May 20, 2025 • 32 mins
Andrew concludes his series on Latin American anarchism with the Mexican Revolution of 1910 and its aftermath.
Sources:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/chuck-morse-anarchism-in-mexico
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/angel-cappelletti-anarchism-in-latin-america
Kirk Shaffer’s “Tropical Libertarians: Anarchist movements and networks in the Caribbean, Southern United States, and Mexico, 1890s–1920s” (https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/steven-j-hirsch-lucien-van-der-walt-anarchism-and-syndicalism-in-the-colonial-and-postcolonial#toc97)
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
All media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Canappan Here.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm back with yere Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Andress Age or androism on YouTube now. Previously we explored
a lesser known chapter in Mexico's radical history before Margon,
before the Revolution, when a Greek emigrey named Plotino Rocanati
arrived in the eighteen sixties, convinced that Mexico's indigenous communal
traditions could form the basis for a new anarchist society.
(00:33):
Through schools, pamphlets, and mutual aid societies, he helped sow
the first seeds of anarchist thought on Mexican soil. Some
of his students pushed even further and flirted with many
bersion streams of anarchism. Even as Portfilio Diaz's regime clamped
down and anything that challenges dry for order and progress.
Rocanati faded from view and many of his students that
(00:55):
associates had to go underground for a time, but the
ideas would live on. Quiet sparks are waiting for the
next revolt, and an actual volt would come in nineteen
ten when the Mexican Revolution erupted. But keep in mind
the context here when we talk about revolutions, the focus
tends to be on the flashpoints, the gunfire, the slogans,
(01:16):
the major figures, and I will do a lot of
focus on some of the major figures throughout this history.
We have to keep in mind the revolutions have routes
that run deep, run deep below the surface. The revolutions
are often shaped by decades or centuries of injustice, and
Mexico's revolution was no exception because for over three decades
(01:37):
where Fibiodas ruled Mexico with what is basically a velvet
glove over an iron fist. He brought railroads in electrification,
but also crave crave costs for the rural poor, the
indigenous communities, and the working classes. By nineteen ten, thanks
to his efforts, almost all the land in Mexico was
in private hands. The rural port on our phone themselves
(02:00):
as peons and haciendas. About those that fled to the
city for themselves, proletarianized, made to work at various industries
for long hours, low pay, and little protection. Despite appearance
stable and efficient and odderly, the system in Mexico was
profoundly unjust, and yet many saw it as a model
(02:21):
for progress. In a region full of instability, a description
that seems eerily familiar to the situation that's currently taking
place in El Salvador. Beneath the Polish Veneer, tensions were
bread workers were organizing, journalists were risking their lives. Teachers
and lawyers, and even wealthy landowners began to murmur about
(02:44):
the need for reform, and the countryside, those old communal
memories refused to die. Even after the land was taken.
The land was remembered by the term twentieth century. Diaz
approached as eighties with no successor in sight, and the
people will get in feder which brings us into the
first phase of the Mexican Revolution. According to Ahil Cappelleti,
(03:07):
the author of Anarchism Latin America and the main source
of this episode, Francisco I Madero wasn't quite.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
A revolutionary in all honesty.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
He just wants to tweet the status coo to keep
a free market, but ban the reelection of presidents came
from money. He was an upper class intellectual, a believer
in parliamentary democracy and in free markets. He read the
Review spirit the religiously. It was a spiritualist journalism, and
he believes in a kind of metaphysical liberalism where good
(03:38):
governance and good intentions could stare history in the right direction.
Madero's party, the Partido Democrata, was formed with a single
claire goal and in Porpyrio diazis decades long grip on power.
But the more radical forces like Ricardo Flores Margone and
the Partido Liberal Mexicano or PLM, Madero's vision was nowhere
(04:01):
near enough to get fooled by the name. By the way,
the PLM had some revolutionary credentials. It started off as
a simple anti clerical, anti dtatorial party, but perhaps with
the influence of North American and Spanish immigrant anacosynicalists, it
eventually took on a libertarian character, guided also in part
of the ideological evolution of Malgone himself. It was neither
(04:24):
liberal nor truly a party in the end, but rather
a truly revolutionary libertarian organization. We'll get back to Macgone's
story in Aseca, but the point is where mcgone was
calling for social revolution, lanary distribution, and worker's control of production.
Madero merely wanted electoral reform. He had no real program
(04:45):
for agrarian justice and was quote generally indifferent to the
problems of the Mexican masses, as Capeletti put it, still,
Madero's nineteen ten campaign electrified all of those who unit
for change, revolutionaries and reformists ali His challenge to Diaz
helped ignite a broader uprising that managed to bring Madero
into power in nineteen eleven. Before we get into what
(05:08):
happened during the Madero presidency, let's go back in time
to follow Ricardo Flora's Maggone story. Magon was born in
eighteen seventy three in the village of San Antonio Iloxo
Chitlan in Osaka. His roots straddled both indigenous and Mestizo heritage.
As a law students in Mexico City, he found himself
(05:29):
swept into the tide of anti government agitation. Before he
even turned twenty, he was jailed for the first time.
He joined the radical press in eighteen ninety three with
El Democrat and Anti Diav's people. The regime quickly snuffed out,
but he wasn't detered. In nineteen hundred, he co founded Regeneracion,
the publication that would become the voice of the Mexican
(05:51):
left in the twentieth century. It was while behind bars,
where he often found himself, that Magone encountered the ideas
that would shape his life's work. Thanks to the library
of Liberal landowner Camillo Ariaga, he read the writings of
Kropotkin and Malichest and through those texts, crystallized his anarchist vision. Now,
(06:12):
even though Magone's ideology incubated quietly in his early political life,
it didn't stay buried for law. As his conflicts the
Diaz regime intensified, so too the radicalism of his actions.
He edited l Ejo del Aquisote, a satirical rat that
earned him yet another stint in prison, and after his
release of nineteen oh four, Magaun fled to Texas where
(06:34):
he Relaunchedacion with renewed purpose.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
By nineteen zho.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Five, the paper helped spark the creation of the Partido
Liberal and Hicano or PLA, which, as I said, wasn't
much of a political party as it was a radical
organ though it did have some reformist demands mixed it.
They were trying to soften their language at times to
appeal to conservative sympathizers of reform. Away from Diadz, the
PM sought the abolition of the military tri you knows,
(07:01):
free secular education, workers rights like the eight hour worth
day minimum wage, and the expropriation of idle lands. In short,
it went further the nineteen seventeen Constitution that would come
a decade later. I could be seen as the crystallization
of many of the Mexican revolutions most popular aims. Magon
and the PLM established alliances across borders, particularly among the
(07:24):
industrial workers of the world. But that put a target
on agone's back for both Mexican and US authorities. You
already know they can't be having sort of darity like that.
The Pinkertons rolled up, backed in part by Diaz himself,
and they were on Magon's tale constantly, even ended up
as far north as Canada just trying to escape their
(07:45):
constant harassment. But despite the repression, the momentum could not
be killed. Between nineteen or six and nineteen oh eight,
the PLM helped organize a string of strikes and uprisings.
The most infamous was the Canaean copper strike. Mexican miners
were paid stop vation wages while their American counterparts earned
(08:06):
double for the same work. When the miners struck for
fair pay and better conditions. They were met with deadly force.
The rebellion that followed saw American rangers in Mexican troops
massacre more than two hundred people and thousands were yelled.
Another uprising ignited in Rio Blanco, where textile workers already
paid a pittance, organized the leadership of Jose Nierra, a
(08:29):
student of Agon. When negotiations failed and repression ramped up,
the workers responded, not with another petition, both insurrection. On
January seventh, nineteen oh seven, they stormed the mill, freed prisoners,
cut wires, and declared open rebellion. The States responded with
a bloodbath. Entire families were dragged from their homes and executed.
(08:52):
Another one of the uprisings was a peasant revolter, began
in nineteen oh six in Akayukan and spread through Tuxlass, Minettitlan,
and Tavasco. It was crushed, of course, in nineteen oh
eight and Viscas, though their plans had been leaked to
the authorities. Revolutionaries had a fire fight with police and
freed a town jail. Just two days later, in Las Vegas,
(09:14):
other students of Magone were fighting for justice. Another set
of Gorillas of Rose in Palomas, but they failed. Yet
another insurrection happened in via the lead Yucatan, and they
suffered summary executions, and all those events, all those small
revolutionary bands challenging the states. They failed, but they emboldened
the dream of a different world with their will to act.
(09:47):
Lagoon was jailed again in nineteen oh seven, but it
wasn't over for him yet.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And I really don't like.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
To romanticize, you know, this idea of the uprisings that
they failed, but you know they're still inspiring. You want
to go too far into that where you know, your
self sacrifice for self sacrifice sake. But I think it's
important to point out that there were multiple failed attempts
before the successful uprising that ushered in the Mexican Revolution.
(10:14):
It wasn't, you know, a first time successful attempt, And
by the time Macgaun was released from prison in nineteen ten,
the revolution had already begun to burn across Mexico, and
that is in part in thanks to the efforts of
those uprisings. Even though those individual uprisings failed, the Catalan
immigrant Amadeo Ferez pumped up this energy in nineteen eleven
(10:36):
with ltipograph Fo Mexicano, yet another newspaper with a fierce
anarcho syndicalist spirit, meant to mobilize urban workers. At the
same time, old anarchist typographers were not only printing their message,
they were forming unions like the Union de Canteras Mexicanos.
In mid nineteen twelve, Juan Francisco Moncaliano arrived from Qure
(10:58):
and quickly rallied a dive first group of workers into
Grupo Loose, set on establishing a progressive education platform at
La Francisco Ferrer.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
By September nineteen.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Twelve, these unions and Groupo Loose united to form La
Cassa del Brero, forging a distinctly anarcho synicalist identity. The
organized lectures built libraries of classic anarchist works and launched
a new biweekly called Lucca, all while energizing a massive
May Day rally in nineteen thirteen, where twenty eight thousand
(11:29):
workers rallied. Like Margone, these radicals saw through the hollow
promises of Madero's democracy. Voting for a new president wouldn't
free the peasantry, The legislative seats wouldn't redistribute land, no congress,
no matter whole liberal, would ever voluntarily dismantle the system.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
That fed it.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
For them, revolution was no less than put in land
and production in the hands of the people. No bosses,
no landlords, no masters, just workers organizing life on their
own terms. Revolution, if we could even be called, that
had mobilized peasants, workers and radicals. But that moderate phase
(12:07):
was about to end because once seated as president, Madero
leaned heavily on old elites. He really siphoned energy away
from genuine social change with that reformance to push that
he was doing, a move that sounds all too familiar.
Madero's refusal to enact meaningful change lost in his allies
very quickly. Figures like Pasqual Orosco and even Emiliano Zapata,
(12:30):
who had initially supported the rebellion against Diaz, became dissillusion.
So while Madero governed, the PLM continued its fight, now
against the emergent new regime in northern Mexico. P M
aligned forces initially rose alongside Madero's but they did not
make common cause with him. When strategic positions and two
(12:50):
hour were lost with the middle class and Orosco sided
with Madero, the mogonists turned their attention elsewhere. The next
target was bad Her California. In early nineteen eleven, they
began seasoned towns Mexicali, Los Alcodonis, Tecate, and finally Tijouhanna,
seeking to establish a libertarian society, a model for what
(13:14):
they called a free America. But the backlash was swift. American,
British and French businesses owned pretty much all of Baja California.
Landowners and newspaper mogules in California, USA, which were often
the same people, panicked and ended up smearing the mcgonists
as secessionists trying to handle from Mexican land to the US.
(13:38):
In truth, as mcgonn wrote in Regeneracion, does Baja California
belonged to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It does not.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
It is under the control of foreign capital. Mexicans owned
nothing of it. The PLM's campaign was not about taking
Mexico apart. It was about reclaiming it from the hands
of foreign elites. Nothing less than land and liberty as
a couple of he put it.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
On the contrary, mcgon's goal was nothing other than a
classless and stateless libertarian society that would provide the archetype
and pointed departure for the Mexican and World revolutionia end quote.
The downfall of the Baja California campaign came in the
hands of bourgeois champion Madero, backed by the US government
and capitalists. By mid nineteen eleven, the mcgonists uprising in
(14:24):
Baja California had effectively been extinguished, yet the saga didn't
end there. On the fourteenth of June and nineteen eleven,
Macgone and three of US associates were arrested, tried in
Los Angeles, and mcgone himself was sentenced to McNeil Island
Prison in Washington, State of Faith. He endured until nineteen fourteen,
which meant that Macgone wouldn't be present in Mexico for
(14:45):
the death of one of his biggest ops.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Since Madero failed to gain.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
The support of radicals or secure the loyalty of reactionaries,
the conservative military overthrew and assassinated him in stalling Victoriano
Huerta into power in nineteen thirty and just like that,
the so called moderate phase the Mexican.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Revolution ended in blood.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Quieta's dictator ship tried to to imact the clock to
the Portphyrian era, Cuarta ruled with military force and repression,
the usual stuff, persecuting labor organizers, shutting down radical spaces,
deporting foreign activists, jailen dissenters, murdering people. Crackdowns eventually hit
La Cassa de Lobrero's publications and destroyed the anarchist library.
(15:29):
But outter this repression emerged a new tactic. They basically said,
you know, you could build in our books, That's fine,
do what you have to do. We're not going to
stop us from spreading our message. They established grassroots orators,
the Tribuna Roja, who took the revolutionary message directly to
the working classes, given speeches where they were at and
(15:51):
sharing the message even without access to literature. By May
nineteen fourteen, a new people in Antipascion Obrera was law,
though it too felt praide the regime's brutality. Thankfully, the
regime wouldn't last long. Becausetor's power didn't go unchallenged. From
the north, Venustiano Carranza and the Constitutionalists rose to oppose him,
(16:14):
claiming to defend the Madero's legacy. From the south, Emiliano
Zapata refused to accept any government that ignore the demands
of landless peasants. As throughout the country armed, the struggle reignited,
which brings us to Emiliano Zapata himself. He was doing
his own thing politically, but he was inspired in part
(16:34):
for the anarchist supporterism Agne. His ideology was rooted in Nikalpui,
the collective land systems of his conditionous ancestors. He eventually
adopted the slogan Tierra Ileritad and rallied behind the Plan
de Ayala, demanding land redistribution and local self governance. He
had little tolerance for political maneuvering. He saw the false
(16:55):
promises of figures like Cuerta and Caranza for Zapata revolution,
masara wa, elections or modernization. It was what given land back.
That's really all he cared about. In contrast, as the
warriotis Mario, there was Pancho Villa. He was a charismatic
northern general and a populist who worked with and against Carranza.
(17:17):
As Magon described him, Zapata delivers riches.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
To their true owners, the poor.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Villa executes the proletarian who takes a piece of bread
end cooked. Though both were opposed to Caranza, their goals,
strategies and ethics were far part Like I said, Mariotis
warrior quet didn't last long. As I mentioned, he was
ousted by nineteen fourteen, so just about a year of
being in power and being a violent dictator. And after
(17:47):
predator fell, Pinustiano Caranza rose to fill the vacuue. Like
I said, he claimed to be continuing Madero's legacy, and
his vision of Mexico was just as top down. He
wasn't exactly fond of anarchists or the radical left in general,
but faced with pressure from these zapatistas in the south
and VIA's forces in the north, he courted his labor
(18:08):
organizations like Cassa de la Brero Mundial, offer gestures of support,
a few favorable labor reforms, and even physical space like
giving them the Jesuit College Santa Brigida as headquarters.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
In return, Kranza hoped to build a loyal.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Base of organized workers, integrate them into his constitutional army,
and neutralize the more radical strains of revolution. I'm sorry
to say that it partially worked. He was able to
buy off some of these workers. While this alliance gave
La Casa de Lobrero's space to organize workers throughout the
country and ramp up educational and prostatizing efforts, much like
(18:46):
what would take place in Spain years later, the anarchists
began to lose their anarchist roots from the collaboration. Instead
of back in Zapata. In February nineteen fifteen, Lacassa signed
a pact with the constitutionalist forces and created quote unquote
Red Battalions within Caranzas Army. But although Lacassa expanded its
(19:07):
influence and managed amount strikes among miners, teachers, drivers, bakers,
oil workers, textile workers, carpenters, button makers, and barbers in
nineteen fifteen in response to the economic pressures of inflation
and unemployment, by early nineteen sixteen, their government allies were
cracking down on them. Not long after hiring the Red Battalions.
They fired the Red Battalion, so they shut down Lacasa's offices.
(19:30):
They sent key figures to jail. In response, the workers'
movement held a national congress in Veracruz, and out of
this emerged a new labor federation built on anarchist syneclist principles,
committed not to capturing power but to dismantle it the
Confederaci del Trabajo de Larijon and Hicana. In May nineteen sixteen,
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a general strike erupted in protest of the imprisonment of
La Caasa's leadership and to demand urgent economic relief. While
the strike was an immediate success, its ease led many
young militians to believe the change could come through a
benevolent state. Notably Luis Morons, who would later lead the
Confederacion Brera Mexicana was crom signed agreements.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
With Caranza's government.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Matters intensified ten months later when a second strike broke
out due to Lope. In response, Caranza ordered mounted police
to break up assemblies and declared martial law. The strike
was crushed, its committee suspended all activities, and one prominent
leader was nearly executed before his sentence was finally commuted.
(20:38):
La Casa shut down and the strike failed, but the
anarchists endured. By mid nineteen seventeen, new groups like Loose
and several local cassas had reappeared throughout the country. However,
(21:01):
internal debates culminated in the October nineteen seventeen National Workers Congress,
where reformist forces led by Luis Moronees properly marginalized the anarchists,
set in the stage for the rise of the crom
and a more moderate pro management approach aligned with of
all People, the American Federation of Labor the AFL. Kranza's
(21:23):
crowning achievement came in that same year with the signing
of the Constitution of nineteen seventeen on people. It was
progressive land reform, limitish power, labor protections. But to many revolutionaries,
including Magon, this wasn't the revolution fulfilled. Far from it.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Revolution managed their wireless dreams trimmed down to a policy.
Even its better reforms were hardly enforced. But with the
Constitution of nineteen seventeen, Krantzer could still claim legitimacy, he
could claim progress, and he could claim that the revolution
was over.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But what happened to revolutionaries.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Zapata was still fighting for land in the South, but
Kranzo would assassinate him in By nineteen nineteen, Macgone was
in prison in the USA, denouncing the betrayal from behind bars.
Workers were still struggling for real power in they were places,
and the vast majority of rural Mexicans remained poor dispossessed,
and dissolution. In case you're wondering what happened to Macgone.
(22:24):
In nineteen sixteen, he was jail in the US until
a group of exiled anarchists led by Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman paid his bond. So that feels like a
cameo or crossover episode of some kind, right.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
And then in.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Nineteen seventeen, the year of the New Constitution, he was
back in jail again for speaking out against the First
World War and calling for a social revolutionary war instead.
He was sentenced to twenty years and his health deteriorated steadily.
He wasn't a fan of Carnzer at Tall. He called
him a strike breaker, an assassin, and a wolf in
sheep's clothing. When Karanza's government offered him a pension, he said, quote,
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all money obtained by the state represents the sweat, the anguish,
and sacrifice of workers. If this money came directly from workers,
I would gladly and even proudly accept it, because they
are my brothers. But when it comes to the invention
of the state, after being compelled from the people the money,
you would only burn my hands and fill my heart
(23:21):
with remorse end quote So long story short, he didn't
accept the money. When the US said they might let
him go if he said sorry and petitioned for a pardon,
he said, in many words, hell no. Among his more
beautiful words, he said, quote repentance. I have not exploited
(23:43):
the sweat, anguish, fatigue, and labor of others. I have
not oppressed a single soul. I have nothing to repent for.
My life has been lived without my having acquired any wealth, power,
or glory, when I could have gotten these three things
very easily. But I do not regret it. Wealth power
and gloria only won by trampling others' rights. My conscience
(24:05):
is at peace, for it knows that under my convict's
garb beats an honest heart. So he died in his
jail cell in nineteen twenty two, possibly assassinated. Zapata, like
I said, was assassinated by Cranzer in nineteen nineteen, and
Kranz himself was assassinated in nineteen twenty in case who
Are Keeping Truck? Both of Magon's major ops. He ended
(24:28):
up outliving right. He outlived Madero and then he outlived Caranzer,
but he still died in jail, which is, you know,
kind of tragic. But Kranza's successor, Alvaro Obregon, was both
friendly with reformists in the YIOM and not as hostile
to the anarchists as Caranza, which gave the anarchists an
opportunity to regroup. Strikes built up across the country miners,
(24:53):
oil workers, textile workers, dock workers and more, some sixty
five thousand workers in July nineteen twenty. Out of this
momentum came the Ferracion Communista del Proletariado Mexicano or FCPM.
It was an ideologically mixed group, but leaned in an
arctic direction and starkly contrasted itself with the reformist ways
(25:14):
the CROM and the international ally the AFL. The FCPM
went on to establish the Confederacion General de Tabajadores or
CGT in nineteen twenty one as a direct challenge to
the CROM. They were fully declaring their independence from state
and party. Their focus was on class struggle. The Mexican
(25:34):
government flew to his socialist language from time to time,
but the anarchists saw through the charade. They called out
that so called socialist light government's deportation of anarchists and socialists.
They even called Maroney the guy who started crom Mexico's Mussolini.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
It's an interesting insult.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
The CGT stood against the Moscow backed Third International and
instead allied with councilorsts like Rosa Luxembourg and Anton Panacoec.
They also formed a specifically anarchist section within the group,
meant to play the same role played by the FAI
for the Spanish CGT. The Mexican CGT backed strikes, including
in nineteen twenty one when they backed a real workers'
(26:14):
strike against US companies, and in nineteen twenty two they
expelled the CGT leaders who had flirted with electoral politics,
reiterating their anti party stance.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
They would not.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Allow themselves to be retaken and capitulated to reformist aims.
That same year, media protests turned into confrontations when right
wing thugs kill the demonstrator's child in front of the
US consolate, and they didn't stop there. Anarchists in the
CGT helped organize tenant strikes in Mexico City and Veracruz.
(26:46):
They led general strikes and textile mills and rallied against
steed violence They protested in solidarity with international struggles from
Spain to Boston, from the murder of Salvador Sigwi to
the gelin of Sacco and Vencetti. They also to deal
with efforts to defame them through misinformation, such as the
accusation that they were embstling workers' funds. Throughout the early
(27:08):
nineteen twenties you had some new libertarian publications jumping out.
You had Viberrojo, you had Lahumi, Dad Sachi, Tario, Tierra Libre, Alba, Anakika,
and so on. And by nineteen twenty four, under President Kayes,
who followed the assassinated Obrigon, the tides began to shift.
Kays was more hostile to the anarchists than a brigon
(27:30):
and openly favored cron. He gave Morones a cabinet post.
Past Lowist undermined CGT, organizing and escalated repression. The CGT
held its ground, organizing general strikes, occupying textile mills, confronting
the police, expand into the countryside all their usual stuff.
They fought for short term relief and long term revolution.
(27:52):
By nineteen twenty six, CGT had grown into a federation
of one hundred and fifty seven affiliated groups, unions, syndicates
occur in communities all included. And yet by the late
nineteen twenties things started to free. The CROM was declining
due to their attachments to a government that was no
longer conciliatory to their political ambitions, and the CGT couldn't
(28:14):
capitalize on that decline of the CROM. The government sought
to marginalize them entirely. Thousands of former CROM members joined
the CGT, while the CGT itself began to make some
slides toward concession and reformer zone, and so it reached
a point where they were calling themselves anarchists. But the
anarchism was nowhere never and yet anarchism didn't die. It morphed,
(28:39):
it migrated, and it regrouped. After the fall of Spain
in nineteen thirty nine, exiled members the CNT and FAI
arrived in Mexico, reinvigorating the scene for a time. They
published Tierai Libertad, built new organizations, and kept the memory
and the fight alive. A few anarchists impulses managed to
emolish within the Mecha Concommunist Party into the early nineteen
(29:02):
thirties as well. At least according to Kirkschaffer, President Cais
ended up founding what became the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a
contradiction if I ever heard it. And they basically ran
the show in Mexico for seventy one years straight from
nineteen twenty nine to two thousand. The administration co created
the conditions. They were both the NEOs Apatis Molls in
(29:24):
nineteen ninety four. They're anarchists, as they have been very
clear to state, but maybe they'll get a two parter
in the future going into their history in more depth.
The history of anarchism in Mexico has been quite the story,
I must say, and with that we've reached the end
of that classical history. Its modern history is still being written,
(29:46):
still being told. But this is the end of our
exploration for now, much as of Mexico's anarchist history, but
of this entire series of anarchism in Latin America. I
joked about baking an episode about Quebec's anarchism see but
that may remain a joke for now.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
We'veur neyed a very.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Long way together, from the Andes to Buenos Aires, to
Montevideo to South Bolo to all over We've seen how
long before the name anarchism arrived in the Latin America's
shows people who resisting hierarchy through indigenous forms of autonomy,
African Maroon communities, and peasant traditions of land sharing and reciprocity.
(30:25):
We saw how these anarchic and anarchist instincts met new
ideas genuinely and intentionally. Anarchist ideas coming from Pudin, Bacunan
and Kropotkin brought over in pamphlets and in the minds
of exiles and immigrants in Mexico. Those forces took on
a revolutionary scale. Rota Kanati planted the seed, Macgone amplified
(30:49):
its voice. The workers, the peasants, the students. They all
gave it their all, their fire, And even when that
fire was smothered by reformists, by nationalists, by reactionaries, by capitalists,
by the bullets and the bribe, it never truly went out.
Across the Americas, these movements rarely one in the traditional sense.
(31:10):
They will often betrayed, suppressed, and erased from history. But
although anarchy was not achieved, anarchists and the anarchist idea
will survive.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Anarchists thought is.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Radically resilient, and it never really disappears, and usually just
goes underground or into the margins, or into new forms,
from student collectives to feminist organizations to squads to ecological struggles,
inspiring movements that aren't necessarily anarchists, but lean in a
direction that questions some of the familiar patterns of authority.
(31:44):
Thank you for walking this journey with me. I've been
Andrew Saige. You can find me on YouTube at androism
support the work over a Patreon dot com slash change True.
All sources, citations, and further reading can be found in
the show notes. This has been, It Could Happen, Walpoworks, all.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
The People Peace.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it Could Happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.
All media.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Canappan Here.
Speaker 3 (00:07):
I'm back with yere Davis.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
Hello, and I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:10):
Andress Age or androism on YouTube now. Previously we explored
a lesser known chapter in Mexico's radical history before Margon,
before the Revolution, when a Greek emigrey named Plotino Rocanati
arrived in the eighteen sixties, convinced that Mexico's indigenous communal
traditions could form the basis for a new anarchist society.
(00:33):
Through schools, pamphlets, and mutual aid societies, he helped sow
the first seeds of anarchist thought on Mexican soil. Some
of his students pushed even further and flirted with many
bersion streams of anarchism. Even as Portfilio Diaz's regime clamped
down and anything that challenges dry for order and progress.
Rocanati faded from view and many of his students that
(00:55):
associates had to go underground for a time, but the
ideas would live on. Quiet sparks are waiting for the
next revolt, and an actual volt would come in nineteen
ten when the Mexican Revolution erupted. But keep in mind
the context here when we talk about revolutions, the focus
tends to be on the flashpoints, the gunfire, the slogans,
(01:16):
the major figures, and I will do a lot of
focus on some of the major figures throughout this history.
We have to keep in mind the revolutions have routes
that run deep, run deep below the surface. The revolutions
are often shaped by decades or centuries of injustice, and
Mexico's revolution was no exception because for over three decades
(01:37):
where Fibiodas ruled Mexico with what is basically a velvet
glove over an iron fist. He brought railroads in electrification,
but also crave crave costs for the rural poor, the
indigenous communities, and the working classes. By nineteen ten, thanks
to his efforts, almost all the land in Mexico was
in private hands. The rural port on our phone themselves
(02:00):
as peons and haciendas. About those that fled to the
city for themselves, proletarianized, made to work at various industries
for long hours, low pay, and little protection. Despite appearance
stable and efficient and odderly, the system in Mexico was
profoundly unjust, and yet many saw it as a model
(02:21):
for progress. In a region full of instability, a description
that seems eerily familiar to the situation that's currently taking
place in El Salvador. Beneath the Polish Veneer, tensions were
bread workers were organizing, journalists were risking their lives. Teachers
and lawyers, and even wealthy landowners began to murmur about
(02:44):
the need for reform, and the countryside, those old communal
memories refused to die. Even after the land was taken.
The land was remembered by the term twentieth century. Diaz
approached as eighties with no successor in sight, and the
people will get in feder which brings us into the
first phase of the Mexican Revolution. According to Ahil Cappelleti,
(03:07):
the author of Anarchism Latin America and the main source
of this episode, Francisco I Madero wasn't quite.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
A revolutionary in all honesty.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
He just wants to tweet the status coo to keep
a free market, but ban the reelection of presidents came
from money. He was an upper class intellectual, a believer
in parliamentary democracy and in free markets. He read the
Review spirit the religiously. It was a spiritualist journalism, and
he believes in a kind of metaphysical liberalism where good
(03:38):
governance and good intentions could stare history in the right direction.
Madero's party, the Partido Democrata, was formed with a single
claire goal and in Porpyrio diazis decades long grip on power.
But the more radical forces like Ricardo Flores Margone and
the Partido Liberal Mexicano or PLM, Madero's vision was nowhere
(04:01):
near enough to get fooled by the name. By the way,
the PLM had some revolutionary credentials. It started off as
a simple anti clerical, anti dtatorial party, but perhaps with
the influence of North American and Spanish immigrant anacosynicalists, it
eventually took on a libertarian character, guided also in part
of the ideological evolution of Malgone himself. It was neither
(04:24):
liberal nor truly a party in the end, but rather
a truly revolutionary libertarian organization. We'll get back to Macgone's
story in Aseca, but the point is where mcgone was
calling for social revolution, lanary distribution, and worker's control of production.
Madero merely wanted electoral reform. He had no real program
(04:45):
for agrarian justice and was quote generally indifferent to the
problems of the Mexican masses, as Capeletti put it, still,
Madero's nineteen ten campaign electrified all of those who unit
for change, revolutionaries and reformists ali His challenge to Diaz
helped ignite a broader uprising that managed to bring Madero
into power in nineteen eleven. Before we get into what
(05:08):
happened during the Madero presidency, let's go back in time
to follow Ricardo Flora's Maggone story. Magon was born in
eighteen seventy three in the village of San Antonio Iloxo
Chitlan in Osaka. His roots straddled both indigenous and Mestizo heritage.
As a law students in Mexico City, he found himself
(05:29):
swept into the tide of anti government agitation. Before he
even turned twenty, he was jailed for the first time.
He joined the radical press in eighteen ninety three with
El Democrat and Anti Diav's people. The regime quickly snuffed out,
but he wasn't detered. In nineteen hundred, he co founded Regeneracion,
the publication that would become the voice of the Mexican
(05:51):
left in the twentieth century. It was while behind bars,
where he often found himself, that Magone encountered the ideas
that would shape his life's work. Thanks to the library
of Liberal landowner Camillo Ariaga, he read the writings of
Kropotkin and Malichest and through those texts, crystallized his anarchist vision. Now,
(06:12):
even though Magone's ideology incubated quietly in his early political life,
it didn't stay buried for law. As his conflicts the
Diaz regime intensified, so too the radicalism of his actions.
He edited l Ejo del Aquisote, a satirical rat that
earned him yet another stint in prison, and after his
release of nineteen oh four, Magaun fled to Texas where
(06:34):
he Relaunchedacion with renewed purpose.
Speaker 2 (06:37):
By nineteen zho.
Speaker 3 (06:38):
Five, the paper helped spark the creation of the Partido
Liberal and Hicano or PLA, which, as I said, wasn't
much of a political party as it was a radical
organ though it did have some reformist demands mixed it.
They were trying to soften their language at times to
appeal to conservative sympathizers of reform. Away from Diadz, the
PM sought the abolition of the military tri you knows,
(07:01):
free secular education, workers rights like the eight hour worth
day minimum wage, and the expropriation of idle lands. In short,
it went further the nineteen seventeen Constitution that would come
a decade later. I could be seen as the crystallization
of many of the Mexican revolutions most popular aims. Magon
and the PLM established alliances across borders, particularly among the
(07:24):
industrial workers of the world. But that put a target
on agone's back for both Mexican and US authorities. You
already know they can't be having sort of darity like that.
The Pinkertons rolled up, backed in part by Diaz himself,
and they were on Magon's tale constantly, even ended up
as far north as Canada just trying to escape their
(07:45):
constant harassment. But despite the repression, the momentum could not
be killed. Between nineteen or six and nineteen oh eight,
the PLM helped organize a string of strikes and uprisings.
The most infamous was the Canaean copper strike. Mexican miners
were paid stop vation wages while their American counterparts earned
(08:06):
double for the same work. When the miners struck for
fair pay and better conditions. They were met with deadly force.
The rebellion that followed saw American rangers in Mexican troops
massacre more than two hundred people and thousands were yelled.
Another uprising ignited in Rio Blanco, where textile workers already
paid a pittance, organized the leadership of Jose Nierra, a
(08:29):
student of Agon. When negotiations failed and repression ramped up,
the workers responded, not with another petition, both insurrection. On
January seventh, nineteen oh seven, they stormed the mill, freed prisoners,
cut wires, and declared open rebellion. The States responded with
a bloodbath. Entire families were dragged from their homes and executed.
(08:52):
Another one of the uprisings was a peasant revolter, began
in nineteen oh six in Akayukan and spread through Tuxlass, Minettitlan,
and Tavasco. It was crushed, of course, in nineteen oh
eight and Viscas, though their plans had been leaked to
the authorities. Revolutionaries had a fire fight with police and
freed a town jail. Just two days later, in Las Vegas,
(09:14):
other students of Magone were fighting for justice. Another set
of Gorillas of Rose in Palomas, but they failed. Yet
another insurrection happened in via the lead Yucatan, and they
suffered summary executions, and all those events, all those small
revolutionary bands challenging the states. They failed, but they emboldened
the dream of a different world with their will to act.
(09:47):
Lagoon was jailed again in nineteen oh seven, but it
wasn't over for him yet.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
And I really don't like.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
To romanticize, you know, this idea of the uprisings that
they failed, but you know they're still inspiring. You want
to go too far into that where you know, your
self sacrifice for self sacrifice sake. But I think it's
important to point out that there were multiple failed attempts
before the successful uprising that ushered in the Mexican Revolution.
(10:14):
It wasn't, you know, a first time successful attempt, And
by the time Macgaun was released from prison in nineteen ten,
the revolution had already begun to burn across Mexico, and
that is in part in thanks to the efforts of
those uprisings. Even though those individual uprisings failed, the Catalan
immigrant Amadeo Ferez pumped up this energy in nineteen eleven
(10:36):
with ltipograph Fo Mexicano, yet another newspaper with a fierce
anarcho syndicalist spirit, meant to mobilize urban workers. At the
same time, old anarchist typographers were not only printing their message,
they were forming unions like the Union de Canteras Mexicanos.
In mid nineteen twelve, Juan Francisco Moncaliano arrived from Qure
(10:58):
and quickly rallied a dive first group of workers into
Grupo Loose, set on establishing a progressive education platform at
La Francisco Ferrer.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
By September nineteen.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Twelve, these unions and Groupo Loose united to form La
Cassa del Brero, forging a distinctly anarcho synicalist identity. The
organized lectures built libraries of classic anarchist works and launched
a new biweekly called Lucca, all while energizing a massive
May Day rally in nineteen thirteen, where twenty eight thousand
(11:29):
workers rallied. Like Margone, these radicals saw through the hollow
promises of Madero's democracy. Voting for a new president wouldn't
free the peasantry, The legislative seats wouldn't redistribute land, no congress,
no matter whole liberal, would ever voluntarily dismantle the system.
Speaker 2 (11:45):
That fed it.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
For them, revolution was no less than put in land
and production in the hands of the people. No bosses,
no landlords, no masters, just workers organizing life on their
own terms. Revolution, if we could even be called, that
had mobilized peasants, workers and radicals. But that moderate phase
(12:07):
was about to end because once seated as president, Madero
leaned heavily on old elites. He really siphoned energy away
from genuine social change with that reformance to push that
he was doing, a move that sounds all too familiar.
Madero's refusal to enact meaningful change lost in his allies
very quickly. Figures like Pasqual Orosco and even Emiliano Zapata,
(12:30):
who had initially supported the rebellion against Diaz, became dissillusion.
So while Madero governed, the PLM continued its fight, now
against the emergent new regime in northern Mexico. P M
aligned forces initially rose alongside Madero's but they did not
make common cause with him. When strategic positions and two
(12:50):
hour were lost with the middle class and Orosco sided
with Madero, the mogonists turned their attention elsewhere. The next
target was bad Her California. In early nineteen eleven, they
began seasoned towns Mexicali, Los Alcodonis, Tecate, and finally Tijouhanna,
seeking to establish a libertarian society, a model for what
(13:14):
they called a free America. But the backlash was swift. American,
British and French businesses owned pretty much all of Baja California.
Landowners and newspaper mogules in California, USA, which were often
the same people, panicked and ended up smearing the mcgonists
as secessionists trying to handle from Mexican land to the US.
(13:38):
In truth, as mcgonn wrote in Regeneracion, does Baja California
belonged to Mexico.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
It does not.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
It is under the control of foreign capital. Mexicans owned
nothing of it. The PLM's campaign was not about taking
Mexico apart. It was about reclaiming it from the hands
of foreign elites. Nothing less than land and liberty as
a couple of he put it.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Quote.
Speaker 3 (14:01):
On the contrary, mcgon's goal was nothing other than a
classless and stateless libertarian society that would provide the archetype
and pointed departure for the Mexican and World revolutionia end quote.
The downfall of the Baja California campaign came in the
hands of bourgeois champion Madero, backed by the US government
and capitalists. By mid nineteen eleven, the mcgonists uprising in
(14:24):
Baja California had effectively been extinguished, yet the saga didn't
end there. On the fourteenth of June and nineteen eleven,
Macgone and three of US associates were arrested, tried in
Los Angeles, and mcgone himself was sentenced to McNeil Island
Prison in Washington, State of Faith. He endured until nineteen fourteen,
which meant that Macgone wouldn't be present in Mexico for
(14:45):
the death of one of his biggest ops.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
Since Madero failed to gain.
Speaker 3 (14:49):
The support of radicals or secure the loyalty of reactionaries,
the conservative military overthrew and assassinated him in stalling Victoriano
Huerta into power in nineteen thirty and just like that,
the so called moderate phase the Mexican.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
Revolution ended in blood.
Speaker 3 (15:07):
Quieta's dictator ship tried to to imact the clock to
the Portphyrian era, Cuarta ruled with military force and repression,
the usual stuff, persecuting labor organizers, shutting down radical spaces,
deporting foreign activists, jailen dissenters, murdering people. Crackdowns eventually hit
La Cassa de Lobrero's publications and destroyed the anarchist library.
(15:29):
But outter this repression emerged a new tactic. They basically said,
you know, you could build in our books, That's fine,
do what you have to do. We're not going to
stop us from spreading our message. They established grassroots orators,
the Tribuna Roja, who took the revolutionary message directly to
the working classes, given speeches where they were at and
(15:51):
sharing the message even without access to literature. By May
nineteen fourteen, a new people in Antipascion Obrera was law,
though it too felt praide the regime's brutality. Thankfully, the
regime wouldn't last long. Becausetor's power didn't go unchallenged. From
the north, Venustiano Carranza and the Constitutionalists rose to oppose him,
(16:14):
claiming to defend the Madero's legacy. From the south, Emiliano
Zapata refused to accept any government that ignore the demands
of landless peasants. As throughout the country armed, the struggle reignited,
which brings us to Emiliano Zapata himself. He was doing
his own thing politically, but he was inspired in part
(16:34):
for the anarchist supporterism Agne. His ideology was rooted in Nikalpui,
the collective land systems of his conditionous ancestors. He eventually
adopted the slogan Tierra Ileritad and rallied behind the Plan
de Ayala, demanding land redistribution and local self governance. He
had little tolerance for political maneuvering. He saw the false
(16:55):
promises of figures like Cuerta and Caranza for Zapata revolution,
masara wa, elections or modernization. It was what given land back.
That's really all he cared about. In contrast, as the
warriotis Mario, there was Pancho Villa. He was a charismatic
northern general and a populist who worked with and against Carranza.
(17:17):
As Magon described him, Zapata delivers riches.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
To their true owners, the poor.
Speaker 3 (17:23):
Villa executes the proletarian who takes a piece of bread
end cooked. Though both were opposed to Caranza, their goals,
strategies and ethics were far part Like I said, Mariotis
warrior quet didn't last long. As I mentioned, he was
ousted by nineteen fourteen, so just about a year of
being in power and being a violent dictator. And after
(17:47):
predator fell, Pinustiano Caranza rose to fill the vacuue. Like
I said, he claimed to be continuing Madero's legacy, and
his vision of Mexico was just as top down. He
wasn't exactly fond of anarchists or the radical left in general,
but faced with pressure from these zapatistas in the south
and VIA's forces in the north, he courted his labor
(18:08):
organizations like Cassa de la Brero Mundial, offer gestures of support,
a few favorable labor reforms, and even physical space like
giving them the Jesuit College Santa Brigida as headquarters.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
In return, Kranza hoped to build a loyal.
Speaker 3 (18:23):
Base of organized workers, integrate them into his constitutional army,
and neutralize the more radical strains of revolution. I'm sorry
to say that it partially worked. He was able to
buy off some of these workers. While this alliance gave
La Casa de Lobrero's space to organize workers throughout the
country and ramp up educational and prostatizing efforts, much like
(18:46):
what would take place in Spain years later, the anarchists
began to lose their anarchist roots from the collaboration. Instead
of back in Zapata. In February nineteen fifteen, Lacassa signed
a pact with the constitutionalist forces and created quote unquote
Red Battalions within Caranzas Army. But although Lacassa expanded its
(19:07):
influence and managed amount strikes among miners, teachers, drivers, bakers,
oil workers, textile workers, carpenters, button makers, and barbers in
nineteen fifteen in response to the economic pressures of inflation
and unemployment, by early nineteen sixteen, their government allies were
cracking down on them. Not long after hiring the Red Battalions.
They fired the Red Battalion, so they shut down Lacasa's offices.
(19:30):
They sent key figures to jail. In response, the workers'
movement held a national congress in Veracruz, and out of
this emerged a new labor federation built on anarchist syneclist principles,
committed not to capturing power but to dismantle it the
Confederaci del Trabajo de Larijon and Hicana. In May nineteen sixteen,
(19:52):
a general strike erupted in protest of the imprisonment of
La Caasa's leadership and to demand urgent economic relief. While
the strike was an immediate success, its ease led many
young militians to believe the change could come through a
benevolent state. Notably Luis Morons, who would later lead the
Confederacion Brera Mexicana was crom signed agreements.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
With Caranza's government.
Speaker 3 (20:17):
Matters intensified ten months later when a second strike broke
out due to Lope. In response, Caranza ordered mounted police
to break up assemblies and declared martial law. The strike
was crushed, its committee suspended all activities, and one prominent
leader was nearly executed before his sentence was finally commuted.
(20:38):
La Casa shut down and the strike failed, but the
anarchists endured. By mid nineteen seventeen, new groups like Loose
and several local cassas had reappeared throughout the country. However,
(21:01):
internal debates culminated in the October nineteen seventeen National Workers Congress,
where reformist forces led by Luis Moronees properly marginalized the anarchists,
set in the stage for the rise of the crom
and a more moderate pro management approach aligned with of
all People, the American Federation of Labor the AFL. Kranza's
(21:23):
crowning achievement came in that same year with the signing
of the Constitution of nineteen seventeen on people. It was
progressive land reform, limitish power, labor protections. But to many revolutionaries,
including Magon, this wasn't the revolution fulfilled. Far from it.
Speaker 2 (21:40):
It was a.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Revolution managed their wireless dreams trimmed down to a policy.
Even its better reforms were hardly enforced. But with the
Constitution of nineteen seventeen, Krantzer could still claim legitimacy, he
could claim progress, and he could claim that the revolution
was over.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
But what happened to revolutionaries.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
Zapata was still fighting for land in the South, but
Kranzo would assassinate him in By nineteen nineteen, Macgone was
in prison in the USA, denouncing the betrayal from behind bars.
Workers were still struggling for real power in they were places,
and the vast majority of rural Mexicans remained poor dispossessed,
and dissolution. In case you're wondering what happened to Macgone.
(22:24):
In nineteen sixteen, he was jail in the US until
a group of exiled anarchists led by Emma Goldman and
Alexander Berkman paid his bond. So that feels like a
cameo or crossover episode of some kind, right.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
And then in.
Speaker 3 (22:37):
Nineteen seventeen, the year of the New Constitution, he was
back in jail again for speaking out against the First
World War and calling for a social revolutionary war instead.
He was sentenced to twenty years and his health deteriorated steadily.
He wasn't a fan of Carnzer at Tall. He called
him a strike breaker, an assassin, and a wolf in
sheep's clothing. When Karanza's government offered him a pension, he said, quote,
(23:01):
all money obtained by the state represents the sweat, the anguish,
and sacrifice of workers. If this money came directly from workers,
I would gladly and even proudly accept it, because they
are my brothers. But when it comes to the invention
of the state, after being compelled from the people the money,
you would only burn my hands and fill my heart
(23:21):
with remorse end quote So long story short, he didn't
accept the money. When the US said they might let
him go if he said sorry and petitioned for a pardon,
he said, in many words, hell no. Among his more
beautiful words, he said, quote repentance. I have not exploited
(23:43):
the sweat, anguish, fatigue, and labor of others. I have
not oppressed a single soul. I have nothing to repent for.
My life has been lived without my having acquired any wealth, power,
or glory, when I could have gotten these three things
very easily. But I do not regret it. Wealth power
and gloria only won by trampling others' rights. My conscience
(24:05):
is at peace, for it knows that under my convict's
garb beats an honest heart. So he died in his
jail cell in nineteen twenty two, possibly assassinated. Zapata, like
I said, was assassinated by Cranzer in nineteen nineteen, and
Kranz himself was assassinated in nineteen twenty in case who
Are Keeping Truck? Both of Magon's major ops. He ended
(24:28):
up outliving right. He outlived Madero and then he outlived Caranzer,
but he still died in jail, which is, you know,
kind of tragic. But Kranza's successor, Alvaro Obregon, was both
friendly with reformists in the YIOM and not as hostile
to the anarchists as Caranza, which gave the anarchists an
opportunity to regroup. Strikes built up across the country miners,
(24:53):
oil workers, textile workers, dock workers and more, some sixty
five thousand workers in July nineteen twenty. Out of this
momentum came the Ferracion Communista del Proletariado Mexicano or FCPM.
It was an ideologically mixed group, but leaned in an
arctic direction and starkly contrasted itself with the reformist ways
(25:14):
the CROM and the international ally the AFL. The FCPM
went on to establish the Confederacion General de Tabajadores or
CGT in nineteen twenty one as a direct challenge to
the CROM. They were fully declaring their independence from state
and party. Their focus was on class struggle. The Mexican
(25:34):
government flew to his socialist language from time to time,
but the anarchists saw through the charade. They called out
that so called socialist light government's deportation of anarchists and socialists.
They even called Maroney the guy who started crom Mexico's Mussolini.
Speaker 2 (25:51):
It's an interesting insult.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
The CGT stood against the Moscow backed Third International and
instead allied with councilorsts like Rosa Luxembourg and Anton Panacoec.
They also formed a specifically anarchist section within the group,
meant to play the same role played by the FAI
for the Spanish CGT. The Mexican CGT backed strikes, including
in nineteen twenty one when they backed a real workers'
(26:14):
strike against US companies, and in nineteen twenty two they
expelled the CGT leaders who had flirted with electoral politics,
reiterating their anti party stance.
Speaker 2 (26:25):
They would not.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Allow themselves to be retaken and capitulated to reformist aims.
That same year, media protests turned into confrontations when right
wing thugs kill the demonstrator's child in front of the
US consolate, and they didn't stop there. Anarchists in the
CGT helped organize tenant strikes in Mexico City and Veracruz.
(26:46):
They led general strikes and textile mills and rallied against
steed violence They protested in solidarity with international struggles from
Spain to Boston, from the murder of Salvador Sigwi to
the gelin of Sacco and Vencetti. They also to deal
with efforts to defame them through misinformation, such as the
accusation that they were embstling workers' funds. Throughout the early
(27:08):
nineteen twenties you had some new libertarian publications jumping out.
You had Viberrojo, you had Lahumi, Dad Sachi, Tario, Tierra Libre, Alba, Anakika,
and so on. And by nineteen twenty four, under President Kayes,
who followed the assassinated Obrigon, the tides began to shift.
Kays was more hostile to the anarchists than a brigon
(27:30):
and openly favored cron. He gave Morones a cabinet post.
Past Lowist undermined CGT, organizing and escalated repression. The CGT
held its ground, organizing general strikes, occupying textile mills, confronting
the police, expand into the countryside all their usual stuff.
They fought for short term relief and long term revolution.
(27:52):
By nineteen twenty six, CGT had grown into a federation
of one hundred and fifty seven affiliated groups, unions, syndicates
occur in communities all included. And yet by the late
nineteen twenties things started to free. The CROM was declining
due to their attachments to a government that was no
longer conciliatory to their political ambitions, and the CGT couldn't
(28:14):
capitalize on that decline of the CROM. The government sought
to marginalize them entirely. Thousands of former CROM members joined
the CGT, while the CGT itself began to make some
slides toward concession and reformer zone, and so it reached
a point where they were calling themselves anarchists. But the
anarchism was nowhere never and yet anarchism didn't die. It morphed,
(28:39):
it migrated, and it regrouped. After the fall of Spain
in nineteen thirty nine, exiled members the CNT and FAI
arrived in Mexico, reinvigorating the scene for a time. They
published Tierai Libertad, built new organizations, and kept the memory
and the fight alive. A few anarchists impulses managed to
emolish within the Mecha Concommunist Party into the early nineteen
(29:02):
thirties as well. At least according to Kirkschaffer, President Cais
ended up founding what became the Institutional Revolutionary Party, a
contradiction if I ever heard it. And they basically ran
the show in Mexico for seventy one years straight from
nineteen twenty nine to two thousand. The administration co created
the conditions. They were both the NEOs Apatis Molls in
(29:24):
nineteen ninety four. They're anarchists, as they have been very
clear to state, but maybe they'll get a two parter
in the future going into their history in more depth.
The history of anarchism in Mexico has been quite the story,
I must say, and with that we've reached the end
of that classical history. Its modern history is still being written,
(29:46):
still being told. But this is the end of our
exploration for now, much as of Mexico's anarchist history, but
of this entire series of anarchism in Latin America. I
joked about baking an episode about Quebec's anarchism see but
that may remain a joke for now.
Speaker 2 (30:03):
We'veur neyed a very.
Speaker 3 (30:04):
Long way together, from the Andes to Buenos Aires, to
Montevideo to South Bolo to all over We've seen how
long before the name anarchism arrived in the Latin America's
shows people who resisting hierarchy through indigenous forms of autonomy,
African Maroon communities, and peasant traditions of land sharing and reciprocity.
(30:25):
We saw how these anarchic and anarchist instincts met new
ideas genuinely and intentionally. Anarchist ideas coming from Pudin, Bacunan
and Kropotkin brought over in pamphlets and in the minds
of exiles and immigrants in Mexico. Those forces took on
a revolutionary scale. Rota Kanati planted the seed, Macgone amplified
(30:49):
its voice. The workers, the peasants, the students. They all
gave it their all, their fire, And even when that
fire was smothered by reformists, by nationalists, by reactionaries, by capitalists,
by the bullets and the bribe, it never truly went out.
Across the Americas, these movements rarely one in the traditional sense.
(31:10):
They will often betrayed, suppressed, and erased from history. But
although anarchy was not achieved, anarchists and the anarchist idea
will survive.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Anarchists thought is.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
Radically resilient, and it never really disappears, and usually just
goes underground or into the margins, or into new forms,
from student collectives to feminist organizations to squads to ecological struggles,
inspiring movements that aren't necessarily anarchists, but lean in a
direction that questions some of the familiar patterns of authority.
(31:44):
Thank you for walking this journey with me. I've been
Andrew Saige. You can find me on YouTube at androism
support the work over a Patreon dot com slash change True.
All sources, citations, and further reading can be found in
the show notes. This has been, It Could Happen, Walpoworks, all.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
The People Peace.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it Could Happen here, listed directly
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