Mexican Communist Party | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Founder | M. N. Roy |
| Founded | 31 December 1917 |
| Dissolved | 18 December 1981 |
| Merged into | Unified Socialist Party of Mexico |
| Succeeded by | Communist Party of Mexico |
| Ideology | Communism Marxism-Leninism Socialism[1] Factions: Trotskyism |
| Political position | Far-left |
TheMexican Communist Party (Spanish:Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM) was acommunist party inMexico. It was founded in 1917 as theSocialist Workers' Party (Partido Socialista Obrero, PSO) byManabendra Nath Roy, a left-wingIndian revolutionary. The PSO changed its name to theMexican Communist Party in November 1919. It was outlawed in 1925 by the government ofPlutarco Elías Calles[citation needed] and remained illegal until 1935, during the presidency of the leftistLázaro Cárdenas. The PCM saw the left wing of the nationalist regime that emerged from theMexican Revolution—i.e. Cárdenas and his allies—as a progressive force to be supported.[2] The PCM disappeared after helping form theParty of the Democratic Revolution, a split from the PRI led by the son of Lázaro Cárdenas,Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas.
The PCM lost its registration in 1946 because it did not meet new requirements for at least 30,000 registered members in at least 21 of Mexico's 31 states and theFederal District. It is not clear whether the party was unable to recruit enough members or whether, 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 theConfederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) and among theintelligentsia ofMexico City. In the mid-1960s theUS State Department estimated the party membership to be approximately 50,000.[3]
In 1976, the party nominatedValentín Campa as its presidential candidate, competing (unofficially) againstJosé López Portillo.[4] 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. After its poor showing and a two decade-long period of moderation during which it adopted a "Eurocommunist" position, the PCM merged with three otherfar-leftpolitical parties in November 1981 and became theUnified Socialist Party of Mexico (PSUM). Most members of the PSUM then merged with somewhat more moderate left-wing groups to form theMexican Socialist Party (PMS) in 1987. The PMS never competed in national elections alone, having joined theNational Democratic Front (FDN)—a split from the rulingRevolutionary Institutional Party (PRI)—to support the presidential bid ofCuauhtémoc Cárdenas in 1988. What was the PMS was then absorbed into the newly formed Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) in 1989.
In 1994, former members of the PCM, along with members of the PRD and thePPS, formed theCommunist Party of Mexico.[5]
After the PCM was legalized in 1978, it joined other small socialist parties to form the Unified Mexican Socialist Party (PSUM), which eventually became the PMS.
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