Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War) radicals (liberals), as well as Falangists, Catholics and pro-Monarchic movements such as the "Agraristas" and the "Carlistas (Requetés)". The Falange was originally a Spanish fascist political party founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, son of the former Spanish leader Miguel Primo de Rivera. The Falange was created with the financial assistance of Alfonsist monarchist funding. Upon being formed, the Falange was officially anti-clerical and anti-monarchist. As a landowner and aristocrat, Primo de Rivera assured the upper classes that Spanish fascism would not get out of their control like its equivalents in Germany and Italy. In 1934, the Falange merged
Miguel Primo de Rivera this might be the reason why the Spanish Socialist Party and UGT were quick to cooperate with the government and its leaders affiliated themselves with the committees mentioned before. Individual workers also benefited because the regime undertook massive public works. The government financed such projects with huge public loans, which Calvo Sotelo argued would be repaid by the increased taxes resulting from economic expansion. Unemployment largely disappeared. But Primo de Rivera brought order to Spain with a price: his regime was a dictatorship, albeit a mild one. He censored the press. When intellectuals criticized the government, he closed El Ateneo,