José Antonio Primo de Rivera Dean of the Illustrious College of Lawyers of Madrid". In 1931, he constituted "Agrupación al Servicio de la República" (Assembly at the Service of the Republic) "and" paradoxically ran for office under the monarchist banner of "Unión Monárquica Nacional"—he failed to get elected. He was detained briefly in 1932 for collaboration in General José Sanjurjo's attempted coup. On October 29, 1933, Primo de Rivera launched the Falange Española ("Spanish Phalanx"), a nationalist party, inspired in part with some ideas, such as the necessity of authority, hierarchical order of society, and grassroots populism, that were being expounded in Italy in the
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,