Revolutionary Violence
The Falange Party Sought Violent National Revolution
“The Falange Espanola Tradicionalista y de las JONS shall engage in “direct, bold and combative” revolution.”
The Falange like other fascist groups had in common the attachment to violence both as a tool for seeking and maintaining power; and a tool for indoctrination and propaganda. The Word "Falange comes from the Greek Military formation known as the Phalanx. The Falange like the Fascists in Italy and the Nazis in Germany, saw themselves as a spearhead for revolution. Jose Antonio Primo De Rivera and Franco, both saw violent revolution as a solution to the problem of “Republicanism” and “Permissivism.”
- This is part of a series:
- Parallels between Falangists and US Fascists
Violent Revolutionary and Authoritarian
Out of office they were revolutionary. In office they planned to be Totalitarian. They participated in elections and engaged in politics. But they had no respect for concepts like Democracy or majority rule. Hitler expressed his attitude similar to De Rivera:
“"Instead of working to achieve power by an armed coup we shall have to hold our noses and enter the Reichstag against the Catholic and Marxist deputies. If outvoting them takes longer than outshooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed by their own Constitution! Any lawful process is slow. But sooner or later we shall have a majority – and after that Germany,"” Hitler Quote
Primo De Rivera said something similar, but by the late 1930s had rejected holding his nose and using Parliament:
“there is no option left except fists and guns when someone offends the precepts of justice or the fatherland” [Primo De Rivera]
He disparaged Democracy and majority rule:
“The democratic school of thought — democracy being the system which most fully expresses liberal thinking — considers that a law is good and legitimate if it has obtained the consent of the majority of voters, even though its content may be utterly monstrous. ”
The Falang wanted Revolution. They didn't care about majority rule, or even rule of any law based on that. They believed in the power of violence.
“He shared with other rightists the belief that violence was legitimate against a Republic that he perceived as influenced by Jews and Freemasons.”[Primo De Rivera]
The Falange, like other right wing groups, believed in the power of violence to indoctrinate followers.
The Uses of Violence and Terrorism as Part of Propaganda
Authoritarian and Totalitarian movements are also terrorist movements. In power they practice State Terrorism, and more frighteningly, bottom up terrorism. Colonialism, Apartheid, Jim Crow, all represent the use of violence to indoctrinate both the victims of that violence and to reinforce the behavior of the perpetrators as well. Totalitarian movements like to claim that everything outside of their system of authority is "dying" [Arendt pg 381] or "failing" [Trump].
“A Claim that is drastically realized under the conditions of totalitarian rule”
But which is made plausible through the violence and ruthless actions of such movements even before they gain total control of government and society. If it isn't already dying, they try to kill it. This is part of the realization of the Totalitarian propaganda I've mentioned before:
Gaslighting and Violence
This propaganda is really aimed at indoctrination. Propaganda itself is mostly aimed at the gullible or unconverted. It is also used to organize the movement. Indoctrination is intended to hold down the victims and keep the victimizers in line. This indoctrination was so strong that when the Russians or Nazis purged their own ranks, the people so purged would often "confess their crimes" and go willingly to the execution block. And of course, the irony of this, is that such a degree of true believership started with destroying the lines between truth and falsehood. Hannah Arendt notes on Page 382 of her book "The Origins of Totalitarianism:"
“In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think everything was possible, and nothing was true.”
This was Gaslighting. Arendt doesn't use the term (that I can find) in "Origins", but it is there in her description of Totalitarian Propaganda. And at the basis of this is violence, both emotional violence and physical violence, perpetrated by individuals and movements working in tandem. Ultimately Fascism is always abusive and violent. It's Perpetrators practice "DARVO":
- Deny
- Accuse
- Reverse Victim & Offender
Which is also what "gaslighting" is.
Gaslighting and Propaganda
Ultimately Gaslighting and Totalitarian/Authoritarian Propaganda have the same methods.
People subject to violent indoctrination become easier to indoctrinate and manipulate, which is why unscrupulous leaders use the techniques. Those under this pressure tend to develop a peculiar (and crazy) mixture of “gullibility and cynicism,” something Arendt describes in a somewhat famous passage on page 382 of her work:
“Mass Propaganda discovered that its audience was ready at all times to believe the worst, no matter how absurd, and did not object to being deceived because it held that every statement to be a lie anyway. The Totalitarian Mass Leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in their cynicism; instead of deserting their leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire their leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.” [Origins Page 382]
You see this behavior among Trumpers. It was also common among both the far left and the far right in Civil War Spain.
Propaganda As Organization, Terror as Indoctrination
Totalitarian movements seek to dominate the whole world, because anything less and their propaganda basis begins to fall apart. Hannah Arendt asserted that totalitarian propaganda was largely a tool for organizing the movement. It's purpose to was to reify and protect the power of the leader and the hierarchy behind that leader.
Terror was used to indoctrinate followers. The Nazis called it "Power Propaganda". It's purpose was to make it clear to the people that:
“it was safer to be a member of a Nazi Paramilitary than a loyal Republican.”
The Falangists had a similar message for the people of Spain. And of course groups like "The Proud Boys" try to get a similar message across now.
Seeking Power
The Falange, the hard right, the hard left and a large number of religious sects are political cults led by narcissist leaders. Much of the violence and propaganda they exhibit derive from the mentally ill "Dark Triad" of Narcissist, Sociopathic and machiavelian leaders and their co-dependent authoritarian followers. In power they seek totalitarian control, not only to realize their dark utopian dreams, but to force people to believe in their leaders and act like they are realizing them. While seeking power they often spell out goals that are at odds with their more inward goals, or that state them in language that obfuscates their true intent. This is the case with the 26 Point Program, less to a certain extent than other Fascist movements.
Royalism and Totalitarianism
Later, under Franco, they would merge the Carlist (royalist) factions with their own, and purge any elements that took their more "leftist" promises seriously. That too is a feature of totalitarian movements. They rest their politics on the power of propaganda and self interest. Hannah Arendt (Pg 347 of Origins of Totalitarianism), they rest their ruthless "positivism" on the notion that:
“on the evaluation that [self] interest as an all-pervasive force in history”
Totalitarian movements assume, similarly to normal ideologies, that “objective laws of power can be discovered” and that such [self] “interest makes governments live or die“. This “pragmatic” view that Ironically fascist followers often identify their own interest with the rulers, and this means that once in power fascist movements are rarely pragmatic or utilitarian in practice. Most other political ideologies assume that self interest identifies with common interest. They expect movements and governments to be pragmatic and utilitarian, and to look out for the common good. Fascists on the contrary, as Hannah Arendt notes:
“It is precisely because the utilitarian core of [normal] ideologies was taken for granted, that the anti-utilitarian behavior of Totalitarian governments, their complete indifferance to mass interest has been a shock.” [Arendt]
And the reason is that groups like the Falangist party believed that they could use propaganda, indoctrination, repetition and the practice of the "big lie" to change people's perception of self interest. To provide them with "alternative facts" [current events] To the authoritarian mindset, there is no need for “political parties,” and of “a Parliament of the type that is all too well known.” [platform #6]
To be Free, One has to be Not Free
All of the Fascist movements, not just the Falange, see strength and hierarchy as more important than personal freedom. When in an Army of a mob on the street, the fascist felt free because he was totally giving himself over to the movement and supporting his fearless leader. Plank item 7 states a fundamental tenant of all fascist movements:
“7. Human dignity, integrity, and freedom are eternal, intangible values. But one is not really free unless he is a part of a strong and free nation.”
Alternative Facts
They could hang a sign saying "work makes you free" over the gates of a work-camp because the unity, destiny and "fate" of the fatherland was paramount and the fascist was to give him or herself over to it. This was anti the professed notions of anarchists and libertarians, that self-interest was paramount. But for authoritarians, self interest is what authority tells them it is. Anarchists and troubled youths found a comradeship and family identity coupled with the oceanic feeling of putting one's own ego into the ocean of a mob. Thus it is that people professing notions of individualism or "liberty" get sucked in. Those who don't get involved in fascist movements for the same reason a pick pocket works the crowd. Their own self interest meant inventing the lies that sustain the movement, manipulating the people who form the rank and file. Even the true believer leaders among them had no qualms about profiteering, privateering and outright bribery and theft, because lying about it was in their self interest.
Indeed much of the ruthlessness of fascism, lay in the need to try to convince people that what they were doing, would result one day, in a paradise to the benefit of all true believers, ruthless leaders and fathers. They also believed in Nietzche's "Triumph of the Will." They thought that if they fought hard enough, they could change the facts. At the very least they could force people into a severe delusion where they'd say what the party or its leader told them; "2+2=5". If they couldn't make 5 soldiers out of 2+2 they'd draft 6 people and kill one.
This is still draft, as there may be some overlap with other posts. But I wanted to make sure the main points were conveyed about the Violence of Right Wing Revolution. I also had to reinforce the gaslighting and "DARVO" that are at the heart of Fascism and Authoritarianism.
Sources and Further reading
- https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/falange
- 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/
- 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://archive.org/stream/JoseAntonioPrimoDeRivera-ASpiritualPatriot/JoseAntonioPrimoDeRivera-ASpiritualPatriot_djvu.txt
- https://archive.org/stream/SelectedWritingsByJoseAntonioPrimoDeRivera/Selected%20Writings%20-%20by%20Jose%20Antonio%20Primo%20de%20Rivera_djvu.txt
- https://wikivisually.com/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Antonio_Primo_de_Rivera
- Hitler Quote:
- http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/new.htm
- Books:
- 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
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