José Antonio Primo de Rivera death (although his sentence was commuted). Franco appointed his own brother-in-law Serrano Suñer to replace him. The reign of Francisco Franco nurtured a convenient cult of personality around the dead figure of Primo de Rivera whom Falangists dubbed "El Ausente" (The Missing One). The founder of Falange was anointed a martyr of the "crusade against Marxism." Notwithstanding the apparent veneration by the Francoist State, it remains true that the Missing One's demise had removed a dangerous opponent: Primo de Rivera had been Marquess, a doctor of civil law, a political thinker; Franco owned no comparable pedigree, no comparable education and
Catholicism in the Second Spanish Republic 1936 in the first months of the civil war. The most bitter controversies about the congregations in the pre-war years, however, had always centred on their schools and colleges to which about half of all male communities and one-third of the female were dedicated. The Spanish Confederation of the Autonomous Right (Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas or CEDA) was founded in February 1933 and was led from its inception by José María Gil-Robles. Despite dismissing the idea of a party as a 'rigid fiction', the CEDA leaders created a stable party organisation which would lead the Spanish right into the