Falangism

Falangism (Spanish: Falangismo) is the political ideology of the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista ("Falange") as well as derivatives of it in other countries. In its original form, Falangism is widely considered a fascist ideology.[1] Under the leadership of Francisco Franco, many of the radical elements of Falangism considered to be fascist were diluted and it largely became an authoritarian, conservative ideology connected with Francoist Spain.[2] Opponents of Franco's changes to the party include 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.[3] Falangism emphasized the need for authority, hierarchy, and order in society.[3] Falangism is anti-capitalist, anti-democratic, and anti-liberal.[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; promoted the revival and development of the Spanish Empire; 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, 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 supports the state to have jurisdiction of setting wages.[6] Under Franco, the Falange abandoned its original anti-capitalist tendencies, declaring the ideology to be fully compatible with capitalism.[7] However the Franco-era Falange supported the development of non-capitalist cooperatives such as the Mondragon Corporation, because it bolstered the Francoist claim of the nonexistence of social classes in Spain during his rule.[8]

The Spanish Falange and its affiliates in Hispanic states across the world promoted a form of panhispanism known as Hispanidad that promoted both cultural and economic union of Hispanic societies across the world.[9]

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.[10] However, scholarly sources reviewing Falangism place it on the political right.[11]

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. The Falange, both prior to and after its merger with the Carlists, 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.[12] The Carlists stated that a Carlist Spain would retake Gibraltar and Portugal.[13] 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.[14] During World War II, Franco in a communiqué with Germany on 26 May 1942 declared that Portugal should be made part of a Spain.[15]

Falangism in Spain has supported racialism and racialist policies, viewing races as both real and existing in a hierarchy ranging from superior to inferior. Unlike other racialists such the Nazis, 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 superior Spanish race and inferior races has produced a "Hispanic supercaste" that is "ethically improved, morally robust, spiritually vigorous".[16] It is less concerned about biological Spanish racial regeneration than it was in advocating the necessity of Spanish Catholic spiritual regeneration.[17] It has however promoted eugenics designed to eliminate physical and psychological damage caused by pathogenic agents; and it supports natality policies to stimulate increased fertility rate among ideal physically and morally fit citizens.[18]

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".[19] 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.[20]

Primo de Rivera had little interest in addressing the "Jewish problem" outside areas of political issues.[21] The Falange's position was influenced by the fact of the smallness of the Jewish community in Spain at the time that did not favour the development of strong anti-Semitism.[22] Primo de Rivera saw the solution to the Jewish problem in Spain as simple, the conversion of Jews to Catholicism.[23] However, on the issue of perceived political tendencies amongst Jews, he warned about Jewish-Marxist influences over the working classes.[21] 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".[21] Primo de Rivera approved of attacks by Falangists on the Jewish-owned SEPU department stores in 1935.[21]

The Spanish Falange and its Hispanic affiliates have promoted the cultural, economic, and racial unity of Hispanic peoples across the world in "Hispanidad".[9] It has sought to unite Hispanic peoples through proposals to create a commonwealth or federation of Spanish-speaking states headed by Spain.[14]

Totalitarianism

Falangism supports the establishment of a Falangist-led totalitarian one-party state.

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 "The State is founded on two principles—service to the united nation and the cooperation of classes".[24]

Originally Falangism in Spain as promoted by Primo de Rivera, advocated a "National Syndicalist" economy that rejected both capitalism and communism.[10] 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.[10]

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, respect for private property with the exception of nationalizing credit facilities to prevent capitalist usury.[5] Under Franco, the Falange abandoned its original anti-capitalist tendencies, declaring the ideology to be fully compatible with capitalism.[7]

Falangism is staunchly anti-communist.[25] 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.[25]

Age and 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.[26] This policy was set against that of the Second Spanish Republic that provided universal suffrage to women.[26]

Falangist intellectuals

References

  1. ↑ Stanley G. Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. Pp. 263.
  2. ↑ Martin Blinkhorn. Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth-Century Europe. Reprinted edition. Oxon, England, UK: Routledge, 1990, 2001. Pp. 10
  3. 1 2 Stanley Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. Madison, Wisconsin, USA: University of Wisconsin Pres, 1995. Pp. 261.
  4. ↑ Sheelagh M. Ellwood. Spanish fascism in the Franco era: Falange Española de las Jons, 1936–76. Macmillan, 1987. Pp. 99–101.
  5. 1 2 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. 1 2 Benjamin Welles. Spain: the gentle anarchy. Praeger, 1965. Pp. 124.
  7. 1 2 Stanley G. Payne. Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977. Madison, Wisconsin, USA: Wisconsin University Press, 1999. Pp. 281.
  8. ↑ Sharryn Kasmir. The Myth of Mondragón: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-class Life in a Basque Town. State University of New York, 1996. Pp. 75.
  9. 1 2 Stein Ugelvik Larsen (ed.). Fascism Outside of Europe. New York, New York, USA: Columbia University Press, 2001. Pp. 120–121.
  10. 1 2 3 Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 189.
  11. ↑ 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.
  12. ↑ Wayne H. Bowen. Spain during World War II. Columbia, Missouri, USA: University of Missouri Press, 2006. Pp. 26.
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. 1 2 Stanley G. Payne. Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977. Univ of Wisconsin Press, 1999 pp.330–331
  15. ↑ Paul Preston. Franco: a biography. BasicBooks, a division of HarperCollins, 1994. Pp. 857.
  16. ↑ Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 190.
  17. ↑ Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 191.
  18. ↑ Roger Griffin (ed). Fascism. Oxford, England, UK; New York, New York, USA: Oxford University Press, 1995. Pp. 190–191.
  19. ↑ Roger Collins. Visigothic Spain 409 – 711. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. P. 3.
  20. ↑ Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge, England, UK: Press Syndicate of Cambridge University Press, 1995. P. 46.
  21. 1 2 3 4 Paul Preston (2012). The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. London, UK: HarperCollins. ISBN 978-0002556347
  22. ↑ Walter Laqueur, Judith Tydor Baumel. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press, 2001. P. 183.
  23. ↑ Wayne H. Bowen. Spaniards and Nazi Germany: Collaboration in the New Order. University of Missouri Press, 2000. P. 20.
  24. ↑ 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
  25. 1 2 Wayne H. Bowen. Spaniards and Nazi Germany: collaboration in the new order. Columbia, Missouri, USA: Missouri University Press, 2000. Pp. 152.
  26. 1 2 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.
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