Falangism

Falangism (Spanish: falangismo) was the political ideology of the Falange Española de las JONS and afterwards, of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (both known simply as the "Falange") as well as derivatives of it in other countries. Under the leadership of Francisco Franco, it largely became an authoritarian, conservative ideology connected with Francoist Spain.[1]

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Falangism

Yoke and arrows (symbol of falangism)
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Logo of the Falange Española de las JONS.

Opponents to the 1937 Unification Decree enacted by Franco that fused the FE de las JONS into FET y de las JONS included former Falange leader Manuel Hedilla. Falangism places a strong emphasis on Catholic religious identity, though it has held some secular views on the Church's direct influence in society as it believed that the state should have the supreme authority over the nation.[2] Falangism emphasized the need for total authority, hierarchy and order in society.[2] Like fascism, Falangism is anti-communist, anti-democratic and anti-liberal.[3][4]

The Falange's original manifesto, the "Twenty-Seven Points", declared Falangism to support the unity of Spain and the elimination of regional separatism, the establishment of a dictatorship led by the Falange, utilizing violence to regenerate Spain, and promoting the revival and development of the Spanish Empire, all attributes that it had in common with fascism. The manifesto supported a social revolution to create a national syndicalist economy that creates national syndicates of both employees and employers to mutually organize and control the economic activity, agrarian reform, industrial expansion and respect for private property with the exception of nationalizing credit facilities to prevent capitalist usury.[5] It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts.[6] Falangism mirrors social democratic policies in that it supports the state to have jurisdiction of setting wages.[6] The Franco-era Falange supported the development of cooperatives such as the Mondragon Corporation because it bolstered the Francoist claim of the nonexistence of social classes in Spain during his rule.[7]

The Spanish Falange and its affiliates in Hispanic states across the world promoted a form of panhispanism known as hispanidad that advocated both cultural and economic union of Hispanic societies around the world.[8]

Falangism has attacked both the political left and the right as its "enemies", declaring itself to be neither left nor right, but a syncretic third position.[9] Scholarly sources reviewing Falangism place it on the far right.[10]

Components

Nationalism and racialism

During the Spanish Civil War, the Falange and the Carlists prior to the two parties' unification in 1937 both promoted the incorporation of Portugal into Spain. Both prior to and after its merger with the Carlists, the Falange supported the unification of Gibraltar and Portugal into Spain. During its early years of existence, the Falange produced maps of Spain that included Portugal as a province of Spain.[11] The Carlists stated that a Carlist Spain would retake Gibraltar and Portugal.[12] After the civil war, some radical members of the Falange called for a reunification with Portugal and annexation of former Spanish territories in the French Pyrenees.[13] During World War II, Franco in a communiqué with Germany on 26 May 1942 declared that Portugal should be made a part of Spain.[14]

Some of the Falangists in Spain had supported racialism and racialist policies, viewing races as both real and existing with differing strengths, weaknesses and accompanying cultures inextricably obtained with them. However, unlike other racialists such as the National Socialists, Falangism is unconcerned about racial purity and does not denounce other races for being inferior, claiming "that every race has a particular cultural significance" and claiming that the intermixing of the Spanish race and other races has produced a "Hispanic supercaste" that is "ethically improved, morally robust, spiritually vigorous".[15] It was less concerned about biological Spanish racial regeneration than it was in advocating the necessity of Spanish Catholic spiritual regeneration.[16] Some have nonetheless promoted eugenics designed to eliminate physical and psychological damage caused by pathogenic agents. Falangism did and still does support natality policies to stimulate increased fertility rate among ideal physically and morally fit citizens.[17]

Franco and Ramón Serrano Suñer with Heinrich Himmler and other leading Nazis like Karl Wolff in 1940

Franco praised Spain's Visigothic heritage, saying that the Germanic tribe of the Visigoths gave Spaniards their "national love for law and order".[18] During early years of the Falangist regime of Franco, the regime admired Nazi Germany and had Spanish archaeologists seek to demonstrate that Spaniards were part of the Aryan race particularly through their Visigothic heritage.[19]

Founder of the Falange Española, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, had little interest in addressing the Jewish problem outside areas of political issues.[20] The Falange's position was influenced by the fact of the small size of the Jewish community in Spain at the time that did not favor the development of strong antisemitism.[21] Primo de Rivera saw the solution to the Jewish problem in Spain as simple: the conversion of Jews to Catholicism.[22] However, on the issue of perceived political tendencies amongst Jews he warned about Jewish-Marxist influences over the working classes.[20] The Falangist daily newspaper Arriba claimed that "the Judeo-Masonic International is the creator of two great evils that have afflicted humanity: capitalism and Marxism".[20] Primo de Rivera approved of attacks by Falangists on the Jewish-owned SEPU department stores in 1935.[20]

The Spanish Falange and its Hispanic affiliates have promoted the cultural, economic and racial unity of Hispanic peoples across the world in "hispanidad".[8] It has sought to unite Hispanic peoples through proposals to create a commonwealth or federation of Spanish-speaking states headed by Spain.[13]

National syndicalist economics
Falange leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera advocated national syndicalism as the alternative to both capitalism and communism

Falangism supports a national, trans-class society while opposing individual-class-based societies such as bourgeois or proletarian societies. Falangism opposes class conflict. José Antonio Primo de Rivera declared that "[t]he State is founded on two principles—service to the united nation and the cooperation of classes".[23]

Originally, Falangism in Spain as promoted by Primo de Rivera advocated a "national syndicalist" economy that rejected both capitalism and communism.[9] Primo de Rivera denounced capitalism for being an individualist economy at the hands of the bourgeoisie that turned workers "into a dehumanized cog in the machinery of bourgeois production" while state socialist economies enslaved the individual by handing control of production to the state.[9]

Falange's original manifesto, the "Twenty-Seven Points", called for a social revolution to create a national syndicalist economy that creates national syndicates of both employees and employers to mutually organize and control the economic activity, agrarian reform, industrial expansion, and respect for private property with the exception of nationalizing credit facilities to prevent capitalist usury.[5] Under Franco, during the early years of the dictatorship - from the Civil War up to the early 1950s - represented a dramatic rupture with the economic policies prevalent in Spain from the mid-19th century. Effective possession of legislative and judicial powers gave Franco’s dictatorship the ability to alter economic and political rights discretionally. The dictatorship did not reassure economic agents of the New State’s commitment to private property and the free market. Quite the contrary, the new authorities shared a strong anti-market attitude and their economic policy often threatened private initiative and investment.[24] Falangism is staunchly anti-communist.[4] The Spanish Falange supported Spanish intervention during World War II against the Soviet Union in the name of anti-communism, resulting in Spain supporting the Anti-Comintern Pact and sending volunteers to join Nazi Germany's foreign legions on the Eastern Front to support the German war effort against the Soviet Union.[4]

Gender roles

The Spanish Falange supported conservative ideas about women and supported rigid gender roles that stipulated that women's main duties in life were to be a loving mother and a submissive wife.[25] This policy was set against that of the Second Spanish Republic that provided universal suffrage to women.[25]

Falangist theorists

See also

References
  1. Martin Blinkhorn. Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth-Century Europe. Reprinted edition. Oxon, England, UK: Routledge, 1990, 2001. p. 10
  2. Stanley Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. Madison, Wisconsin, USA: University of Wisconsin Pres, 1995. Pp. 261.
  3. Ellwood, pp. 99–101.
  4. Bowen, p. 152.
  5. Hans Rogger, Eugen Weber. The European Right. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California, USA: University of California Press; London, England, UK: University of Cambridge Press, 1965. Pp. 195.
  6. Benjamin Welles. Spain: the gentle anarchy. Praeger, 1965. Pp. 124.
  7. Sharryn Kasmir. The Myth of Mondragón: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-class Life in a Basque Town. State University of New York, 1996. Pp. 75.
  8. Stein Ugelvik Larsen (ed.). Fascism Outside of Europe. New York, New York, USA: Columbia University Press, 2001. Pp. 120–121.
  9. Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 189.
  10. Rodney P. Carlisle (general editor). The Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right, Volume 2: The Right. Thousand Oaks, California, USA; London, England, UK; New Delhi, India: Sage Publications, 2005. Pp. 633.
  11. Wayne H. Bowen. Spain during World War II. Columbia, Missouri, USA: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Pp. 26.
  12. M. K. Flynn. Ideology, mobilization, and the nation: the rise of Irish, Basque, and Carlist national movements in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Palgrave Macmillan, 1999. Pp. 178.
  13. Stanley G. Payne. Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1999 pp.330–331
  14. Paul Preston. Franco: a biography. BasicBooks, a division of HarperCollins, 1994. Pp. 857.
  15. Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 190.
  16. Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 191.
  17. Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 190–191.
  18. Roger Collins. Visigothic Spain 409 – 711. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. P. 3.
  19. Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge, England, UK: Press Syndicate of Cambridge University Press, 1995. P. 46.
  20. Paul Preston (2012). The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. London, UK: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0002556347
  21. Walter Laqueur, Judith Tydor Baumel. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press, p. 183.
  22. Bowen, p. 20.
  23. Rodney P. Carlisle (general editor). The Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right, Volume 2: The Right. Thousand Oaks, California, USA; London, England, UK; New Delhi, India: Sage Publications, 2005. Pp. 633
  24. Pedro, Fraile Balbín (1998). La retórica contra la competencia en España (1875-1975) (PDF). Fundación Argentaria. ISBN 8477749566. Retrieved 7 February 2020.
  25. Rodney P. Carlisle (general editor). The Encyclopedia of Politics: The Left and the Right, Volume 2: The Right. Thousand Oaks, California, USA; London, England, UK; New Delhi, India: Sage Publications, 2005. Pp. 634.

Sources
  • Bowen, W. H. (2000) Spaniards and Nazi Germany: collaboration in the new order, Missouri University Press: Columbia, Missouri. ISBN 9780826213006.
  • Ellwood, S.M. (1987) Spanish fascism in the Franco era: Falange Española de las Jons, 1936–76, Macmillan: London. ISBN 9780333415856.
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