Franco, ¿fascist caudillo? Consecutive and contradictory falangist conceptions about francoist caudillaje

Abstract

Following an initial approach to the multiple meanings of the term «caudillo» before the Spanish Civil War, the text is a quick review of the subsequent change from the plurality — of «caudillos», with miniscule — to the singularity, «The caudillo», and how, thereafter, the various Falangists conceptualizations were developed as essential manifestations of a political project confronted with other alternative ones. Above all, it is stressed that there wasn’t a single Francoist conception of Franco’s caudillaje, nor a Falangist one, but many, changing and contradictory conceptions. In this regard, the text places considerable emphasis on the figure of Francisco Javier Conde, generally considered the theorist par excellence of Franco’s caudillaje, who neither was the sole Falangist in doing it, nor even he did it always the same way.