José
Antonio Primo de Rivera
was born into
a wealthy family in Madrid, Spain,
in 1903. Antonio
was the son of Miguel Primo de Rivera,
the military dictator of
Spain between 1923 and 1930.
Primo de Rivera became
a lawyer and became involved in politics when he made speeches defending
the policies of his father. He also edited the right-wing journal,
El Fascio. After it was shut
down by the Republican government he wrote for the periodical ABC.
In October 1933
Primo de Rivera established the Falange Española
(Spanish Falange). In its manifesto published later that year the
Falange condemned socialism, Marxism, republicanism
and capitalism and proposed that Spain should become a Fascist
state similar to the one established by Benito
Mussolini in
Italy.
Primo de Rivera won a seat
in the Cortes
as a delegate for Jerez
de la Frontera. He also founded two newspapers, Fe
(1934) and Arriba (1935).
In the general election
that took place in February 1936, the Falange won only 0.7 per cent
of the vote. After the victory of the Popular
Front the Falange Española
grew rapidly and by July had a membership of 40,000.
Primo de Rivera
fully supported the military rebellion in July 1936 against the republican
government and after the outbreak of the Spanish
Civil War the Falange became the dominant political movement of
the Nationalists.
José
Antonio Primo de Rivera
was captured by the republicans on 6th July 1936. He was held in captivity
until being executed in Alicante on 20th November 1936.
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Last updated: 10th June, 2002
(1)
José Antonio,
Falange Manifesto (November, 1934)
Nation, Unity, Empire
1. We believe in the supreme
reality of Spain. The urgent collective task of all Spaniards is to
strengthen, elevate, and aggrandize the nation. All individual, group,
or class interests must be subordinated without question to the accomplishment
of this task.
2. Spain is an indivisible
destiny in universal terms. Any conspiracy against this indivisible
whole is repulsive. All separatism is a crime we shall not forgive.
The prevailing Constitution, insofar as it encourages disintegration,
offends against the indivisible nature of Spain's destiny. We therefore
demand its immediate repeal.
3. We are committed to
Empire. We declare that Spain's historical fulfillment is the Empire.
We demand for Spain a prominent position in Europe. We shall not tolerate
international isolation or foreign interference. Regarding the countries
of Spanish America, our aim is the unification of culture, economic
interests, and power. Spain claims that its role as the spiritual
axis of the Spanish-speaking world entitles it to a position of preeminence
in world affairs.
4. Our armed forces - on
land, at sea, and in the air - must be sufficiently strong and efficient
to ensure at all times for
Spain total independence and a world status that befits the nation.
We shall give back to the land, sea, and air forces all
the public dignity they merit, and we shall see to it that a similar
martial outlook pervades the whole of Spanish life.
5. Spain will look again
to the sea routes for her glory and her wealth. Spain will aim to
become a great seafaring power, for
times of danger and for the sake of trade. We demand for the Fatherland
equal status among navies and on the air routes.
State, Individual, Freedom
6. Ours will be a totalitarian
State in the service of the Fatherland's integrity. All Spaniards
will play a part therein through their membership in families, municipalities
and trade unions. No one shall play a part therein through a political
party. The system of political parties will be resolutely abolished,
together with all its corollaries: inorganic suffrage, representation
by conflicting factions, and the Cortes as we know it.
7. Human dignity, the integrity
of the individual, and individual freedom are eternal and intangible
values. But the only way to be really free is to be part of a strong
and free nation. No
one will be permitted to use his freedom against the
unity, the strength, and the freedom of the Fatherland. A rigorous
discipline will prevent any attempt to poison or split the Spanish
people, or to incite them to go against the destiny of the Fatherland.
8. The National-Syndicalist
State will permit any private initiative that is compatible with the
collective interest and, indeed, will protect and stimulate those
that are beneficial.
Economy, Work, Class Struggle
9. In the economic sphere,
we think of Spain as one huge syndicate of all those engaged in production.
In order to serve
national economic integrity we shall organize Spanish society along
corporative lines by creating a system of vertical unions that will
represent the various branches of production.
10. We reject the capitalist
system, which disregards the needs of the people, dehumanizes private
property, and transforms the workers into shapeless masses that are
prone to misery and despair. Our spiritual and national awareness
likewise repudiates Marxism. We shall channel the drive of the working
classes, that are nowadays led astray by Marxism, by demanding their
direct participation in the formidable task of the national State.
11. The National-Syndicalist
State will not stand cruelly aloof from economic conflicts between
men, nor will it look on
impassively as the strongest class subjugates the weakest. Our regime
will make class struggle totally impossible,
since all those cooperating in production will constitute an organic
whole therein. We deplore and shall prevent at all costs the abuses
of partial vested interests, as well as anarchy in the workforce.
12. The primary purpose
of wealth is to improve the standard of living of all the people -
and this will be the declared
policy of our State. It is intolerable that great masses of people
live in poverty while a few enjoy every luxury.
13. The State will recognize
private property as a legitimate means
of attaining individual, family, and social ends, and will
protect it against being abused by high finance, speculators,
and moneylenders.
14. We shall defend the
move toward nationalization of banking and the takeover of the major
public services by corporations.
15. All Spanish citizens
have the right to work. The public institutions will provide adequate
maintenance for those who are involuntarily out of work. While we
are moving toward the new overall structure, we shall retain and increase
all the advantages the workers derive
from current social legislation.
16. Every Spaniard who
is not an invalid is duty bound to work. The
National-Syndicalist State will not have the slightest regard
for those who do not fulfill any function but who expect
to live like guests at the expense of other people's efforts.
Land
17. As a matter of urgency
we must raise the standard of living in
the rural areas, on which Spain will always depend for her
food. For this reason, we commit ourselves to the strict implementation
of an economic and social reform of agriculture.
18. As part of our economic
reform, we shall strengthen agricultural
production by means of the following measures:
By guaranteeing all farmers
an adequate minimum price for
their produce.
By seeing to it that much
of what is nowadays absorbed by the
cities in payment for their intellectual and commercial services
is returned to the land, in order to endow rural areas
sufficiently.
By organizing a real system
of national agricultural credit that
will lend farmers money at low rates of interest, thereby
guaranteeing their possessions and harvests and freeing them
from usury and patronage.
By spreading education
pertaining to matters of agriculture
and animal husbandry.
By rationalizing production
according to the suitability of the
land and the outlets available for its products.
By promoting a protectionist
tariff policy covering agriculture
and the raising of cattle.
By speeding up the construction
of a hydraulic network.
By rationalizing landholdings
in order to eliminate both vast
estates that are not fully exploited and smallholdings that
are uneconomic by reason of their low yield.
19. We shall achieve a
social organization of agriculture by means
of the following measures:
By redistributing once
again all the arable land to promote family
holdings and by giving farmers every encouragement
to join the union.
By rescuing from their
present poverty the masses of people
who are exhausting themselves scratching on barren soil,
and by transferring them to new holdings of arable land.
20. We shall launch a
tireless campaign of reforestation and stockbreeding,
imposing severe sanctions on whomever obstructs
it, and even resorting temporarily to the enforced
mobilization of all Spanish youth for the historic task
of rebuilding our country's wealth.
21. The State will have
powers to confiscate without compensation any land, the ownership
of which has been acquired or enjoyed illicitly.
22. A priority of the National-Syndicalist
State will be to return to
villages their communal property.
National, Education, Religion
23. It is a fundamental
mission of the State to impose a rigorous discipline on education
that will produce a strong, united, national spirit and fill the souls
of future generations with joy and pride in their Fatherland. All
men will receive preliminary training to prepare them for the honor
of admission to Spain's national forces.
24 . Culture will be organized
in such a way that no talent will be lost for lack of finance. All
those who are deserving will have easy access even to higher education.
25. Our Movement integrates
the Catholic spirit, which has been
traditionally glorious and predominant in Spain, into the
reconstruction of the nation. Church
and State will come to an agreement on the areas of
their respective powers, but any interference from the Church or any
activity likely to undermine the dignity of the State or the integrity
of the nation will not be tolerated.
(2)
Edward
Knoblaugh,
Correspondent in Spain (1937)
Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former
dictator and organizer of the Spanish Nationalist Syndicalist Party,
was one of those executed in the general "liquidation" of
Rightist leaders at the outset of the war. Independence of
thought and action had characterized Primo's brilliant political career.
He declined to ally himself with the Gil Robles coalition in the 1936
elections although he knew that his refusal virtually assured defeat
for the National Syndicalists. Primo bitterly resented the fact that
this party frequently was referred to as "fascist." The
National Syndicalists supported the Catholic Church but apart from
the religious issue their policies were almost identical with those
of the C.N.T.
The 33-year-old political
leader, although of slight physical build, had gained a reputation
as a fighter during his one term as deputy to the Cortes. When heckled
during his impassioned pleas for social reform or when some slurring
remark on the memory of his dead father was passed by a critic of
the Rivera administration, young Primo had often scrambled over the
benches of the chamber and engaged in hand-to-hand affairs with fellow
deputies. Soon after the February elections Primo was imprisoned for
his caustic criticism of the new regime. In public speeches and editorials
in his weekly newspaper Primo declared that the "failure of the
government to prevent destruction of Rightist property or to punish
those responsible for the destruction demonstrated the impotency of
the new Popular
Front government to govern."
Inasmuch as many of his
attacks had been leveled directly at the Anarchists, he was one of
the first to be marked for
death by the CNT-FAI, following the outbreak of the war.
The government, realizing
that Primo enjoyed considerable popularity in many quarters abroad,
made an effort to save his life. Largo Caballero took a particular
interest in the case because word had been sent him that his young
son, whose name I never secured, was being held as a hostage by the
Rebels and that Primo's death would mean the boy's death. Primo was
spirited incognito to Alicante after the government had caused reports
to be circulated that he had died in prison, but the ruse failed.
The Anarchists traced Primo to his secret dungeon cell in the Alicante
prison and threatened to storm the prison unless he was delivered
to them. They finally agreed to the pleas of the Governor of Alicante
that Primo be given trial. He was tried. The trial was such a farce
that correspondents were not permitted to attend the sessions or to
cable anything of the proceedings after the first day.
Primo was executed November
20, 1936, by a militia firing squad. The government did everything
possible to prevent news of the execution from reaching abroad but
it leaked out through Gibraltar several days later and we were permitted
to confirm it. Largo went into mourning. We supposed he had heard
his boy had been shot.
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