FIFTH COLUMN
by Marcello Veneziani
Eighty years ago in April, the bloody civil war ended in Spain. The Caudillo Francisco Franco came to power. Conservative Spain, Catholic, military and nationalist eradicated republican Spain, communist, secular and anti-fascist. Francoism was the ideal target to concentrate the Absolute Enemy of modernity and the left in a single image: scammer, militaristic, fascist, clerical, servant of the Americans. An ideal summary of the Enemy and the military representation of God, Homeland and Family. Then in Italy, with the Francoist paradigm you killed two birds with one stone: fascism and the DC, with respect to which Franco was considered the link, the living demonstration of clerical-fascism, reactionary synthesis between military, clerical and dictator. The clerical-fascist is the opposite cousin of the catho-communist. This was confirmed by the support given by the Church, then Opus dei, the agrarians gave in to Francoism.
Actually, Franco's victory marked a double defeat: a greater one than communism and the republican secularism that was its ally; and a minor one, but no less significant than fascism. Here the key figure of Spanish “fascism” comes into play: the Marquis José Antonio Primo de Rivera, founder of the Phalangist movement. A convenient reading tells that the Falange became a pillar of the Franco regime which established the cult of José Antonio in Spain. In reality, things went differently. The Falange wanted to carry out a further revolution, that starting from socialism and trade unionism it turned to a national and spiritual perspective. Against the restoration of the order dreamed of by conservatives and the military, José Antonio in the Falange manifesto dreamed of a new order: “No one exceeds us in anger and disgust towards the conservative order, hungry for enormous masses and tolerant of the golden idleness of a few". And he added: “After the clashes, any collaboration with the elements of the order is expressly prohibited". The Phalangists dreamed of a national-syndicalist regime, totalitarian in the fascist sense, they repudiated “the capitalist system”, as it is written in their program. They agreed with Marx on the concentration of wealth and the universal extension of the proletariat but rejected his materialism and his internationalism. They criticized the monarchy and its "reactionary and counter-revolutionary" intentions, they criticized the left for lacking national sensitivity and the right for lacking social sensitivity. They sympathized with fascism, considering it "an injection of life" "to revive tradition" and they loved Mussolini whom José Antonio went to visit in 1933 at Palazzo Venezia and from whom he was helped. Instead he didn't love the Fhurer: “We will never get along with Hitler. He doesn't believe in God.". And he hated racism: “Let us not talk about race, the Spanish empire was never racist; On the contrary, achieved immense glory precisely for having united men of all races", wrote José Antonio in the Fangist magazine not by chance named "Il fascio". Franco was united by a common patriotic and religious inspiration. The only letter that José Antonio wrote to Franco remained unanswered; the two met only once, before getting up at Serrano Suner's wedding, childhood friend of Josè Antonio and brother-in-law of Franco (in Spain there was ironic talk of "cunadism", kinship).
When José Antonio was captured by the “reds” and ended up in Alicante prison, a group of Phalangists led by Agustin Aznar wanted to free him. Franco did nothing to support them, On the contrary, would have boycotted the company. It feels like reading the story of Togliatti and Gramsci: there was the possibility of freeing him through an exchange of prisoners but the communists preferred to have a martyr rather than save an inconvenient comrade who was increasingly critical of Stalinism.
In his only interview in prison with the English journalist Jay Allen, José Antonio said that if Franco wins probably "I will return to this prison or another". He was exaggerating. But this explains why Josè Antonio's successor at the helm of the Falange, Manuel Hedilla, organized an anti-Franco coup, to proclaim a revolutionary government, with the support of José Antonio's sister and the Germans. A bit like what happened in Italy with the anti-fascist D'Annunzio members of the National Alliance. The attempt was foiled and ended with four death sentences later commuted to life imprisonment. The difference between Franco and Josè Antonio it is clearer than that between the movement and the fascist regime, to use De Felice's categories to explain fascism in power, but also the difference between Stalin and Trotsky or between Castro and Che Guevara. Jose Antonio, killed by the Spanish republicans in 1936, he wrote: “The flag has been raised. Let's go defend it cheerfully, poetically…our place is outside, in the open air, under the clear night, weapon on the shoulder and the stars above". Pure political romance. Franco forcibly unified the Phalangists and Carlists.
Beyond the formal respect for the Falange, Franco established a paternalistic and conservative regime, authoritarian but not totalitarian, appreciated by the economic powers, but also to the people. He did not embrace fascism and Nazism, he did not follow them in the adventure of the world war, tied himself to the United States. He depoliticized Spanish society, he cautiously modernized the country and finally peacefully returned Spain to constitutional monarchy. He tied Spain to the Church and the Family. Secretly also England, France and world capitalism cheered with the Church and the Pope for Franco against an anticlerical and pro-Stalinist regime in Spain. What Europe would have been if it had remained in the grip of a Soviet regime in the east and a pro-Stalinist regime in the west, in Spain? After all, George Orwell, Simone Weil and our Randolfo Pacciardi, parties to defend the republic, they became anti-communists again, disconcerted by the horrors of their companions. For many, Francoism was an evil that was opposed to a worse. Fascism has little to do with it; in Spain it ended with José Antonio, el Che Guevara of the Falangist revolution.
MV, The Truth 2 April 2019
When José Antonio was captured by the “reds” and ended up in Alicante prison, a group of Phalangists led by Agustin Aznar wanted to free him. Franco did nothing to support them, On the contrary, would have boycotted the company. It feels like reading the story of Togliatti and Gramsci: there was the possibility of freeing him through an exchange of prisoners but the communists preferred to have a martyr rather than save an inconvenient comrade who was increasingly critical of Stalinism.
In his only interview in prison with the English journalist Jay Allen, José Antonio said that if Franco wins probably "I will return to this prison or another". He was exaggerating. But this explains why Josè Antonio's successor at the helm of the Falange, Manuel Hedilla, organized an anti-Franco coup, to proclaim a revolutionary government, with the support of José Antonio's sister and the Germans. A bit like what happened in Italy with the anti-fascist D'Annunzio members of the National Alliance. The attempt was foiled and ended with four death sentences later commuted to life imprisonment. The difference between Franco and Josè Antonio it is clearer than that between the movement and the fascist regime, to use De Felice's categories to explain fascism in power, but also the difference between Stalin and Trotsky or between Castro and Che Guevara. Jose Antonio, killed by the Spanish republicans in 1936, he wrote: “The flag has been raised. Let's go defend it cheerfully, poetically…our place is outside, in the open air, under the clear night, weapon on the shoulder and the stars above". Pure political romance. Franco forcibly unified the Phalangists and Carlists.
Beyond the formal respect for the Falange, Franco established a paternalistic and conservative regime, authoritarian but not totalitarian, appreciated by the economic powers, but also to the people. He did not embrace fascism and Nazism, he did not follow them in the adventure of the world war, tied himself to the United States. He depoliticized Spanish society, he cautiously modernized the country and finally peacefully returned Spain to constitutional monarchy. He tied Spain to the Church and the Family. Secretly also England, France and world capitalism cheered with the Church and the Pope for Franco against an anticlerical and pro-Stalinist regime in Spain. What Europe would have been if it had remained in the grip of a Soviet regime in the east and a pro-Stalinist regime in the west, in Spain? After all, George Orwell, Simone Weil and our Randolfo Pacciardi, parties to defend the republic, they became anti-communists again, disconcerted by the horrors of their companions. For many, Francoism was an evil that was opposed to a worse. Fascism has little to do with it; in Spain it ended with José Antonio, el Che Guevara of the Falangist revolution.
MV, The Truth 2 April 2019
source – http://www.marcelloveneziani.com/articoli/la-spagna-tra-franco-i-rossi-e-jose-antonio/
Honest article about the history of Spain and the “franchism”. Josè Antonio was a martyr of the anti-communist revolt, but it was a lot, perhaps too idealistic and ethereal in his political formulations. Anyway , honor to him !