In 1934 a new interior minister in the right wing government that took power in late 1933, Salazar Alonzo, declared a state of emergency and the right wing CEDA movement that supported the government demanded extreme action against striking peasants and workers. A new fascist party, the FalangeFalange Full Description:The Spanish fascist party, founded in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera (son of a former dictator). The Falange combined Italian-style fascist aesthetics with Spanish Catholic traditionalism and a rhetoric of national regeneration. After Primo de Rivera’s execution by the Republicans in 1936, Franco absorbed the Falange into his broader Nationalist coalition, making it the sole legal political party under his dictatorship. Critical Perspective:The Falange was a minor party before the war—it won only 0.7% of the vote in 1936. Franco did not need fascism to win; he needed its symbols, its paramilitary style, and its international connections. By absorbing the Falange, Franco created a “movement” that masked his real power base: the army, the Church, and conservative landowners. Spanish fascism was thus a Frankenstein’s monster—engineered by a general who had little personal commitment to fascist ideology but understood its usefulness as a legitimizing myth. , formed in early 1934 to wage a bloody war against the left, believing in the ‘bullet and the fist’ as tools to preserve Spain from the spectre of socialism. The Falange would usher in a new phase of violent class confrontation in Spain.

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