The debate on the Marxist nature of the PSOE has resulted in less attention being paid to the influence of Republican doctrine on the party. The leftist Spanish Republicans were not only the Socialist’s "travelling companions", but provided much of the PSOE’s ideology. Federalism and the problem of nationalism, agrarian reform, the importance of education and the need to embrace the middle class and intellectuals, made the PSOE just another Republican party. Once Spanish Socialism abandoned the German orthodoxy of the theory of two worlds, and given their lack of true understanding regarding Marxist thought, Spanish Republicanism became the genuine reference point for the PSOE until Francisco Franco’s death.