The Mexican Communist Party and Agrarian Mobilization in the Laguna, 1920-1940: A Worker-Peasant Alliance?

Abstract

ROM the middle of 1935 until the aLutLumn of 1936, the rich cotton-growin-g area of the Laguniia region witnessed a spectacula--r niolilizatio)n of its agr-icLiltLural labor force. Moie than twelve ml-onths of' strLuggle by newly established Iunlions of agricultuiral workers culliniated in a general strike in Auigust 1936 anld a decision bv the governmlilenit of L.izaio Cardcenas to expi-opriate the cottoin hacienidas. Throuiglhouit their mobilizations the peons on the large estates had received the finanicial, moral, ancd organiizationial sulpport of sectiolis of tlhe u-rban working class in thie nearl)y cities of Torre6n anld G6mez Palacio. Both the Mexicaii Coimmuniist par-ty (PCM) and tIle inewly founded Confederation of Mexican Workers (CTM) played a cruLcial role in cenleiltiilg the worker-peasanit allianice whichl was predicated oil the need to transcenild capitalist social and econoinlic relations in one of the key redoubts of agrariail capitalism in Mexico. Nevertheless, the maiinner in whiclh tile agrariail deimlailds were resolved in the auitumil of 1g936 sul)verted the radical poteiitial of the worker-peasant alliance. Capitalist social relations had traditioilally dominated Laguna haciendas. A wage-eariling ruiral proletariat made uip of the haciendcas' resident pCeons (peones 'acasillados), rather than a smallholding peasailtry, was the driving force behind the agrariail illobilizatioll of 1935-36. The proletariani character of the agricultural workers of tIle cotton estates had led them, therefore, to organize uinioils (sindic(itos) rather than agrariail committees, and to make proletarian deilmands for labor contracts, higher wages, and better workinig coilditions ratlher than 'peasant calls for land distribution aild parcelization. When President Cairdenas intervened to settle the general strike, however, it was on the basis of an expropriation wilich divided the cotton estates into ejidos (albeit collective ones) to l)e cuiltivated by tlle former peons. The agricultuiral workers of the Lagulna would heincefortli be re-

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