Falange Española de las JONS the Second Spanish Republic. Expanding rapidly from several thousand to several hundred thousand members, the Falange's male membership was accompanied by a female auxiliary, the "Sección Femenina". Led by José Antonio's sister Pilar, this latter subsidiary organization claimed more than a half million members by the end of the Civil War and provided nursing and support services for the Nationalist forces. The command of the party rested upon Manuel Hedilla as many of the first generation leaders were dead or incarcerated by the Republicans. Among them was José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was a Government prisoner. As a result,
José Antonio Primo de Rivera magazines such as "La Nación", "Blanco y Negro", "ABC", or in the Falangist press, "F.E." or "Arriba" among others, Primo de Rivera expressed a fondness for poetry to poet and novelist Jose-Maria Peman in a letter he wrote late in the spring of 1931. How I wish that one could live in a liveable country where there were a greater number of good poets and a very much greater amount of good manners! He wrote the occasional poem and left behind eight extant rhymes composed before the start of his parliamentary career in 1933. "The Prophecy of Magellan" is an