Movimiento Nacional
The Movimiento Nacional, or simply the Movimiento, was the self-designation of the FET y de las JONS, the ruling party of Francoist Spain, the bureaucratic structures of the Falange, and in the general sense of the whole Francoist regime. It was an ambigious term which in essence denoted a nominal "body to which one had to adhere" in order to participate in the official politics of the regime. It followed a doctrine of corporatism in which only so-called "natural entities" could express themselves. It was abolished in 1977.
Composition
The Movimiento Nacional was primarily composed of:- The sole legal party, called Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista which had been created at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War. Other parties were prohibited. Government officials, military officers and trade unionists of the state trade union automatically became nominal members of the party, although their membership was often purely nominal.
- *The sole trade union organization, called Organización Sindical Española, defined as the junior organization of FET y de las JONS, composed of corporatist organizations which gathered employers and workers, in opposition to Marxism's class warfare.
- All civil servants and holders of public office, were requested to swear an oath to the Principles of the National Movement.
Leadership
The National Movement was led by Francisco Franco, titled Jefe del Movimiento, assisted by a "Minister-Secretary General of the Movement". The hierarchy extended itself to all of the country, with a "local chief of the movement" named in each village.Ideology
People who strongly identified with the Movimiento Nacional were colloquially known as Falangistas or Azules, from the colour of the shirts worn by the Falange Militia, José Antonio Primo de Rivera's fascist organization created during the Second Spanish Republic. Camisas viejas enjoyed the honour of being historical members of the Falange, compared to Camisas nuevas, who could be accused of opportunism.The ideology of the Movimiento Nacional was summed up by the slogan ¡Una, Grande y Libre!, which stood for the indivisibility of the Spanish state and the refusal of any regionalism or decentralization, its imperial character, both past and foreseen, and its independence towards the purported "Judeo-Masonic-Marxist international conspiracy", materialized by the Soviet Union, the European democracies, the United States, or the "exterior enemy" which could threaten the nation at any time; as well as towards the long list of "internal enemies", like "anti-Spanish", "reds", "separatists", "liberals", "Jews" and "Freemasons", among others, coining expressions like "judeomarxistas".
Francoist "families"
Since one-party rule was enforced in Francoist Spain, the only practical expression of pluralism consisted in the mixture of internal "families" competing together inside the National Movement. These roughly included four "families" with a genealogy tracing back to the right-wing political groups in the interwar period: the Falangists, with a preeminence over FET y de las JONS, the Spanish Syndical Organization, and the "social" government areas; the Carlists, who held a tight control over the Ministry of Justice; the monarchist Alfonsines, well connected to the economic elites and the military command; and the National Catholics, "Catholics" in the sense of closely linked to politically Catholicist entities serving the Church's interests, embodied by the National Catholic Association of Propagandists. In addition, a new family emerged in the 1950s, the technocrats, conservatives linked to the Opus Dei who embraced a businesslike approach to the administration of the state.Franco held his power by balancing these internal rivalries, cautious not to show any favoritism to any of them nor compromise himself too much to anyone.
Fractions of those families eventually migrated to dissident stances. These included examples such as the intermittent dissent of a part of the Alfonsist monarchists who vouched for an immediate coronation of Juan de Borbón as king, as well as a sizeable part of the Catholicist family joining by late Francoism the opposition to the dictatorship subsumed within Christian democratic groups.