Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama

Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama ( born January 23, 1880 in San Luis Potosí, † March 14, 1967 in Mexico City) was a Mexican jurist, author and political activist who was inspired by the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist ideology.

Life

Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama grew up in San Luis Potosi, was chairman of a "liberal student committees" and co-founder of the liberal group " Ponciano Arriaga ". He published at this time in the satirical magazine El Hijo del opposition Ahuizote. In 1901, he was the founder of the Mexican Liberal Party Partido Liberal Mexicano ( German: Mexican Liberal Party, PLM), which had an anarcho-syndicalist setting.

Other founders were Camilo Arriaga, Antonio I. Villarreal and Ricardo Flores Magon. The works of Peter Kropotkin, Michael Bakunin and Pierre -Joseph Proudhon had an influence on the party and its members. "... And the revolution in Mexico was, inter alia, anarcho-syndicalist influenced by the PLM (later liberal, the first post-revolutionary president Madero comes from her series ), which was founded by the brothers Flores Magon, who turn the anarcho-syndicalism by Emma Goldmann met ". The PLM was the most influential opposition organization at the time of the Mexican Revolution. In 1906 Flores Magon on the manifesto of the party and the magazine Regeneración was their mouthpiece.

After two arrests for his activities in the party Soto y Gama emigrated to Texas (USA). In 1904 he returned to Mexico, where he provisionally no longer was active politically. After the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution and the fall of the dictator Porfirio Díaz Soto y Gama was again active in politics and one of the fiercest critics of the new President Francisco Madero. In 1912 he was elected as representatives of the people in the " Cámara de Deputies ".

Together with like-minded people, he founded the Casa del Obrero Mundial and put together with Juan Sarabia, a proposal for the redistribution of land from before. By F. Madero's assassination and the new dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta, the proposal could not be pursued. Soto y Gama fled from Mexico City, joined the revolutionaries of Emiliano Zapata ( the " Zapatistas " ) and after the fall of V. Huerta Member of Congress Convención de Aguascalientes. The author Jason Wehling is of the opinion that Soto y Gama, a staunch supporter of P. Kropotkin, Leo Tolstoy, M. Bakunin and Errico Malatesta, exerted a marked influence on Zapata and leader was the anarcho-syndicalists in Mexico City. Anarchists, who had played a role in the Mexican Revolution, " distanced " from the earlier ideals. On the first day of his presence as a Member of Congress, all Members should put their name on a Mexican flag. Soto y Gama denied this, calling it a " symbol of reaction," stressed that loyalty and honor had nothing to do with a " scrap of cloth ." He suggested to tear the flag. Some of those present then brought their weapons to light, whereupon Soto y Gama but ultimately put his name on the flag. After the dissolution of the Congress Convención de Aguascalientes in October 1915, he remained at Emiliano Zapata page and later with Zapata's successor Gildardo Magaña ( 1891-1939 ). Magaña and his followers accepted an amnesty in 1920 the Mexican government. After that, Soto y Gama operated again politically and was co-founder of the Partido Nacional Agrarista (PNA ), a national Agrarian Party. The PNA saw himself as the ideological successor of Emiliano Zapata and was socialist oriented. His political views temperate, and he himself offered his apology for his youthful radicalism. In 1937 he became a consultant for the Ministry of Agriculture reform. At the National Autonomous University of Mexico ( UMAM ) he taught jurisprudence. He received in 1958 the highest award the Mexican government, the Medalla del Senado de la Belisario Domínguez República. When he died in 1967, he left behind a wife and twelve children.

Works

• Historia Del Agrarismo En Mexico ( Problemas De Mexico ). (Spanish Edition). Publisher Era Edicions Sat, June 2002, ISBN 968-41-1543-1.
• El pensamiento de Soto y Gama D. Antonio de 50 anos de traves a laboratory periodistica, 1899-1949 ( Series C - Estudios historicos, Spanish Edition). Publisher Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, 1997, ISBN 968 - 36-5875 -X.
• La revolución agraria del Sur y Emiliano Zapata, su caudillo. Collectie in: IISH, Plaatsnummer 1996/4906.

Further Reading

• John Womack: Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. Page 193, 194 and 217 Vintage Books, New York 1968.
• James D. Cockcroft, Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution, 1900-13 ( Latin American Monograph ). Page 70, 124, 130, 239 University of Texas Press, 1969, ISBN 978-0292783-79-9.
• Colin M. MacLachlan, Anarchism and the Mexican Revolution: The Political Trials of Ricardo Flores Magon in the United States. Page 113, 121, 123, 132 University of California, Berkeley, 1991.
• Jason Wehling: Anarchist Influences on the Mexican Revolution.Online available. Section ( among others): Zapata, Ricardo Flores on Anarchism.
• Max Nettlau (ed. ), History of anarchy. In cooperation with the IISH ( Amsterdam). Last edited by Heiner Becker. Library Thélème, Münster 1993, 1st edition, reprint of the edition Berlin, Verlag The Syndicalist, 1927. Volume 5 and 6: History of anarchy, anarchists and syndicalists. Part 2 Chapter XX, " Anarchist activity in Mexico. Rhodakanaty and Zalacosta. Ricardo Flores Magon, " Regeneración " and the uprisings for " land and liberty ". Something about later anarchist syndicalist and propaganda. "