Enrique Condés launches book to contribute to the understanding of armed means in Mexico

The historian Enrique Condés Lara (1949) maintains that it is necessary think, think a lot to understand what happened with the armed route in Mexico, which is why his book, The founding of the 23rd of September Communist League, which will be presented on August 15, contributes to this understanding of the set of armed groups and the context in which guerrilla uprisings occur.

In an interview with The Day, The researcher says that he has said to former guerrillas, historians, sociologists and journalists that our job is to explain what happened; To do this, you have to go beyond what one or the other tells you, a family member about their missing person or the press, or the reports from the Federal Security Agency, in the General Archive of the Nation..

The book The founding of the September 23 Communist League (National Institute of Historical Studies of the Revolutions of Mexico / Costa Amic) is available in its online version at the site: https://inehrm.gob.mx/recursos/Libros/ 2024_fundacion_dela_liga_comunista_ 23S.pdf

The author points out that We need to analyze and explain all these things so that today’s young people understand what happened beyond the fact that the government was repressive, bad, terrible, horrible, torturers, because the guerrillas were good guys willing to give their lives. We have to get past that, and we haven’t..

Condés Lara emphasizes that it is essential to understand what led the national government to adopt “this closed and repressive policy, which was escalating. It has not been addressed that the government’s policy towards the guerrilla groups was not the same all the time; it grew as the conditions arose.

“In the kidnapping of the American consul in Guadalajara, negotiations were established and more than 30 prisoners were released to Cuba, but then other events occurred that caused the government to close down. There is a presidential report by Luis Echeverría where he said (his father-in-law, José Guadalupe Zuno, had just been kidnapped): ‘we are not going to negotiate with anyone.’

After the failed attempt to kidnap Margarita López Portillo, the number of guerrillas who were brought before the judicial authorities decreased and the number of missing persons increased; in other words, there is a determination to finish off the leaders, those who are involved in bloody acts and the repeat offenders, those who were in jail, got out and continued on the armed path..

The doctor in political sociology highlighted the importance of analyzing government policy, since between 1976 and 1977 a reform was carried out by which some left-wing parties were registered and an amnesty occurred, since, while the guerrilla groups were acting, there was a union insurgency of electricians, telephone operators, university students and education workers, as well as tomas of lands in several states that, if they were to converge, could represent a real crisis in the country.

Characteristic theses

Enrique Condés commented that the September 23 Communist League (LC23S) had theses that distinguished it from all other armed groups, such as the one that referred to the imminent launch of an insurrection in Mexico, led by the proletariat; the one that maintained that all unions were transmission belts for capital to subjugate the workers; the one that declared all political parties as enemies, and the one that vindicated the thesis of the university-factory, which meant that these institutions are just another company and had to be expropriated.

The author of Repression and rebellion in Mexico, 1959-1985 He added that the militants of this armed organization “were, let’s say, as if possessed with those ideas, convinced, and that something that had not been understood before, and that is now included in The founding of the 23rd of September Communist League, It is the myth.”

The concept comes from the French thinker Georges Sorel and is about what an idea, a feeling, a condition that is not rational, is not discussed, is not analyzed: it is accepted or rejected. At the level of the LC23S, Ignacio Salas Obregón introduces this element in the militants, which makes them assume their theses in such a way that they are as if possessed, doing things seeing that many of the approaches they are carrying out at the cost of high bloodshed , of prisoners, of missing people, they are not working, they are not being confirmed, and they continue to do so.

The researcher points out that it must be taken into account that a part of Mexican society was against armed movements, confrontations with the police and the search to overthrow the government.

Concludes: We need to convince that part of society that it is important and necessary to understand what happened, to know the causes and to know the outcomes, the behaviors of the various forces or groups that were involved, to understand the situation we are in today, how we got to where we are now, with the good and the bad of the present picture.

The volume The founding of the 23rd of September Communist League It will be presented by its author on August 15 at 4:00 p.m. at the Museo del Estanquillo (Isabel La Católica 26, Historic Center of Mexico City).