page_title: Rafael Gambra Ciudad
section_title: Carlist: confronting Franco
hierarchical_section_title: Rafael Gambra Ciudad / Carlist: confronting Franco
caption_attribution_description: Español: Actos celebrados en San Sebastián con motivo de la visita del dictador Francisco Franco y el conde Ciano, ministro de Asuntos Exteriores de la Italia fascistaEuskara: Donostian Francisco Franco diktadorearen eta Galeazzo Ciano konde eta Italia faxistako Kanpo Gaietako ministroaren bisitan egindako ospakizunak (1939ko uztaila)
context_page_description: Rafael Gambra Ciudad was a Spanish philosopher, a secondary education official, a Carlist politician and a soldier. In philosophy he is considered key representative of late Traditionalism; his works fall also into theory of state and politics. He is best known as author of books focusing on secularisation of Western European culture in the consumer society era. As a politician he is acknowledged as a theorist rather than as an active protagonist, though after 2001 he briefly headed one of the Carlist branches.
context_section_description: Released from the Carlist Requeté unit, during academic years in Madrid Gambra engaged in the Traditionalist Academia Vázquez de Mella. In the increasingly fragmented realm of post-war Carlism, headed by vacillating and hardly contactable regent Don Javier, he seemed leaning towards a candidature of Dom Duarte Nuño; the two had an amicable interview in 1941, but the young Gambra stayed within the limits of loyalty to the regent and eventually abandoned his pro-Braganza penchant, converted to supporter of the Borbón-Parmas. Having moved to Navarre in 1943 he assisted the French monarchists from fleeing the Nazi terror across the Pyrenees into Spain. In the late 1940s he gained weight within Navarrese Carlism; in the early 1950s he was already listed among "dirigentes locales" who "tenían en el país vasconavarro una indudable influencia"; in 1953 he formally entered Junta Provincial.
  Since emergence of pro-Francoist Carloctavista branch in the mid-1940s Gambra was increasingly anxious about protracted regency of Don Javier. Uncompromising towards another collaborative branch, the Rodeznistas, in the early 1950s he concluded that Don Javier should reinvigorate the movement by terminating the regency and declaring his own claim to the throne. When this eventually happened in 1952, Gambra was co-author of Acto de Barcelona, a proclamation issued by the pretender and viewed also as major re-definition of the Carlist dynastical reading. Books on Traditionalist monarchy established his firm position as a recognized party theorist. In 1954 he entered sub-commission of culture within Comisión de Cultura y Propaganda of the Carlist executive, Junta Nacional.
  When discussing the mid-1950s some authors count him among the immovilistas, non-collaborative followers of Manuel Fal, while others scholars suggest he charged Fal with lack of intransigence and together with other Navarros like the Baleztena brothers he opposed him from even more anti-Francoist positions. Once Carlism changed its strategy towards cautious rapprochement, Gambra stuck to his guns and lambasted the official collaborationist path of the new leader, José María Valiente.
  Uneasy about continuous vacillation of Don Javier, Gambra was cautiously supportive of inviting his son Don Carlos Hugo into the Spanish politics; he first met him in 1955 and though perplexed by unfamiliarity of the francophone prince with the Spanish affairs, it was Gambra who introduced him at the 1957 Carlist gathering at Montejurra. In the late 1950s Gambra appreciated his energetic style and focus on dynastic loyalty; he also liked young personalities from Don Carlos Hugo's entourage, especially Ramón Massó, a former Gambra's disciple from Academia Vázquez de Mella. Appreciating him as a young Catalan easily communicating with the crowd, at the turn of the decades Gambra collaborated with Massó and others; he did not realize that they exploited Mellist and federalist threads but considered him a rotten reactionary and approached his teaching highly selectively. It was only in the early 1960s that Gambra realized that Huguistas tried to outsmart the Traditionalists; having failed to prevent their increased presence in the party structures, around 1963 Gambra dissociated himself from Carlohuguismo to launch an openly confrontational bid.
caption: early Francoism
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