Religious Chauvinism and Indoctrination

This is part of a series:

Parallels between Falangists and US Fascists

Totalitarian Indoctrination and Parallels between the Falange and the American Right

There are major similarities between the American Hard right and the 1930s Falangist Parties in Spain. One of the strongest parallel was a battle between those seeking separation of Church and State and a Secular ethos, and folks wanting to impose religious Sharia, or authoritarianism in the name of Christian Orthodoxy. In Spain this was an explicitly Catholic plot. In the USA the Catholics take a more "generic" stance because they need the support of equally dogmatic Baptists and Fundamental Protestants. The reality that if they impose a Catholic controlled government, what that means for "heretical" protestants in the USA hasn't done on Protestant Fundamentalists yet. But for the Spanish there was none of this. Catholicism in Spain was enforced by a formal Religious Inquisition that murdered Protestants, Jews and Muslims for years following 1492, explicitly. And this inquisition even murdered fJews who made the mistake of not being Orthodox Christian enough. It enforced a level of fear and indoctrination that Franco and the Inquisition version two, Falangism, wanted to imitate.

E. National Education – Religion

The Falangists were pretty explicit about their program of Forced Religious indoctrination. They called for:

23. Conscription:
Indoctrinate all in Patriotism, give all men “paramilitary training to prepare for enlist[ment] in the National and Popular Army of Spain.”
24. Universal Access to Education and Training
25. No Separation of Church and State,
Catholic Church and State will coordinate powers.

Not Left or Right on Economic Issues, but Catholic

Most of the early Fascist parties were "syndicalist" (corporativist meant syndicalist to them) and that strain of social welfare drew from Catholic doctrine (specifically Rerum Novarum) and explicitly not from Marx. [though that's not a bad thing] So some people would classify them as on the left, others, because of their "third way" claims as "middle of the road!" They wanted to force people to join top down mafioso like syndicates for workers and companies. These syndicates, ostensibly, would act as tamed labor unions, but they actually functioned, under the fascists, as instruments of anti-Union oppression. And by allowing business to have their own syndicates, they exercised extraordinary anti-Union power over workers. But the model was the middle ages for them.

Even Thierry reflects a Catholic Sensibility:

“Democracy and Capitalism are one and the same evil: they can only be overthrown together. A regenerated nation, a better future a flourishing peace can only spring up on their ruins.” RW Page: [blackshirts page]
-Thierry Maulnier

Seeking Power

The Falange, the hard right, the hard left and a large number of religious sects are political cults led by narcissist leaders. They all exhibit the "Dark Triad" of Narcissist, Sociopathic and machiavelian leaders and authoritarian followers.

The Falange party merged with the Royalist "Carlists" in 1937 after Franco took over generalship of the movement. Franco would name the single party state the "Traditionalist Spanish Phalanx and of the Councils of the National Syndicalist Offensive" and make it the sole legal party of the Francoist State in Spain. Franco also purged any remaining "leftist" [code for pro-worker] factions of the Falange movement.

Royalism and Totalitarianism

What Franco, the Catholic Action and Carlist (royalist) factions had in common was the desire to impose this kind of Sharia Law on Spain. This hearkened back to the Spain of Isabella and Ferdinand.

The Falangists knew they could rely on reinforcing years of religious indoctrination and fear of the inquisition to reinforce the "Spanish", "Catholic" and (eventually) Royalist identity of Spain. The Imperial and totalitarian elements of their plank fit snugly against the backdrop of Chauvinist Catholicism. To the Fanatic Catholic

• Human Dignity is only realizable within a Catholic and Orthodox framework. All else is delusion and heresy.

"One Church, One Nation, One Crown" had been the motto of Ferdinand and Isabella!

Fascism and Rerum Novarum

The Religious Chauvinism even is reflected in the less nasty elements of Syndicalism and economic moderation. The positive side of Catholicism understood expressed in earlier plank items:

10. We repudiate the capitalistic system which shows no understanding of the needs of the people, dehumanizes private property, and causes workers to be lumped together in a shapeless, miserable mass of people who are filled with desperation. Our spiritual and national conception of life also repudiates Marxism. We shall redirect the impetuousness of those working classes who today are led astray by Marxism, and we shall seek to bring them into direct participation in fulfilling the great task of the national state.

This reflected the writings of Pope Leo's Rerum Novarum, which critiqued predatory Capitalism. Falangist Fascism could be seen as more moderate because of this Catholic Flavor.

11. The National-Syndicalist State will not cruelly stand apart from man’s economic struggles,

But of course all those elements were secondary to the needs of the State for Authority and hierarchy. The elitism and hierarchy of Catholicism combined with Fascism would make a mockery of plank elements 10-12.

Militarism in the Guise of Catholicism

“ 23. It shall be the essential mission of the State to attain by means of rigorous disciplining of education a strong, united national spirit, and to instill in the souls of future generations a sense of rejoicing and pride in the fatherland. All men shall receive paramilitary training to prepare them for the honor of being enlisted in the National and Popular Army of Spain.”

Good Catholics would die for God and Country!

Elitism

Even their education plans reflected an almost Medieval idea of education as providing a class of talented monks, priests and technicians.

“24. Cultural life shall be organized so that no talent will be undeveloped because of insufficient economic means. All who merit it shall be assured ready access to a higher education.”

And all this was explicitly Catholic:

“25. Our Movement incorporates the Catholic meaning-of glorious tradition, and especially in Spain-of national reconstruction. The Church and the State will co-ordinate their respective powers so as to permit no interference or activity that may impair the dignity of the State or national integrity.”

Sources and Further reading

The conscious misuse of Myth, Georges Sorel and Fascism

https://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2004/11/29/the-conscious-misuse-of-myth-georges-sorel-and-fascism/

Georges Sorel, the Power of Myth (Review)

https://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2006/09/10/georges-sorel-the-power-of-myth/

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/falange

From My own writings

The conscious misuse of Myth, Georges Sorel and Fascism

https://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2004/11/29/the-conscious-misuse-of-myth-georges-sorel-and-fascism/

Georges Sorel, the Power of Myth (Review)

https://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2006/09/10/georges-sorel-the-power-of-myth/

https://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2006/12/14/strategy-and-tactics-myth-and-reality/

https://fraughtwithperil.com/cholte/2011/02/20/laying-down-the-gauntlet/

Used in this Post

https://www.americanblackshirts.com/single-post/2015/03/04/The-Twenty-Six-Point-Program-of-the-Falange

http://holtesthoughts.blogspot.com/2018/08/the-life-of-garcia-lorca-and-fascist.html quotes taken in August 2018. I also have them in several of my books and from other webpages.

https://www.amazon.com/Federico-Garcia-Lorca-Ian-Gibson/dp/0571142249

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falangism

Quote taken from book;

"National Identities and Socio-Political Changes in Latin America" By Antonio Gomez-Moriana, Mercedes Duran-Cogan page 112

https://books.google.com/books?id=PWjhAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA112&lpg=PA112&dq=One+Nation,+One+Faith,+One+people+Spain&source=bl&ots=wSBJa8Qato&sig=aEsGLSukCZr_2PQE8FwjahO-CKE&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjp1YGT09XcAhVNx1kKHW6bC0kQ6AEwB3oECAgQAQ#v=onepage&q=One%20Nation%2C%20One%20Faith%2C%20One%20people%20Spain&f=false