Movements After Revolution: A History of People's Struggles in Mexico

by Miles V. Rodríguez

Overview

The end of three decades of dictatorship, a decade of war and revolution, and the establishment of a constitutional republic hardly quelled political dissent among the Mexican population. To the contrary, the first decade after the Mexican Revolution of 1910-1920 saw the rise of an unprecedented variety of organizations among industrial workers and agricultural laborers, who fought for a vast array of demands and diverse forms of justice. Movements After Revolution focuses on struggles to organize industrial workers into the labor movement and agricultural laborers into the agrarian movement from grassroots, regional, and national levels and across class lines in conflicts with companies, landlords, and the state. Attempts were made, mostly initiated by Communists, to unite these different movements in a single nationwide revolutionary movement and alliance against capitalism and the post-Revolutionary Mexican state. Yet, they did not significantly threaten the stronger and more unified state, nor diminish capitalism, much less begin a transition toward socialism or even another revolution. Instead, the most independent organizations and parts of movements that began to align under Communist leadership fractured between those that favored revolutionary antagonism against the state and those that sought continual accommodation with it. Increasing fragmentation broke apart movements and generated the conditions for fatal interventions by the state, which devastated its main antagonists, ruined what remained of the coalitions, and caused irreparable damage to the coalitions and their relationships with allies and international socialism. Under the circumstances, it was extremely difficult for the people's movements to salvage their remnants amidst the subsequently strained conditions of the Great Depression. By examining the roles of activists and their antagonists in this divisive period and the complex consequences of their activities, Movements After Revolution offers original insights on the influences and limits of the Revolution on people's movements.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780197558126
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	02/21/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Miles V. Rodríguez is Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at Bard College.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Acronyms and Abbreviations Introduction Ch. 1. The Crises of Sovereignty and the Power after the Revolution Ch. 2. The Rise of People's Movements and Organizations of Struggle Ch. 3. The Waves and Currents of Struggle Ch. 4. Global Revolutionary Strategy and National Revolutionary Crisis Ch. 5. Revolutionary Antagonism and Movement Decay Conclusion Notes Bibliography Index

Editorial Reviews

"Rodríguez (Bard College) closely examines the relatively unknown and unexamined histories of specific parts of the labor and agrarian movements that began to align with one another in Mexico, demonstrating a clear understanding of the influences and limits of the Mexican Revolution in people's movements" — Choice

"Rodríguez closely examines the relatively unknown and unexamined histories of specific parts of the labor and agrarian movements that began to align with one another in Mexico, demonstrating a clear understanding of the influences and limits of the Mexican Revolution in people's movements. He argues that the possibilities of strategic organizations and the parts of the agrarian and labor movements that forged alliances failed to unite in a common struggle because of state intervention and subsequent co-option....Rodríguez makes an important distinction between 'people's movements' and 'popular movements,' emphasizing that 'people's movements' represent people, making them much more than just popular. This distinction, Rodríguez further opines, is also meant to facilitate global and international comparisons relevant to revolutions and post-revolutionary processes and situations throughout the 20th-century world." — Choice

"A must-read for anyone trying to understand why the Mexican Revolution did not lead to the revolutionary Mexico portrayed in Rivera's and Siqueiros's murals and became instead a capitalist country ruled by a single party. This book masterfully explains how the possibility of a socialist Mexico vanished by the end of the 1920s as labor and agrarian movements, briefly allied under Communist leadership, failed to remain united and independent from an increasingly strong state." — Aurora Gómez-Galvarriato, El Colegio de México

"A provocative analysis of popular movements in 1920s Mexico. Rodríguez traces the important yet ultimately unsuccessful efforts to unite labor and agrarian movements in an anti-capitalist front under Communist leadership and thus challenges prevailing narratives about the Mexican Revolution." — Jürgen Buchenau, author of Plutarco Elías Calles and the Mexican Revolution

"Miles Rodríguez illuminates the complexities of post-revolutionary Mexico and the fragmentation of agrarian and industrial unions and movements. Forced to choose between the Mexican Community Party or the Mexican state, some of the strongest independent labor unions and agrarian organizations ultimately had their power reduced by state leaders, and despite a brief resurgence in the 1930s, many remained under state control for decades. Movements after Revolution is an important part of the story about why it took the Mexican left so long to consolidate a national electoral victory after the Mexican Revolution." — Lynn Stephen, author of Stories that Make History: Mexico through Elena Poniatowska's Crónicas

"Movements after Revolution uncovers new research about a forgotten chapter of the Mexican Revolution—how authentic labor and agrarian groups struggled in the decade after 1920 to unite under Communist leadership and pose an alternative path to the state-dominated Mexican Revolution. Rodriguez's passion for the topic is evident and brings this important story to light, emphasizing that, despite the difficulties faced by these movements in the face of emerging state power, their influence would be felt in the evolution of the revolution's official labor and agrarian organizations. This study is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of revolution in twentieth-century Latin America." — James A. Garza, author of The Imagined Underworld: Sex, Crime, and Vice in Porfirian Mexico City

From the Publisher