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Falangism () was the political ideology of three political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española, the Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de las JONS), and afterward the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS).Cyprian P. Blamires (editor). World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006. pp. 219–220. Falangism combined Spanish nationalism, authoritarianism, Catholic traditionalism, anti-capitalism, and anti-communism, along with a call for national syndicalism. Historian Stanley Payne, a scholar on fascism, considers the Falange to have been a fascist movement, though he also recognizes the nuances, faults, and controversies of calling Falangism a fascist movement. Another interpretation is that the Falange from 1937 onward during Franco's leadership was a compromise between radical fascism and authoritarian conservatism.Martin Blinkhorn. Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth-Century Europe. Reprinted edition. Oxon, England:
The FE de las JONS merged with the Traditionalist Communion and several other parties in 1937 following the Unification Decree of Francisco Franco, to form FET y de las JONS. This new Falange was meant to incorporate all Nationalist political factions and became the sole political party of Francoist Spain. The merger was opposed by some of the original Falangists, such as Manuel Hedilla.
Falangism places a strong emphasis on the Roman Catholic religious identity of Spain. However, it has held some secular views on the Catholic Church's direct influence on Spanish society, since one of the tenets of the Falangist ideology holds that Sovereignty.Stanley Payne. A History of Fascism, 1914–1945. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1995. p. 261. Falangism emphasizes the need for Totalitarianism, hierarchy, and Social order in society. Like Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and other Third Position ideologies, Falangism is Ultranationalism, Anti-communism, Anti-capitalism, anti-democratic, and anti-liberal.
The Falange's original manifesto, the "Twenty-Seven Point Program of the Falange" later changed to the "Twenty-Six Point Program of the Falange" by Francisco Franco, declared Falangism to support the unity of Spain and the elimination of regional separatism, the establishment of a dictatorship led by the Falange, using political violence as a means to regenerate Spain, and promoting the revival and development of the Spanish Empire. Some of these attributes align with the attributes of Classical Fascism which is a widely cited influence of Falangism even by its founders. The manifesto also called for a national syndicalist economy and advocated , industrial expansion, and respect for private property with the exception of nationalizing credit facilities to prevent usury.Hans Rogger, Eugen Weber. The European Right. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press; London: University of Cambridge Press, 1965. p. 195.
The Spanish Falange and its affiliates in Hispanic states around the world promoted a form of panhispanism known as Hispanidad that advocated both the cultural and economic union of Hispanic societies around the world.Stein Ugelvik Larsen (ed.). Fascism Outside of Europe. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001. pp. 120–121.
Some of the Falangists in Spain had supported racialism and racialist policies, viewing races as real and existing with differing strengths, weaknesses and accompanying cultures inextricably obtained with them. However, unlike Nazism, 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". It was less concerned about biological Spanish racial regeneration than it was in advocating the necessity of Spanish Catholic Church spiritual regeneration. Some have nonetheless promoted eugenics designed to eliminate physical and psychological damage caused by pathogenic agents. Falangism did and still does support natalism policies to stimulate increased fertility rate among ideal physically and morally fit citizens.
Franco praised Spain's Visigoths heritage, saying that the Germanic tribe of the Visigoths gave Spaniards their "national love for law and order".Roger Collins. Visigothic Spain 409–711. Blackwell Publishing, 2004. p. 3. During the 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 Visigoths.Philip L. Kohl, Clare Fawcett. Nationalism, Politics and the Practice of Archaeology. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of Cambridge University Press, 1995. p. 46.
The founder of the Falange Española, José Antonio Primo de Rivera, had little interest in addressing the Jewish question outside areas of political issues.Paul Preston (2012). The Spanish Holocaust: Inquisition and Extermination in Twentieth-Century Spain. London: HarperCollins. 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 favour the development of strong antisemitism.Walter Laqueur, Judith Tydor Baumel. The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press, p. 183. Primo de Rivera saw the solution to the "Jewish problem" in Spain as simple: the conversion of Jews to Catholicism. However, on the issue of perceived political tendencies amongst Jews, he warned about Jewish-Marxist influences over the working classes. 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". Primo de Rivera approved of attacks by Falangists on the Jewish-owned SEPU department stores in 1935.
The Spanish Falange and its Hispanic affiliates have promoted the cultural, economic and racial unity of Hispanic peoples around the world in " hispanidad". It has sought to unite Hispanic peoples through proposals to create a commonwealth or federation of Spanish-speaking states headed by Spain.
Initially, Falangism in Spain, as promoted by Primo de Rivera, advocated a "national syndicalist" economy that rejected both capitalism and communism. 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," and denounced State socialism economies for "enslaving the individual by handing control of production to the state."
The 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 organize and control the economic activity mutually. It further advocated agrarian reform, industrial expansion, and respect for private property except nationalizing credit facilities to prevent capitalist usury. The manifesto also supported criminalization of Strike action by and lockouts by as illegal acts,Benjamin Welles. Spain: the gentle anarchy. Praeger, 1965. p. 124. while mirroring social democratic policies in supporting state jurisdiction over the setting of wages.
After the merger of the original Falange with the Carlists in 1937 to form the new Falange (FET y de las JONS) that would serve as the sole political party of Francoist Spain, the result was a Falange intended as a "melting pot" for all of the various political factions on the Nationalist side of the civil war. It proclaimed support for "an economic middle way equidistant from liberal capitalism and Marxist materialism." Private initiative and ownership was recognized as the most effective means of production, but owners and managers were responsible for advancing that production for the common good. At the same time, it was made clear that the economy would continue to rest on private property, whose protection was guaranteed, while the state was envisioned as undertaking economic initiatives only when private enterprise failed or "the interests of the nation require it." In October 1937, the new leader of the Falange, Raimundo Fernández-Cuesta, declared national syndicalism to be fully compatible with capitalism, drawing praise from the non-falangist right.
The Franco-era Falange supported the development of such as the Mondragon Corporation because it bolstered the Francoist claim of the nonexistence of social classes in Spain during his rule.Sharryn Kasmir. The Myth of Mondragón: Cooperatives, Politics, and Working-class Life in a Basque Town. State University of New York, 1996. p. 75.
Falangism is staunchly Anti-communism.Cyprian P. Blamires (editor). World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006. p. 220: "the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS was formed... by representatives of very different ideologies united only by their proclaimed and resolute antiliberalism and anti-Marxism." 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 Blue Division to join Nazi Germany's foreign legions on the Eastern Front to support the German war effort against the Soviet Union.
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