by Sean Jobst
24 April 2020
On this day in 1903, a great mind and charismatic soul was born in a house on Calle de Génova in Madrid. His rising above political dogmas both left and right, his boundless charisma which uplifted countless Spaniards into recognizing "un destino unificado", and his tireless work forging "una realidad histórica"....personified into one man the immortal words "Cara al Sol". His unshakeable will faced the Sol that basked España in its own potentials, just as his words outlived mortal death and ensured the crazed would-be revolutionaries who killed him or the opportunist reactionary general who connived in his death were consigned to mere footnotes of a bloody chapter. Such a man was the great Spanish patriot José Antonio Primo de Rivera.
Destiny thrust José Antonio into politics, for he descended from a long Andalusian aristocratic-military pedigree of Jerez de la Frontera. His great-great-grandfather, Bértrand Primo de Rivera, was 21st Count of Sobremonte and a hero of Spanish resistance against Napoleon in 1808. Another ancestor, José Joaquín Primo de Rivera, distinguished himself in defense of Zaragoza. José Antonio was son of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, who reacted to the political impasse by seizing power in 1923. For Spain's problems were foremost perpetuated by self-serving party politics according to the general: "Our aim is to open a brief parenthesis in the constitutional life of Spain and to re-establish it as soon as the country offers us men uncontaminated with the vices of political organization."
From an early age José Antonio excelled in his studies and used all his free time delving into any political and philosophical works. This nurtured a broad intellect free from dogmatic constraints whether left or right. Thus he confessed to holding "too many intellectual preoccupations to be a leader of the masses." He was more than willing to devote himself to a law career and private studies. Yet it was exactly this reluctance that demonstrated his sincerity, for he was seeking no power on his own accord. The wave swept him forward to defend a family honor maligned across the spectrum following his father's resignation and death in a Parisian exile in 1930. Both father and son despised parliamentarianism, the mentalities it bred, and the dregs it empowered.
It soon became clear the attacks were a mere symptom of something deeper, the very fate of Spain being in the balance. At this moment the unassuming intellectual found the charisma he did not know he possessed, but which was of the utmost necessity. From the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset he had imbibed Spain's need for a "creative minority" guided by intellect and "aesthetics" over party politics or ideology. As if cleansing the nation's internal ills through a deep alchemical process, Spain could be transformed through what José Antonio termed a "poetic movement" of his own and others' struggle and sacrifice. He defined his life's mission: "One achieves true human dignity only when one serves. Only he is great who subjects himself to taking part in the achievement of a great task."
24 April 2020
On this day in 1903, a great mind and charismatic soul was born in a house on Calle de Génova in Madrid. His rising above political dogmas both left and right, his boundless charisma which uplifted countless Spaniards into recognizing "un destino unificado", and his tireless work forging "una realidad histórica"....personified into one man the immortal words "Cara al Sol". His unshakeable will faced the Sol that basked España in its own potentials, just as his words outlived mortal death and ensured the crazed would-be revolutionaries who killed him or the opportunist reactionary general who connived in his death were consigned to mere footnotes of a bloody chapter. Such a man was the great Spanish patriot José Antonio Primo de Rivera.
Destiny thrust José Antonio into politics, for he descended from a long Andalusian aristocratic-military pedigree of Jerez de la Frontera. His great-great-grandfather, Bértrand Primo de Rivera, was 21st Count of Sobremonte and a hero of Spanish resistance against Napoleon in 1808. Another ancestor, José Joaquín Primo de Rivera, distinguished himself in defense of Zaragoza. José Antonio was son of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, who reacted to the political impasse by seizing power in 1923. For Spain's problems were foremost perpetuated by self-serving party politics according to the general: "Our aim is to open a brief parenthesis in the constitutional life of Spain and to re-establish it as soon as the country offers us men uncontaminated with the vices of political organization."
From an early age José Antonio excelled in his studies and used all his free time delving into any political and philosophical works. This nurtured a broad intellect free from dogmatic constraints whether left or right. Thus he confessed to holding "too many intellectual preoccupations to be a leader of the masses." He was more than willing to devote himself to a law career and private studies. Yet it was exactly this reluctance that demonstrated his sincerity, for he was seeking no power on his own accord. The wave swept him forward to defend a family honor maligned across the spectrum following his father's resignation and death in a Parisian exile in 1930. Both father and son despised parliamentarianism, the mentalities it bred, and the dregs it empowered.
It soon became clear the attacks were a mere symptom of something deeper, the very fate of Spain being in the balance. At this moment the unassuming intellectual found the charisma he did not know he possessed, but which was of the utmost necessity. From the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset he had imbibed Spain's need for a "creative minority" guided by intellect and "aesthetics" over party politics or ideology. As if cleansing the nation's internal ills through a deep alchemical process, Spain could be transformed through what José Antonio termed a "poetic movement" of his own and others' struggle and sacrifice. He defined his life's mission: "One achieves true human dignity only when one serves. Only he is great who subjects himself to taking part in the achievement of a great task."
The short-lived regime was replaced by the declaration of the Second Spanish Republic on 14th April 1931, with the monarch Alfonso XIII going into exile. Although no fan of the leftist functionaries who increasingly dominated the Republic, neither did José Antonio lament the monarchy since he felt "no nostalgia for dead institutions" whose "mission is finished." His own reading of history made him realize every political system was "born in open strife with the political order that was in force at the time of its advent," resulting from "a want of interior raison d'etre in the existing regime." This sober reading of history made him impervious to the utopianisms which obscured realities through power-seeking dogmas couched in either left or right. He likewise noted that agitations of "revolution" did not rise out of a vacuum, but must be understood within its proper context as cause and effect.
José Antonio identified the root cause as liberalism, which subjected any fixed principles to parliamentary procedures and alleged public consent which could easily be manipulated. "The existence of factions must be encouraged and strife between them must be stimulated" by its very structure, breeding a "permanent want of popular faith in any profound community of destiny." This was replaced by an individualism hiding falsely under "rights", although he was quick to stress the "community of destiny" he sought was not an infringement upon individual liberties: "Let every man, every member of the political community, simply by being a member of it, be given the means of earning a just and decent human livelihood by his work."
The old tired "song about individual rights of the kind that can never be enforced in the homes of the hungry" could best be remedied by giving the individual "the means of earning a just and decent human livelihood by his work." José Antonio envisioned "foundations of public social life" giving the utmost respect "to human dignity, to man's integrity and his freedom." Dignity was a recurring theme in his works, having a strong pride in himself and knowing that many social ills stem from lack of dignity or destiny: "Work is the best claim to civil dignity. Nothing can deserve more attention from the State than the dignity and welfare of workers." He thus went beyond a solely materialistic view to recognize that economics was not the end, and that it both stemmed from and was a mirror image of how individuals viewed themselves.
Condemning "the social bankruptcy of capitalism," José Antonio spoke forcefully about an "unequal competition of big capital" that was the very antithesis of a true free market, for it eroded "small property, artisans, small industry, small agriculture." Capitalism "turns the worker into a dehumanized cog in the machinery of bourgeois production." In the same vein as many 19th-century Anarchists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, he distinguished between capitalism and property: "Private property is the contrary of capitalism; property is the direct effect of man over his things: an essential human attribute." He firmly expressed his will to "disassemble the capitalist apparatus that soaks all profits, to replace it with individual property, with family property, with communal property and with union property." For wealth should be about improving "the living conditions of the many, not to sacrifice the many to the luxury and profit of the few."
The old tired "song about individual rights of the kind that can never be enforced in the homes of the hungry" could best be remedied by giving the individual "the means of earning a just and decent human livelihood by his work." José Antonio envisioned "foundations of public social life" giving the utmost respect "to human dignity, to man's integrity and his freedom." Dignity was a recurring theme in his works, having a strong pride in himself and knowing that many social ills stem from lack of dignity or destiny: "Work is the best claim to civil dignity. Nothing can deserve more attention from the State than the dignity and welfare of workers." He thus went beyond a solely materialistic view to recognize that economics was not the end, and that it both stemmed from and was a mirror image of how individuals viewed themselves.
Condemning "the social bankruptcy of capitalism," José Antonio spoke forcefully about an "unequal competition of big capital" that was the very antithesis of a true free market, for it eroded "small property, artisans, small industry, small agriculture." Capitalism "turns the worker into a dehumanized cog in the machinery of bourgeois production." In the same vein as many 19th-century Anarchists such as Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, he distinguished between capitalism and property: "Private property is the contrary of capitalism; property is the direct effect of man over his things: an essential human attribute." He firmly expressed his will to "disassemble the capitalist apparatus that soaks all profits, to replace it with individual property, with family property, with communal property and with union property." For wealth should be about improving "the living conditions of the many, not to sacrifice the many to the luxury and profit of the few."
If liberalism destroyed Spanish unity and community through the party-system, and capitalism through its concentration of wealth, then its alleged opposite socialism was doing so through its "monstrous dogma of class warfare." For any "proletarianization of the masses" is part of the same statist idea that "absorbs the individual personality into the State." José Antonio extolled the Nation over the State, whereas Marxist Socialism was "the equivalent of a foreign invasion" bringing ideas alien to the people, heritage, and soil of España. Workers were being turned over to the agitation of revolutionaries representing foreign interests. Lurking underneath all the rhetoric about workers, its fostering of an elite party bureaucracy simply perpetuated "the Bolshevism of the Privileged."
While socialism started "as a just critique of economic liberalism," it merely brought the same results through "a different route." Nevertheless, José Antonio distinguished the ideologues and bureaucrats representing foreign interests, from rank-and-file socialists who came from a sincere desire: "In the depths of our souls there vibrates a sympathy toward many people of the Left who have arrived at hatred by the same path which has led us to love - criticism of a sad mediocre, miserable and melancholy Spain." He sought to win workers from a Republic led by the likes of Francisco Largo Caballero, who proclaimed: "What is the difference between the Socialist Party and the Communist Party? Doctrinally, nothing. We profess Marxism in all its purity." Such an environment that would perpetuate Spain's class divisions while seeking to import the Soviet system with all its barbarities, allowing men of the same caliber as the previous parliamentary system to froth to the surface.
In stark contrast to the artificial authorities imposed by these ideologies, José Antonio extolled "a system of authority, hierarchy and order" arising organically from all sectors of Spanish society. Individual liberties would be truly respected under such an organic system: "Man must be free, but freedom does not exist except within an order." For everyone would be imbued with a strong sense of duty, with "tasks to be performed: some manual, some mental, others in the educational or social or cultural fields." España would be regenerated through a synthesis of individuals and classes into this common destiny, all summoned "to the happy and dangerous task of recapturing our lost heritage."
His "collective, integral, national faith" was inspired by traditional Spanish values and ethics, manifesting the alma española which was simultaneously heroic, sober and austere, but also generous, knightly, and aristocratic. Whereas the ideologies either destroyed or conserved with no regard for the merits, José Antonio proposed each case be examined on a national basis that sacrificed neither justice nor goodness: "The Nation and Social Justice, and upon those two unshakable principles we are categorically resolved to make our revolution." What made his worldview diametrically at odds with those ideologies was a National rather than statist basis: "The Nation is a transcendent and individual synthesis with ends of its own to achieve; and the state which it brings forth, shall be the efficient, authoritarian instrument which serves that unchallengeable, permanent, irrevocable unity which is called the Nation."
It was now time to put these sentiments into action. Inspired by the efforts of nationalist leader Ramiro Ledesma Ramos to win over Anarcho-Syndicalists, in early 1933 José Antonio founded the Movimiento Español Sindicalista along with Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda Miquelez, known to history for his pioneering Transatlantic flight aboard the "Plus Ultra" in 1926, and Professor Alfonso García Valdecasas, an Ortega y Gasset disciple upon whose suggestion the movement was soon renamed Falange Española. This was a stroke of genius, for it gave the new movement the acroynm FE "faith" while its "phalanx" conveyed images of ranks moving as one "unit of destiny" as José Antonio was fond of saying. The new movement first publicly announced itself at "an event of Spanish affirmation", speaking in terms deeper than the purely political-economic ones of other movements.
This powerful Spanish affirmation came at Falange's foundational rally at the Teatro de la Comedia, in Madrid's historic literary and artistic Barrio de las Letras district (an area closely associated with great Spanish writers like Miguel de Cervantes), on 29 October 1933. In a fiery speech that uplifted the spirits of all those present, José Antonio undermined the very philosophical foundations of liberalism, and asserted that the upper classes needed to be "worthy" of acceptance by the working classes in a new solidarity. He expressed his not shying away from force "when justice or the fatherland is violated," although stressing this would be his last resort. Even his presence in the elections exposed the rottenness of the parliament (Cortes) vis a vis the dynamic Falange: "We are not going to that place to squabble with the habitues over the insipid scraps of an unclean feast. Our place is outside. Our place is in the open air, under the clear night sky, gun in hand and stars above."
Aware that the Marxists, Anarchists, and Monarchists all had their own rallying hymns, José Antonio convened an important meeting at the Cueva del Orkompon, a Basque bar on Madrid's Calle Miguel Moya, to create the Falange anthem on 3 December 1935. The subcommittee included José Antonio, José María Alfaro, Rafael Sánchez Mazas, Agustin de Foxá, Pedro Mourlane Michelena, Dionisio Ridruejo, Agustín Aznar, and Luis Aguilar. They took the melody "Amanecer en Cegama" by Juan Tellería, but each one contributed their own lyrics. The resulting "Cara al Sol" (Facing the Sun) was a truly collaborative effort, a joining of hearts and minds hallowed through the magic of song, and was first performed in a rally at the Art Deco Cine Europa on 2 February 1936.
Fascism has been removed from its actual historic and geographic context, especially in the hands of the dialectical left which uses it as term of abuse for its opponents. So its no surprise that the Falange was also maligned as "fascist". Despite visiting Rome in October 1933, José Antonio continuously stressed how the Falange had a "genuinely national character, not a Fascist movement." It was rooted within Spain and was "daily acquiring a clearer outline of its own". At its foundational rally, the sole reference to Fascism was one by García Valdecasas distinguishing it from the Falange. José Antonio noted similiarities with certain other movements in other countries only as part of the trend "to redeem the fatherlands of Europe, from the spiritual degradation and material ruin in which they have been sunk by the poisonous, antinational left and the cowardly, obtuse, and egotistical right." Addressing a letter to a conservative critic of the Falange, José Antonio closed "not with a Roman salute, but with a Spanish embrace."
Rooted within the cultural traditions of Spain and possessing his own artistic bent, José Antonio was a friend of the arts and culture. His vision was at odds with the totalitarian systems that subjected arts and the culture to their own dogmatic controls, for he saw it as an organic flowering of talent to be fostered among all classes: "Culture will be organized in such a way that no talent will be lost for lack of finance." Although wary of pretentiousness, he also despised the anti-intellectualism of reactionary movements. José Antonio garnered a mutual respect from many Spanish artists, writers and intellectuals. The Basque philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, praised him as a "privileged mind, perhaps the most promising in Europe." Azorin, eminent master of the Generation of '98 intellectuals, wrote of how "Cordiality emanated from José Antonio. He therefore had a good heart." Even the marxist-leaning playwright Federico Garcia Lorca had a cordial friendship with José Antonio, whose boundless love for España transcended ideology or opinion.
Spiritually, José Antonio was a Catholic but his was not a dogmatic faith. Its no accident that the more-doctrinaire conservative Catholics like the monarchists or Opus Dei despised both he and the Falange. He looked inwardly to España, his faith being more of a folk Catholicism rooted in many basic folk traditions and outlook of native Iberian and Celtiberian heritage despite the outer veneer, unlike his conservative enemies who were mentally and physically tied to foreign direction as much as their Communist enemies (one Rome, the other Moscow), not loyalty to an Iberia which produced such heroes as the immortal martyrs of Numancia. His view on religion was that it is highly personal, as indeed ancient Iberian spirituality was localized to the family and tribal level. Contrary to these fanatical enemies, neither did he idolize or desire to resurrect the past: "The times of religious persecutions and intolerance are past. Nor will we countenance those interventions of the Church that could damage the dignity of the state or undermine national unity." I suggest that he was tapping into the timeless archetypes embedded within la alma española in all its regional flavors.
His was a nationalism that was neither chauvinist nor expansionist, developing from a sincere love for the people, soil and heritage of España and all its regions, rather than a political will to control. He completely respected the sovereignty of Portugal, penning an epic poem at only nineteen, writing in the narration of Fernão de Magalhães or Fernando de Magallanes, the Portuguese navigator who served Spain, saying that the Portuguese formed with the Spanish "la raza ibera, cuyos hijos, unidos comos hermanos". José Antonio's comrades and associates within the Falange came from all regions of Spain. He respected regional languages and unique customs, which were not an impediment but actually complementary to an "indivisible destiny." He was fiercely opposed to separatist tendencies, exactly because of their links to foreign interests, being led by opportunist leaders wanting to "break away and submit to the Soviet." José Antonio warned that only two choices faced all Spaniards: "National solidarity, or internationalism will turn us into stooges of some foreign great power."
José Antonio epitomized the best values of Spain in all its romantic dynamism - rooted in the past which nurtured the present with its timeless traditions, but not wanting to turn the clock back to harmful relics; conserving the best traditions while still having his face welcoming the sunny embrace of a glorious future. He personified the qualities conveyed in the great works of Spanish literature, such that the American ambassador Claude Bowers praised him as "a hero of romance, with cape and sword." While the Falange was an evolving vision insofar as a people naturally grow, José Antonio ensured it was rooted in native Iberian traditions of familia and municipalism as the central pivots of society: "We are all born in a family, we all live in a municipality, we all work in a trade or profession. But no one is born or lives, naturally, in a political party. Thus the new state must recognize the integrity of the family as a social unit, the autonomy of municipality as a territorial unit, and the syndicate, the guild, the corporation as authentic bases of the organization of the state."
One of his first Cortes speech expressed his view that "What must be done rather is to verify whether our actions and our thoughts are in agreement at every step with a permanent aspiration." José Antonio was a man sure of his destiny, because that he linked early on to a cause greater than himself, as he said within his Falange foundational speech: "In a poetic sweep we will raise this fervent devotion to Spain; we will make sacrifices, we will renounce the easy life and we will triumph." His was not a messianic fervor, for he came to a somber awareness only a few years later: "It astounds me that after three years the immense majority of our countrymen should persist in judging us without having begun to show the least sign of understanding us, and indeed without having even sought or accepted the slightest information." He stood firm upon his sacrifices even as his mortal death approached, and opposition from all corners intensified, for he possessed the strong orgullo or pride of an archetypal Spaniard.
One of the greatest testaments to José Antonio was his remarkable charisma in attracting all sorts of individuals to his vision, truly being one who looked beyond left and right. As Spain descended into bloody chaos, he increasingly saw that a compromise with certain forces of the left was essential if Spain was to survive this pincer movement between the Monarchists on one hand and the Communists on the other hand. That the leaders of those two sides actually worked together is perfectly illustrated by his imprisonment, for there was a dual conspiracy against the Falange and certain Anarchist factions. His patriotism was his guiding principle, and la patria meant looking beyond outer political differences to an inner unity of destiny as he told a journalist in one of his last interviews: "You will see now that no ideological gulfs separate us; if we men knew one another, we should realize that these gulfs we think we see are nothing but little valleys."
His "collective, integral, national faith" was inspired by traditional Spanish values and ethics, manifesting the alma española which was simultaneously heroic, sober and austere, but also generous, knightly, and aristocratic. Whereas the ideologies either destroyed or conserved with no regard for the merits, José Antonio proposed each case be examined on a national basis that sacrificed neither justice nor goodness: "The Nation and Social Justice, and upon those two unshakable principles we are categorically resolved to make our revolution." What made his worldview diametrically at odds with those ideologies was a National rather than statist basis: "The Nation is a transcendent and individual synthesis with ends of its own to achieve; and the state which it brings forth, shall be the efficient, authoritarian instrument which serves that unchallengeable, permanent, irrevocable unity which is called the Nation."
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| García Valdecasas, Ruiz de Alda, y José Antonio |
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| The Spanish collective unconscious arising forth at the foundation of the Falange Española, Madrid, 29 October 1933 |
It was now time to put these sentiments into action. Inspired by the efforts of nationalist leader Ramiro Ledesma Ramos to win over Anarcho-Syndicalists, in early 1933 José Antonio founded the Movimiento Español Sindicalista along with Captain Julio Ruiz de Alda Miquelez, known to history for his pioneering Transatlantic flight aboard the "Plus Ultra" in 1926, and Professor Alfonso García Valdecasas, an Ortega y Gasset disciple upon whose suggestion the movement was soon renamed Falange Española. This was a stroke of genius, for it gave the new movement the acroynm FE "faith" while its "phalanx" conveyed images of ranks moving as one "unit of destiny" as José Antonio was fond of saying. The new movement first publicly announced itself at "an event of Spanish affirmation", speaking in terms deeper than the purely political-economic ones of other movements.
This powerful Spanish affirmation came at Falange's foundational rally at the Teatro de la Comedia, in Madrid's historic literary and artistic Barrio de las Letras district (an area closely associated with great Spanish writers like Miguel de Cervantes), on 29 October 1933. In a fiery speech that uplifted the spirits of all those present, José Antonio undermined the very philosophical foundations of liberalism, and asserted that the upper classes needed to be "worthy" of acceptance by the working classes in a new solidarity. He expressed his not shying away from force "when justice or the fatherland is violated," although stressing this would be his last resort. Even his presence in the elections exposed the rottenness of the parliament (Cortes) vis a vis the dynamic Falange: "We are not going to that place to squabble with the habitues over the insipid scraps of an unclean feast. Our place is outside. Our place is in the open air, under the clear night sky, gun in hand and stars above."
Aware that the Marxists, Anarchists, and Monarchists all had their own rallying hymns, José Antonio convened an important meeting at the Cueva del Orkompon, a Basque bar on Madrid's Calle Miguel Moya, to create the Falange anthem on 3 December 1935. The subcommittee included José Antonio, José María Alfaro, Rafael Sánchez Mazas, Agustin de Foxá, Pedro Mourlane Michelena, Dionisio Ridruejo, Agustín Aznar, and Luis Aguilar. They took the melody "Amanecer en Cegama" by Juan Tellería, but each one contributed their own lyrics. The resulting "Cara al Sol" (Facing the Sun) was a truly collaborative effort, a joining of hearts and minds hallowed through the magic of song, and was first performed in a rally at the Art Deco Cine Europa on 2 February 1936.
 |
| José Antonio's handwritten notes for "Cara al Sol" |
Fascism has been removed from its actual historic and geographic context, especially in the hands of the dialectical left which uses it as term of abuse for its opponents. So its no surprise that the Falange was also maligned as "fascist". Despite visiting Rome in October 1933, José Antonio continuously stressed how the Falange had a "genuinely national character, not a Fascist movement." It was rooted within Spain and was "daily acquiring a clearer outline of its own". At its foundational rally, the sole reference to Fascism was one by García Valdecasas distinguishing it from the Falange. José Antonio noted similiarities with certain other movements in other countries only as part of the trend "to redeem the fatherlands of Europe, from the spiritual degradation and material ruin in which they have been sunk by the poisonous, antinational left and the cowardly, obtuse, and egotistical right." Addressing a letter to a conservative critic of the Falange, José Antonio closed "not with a Roman salute, but with a Spanish embrace."
Rooted within the cultural traditions of Spain and possessing his own artistic bent, José Antonio was a friend of the arts and culture. His vision was at odds with the totalitarian systems that subjected arts and the culture to their own dogmatic controls, for he saw it as an organic flowering of talent to be fostered among all classes: "Culture will be organized in such a way that no talent will be lost for lack of finance." Although wary of pretentiousness, he also despised the anti-intellectualism of reactionary movements. José Antonio garnered a mutual respect from many Spanish artists, writers and intellectuals. The Basque philosopher, Miguel de Unamuno, praised him as a "privileged mind, perhaps the most promising in Europe." Azorin, eminent master of the Generation of '98 intellectuals, wrote of how "Cordiality emanated from José Antonio. He therefore had a good heart." Even the marxist-leaning playwright Federico Garcia Lorca had a cordial friendship with José Antonio, whose boundless love for España transcended ideology or opinion.
Spiritually, José Antonio was a Catholic but his was not a dogmatic faith. Its no accident that the more-doctrinaire conservative Catholics like the monarchists or Opus Dei despised both he and the Falange. He looked inwardly to España, his faith being more of a folk Catholicism rooted in many basic folk traditions and outlook of native Iberian and Celtiberian heritage despite the outer veneer, unlike his conservative enemies who were mentally and physically tied to foreign direction as much as their Communist enemies (one Rome, the other Moscow), not loyalty to an Iberia which produced such heroes as the immortal martyrs of Numancia. His view on religion was that it is highly personal, as indeed ancient Iberian spirituality was localized to the family and tribal level. Contrary to these fanatical enemies, neither did he idolize or desire to resurrect the past: "The times of religious persecutions and intolerance are past. Nor will we countenance those interventions of the Church that could damage the dignity of the state or undermine national unity." I suggest that he was tapping into the timeless archetypes embedded within la alma española in all its regional flavors.
His was a nationalism that was neither chauvinist nor expansionist, developing from a sincere love for the people, soil and heritage of España and all its regions, rather than a political will to control. He completely respected the sovereignty of Portugal, penning an epic poem at only nineteen, writing in the narration of Fernão de Magalhães or Fernando de Magallanes, the Portuguese navigator who served Spain, saying that the Portuguese formed with the Spanish "la raza ibera, cuyos hijos, unidos comos hermanos". José Antonio's comrades and associates within the Falange came from all regions of Spain. He respected regional languages and unique customs, which were not an impediment but actually complementary to an "indivisible destiny." He was fiercely opposed to separatist tendencies, exactly because of their links to foreign interests, being led by opportunist leaders wanting to "break away and submit to the Soviet." José Antonio warned that only two choices faced all Spaniards: "National solidarity, or internationalism will turn us into stooges of some foreign great power."
José Antonio epitomized the best values of Spain in all its romantic dynamism - rooted in the past which nurtured the present with its timeless traditions, but not wanting to turn the clock back to harmful relics; conserving the best traditions while still having his face welcoming the sunny embrace of a glorious future. He personified the qualities conveyed in the great works of Spanish literature, such that the American ambassador Claude Bowers praised him as "a hero of romance, with cape and sword." While the Falange was an evolving vision insofar as a people naturally grow, José Antonio ensured it was rooted in native Iberian traditions of familia and municipalism as the central pivots of society: "We are all born in a family, we all live in a municipality, we all work in a trade or profession. But no one is born or lives, naturally, in a political party. Thus the new state must recognize the integrity of the family as a social unit, the autonomy of municipality as a territorial unit, and the syndicate, the guild, the corporation as authentic bases of the organization of the state."
One of his first Cortes speech expressed his view that "What must be done rather is to verify whether our actions and our thoughts are in agreement at every step with a permanent aspiration." José Antonio was a man sure of his destiny, because that he linked early on to a cause greater than himself, as he said within his Falange foundational speech: "In a poetic sweep we will raise this fervent devotion to Spain; we will make sacrifices, we will renounce the easy life and we will triumph." His was not a messianic fervor, for he came to a somber awareness only a few years later: "It astounds me that after three years the immense majority of our countrymen should persist in judging us without having begun to show the least sign of understanding us, and indeed without having even sought or accepted the slightest information." He stood firm upon his sacrifices even as his mortal death approached, and opposition from all corners intensified, for he possessed the strong orgullo or pride of an archetypal Spaniard.
 |
| Two paintings by the great Spanish painter, Carlos Sáenz de Tejada (1897-1958), which perfectly demonstrates José Antonio's vision |
One of the greatest testaments to José Antonio was his remarkable charisma in attracting all sorts of individuals to his vision, truly being one who looked beyond left and right. As Spain descended into bloody chaos, he increasingly saw that a compromise with certain forces of the left was essential if Spain was to survive this pincer movement between the Monarchists on one hand and the Communists on the other hand. That the leaders of those two sides actually worked together is perfectly illustrated by his imprisonment, for there was a dual conspiracy against the Falange and certain Anarchist factions. His patriotism was his guiding principle, and la patria meant looking beyond outer political differences to an inner unity of destiny as he told a journalist in one of his last interviews: "You will see now that no ideological gulfs separate us; if we men knew one another, we should realize that these gulfs we think we see are nothing but little valleys."
In that same interview from his cell within a Republican prison, he said he was shocked about reports of atrocities and further expressed his desire to remove the Falange from the war if he ever made it out of prison alive. Among his last papers was a proposal for a reconciliation government alongside Indelico Prieto, a Socialist leader who opposed all the underhanded methods that forced José Antonio out of the Cortes and into prison. While the Falange leader opposed the atrocities being committed by certain other Nationalist factions, Prieto similarly lamented those by the Republican side, especially by the Communists and their international mercenaries, warning after the Modelo massacre: "With this brutality we have lost the war." Long after his own death and the civil war, José Antonio was favorably remembered by several moderates in the Republican government-in-exile. One can only imagine how much bloodshed would have been spared if José Antonio and Prieto had been able to sideline the totalitarian factions of both dialectics.
The truth is that José Antonio had fierce enemies on both sides, for he was a thorn in their side and reflected the mirror of their own rot back at them and for all to see. The loss of his own close comrades and the core generals on the Nationalist side ensured that with him in prison, the stage was set for the most rotten one of all. Meanwhile, the Communists and their separatist fellow-travelers - and the foreign interests behind both - wanted him out of the way due to his love for the fatherland and because he was sincere in the same social and economic justice of which they were mere rhetorical deceivers. "Before organizing its own repressive squads, the Falange was the victim of physical reprisals by the extreme left," as noted by the left-leaning social philosopher Heleno Saña Alcon, no admirer of the Falange. "The violent squads of the Falange were finally accepted by Jose Antonio as a purely practical necessity, but not out of inner conviction."
Remembered by the Basque-French social scientist Arnaud Imatz as an "expiatory victim of the Spanish Civil War", José Antonio faced his impending death much as he had lived: With a burning desire to be an instrument through whose sacrifices España may be regenerated. In his Last Will and Testament, he looked back at his life so posterity may accept "the elements of sacrifice it contains in insufficient compensation for what selfishness and vanity there has been in much of my life": "I wish that my blood be the last of the Spanish blood spilled due to civil discords." Despite all the bloodshed since then, all the trying times the country has since faced, España can reflect with pride on having produced such a noble and patriotic soul. So too can his guiding principles apply to these current problems, as he imbibed these from the very soil that nurtured him. José Antonio es el ausente pero no el olvidado.
[Addendum: Within a month of this article, I was stunned to hear about the untimely death of Simon Harris, an Englishman resident in Barcelona, who did excellent work translating and publishing the speeches and writings of José Antonio - several of which I link to in this tribute. Harris' videos on the contemporary situation within Spain further fueled my passion for the Spanish aspect of my heritage, and we corresponded a few times on YouTube. He added his own crucial work in the broader effort of José Antonio for both Spain and all Europe! And the bright future that will ultimately come about will be partly due to him, for it was his expressed desire to make the world a better place than it was previously. My thoughts go out to his family and may he rest in peace. Gone but not forgotten, as his work lives on in the thousands he inspired, myself included. - Sean Jobst]
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