José Antonio Primo de Rivera to try to rescue José Antonio. Either way the death of the founder of Falange rid the general of a formidable rival. Perhaps tellingly, it was well known that the two men disliked each other. After one of the two meetings they had, Franco dismissed José Antonio as "a playboy pinturero" (a foppish playboy). Elizabeth Bibesco's last novel, "The Romantic", published in 1940, starts with a dedication to Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera, whom she had known during her stay in Madrid where her husband, Prince Antoine Bibesco was an ambassador (1927–1931): “To Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. I promised
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,