Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista

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History

JONS was founded on October 10, 1931, as the fusion of the groups "La Conquista del Estado" of Ramiro Ledesma and the "Junta Castellana de Actuación Hispánica" of Onésimo Redondo. JONS was a small organization, primarily based amongst students in Madrid and workers and peasants in and around Valladolid. It followers were called "jonsistas".

The leadership of JONS was the Central Executive Triumvirate.

In 1933, JONS experienced a period of expansion. It started publishing a theoretical journal, "JONS". Amongst other things, it engaged in trade union work in Castile. In January 1933, Gutiérrez Palma set up a transport workers union in Valladolid. Later the same year, JONS founded the Agrarian Trade Union Federation. In six months it had set up 175 trade unions, which together claimed around 3,000 members. During that year, Ledesma returned from exile in Portugal, and restarted the publication "Libertad".

JONS also expanded throughout the country. The party had its main strongholds in Valencia, Granada, Valladolid and Santiago de Compostela. It also formed nuclei in Zaragoza, Bilbao, Salamanca and Barcelona. The party also started publishing "Revolución" in Zaragoza, "Unidad" in Galicia and "Patria Sindicalista" in Valencia.

Merger with Falange

At the national council of JONS, held clandestinely in Madrid February 12-13, 1934, the organization formulated its intention to merge with the "Falange Española" of José Antonio Primo de Rivera. The merger formed the "Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista", or FE-JONS.

A further merger with traditional Carlists three years later created FET y de las JONS, the "Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista", better known simply as the "Movimiento Nacional" (National Movement), which became the only legal political party in Francoist Spain. The "Movimiento" was disbanded upon Spain's transition to democracy in the late 1970s.

ources

* La Organización Sindical Española, "Escuela Sindical 1961". 1961: Madrid, pp. 33-34.