José Antonio Primo de Rivera

For other people called Jose Rivera, see Jose Rivera

José Antonio Primo de 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").

Life

José Antonio Primo de Rivera was the eldest son of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, who was prime minister and dictator during reign of King Alfonso XIII of Spain from 1923 until 1930.

In 1933, he founded Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx"), an extreme 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 eg. anarchists, communists, socialists, trotskyists), 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 the socialists and communists).

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.

His relevance for Franco's regime

Francisco Franco's regime 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" by his supporters. During the Francoist régime, there was a plate on the outer wall of every parish, naming local soldiers 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).

An upwards shot of the Valle de los Caídos

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 government decided it was not suitable.

Bibliography

Payne, Stanley G. (1961) Falange. A History of Spanish Fascism. Stanford University Press.

External links

*Recent book by Ángel Luis Sánchez Marín