Miguel Primo de Rivera forces. Alfonso XIII suspended the monarchy on 14 April 1931, leaving the royal family in Madrid. The act ushered in the Second Republic. Two years later Primo de Rivera's eldest son, José Antonio, founded the Falange, a Spanish fascist party. Both José Antonio and his brother Fernando were arrested in March 1936 by the republic, and were executed in Alicante prison by Republican forces once the Spanish Civil War began in July 1936. The Nationalists led by Francisco Franco won the Civil War and established a far more authoritarian regime. By that time, many Spaniards regarded Primo de Rivera's relatively
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,