José Antonio Primo de Rivera
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- For other people called Jose Rivera, see Jose Rivera
José Antonio Primo de Rivera, 3rd Marquis of Estella (April 24, 1903, Madrid—November 20, 1936, Alicante), generally referred to simply as José Antonio, was a Spanish politician, the leader of a party named Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx").
Contents |
[edit] Life
José Antonio Primo de Rivera was the eldest son of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, who was prime minister and dictator during the reign of King Alfonso XIII of Spain from 1923 until 1930.
In 1933, he founded Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx"), a nationalist party inspired by the Fascist ideology. In 1934 his party merged with Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista, forming the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista under his leadership. In the general election in 1936, Falange won only 0.7% of the votes, but in the unstable political situation that emerged after the victory of the Popular Front (a coalition of various left-wing political organisations such as communists and socialists with liberal republicans like the Radicals), the party grew rapidly and by July of 1936 it had more than 40,000 members.
Primo de Rivera was a supporter of the military uprising in July 1936 against the left-wing republican government, and during the Spanish Civil War the Falange became the dominant political movement of the Spanish National-syndicalists (the right-wing umbrella opposition against Popular Front government of the Republic).
He was captured on the 6th July 1936, and held in captivity in Alicante until being judged by a Popular Front of communists and anarchists, condemned to death and executed on 20th November.
[edit] His relevance for Franco's regime
Francisco Franco's Spanish government formed a cult of personality around José Antonio. After his arrest by Republican forces in the Spanish Civil War, his Falangist supporters called him "El Ausente," a Spanish expression meaning "the Absent One" to symbolize his importance as a leader of the Nationalist forces, despite his absence. After he had been killed while imprisoned, he was called "martyr of the Crusade"1 by his supporters. During the Francoist régime, there was a plate on the outer wall of every parish, naming local soldiers and civils assassinated by the republicans, who died during the war (Caídos por Dios y por España, "Fallen for God and Spain"). José Antonio's name was the first on every plate, and José Antonio became a very common name in Spain.
José Antonio's sister, Pilar Primo de Rivera, founded the Sección Femenina, the female branch of Falange. The Sección Femenina aimed to make the Spanish women conform to prevailing conservative Catholic social traditions at the time. It was successful in 'recompiling' systematically different traditions of the Spanish regions (gastronomy, music, dance, etc).
Franco ordered the building of the Valle de los Caídos mausoleum with forced labor, where José Antonio's corpse lies now. On November 20, 1975, Franco died (there are suspicions that his life was artificially prolonged to match the symbolic date of José Antonio's death). Franco's corpse was interred beside José Antonio's.
The 20th of November remains a symbolic date for the Spanish far-right. The last statue left in Spain of Primo de Rivera was removed from Guadalajara in March 2005 after the mainly Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero decided it was not suitable. Many Franco-era statues and monuments have been demolished in very recent years by the current socialist government.
[edit] Footnotes
1 The "Crusade against Bolshevism".
[edit] Bibliography
Payne, Stanley G. (1961) Falange. A History of Spanish Fascism. Stanford University Press.
Velarde Fuertes, Juan. "José Antonio y la economía" Grafite ediciones. ISBN: 84-96281-10-8
