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Tag: Workers Rights

Magda Portal

Published August 19, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Magda PORTAL (1900–1989) was a Peruvian socialist poet and leader of the Aprista social democratic party (APRA). She contributed to the Peruvian literary movement of the early 1900s, which advocated for indigenismo, anti-imperialism, women’s rights, and property rights. The movement was inspired by other liberation movements, such as the Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) and Argentina’s University Reform Movement (1918). Her poetry incorporates romanticism with overtly socialist messages. Additionally, she wrote extensively about her own experiences, particularly exclusion from male-dominated politics.

Portal is notable as a founder of APRA, one of the oldest political parties in Latin America. With her influence, it became the first Peruvian political party to recruit women. However, she abandoned it when it shifted to the ideological center. She wrote her only novel, La Trampa, to represent her negative experiences with the party before joining Peru’s Communist Party. Although she is renowned for being a woman in leftist spheres, her writings on other issues are significant. One example of her socialist poetry is “Proletarian Song.” Its vivid imagery of manual labor expresses the necessity of class reform. Her poetry often advocated for indigenous people’s integration into the state and society as well. Furthermore, she valued unity. Her correspondence reveals her desire for Latin American unity against the imperialist United States. She saw the Mexican Revolution as the model that all Latin American countries should follow, in order to not only protect individual rights domestically, but also create ideological unity across the region.

FURTHER READING

Portal, Magda. “Magda Portal Papers,” November 29, 1913. University of Texas Libraries.

Weaver, Kathleen. Peruvian Rebel: The World of Magda Portal, with a Selection of Her Poems. Illustrated edition. University Park (Pa.): Penn State University Press, 2011.

Portal, Magda, and Daniel R. Reedy. Hope and the Sea by Magda Portal. Translated by Kathleen Weaver. Dulzorada, 2021.

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Graciliano Ramos

Published July 26, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Graciliano RAMOS (1892–1953) was a modernist writer and politician from the Brazilian northeast, one of the poorest regions in the country. He was a noted Communist and his writings feature fictional livelihoods to showcase social and political concerns. He expresses pessimism about generational suffering, illiteracy, misogyny, indigenous dehumanization, and exploitation as a fact of capitalism. Additionally, he had an impact on Brazil’s developing cinema culture.

São Bernardo and Vidas Secas are two of Ramos’s most famous works. Vidas Secas, translated as Barren Lives, is the most accessible to English readers. It details the tragic lives of a migrant family trekking through a drought in search of labor. Its central messages are that exploitation is inescapable for the lower class, suffering has a legacy, and illiteracy is disempowerment. For example, the father worries for his children’s upbringing but cannot help that they were born to labor under somebody else. Moreover, he is arrested when he does not understand the upper-class language of the charges against him. The last chapter leads into the first chapter to demonstrate the cyclical nature of helplessness.

FURTHER READING

Scott, Paulo. “Paulo Scott on Graciliano Ramos.” Asymptote Journal. Accessed July 26, 2022. https://www.asymptotejournal.com/special-feature/paulo-scott-on-graciliano-ramos/.

Ramos, Graciliano. Barren Lives: Vidas Secas. Translated by Ralph Edward Dimmick. University of Texas Press, 2011.

Ellison, Harlan. Brazil’s New Novel: Four Northeastern Masters – Jose Lins Do Rego, Jorge Amado, Graciliano, Rachel De Queiroz. Paris: Les Humanoïdes associés, 1979.

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The Mexican Revolution

Published May 1, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

The Mexican Revolution (1910–1920) was a working class uprising aimed at overthrowing the military dictatorship under Porfirio Díaz. It successfully ousted Díaz but led to further political strife when moderate liberal Francisco Madero replaced him. The culmination of economic tension surrounding workers’ rights and agrarian reform led to its incitement. The revolution was both a political and social upheaval, and produced competing ideologies.

Mexican Insurrectionists in Juarez, 1911

Among the ideologies to emerge from the Mexican Revolution were the Progressive Constitutionalist Party and the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM). The Constitutionalist Party was largely composed of the middle class whose beliefs aimed to be non-partisan, such as nationalization of land. Moderate liberal Madero identified as a Constitutionalist. As a result of his Constitutionalist policies, which were too radical for conservatives and too conservative for radicals, Madero’s presidency did not last long. As an opposition party, the PLM demanded more representation of workers in government as well as greater land reform. Furthermore, they criticized Madero’s relationship with the Catholic Church. In the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution, these parties further polarized with the absence of a common enemy.

FURTHER READING

Ph.D, Chris Frazer. Competing Voices from the Mexican Revolution: Fighting Words. Santa Barbara, Calif: Greenwood, 2009.

Wasserman, Mark. The Mexican Revolution: A Brief History with Documents. (Bedford Cultural Editions Series) first edition, 2012.

Robert C. Overfelt, “Mexican Revolution,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed June 02, 2022, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/mexican-revolution.

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Ricardo Flores Magón

Published April 30, 2022 by Amy Weitzman

Ricardo Flores MAGÓN (1874–1922) was an indigenous Mexican anarchocommunist whose activism helped lead to the Mexican Revolution. He was born during the military dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz, the porfiriato, which greatly shaped his career. He and his two brothers founded Regeneración, a newspaper meant to unveil the injustices under the porfiriato. Magón independently authored countless articles and stories about anarchism as a solution to the ills of capitalism.

Ricardo Flores Magón

Magón’s writing often used fiction to illustrate anti-capitalist uprisings and ended with vehement calls to action. Not only did he support an uprising, but he more generally supported workers’ rights, elimination of private property, and anti-clericalism. He questioned the need for government entirely; however, he described his radically anarchocommunist works as liberal to gain wider approval. Magón’s popularity prompted the formation of a radical political party to oust the porfiriato—the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM). The PLM initiated several uprisings. Although Díaz was ousted and replaced with a liberal, Magón still expressed doubts. He believed that only the workers themselves could obtain workers’ rights.

FURTHER READING

“A world without borders” in New York, 2006

Magón Flores Ricardo, Chaz Bufe, and Mitchell Cowen Verter. Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader. Oakland, CA: AK Press, 2005. 

Magon, Ricardo Flores. “Government?” The Anarchist Library, August 4, 2020. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/ricardo-flores-magon-government. 

Magon, Ricardo Flores. “Land and Liberty.” The Anarchist Library, June 14, 2018. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/anarchist-communist-group-land-and-liberty.

Archivomagon.net. “Archivo Digital de Ricardo Flores Magón | Archivo Digital Del Trabajo Histórico de Ricardo Flores Magón,” 2021. http://archivomagon.net/.

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