The determining factor in the creation of the Mondragón system was the arrival in 1941 of a young Catholic priest, José María Arizmendiarrieta, in Mondragón, a town with a population of 7,000 that had not yet recovered from the Spanish Civil War: poverty, hunger, exile, and tension.[2] In 1943, Arizmendiarrieta established a technical college that became a training ground for generations of managers, engineers, and skilled labour for local companies, and primarily for the co-operatives