Mexican Journal of Educational Research

Vol.8, number 17 January-April 2003RESEARCH pp. 187-220

The Mexican Student Movement: History of Political Organizations, 1910-1971

Antonio Gómez Nashiki∗

Translated by Trena Brown

Abstract: This article analyzes the creation and development of student organizations in Mexican universities from the early twentieth century up to 1971. The initial topic of discussion is the rivalry among organizations due to their positions on issues such as autonomy and the implementation of socialistic education. An analysis is then made of the two main resulting movements: the liberal and the popular movements. Lastly, an explanation is given of the conditions under which the organizations attempted to unify their efforts, in 1966, with the signing of the Declaration of Morelia, and in 1968. Brutal government repression, however, would newly polarize them and result in two opposing movements: the democratic and the revolutionary.

Key words: Student organizations, student movements, university, higher education.

The First Organizations

University students throughout Mexico were the protagonists, from the late 19th century up to the early 20th century, of various social and political events. Their protests were initially focused on demanding better study and living conditions, as well as financial aid. Young students shouted slogans in the streets in favor of their cause and against the authorities. But these complaints progressively left the halls of learning to criticize primarily decisions made by the government. Such protests were considered as no more than unimportant haranguing, and identified as youthful "pastimes". However, these first appearances would mark the beginning of a movement

 Research Assistant, Educational Research Department of CINVESTAV-IPN. Calzada Tenorios 235, Colonia Granjas Coapa, 14330, Mexico City. E-mail: gnashiki@yahoo.es

that would gradually be formed with its own characteristics, and that would hold a preponderant place in the history of the nation's social movements.

Student manifestations and protests began to touch on topics and problems related to issues of national policy rather than directly to the university. For example, in 1884, university students protested against congressional approval of the law that allowed the administration of Manuel González to negotiate the English debt, under onerous and not entirely honorable

conditions;1 students from the state of Michoacán directed intense

mobilizations to reelect Díaz in 1895,2 as well as enormous manifestations

in 1910 against government policies.3

Although these types of youthful protests were increasingly more frequent and widespread throughout Mexico, they lacked a representative structure, a specific body to agglutinate student interests, and the backing of diverse student groups. As a result, some organizations expressed the urgent need to create a single group capable of carrying out these functions--a task to be completed some years later on the initiative of university students in the nation's capital.

Student Presence

After the Mexican Revolution's phase of armed conflict, students at the Universidad Nacional created, in 1920, the Federación de Estudiantes del

Distrito Federal:4 the first student organization of the 20th century in Mexico expressly defined to defend student interests, with emphasis on the demand for better housing, food supports and types of accreditation.

Student action through political participation and consolidated organizations did not occur until 1923, when the Federación de Estudiantes sent, as a sample of their organization and work, the first formal proposal of autonomy

for the Universidad Nacional.5 Four years later, the Confederación Nacional de Estudiantes (CNE) was formed to establish clear rules of participation that employed democratic principles of election, the acceptance of diverse political groupings, and decision-making based on consensus. These characteristics provided the student rank and file with enormous legitimacy as well as a privileged place during the conflict of 1929 (an important political

force6 that would lead to the obtaining of university autonomy7), as well as during the student struggles in 1933-1934 for the freedom to teach.

Student organizations, however, were to progressively lose their vitality, and in spite of the great support they showed for the expropriation of oil interests

in 1938,8 their political presence on the national scene began to decline. Various elements would combine to generate a crisis in the old student organizations. The first would occur in 1933, and its center of conflict would be the socialistic orientation of education in Mexico.

Social(istic) Education

Student action was also definitive in the origin of the idea of socialistic education. Although Lázaro Cárdenas is attributed with having procreated this change, pronouncements that proposed it were already in place. The first was promoted by the student organizations and authorities of the Universidad de Michoacán, which since their founding had striven to give a social character to education. In 1928, these students presented a specific project to Governor Cárdenas, near the end of his term, to modify the third article of the local constitution. The initiative stated that lay education in public elementary, secondary and professional schools would be replaced by education of a socialistic type, with the intention of creating among

students a profound awareness of social and collective responsibility.9

Another pronouncement was included in the platform of the Partido Nacional

Revolucionario's presidential campaign,10 which indicated that public education

should be of a socialistic nature.11

Although the consolidation of university student organizations was faced by numerous internal problems of ideological orientation and objectives, their troubles were aggravated in 1933 by the controversy surrounding socialistic

education.12 The result was the taking of sides and profound divisions. The orientation desired for the university had been known since 1932, when a large part of the delegates at the ninth national student congress of the CNE (held in Toluca) declared their support for Vicente Lombardo Toledano, an active promoter of the idea. Undoubtedly, such backing strengthened the proposal that would become explicit one year later at the congress of Mexican university students organized by the CNE and the UNAM. At this meeting, Lombardo obtained approval for a declaration expressly establishing that universities should adopt a socialistic orientation. The proposal was immediately rejected by a majority group of students, led by Antonio Caso, who emphasized teaching freedom as the guiding principle of the institution. This rejection originated the celebrated Caso-Lombardo debate, which would clearly reveal the conflictive postures and powerfully influence the lines of action to be adopted by the nation's student

movement.13

Lombardo's idea was victorious, but only momentarily: before the Congress had adjourned, a heterogeneous student front—sp earheaded by the Unión Nacional de Estudiantes Católicos (UNEC) and supported by associations, groups and students from widely diverse credos (liberals, socialists and Catholics)—e xpelled the rector, Roberto Medellín, from the university as well

as Lombardo Toledano,14 provoking an enormous split in the student movement. On one hand, surrounding the CNE were the defenders of teaching freedom—i ncluding liberals, Marxists, independents, Catholics and members of the Partido Comunista Mexicano (PCM)—i n opposition to the

followers of Vicente Lombardo, who vehemently supported his reform.15 It is important to mention that in this setting, only the normal schools, the technological institutes and two universities (Guadalajara and Michoacán) opted for the defense and implementation of socialistic education.

The dispute for the leadership of the principal student organization led to the so-called liberal forces' taking over the directorship of the CNE, while the followers of socialistic education decided to mark their distance and form new, independent organizations. The result was the creation of the Confederación de Estudiantes Socialistas de México (CESM), whose primary bastion was the university of Michoacán. This new group organized two congresses, in 1934 and 1935, which insisted on sustaining the socialistic thesis:

[...] The CESM held a congress in Uruapan, Michoacán in 1935 with delegates from all of Mexico. The congress sustained the principle of progressive higher education, and united [with Juventudes Socialistas] to create, on

Cárdenas' urging, the Juventudes Socialistas Unificadas de México.16

Various movements and organizations that remained in the CESM articulated their defense of the popular education project rooted in Cárdenas' ideas. Some of the federations included in it were: Estudiantes Campesinos y Socialistas (rural normal schools), Nacional de Estudiantes Técnicos (technical schools led, since 1936, by the Instituto Politécnico Nacional), and the federations of Estudiantes Socialistas de Occidente (Universidad de Guadalajara). In 1938, the CESM joined the Confederación de Jóvenes Mexicanos (CJM). These organizations were characterized by their emphasis on the social commitment to attend to the children of laborers and peasants, and to struggle resolutely to serve the people and the masses of workers.

Cárdenas ideas on education favored schools identified with popular traditions—a technical orientation—t o the clear detriment of universities. Thus universities and especially the liberal professions suffered from severe budgetary restrictions that literally made them disappear. The most eloquent

example was the UNAM, declared a "dead" institution in 1935 due to its lack of a basic means of subsistence and saved thanks to the altruism of its students and teachers, who established a reorganizing committee to keep

the institution functioning.17

In this hostile environment, the exception was the university of Michoacán, which received preferential treatment due to its closeness to President Cárdenas as well as its defense of socialistic education, a philosophy in accordance with the mandates of central power. It was by far a golden era for the project of popular education, which sought a new relationship with society, just as shown by the inaugural declaration of the university's courses in 1935:

The university as an educational institution is also called to modify, to change its structure and accept that it is a cultural institution that lives from the product of the working classes [...] It must be modified and produce in students a vigorous awareness that they form part of a collectivity and that their obligations to this collectivity are stronger than the selfishness that has

dominated the current individualistic system.18

The final declaration of the second student congress held in Uruapan pointed to the need to modify the third article by implementing historical materialism as the basis for learning, and to undertake the battle against the national bourgeoisie and landowners by forming "committees of protest" to combat free schools or autonomous university departments refusing to

promote socialist education.19

Liberal and Popular Orientations20

The polarization of the above-mentioned postures gave rise to two major student orientations that were contrary in principles, actions and methods of protest. The so-called liberal orientation was influenced by cooperative ideas such as the reform of Córdoba, Argentina (autonomy, co-government, teaching freedom) and was based on a cultural and humanistic discourse of a Catholic nature. The principal organizations that represented this tradition were the Confederación Nacional de Estudiantes and the Federación de Estudiantes Universitarios (FEU) (1933-1948) independent from the

government.21

The second orientation, known as popular, corresponded to students from low-class educational centers created by the revolutionary government, such as the normal schools, the agricultural schools and the technical/industrial institutes. Some of their ideas were inspired by the lower classes and the

defense of educational centers at the service of the masses. This tradition was propelled from governmental spheres and the most eloquent example was the presence of the Confederación de Jóvenes Mexicanos at the

creation of the Partido de la Revolución Mexicana in 1938,22 as “ part of the

youth sector” in the new political party.23

In 1940, the Mexican government began to implement a policy of modernization in higher education. The postulates of socialistic education as well as other conceptions of Cárdenas, would strongly oppose the objectives of the new project. The policy of "national unity"—p ut into effect by Manuel Ávila Camacho (1940-1946)—w ould give new characteristics to the development of the university as an educational project, and consequently to the student movement.

In this manner, the liberal professions took on an important role in national life and began to be considered the central piece in the nation's industrialization scheme. It was said at the time that the universities should become "more functional and efficient". The government proposed rationalizing all aspects of educational services, including the education of the masses. Measures were taken to promote the rigorous selection of incoming students, and the margination of teachers and students from academic policy. The project's main objective was to satisfy the need for growth and productivity in the modern sector of the economy. The revaluing of universities, especially of the UNAM, would translate into a marked detriment for the educational centers of the masses.

Unequal treatment would soon become manifest, and the "popular" institutions, catalogued as public aid, would face permanent attacks seeking to eliminate their infrastructure and benefits. It was a time characterized by litigation for survival, but especially for conserving dining halls, scholarships, dormitories, transportation and past advances.

Some of the reactions to this sudden change in the handling of higher education took the form of the mobilizations in 1940, headed by the regional peasant schools, which requested the “ elementary demands of survival”

such as beds, blankets, increased daily rations, etc..24 Other actions were taken by the Instituto Politécnico Nacional (IPN) in 1942, primarily because of the implicit disallowance in the law of public education to concede professional status to technical education; the response was repression,

resulting in several injured and incarcerated students.25 In 1947, students from the rural normal schools led a mobilization demanding improved conditions of assistance. At the end of the decade, in 1949, the San Nicolás de Hidalgo university demonstrated in favor of building an open-air theater,

which resulted not in a larger institutional budget, but in two student deaths

and the exit of the university governor.26

In the early 1950's, the rural normal schools of Salaices, Chihuahua, and Tuxcueca, Jalisco, were closed due to the SEP's refusal to grant further resources to students who had begun a strike to protest prevailing living conditions.

The IPN Strike

The IPN movement of 1956 is considered a result of educational policies against the popular orientation and its institutions. The mobilization marked the beginning of a new stage in the history of student movements, since opposing currents would tend to unite to respond similarly to national events that were occurring in a context of the social discontent of other groups, such as telegraph operators, elementary teachers, telephone workers, electricians, railway workers and workers from other trades.

The IPN movement promoted a project for the masses with a clear nationalistic orientation and a rejection of post-Cárdenas policy, which abandoned the principles and philosophy of popular and technical

education.27 In addition to the students' economic petitions, there were questions and demands regarding the democratization of schools:

The university organizations that sprouted from Cardenas' heritage, and which in one way or another had accompanied the student protests of the 1940s, underwent a process of crisis and deterioration in 1956. Because of their opposition to the desires for democracy, their influence began to shrink to collaborating with university administrations, corruption and "strong-

arms".28

After a brief and partial victory, the movement ended with military intervention in 1956 at the IPN, and the incarceration of the leaders of the FNET. At that time, the FNET and the CJM joined the official political party and in effect terminated any possibility of education once again identified as of the masses. In contrast, the UNAM was selected as the model to follow, and was assigned an sizeable amount of resources.

In an attempt to gain recognition and demonstrate their organizational capacity in the face of unequal treatment, the associations of the Federación Politécnica held a congress that approved a program proposed by the Consejo Estudiantil de Morelia ("Student Council of Morelia"): a request for the "withdrawal of troops", "respect for student rights and the end of persecutions for their leaders". The meeting was important because it consolidated the permanence of the Federación de Estudiantes Técnicos in

the CJM, with the strong support of the universities of Guadalajara and especially Michoacán, which at no time hesitated to keep education of a

“ social nature” 29 as their guiding principle.

On the other hand, the CNE and the FEU, in the new context of “ national unity” proclaimed by President Ávila Camacho, forced most of the Catholic student groups (known as "rabbits", and highly influential in student organizations) to

abandon their belligerent and critical attitude towards public power.30 It should be emphasized that the FEU, led by Jorge Siegrist, and then the right front--the Movimiento Universitario de Renovadora Orientación (MURO)--maintained an anti-government position at that time.

The Social Climate and Student Organizations

The decade of the 1950s was a difficult time for the student movement. An example was the prevailing situation in the UNAM. The CNE was controlled by the Catholic right, while the FEU was commanded by a reduced group of students linked to sectors of the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI). Young people saw the organizations as a springboard for their future political careers. In addition, a promising labor market motivated the administration of Ruiz Cortines and following administrations to implement a policy known as development with stability. Economic success—w hich had significant effects in the university setting, including increased university services that led to the uncontrolled admission of the masses—a nd the perspective adopted by the university “ in a general context of national modernization, were factors that would determine a gradual recomposition of students'

political intentions.” 31

The process of industrialization underlying government strategies produced, among other effects, a growing demand for professionals:

[...] for the dominant type of professional, lawyers, engineers, doctors, as well as for the new specialties of technicians and administrators [...] the growth of old and new middle levels increased the demand for the services of self-employed professionals, then experiencing their greatest moment.

In other words, a quantitative and qualitative strengthening occurred in the society's middle classes. It was the so-called golden age that corresponded to the building of the UNAM's central campus, Ciudad Universitaria, and a substantial increase in its government subsidy: an increase from three million in 1940 to fourteen million in 1952, and one hundred fifteen million in 1960--the year relations between the government and the university were

newly outlined, until their complete deterioration in 1968.32

However, as the 1950s advanced, other institutions in the capital city as well as the provinces were suffering from budget cuts; in 1956, for example, a student mobilization at the Universidad Michoacana demanded greater

resources from the administration of Dámaso Cárdenas.33

In spite of the negative factors, universities in general during this period represented high individual expectations for an improved position on the social ladder. They marked a significant difference, in comparison with

previous generations, in the access to professional studies.34

In the university setting, the 1950s were also important because of the beginning manifestation of festering divergencies between the federations of the CJM, basically in terms of their postures toward events such as the Cuban revolution and the railroad strike. In addition, the leadership of the Federación Nacional de Estudiantes Técnicos (FNET) was in the hands of the official government party. The consequences were ominous, since the organization became enveloped in evident corruption as well as multiple deals and decisions reached behind the students' backs. The former Federación de Estudiantes Socialistas de Occidente ("Federation of Socialist Students of the West"), which had become the Federación de Estudiantes de Guadalajara (FEG), experienced a similar situation by moving in the direction

of the state machine.35 The rural normal schools questioned the CJM--a situation that over the long term would produce a crisis by provoking the exit of various sectors, including the Federación de Estudiantes Campesinos ("Federation of Peasant Students").

The student movement in Michoacán, a strong bastion of popular education, made manifest its serious disagreement with the major national organizations through the Federación de Estudiantes de la Universidad de Michoacán (FEUM) and the Consejo Estudiantil Nicolaíta (CEN). These two groups would confront the FEG and the FNET until bursting into the National Congress of 1962: “ There the Communists and other leftist sectors would conserve their bases of operation without fundamental changes until the

early 1960s.” 36

As an anticipatory measure four years earlier, the teachers and students of the Universidad de Michoacán had created the Organización Socialista Autónoma Nicolaíta. In a certain manner, it was a gradual strategy to abandon the CJM and consolidate an autonomous entity.

The 1960s

In the early 1950s, middle class groups began to enter the political arena--groups formed from government expansion, increased trade and services, heavy investments in infrastructure and the expansion of the educational system. The marked urbanization process of the 1940s represented one condition more that limited the field of action to the middle classes: the city. The heterogeneity of these sectors was accented by the forty years of sustained growth experienced in the Mexican economy.

The development of a more complex employment structure, as well as the urbanization process and the expansion of health and education services permit the assumption that an important process of social mobility occurred, and as a consequence, growth in the middle classes in absolute and relative

terms.37

The expansion of these groups was backed by the national context, at a time when trained workers were required for the industrial and services sectors--whose growth rates guaranteed the assimilation of graduates into the job market. The option of a university education therefore represented one of the most powerful mechanisms for expected mobility and social difference:

[...] the generation of educational opportunities and the safeguarding of educational efficiency as a channel for social mobility has resulted, especially since the 1930s, in violent combat regarding middle and higher

education.38

The golden age, however, would approach its end in the mid 1960s, with the appearance of various social movements that severely questioned the regime.

These movements were concentrated in the universities, where the "children

of the middle class” 39 were to be found. The student movements of the 1950s and 1960s, as well as the institutions from which they arose,

consisted mainly of young people from the middle class.40 Their parents were not manual laborers, their field of action was the city (without implying that they would abandon their strong attachment to the countryside and rural customs), and they carried out their activities in the secondary sector (industry) and predominantly in the tertiary sector of the economy (trade,

transportation, services).41 This situation would also confer on education a fundamental value: “ the central variable that defines the middle class is education, and the primordial basis of its social identity is educational

capital.” 42

A view of the different student movements of the 1960s, not only in Mexico but around the world, shows that the middle class sectors always carried

important weight: “ except on rare occasions when they were composed by middle class children who in their homes had assimilated bourgeois culture and values, tensions, perspective, and expectations, and then reacted

against their origins with diverse degrees of ‘ alienation’ ” .43

The integration of these groups in various parts of society, such as the universities, produced changes caused by students' cultural trajectories and the new styles presented by teachers; the result was new situations, constructions and positions with regard to problems in the institution as well as society: land seizures, protests against the increased price of services, disputes regarding spaces for participation, etc.. Their positions rose from learned traditional dynamics and the social demands for mobility and upward movement: “ a fundamental value for these groups because it is the basis of their profession and income level. They also consider it the justification of their pretensions of autonomy and the only legitimate means of climbing the

social ladder” .44

Although the flourishing middle class had access to an encouraging and expanding panorama, it would soon face a situation of confrontation and crisis, in a framework of generalized protests in various settings. At the universities, the 1960s brought severe problems--massive enrollment, the scandalous collapse of academic levels, the failure of traditional teaching methods, the restriction of budgets and subsidies, as well as gradual transformations in the guidelines of social recruitment and entry into the labor market—i n a social context that also seemed complex. Peasants and laborers showed the first signs of discontent with the conditions of misery and oppression in which they lived. The "Mexican miracle" had another side after all, "with those who pay the price for strategies of accumulation and are subject to state mechanisms of subordination, and if necessary, unlimited

repression.” 45

A rapid recount of the movements that occurred between 1958 and 1970 shows the climate of confrontation and disagreement with government policy, whose common denominator was police and military repression. All groups not incorporated into the "revolutionary family" were combated without vacillation due to official intolerance. In addition, an "official" explanation was consolidated to serve as the background for justifying and controlling any outbreak or show of discontent; in other words, "the struggle against subversion and Communism,” a sort of McCarthyism, would have profound repercussions, especially on inventing explanations for the appearance of social and student movements like that of Morelia, in 1966, or Mexico City in 1968.

The vertiginous growth of capital and the emergence of a new generation of urban middle class, infused with an iconoclastic and rebellious attitude, and its back turned on old cultural patterns, was the social framework for student

insurgence in Mexico in the 1960s.46 The end of the "miracle" brought signs of termination and warning for the middle class. An eloquent example is the policy concerning universities during the presidential administration of Díaz Ordaz:

[...] from the beginning of his administration [...] he visualized the university as a problem and not as an object of indiscriminate and unconcerned stimulus. Two express reserves appeared: alarm regarding the growth of the university population, and the implication of its financial cost to the public

sector.47

Changes in study and work conditions in the universities, derived from the explosive growth of institutions of higher learning, the new conditions of the labor market and its progressive saturation, as well as the “ socialization” of professional work were important factors surrounding the movements of the decade.

The new policy brought discouraging signs for a demanding middle class. Although the some of the student mobilizations of the late 1950s and 1960s were motivated by university-related demands, other mobilizations approached such demands laterally. In both cases, however, they represented a defense of interests--a defense of class revolving around the principle of mobility by means of a university education, and around the guarantee of survival. Seen from an historical perspective, middle class mobilizations from the mid-20th century have defended with zeal the principle of social mobility.

The Impact of Social Movements

In the university setting, the triumph of the Cuban revolution would create a strong referent of freedom, and along with the movements of railway workers (1958), teachers (1958-1959) and physicians (1965), would provide the atmosphere for the new historical cycle of student organizations that began in 1958 with the “ bus movement” in Mexico City.

In contrast with the nation's capital and the student organizations at the UNAM, such as the FEU and later the Federación Universitaria de la Sociedad de

Alumnos (FUSA)48 (which were characterized in this period for offering their leadership positions indiscriminately to professional politicians as if they were goods for sale), the movement of Morelia would adopt a leading role in

the nation as a consequence of a significant event: Elí de Gortari's arrival in the rector's office of the Universidad de Michoacán (1961). An outstanding leftist intellectual, De Gortari would be attacked from the governor's office and accused of being a Marxist.

The student strike in Morelia was one of the most violent and decisive in the history of such movements in Mexico. It concluded with the expulsion of the rector for "promoting Communistic ideology", after multiple events of outrage such as the incarceration of teachers and university leaders. The strike was backed by numerous sympathetic sectors, such as the teachers of the Partido Popular Socialista (PPS) who, in 1963, would make a reorganization attempt at the meeting in Morelia.

The repression that followed the movement of 1963 and the implementation of a new law, were a powerful call to attention for various student organizations from different parts of Mexico. They met for a show of support shortly before the removal of De Gortari, and proposed a conference in Morelia to reorganize Mexico's student movement. The proposal was made by the Federación Estudiantil de Baja California, which was headed by one of the central leaders of the time--Rafael Aguilar Talamantes--and would provide the basis for creating one of the most ambitious student projects in national history.

Central Nacional de Estudiantes Democráticos

As mentioned above, attacks on the nationalistic higher education of the masses started to become increasingly acute in 1956, while the Confederación de Jóvenes Mexicanos maintained a passive attitude. At that time, the CJM was the organization that agglutinated most of the student federations in Mexico (in the rural normal schools, the technical schools, the agricultural schools, and in Coahuila, Nuevo León, Mexico City, Yucatán,

Jalisco, Michoacán and Guanajuato).49 The political cost of this passivity would translate into generalized discontent in 1956, and severe questioning of the CJM. Such criticism in a tense atmosphere, with the prevailing repression of labor and peasant movements, immobilized the CJM. Given its strong association with the PRI, the CJM found it impossible to respond, or to reorient its political position as demanded by the federations. The paradox of the situation was that in spite of the discontent, no organization attempted to create a new or parallel body.

The break occurred in 1962, inside the CJM during its eighth congress, held in November in the city of Guadalajara. Two antagonistic currents appeared: on one hand, the so-called progressives, and on the other, and in a smaller

number, the governmental factions. At the congress, relations between the leadership of local democratic federations became more combative, and were intensified with the anti-De Gortari conflict in Morelia in 1963.

The result was the rupture between the governmental corporative organization and the current that was searching for independence and democracy in the movement. The division would result in the creation of the Central Nacional de Estudiantes Democráticos (CNED). The initial meeting was held in Morelia at the Casa de Estudiantes Melchor Ocampo rather than at the university because of the rector's and governor's reluctance to use university facilities for this purpose. The participants were 250 delegates who claimed to represent 100,000 students around the nation.

The meeting was significant because it would be the first attempt to form a national, democratic organization independent from the official political party, and which hoped, besides uniting students, to struggle for the defense of its ideas as well as for the political transformation of the nation. The notification of the organization's founding stated the following:

The moment we have so long awaited has arrived [...] Conditions are now propitious for us as students to have a fighting instrument that will guarantee the solving of our most urgent demands. The most honest student leaders in the nation, representatives of the student federations and groups that are most combative and most related to the problems of the people, have joined to build a national organization that will represent our interests and fight audaciously to conserve and strengthen the democracy and independence

of student organizations.50

The congress was a partial success. Students from all over the nation and from all political currents participated:

[...] under the flag of the CNED, a series of regional student federations was created to denounce the sclerosis of Mexico's political and socioeconomic system, to demand greater political as well as academic freedom, and to associate the actions of youth with the struggles of laborers and peasants. Student activism was particularly intense in 1967-1968 in Durango, Morelia,

Guerrero, Ciudad Juárez and Mexico City.51

However, at the heart of the organization, it was noticeable that a majority segment, the PCM, dominated decision-making. Instead of negotiating or seeking consensus among factions, it implemented the rule of adopting decisions through the majority vote, which led to the abandonment of organizations and currents: “ by 1966, the sectarian policy of the majority of the leadership of the PCM had converted the organization into a student wing

of the Juventud Comunista” .52

In 1964, another student movement appeared on the national political scene, in Puebla, and provoked the destitution of Governor Nava Castillo. Rebelliousness would not cease; the entire country witnessed confrontations between students and local authorities, such as in Guerrero, in 1965, where the students opposed the reelection of the governor; the protest was savagely repressed and various leaders were expelled. That same year, in Durango, students from the Universidad Juárez occupied the facilities of the Fundidora de Fierro y Acero de Monterrey, located on Mercado hill, and insisted that its exploitation should benefit the people; the mobilization ended with a verbal agreement that established a state development plan and the

promise to analyze the possibility of creating a steel mill.53 Such mobilizations somehow defined the government's action against public universities, and in this sense, the most relevant case was in Morelia.

1966, Rehearsals of Violence

Morelia had earned a distinctive place in the student movement through the congress of 1963, and would once again become the center of attention with another conflict: this time a protest against an increase in bus fares that resulted in the death of a student. The students held a march throughout the city and demanded the withdrawal of authorities. The government's response was repression and the military occupation of the university, based on a claim of Communist agitation. The movement was defeated: the Escuela de Altos Estudios (where a mixture of science and Marxism was taught) was closed and various leaders were incarcerated. Others fled, and in-depth "cleaning" was carried out in dormitories, with the allegation that

they were the source of Communist influences.54

By the middle of the decade, an atmosphere of political participation had spectacularly inundated the universities, as at the UNAM. Various student political parties appeared: the Partido Socialista, the Auténtico Universitario and the Revolucionario Estudiantil, as well as the Liga Obrero Estudiantil and the Alianza Izquierda Revolucionaria de Economía. Most had a Marxist orientation, a reflection of the introduction of Marxist doctrines in the institution while Ignacio Chávez was rector. Great effervescence flowed through the student body, from the point of view of political participation.

Along with the occurrences in Morelia, events in the capital had important repercussions on the future of the UNAM, such as the strike of 1966 produced by the resignation of Ignacio Chávez; new horizons were opened in organizational experience. In a spontaneous manner, students created specific forms of action, such as the strike committees and the Consejo

Estudiantil Universitario. The committees were formed by elections at assemblies, which also named the delegates. As the mobilizations advanced, the importance of traditional organizations like the student society decreased; their leaders, in many cases, were replaced by students elected at assemblies. On the other hand, the FEU and the FUSA disappeared that year.

Prior to the movement of 1968, various student-led actions appeared in the provinces. The strike in the Hermanos Escobar agricultural school in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua provoked a large supportive movement throughout Mexico: “ It is estimated that approximately 70,000 strikers declared to be in favor. The result was positive because the state government decided to

create a new agricultural school.” 55

Student efforts to build a national organization implied a double challenge for the government, which interpreted the organization as a direct threat to the traditional methods of vertical control of massive organizations; the government feared the presence of an independent national force in the political arena. It was a test of fire for the student forces, since action required great political maturity and a clear strategic vision, in which the particular interests of each current were subordinate to those of the whole. The historical result of this experience amply showed the political limitations of the movement and of the leftist forces that acted at its forefront. Immaturity, distrust, intolerance and sectarianism triumphed over good political judgment, and the failure of this experience was a decisive influence

on the organizational vacuum of following years.56

1968-1970

The movement that occurred in Mexico City from July to December of 1968, significantly marked the course of student action until the end of the decade. Since the mobilization was beyond traditionally formed organizations, it overcame popular and liberal conditions and opened the way for the creation of emergent groups created in the heat of events. An example is the Consejo Nacional de Huelga (CNH), a representative body of student actions.

The organization adopted by the students was circumstantial. At each school, assemblies elected a protest committee and two members participated as delegates at the CNH. The council was an enormous assembly (100 to 200 members), whose slowness in making decisions was impractical. Its hesitation was due in part to the reigning distrust between the political currents that had previously seen that student organizations were quickly manipulated. For this reason, the formation of a more

centralized body for decision-making was impeded; only in exceptional cases, such as during the military occupation of the central campus, was

action by an eight-member central committee accepted.57 For action on the streets, the students were organized in brigades: small but numerous groups that spread their action throughout the city.

The massacre at Tlatelolco, however, brutally eliminated the possibility of forming a national student union after the largest mobilization of the decade. Fear and confusion penetrated student ranks and desertion from political activities began to be seen. In December of 1968, amidst tremendous demoralization and bewilderment, the CNH decided to dissolve. In spite of pronouncements that would convert it into a permanent student organization, based on the existing structure, fear of manipulation by leftist forces impeded action.

Although the student movement experienced important moments of recovery between 1971 and 1973, it is evident that a general tendency toward political degradation dominated any attempt at reorganization. This situation prevailed not only in Mexico City, but was to extend throughout the entire nation. The student vanguard, increasingly separate from the masses and united on protest committees, became more radical. Students gradually abandoned the old democratic slogans and adopted populist or revolutionary

currency.58 A growing mystification of activity and a disdain for the passive masses began to develop among these vanguards. Activism became a means of personal liberation.

On the other hand, the sectarian conception of student organization was reborn during this period of crisis: it was stated that organizations should congregate only activists and be founded on principles of "revolutionary democracy", which should combat the forms of "bourgeois democracy" that hoped to create a representative student organization. Perhaps the best example was the Foro Nacional Estudiantil in 1972, which proposed inviting exclusively the "revolutionaries" of Mexico:

The papers, the resolutions, and the style of work (at the Foro) demonstrate that the new Mexican student movement was characterized by keeping a firm posture of independence and rupture from the system, with its ideology and its policy; by overcoming the old liberal democratic positions to become

a movement with a revolutionary socialistic orientation.59

The Aftermath

An initial reckoning of the different student movements in Mexico since the 1950s permits identifying two major political/organizational currents that coincide in their rejection of traditional corporative forms independent from the government, but differ in their manner of understanding the movement, and in their definition of objectives and goals. The first current, known as democratic, thought that it should be formed with the participation of all students, regardless of their political or religious beliefs. The political subject was the masses, which should be informed and formed to act not only on the level of immediate and individual student demands (scholarships, dining halls, etc.), but also on a general political level (university reform, political democracy). It proposed the creation of organizations of masses that would authentically represent the student body, and the establishment of rules of democratic functioning to ensure the peaceful and rational coexistence of different political currents and permit fair competition for occupying leadership positions in the movement.

The second current, the effect of profound radicalization and based on severe dogmatism, was the revolutionary current. Its members sustained that the historical moment did not admit mediations and that it was urgent to organize and prepare for political action. Their mission was to make the revolution, but they sustained that the political subject to begin the revolution would not be students, but instead the exploited classes led by the proletariat. Students, due to their petit bourgeois position, were destined to serve the counter revolution. Only some would enter the ranks of the

revolution.60 The conclusion pointed to two central aspects: the organization should be built not by the student body, but exclusively by the revolutionaries; and among the movement's objectives, priority would be given to those who link student protest to the exploited masses. In fact, the student contingency should serve as strategic support for the proletariat and forget about its natural, reformist demands.

Notes

1 Guevara, 1983:32.

2 Provincias. Revista Gráfica Revolucionaria, 1934.

3 Macías, 1940:132.

4 Garciadiego, 1997:35.

5 See García Stahl, 1975.

6 An interesting reflection of the protagonists is found in Varios autores, 1990.

7 González Oropeza, 1980:13.

8 See Gojman de Backal, 1988.

9 Macías, 1940:460.

10Garrido, 1989.

11Idem.

12For a more detailed analysis of the repercussions of socialistic education in the regional setting, see Quintanilla Susana and Mary Kay Vaughan, 1994.

13See Lombardo, 1975.

14Caso, 1971 and Krauze, 1982.

15Mayo, 1974.

16Cuevas, 1984:54.

17See Espejel, 1986:103-145.

18Arreguín, 1982:52.

19Guevara, 1986:43.

20This characterization appears in the work of Semo I., 1982 and is addressed again by Guevara, 1986.

21See Pacheco Calvo, 1980.

22See Garrido, 1989.

23The new organization, in adherence to the corporative system of the times, agglutinated a considerable number of groups, including the Federación de las Normales Rurales, Federación de Escuelas Técnicas (FNET), Federación de Estudiantes de Agricultura, Federación para hijos de trabajadores, Centros Nocturnos para trabajadores y Federaciones Juveniles de Coahuila, Nuevo

León, Distrito Federal, Yucatán, Jalisco, Michoacán y Guanajuato, La Voz de México, cited by Cuevas, 1984: 55-56.

24Guevara, 1986:33 y ss.

25Idem.

26Arreola, 1984.

27For a more detailed analysis of the implications of the movement, see Problemas de Latinoamérica, 1956, núm. 13, noviembre.

28Semo I. and Groman,1982:110-111.

29Macías 1940:75.

30Garciadiego, 1997:36.

31Domínguez, 1989:264.

32Fuentes, 1983:48.

33Mejía, 1991.

34The difference between generations, based on a comparison of university studies, can be consulted in the following work of Camp (1988) and Smith (1982).

35Revista Oposición, 1990:3-5.

36Cuevas, 1984: 66.

37Loaeza, 1989:64.

38Loaeza, 1990:56.

39See, Klineberg, et al., 1970 and Altbach, 1974.

40One of the perspectives utilized most often to analyze the ideological fractionating of the middle classes in developing societies explains these ruptures based on the historical origin of the different sectors of the middle class. The starting point for such differentiation is modernization, and it distinguishes between two major types of middle classes: traditional and modernizing, or emerging. See Loaeza, 1983:416-417.

41Loaeza y Stern, 1990:21.

42Loaeza, Soledad, 1983:409.

43Feuer, 1969:41.

44Loaeza, 1990:29.

45Fuentes, 1983:50.

46See Semo I. y Gorman, 1982:95 y ss.

47Fuentes, 1983:49.

48For a detailed account of the origin and action of the FEU and FUSA, see the article by Domínguez (1989).

49Cuevas, 1984:55.

50Martínez, 1972.

51Carr, 1996:233.

52Idem.

53See entire issue of Revista política, núm. 25, 1961.

54See Krauze, Enrique, 1997 y Ortega, 1968:265.

55See Guevara, 1988.

56Guevara, 1978:16-17.

57Garín y Guevara, 1988.

58See Hirales, 1994.

59Martínez, 1972.

60Semo, E., 1982.

Social and Student Movements from 1958 to 1969∗

Social Movements1958August 2. The military keeps guard at railway stations throughout Mexico. That same day the meeting places of dissident railway workers are taken over.

Student Movements

August 3. A meeting in Guadalajara is dissolved violently and the railway leaders incarcerated.August 4. Seven thousand telegraph operators go on strike. The work stoppage is extended to an indefinite time period due to the arrest of their leader.August 5. The military takes over the national telegraph system, Telégrafos Nacionales.August 8. Railroad worker stoppages and strikes to demand recognition for the new union. The police and military storm sections 15, 16, 17 and 18.August 28. Riot police spray tear gas on the PEMEX building to remove the employees who had taken control of the facilities.

August 21-26. "Bus movement". UNAM students protest increased fares and organize enormous mobilizations all over the capital. The movement culminates on August 27 with the suspension of this measure.

August 29. Oil workers, metal workers, students, teachers, and their families remain on the sidewalks of Avenida Juárez, waiting for the report of the oil commission's dialogue with authorities from the Ministry of the Interior. Unexpectedly they are dispersed with tear gas and water.September 6. Repression of a teachers' meeting organized by Othón Sálazar, who is captured during the melee. Riot police dissolve the riot with gases.October 16. The police frustrate a meeting of workers protesting against the terrible repression suffered by various organizations in the oppressive climate "in

  “ Pensar el 68” , Nexos, núm. 121, enero, 1988; Guevara, 1988; Cuevas, 1984

defense of the Constitution”.November 20. Violent riot in San Luis Potosí because of the cancellation of the parade commemorating the Mexican Revolution. The scheduled parade becomes a march against the political boss, Gonzalo N. Santos.December 5. In the city of San Luis Potosí, railway workers attempt to block the trains; troops disperse them with violence.December 27. Conflict between members of the PAN party and the police in Tijuana results in various injuries.1959February 14. In Juchipila, Zacatecas, the Coalición Nacional Revolucionaria, struggling against despotic mayors, tries to overrun the town hall; the policy open fire and there are six casualties.February 23. In Llano Grande, a town in Calera, Zacatecas, a group of peasants is machine-gunned by riot police.March 28. General strike of railroad workers to support the strikes of the Pacífico and Mexicano lines; military repression is unleashed, many workers are fired and incarcerated, and 6,000 persons are detained, including Demetrio Vallejo.1960March 24. The military occupies the Escuela Nacional de Maestros ("National Teachers College"); the dormitory and dining hall are closed. The Comisión Nacional de Honor y Justicia of the SNTE expels the executive committee.

A student strike breaks out at the Universidad de Morelia; the demands are related to students' precarious living conditions. The conflict is solved with the issuance of a new law that eliminates the "socialistic" nature of the institution's university education.

May 17. Valentín Campa is detained, accused of being an agitator and a Communist.August 4. 1,500 policemen repress a manifestation of support for the teachers of section IX of the SNTE. 500 are injured.August 9. David Alfaro Siqueiros and Filomeno Mata are jailed.

October. Students from the Universidad de Guerrero strike against the governor. In

San Luis Potosí, there is a similar movement.

November 19. 21 of the 35 "political prisoners" in the Mexico City preventive jail declare a hunger strike.December 30. In Chilpancingo, Guerrero, peasants and students demanding integral agrarian reform and respect for political freedoms are massacred.1961

April. A manifestation in favor of Vietnam is repressed in Mexico City; in May, there is a strike at the Universidad de Puebla against the anti-Communist university front, a movement that culminates in August with military intervention at the institution.

1962 May 23. Rubén Jaramillo, a well-known agrarian leader, his wife and children are killed by the military in the state of Morelos.

A movement against the rector, Ignacio Chávez, at the UNAM results in the expulsion of several students. Various student manifestations asking for the release of political prisoners.

December 30. A massacre in Iguala, Guerrero, of peasants and students on the second anniversary of the massacre of Chilpancingo. The Asociación Cívica Guerrerense demands integral agrarian reform and the release of political prisoners.1963August 11. 35 union leaders are sentenced to prison with terms ranging from 4 to 16 years. The same day, riot police dissolve with violence a meeting demanding freedom for Mexico's political prisoners.

February. A student movement breaks out in Morelia against the rector, Eli de Gortari, who is then expelled from the university due to conflicts with the state governor, who accuses him of being a Communist. Two months later, various student contingents gather in Morelia to hold the Primera Conferencia Nacional de Estudiantes Democráticos ("First National Conference of Democratic Students"). This meeting is central because it issues the first proposal for creating a student organization independent from the state, and proclaims the famous Declaration of

Morelia.1964November 26. Work stoppage of the Asociación Mexicana de Médicos Residentes e Internos; the physicians' movement begins in Mexico City.

Enormous student movement of the masses in Puebla, which causes the fall of the governor, Nava Castillo. At year-end, the governor of Chihuahua, Praxedes Giner, declares that students living at the rural normal schools are "dens of Communists", which translates into the incarceration of many students and the closing of several schools in the entity.

1965 March. The normal school of Palmira, Morelos, carries out a strike supported by the Federación Estudiantil Campesina ("Rural Student Federal"); the main demands are an increased number of scholarships, transportation for student teaching and better rooms.

April 6. Repression of students who protest against the US bombing of North Vietnam.

Various students participate in the physicians' movement in the capital city. In Guerrero, the student movement opposed the reelection of Virgilio Gómez Moharro, accused of being a political boss and murderer.

April 12. The offices of the Central Campesina Independiente and the Partido Comunista Mexicano are searched.May 26. Police and riot police storm the ISSSTE's “2 0 de Noviembre” hospital and the railroad worker's neighborhood.

Various UNAM departments strike in sympathy with the physicians.

September 23. Guerrilla militants storm the Madera barracks in Chihuahua. Fifteen participants are shot. November 29. Riot police repress a manifestation by vehicle drivers. Their union organization is repressed with violence. 1966

March. Students at the Universidad Juárez in Durango occupy the iron and steelworks and propose its exploitation in favor of the people.April. Students in the law school, economics department and national

preparatory schools of the UNAM take over the rector's office and force Ignacio Chávez to resign. September. Students at the Universidad de Sinaloa protest against their rector, Julio Ibarra, who later resigns. October 2. Students in Michoacán protest against increased transportation fares. One student is killed, resulting in a strike involving several sectors of society. October 4. Protest in the UNAM due to repression in the Universidad Nicolaíta. The university council of the Universidad Michoacana requests the removal of state authorities and the freedom of political prisoners.October 8. The military occupies the Universidad de Morelia, dozens of students are detained and martial law is declared. Many students would later be sentenced to several years in prison.

1967March. Students at the Universidad de Sonora declare a hunger strike against the PRI's designated gubernatorial candidate. The military evacuates the students and arrests dozens of strikers.

May 17. Massacre at a teachers' meeting in Atoyac. Lucio Cabañas flees to the mountains to begin organizing the guerrilla movement.August 20. More than thirty peasants are gunned down in the tourist center of Acapulco due to coconut conflict.1968 February 3. The freedom march organized

by the CNED begins in Dolores, Hidalgo, to demand the release of political prisoners.February 6. The military dissolves the march and incarcerates its organizers.May 8. Strike at the Hermanos Escobar agricultural school in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, supported by the 17 agricultural schools pertaining to the FNECAF, including Chapingo. The strike reaches

great dimensions and support; hostile sentiment arises towards the movement in the capital city when the police storm the Casco de Santo Tomás and the Vocacional 7, as well as CNED headquarters. Various stoppages occur in the UNAM and the Normal school. After 70 days of stopped work, the conflict is resolved. The dormitory disappears but student benefits and services are maintained.May-July. A national strike to support the students of the Hermanos Escobar school in favor of its federalization. July-December. The most important student movement of the decade in the nation's capital, which culminates in the massacre of October 2 in Tlatelolco.

1969 The Federación de Estudiantes Campesinos holds a seminar on the reform of normal education in Atequiza, Jalisco. In opposition, the SEP holds a congress that decides to separate middle schools from the rural normal schools and increase their time of study by one year. July-August. The military, police and members of the CNC occupy various schools and offices of the FEC, in Hidalgo. The CNC takes over the normal schools of Huerta (Michoacán), Zaragoza (Puebla) and Salaices (Chihuahua). Five hundred students are expelled, including three hundred members of Juventudes Comunistas, and all of the clubs of a political and ideological orientation created by the CNED are destroyed.November. A student march by a paramilitary group from the Politécnico, in support of a textile company, is dispersed.

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Article received: June 20, 2001

Accepted: December 11, 2002