The Falange

The Falange Española de las JONS, the product of the merger, in February 1934, of the National Syndicalist Offensive Committees (JONS) led by Ramiro Ledesma Ramos and José Antonio Primo de Rivera’s Spanish Phalanx, was the clearest expression of Spanish fascism in Galicia. Prior to the coup of 18 July, and to the great disappointment of its leaders and militants, however, its presence in Galicia was slight, and in some areas non-existent. Its inflammatory rhetoric, sensationalist paraphernalia, and militaristic practices were far from attracting the support necessary for it to become the mass party the early member, or “old shirts”, aspired to.

With minimal rural presence in this predominantly agricultural area, it drew its support overwhelmingly from the towns and cities. The majority of its members comprised a heterogeneous group: intellectuals and students affiliated to the Spanish University Students’ Union, doctors, lawyers, and other middle class types. In no case did workers constitute the majority. It also lacked charismatic leaders or the ability to adapt its discourse and practices to the Galician context. 

The elections of February 1936, in which it received some 50,000 votes in the entire country, had increased Falange’s social presence and its membership, but it was the coup and the party’s support for the military rebels that gave it a fundamental role in Galicia. Even so, it had to struggle with the Popular Action Youth (JAP) and the Carlist Requetés, among other reactionary and conservative groups that supported the rebellion over its role in the rearguard until the unification decree of April 1937 merged them all into the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS.

The party’s role went beyond having its militias incorporated into the rebel army. It also mobilized its entire organization to achieve the rebels’ many objectives in the rearguard. These included the ferocious repression and physical elimination of political enemies, recruiting people and carrying out propaganda for the “Glorious National Movement”, providing logistical support for the collection of resources that was euphemistically called “Patriotic Subscriptions”, and contributing to the institutionalization of the New State.

GUPC/MCV