José Antonio Primo de Rivera
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José Antonio Primo de Rivera y Sáenz de Heredia, 3rd Marquis of Estella (April 24, 1903, Madrid—November 20, 1936, Alicante), was a Spanish politician, the leader of a party named Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx").
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[edit] Life
José Antonio Primo de Rivera was the oldest 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 tried by a Popular Front of communists and anarchists. Sentenced to death, he was executed on 20th November.
[edit] His relevance for Franco's regime
Francisco Franco's Spanish government formed a cult of personality around Primo de Rivera. 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 executed in prison, he was called "martyr of the Crusade"1 by his supporters. Despite this, his execution arguably spared Franco a strong political adversary for the post-war period, since Franco had had so far a rather low-profile career in the military, while Primo de Rivera was much more charismatic and with a higher degree of education. In this regard, Primo de Rivera was a germanophile with a strong and consistent Fascist ideology, which, amongst other aspects, was definitely anti-monarchic, while Franco was primarily an anti-communist with a definitely clerical stance and lacked any clear position regarding the monarchy.
During the Francoist régime, there was a plate on the outer wall of every parish, naming local soldiers and civilians killed by the republicans who died during the war (Caídos por Dios y por España, "Fallen for God and Spain"). Primo de Rivera's name was the first on every plate.
Primo de Rivera'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.
Franco ordered the building of the Valle de los Caídos mausoleum with forced labor, where Primo de Rivera's corpse lies now. On November 20, 1975, Franco died, and his corpse was buried beside Primo de Rivera'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 Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero decided it was not suitable.
[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
