Socialism: Liberals and Conservatives
In the imagination of Liberals and Conservatives, socialism was part and parcel of anarchism and communism, although Conservatives and Liberals opposed socialism in quite different ways. By 1849 Conservatives already used the “socialist threat” to contest the publication and distribution of texts they considered seditious, assail Liberal Party representatives, attack mutual aid societies, and particularly challenge the idea of desamortización, the Liberals’ proposed disentailment of Catholic Church properties. Arguing that Mexico already was a prosperous country and did not need social change, Conservatives tagged the work of such reformists as Alfonso de Esquiros and Eugenio Sue as socialist, red-baited guilds as “sources of perils,” and painted the Liberals as “pale copies of French socialists.” The desamortizacón was considered worse than socialist: if socialism deprived the individual to benefit the community, the disentailment of church properties despoiled the community to enrich the government.
Liberals counterattacked by trying to distance themselves from socialist ideas —particularly since socialism had begun to attract many middle-class youths. Liberal ideologues such as Guillermo Prieto defended private freedom as the engine of wealth, progress, and civilization, linking communism with Indian communities and hence with backwardness. They also adamantly opposed the idea of guaranteed employment for all and even attacked socialism as an enemy of God, family, and the state. Nonetheless, a small number of Liberals such as Ignacio Ramírez embraced some socialist ideas, adopted an attitude of critical engagement with socialists, and admitted that the conditions of workers needed improvement.
The first movement to adopt a clearly socialist program was an armed peasant rebellion in the Chalco region, whose leader, Julio Chávez López, had participated in the Chalco socialist school. In a letter to the socialist theorist Zalacosta, Chávez López declared “I’m a socialist because I’m an enemy of governments and a Communist because my brothers want to work the land in common.” Probably going beyond the motivations of his followers, on April 29, 1869, Chávez López published a manifesto “to all the oppressed and poor of Mexico and the world.” “It is landlords and hacendados who take advantage of toilers’ weakness,” the manifesto declared. “The time has come for slaves to rise as one for their rights. Priests have lied to us, polluting the teachings of Jesus, whom we must vindicate.” The manifesto called for the establishment of socialism “as the most perfect form of social coexistence” and the creation of a “Universal Republic of Harmony,” a society free from all kinds of tyranny and based on fraternity and socialism. The rebellion eventually was crushed by Mexican troops.