Mexican Communist Party

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The Mexican Communist Party (Spanish: Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM) was a communist party in Mexico. It was founded in 1911 as the Socialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero, PSO). The PSO changed its name to the Mexican Communist Party in November 1919 following the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. It was outlawed in 1925 and remained illegal until 1935, during the presidency of the leftist Lázaro Cárdenas. The PCM later lost its registration in 1946 because it did not meet the new requirements of at least 30,000 registered members in at least 21 of Mexico's 31 states and the Federal District. It is not clear whether the party was unable to recruit enough members or if, fearing repression, it refused to turn membership rolls over to the Secretary of the Interior, then in charge of elections. Over the next 30 years, the party had some minor influence in the Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and among the intelligentsia of Mexico City, it never gained a mass following.

Following the electoral reform of 1977 that lowered the barrier for parties to get on the ballot, the PCM regained temporary registration for the 1979 mid-term elections. Following its poor showing and a two decade-long period of moderation during which it adopted a "Eurocommunist" position, the PCM merged with three other far-left political parties in November 1981 and became the Unified Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM). Most member of the PSUM then merged with somewhat more moderate left-wing groups to form the Mexican Socialist Party (PMS) in 1987. The PMS never competed in national elections alone, having joined the National Democratic Front (FDN) to support the presidential bid of Cuauhtemoc Cardenas in 1988. The was PMS then absorbed into the newly formed Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1989. A Marxist-Leninist splint is "The Party of Mexican Communists".

[edit] Secretary Generals of the Mexican Communist Party

• 1959-1963 Collective Secretariat of the Mexican Communist Party
• 1963-1981 Arnoldo Martínez Verdugo

[edit] Further reading

• Barry Carr, Marxism & Communism in Twentieth-Century Mexico (University of Nebraska Press, 1992) ISBN 0-8032-1458-8
• Bruhn, Kathleen Taking on Goliath: The Emergence of a New Left Party and the Struggle for Democracy in Mexico (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1997)