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Notes
Introduction
1 R. Griffin, The
Nature of Fascism, London: Routledge, 1991, p. 1.
2 Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, pp. 32-8.
3 J. Ortega y Gasset, España invertebrada, Madrid: Revista de Occidente
en Alianza Editorial, 1981, p. 2.
4 ‘Norma Programática de la Falange’, in J.A. Primo de Rivera, Textos de
doctrina política, Madrid: DN de la SF de FET y de las JONS, 1966, p.
339.
5 ‘Mientras España duerme la siesta’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p.
619.
6 ‘Acerca de la Revolución’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 664.
7 ‘Norma Programática de la Falange’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, pp.
341-2.
8 ‘Puntos iniciales’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 93.
9 J.P. Fusi, Franco. Autoritarismo y poder personal, Madrid: Ediciones
El País, 1985, p. 50.
10 The 1934 Statutes of the Falange set out its structure as comprising:
members (afiliados), local centres (JONS), provincial and national
centres (jefaturas provinciales y territoriales), heads of Falangist
departments (Jefes de Servicios), deputy leader (Secretario General), a
political committee (Junta Política), a national council (Consejo
Nacional) and the leader (Jefe del Movimiento). R. Chueca, El fascismo
en los comienzos del régimen de Franco: un estudio sobre FET-JONS,
Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1983, pp. 411-12.
11 Its title changed to reflect its merger with the other major party of
the Right, the Carlists, or Traditionalists. Its full name was now FET y
de las JONS (Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS).
12 The Stabilization Plan was a counter-measure to the economic crisis
of 1956, when Spain was on the point of bankruptcy, with rising
inflation and a severe balance of payments deficit. S. Payne, The Franco
Regime 1936-1975, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1987, pp.
469-71.
13 The Republican Constitution disestablished the Church and sought to
curb its power. Legislation was passed in 1933 to remove all religious
orders from primary and secondary teaching. A. Shubert, A Social History
of Modern Spain, London: Unwin Hyman, 1990, p. 167.
14 C. Borderías Mondéjar, Entre líneas. Trabajo e identidad femenina en
la España contemporánea -- La Compañía Telefónica 1924-1980, Barcelona:
Icaria Editorial S.A., 1993, p. 67. The percentage of women working had
fallen since 1900, from 14.51 per cent in 1900 to 9.16 per cent in 1930.
Ibid. The Spanish term ‘población activa’ is interpreted as referring to
those in work and those seeking it.
15 Borderías Mondéjar, Entre líneas, p. 60. The figures relate to
illiteracy among the adult female population and girls over ten years
old. The figure for male illiteracy is shown elsewhere at 19.5 per cent.
S. Payne, Spain’s First Democracy: The Second Republic 1931-36, Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1993, p. 86.
16 Payne, Spain’s First Democracy, p. 24.
17 The foremost political group was the CEDA, the alliance of Catholic
conservative groups. Another right-wing force was the Carlists, whose
Women’s Section (the margaritas) had, from 1931, campaigned against the
anti-clerical legislation.
18 Historial de Pilar Primo de Rivera, Real Academia de la Historia,
Archivo de la Asociación Nueva Andadura, Carpeta 108-b, doc. 5.
19 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(February 1938; October 1938).
20 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(September 1938).
21 Ibid.
22 FET y de las JONS, La Sección Femenina: historia y organización,
Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, 1952, p. 14; SF de FET y de las JONS,
Concentración nacional de las falanges femeninas en honor del Caudillo y
del ejército español, Bilbao: Talleres Gráficos de Jesús Alvarez, 1939,
p. 13.
23 FET y de las JONS, La Sección Femenina: historia y organización, p.
20. The figure probably refers to the total number helping the war
effort in various capacities within the institutions of SF.
24 Following the Decree of Unification, the women of the Carlists were
organized into the department of Fronts and Hospitals, with the mandate
to manage all relief work at the fronts. The department was dissolved at
the end of the war. M. Gallego Méndez, Mujer, Falange y franquismo,
Madrid: Taurus, 1983, pp. 57-8.
25 ‘Lo femenino y la Falange’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 538.
26 ‘Discurso de la fundación de Falange Española’, in Primo de Rivera,
Textos, p. 68.
27 M. Sanz Bachiller, La mujer y la educación de los niños, Madrid:
Ediciones Auxilio Social, FET y de las JONS, 1939, p. 79.
28 Sanz Bachiller, La mujer, p. 94.
29 After the end of the Civil War, work began on a massive memorial and
basilica in honour of the (Nationalist) dead, on a site north of Madrid
in the Guadarrama mountains. P. Preston, Franco, London: HarperCollins,
1993, p. 351. Its basilica later housed Franco’s own tomb. Payne, The
Franco Regime, p. 225.
30 Pilar’s speech at the 1956 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1956, p. 5.
31 Franco’s speech at the rally in Medina del Campo, 1939, in Revista
‘Y’ (June 1939).
1 Starting the Revolution: SF’s programme for all women
1 H. Graham, ‘Women and Social Change’, in H. Graham and J. Labanyi
(eds.), Spanish Cultural Studies: an Introduction, Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1995, p. 101.
2 For example, in Italy, legislation in 1938 which gave women workers
maternity rights was accompanied by progressive limits set on the
employment of women in state and private offices. V. de Grazia, ‘How
Mussolini Ruled Italian Women’, in G. Duby and M. Perrot (eds.), A
History of Women: Towards a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century,
Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994, pp. 140-1. In Nazi
Germany, women were excluded from universities and many professions
between 1933 and 1935. G. Bock, ‘Nazi Gender Policies and Women’s
History’, in Duby and Perrot (eds.), A History of Women, p. 159.
3 In Italy, there were organizations for urban middle-class women (fasci
femminili), for peasant women (massaie rurali), working-class women (Sezione
Operaie e Lavoratrici a Domicilio) and for youths and students. V. de
Grazia, ‘How Mussolini Ruled Italian Women’, in Duby and Perrot (eds.),
A History of Women, pp. 140, 142. In Nazi Germany, there was an elite
group, in charge of mobilizing the masses (NS-Frauenschaft) and an
association of auxiliary groups which organized activities at a local
and regional level (Deutsches Frauenwerk). J. Stephenson, The Nazi
Organisation of Women, London: Croom Helm, 1981, pp. 14-15, 17.
4 M. Richards, A Time of Silence. Civil War and the Culture of
Repression in Franco’s Spain, 1936-1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998, p. 18.
5 Franco’s speech to SF in Medina del Campo, 30 May 1939, in SF de FET y
de las JONS, Consejos nacionales (libro primero), Madrid: SF de FET y de
las JONS, n.d., p. 99.
6 ‘Acerca de la Revolución’, in Haz, no. 9, 12 October 1934, in J.A.
Primo de Rivera, Textos de doctrina política, Madrid: DN de SF de FET y
de las JONS, 1996, p. 664.
7 Arriba, 23 May 1939.
8 ‘La Falange llama a todas las mujeres de España’, leaflet, n.p.: FET y
de las JONS, 1937, n.p.
9 Ibid.
10 Interview with Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA), member (a), 21
February 1996.
11 ‘Una escuela de hogar en la prisión de las mujeres en Ventas’, in
Revista ‘Y’ (April 1941).
12 Deaths of children up to the age of five years old accounted in that
year for 29 per cent of all deaths in Spain. Of the causes of death,
infectious diseases in general (classified as typhoid, smallpox,
measles, scarlet fever, spotted fever, whooping cough, diphtheria,
influenza, tuberculosis, meningitis, pneumonia, puerperal septicaemia)
accounted for 24 per cent of total mortality, and enteritis and
diarrhoea a further 10.7 per cent. Departamento de Estadísticas
Sanitarias, Resumen de la natalidad y mortalidad en el año 1932, Madrid:
Dirección General de Sanidad, 1933, pp. 30-6.
13 D. Bussy Genevois, ‘El retorno de la hija pródiga: mujeres entre lo
público y lo privado (1931-1936)’, in P. Folguera (ed.), Otras visiones
de España, Madrid: Editorial Pablo Iglesias, 1993, p. 116.
14 A. Sanz, ‘Escuelas del Hogar’, in Revista ‘Y’ (February 1940).
15 Dr Blanco Soler’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF de
FET y de las JONS, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), Madrid: SF de
FET y de las JONS, n.d., pp. 33-4.
16 S. Ellwood, Spanish Fascism in the Franco Era: Falange Española de
las JONS 1936-76, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987, p. 34. Onésimo Redondo
had been the co-founder of the syndicalist organization, the Juntas de
Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (JONS). The JONS fused with the Falange
in 1934. Ellwood, Spanish Fascism, pp. 11, 15.
17 M. Orduña Prada, El Auxilio Social (1936-1940): la etapa fundacional
y los primeros años, Madrid: Escuela Libre Editorial, 1996, p. 197.
18 The training period was 216 hours, split into three-hour daily
sessions (Monday to Saturday), of two practical and one theory class. Of
the 216 hours, 77 per cent of the time was spent on domestic subjects
including childcare, 11 per cent on politics, and 5.5. per cent each on
religion and music. DN de la SF, Plan de formación, Madrid: Afrodisio
Aguado, 1942, p. 167.
19 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), p. 11.
20 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), p. 12.
21 Social service figures were first produced in 1940, for which year SF
claimed that 31,397 women had been awarded certificates of completion.
SF, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 188. The issue is discussed
further in Chapter 5.
22 This changed later from the 1960s, when greater numbers of women
began to want passports and driving licences. In the 1940s, in country
areas where the local SF had few training facilities, the certificate
was often obtainable by presenting a set of baby clothes to the
authorities. It was of course possible for mothers and grandmothers to
do the sewing! Interview with Conchita Valladolid Barazal, 27 October
1995.
23 M. Nash, ‘Maternidad, maternología y reforma eugénica en España
(1900-1939)’, in G. Duby and M. Perrot (eds.), Historia de las mujeres
en Occidente, vol. 5, Madrid: Taurus, 1993, p. 634.
24 G. Marañón, Tres ensayos sobre la vida sexual, Madrid: Biblioteca
Nueva, 1927, pp. 100-1.
25 The first of these conferences (‘Primer Curso Eugénico Español’) was
suspended by the Primo de Rivera dictatorship as being too controversial
but the second, larger event, held in 1933 (‘Primeras Jornadas Eugénicas
Españolas’) had the support of the Republican government and comprised a
conference and separate series of lectures. Eugenics was treated as four
broad areas - the biological (latest work on evolution and genetics),
medical (reports on clinical problems and best practice in Spain),
sociological (the views of lawyers, writers, politicians and historians
on social issues such as birth control and prostitution) and finally,
educational aspects of eugenics, discussed by teachers and educational
experts. E. Noguera and L. Huerta, Libro de las primeras jornadas
eugénicas españolas: genética, eugenesia y pedagogía sexual, Madrid:
Javier Morata, 1934, pp. 9-10.
26 Marañón, Tres ensayos, p. 105.
27 Marañón, Tres ensayos, p. 86.
28 Marañón, Tres ensayos, p. 91.
29 Dr A. Vallejo Nágera, Eugenesia de la hispanidad y regeneración de la
raza, Burgos: Editorial Española, 1937, p. 6.
30 Vallejo Nágera, Eugenesia, p .9.
31 Dr A. Vallejo Nágera, ‘Higiene psíquica de la raza’, in DN de
Deportes de FET y de las JONS, Memoria-resumen de las tareas científicas
del 1 Congreso Nacional de Educación Fisica, Madrid: Jesús López, 1943,
p. 243.
32 In 1492, Spain was fully returned to Christianity, after nearly 800
years of Moorish occupation. The only Moors allowed to remain were those
who converted to Christianity, the moriscos.
33 Dr A. Vallejo Nágera, Política racial del Nuevo Estado, San Sebastián:
Biblioteca España Nueva, 1938, p. 18.
34 Vallejo Nágera, Eugenesia, pp. 109-10.
35 Vallejo Nágera, Eugenesia, p. 67.
36 Vallejo Nágera, Política racial, p. 14.
37 Vallejo Nágera, Eugenesia, p. 118.
38 Dr J. Bosch Marín, ‘El Fuero del Trabajo y la mujer’, in Revista ‘Y’
(April 1938).
39 Ibid.
40 Arriba, 1 July 1941.
41 Loans were interest-free and a quarter share was declared redeemed
for each child born to the couple. Revista ‘Y’ (August 1941).
42 SF de FET y de las JONS, Lecciones de puericultura e higiene para
cursos de divulgadoras sanitario-rurales, Madrid: Sucesores de
Rivadeneyra, 1945, pp. 16-17, 47-9.
43 SF, Lecciones de puericultura, pp. 16-17, 23.
44 Pilar’s speech at the 1939 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1939, p. 23.
45 Ramón Serrano Suñer’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in
SF, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 88.
46 Ibid.
47 The stay varied from two to six months. The work often consisted of
looking after the children or old folk of the house, releasing the wife
to do the specialist outdoor work. Interview with ANA member (b), 30 May
1996.
48 The first SF enlaces were appointed in 1940 and in the five years
before State legislation recognized their authority within the syndical
system, there were a total of 2,800. FET y de las JONS, La Sección
Femenina: historia y organización, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, p.
129.
49 P. Willson, ‘Women in Fascist Italy’, in R. Bessel (ed.), Fascist
Italy and Nazi Germany. Comparisons and Contrasts, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1996, pp. 85-6.
50 E. Ruiz-Crespo, ‘Un bello resurgir de artesanía’, in Revista ‘Y’
(November 1940).
51 J. Hernández-Petit, ‘La escuela de capacitación’, in Revista ‘Y’
(January 1940).
52 E. Montes’ speech at the 1939 SF national conference, in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro primero), p. 79.
53 Ibid.
54 E. Ruiz-Crespo, ‘Mujeres en la ciudad’, in Medina (19 April 1942).
55 ‘¿Ha pensado usted en la posibilidad de ser artista de la radio, del
teatro o del cine?’, in Revista ‘Y’ (February 1942).
56 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘¿Cuáles son los objetivos primordiales de la
educación de la mujer contemporánea?’, in Pueblo, May 1948, in P. Primo
de Rivera, Discursos, circulares, escritos, Madrid: SF de FET y de las
JONS, n.d., p. 258.
57 E. Neville, ‘Cartas a las camaradas’, in Revista ‘Y’ (June 1938).
58 Regiduría Central de Educación Física, 1945. Real Academia de la
Historia, Archivo de la Asociación Nueva Andadura, carpeta 41, doc. 3.
59 Ibid.
60 P. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una vida, Madrid: Dyrsa, 1983, p.
279.
61 For example national women’s athletics competitions held in 1931 and
won by Catalan women or women’s gymnastic championships held in Madrid.
Informaciones (26 October 1931), p. 8; Mujer (7 November 1931), p. 5.
62 Mujer (7 November 1931), p. 3.
63 ‘Por una raza mejor’, in Arriba, 5 October 1943.
64 It was introduced, along with political and domestic education, in
1941 but in practice was not taught in primary or secondary schools
until 1948. Previous to this, the majority of women and girls engaged in
sport organized by SF were youth or adult members and, from 1946, women
doing their social service (for whom it became a compulsory component of
the training course). Teacher training in physical education had started
during the war with courses run in Santander and continued to expand
with the opening of a training college in Madrid. This later became the
SF National School of Physical Education. Additionally, from 1947,
physical education became a part of teacher training courses. FET y de
las JONS, La Sección Femenina: historia y organización, p. 98.
65 Agosti began advising the SF during the war. He had certainly seen
both sides of the political coin, having been in the national athletics
squad in the anti-fascist Antwerp Workers’ Olympics of 1937. Primo de
Rivera, Recuerdos, p. 279. He subsequently visited Nazi Germany at least
twice in his capacity as SF adviser. Dr L. Agosti, ‘Educación física
femenina - papel de la mujer en deportes’, in DN de Deportes de FET y de
las JONS, Memoria-resumen, pp. 143, 152.
66 L. Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina y su tiempo,
Madrid: Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1992, p. 156.
67 Ibid.
68 C. Cadenas, ‘La educación física femenina’, in DN de Deportes de FET
y de las JONS, Memoria-resumen, p. 438.
69 Dr Luque, ‘Futuras madres’, in Revista ‘Y’ (February 1938).
70
Gimnasiarca, ‘Cultura física’, in Revista ‘Y’ (June 1938). There are
similar exercises in SF de FET y de las JONS, Lecciones de educación
física de 1°, 2°. Enseñanza y comercio, Madrid: Fareso, 1964, pp. 26,
109.
71 Bund Deutscher Mädel, the League of German girls, was the female
branch of the Hitler Youth for girls over fourteen.
72 C. Werner, ‘Cartas de Alemania’, in Revista ‘Y’ (March 1938). A
former mando with experience of the German women’s organization made the
same point to me, explaining SF’s stance: ‘What we had in common was a
love for our country and the desire to make it great and to achieve
greater social justice. We also shared a rejection of communism. But
there were big differences, because our ideology was based on the
essential meaning of life, with Christianity as its base. We weren’t
racists or imperialists in the material sense. The Germans had as their
objective the supremacy of the State and the race, ours was the human
being as a “bearer of eternal values”.’ Interview with Julia Alcántara,
26 October 1994, and reply to questionnaire sent.
73 Interview with ANA member (c), 31 May 1995.
74 Interview with ANA member (d), 21 February 1996.
75 Regiduría de Educación Física, ‘Sobre la formación moral de la mujer,
que debe ser la base de su formación física’, 1940. Real Academia de la
Historia, Archivo de la Asociación Nueva Andadura, carpeta 41, doc. 41.
76 Dr L. Agosti, ‘Educación física femenina - papel de la mujer en los
deportes’, in DN de Deportes de FET y de las JONS, Memoria-resumen, pp.
143-4.
77 DN de la SF, Regiduría Central de Educación Física, Emblema de
aptitud física: reglamento, Madrid: Magerit, 1959, p. 8. To put the
question of athletics in context, it is worth stating that opposition to
women’s participation was not confined to Spain. The 1928 Olympic Games
were the first to include any women’s competitive athletic events. J.
Hargreaves, ‘Women and the Olympic Phenomenon’, in A. Tomlinson and G.
Whanel (eds.), Five-ring Circus, London: Pluto Press, 1984, p. 59.
78 L. Agosti, Gimnasia educativa, Madrid: Talleres del Instituto
Geográfico y Estatal, 1948, p. 726.
79 Dr L. Agosti, ‘Educación física femenina - papel de la mujer en los
deportes’, in DN de Deportes de FET y de las JONS, Memoria-resumen, p.
144.
80 Ibid.
81 SF, ‘Resumen de la labor realizada por la S.F. en el año 1940’, in
Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 185.
82 Interview with ANA member (e), 27 May 1996.
83 In the collective memory, the influence of Italy was more decisive
than that of Germany but no evidence has been found to support this
view. However, part of the work of Social Aid, the Protection of the
Mother and Child, was undoubtedly based on the Italian ONMI (Opera
Nazionale per la maternità ed infanzia).
84 Between 1938 and 1942 there are press and journal accounts of sixteen
visits made by members of SF to the Axis countries, of which thirteen
were to Germany. Pilar Primo de Rivera took part in eight, visiting
Italy, Portugal and Austria as well as Germany. Significant visits for
the development of SF programmes were those of the national youth
leader, Carmen Werner, to Germany and her successor to the post, Julia
Alcántara, to the German girls’ national training school in 1938. In
1939 nineteen mandos went for three months to study how the German
organization had set up its domestic schools and fifty SF provincial
delegates attended and performed at the ‘Strength through Joy’
celebrations. In 1942, representatives from the SF choirs and dances
groups performed for Blue Division soldiers convalescing in German war
hospitals. Also in 1942, members of the Town and Country department went
to study German agricultural methods. Revista ‘Y’ (February, May,
December 1938; January, July 1939; December 1940; January, October
1942). Arriba (21 July 1939; 28 August, 7 October 1941; 3 July, 4 July,
22 August, 29 August, 13 September 1942).
85 Interview with Julia Alcántara, 26 October 1994.
86 SF statistics record that by 1941, 57 domestic schools and 2,332
literacy schools were in operation. SF, Consejos nacionales (libro
segundo), p. 233.
2 The construction of ideology: icons, rituals and private spaces
1 R. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, Routledge: London, 1991, p. 27.
2 ‘Falange Española de las JONS no es un movimiento fascista’, in J.A.
Primo de Rivera, Textos de doctrina política, Madrid: DN de la SF de FET
y de las JONS, 1966, p. 395.
3 Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, p. 38.
4 ‘Sobre Cataluña’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 110.
5 ‘Mientras España duerme la siesta’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p.
619.
6 M. Richards, A Time of Silence. Civil War and the Culture of
Repression in Franco’s Spain, 1936-1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998, p. 7.
7 Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, p. 17.
8 The 1934 manifesto of SF in ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in
Revista ‘Y’ (April 1938).
9 M. Gallego Méndez, Mujer, Falange y franquismo, Madrid: Taurus, 1983,
p. 29; SF de FET y de las JONS, Concentración nacional de las falanges
femeninas en honor del Caudillo y del ejército español, Bilbao: Talleres
Gráficos de Jesús Alvarez, 1939, p. 12.
10 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(February and March 1938). The José Antonio stamp was created at the
beginning of the war to fund the SF laundries at the battle fronts and
to provide war comforts to soldiers. SF de FET y de las JONS, Consejos
nacionales (libro primero), Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, n.d., n.p.
It continued after 1939 as a general fund-raiser for the organization.
11 Interview with Enrique de Sena, 3 June 1995. The Falange anthem spoke
of returning soldiers bearing flags of victory and five roses (each
representing one of the Falange arrows). The woman of the anthem waited
patiently at home for her absent husband or fiancé.
12 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(February 1938).
13 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(March and May 1939).
14 D. Ridruejo, Casi unas memorias, Barcelona: Planeta, 1976, p. 103.
15 Ridruejo, Casi unas memorias, p. 102.
16 He gave advice and helped her with ‘literary tasks’. Ridruejo, Casi
unas memorias, p. 83. He was also one of her principal speech writers.
Interview with Jesús Suevos, 30 May 1997.
17 Interview with Jesús Suevos, 30 May 1997. He believes that the idea
was possibly inspired by a historical precedent. The sixteenth-century
king of Portugal, Sebastian, had died in battle against the Moors but
his death was concealed from the Portuguese people, who believed for
many months that he would return. It was possible that news of José
Antonio’s death had not reached some villages in Nationalist zones, but
most people knew.
18 Pilar’s speech at the 1937 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1939, p. 15.
19 The Falange Secretary-General’s speech at the 1938 SF national
conference, in SF, Consejos nacionales (libro primero), p. 55.
20 The early members of Falange before it was joined with the
Traditionalists were known as ‘old shirts’ (camisas viejas). Those
joining after Unification were ‘new shirts’ (camisas nuevas). After the
Civil War, when Franco renamed the Falange the National Movement,
camisas viejas and camisas nuevas continued to describe themselves as
Falangists. The word became synonymous with belief in the early aims of
the Falange and the doctrines of José Antonio. In this context, SF (with
its national leader a camisa vieja), considered itself the most
Falangist part of the National Movement.
21 Interview with Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 22 February 1996.
22 The Alicante prison was dubbed the ‘House of José Antonio’, and Pilar
was presented with the lock of her brother’s first cell in the Model
Prison in Madrid, to be placed there. Arriba, 16 February 1941.
23 I. Gibson, En busca de José Antonio, Barcelona: Planeta, 1980, p.
248.
24 Ian Gibson has pointed out the precedent of the burial in 1478 of
Philip the Fair, whose body was similarly transported across Spain to
Granada, accompanied by his wife, Juana the Mad. Ibid. On Holy Day
processions, the figure of Christ was sometimes represented as a body in
a coffin. Interview with Msgr. Ronald Hishon, 5 December 1996.
25 S. Ros y A. Bouthelier, A hombros de la Falange, Madrid: Ediciones
Patria, 1940, pp. 36, 62.
26 N. González Ruiz, José Antonio, biografía e ideario, Madrid:
Editorial Redención, 1940, p. 31.
27 P. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de José Antonio, conferencia
pronunciada por Pilar Primo de Rivera en el Club “Mundo”, Barcelona: DN
de la SF del Movimiento, 1973, p. 15.
28 Gibson, En busca de José Antonio, pp. 228-32.
29 Interview with Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996.
30 Interview with José María Gutiérrez del Castillo, 19 February 1996;
Pilar’s speech at the 1958 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1958, p. 5.
31 Interview with Enrique de Aguinaga, 22 February 1996.
32 The 1937 conference was the blueprint for SF’s future annual
gatherings. Conferences took place at the beginning of January and
lasted five days. They were attended by provincial leaders and
specialist staff working in the national office. They included visiting
speakers from the Falange or Church officials connected with SF.
Sessions were either lectures or reports from provincial staff.
Conferences were a forum for debate, and decisions on organizational
matters were taken by those attending. From 1952, the conferences were
biennial.
33 E. Hobsbawm describes invented traditions as ‘a set of practices,
normally governed by overtly or tacitly accepted rules and of a ritual
or symbolic nature, which seek to inculcate certain values and norms of
behaviour by repetition, which automatically implies continuity with the
past’. E. Hobsbawm, ‘Introduction: Inventing Traditions’, in E. Hobsbawm
and T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition, Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1983, p. 1.
34 Richards, A Time of Silence, pp. 72-3.
35 1937 Salamanca-Valladolid; 1938 Segovia-Avila; 1939 Zamora-León.
36 ‘Discurso de proclamación de Falange Española de las JONS’, in Primo
de Rivera, Textos, p. 189.
37 SF, Consejos nacionales (libro primero), p. 8.
38 Pilar’s speech at the 1947 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1947, p. 3.
39 SF, Consejos nacionales (libro primero), pp. 8, 24.
40 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, n.d., p.
14.
41 SF published a
two-volume chronicle of its first six conferences, describing both the
conferences themselves and SF’s activities in the year.
42 The aldermen were members of the town council. Many were from the
lower and middle ranks of the nobility. J-P. Amalric, B. Bennassar, J.
Pérez and E. Témime, Léxico histórico de España siglos XVI a XX, Madrid:
Taurus, 1982, p. 186.
43 By the early 1950s, the national departments (regidurías) of the
service hierarchy were as follows: Administration (SF budget and
salaries, maintenance and furniture; Training (political and religious
education, travelling schools); Personnel (membership issues); Youth
Wing (youth members, summer camps); Culture (domestic and literacy
schools, libraries, music, choirs and dances); Physical Education
(gymnastics, sports and games, dance); Health and Welfare (nurse
training, health and welfare training, health centres, vaccination
campaigns, sanatoria); Town and Country (agricultural schools, workers’
syndicates, promotion of craft skills); Social Service (management of
the social service scheme); Press and Propaganda (journals, promotional
and training material); Foreign Service (cultural and political links
with foreign countries, especially Latin America, scholarships to
foreign students, ‘Medina’ Cultural Circles); Students’ Syndicate
(political and domestic education for university students, halls of
residence, hostels for secondary pupils). FET y de las JONS, La Sección
Femenina: historia y organización, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1952, pp. 39-179. Apart from the Foreign Service and the Students’
Syndicate, each of the departments also functioned in every province,
with a provincial specialist (regidora provincial). At local level there
were no departments, but SF specialists worked in a village or an urban
neighbourhood. The only staff common to all local areas were the health
workers (divulgadoras) and the youth workers (instructoras de juventudes).
In urban neighbourhoods, there were extra SF instructors specifically in
charge of cultural activities such as the choirs and dances. From 1950,
there were also SF rural instructors (instructoras rurales) working in
many villages. Also working at local level were SF’s specialist
instructors who delivered programmes of domestic, physical and political
education in schools. The numbers and distribution of these staff varied
according to the location of schools. Increasingly, they were not
‘separate’ SF staff, but mainstream teachers qualified to teach SF
specialisms. They too were dependent on their respective provincial
offices (Culture, Physical Education, Training). In the course of the
1950s, there were some changes to the nomenclature, but the basic
structure remained.
44 Circular no. 85 from the Secretary-General of the Movement
established the awards (Decree of 27 October 1939). This was later
broadened in scope (Decree of 9 March 1942). The award of ‘Y’ was at
three levels - gold, silver and red, either individual or collective. In
1945, a green ‘Y’ youth award was added. In that year, thirty-five youth
awards were made. Reply to questionnaire to Asociación Nueva Andadura,
January 1995.
45 SF, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 93.
46 ‘Discurso de clausura del segundo Consejo Nacional de la Falange’, in
Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 721.
47 C. Werner, Formación familiar y social, tercera edición, Madrid:
Ediciones de la SF, Departamento de Cultura, 1946, p. 247.
48 Jesús Suevos’ speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF,
Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 77.
49 ‘Resumen del discurso pronunciado en el gran teatro Córdoba el día 12
de mayo de 1935’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 549.
50 SF de FET y de las JONS, Enciclopedia elemental, Madrid: E. Giménez,
1959, p. 118 (programme of political education for social service
courses).
51 Pilar’s lesson to flechas about to join SF, in P. Primo de Rivera,
Discursos, circulares, escritos, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, n.d.,
p. 183.
52 Contributors in 1938 included Luis Rosales, Dionisio Ridruejo, Eugenio
D’Ors, Concha Espina and Carmen de Icaza.
53 The interchanging of the letters ‘i’ and ‘y’ was common in
fifteenth-century Castilian. In 1492, the grammarian Nebrija had made a
further symbolic connection between the initials of Ferdinand and
Isabella and the icons associated with them - the arrows (Flechas) of
Ferdinand and the yoke (Yugo) of Isabella. M. Ballesteros Gaibrois, La
letra ‘Y’ - su historia y presente, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, n.d.,
pp. 21-3, 46.
54 Ballesteros Gaibrois, La letra ‘Y’, pp. 49-50.
55 SF headquarters were in Almagro 36, now the Institute of the Woman.
56 SF de FET y de las JONS, Escuela Mayor de Mandos ‘José Antonio’,
Castillo de La Mota mayo 1942 - mayo 1962, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1962, n.p.
57 Beatriz Galindo (1451-1534) was Isabella’s tutor of Latin and
literature. She became known as La Latina, and after Isabella’s death
founded a charity hospital in Madrid, also known as La Latina. M. Sanz
Bachiller, Mujeres de España, Madrid: Textos Escolares Aguado, 1940, pp.
49-51.
58 Interview with Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA) member (f), 22
February 1996.
59 SF de FET y de las JONS, Reglamento para Escuelas Nacionales de
formación de mandos y especialidades de la S.F.
60 Interview with ANA member (g), 19 February 1996.
61 P. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una vida, Madrid: Dyrsa, 1983, p.
177.
62 Pilar’s speech at the 1938 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, p. 5.
63 Pilar’s speech at the 1947 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, pp. 5-6.
64 Up until 1956, it trained ‘general instructors’, SF personnel who
would work part-time or on a peripatetic basis in schools teaching the
special SF subjects of political and social education and often,
domestic science and physical education. General instructors also ran SF
local youth activities and worked in SF summer camps. After 1956, Las
Navas became a teacher training college. Students continued to gain
general instructor status as part of their overall training. Reply to
questionnaire to Asociación Nueva Andadura, January 1995.
65 The ‘Agricultural School: Hermanas Chabás’ opened in Valencia in
1941. FET y de las JONS, La Sección Femenina: historia y organización,
p. 120. The ‘National Specialist Training School: Santa Teresa’ opened
in 1960 and trained nurses, welfare workers and teachers of music and
physical education. The first travelling school (cátedra ambulante) was
named after Franco, the national agricultural school after the leader of
the JONS, Onésimo Redondo, and a second national specialist school after
the Falangist and war hero, Julio Ruiz de Alda.
66 G. Sorel, Reflections on Violence, London: Collier-Macmillan, 1961,
quoted in Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, p. 28.
67 José Antonio, ‘Discurso de la fundación de Falange Española’, in
Primo de Rivera, Textos, p. 68.
3 Modernity and reaction: SF and religion
1 Azaña’s speech in the Spanish Parliament, 13 October 1931, in A.
Shubert, A Social History of Modern Spain, London: Unwin Hyman, 1990, p.
160.
2 In this sense, in Raymond Carr’s words: ‘The Republic was not
“persecuting the church” but taking away the privileges that had made it
the stronghold and nursery of political reaction.’ R. Carr, Spain
1808-1975, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982, p. 607.
3 Shubert, A Social History, p. 168.
4 The
religious dimension was explicit in the organization’s principles,
members’ oath and its ceremonial prayers. ‘Puntos iniciales’, in J.A.
Primo de Rivera, Textos de doctrina política, Madrid: DN de la SF de FET
y de las JONS, 1966, pp. 92-3.
5 ‘Puntos iniciales’, 7 December 1933, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p.
93.
6 ‘Puntos iniciales’, 7 December 1933, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, pp.
92-3.
7 F. Lannon, Privilege, Persecution, and Prophecy: The Catholic Church
in Spain 1875-1975, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987, p. 199.
8 C. Werner, Formación familiar y social, tercera edición, Madrid:
Ediciones de la SF, Departamento de Cultura, 1946, p. 251.
9 Pilar’s speech at the 1939 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1939, p. 21.
10 C. de Icaza, ‘Quehaceres de María y de Marta en la España Nueva’, in
Revista ‘Y’ (March 1938).
11 ‘Discurso de la fundación de Falange Española’, in Primo de Rivera,
Textos, pp. 66-7.
12 M. Junquera, in José Antonio, fundador y primer jefe de la Falange,
capitán de luceros, !presente!, número extraordinario del Boletín
Sindical, Madrid: Departamento Nacional de Prensa y Propaganda Sindical,
1942, n.p.
13 J.M. Amado, Vía-Crucis, Málaga: Editorial Dardo, 1938, n.p.
14 R. Garriga, El Cardenal Segura y el nacional-catolicismo, Barcelona:
Planeta, 1977, p. 262.
15 Arriba, 29 October 1940.
16 ‘Escuela de Jefes’, in Revista ‘Y’ (July-August 1938).
17 Pilar’s speech at the 1942 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p., SF de FET y de las JONS,
1942, p. 13.
18 Interview with Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA) member (h), 27 May
1996.
19 Interview with ANA member (e), 27 May 1996.
20 Corona de sonetos, Madrid: Ediciones Jerarquía, 1939, a collection of
twenty-five sonnets by, among others, Dionisio Ridruejo, Manuel Machado,
Gerardo Diego and Fray Justo Pérez de Urbel.
21 P. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una vida, Madrid: Dyrsa, 1983, p.
133.
22 By 1938, compulsory religious education in schools had been
reintroduced, with the promise of a new religiously inspired secondary
school curriculum. S. Payne, The Franco Regime 1936-75, Madison:
University of Wisconsin Press, 1987, p. 207.
23 Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos, p. 134.
24 Fray Justo entered religious life at the age of fifteen, was ordained
at the abbey of Silos and in 1958 became the first abbot of the Valley
of the Fallen. He was on friendly terms with the Primate, Cardinal Gomá,
and the papal nuncio, Monsignor Cicognani. He published around fifty
books, most notably a history of Castile, and was associated with
literary figures who came to be prominent Falangists, such as Gerardo
Diego and Eugenio D’Ors. M. Garrido Bonaño, OSB, Fray Justo y los
hombres de su tiempo, Valle de los Caídos: Abadía de la Santa Cruz,
1983, pp. 10-13, 26, 70-1, 116, 120, 168.
25 Fray Justo’s speech at the 1945 SF provincial conference, in FET y de
las JONS, Consejos provinciales de la Sección Femenina, Madrid: FET y de
las JONS, 1945, pp. 69-70.
26 For example, Pilar consulted Fray Justo about whether SF should
include competitive swimming in its sports programme. The issue was
whether the special swimming costume worn for such events but recognized
by Pilar as not being ‘a moral garment’ compromised SF’s ethos. Letter
from Pilar to Fray Justo, 5 July 1939, Archivo de Santa Cruz, J-P 4, G.
He intervened personally in disciplinary matters (Garrido Bonaño, OSB,
Fray Justo, p. 110). He was also asked to resolve a local difficulty of
morale. Letter from Pilar to Fray Justo, 12 September 1939, Archivo de
Santa Cruz, J-P 4, G.
27 Since the
nineteenth century, the Benedictines have emphasized active
participation in the Mass and promoted the use of the prayer book.
Benedictine liturgy is based on a much older form of worship, the Mozarabic rite, dating back to the sixth century ad and still celebrated
in the Mozarabic chapel of Toledo Cathedral. Interview with Father
Manuel González, 12 August 1998.
28 Pilar’s speech at the 1939 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, p. 22.
29 Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos, p. 21.
30 Pilar’s speech at the 1942 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, p. 5.
31 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF de FET y de
las JONS, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), Madrid: SF de FET y de
las JONS, n.d., p. 12.
32 Pilar’s speech at the 1941 SF national conference in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), p. 103.
33 Lannon, Privilege, Persecution, and Prophecy, p. 23.
34 Lannon, Privilege, Persecution, and Prophecy, p. 25.
35 ‘A misa tocan, no podemos ir, que vayan los ángeles y recen por mí’.
Interview with Carmen Moreno de Vega, 28 October 1996.
36 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), pp. 12-13.
37 Religious teachings were divided into three areas: dogma, morality
and liturgy. Gregorian chant was always included in SF music courses. DN
de la SF, Plan de formación, Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, 1942, pp. 16-21,
37-44.
38 The Epistle, the Gospel, and certain of the prayers. In the order of
service for the youth members, the preparation for communion and prayer
of thanks were also in the vernacular. The SF prayer book gave
translations of the Latin responses. SF, Directorio litúrgico tercera
edición, Madrid: Delegación Nacional de la Sección Femenina y de las
JONS, 1963, pp. 19, 57.
39 SF de FET y de las JONS, Enciclopedia elemental, Madrid: E. Giménez,
1959, p. 127.
40 Interview with ANA member (g), 19 February 1996.
41 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘“Lecciones de Santa Teresa”, conferencia
pronunciada por Pilar Primo de Rivera en el Casón del Buen Retiro,
cerrando el ciclo organizado con motivo de la exposición “Santa Teresa y
su tiempo”’, pamphlet, Madrid: Ruan, 1971, p. 11.
42 Interview with Father Manuel Garrido, 27 July 1996.
43 The most comparable of these bodies was Catholic Action. It was a lay
organization and after the Civil War was split into four sections (men,
women, boys, girls), with a programme of religious and charitable works
for each. Its women’s section was hierarchically organized in a similar
way to SF.
44 Orientaciones y normas (November 1940).
45 Arriba, 11 October 1939, describing nannies who were members of
Catholic Action.
46 DN de la SF de FET y de las JONS, Personal: organización. Delegación
provincial, SF, n.d., p. 121.
47 Interview with ANA member (i), 23 February 1996.
48 DN de la SF, Escuela Nacional de instructoras de juventudes ‘Isabel
la Católica’, Madrid: Vicente Rico, 1951, n.p.
49 Interview with Carmen Martín Olmedo, 21 February 1996.
50 The same bishop in later years accepted an invitation to Las Navas
but refused to enter the chapel. Interviews with ANA members (h and e),
27 May 1996. In the event, the Abbot (Benedictine) of Samos, who was of
equivalent rank to a bishop, performed the opening ceremony. The Bishop
of Avila did not visit the chapel until after the Second Vatican
Council.
51 Bradomín,
‘Falanges juveniles en los colegios’, in Revista ‘Y’ (June 1945).
Interview with Julia Alcántara, 26 October 1994. She believes now that
the legislation was counterproductive.
52 The Federation of Religious in Education asked the Ministry of
Education to protect the ‘distressed nuns’ from these intrusions. L.
Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina y su tiempo, Madrid:
Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1992, p. 190.
53 Interview with ANA member (h), 27 May 1996.
54 Suárez Fernández, Crónica, p. 190.
55 On occasions, a little guile won the day, as in the case of the
pololos, which were deliberately made shorter over the years. Interview
with ANA member (j), 27 May 1996.
56 Interview with ANA member (h), 29 May 1996.
57 Interview with Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 22 February 1996.
58 SF de FET y de las JONS, Nace Jesús, Madrid: Ibarra, 1958, pp. 29-30.
59 Social Aid was a separate department of the Falange and its (mostly
male) staff were not connected directly with SF, despite the interest of
both bodies in health and welfare matters. Any women working for Social
Aid (for example, trained nurses, midwives, directors of orphanages) had
been given preparatory training by SF but were not necessarily members.
SF’s main point of contact was as suppliers of Social Aid’s volunteer
workers. The institutions of Social Aid provided the main work
placements for social service students.
60 FET y de las JONS, Auxilio Social desde el punto de vista religioso y
moral, Madrid: Ayala, 1940, p. 42.
61 FET y de las JONS, Auxilio Social, p. 45.
62 ‘Normas para actuaciones públicas’, circular general no. 85,
individual no. 4, 15 April 1944, in Revista Mandos (June 1944).
63 SF, II Concentración nacional de la Sección Femenina en el Escorial,
SF de FET y de las JONS, 1944, p. 32.
64 SF de FET y de las JONS, Cátedras de Sección Femenina: organización,
Madrid: Magerit, 1965, pp. 66-7.
65 Pilar’s letter to married members, Christmas 1946, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discursos, circulares, escritos, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS,
n.d., p. 294.
66 Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos, p. 243; Suárez Fernández, Crónica, p.
249.
67 Interview with ANA member (e), 29 May 1996. The national schools each
had a chaplain who led services and taught the religion classes. Other
priests were brought in at Lent to conduct meditations. At Las Navas, it
was decided to split the function of the chaplain so that he did not
teach at all. A problem had arisen because the degree of members’
spirituality (known to the chaplain) was being reflected in the marks he
gave for the taught course. The length of the courses at Las Navas made
its case an unusual one and there is no memory of the situation arising
elsewhere.
68 Circular to provincial leaders, ‘Defectos encontrados en la
inspección de Albergues, procedentes todos ellos de falta de sujeción a
las normas dadas y por defecto de no leer el Plan de Formación’, in
Primo de Rivera, Discursos, p. 286.
69 Interviews with Mercedes Fórmica, 22 February 1996; Father Manuel
Garrido, 26 July 1996.
70 Father Félix García’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, SF,
Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 67.
4 Loyalty, influence and moral authority: SF 1936-1949
1 M. Richards, A Time of Silence. Civil War and the Culture of
Repression in Franco’s Spain, 1936-1945, Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1998, p. 11.
2 P. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una vida, Madrid: Dyrsa, 1983, p.
109.
3 R. Fraser, Blood
of Spain: The Experience of Civil War, 1936-1939, London: Allen Lane,
1979, p. 318.
4 P. Preston, Las tres Españas del 36, Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1999,
p. 173.
5 In 1942, Franco established an ‘organic’ parliament with the passing
of the Ley de Cortes. The new parliament opened officially on 17 March
1943, with all national councillors as members plus a further fifty
direct appointments. This lessened the importance of the National
Council, which after its drafting of the legislation for the Labour
Charter of 1938 had little further significance. R. Chueca, El fascismo
en los comienzos del régimen de Franco: un estudio sobre FET-JONS,
Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas, 1983, pp. 222-3.
6 Pilar’s speech at the 1938 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1939, p. 6.
7 The absence of margaritas from any of the national-level posts in SF
was justified as the failure of their provincial hierarchies to suggest
candidates. Pilar’s speech to SF members and all the women of the Basque
provinces and Navarre. P. Primo de Rivera, Discursos, circulares,
escritos, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, n.d., p. 149.
8 An example is a report by Pilar to the General Secretariat of the
Movement of a correspondence between SF and Fronts and Hospitals
regarding the alleged failure of the latter to give out soldiers’
Christmas boxes provided by SF, at the right time. Fronts and Hospitals
had responded vigorously, rejecting the help offered by SF and then
submitting a complaint themselves. SF had then been asked to stop
providing the boxes, prompting Pilar to write her own complaint about
the situation. Letter from Pilar Primo de Rivera to the General
Secretariat of the Movement, 30 January 1939. Archivo de la Asociación
Nueva Andadura, carpeta 45-A, document 41.
9 Interview with Dolores Baleztena, head of the Pamplona margaritas, in
Fraser, Blood of Spain, pp. 310-11. The determination of SF members to
enter the ranks of the Fronts and Hospitals operation is noted in a
local study of the female welfare operation in Málaga. E. Barranquero
Texeira, ‘La Sección Femenina. Análisis del trabajo realizado durante la
guerra’, in (Autores Varios), Las mujeres en Andalucía: actas del 2°
encuentro interdisciplinar de estudios de la mujer en Andalucía, Málaga:
Diputación Provincial Servicio de Publicaciones, 1993, p. 298.
10 ‘La labor realizada por las Secciones Femeninas de FET y de las JONS
en las diversas dependencias sanitarias’, in SF de FET y de las JONS,
Consejos nacionales (libro primero), Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS,
n.d., pp. 35-9, 62.
11 The Ley Fundacional del Frente de Juventudes of 6 December 1940 was a
key piece of legislation for SF. It created a Youth Front, comprising a
university students’ section, and two sections for young people (schools
and the workplace). The Youth Front was given the mandate and the cash
to put into place the doctrinal, religious, pre-military (in the case of
girls, domestic) training deemed politically necessary. All young
people, even if they were not members of the separate volunteer youth
organizations, were thereby exposed to indoctrination by convinced
Falangists. J. Sáez Marín, El Frente de Juventudes: política de juventud
en la España de la postguerra (1937-1960), Madrid: Siglo veintiuno de
España editores, 1988, pp. 78-81.
12 DN de OJ, Tardes de enseñanza: formación nacional-sindicalista,
Madrid: Afrodisio Aguado, 1939, pp. 5-6.
13 Her husband, Onésimo Redondo, had joined with Ramiro Ledesma Ramos to
found the syndicalist movement which was principally in defence of the
small farmers in Castile (the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista)
in 1931. The JONS fused with the Falange in 1933.
14 S. Ellwood, Spanish Fascism in the Franco Era: Falange Española de
las JONS 1936-76, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987, p. 17.
15 Ibid.
16 J. Martínez de Bedoya, Memorias desde mi aldea, Valladolid: Ambito,
1996, pp. 105-6.
17 Interview with Mercedes Sanz Bachiller, 29 May 1997.
18 In August 1937, Mercedes spent a month in Germany, studying the
workings of the Nazi welfare organization, the NS-Volkswohlfahrt (NSV).
M. Orduña Prada, El Auxilio Social (1936-1940): la etapa fundacional y
los primeros años, Madrid: Escuela Libre Editorial, 1996, p. 144. The
NSV’s (male) leadership had full responsibility for all social welfare
projects (even when these were run by other Nazi groups) and organized
the Party nursing corps. J. Stephenson, The Nazi Organisation of Women,
London: Croom Helm, 1981, p. 147.
19 Efforts at fund-raising by the first female volunteers to the Social
Aid operation were apparently inefficient. Interview with Julio Ibáñez
Rodrigo (Social Aid provincial leader for Salamanca 1937-9), 3 June
1995.
20 Orduña Prada, El Auxilio Social, pp. 135-6.
21 From April to December 1939, the comings and goings of both women are
reported in similar fashion in Arriba. For example, 29 April, ‘Nuestras
hermanas de yugo y flechas’; 8 July, ‘La delegada nacional de Auxilio
Social regresa a Madrid’; 28 September, ‘Llega a Barcelona Pilar Primo
de Rivera’.
22 Interview with Mercedes Sanz Bachiller, 29 May 1997. Social service
as organized under Mercedes differed in some respects from its later
manifestation under SF. The decree of 7 October 1937 established a
six-month period of service as compulsory for single women between the
ages of seventeen and thirty-five. A further decree (8 November 1937)
elaborated on the conditions of service, regulations and exemptions. It
made clear that although Social Aid processed all the applications and
took charge of the detail of the placement, it had to go first via the
provincial leader of SF. The service period was to be divided into two
phases - theoretical (two months) and practical (four months). The
theoretical component would be done residentially in specially created
residences belonging to Social Aid. The practical work was to be carried
out in institutions of Social Aid, unless the woman was a member of SF,
in which case she could choose to work in any of SF’s departments.
Orduña Prada, El Auxilio Social, pp. 179-208.
23 Interview with Mercedes Sanz Bachiller, 29 May 1997.
24 Martínez de Bedoya gave up both his job and his seat on the National
Council when an offer of a ministerial post was suddenly withdrawn.
Martínez de Bedoya, Memorias, p. 139.
25 Martínez de Bedoya, Memorias, p. 142. Bedoya also recounts that
Dionisio Ridruejo tried to act as mediator between them and the ‘Madrid
Falange’, advising Mercedes to bow to Pilar’s authority.
26 Arriba, 17 January 1940, quoted in Orduña Prada, El Auxilio Social,
p. 76.
27 Interview with Julio Ibáñez Rodrigo, 3 June 1995.
28 Payne, The Franco Regime, pp. 286-7.
29 Pilar’s letter of resignation (undated) which she gave to Serrano
Suñer, quoted in Preston, Las tres Españas, p. 181.
30 Miguel Primo de Rivera was appointed Minister of Agriculture and José
Luis de Arrese became Secretary-General of Falange. In conjunction with
Girón’s move to the Ministry of Labour, these changes satisfied Pilar
and she was persuaded to carry on. Preston, Las tres Españas, p. 182.
31 P. Preston, Franco, London: HarperCollins, 1993, pp. 566-7.
32 Interview with Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 24 October 1999.
33 Ellwood, Spanish Fascism, p. 97.
34 Interview with Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA) member (b), 29 October
1997.
35 Pilar’s speech
at the 1945 SF national conference, in P. Primo de Rivera, Discurso de
Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS, 1945, pp. 3-4.
36 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
37 The programme of health visiting (divulgación), for example, was run
in collaboration with the Department of Health. The SF divulgadoras were
under the direct supervision of local doctors. A further example was the
partnership of SF and the Ministry of Agriculture in setting up the
National Agricultural School in Aranjuez in 1950. The school trained
women to work as specialists not only in SF training centres but in
government agricultural posts. DN de la SF del Movimiento, Regiduría del
Trabajo, Escuela Nacional de instructoras rurales, Madrid: Magerit,
1970, n.p.
38 Pilar reported a deficit of over 2 million pesetas to Franco and
informed him that separate fund-raising could not cover the deficit. L.
Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina y su tiempo, Madrid:
Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1992, p. 188.
39 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
40 Interview with ANA member (c), 23 October 1995.
41 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
42 On the occasion of a mass in the village of Begoña to commemorate the
deaths of Traditionalist soldiers (requetés) in the Civil War, groups of
Traditionalists and Falangists came into conflict. Tensions grew and a
bomb was thrown by the Falangists at the crowd, wounding nearly 100
bystanders. Among those present was General Varela, an outspoken critic
of the Falange who demanded the court martial of the thrower of the
bomb. Franco rightly interpreted the incident as having repercussions
beyond its immediate circumstances. In an attempt to maintain the power
balance of the Army and the Falange, he ordered the execution of the
Falangist culprit but also accepted the resignation of Varela. The
Minister of the Interior, Colonel Valentín Galarza, who had supported
Varela’s insistence on the court martial, was dismissed by Franco as
part of his balancing act. Preston, Franco, pp. 465-8.
43 Interviews with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997; 30 May 1996.
44 Interviews with Julio Ibáñez Rodrigo, 3 June 1995; ANA member (k), 24
October 1995; José Utrera Molina, 29 May 1995.
45 In 1946, there were two SF sanatoria, with capacity for around 600
girls. Suárez Fernández, Crónica, p. 185. In 1945, the equivalent male
provision was nineteen establishments with capacity for nearly 2,000
boys. DN del Frente de Juventudes, Estaciones preventoriales -
calendario que ha de regir en la campaña 1945, n.p.: Asesoría Nacional
de Sanidad.
46 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
47 The force of 18,946 volunteers left Madrid on July 13 and, after
training in Germany, finally arrived at the Russian Front in October
1941. The Blue Division remained in Russia until its disbandment in
November 1943. K-J. Ruhl, Franco, Falange y Tercer Reich; España en la
segunda guerra mundial, Madrid: Akal, 1986, pp. 25-6, 240.
48 ‘¿Qué haces tú para la División Azul?’, in Revista ‘Y’ (September
1941).
49 Each parcel contained knitted gloves and socks, balaclava, pullover,
a copy of ‘Prayers for the Front’, photos of José Antonio and Franco, a
picture of the Virgin, a Falange emblem, protective glasses, a
medallion, a bottle each of brandy, anisette and wine, nougat, marzipan,
toasted and sugared almonds, jam, tinned goods, soap, a comb and three
packets of tobacco. ‘El aguinaldo a la División Azul’, in Medina (30
November 1941).
50 Interview with Lucía del Día Valdeón, 28 October 1997.
51 Arriba, 5 July, 7 July, 9 July 1944. The speakers (all male) were
Falangists with responsibilities in the National Movement and members of
the clergy. SF de FET y de las JONS, II Concentración nacional de
la Sección Femenina en El Escorial, SF de FET y de las JONS, 1944, p.
17.
52 SF, II Concentración nacional, p. 32.
53 Interview with Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996.
54 Pilar cites many such instances. P. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una
vida, Madrid: Dyrsa, 1983, pp. 201-2.
55 A founder member of SF states that the idea behind coros y danzas was
not political but that Pilar made the most of it. Interview with
Mercedes Fórmica, 22 February 1996.
56 Pilar’s speech at the 1949 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Discursos, p. 107.
57 The sardana is the most well-known traditional dance of Catalonia;
the chistu is a traditional flute of the Basque Country.
58 Pilar’s speech at the 1939 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, p. 22.
59 Point 17, in ‘Norma programática de la Falange’, in J.A. Primo de
Rivera, Textos de doctrina política, Madrid: DN de la SF de FET y de las
JONS, 1966, p. 342.
60 Payne, The Franco Regime, p. 184.
61 The opening of the National Agricultural School in Aranjuez in 1950
was the final stage of the expansion. In the year of its opening,
forty-five women started training as rural instructors. SF de FET y de
las JONS, Labor realizada en 1951, Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1952, p. 43.
62 A number of villages destroyed in the war were rebuilt to contain an
agricultural school run by SF. In a different scheme, new villages were
built in under-developed areas of the country, giving financial
inducements to settle there and work the land. In each, SF ran a ‘rural
home’ (hogar rural) on behalf of the Ministry of Agriculture. It was a
combined domestic and rural school, connecting the community with
veterinary services, agricultural experts and doctors and was run by a
rural instructor. Interview with ANA member (b), 30 May 1996. As Michael
Richards notes, however, the scale of the colonization programmes was
small, with only 37,000 people relocated between 1939 and 1954.
Richards, A Time of Silence, p. 141.
63 The scheme continued for eight years after the dissolution of the
National Movement in 1977. The finished goods collected in 1985 were
valued at 200 million pesetas (about £820,000). Interview with ANA
member (b), 30 May 1996.
64 Pilar’s speech at the first provincial conferences of SF, 1939, in
Primo de Rivera, Discursos, p. 122.
65 Pilar’s speech at the 1947 SF national conference in Primo de Rivera,
Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS, 1947,
p. 13.
66 For example, sheets and towels - five years, blankets - fifty years,
cutlery - two hundred years. Reply to questionnaire to Asociación Nueva
Andadura, January 1995.
67 Pilar’s speech at the 1948 SF national conference in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1948, p. 14.
68 Clergy and religious working for SF were not immune from its cautious
housekeeping. In the memory of a former contributor to SF’s religious
programmes, lecture fees were not paid until the monk had presented
three signatures to verify that it had taken place. Interview with
Father Manuel Garrido, 27 July 1996.
69 There was particular hardship for day labourers, whose wages declined
by 40 per cent between the years 1940 and 1951 and for whom there was no
guaranteed length of working day. E. Sevilla Guzmán and Manuel González
de Molina, ‘Política social agraria del primer franquismo’, in J.L.
García Delgado (ed.), El primer franquismo: España durante la
segunda guerra mundial, Madrid: Siglo veintiuno editores de España,
1989, p. 164.
70 D. Ridruejo, Escrito en España, Buenos Aires: Losada, 1962, p. 103;
R. Abella, Por el imperio hacia Dios: crónica de una posguerra 1939-55,
Barcelona: Planeta, 1978, p. 117. The author believes that figures given
elsewhere (30,000 deaths from starvation between the years 1940 and
1946) understate the problem.
71 In 1937, Franco’s wartime government had set up a supply control
system for wheat in the Nationalist zone to guarantee wheat prices for
growers and ensure that the whole crop was distributed efficiently and
sold at fixed prices. But the prices offered were so low that farmers
began switching to more profitable crops or concealing some of their
crop to sell at much higher prices to black marketeers. In the case of
wheat, the black market exceeded the official supply. R.J. Harrison, The
Spanish Economy from the Civil War to the European Community, prepared
for the Economic History Society by Joseph Harrison, London: Macmillan,
1993, p. 35. The scandal was that the black market operated through the
collusion of those working directly in the State-controlled National
Wheat Service and the Commission of Supplies and Transport, as well as
people in positions of responsibility nearer the rural communities such
as mayors and civil governors. C. Barciela, ‘El mercado negro de
productos agrarios en la posguerra 1939-53’, in J. Fontana (ed.), España
bajo el franquismo, Barcelona: Grijalbo, 1984, p. 199.
72 For example the leading article in Arriba, 18 January 1941 accused
some of falsifying ration cards, thereby depriving ‘the humble classes’
of their bread ration. Revista ‘Y’ (August 1941) took a similar stand,
blaming shortages in Madrid on the fact that ration cards were not
handed in when people died.
73 Pilar’s speech at the 1938 national conference, in Primo de Rivera,
Cuatro discursos, p. 6.
74 What distinguished the Spanish black market was its duration, scale,
degree of penetration into society and its widespread acceptance as an
inevitable phenomenon. C. Barciela, ‘La España del estraperlo’, in
García Delgado (ed.), El primer franquismo, p. 106.
75 Revista ‘Y’ (August 1942).
76 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
77 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
78 Revista ‘Y’ (October 1939, August 1939).
79 Revista ‘Y’ (July 1941, February 1941, May 1941, October 1941).
80 J.L. García Delgado, ‘Estancamiento industrial e intervencionismo’,
in Fontana (ed.), España bajo el franquismo, p. 185.
81 Order circular no. 146, 15 March 1940, from the national office of SF
stated: ‘In recognition of the circumstances of Spain and because it is
not in accordance with our style all provincial and local leaders are
forbidden to give presents to their superiors. Equally, the national
leader and her deputy or any other national mando will not accept
presents given in the course of their inspections through the
provinces.’ Primo de Rivera, Discursos, p. 273.
82 Interview with Puri Barrios and Mariti Calvo, 31 October 1996.
83 E. Sevilla Guzmán and M. González de Medina, ‘Política social agraria
del primer franquismo’, in García Delgado (ed.), El primer franquismo,
p. 163.
84 The head of Town and Country remembers many battles, among them
trying to persuade women workers to understand their labour rights, of
overcoming machista attitudes of employers who frequently insulted the
female employees and of removing the discriminatory requirement that
women needed to present medical certificates before they could be
employed. Interview with ANA member (national mando), 30 May 1996.
85 The Law of Political Responsibilities, passed before the war had
ended, criminalized political activities deemed to be against the
National Movement retrospectively to 1934. Payne, The Franco Regime, pp.
221-2.
86 Interview with Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996. It went on for a year at
most and the informants, mostly children, were rewarded with sweets.
87 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997.
88 The SEM was a section of the Falange’s Education Department, set up
in 1940 as the transmission-belt for the political indoctrination of
primary teachers. It comprised a professional advisory section, a
welfare department and a general register of teachers. Anuario social de
España 1941, Madrid: Hermosilla, 1941, pp. 720-2. SEM membership was a
guarantee of immunity from the effect of political denunciations.
Interview with the former head of SEM, José María Gutiérrez del
Castillo, 19 February 1996.
89 Interview with Carmen Martín Olmedo, 21 February 1996.
90 Interview with Enrique de Sena, 3 June 1995.
91 Interview with Puri Barrios, 31 October 1996. She states that the
Basque Country and Catalonia had strong SF leadership, a point confirmed
by ANA member (b), 30 May 1996.
92 SF de FET y de las JONS, Personal: organización local, Madrid: Osca,
1962, pp. 117-18.
93 SF de FET y de las JONS, Historia y misión de la SF de FET y de las
JONS, Madrid: DN de Educación de FET y de las JONS, 1944, n.p.
94 ‘La labor realizada por las Secciones Femeninas de FET y de las JONS
en las diversas dependencias sanitarias’, in SF, Consejos nacionales (libro
primero), p. 37.
95 ‘Obra sindical del Ajuar’, in Revista ‘Y’ (June 1943).
96 ‘En la exposición de Bellas Artes: consideraciones sobre las
canastillas, el amor, los niños y el matrimonio’, in Revista ‘Y’
(February 1942).
97 Pilar’s speech at the 1941 SF national conference, in SF de FET y de
las JONS, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), Madrid: SF de FET y de
las JONS, n.d., p. 105.
5 Continuing the Revolution: SF 1945-1959
1 ‘Norma Programática de la Falange’, in J.A. Primo de Rivera, Textos de
doctrina política, Madrid: DN de la SF de FET y de las JONS, 1966, pp.
339-44.
2 ‘Norma Programática de la Falange’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p.
344.
3 R. Chueca, El fascismo en los comienzos del régimen de Franco; un
estudio sobre FET- JONS, Madrid: Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas,
1983, p. 149.
4 The Youth Front was one of the very few departments of the National
Movement that was not primarily bureaucratic and that connected directly
with both members and the unaffiliated. The content and style of
training of youth leaders was similar to that of SF mandos.
5 ‘Acerca de la Revolución’, in Haz, no. 9, 12 October 1934, in Primo de
Rivera, Textos, p. 663.
6 SF de FET y de las JONS, Instructoras rurales de la Sección Femenina:
reglamentación de sus servicios, Madrid: Vicente Rico, 1958, p. 3. As
noted in Chapter 2, the specialism of rural instructor was created after
the opening of the first national agricultural school in 1950.
7 SF, Instructoras rurales, pp. 9, 11.
8 The number of divulgadoras was at its highest in 1945, with 3,861 on
active service. But there was a sharp drop the following year and by
1951 the total had fallen to 3,100. SF de FET y de las JONS, Alcance y
acción de la Sección Femenina, Madrid: Magerit, 1953, Anejo 4, p. 29.
From 1944, divulgadoras were entitled to a monthly salary of between 75
and 100 pesetas, to be paid directly by the civil authorities and
replacing the previous grace-and-favour arrangement. Carta Circular no.
28, Madrid, 27 November 1944, from national head of Health and Welfare
to provincial leaders. Archivo General de la Administración Civil del
Estado, Sección Cultura, legajo 5066-7, no. IDD, 99.03.
9 D. Ridruejo, Escrito en España, Buenos Aires: Losada, 1962, p. 114. As
stated in Chapter 2, Dionisio Ridruejo was one of the Falangist
intellectuals and was instrumental in the organization of the early SF.
His first post in the Falange was as provincial leader of Valladolid and
following the Decree of Unification, he was appointed to the Falangist
National Council (Consejo Nacional), its Political Committee (Junta
Política) and the post of national head of propaganda. His political
views changed, however, following his return from service in Russia with
the Blue Division and a brief stay in Germany. In 1942, he resigned his
membership of the Falange and editorship of the journal Escorial.
Franco’s response to his outspoken comments was to have him placed under
house arrest and ban publication of three volumes of poetry.
Restrictions were lifted on him in 1947 and he spent two and a half
years in Italy. Once back in Spain, his continuing opposition to the
regime was not tolerated and he was imprisoned twice. Ridruejo, Escrito
en España, pp. 15-30.
10 Pilar’s speech at the 1952 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1952, p. 5.
11 Interview with Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA) member (i), 23
February 1996.
12 Pilar’s speech at the 1952 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, p. 4.
13 For example, Revista ‘Y’, ‘Fuero del trabajo de la mujer’, April
1938; ‘La Ley sindical’, February 1941; ‘Usted quiere casarse, pero
antes desea saber’, April 1941; ‘La mujer universitaria’, March 1942;
‘Préstamos de nupcialidad’, August 1941; ‘Pensamiento y trayectoria de
las vidas de mujer’, February 1942.
14 L. Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina y su tiempo,
Madrid: Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1992, p. 254.
15 Interview with Mercedes Fórmica, 22 February 1996. The detail of the
incident is quoted in the introduction of one of her novels. M. Fórmica,
A instancia de parte, Madrid: Castalia, Instituto de la Mujer, 1991, pp.
36-7. She was even more suprised to recognize the work of her team in
the text of the draft of the Law of Political, Professional and
Employment Rights of the Woman, presented to parliament by Pilar ten
years later!
16 Article 168 was redrafted to: ‘subsequent marriage of the father or
mother will not affect paternal authority’. Article 1882 of the Law of
Civil Proceedings redefined the marital home as ‘the family home’ and
the wife was able to remain there and normally awarded custody of the
children. Article 1413 was redrafted to ensure that the permission of
the woman was granted before family property was disposed of. Article
105 removed the distinction between male and female adultery. T. Loring,
‘Promoción político-social de la mujer durante los años del mandato de
Franco’, in (Autores Varios), Colección Azor de Estudios Contemporáneos,
El legado de Franco, Burgos: Fundación Nacional Francisco Franco, 1993,
pp. 593-4.
17 Interview with ANA member (b), 30 May 1996. Telephone helplines were
set up and SF spoke on radio and television to help advertise the cause;
300,000 women joined in the first three months. The scheme ‘Montepío del
Servicio Doméstico’ was created by the decree of 17 March 1959.
18 The Law of Political, Professional and Employment Rights of the
Woman, passed on 22 July 1961, gave access to women to work in most
fields, but still barred her from the Armed Forces and the judiciary and
did not remove the need for her husband to give written permission for
her to work. A decree seven months later gave women the right to
continue working after marriage, leave (with State benefits) or take
temporary leave of absence. M.A. Durán, El trabajo de la mujer en España,
Madrid: Tecnos, 1972, pp. 37-8.
19 A. de Miguel, La sociología del franquismo - análisis ideológico de
los ministros del régimen, Barcelona: Euros, 1975, p. 195.
20 In November 1945, the U.S. ambassador left Madrid and in March 1946,
the French government closed the border with Spain indefinitely. In
December of that year, the United Nations called for withdrawal of
diplomatic recognition and the British ambassador left Madrid. S. Payne,
The Franco Regime 1936-1975, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1987, pp. 356-9.
21 ‘Norma Programática de la Falange’, in Primo de Rivera, Textos, p.
339.
22 Grants were generally for higher degrees or specialist professional
courses. They covered the costs of accommodation and excursions for a
one-year period. Interview with ANA member (c), 23 October 1995. Between
the years 1947 and 1952, SF gave a total of ninety grants. It received
far fewer - seventeen between the years 1949 and 1952. SF, Alcance y
acción, p. 75.
23 S. Ellwood, Spanish Fascism in the Franco Era: Falange Española de
las JONS 1936-76, Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1987, p. 105.
24 J. Tusell, Franco y los católicos: la política interior española
entre 1945 y 1957, Madrid: Alianza, 1990, p. 311.
25 Secretary-General of the Movement’s speech at the FET y de las JONS
1953 national conference, quoted in de Miguel, La sociología del
franquismo, p. 195.
26 Jorge Jordana was appointed head of SEU in 1951 with plans to make it
more dynamic by extending its services, changing the voting procedures
and encouraging debate and cultural initiatives. M.A. Ruiz Carnicer, El
Sindicato Español Universitario (SEU), 1939-1965, Madrid: Siglo
veintiuno de España editores, 1996, pp. 247-9.
27 The SF Students’ Syndicate (Regiduría de la Sección Femenina del SEU)
never became wholly independent of the overall Falange organization, the
SEU. Up to 1951, the national head (regidora central) was hierarchically
dependent on her male boss, the national leader of SEU. Each university
district had its own mando (regidora de distrito), and local (female)
leaders for faculties and courses where women students made up more than
30 per cent of the student body. Until 1951, they did not even have the
right to take part in the election of the equivalent male mandos. After
1953, women students were permitted to stand for positions in the SEU
hierarchy, although these were largely limited to cultural rather than
political responsibilities. Ruiz Carnicer, El Sindicato Español
Universitario, pp. 480, 482.
28 Three events that year gave a platform for debate on the National
Movement: the first National Congress of Students (organized by SEU), a
National Youth Conference and the first National Conference of FET y de
las JONS. Ruiz Carnicer, El Sindicato Español Universitario, p. 273.
29 Ruiz Carnicer, El Sindicato Español Universitario, p. 278.
30 Payne, The Franco Regime, pp. 446-7.
31 Pilar’s speech at the 1956 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1956, p. 3.
32 Suárez Fernández, Crónica, p. 313.
33 Interview with ANA member (b), 29 October 1997. In May 1958, the
government published new Principles of the Movement, which replaced the
original twenty-six Programmatic Points of FET y de las JONS. They
confirmed SF’s new direction, stating that the Movement was a
‘communion’ and defining the regime as a traditional, Catholic, social
and representative monarchy. Payne, The Franco Regime, p. 455.
34 Suárez Fernández, Crónica, pp. 324-5.
35 Pilar’s speech at the 1958 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1958, p. 7.
36 Pilar’s speech
at the 1958 SF national conference, in Primo de Rivera, Discurso de
Pilar Primo de Rivera, p. 5.
37 Pilar’s speech at the 1956 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1956, p. 5.
38 Ibid.
39 The funding of the National Movement was always a tiny proportion of
the State budget. Its highest funding was in 1945 when it accounted for
1.92 per cent of total State spending. This fell sharply to 0.38 per
cent the following year. The 1958 figure of 0.21 is the lowest recorded.
Source: Presupuestos del Partido, in Chueca, El fascismo, p. 203.
40 Suárez Fernández, Crónica, pp. 167, 168, 242-3, 265.
41 Suárez Fernández, Crónica, p. 201.
42 Circular no. 329, Regiduría Central de Personal. The initial sum of
350 pesetas was raised in line with the cost of living and enabled the
schools to become self-financing. Reply to questionnaire to Asociación
Nueva Andadura, January 1995. For 1968, however, the only year for which
data is available, the base budget for SF was 287,743,503 pesetas. P.
Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos de una vida, Madrid: Dyrsa, 1983, p. 415. On
the above figures (Presupuestos del Partido (1968), in Chueca, El
fascismo, p. 203), this represented 47 per cent of the total budget of
the National Movement. Funding from other ministries was on top of this
sum.
43 Interview with Puri Barrios, 31 October 1996.
44 Arriba, 21 March 1959.
45 Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos, p. 230.
46 Interview with ANA member (c), 23 October 1995.
47 SF, Alcance y acción, Anejo 2, p. 17.
48 SF, Alcance y acción, p. 21.
49 Arriba, 31 December 1941, in R. Chueca, El fascismo, p. 311. The same
source gives the male youth membership as 564,999. Even with these
figures, membership of the male and female youth organizations
represented only a tiny percentage of the juvenile population of 1940
(12.98 per cent and 7.69 per cent respectively). Ibid.
50 FET y de las JONS, La Sección Femenina: historia y organización,
Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS, 1952, p. 63. On this calculation (using
R. Chueca’s figure of 6,497,392 for the juvenile population of 1940),
female youth membership in that year represented 0.58 per cent of that
figure.
51 Youth membership - 1948 = 58,931; 1951 = 67,310. Numbers of youth
members joining the adult organization - 1948 = 4,025; 1951 = 3,450. SF
de FET y de las JONS, Labor realizada en 1948, Madrid: Magerit, 1949, p.
40; SF de FET y de las JONS, Labor realizada en 1951, Madrid: SF de FET
y de las JONS, 1952, p. 38.
52 For example, some data gives figures for certificates for completed
service issued. Other data relates to numbers of women about to start or
those half way through. The source quoted speaks ambiguously of the
number of women ‘registered’ (encuadradas) yearly over a twenty-two-year
period. P. Primo de Rivera, La enseñanza doméstica como contribución al
bienestar de la familia española, Madrid: Comercial Española de
Ediciones, 1961, p. 27. Another SF source for the years 1940-52 gives a
total figure of 277,979 women doing social service in these years. This
is a yearly average of 23,164. SF, Alcance y acción, Anejo 1, p. 15.
53 Ibid.
54 Primo de Rivera, La enseñanza doméstica, p. 27; 1950 census, quoted
in C. Borderías, Entre líneas. Trabajo e identidad femenina en la España
contemporánea - La Compañía Telefónica 1924-80, Barcelona: Icaria, 1993,
pp. 67, 70. The Spanish term ‘población activa’ is interpreted as those
in work and those seeking it. The statistics refer to all single
women of working age, whereas social service was limited to women under
thirty-five.
55 Social service completers going on to become adult members of SF -
1948 = 260; 1951 = 630. SF, Labor realizada en 1948, p. 17; SF, Labor
realizada en 1951, p. 20.
56 SF, Labor realizada en 1948, p. 16. The figures do not include women
working in the political hierarchy (mandos políticos) as provincial and
local leaders. In Pilar’s memoirs, however, she states that there were
2,851 salaried political mandos in 1968. Primo de Rivera, Recuerdos, p.
405. Assuming that the political mando total would not vary greatly
(given that the provincial and regional structure was static), an
estimate of SF staff membership in 1948 is c.14,000. This figure (of
whom between 4,000 and 5,000 were salaried) is also the recollection of
a former national mando. Interview with ANA member (b), 30 May 1996.
57 SF, Labor realizada en 1951, pp. 18-19.
58 The first university residence (‘Santa María de la Almudena’ in
Madrid) was opened in 1959. Junior colleges started in the 1950s,
providing residential accommodation in towns to give access to secondary
education for girls from rural areas. Suárez Fernández, Crónica, pp.
344, 348. SF local and provincial centres varied in size and scope.
Villages frequently had no premises at all and SF activities centred
round the local leader. In others, premises were shared with the male
departments of the Movement in a ‘Falange house’ (Casa de Falange).
Typically, SF had at least partial use of some or all the following:
youth centre, offices, hall, library and classrooms. The premises were
used jointly by SF’s political mandos and their specialist colleagues.
Interviews with Nuri Ogando, 23 February 1995; Puri Barrios, 31 October
1996; Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 22 February 1996.
6 Gender, class and the SF mandos
1 Dr J. Bosch Marín, ‘El Fuero del Trabajo y la mujer’, in Revista ‘Y’
(April 1938).
2 R. Griffin, The Nature of Fascism, London: Routledge, 1991, p. 41.
3 The seven founder members in 1934 were upper-class, wealthy women, all
close in some way to the Primo de Rivera family.
4 No. 24 of the 1934 Programmatic Points stated: ‘Culture will be
organized so that no talent will be wasted through lack of financial
resources. All deserving cases will have easy access even to higher
education.’ J.A. Primo de Rivera, Textos de doctrina política, Madrid:
DN de la SF de FET y de las JONS, 1966, p. 344.
5 The 1934 manifesto of SF in ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in
Revista ‘Y’ (April 1938).
6 Pilar’s speech at the 1937 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1939, p. 13.
7 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(September 1938).
8 María Moscardó was the daughter of the Army General made famous by his
defence of the Toledo military academy in the Civil War. Josefina
Arraiza Goñi later married José Antonio Elola, the Falangist who became
head of the Youth Front.
9 The nurses were all volunteers and from the highest social class.
Interview with José María Gutiérrez, 19 February 1996.
10 ‘Escuela de Jefes’, in Revista ‘Y’ (July-August, 1938).
11 Pilar’s speech at the 1939 SF national conference, in Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, pp. 22-3.
12 Interview with Puri Barrios, 31 October 1996.
13 Interview with Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996. In her memory, it was
educated families whose daughters got the jobs and whose children were
admitted to summer camps. Poor people were helped charitably through the
dining rooms of Social Aid, but for those in between, there was no
chance of a post. In her opinion, SF became more inclusive as the
operation expanded and SF needed more members.
14 Their basic structure is described in Chapter 2.
15 Similar arrangements applied in urban areas, which were divided into
districts, each with its own local leader (jefe de distrito) responsible
for members and activities.
16 The first regidoras centrales included a further sister of Dionisio
Ridruejo, Laly, as head of Administration, a cousin of Pilar’s, Lula de
Lara, as head of Culture, and family friend and former girlfriend of
José Antonio, Carmen Werner, as head of the Youth Wing.
17 After this time, SF began to work actively to increase educational
opportunities for girls from poorer families, particularly in rural
communities. SF junior residences (colegios menores), which enabled
girls from the country to attend city secondary schools where they could
sit for the school-leavers’ examination, were expanded in 1960 with
funding from the National Movement. There were eventually twenty-two
over the country. L. Suárez Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina y
su tiempo, Madrid: Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1992, p. 348.
18 Interview with Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 19 February 1998. She
recalls one mando who was criticized by her former convent teacher for
her decision to work full-time for SF, as signifying a drop in social
status. In another Madrid convent, SF teachers were admitted only if
they had been former pupils.
19 An example is Viky Eiroa, whose final post was as principal of the SF
university residence (colegio mayor) in Madrid. After graduation and a
spell as local leader during the war, she worked as an administrator in
the national office. She was then appointed national head of the SF
Foreign Service. This involved her in work in Latin America and included
management of the choirs and dances foreign visits. Teresa Loring,
Pilar’s final deputy leader, worked first as a nurse before becoming a
teacher trainer in youth work, then in health care and SF training.
Next, she was appointed principal of the first teacher-training
establishment, Las Navas, then was asked to take a demotion to
provincial leader. From here she was promoted directly to the post of
national deputy of SF.
20 Suárez Fernández, Crónica, p. 106. These included Pilar, her deputy,
five national heads of specialist departments and office staff. The sums
were tiny - 1,000 pesetas for Pilar, 800 for her deputy and 500 for the
national staff.
21 The divulgadoras earned a monthly average of 75 pesetas. The
instructors (instructoras elementales) who taught basic-level SF courses
to voluntary groups such as youth members were never paid. Those with
more qualifications (instructoras generales), teaching the SF curriculum
in schools, were paid by the schools from the point when the subjects
became compulsory. Typically, staff worked part-time in a number of
schools and were paid a small amount by each, earning on average 200-300
pesetas monthly. The rural instructors (instructoras rurales) who had
qualified at the SF national agricultural school were paid by the
ministry and frequently worked on rural regeneration schemes. Monthly
salaries in the 1950s were between 200 and 400 pesetas. Interview with
Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA) member (b), 7 November 1999.
22 Interview with ANA member (a), 21 February 1996; M. Kenny, A Spanish
Tapestry, London: Cohen and West, 1961, p. 177.
23 Circular no. 99, 24 June 1938 from P. Primo de Rivera to provincial
leaders, in Primo de Rivera, Discursos, circulares, escritos, Madrid: SF
de FET y de las JONS, n.d., pp. 266-7. Anecdotal evidence suggests,
however, that the age bar was dropped in the 1950s, when SF was keen to
encourage new blood and hold on to its experts.
24 Interview
with ANA member (a), 21 February 1996. The issue was brought to the
attention of the 1956 SF national conference, where it was decided to
increase salaries. Suárez Fernández, Crónica, pp. 305-6.
25 SF de FE de las JONS, Estatutos, Salamanca: Imp. Cervantes, n.d., pp.
3-4.
26 Pilar’s speech at the 1941 SF national conference, in SF de FET y de
las JONS, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), n.p.: SF de FET y de las
JONS, n.d., p. 105.
27 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), p. 13.
28 Pilar’s speech at the 1941 SF national conference, SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), p. 105.
29 Interview with Mercedes Fórmica, 22 February 1996.
30 Interview with Marichu de la Mora, 27 October 1997.
31 Interview with Mercedes Otero, 20 February 1996.
32 R. Felski, The Gender of Modernity, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1995, p. 13.
33 Pilar’s speech at the 1940 SF national conference, in SF, Consejos
nacionales (libro segundo), p. 12.
34 H. Graham, ‘Gender and the State: Women in the 1940s’, in H. Graham
and J. Labanyi (eds.), Spanish Cultural Studies: An Introduction,
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995, p. 185.
35 J. Lasso de la Vega’s speech at the 1941 SF national conference, in
SF, Consejos nacionales (libro segundo), p. 147.
36 Interview with María Luisa Oliveros, 18 February 1998. She was not a
member of SF.
37 In Santiago, for example, a former member was absent for three days
of her social service but was debited for six. Interview with Rosalía
Pemán, 30 July 1996.
38 Pilar’s speech to provincial youth workers, in Primo de Rivera,
Discursos, p. 179.
39 F. Ximénez de Sandoval, José Antonio - biografía, 2a edición, Madrid:
Lazaro-Echaniz, 1940, p. 601.
40 Pilar’s speech at the 1942 national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, n.p.: SF de FET y de las JONS,
1942, p. 6.
41 Pilar’s speech at the 1942 national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Discurso de Pilar Primo de Rivera, p. 8.
42 DN de la SF de FET y de las JONS, Personal: organización. Delegación
provincial, SF de FET y de las JONS, n.d., p. 130. Information was also
sought on depth of religious faith and the candidate’s personal
appearance.
43 SF de FET y de las JONS, Personal: organización local, Madrid: Osca,
1962, p. 83.
44 Interview with Enrique de Aguinaga, 22 February 1996. He tells the
story of a messenger boy looking for the National Movement’s offices by
asking the way to ‘the men’s Sección Femenina’.
45 Interview with Enrique de Aguinaga, 22 February 1996.
46 Interview with Nuri Ogando, 23 February 1995.
47 ‘¿Qué duda tienes?’, in Revista ‘Y’ (February 1938).
48 For example, one mando was called to Pilar’s office, given a hat from
the cupboard and required to accompany her there and then to the wedding
of a minister’s son. Interview with Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 19
February 1998. Also remembered is Pilar’s obsession with timekeeping.
Interview with Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996.
49 SF de FET y de las JONS, Enciclopedia elemental, Madrid: E. Giménez,
1959, p. 156.
50 The case in point was a local leader’s insistence on giving aid to a
pregnant woman who was unmarried. Interview with Nuri Ogando, 23
February 1995.
51 A mando was asked to admit the general public, including well-to-do
women, to a training course she ran for factory women and maids.
The public was to come in via the main door with the others obliged to
enter separately. She refused to run the course under these conditions
and handed over the keys of the hall to her provincial superior. This
incident (in the late 1960s) led to her dismissal. Interview with
Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996. One mando had taken to heart Pilar’s
oft-expressed doubts about continuing as leader of SF and made the
suggestion at the 1964 national conference that there should be a secret
vote to reaffirm her continuance. This caused an uproar and she was
forgiven only because she was deemed young and naive. Interview with
Lolita Bermúdez-Cañete Orth, 22 February 1996.
52 Interview with Rosalía Pemán, 30 July 1996.
Conclusion
1 Interview with Julia Alcántara, 26 October 1994.
2 F. Ximénez de Sandoval, José Antonio - biografía, 2nd ed., Madrid:
Lazareno-Echaniz, 1940, p. 601.
3 P. Primo de Rivera, ‘Historia de la Sección Femenina’, in Revista ‘Y’
(February, March, April, May, June, July-August, September, October,
December 1938); Revista ‘Y’ (January-May 1939).
4 Franco’s speech at the Medina rally 1939, in SF de FET y de las JONS,
Consejos nacionales (libro primero), Madrid: SF de FET y de las JONS,
n.d., p. 99.
5 Pilar’s speech at the 1938 SF national conference, in P. Primo de
Rivera, Cuatro discursos, Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1939, p. 5.
6 P. Preston, Las tres Españas del 36, Barcelona: Plaza y Janés, 1999,
p. 169.
7 Mercedes lost her seat when she relinquished control of Social Aid.
8 Interview with Nuri Ogando, 23 February 1995.
9 Interview with Carmen Osuña Castelló, 31 July 1996.
10 SF’s welfare work made it the most highly regarded sector of the
National Movement. Interview with José Utrera Molina, 29 May 1996.
11 Interviews with Enrique de Sena, 3 June 1995; Julio Ibáñez Rodrigo, 3
June 1995; Sebastián Barrueco, 27 October 1995.
12 Interview with María Luisa Oliveros, 18 February 1998.
13 For example, SF literature of 1958 takes credit for the fall in
infant mortality (defined as death within twelve months of birth) from
142 per thousand in 1940, to 62 per thousand in 1951 and 47 per thousand
in 1958. DN de la SF de FET y de las JONS, Nociones de puericultura
postnatal, Madrid: Ruan, 1958, pp. 3-4.
14 As noted in Chapter 5, the numbers were 260 and 630 respectively. SF
de FET y de las JONS, Labor realizada en 1948, Madrid: Magerit, 1949, p.
17; SF de FET y de las JONS, Labor realizada en 1951, Madrid: SF de FET
y de las JONS, 1952, p. 20.
15 As noted in Chapter 5, annual figures for social service were on
average 23,164 for the years between 1940 and 1952. SF de FET y de las
JONS, Alcance y acción de la Sección Femenina, Madrid: Magerit, 1953,
Anejo 1, p. 15.
16 Interview with Rosa Valladolid Barazal, 27 October 1995.
17 Interview with Asociación Nueva Andadura (ANA) member (b), 30 May
1996.
18 For example, a government-run nurse training school had SF teachers
on its staff to teach the political, domestic and physical education
courses which were an integral part of its curriculum. Dr J. Turegano,
La enfermera y la Escuela Nacional de instructoras sanitarias, Madrid:
Dirección General de Sanidad, 1953, pp. 14-19.
19 As noted in Chapter 5, the estimate of 15,000 is based on figures
given in 1968 by Pilar Primo de Rivera and the recollections of a former
mando.
20 Interview with ANA member (a), 21 February 1996.
Appendix: the
oral sources
1 L. Suárez
Fernández, Crónica de la Sección Femenina y su tiempo, Madrid:
Asociación Nueva Andadura, 1991.
2 A schedule for questions was devised on the principles decribed in P.
Thompson, The Voice of the Past, 2nd ed., Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1988, pp. 202-3.
3 As Paul Thompson notes, memory is more likely to be reliable when
dealing with practical matters than in recalling past attitudes.
Thompson, The Voice of the Past, p. 112.
4 In this category were five women who had never joined SF, four men who
had held posts in the Falange, a further three who experienced the Civil
War in the Nationalist zone and three clergymen.
5 The main archive for SF is housed in the Archivo General de la
Administración in Alcalá de Henares. It comprises over 900 archive
boxes, catalogued only under the broadest of headings. It was in
knowledge of the impenetrability of the information in Alcalá that
Asociación Nueva Andadura decided to give its own archive to the Real
Academia.
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