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| El Machete | |
|---|---|
| Name | El Machete |
| Type | Weekly newspaper |
| Format | Tabloid |
| Founded | 1924 |
| Founder | Communist Party of Mexico |
| Political | Communist |
| Language | Spanish |
| Headquarters | Mexico City |
El Machete is a Spanish-language communist weekly newspaper founded in 1924 as the official organ of the Communist Party of Mexico. It has served as a platform for Marxist-Leninist analysis, labor reporting, and revolutionary commentary, aligning with international communist movements and frequently referencing global events. Throughout the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the paper intersected with prominent figures and organizations in leftist, labor, and anti-imperialist struggles.
El Machete was established in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and during the rise of Leninism and Stalinism in the 1920s, amid debates involving the Communist International and the Third International. Early issues covered struggles related to the Cristero War, the Cardenismo era under Lázaro Cárdenas, and agrarian reforms associated with figures like Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa. During the 1930s and 1940s the paper reported on the Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and alliances involving the Comintern and International Brigades. In the Cold War decades it commented on the Soviet–American relations, the Cuban Revolution, the Bay of Pigs Invasion, and the Nicaraguan Revolution. The publication navigated splits influenced by the Khrushchev Thaw, the Sino-Soviet split, and alignments with Mao Zedong or Nikita Khrushchev factions. In the 1960s and 1970s El Machete covered the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre, the rise of groups like the Zapatista Army of National Liberation precursors, and referenced international movements such as May 1968 in France and the Black Panther Party in the United States. In recent decades it has chronicled transitions involving Perestroika, the fall of the Soviet Union, the Zapatista uprising of 1994, and contemporary leftist governments in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Cuba.
The editorial line emphasizes Marxist-Leninist theory, revolutionary praxis, and workers' struggles, drawing on canonical texts by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, and commentators such as Leon Trotsky in debates. It features reporting on labor unions like the Confederation of Mexican Workers and international unions including the World Federation of Trade Unions and the Industrial Workers of the World, and analyzes events involving the United Nations, the Organization of American States, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Coverage includes profiles of political leaders such as José María Morelos, Benito Juárez, Lázaro Cárdenas, Hugo Chávez, Evo Morales, and Fidel Castro, and engages with movements like Zapatismo and parties including the Institutional Revolutionary Party, National Action Party (Mexico), and Party of the Democratic Revolution. Cultural pages discuss writers and intellectuals such as Octavio Paz, Carlos Fuentes, Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo, Pablo Neruda, and Gabriel García Márquez while offering critiques of administrations like Porfirio Díaz and policies linked to NAFTA negotiations involving Canada and the United States. The newspaper often references events such as the Moncada Barracks attack, the Suez Crisis, and the Vietnam War in international commentary.
As an organ of the Communist Party of Mexico, El Machete has advocated for proletarian internationalism, land reform, nationalization, and anti-imperialist solidarity with movements in Cuba, Angola, Vietnam, and Guatemala. It has engaged with debates among communist parties influenced by conferences like the Comintern World Congress and the Tricontinental Conference. The paper has influenced student movements at institutions such as the National Autonomous University of Mexico and has connections with labor federations and peasant organizations related to figures like Rubén Jaramillo. El Machete's positions have interacted with political currents in Latin America, referencing electoral outcomes involving Peronism in Argentina, socialist governments in Chile under Salvador Allende, and left coalitions in Brazil associated with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.
Historically printed in Mexico City, the newspaper circulated primarily in urban industrial centers such as Guadalajara, Monterrey, and Puebla, and reached readers in rural states including Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Morelos. Distribution channels included party networks, labor halls, university campuses like Instituto Politécnico Nacional, and international solidarity circuits connecting to publications from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of Cuba, the Chinese Communist Party, and smaller communist parties in France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Greece. Print runs fluctuated with political conditions, censorship episodes during administrations like Miguel Alemán Valdés's, and competition from mainstream outlets such as Excélsior and El Universal.
Contributors and editors have included party intellectuals, labor leaders, and cultural figures; names associated with leftist politics and arts such as Vicente Lombardo Toledano, Heberto Castillo, Rodolfo Walsh, Nicolás Guillén, Alfonso Reyes, Elena Poniatowska, and Luis Buñuel have appeared in debates referenced by the paper. International correspondents and guest writers have included commentators connected to Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Frantz Fanon, Che Guevara, Ernesto Laclau, and Antonio Gramsci discussions, and the editorial team engaged with translators and activists linked to the International Committee of the Fourth International and the Socialist International.
Over its history El Machete faced suppression attempts, surveillance by security services during periods involving the Mexican Dirty War, libel suits, and accusations of subversion during Cold War tensions involving the Central Intelligence Agency's regional activities. The publication was debated in congressional and judicial arenas influenced by laws and institutions such as the Mexican Constitution of 1917 provisions, and anti-communist measures enacted during various administrations. International controversies included alignments with regimes criticized by organizations like Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and disputes arising from support for foreign interventions during the Spanish Civil War and Cold War proxy conflicts.
El Machete has influenced Mexican and Latin American leftist literature, visual arts, and labor culture, intersecting with movements that produced murals by Diego Rivera and literary works by Octavio Paz and Carlos Fuentes. It contributed to the historiography of revolutions studied alongside works on the Mexican Revolution, Cuban Revolution, and Nicaraguan Revolution, and informed academic research at institutions like the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and archives in Hemeroteca Nacional de México. The paper's iconography and rhetoric have been referenced by cultural producers ranging from filmmakers like Alfonso Cuarón and Guillermo del Toro to musicians connected with protest traditions such as Silvio Rodríguez and Los Tigres del Norte. Its legacy persists in party publications, leftist pedagogy, and commemorations of labor struggles in plazas and museums across Mexico City and beyond.
Category:Newspapers published in Mexico Category:Communist newspapers Category:1924 establishments in Mexico