Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama

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 legal scholar, author and political activist , who was inspired by the anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist worldview.

Life

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

Flag of the PLM with the demand for land and freedom

Other founders were Camilo Arriaga , Antonio I. Villarreal and Ricardo Flores Magón . The works of Peter Kropotkin , Michael Bakunin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon influenced the party and its members. "... and the revolution in Mexico was also shaped by the PLM (later liberal, the first post-revolutionary president Madero comes from its ranks), which was founded by the Flores Magon brothers, who in turn got to know anarchosyndicalism through Emma Goldmann " . The PLM was the most influential opposition organization at the time of the Mexican Revolution . In 1906, Flores Magón drew up the party's manifesto and Regeneración magazine became its 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 was no longer politically active for the time being. After the outbreak of the Mexican Revolution and the overthrow of the dictator Porfirio Díaz , Soto y Gama became politically active again and one of the fiercest critics of the new President Francisco Madero . In 1912 he was elected to the "Cámara de Diputados" as a representative of the people.

The cover of the Regeneración from 1914

Together with like-minded people he founded the Casa del Obrero Mundial and, together with Juan Sarabia, put forward a proposal for the redistribution of the land. Due to the murder of F. Madero and the new dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta , the proposal could not be pursued. Soto y Gama fled Mexico City, joined the revolutionaries of Emiliano Zapata (the "Zapatistas") and, after the fall of V. Huerta, became a member of the Convención de Aguascalientes . Author Jason Wehling believes that Soto y Gama, a staunch supporter of P. Kropotkin, Leo Tolstoy , M. Bakunin, and Errico Malatesta , had a noticeable influence on Zapata and was the leader of the anarcho-syndicalists in Mexico City. Anarchists who played a role in the Mexican Revolution "distanced themselves" from the earlier ideals. On the first day of his attendance as a member of Congress, all members should put their names on a Mexican flag. Soto y Gama refused to do so, calling it a “symbol of reaction”, stressing that loyalty and honor had nothing to do with a “scrap of cloth”. He suggested tearing the flag up. Some of those present then brought their weapons to light, whereupon Soto y Gama finally put his name on the flag. After the dissolution of the Convención de Aguascalientes in October 1915, he stayed at Emiliano Zapata's side and later with Zapata's successor Gildardo Magaña (1891-1939). Magaña and his supporters accepted an amnesty from the Mexican government in 1920 . Then Soto y Gama became politically active again and became a co-founder of the Partido Nacional Agrarista (PNA), a national agrarian party. The PNA saw itself as the ideological successor to Emiliano Zapata and was oriented towards socialism . His political views became more moderate and he himself offered his apologies for his youthful radicalism. In 1937 he became a consultant for the Ministry of Agricultural Reform. He taught law at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) . In 1958 he received the highest honor of the Mexican government, the Medalla Belisario Domínguez del Senado de la República . When he died in 1967, he left a wife and twelve children.

Works

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

further reading

• John Womack: Zapata and the Mexican Revolution . Pages 193, 194 and 217. Vintage Books, New York 1968.
• James D. Cockcroft, Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution, 1900-13 (Latin American Monograph). Pages 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 . Pages 113, 121, 123, 132. University of California , Berkeley, 1991.
• Jason Wehling: Anarchist Influences on the Mexican Revolution . Available online . Section (inter alia): Zapata, Ricardo Flores an Anarchism .
• Max Nettlau (Ed.), History of Anarchy . In collaboration with the IISG (Amsterdam). New edited by Heiner Becker. Library Thélème, Münster 1993, 1st edition, reprint of the Berlin edition, Verlag Der Syndikalist , 1927.
  • Volumes 5 and 6: History of Anarchy, Anarchists and Syndicalists . Part 2. Chapter XX, “Anarchist Activity in Mexico. Rhodakanaty and Zalacosta. Ricardo Flores Magon, “Regeneracion” and the uprisings for “Land and Freedom”. Something about later anarchist and syndicalist propaganda ”.

Web links

• Biografía de Antonio Diaz Soto y Gama

Individual evidence

1. ↑ See: James D. Cockcroft, Intellectual Precursors of the Mexican Revolution, 1900-13
2. ^ University of Münster, May 24, 2000; on "anarchismus.de" . Lecturer: Bernd Drücke . Seminar: Between a desk and a street battle? Anarchy, anarchism, libertarian press
3. ↑ cf. on this: M. Nettlau, History of Anarchy . Volume 5 and 6, Chapter XX, "Regeneracion and the uprisings for land and freedom"
4. ↑ See: John Womack: Zapata and the Mexican Revolution
5. ↑ See: Jason Wehling: Anarchist Influences on the Mexican Revolution