a mere drop in the bucket
considering the size of rival Spanish political groups.
A 1934 law preventing students from belonging to political parties
kept large numbers of young men from joining the Falange. Most
university students were organized in a Catholic association, with a
socialist-liberal group next in size. Although a Falangist college
organization never attracted more than a minority of students, they were
the hardest-working and most determined of all Falangists. José
Antonio’s principal stronghold of support was the University of Madrid,
where he often gave speeches.
Falange members were strikingly young, sixty to seventy percent of
them under twenty-one. “They were a gay, sportive group, high-spirited,
idealistic, little given to study, drunk on José Antonio’s rhetoric, and
thirsting for direct action. Their only goal was an everlasting
nationalist dynamism” (Payne, p. 83).
The dynamism was supercharged with an impressive array of symbolism.
Falangists wore blue shirts and sang the anthem “Cara al Sol.” They
greeted each other with the Fascist salute, thundered their slogans at
political get-togethers and painted
Arriba España and
España, Una, Grande y Libre on any wall they could find.
The 1936 Election
As the elections of 1936 approached, the Falange faced a major
dilemma: Should the movement cooperate with Rightist parties in a united
National Front to oppose the Popular Front of the Left? José Antonio
persuaded the National Council to agree to a united effort, but
negotiations with Rightist groups showed that the Falange would be hurt
more than helped by such cooperation. The Falange decided to go it
alone.
Falange candidates ran in nineteen districts, with José Antonio
standing for election in Madrid and in six other regions. The party
stressed land reform, the promotion of local industry and full
employment. The election returns were disastrous. Not a single Falangist
candidate won. In Madrid the Falange percentage of the vote was 1.19.
In Cadiz, José Antonio received less than 7,000 votes. Nevertheless, in
the two months following the election, the membership of the Falange
probably doubled.
As partisan violence increased, political, social and economic order
in Spain disintegrated. On March 1, 1936, José Antonio ordered all
university members to enlist in the Falange Militia. A few weeks later,
activists organized an assassination attempt against an eminent
socialist professor of law. The liberal government used this incident to
outlaw the Falange on March 14. All leaders who could be found in
Madrid were arrested, including José Antonio.
“The[se] events of February and March, 1936, brought about the death
of José-Antonio’s short-lived party, but they marked the beginning of a
new process, bathed in blood and steeped in frustration, which was to
make an enlarged, reorganized Falange into Spain’s
partido del Estado” (Payne, p. 102).
The success of the Popular Front in the February elections and the
subsequent disorder in Spain signaled the organization of a military
conspiracy by General Emilio Mola. Secret negotiations with the
imprisoned José Antonio were begun in May. The prisoner, managing to
reestablish the Falange chain of command through a system of messengers,
ordered preparations for a violent move against the government. A new
underground Falangist newspaper
No Importa hurriedly replaced the banned
Arriba.
As some areas in Spain verged on social chaos, Spanish Nationalists
began a definite swing toward Fascism. A private poll conducted in May
by the clerical daily newspaper
Ya showed José Antonio the readers’ first choice for president of the Republic.
The government kept José Antonio in jail by inventing new charges
against him and resorting to other forms of legal chicanery. On June 5,
1936, he was removed to the provincial jail at Alicante, while further
arrests of Falangists made the party’s position desperate. When the
chain of command again broke down, three-man cells were established to
prevent further disorganization. José Antonio gave orders for the
Falange to cooperate with the military in the event of a
putsch or, if necessary, to prepare for an independent coup of its own.
Rebellion
The outbreak of the Civil War on July 17 thrust an enormous
responsibility on the Falange, since it was virtually the only
Nationalist group capable of offering a dynamic alternative to the
Monarchists and Traditionalists. “Membership increased enormously and
soon passed all manageable proportions. As the first wave of emotion
swept the Right, everyone hastened to put on blue shirts” (Payne, p.
121).
The war and the influx of undisciplined members made control within
the Falange extremely difficult, despite its reemergence from the
underground in territories under the control of Franco. Manuel Hedilla,
former provincial chief in Santander, acted as the surrogate for the
imprisoned José Antonio.
Pressure from the Left to bring the jailed Falangist leader to trial
increased. In November he was hauled before a “people’s court” on
charges of helping to foment the revolt against the Republic. He
defended himself by pointing to his own anti-Rightist activities.
Although the evidence against him was circumstantial and his final
statement very moving, the sentence was a foregone conclusion. Shortly
after dawn on November 20, 1936, José Antonio faced a firing squad.
The death of its revered young leader was a serious blow to the
Falange. The weakness of Manuel Hedilla, his successor, the hostility of
the military and the general confusion of the times combined to
severely weaken Falange independence and identity.
On April 19, 1937, the Carlist and Falange parties were merged by
order of Franco into the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las
Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. The awkward new title
reflected the confusion of purpose and principles of what was now to be
more “movement” than “doctrine.” The Generalissimo named himself
Jefe Nacional.
From then on, despite resistance by more principled and more
“authentic” Falangists, the combined FET would be the one official
political organization of Franco Spain. In using the Falange as an
instrument of personal power, Franco betrayed the ideas, the goals and
the legacy of José Antonio. Even though it served as a façade for the
new Spanish state,
falangismo as a living, breathing political force was dead.
As if to make amends for what he had done, Franco established the
cult of José Antonio. November 20 was declared a day of national
mourning. Plaques commemorating him were set up in all Spanish churches.
Schools and military units bore his name and the press and radio
continued to refer to
El Ausente (The Absent One). At the Civil
War’s end a torchlight procession ceremoniously carried José Antonio’s
remains three hundred miles to a grand and solemn burial at the resting
place of Spain’s kings at El Escorial.
Ideology
Perhaps the clearest expressions of José Antonio’s world view was
contained in his speech of October 29, 1933, on the foundation of the
Falange:
The Patria is a total unity, in which all
individuals and classes are integrated. It cannot be in the hands of
the strongest class or of the best organized party. The Patria is a
transcendent synthesis, an indivisible synthesis, with its own goals to
fulfill—and we want this movement of today, and the state which it
creates, to be an efficient, authoritarian instrument at the service of
an indisputable unity, of that permanent unity, of that irrevocable
unity that is the Patria.
Here is what is required by our total sense of the Patria and the state which is to serve it:
That all the people of Spain, however diverse they may be, feel in harmony with an irrevocable unity of destiny.
That the political parties disappear. No
one was ever born a member of a political party. . . . We were all born
members of a family; we are all neighbors in a municipality; we all
labor in the exercise of a profession.
We want less liberal word-mongering and
more respect for the deeper liberty of man. For one only respects the
liberty of a man when he is esteemed, as we esteem him, as the bearer of
eternal values . . . as the corporal substance of a soul capable of
being damned and of being saved. . . .
We want Spain resolutely to recover the universal sense of her own culture and history.
And we want one last thing. If in some cases this can only be achieved by violence, let us not balk at violence.
But our movement will not be understood
at all if it is believed to be only a manner of thinking [and not] a
manner of being. . . . We must adopt [an] attitude [that] is the spirit
of sacrifice and service, the ascetic and military sense of life.
I believe the banner is raised. Now we are going to defend it gaily, poetically.
In his article in the first edition of the newspaper
FE (December 1933) José Antonio expanded on his political philosophy:
The Spanish Falange firmly believes in
Spain. Spain is not a territory, nor an aggregate of men and women.
Spain is an entity, real in itself, which has performed world missions,
and will have others still to perform.
Hence Spain exists, first, as something
distinct from each of the individuals, classes and groups that compose
her. Secondly, as something higher than each of those individuals,
classes and groups, or even than all of them put together.
Accordingly Spain, which exists as a
distinct and higher reality, is bound to have ends of her own. These
ends are: continued existence in unity, resurgence of internal vitality
and a preeminent share in the spiritual tasks of the world. . . .
A genuine state, such as the Falange
wants, will not be based on the sham of the political parties, nor on
the Parliament which they engender. It will be founded on the authentic
realities of life: the family, the municipality, and the guild or
syndicate.
The ideology of José Antonio was partly rooted in the antiliberal,
antidemocratic intellectual tradition that found widespread support in
Europe during the 1920s and 1930s. He and his party members paid homage
to Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Ángel Ganivet and Pío Baroja as
“Precursors.” But despite similarities in style and principles, and even
initial support from Unamuno, these Spanish intellectuals withheld
their support from José Antonio.
The concept of Spain as “a unit of destiny in the universal” was
taken from Ortega. Pío Baroja, Spain’s foremost living novelist, had
expressed antidemocratic, nationalist views, and Unamuno received José
Antonio at his home. But a large part of the Falange leader’s social
philosophy was not taken from Spanish sources at all. Rather, it grew
out of the views of Nietzsche, Lenin, Spengler, Mussolini, Chamberlain
and Hitler.
“In October 1933, [José Antonio] paid Mussolini a visit, and returned
to declare that Fascism was ‘a total, universal, interpretation of
life’” (Richard A. H. Robinson,
The Origin of Franco Spain, p.
98). A year later, however, in response to rumors that he would attend
an International Fascist Congress in Switzerland, José Antonio
repudiated his ties to Italian and other “imported” ideology by
declaring that he had “flatly turned down the invitation in order to
make clear the genuinely national character of the movement, which has
no intention of giving the appearance of possessing an international
leadership. Moreover, the Falange Española de las JONS is not a Fascist
movement” (Charles F. Delzell,
Mediterranean Fascism, 1970, p. 263).
José Antonio often stressed far-reaching economic reforms. The
Falange would nationalize banking and credit, guarantee employment,
redistribute land and make higher education free. At the same time,
private property was to be respected. By the “corporate state” and
“syndicalism” José Antonio meant the organization of “Spanish society
corporatively through a system of vertical syndicates for the various
fields of production, all working toward national economic unity”
(Payne, p. 79). In sum, he wanted broad state economic planning and
guidance of national production, but not state ownership of the means of
production.
Although Monarchists at one time tried to use the Falange for their
own ends, the two never got together. After he became a Falangist José
Antonio turned his back on all Monarchist organizations: “April 14 [the
end of the Monarchy] is a historical fact that must be accepted. We feel
no nostalgia for dead institutions. . . .”
The Falange was not seen by José Antonio as a political party in the
ordinary sense. Rejecting the very concept of political parties, he
called for revolution and declared his group belonged neither to the
Right, Left nor Center. In fact, the widespread use of symbols, emblems,
rituals and oaths made the Falange more akin to a religious order than
to a political party. Its leader liked to call it a “militia,” a “union
of eager fraternal cooperation and love” and a “holy brother hood.”
The outbreak of the Civil War moved José Antonio, nine months before
his death, to give a broader significance to the role of the Falange:
We are witnessing a struggle between the
Christian, Western, Spanish, individualistic concept of life, with all
that it implies in the field of service and self-sacrifice, and an
irreligious, materialistic Russian concept. If the latter should triumph
in Spain, large tracts of our country—Catalonia, the Basque Provinces,
Galicia—would break away and submit to the Soviet. We are now in the
inept hands of sick men, who out of pure resentment might be capable of
handing us over to dissolution and chaos. The Spanish Falange summons
all—students, intellectuals, workmen, army officers—to the happy and
dangerous task of recapturing our lost heritage.
The Legacy
The phenomenon of José Antonio and the Falange was not unique to
Spain. It was part of the European response to the failure both of
traditional and capitalist conservatism and of parliamentary,
laissez-faire democratic liberalism.
European Fascism was the successor to the nationalistic concept of
la Patrie
born in the French Revolution. It also succeeded the liberal
eighteenth- and nineteenth-century concepts of social integration. The
dynamics of economic development (rise of large corporations and
organized labor) and of political development (rise of the modern state)
helped force thinking in terms of the community.
World War I was a strong factor in bringing an end in Europe to the
“rationalist” concept of irreversible “progress.” The 1920s and 1930s
saw the breakdown in the spiritual power of organized religion. At the
same time, there grew up a new mythos, either around the Patria,
Fatherland and Nation or, in the case of the Marxists, around the
Proletariat. Fascism represented the synthesis of the most dynamic
movements of recent European history—Nationalism and Socialism.
To put Spanish Falangism in a proper perspective, we must remember
that Fascism in the 1920s and 1930s had become the state ideology of
Italy, Germany, Hungary, Rumania, Poland, the Baltic states, Austria and
Spain. In its early stages World War II spread Fascism even more
widely. But then in 1945 came the triumph of Anglo-American Democracy
and Soviet Communism. In Spain a watered-down version of Fascism
continued into the 1970s, but the realization of José Antonio’s
political and social goals was made impossible by the European
holocaust.
In post-Civil War Spain it was not the movement which directed the
state, as José Antonio had intended, but the state which directed the
movement. Franco’s Falange became a sterile appendage to the state
bureaucracy.
The memory of José Antonio, however, has not been totally eradicated
from the Spanish mind. On one level, it is demonstrated in a
state-sponsored cult designed to give poetic, intellectual and
ideological attractiveness to an essentially traditionalist and
uninspiring regime. On another level, there exists in Spain today tens
of thousands of Spaniards, most of them quite young, who honor the great
days of the Falange and work for a post-Franco Spain based on Falangist
principles. They have formed into two groups: the Fuerza Nueva and the
Círculo Español de Amigos de Europa (CEDADE).
The recent chaos in Portugal has strengthened the conviction of
Spanish Fascists that the only long-term alternative to a Communist
Iberia is a form of National Socialism. But whereas in the 1930s nations
like Germany and Italy could give aid to the Falangists, today the
successors of José Antonio have only their own strength to rely on—that
and the intellectual and spiritual legacy of their Founding Father.
