Leon Trotsky

Mexican Trotskyism

There was small Trotskyist group in Mexico during Trotsky’s stay there. A section was formed in 1930 and in 1933 took the name Oposicíon Comunista de Izquierda, renamed the Liga Comunista Internacionalista (LCI) in 1934. Its best-known supporter was the muralist Diego Rivera...

Trotsky’s final assessment of Mexico under Cárdenas

Trotsky’s evaluation of developments in Mexico went through a series of stages and modifications, as the battle between the state and the working class was played out. In the last eighteen months of his life, in discussions with Mexican...

Permanent revolution in Mexico

Despite its relative economic backwardness in the 1930s, Trotsky did not rule out the possibility that Mexican workers might seize power – even before their counterparts in the US. (Latin American problems: a transcript, Writings supplement 1934-40, p.785) However he...

Trotsky on the ruling party and the 1940 presidential election

Trotsky never equivocated on the nature of the ruling party, including the character of the PRM created by Cárdenas in March 1938. In his discussion with comrades in November 1938 he argued: “The Guomindang in China, the PRM in Mexico...

Trotsky on the nature of the Cárdenas regime

Trotsky made few remarks on the nature of the Mexican regime in the first eighteen months of his asylum, and when he did, these were brief allusions. For example in the article on the freedom of the press in August 1938 he described Mexico’s democracy...

Trotsky and the unions in Mexico

Trotsky began to write about developments in the unions in mid-1938. Before the Stalinist-organised pan-American trade union congress in Mexico City on 6-8 September 1938, which set up the Confederation of Latin American Workers (CTAL), he denounced (in the name...

Trotsky on freedom of the press and the working class

In the summer of 1938 Lombardo began a campaign against the reactionary press in Mexico, intent on placing it under “democratic censorship” or banning it altogether.

Trotsky was unequivocal in opposing this drive. He wrote: “Both theory and...

Trotsky’s attitude towards the oil expropriations

Trotsky publicly supported Cárdenas’ expropriation of the oil industry. On 23 April 1938 he wrote to the Daily Herald in Britain, pointing to the hypocrisy of the Chamberlain government and defending the move of the grounds of national economic...

Trotsky’s analysis of Mexico

Trotsky arrived in Mexico on 9 January 1937. A longstanding Mexican Trotskyist Manuel Rodríguez originally suggested the asylum to his boss, General Francisco Mujica, a member of the Cárdenas cabinet (and his predecessor as governor of Michoacán). However it became a...