The Patriotic Union ( es, Unión Patriótica, UP) was the

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

created from above by Spanish dictator Miguel Primo de Rivera, conceived as a support to his regime and integrating political Catholicism, technocrats, and the business-owning classes. The party's power was dependent upon the power of its founder and leader, not any popular mandate. Following the dismissal of Miguel Primo de Rivera in January 1930 by

King Alfonso XIII Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886 – 28 February 1941), also known as El Africano or the African, was King of Spain from 17 May 1886 to 14 April 1931, when the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. He was a monarch from birth as his father, Alf ...

, the party was succeeded by the

National Monarchist Union The National Monarchist Union ( es, Unión Monárquica Nacional, links=no; UMN) was a Spanish political party, founded in April 1930 as successor to the Patriotic Union, the official party promoted by the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Its leade ...

Membership

There is no reliable information on membership figures. The party review ''Unión Patriótica'' claimed in 1927 that there were 1,319,428 people on the rolls; in 1928 the same source reported the figure as 1,696,304. Most historians consider these figures fairly meaningless and note that they probably reflect bureaucratic ingenuity rather than the scale of genuine recruitment. However, some scholars settle for official figures, e.g. in the

province of Almería Almería (, also , ) is a province of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It is bordered by the provinces of Granada, Murcia, and the Mediterranean Sea. Its capital is the homonymous city of Almería. Almería has an area of . With 701, ...

the UP membership is estimated at 30,000 and in mid-size Valencian towns like Gandia,

Torrent Torrent or torrents may refer to: * A fast flowing stream Animals * Torrent duck, a species of the family Anatidae * Torrent fish * Torrent frog, various unrelated frogs * Torrent robin, a bird species * Torrent salamander, a family of sala ...

Utiel Utiel is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of Requena-Utiel in the Valencian Community, Spain. According to the 2014 census, the municipality has a population of 12,082 inhabitants. The Shrine of El Remedio is located on top of the Sierra de U ...

at 500–1,000 members. An official yet not public note from Primo de Rivera, dated 1929, estimated membership at 600–700,000. Many historians tend to settle for even smaller figures, ranging from 400,000 to 500,000. These estimates are pretty much a guesswork, though some scholars base their calculations on circulation of the UP daily ''La Nación'', at its peak printed in 50,000 copies. Figures in the range of 1,3–1.7m would suggest the membership rate of some 6–8% (compared to the entire population), figures in the range of 0.4–0.5m would point to some 2%. In comparison to other state parties, in the mid-1930s some 10% of the Italian population were on the rolls of PNF; in 1937 some 8% of Germans were members of

NSDAP The Nazi Party, officially the National Socialist German Workers' Party (german: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP), was a far-right politics, far-right political party in Germany active between 1920 and 1945 that crea ...

. The communist state parties of the late 20th century recorded a membership rate between 4% in the USSR to 8–10% in Poland or Czechoslovakia.

FET y de las JONS The Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FET y de las JONS; ), frequently shortened to just "FET", was the sole legal party of the Francoist regime in Spain. It was created by General Francisco F ...

, the state party during the

Francoist dictatorship Francoist Spain ( es, España franquista), or the Francoist dictatorship (), was the period of Spanish history between 1939 and 1975, when Francisco Franco ruled Spain after the Spanish Civil War with the title . After his death in 1975, Spai ...

, boasted of some 0.9m members in 1942, around 3% of the Spanish population.Stanley G. Payne, ''The Franco Regime, 1936–1975'', Madison 2011, , p. 176

Notes

{{Authority control Conservative parties in Spain Defunct political parties in Spain 20th century in Spain Parties of one-party systems Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera Monarchist parties in Spain Catholic political parties