FET y de las JONS

The Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (lit. 'Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx of the Councils of the National Syndicalist Offensive'; FET y de las JONS), frequently shortened to just "FET", was the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain. It was created by General Francisco Franco in 1937 as a merger of the National Syndicalist Falange Española de las JONS (FE de las JONS) with the monarchist neo-absolutist and integralist Catholic Traditionalist Communion belonging to the Carlist movement. In addition to the resemblance of names, the party formally retained most of the platform of FE de las JONS (26 out of 27 points) and a similar inner structure.

Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx of the Councils of the National Syndicalist Offensive Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista
Abbreviation	FET y de las JONS
Governing body	Movimiento Nacional
Secretary General (es)	R. Fernández-Cuesta (first) I. García López (last)
Founder	Francisco Franco
Founded	19 April 1937 (88 years, 243 days)
Dissolved	7 April 1977 (48 years, 255 days)
Merger of	FE de las JONS Comunión Tradicionalista
Succeeded by	Falange Española de las JONS
Headquarters	Calle de Alcalá 44, Madrid
Newspaper	Arriba
Student wing	Sindicato Español Universitario
Youth wing	Frente de Juventudes
Women's wing	Sección Femenina
Trade union	Spanish Syndical Organization
Sports body	National Sports Delegation
Paramilitary wings	Falange Militia, Guardia de Franco  (es)
Membership	932,000 (1942 est.) 980,054 (1973 est.)
Ideology	Authoritarian conservatism Fascism Francoism Falangism
Political position	Far-right
Religion	Roman Catholicism
European affiliation	European Social Movement New European Order
Foreign service	DNSEF (until 1945)
Colours	Red   Black   Blue
Slogan	"¡Arriba España!" (unofficial) (lit. 'Up with Spain!')
Anthem	"Cara al Sol" (transl. 'Facing the Sun') []
Party flag
Politics of Spain Political parties Elections (4 December 1937 – 9 August 1939) (8 July 1976 – 7 April 1977)

History

Early history

The FET y de las JONS has its origins in three parties: the Spanish Falange, a Falangist party, The Council of National Syndicalist Offensives, a national syndicalist party, and Traditionalist Communion, a Catholic monarchist party. These parties were becoming relevant in Spanish right wing politics before the civil war. The Spanish Falange and the Council of National Syndicalist Offensives were relatively small, and merged into the Spanish Falange de la JONS leading up to the 1936 election. As civil war broke out, the Falange grew rapidly in membership, and the Traditionalist Communion, already a prominent force, mobilized its forces to fight the leftist government.^{[citation needed]}

Spanish Civil War

With the eruption of the Civil War in July 1936, the Falange fought on the side of the Nationalist faction against the Second Spanish Republic. Expanding rapidly from several thousand to several hundred thousand, the Falange's male membership was accompanied by a female auxiliary, the Sección Femenina. Led by José Antonio's sister Pilar Primo de Rivera, this latter subsidiary organization claimed more than a half million members by the end of the war and provided nursing and support services for the Nationalist forces.

The party was commanded by Manuel Hedilla following the death or imprisonment of the original leaders by the Republicans. Among them was José Antonio Primo de Rivera who was referred to among the leadership as el Ausente, ("the Absent One"). After being sentenced to death on 18 November 1936, Primo de Rivera was executed on 20 November 1936 (a date since known as 20-N in Spain), giving him martyr status among the Falangists. This conviction and sentence was possible since he'd lost his parliamentary immunity as his party did not receive enough votes during the last elections.^{[citation needed]}

On April 19, 1937, Franco issued a Unification Decree, which forcibly merged the Falange with the Carlist Comunión Tradicionalista to form the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS (FET y de las JONS). Franco assumed the role of jefe nacional ("National Chief"), following the model of a fascist party. All other parties supporting the rebel faction were disbanded, but former members of those parties were free to join the FET as individual members. The new party's official ideology was the Falangists' 27 puntos—reduced after the unification to 26, the article barring mergers being dropped. The merged party incorporated many Falangist symbols–the blue shirt, the yoked arrows, the red and black flag, and the anthem Cara al Sol among others. Despite this, the party was in fact a wide-ranging nationalist coalition, closely controlled by Franco. Parts of the original Falange (including Hedilla) and many Carlists did not join the unified party. Franco had sought to control the Falange after a clash between Hedilla and his main critics within the group, the legitimistas of Agustín Aznar and Sancho Dávila y Fernández de Celis, that threatened to derail the Nationalist war effort. Franco became jefe nacional and "Supreme Caudillo" of the FET. He was vested with "the most absolute authority," including the power to name his successor, and was only responsible to "God and history."

None of the other vanquished parties in the war suffered as many deaths among their leaders as the Falange. 60% of the pre-war Falange membership lost their lives in the war.^{[citation needed]}

However, most of the property of all other parties and trade unions were assigned to the party. In 1938, all trade unions were unified under Falangist command.^{[citation needed]}

Francoist Spain

After the war, the party was charged with developing an ideology for Franco's regime. This job became a cursus honorum for ambitious politicians—new converts, who were called camisas nuevas ("new shirts") in opposition to the more overtly populist and ideological "old shirts" from before the war.^{[citation needed]}

Membership in the Falange/FET reached a peak of 932,000 in 1942. Despite the official unification of the various Nationalist factions within the party in 1937, tensions continued between dedicated Falangists and other groups, particularly Carlists. Such tensions erupted in violence with the Begoña Incident of August 1942, when hardline Falangist activists attacked a Carlist religious gathering in Bilbao with grenades. The attack and the response of government ministers with Carlist leanings (most notably José Enrique Varela and Valentín Galarza) led to a government crisis and caused Franco to dismiss several ministers. Ultimately, six Falangists were convicted of the attack and one, Juan Domínguez, was executed.

By the middle of the Second World War, Franco and leading Falangists, while distancing themselves from the faltering European fascists, stressed the unique "Spanish Catholic authoritarianism" of the regime and the Falange. Instructions were issued in September 1943 that henceforth the Falange/FET would be referred to exclusively as a "movement" and not a "party".

The Falange also developed youth organizations, with members known as Flechas and Pelayos,^{[citation needed]} under the umbrella of the Spanish Youths Organization. Most of these young members wore red berets.

With improving relations with the United States, economic development and the rise of a group of relatively young technocrats within the government, the Falange continued to decline. In 1965, the SEU, the movement's student organization, was officially disbanded. At the same time, the membership of the Falange as a whole was both shrinking and aging. In 1974, the average age of Falangists in Madrid was at least 55 years. The organization's relatively few new members came mostly from the conservative and devoutly Catholic areas of northern Spain.

See also

• Servicio Exterior de Falange
• Unification Decree (Spain, 1937)

Sources

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• Blinkhorn, Martin (2003). Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth-Century Europe. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-134-99712-1.
• Griffin, Roger; Feldman, Matthew (2004). Fascism: The 'fascist epoch'. Taylor & Francis. pp. 82–83. ISBN 978-0-415-29019-7. Retrieved 5 July 2020.
• Payne, Stanley G. (1987). The Franco Regime, 1936–1975. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0-299-11074-1.
• Payne, Stanley G. (1999). Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977. University of Wisconsin Press.
• Payne, Stanley G. (2011) [1987]. The Franco regime, 1936–1975. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 978-0299110741.
• Thomàs, Joan Maria (2013). "La unificación: coyuntura y proyecto de future" [Unification: current situation and future project]. In Ruiz Carnicer, Miguel Ángel (ed.). Falange. Las culturas políticas del fascismo en la España de Franco (1936-1975) [Falange. The political cultures of fascism in Franco's Spain (1936-1975)] (PDF) (in Spanish). Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Catolico. p. 170. ISBN 978-84-9911-216-9.
• Thomàs, Joan Maria (2019). José Antonio Primo de Rivera: The Reality and Myth of a Spanish Fascist Leader. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-78920-209-0.
• Thomàs, Joan Maria (2020). "La Alemania nazi y el fascismo español durante la Guerra Civil" [Nazi Germany and Spanish Fascism during the Civil War]. Cuadernos de Historia de España (in Spanish). 87 (87). Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires: 38. doi:10.34096/che.n87.9047. ISSN 0325-1195.