The Mexican security services are so effective in stamping out the extreme left that we don't have to worry. If the government were less effective we would, of course, get going to promote repression.
Former CIA agent Philip Agee, 197576
Mexico’s very small Communist Party, which had worked closely with the Cardenas administration, continued to support the official party until 1949. A number of factors prevented it from playing a major role before or after that date. It often was perceived as serving the interests not of Mexico but of Moscow. It expelled many of its members for perceived ideological transgressions. As Mexico found itself caught up in the Cold War, communists were purged from government, Congress, and labor unions. The party could not even decide whether the United States or Mexican business was the main enemy.
Though hamstrung by repression, purges, and ideological splits, the party did play a significant role in some of the social movements of the day. Many of the leaders of a bitter 1959 rail workers strike were party members. In the early 1960s, the party lent support to agricultural wage laborers and peasants soliciting land. In the late 1960s, the party developed a strong presence among university workers, professors, and students. The party supported the 1968 student movement, an action that resulted in dozens of communists being jailed.77
The CIA estimated that the party’s membership had declined to 15,000 in 1951 and to 5,000 in 1964. By that time, as the CIA noted, the party was weakened by “internal dissension, poor leadership, and inadequate resources.” The remaining party members did become more independent of the Soviet Union, and, in 1968, the party denounced the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia.78
The enormous flexibility of what was called the ideology of the Mexican Revolution made it very difficult for the left to present programs that were perceived by their potential followers— peasants and workers—as something strikingly different from what the progressive wing of incumbent administrations espoused. Much of the economy was already under state control. Incumbents would frequently advocate land reform, labor rights, and the struggle against imperialism. Since incumbents had the power to implement the changes they spoke of, their positions appeared more credible than those of the left. In addition, the PRI and the government so predictably hired talented Communist Party members that PRI functionary Guillermo Martinez Dominguez declared the party to be the training school for PRI staffers.79
World History
