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emblem of the yoke and arrows, its black
and red flag, its party uniform (featuring
blue shirts), and a semi-military organiza-
tion. Despite its grandiose political rhetoric
the movement was primarily designed for
direct confrontation with the Socialists,
assorted anarchists, and other leftists parties
that dominated the republic during the
period 1934-36. Street battles involving
hundreds of militants became common in
the major cities. The coalition government
feared a full-scale insurrection. In their
attempts to prevent such a development
they imprisoned Primo de Rivera and other
Falangists in early 1936. This action merely
guaranteed the support of the party for the
army revolt launched in July of that year.
During the Spanish civil war, which lasted
until early 1939, the emergence of General
F
RANCISCO
F
RANCO
as the political as well as
military leader of the Nationalist “crusade”
at first fulfilled Falangist ambitions but ulti-
mately guaranteed the party's virtual extinc-
tion. Just as he disposed of all of his rivals
within the army high command during the
course of the war, Franco repressed or con-
solidated the various right-wing groups that
were his natural allies in the revolt against
the republic. The Carlists were forced to
merge with the Falange, which added their
red beret to its party regalia. Monarchists,
Catholic activists, and other factions were
likewise absorbed by the organization. The
party created by Primo de Rivera (who was
executed by the republic in 1936) now
found itself firmly under the dominance of
Franco: He transformed it into the single
approved political organization of Spain
after his victory, under the new name of
Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las
Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista
(usually abbreviated as FET y de las JONS).
He sidelined most of the old Falangist lead-
ers and adroitly maintained a jealous com-
petition between the “National Party” and
the army. This balance of power within the
Franco regime, which controlled Spain from
1939 till El Caudillo's death in 1975, had the
effect of concentrating all real power in the
hands of the dictator. Long before his death,
however, the Falange was reduced to a mere
shadow of its former self, totally dependent
on Franco for any prestige or nominal influ-
ence that it still possessed. In the years that
followed the restoration of democracy, sev-
eral splinter groups sought to preserve their
versions of the Falange but commanded
only minimal support.
In its theoretical foundations laid down by
Primo de Rivera and his early colleagues the
Falange was clearly a part of the fascist wave
that spread across much of Europe as a reac-
tion to marxism and other perceived dangers
to “European traditional civilization.” Span-
ish fascism was distinctive, however, not only
in its obvious lack of anti-Semitism but also
in a greater commitment to an inward-look-
ing nationalism. Its preoccupation with dis-
tinctively Spanish values led it to emphasize
the importance of Catholicism to a unique
degree, and its ambiguous relationship to
monarchism caused many problems. Like
the army, the Falange had an obsessive hos-
tility to separatism but was never able to
resolve the fundamental contradictions that
set the Falangist “upstarts” at odds with the
military leaders' claim to be the natural
defenders of the Spanish state.
Falcón, Lidia
(1935- )
Spanish writer and political activist
The leading figure in modern Spanish femi-
nism, Falcón was the daughter of a radical
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