DISSENSION GROWS IN SPANISH FALANGIST RANKS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22820, 15 December 1948, Page 12

DISSENSION GROWS IN SPANISH FALANGIST RANKS

(From Hector Licudi, Reuter's Correspondent.) (By Air Mail) MADRID. There is growing l dissension in tire ranks of the Falangists, Spain’s only political party, over the question of whether the Spanish Kingdom, defined in the law of succession approved by public referendum last year, should evolve towards a monarchist restoration. While one section of the Falangists support such an evolution, othfcrs want to maintain the present situation, thrusting aside any attempt at incursion into power by elements from outside the Falange. Two recent statements, published in the Spanish press, reflect the present feeling within the party. One, made by Senor Luiz Gonzales Vicen, chief of the section within the party known as “Franco’s Guard,” which, in spite of its name, is not a military formation, was made in an interview with the Madrid evening newspaper Pueblo. “In view of the apathy, despondency, abandonment and inactivity shown by some responsible Falangist quarters, Franco’s guard will carry out certain duties which we cannot evade nor want to evade,” Senor Gonzales Vicen declared. “The problem lies in the fact that workmen are anxious to be given command and power. We support this and we shall not oppose their aspirations.”

Denying that there is such a thing as class struggle, he added: “That is only a lie, a trap by Marx, but a whole generation has fallen into that trap.” The Spanish machinery for living together socially, Senor Vicen said, “has been broken” —and he claimed that Franco’s Falangist guard “constitutes th real spearhead of national revolution, both physically and ideologically.’' The other article, by Senor Raimundo Fernandez Cuesta, the Minister of Justice and one of the three Falangist members of the Cabinet, published earlier in the Falangist newspaper Arriba on October 29, the day of the fallen —the day on which the foundation of the Falangist Party in 1933 is commemorated —expresses the view of the more orthodox sections of the party. Criticising those who interpreted the meaning of the anniversary of the Falange in their own way, Senor Cuesta expressed the view that the party should not remain impervious to developments both inside and outside Spain. He thought it was a mistake to support the idea of keeping the Falange within the same framework as when it was founded, describing it as an “anachronistic attitude” to hope to maintain the Falange as if conditions at home and abroad today were identical with those obtaining when the Falange was created. Then, Senor Cuesta declared, the Falange had to fight the Azana Government and the Communists. No such conditions as that prevailed now. On the day following the publication of Senor Cuesta’s article, Arriba published a leading article supporting his arguments and calling for unity and “constructive political work” on the part of every Falangist. The situation within the Falangist is said to have been discussed at the last Cabinet meeting presided over by General Franco.

Although no confirmation of this report is forthcoming, it is possible, especially as three of the leading members of the Falangist Party are also Cabinet Ministers: Senor Fernandez Cuesta, the Minister of Justice: Senor Carlos Rein, the Minister of Agriculture: and Senor Juan Antonio Giron, the Minister of Labour. The latter has done much for the welfare of Spanish workmen and is popular even among those workers who are politically divorced from the regime. A further cause for dissension within the party is the disapproval of certain members of the decision to allow Prince Juan Carlos, the 10-year-old son and eldest child of the Spanish Pretender. Don Juan, to come to Madrid to take the Spanish school course. These members of the Falange .consider the arrival of the young prince in Madrid as a first step towards a monarchist restoration and the eventual dissolution of the Falangist Party. Another cause for discontent is the permission reported to have been given for part of the furniture in the Miramar Palace at San Sebastian to be sent to Don Juan at Estoril, where he is living in exile in Portugal. The Miramar Palace on the beach at San Sebastian was given by the people of San Sebastian to the late Queen Marie Christine, mother of the late King Alfonso, in recognition of her work for the welfare of the resort. The reported despatch of the furniture to Estoril is interpreted by lome sections of the Falange as an indication that relations between Don Juan and General Franco have continued to improve since they met last summer on board General Franco's yacht Azor.