Anarchism In Mexico feat. Andrew, Pt. 2

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 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, 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 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 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 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 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, the author of Anarchism Latin America and the main source of this episode, Francisco I Madero wasn't quite.

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 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 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 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 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 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 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, 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 he Relaunchedacion with renewed purpose.

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 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 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

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 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. 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, 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. Lagoon was jailed again in nineteen oh seven, but it wasn't over for him yet.

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 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 and quickly rallied a dive first group of workers into Grupo Loose, set on establishing a progressive education platform at La Francisco Ferrer.

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.

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, 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 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 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. In truth, as mcgonn wrote in Regeneracion, does Baja California belonged to Mexico.

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 the death of one of his biggest ops.

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 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, 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

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 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. As Magon described him, Zapata delivers riches.

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 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.

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 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. 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, 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.

and several local cassas had reappeared throughout the country. However, 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 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.

Alexander Berkman paid his bond. So that feels like a cameo or crossover episode of some kind, right.

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 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.

for the Spanish CGT. The Mexican CGT backed strikes, including in nineteen twenty one when they backed a real workers' 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.

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 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 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. 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 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, 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

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

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, 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.

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

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. They will often betrayed, suppressed, and erased from history. But although anarchy was not achieved, anarchists and the anarchist idea will survive.

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.