page_title: Unification Decree (Spain, 1937)
section_title: Falangists and Carlists
hierarchical_section_title: Unification Decree (Spain, 1937) / Falangists and Carlists
caption_attribution_description: Español: Título original: Recibimiento a las tropas del bando nacional (22/34) Localización: San Sebastián (Guipúzcoa)
context_page_description: The Unification Decree was a political measure adopted by Francisco Franco in his capacity of Head of State of Nationalist Spain on April 19, 1937. The decree merged two existing political groupings, the Falangists and the Carlists, into a new party - the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista. As all other parties were declared dissolved at the same time, the FET became the only legal party in Nationalist Spain. It was defined in the decree as a link between state and society and was intended to form the basis for an eventual totalitarian regime. The head of state – Franco himself – was proclaimed party leader, to be assisted by the Junta Política and Consejo Nacional. A set of decrees which followed shortly after appointed members to the new executive.
  The merger was imposed upon the Falange Española de las JONS and the Carlist Comunión Tradicionalista.
context_section_description: Few months into the civil war it was already evident that the balance of power among right-wing parties underwent a major shake-up. The decomposed CEDA, Renovación and Agrarians were dwarfed by Comunión Tradicionalista and Falange Española, two groupings responsible for some 80% of volunteers in ranks of the Nationalist party militias. It was their efficiency as recruitment structures which mattered to Franco and the military. Initially volunteers constituted 38% of all troops available to the Nationalists on the peninsula; as conscription was getting implemented by November this figure went down to 25%. Both groupings were increasingly viewing themselves as future masters of new Spain. The Carlists considered themselves exclusive political partners of the military as agreed back in July 1936; they saw the Nationalist faction as basically a Carlist-military alliance. The Falangists saw the Nationalist effort very much in terms of a syndicalist revolution, with Falange the only genuine live political force amidst remnants of old, pathetically antiquated other parties. Both CT and FE considered the army – even though viewed with some suspicion as respectively liberal or reactionary – a necessary tool to gain control of all Spain, but they expected the army to be politically passive and each claimed exclusive right to define political content of the future state.
  The most dynamic political power was Falange; a 1933-born third-rate party known mostly for street violence and as a point of reference for Spanish Fascism, in the atmosphere of rapid radicalization of 1936 it attracted tens and soon hundreds of thousands of mostly young people. With its leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera and many other top activists trapped in the Republican zone, in September 1936 Falange formed a provisional Junta de Mando composed of largely inexperienced young leaders and headed by Manuel Hedilla; the party kept developing its structures, building youth, female, children, propaganda, paramilitary, student, syndicate, sanitary and other sections. By late 1936 Falange supplied some 55% of all volunteers and clearly outpaced the Carlists; apart from former CEDA or Renovación militants, also some right-wing republicans started to join Falange in order to counterbalance the monarchist Carlists. Franco kept meeting Hedilla, listened to his advice and even made some effort to flatter him, yet he usually denied Hedilla's requests. The Falangist executive, itself divided mostly along personalist lines between Hedillistas and so-called “legitimists”, were getting increasingly frustrated about military domination; in early 1937 they empowered Hedilla to demand total political hegemony with military control reduced to the army and the navy. Moreover, in January the Junta reached to the German NSDAP and the Italian PNF seeking a political understanding behind the back of the military; they vaguely suggested that “Franco is [only] for today”. 
  In the early 20th century Carlism was a second-rate force; like Falange it benefited from radicalization of the mid-1930s, though unlike Falange it enjoyed major appeal only in some regions of Spain. The Carlist pretender, the Austria-based Don Alfonso Carlos, perished in late September 1936 and was succeeded by a regent, France-based Don Javier. The latter met Franco twice in 1936 and both leaders remained highly skeptical about each other; Franco preferred to speak to the experienced Navarrese leader, conde Rodezno. Like Falange, the Carlists tried to make their best of the autonomy allowed by the military administration; in October 1936 their propaganda paid more attention to Don Javier assuming the regency than to Franco assuming the state jefatura, and in late 1936 headlines of Carlist press exalted the exiled leader Fal Conde as caudillo, reserving for Franco only small-font notes at the bottom of the page. In December the Carlists launched their own syndicalist scheme. In early 1937 Carlism started to demonstrate aglutinatory appeal; some CEDA politicians discussed merger, a small Partido Nacionalista Español 
caption: Falangist militia
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