Popular Action (), until 1932 National Action (), was a Spanish
Roman Catholic
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics worldwide as of 2025. It is among the world's oldest and largest international institut ...
political party active during the
Second Spanish Republic
The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of democratic government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931 after the deposition of Alfonso XIII, King Alfonso XIII. ...
.
The group was formed after the fall of the monarchy and the defeat of monarchist parties in the
1931 elections, in order to defend the interests of Roman Catholics in the new Spanish Republic.
[Hugh Thomas, ''The Spanish Civil War'', Pelican Books, 1971, p. 95] It emanated from the ''Asociación Católica Nacional de Propagandistas'' and effectively formed a political party drawn from this hard-line
monarchist
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. C ...
movement. The main leader of Popular Action was editor of ''
El Debate ''El Debate'' () refers to several Spanish language news websites and periodicals:
* ''El Debate'' (Argentina), Argentinian online newspaper
* ''El Debate'' (Manila), a former Filipino newspaper between 1918 and 1970
* ''El Debate'' (Mexico), Me ...
'' and future cardinal
Ángel Herrera Oria
Ángel Herrera Oria (19 November 1886 – 28 July 1968) was a Spanish journalist and Roman Catholic politician and later a cardinal. He established the Instituto Social León XIII (later renamed Fundación Pablo VI) to promote the social doc ...
.
[de Blaye, ''Franco'', p. 27] In 1932, National Action had to change its name, because parties and political movements were prohibited to use the word "national" in their names.
The Popular Action sought to unite the right-wing, monarchist and Catholic camp and thus became the core of a conservative federation of parties, the Spanish Confederation of Autonomous Right-wing Groups (
CEDA
The Confederación Española de Derechas Autónomas (, CEDA) was a Spanish right-wing political party in the Second Spanish Republic. A Catholic conservative force, it was the political heir to Ángel Herrera Oria's Acción Popular and defined ...
), established in 1933.
Even after the formation of CEDA the party's youth movement, ''Juventudes de Acción Popular'' (commonly known as the Greenshirts) continued to organise.
However, in the spring of 1936, the decline of Popular Action was underlined when 15,000 Greenshirts left the movement to join
Falange Española de las JONS
The Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (; FE de las JONS) was a fascist political party founded in Spain in 1934 as merger of the Falange Española and the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista. FE de las JO ...
instead. On the eve of the
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...
, Popular Action had around 12,000 members. When
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (born Francisco Paulino Hermenegildo Teódulo Franco Bahamonde; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces i ...
announced his
decree
A decree is a law, legal proclamation, usually issued by a head of state, judge, monarch, royal figure, or other relevant Authority, authorities, according to certain procedures. These procedures are usually defined by the constitution, Legislativ ...
establishing
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 ...
on 19 April 1937, Popular Action was one of a number of parties absorbed into this new pan-
right
Rights are law, legal, social, or ethics, ethical principles of freedom or Entitlement (fair division), entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal sy ...
group.
[Beevor, ''The Battle for Spain'', p. 285]
References
{{Authority control
Catholic political parties
Monarchist parties in Spain
Conservative parties in Spain