The National Synarchist Union ( es, Unión Nacional Sinarquista) is a Mexican political organization. It was historically a movement of the
Roman Catholic
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
extreme right
Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
, similar to
clerical fascism
Clerical fascism (also clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) is an ideology that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with clericalism. The term has been used to describe organizations and movements that combine religious elements ...
and
Falangism
Falangism ( es, falangismo) was the political ideology of two political parties in Spain that were known as the Falange, namely first the Falange Española de las JONS, Falange Española de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional Sindicalista (FE de la ...
, implacably opposed to the
left wing
Left-wing politics describes the range of political ideologies that support and seek to achieve social equality and egalitarianism, often in opposition to social hierarchy. Left-wing politics typically involve a concern for those in soci ...
and
secularist
Secularism is the principle of seeking to conduct human affairs based on secular, naturalistic considerations.
Secularism is most commonly defined as the separation of religion from civil affairs and the state, and may be broadened to a sim ...
policies of the
Institutional Revolutionary Party
The Institutional Revolutionary Party ( es, Partido Revolucionario Institucional, ; abbr. PRI) is a political party in Mexico that was founded in 1929 and held uninterrupted power in the country for 71 years, from 1929 to 2000, first as the Nati ...
(PRI) and its predecessors that governed Mexico from 1929 to 2000 and from 2012 to 2018.
The organization was notably the only explicit right-wing movement in Mexico to garner such nation-wide support and influence during this era. At its peak in 1940, there were approximately 500,000 registered members. Mostly active in the late 1930s and early 1940s, its support for the Axis in World War II damaged its reputation. The organization experienced intense
infighting in the mid-1940s which ultimately led to multiple schisms. The organization was dissolved as a political party in 1951 and largely faded into obscurity outside the city of
Guanajuato
Guanajuato (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato), is one of the 32 states that make up the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 46 municipalities and its capital city i ...
, where it retained some local influence. In the 1980s, the UNS was reconstituted as the
Mexican Democratic Party
The Mexican Democratic Party ( es, Partido Demócrata Mexicano, PDM) was an ultra-Catholic social conservative political party in Mexico that existed between 1979 and 1997. At its height in 1982, the party had over 500,000 active voters and 12 seat ...
, which held seats in the Chamber of Deputies from 1979 to 1988, peaking at 12 Deputies in the
1982 election but losing its presence in 1988; the
Mexican Democratic Party
The Mexican Democratic Party ( es, Partido Demócrata Mexicano, PDM) was an ultra-Catholic social conservative political party in Mexico that existed between 1979 and 1997. At its height in 1982, the party had over 500,000 active voters and 12 seat ...
(PDM) dissolved in 1997, though two groups both claiming to be the legitimate UNS continue to exist.
History
Formation
The UNS was founded in May 1937, during the leftist administration of President
Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.
Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the M ...
(1934–40).
It was developed by a group of Catholic political activists led by José Antonio Urquiza, who was murdered in April 1938. It was a revival of the Catholic reaction that drove the
Cristero War
The Cristero War ( es, Guerra Cristera), also known as the Cristero Rebellion or es, La Cristiada, label=none, italics=no , was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico from 1 August 1926 to 21 June 1929 in response to the implementa ...
(that ended in 1929), and its core was centred in the
Bajío
El Bajío (the ''lowland'') is a cultural and geographical region within the central Mexican plateau which roughly spans from north-west of the Mexico City metropolitan area to the main silver mines in the northern-central part of the country. Thi ...
rural bourgeoisie and professional lower middle-class, where Catholicism was very strong. The group published the "Sinarquista Manifesto," opposing the policies of the government of
President
President most commonly refers to:
*President (corporate title)
*President (education), a leader of a college or university
*President (government title)
President may also refer to:
Automobiles
* Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ful ...
Lázaro Cárdenas
Lázaro Cárdenas del Río (; 21 May 1895 – 19 October 1970) was a Mexican army officer and politician who served as president of Mexico from 1934 to 1940.
Born in Jiquilpan, Michoacán, to a working-class family, Cárdenas joined the M ...
. The Manifesto declared that "it is absolutely necessary that an organization composed of true patriots exists".
The group's date of formation, 23 May, is celebrated annually in
León, Guanajuato ()
, coordinates =
, subdivision_type = Country
, subdivision_name =
, subdivision_type1 = Political divisions of Mexico, State
, subdivision_name1 =
, establishe ...
by the UNS membership.
The UNS was led by
Salvador Abascal
Salvador Abascal Infante (May 18, 1910 - March 30, 2000) was a Mexican politician and leading exponent of Mexican synarchism. For a time the leader of the National Synarchist Union (UNS), Abascal represented the orthodox Roman Catholic Church, Ca ...
, a hard-liner, from 1940 to 1941 when he stood down in order to set up a synarchist commune in
Baja California
Baja California (; 'Lower California'), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Baja California ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Baja California), is a state in Mexico. It is the northernmost and westernmost of the 32 federal entities of Mex ...
with the more moderate
Manuel Torres Bueno becoming leader. The group was fond of large scale publicity stunts, such as the "takeovers" they launched in
Guadalajara, Jalisco
Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Mexico, while the Guadalaj ...
and
Morelia
Morelia (; from 1545 to 1828 known as Valladolid) is a city and municipal seat of the municipality of Morelia in the north-central part of the state of Michoacán in central Mexico. The city is in the Guayangareo Valley and is the capital and larg ...
in 1941. It has been stated that these temporary affairs amounted to little more than symbolic gestures but nonetheless helped to demonstrate the support the UNS enjoyed amongst the peasantry of the Western states.
Synarchist involvement in regional protest groups and political parties was both a reality and a regularly used accusation aimed at discrediting the opposition. The Civic Union of
León, one such local party active in the mid-1940s, was dominated by a cadre of synarchists in leadership positions. For example, Austreberto Aragon Maldonado, whose ''Liga de Resistencia de Usarios del Agua de Oaxaca''—a group that supported improvement in the water supply in
Oaxaca
Oaxaca ( , also , , from nci, Huāxyacac ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Oaxaca), is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of Mexico. It is ...
—enjoyed widespread support in the region, he was regularly denounced by the state government as a synarchist. This occurred despite Maldonado's regular efforts to deny any involvement in the UNS and taking care not to involve himself with any extremist groups. Maldonado was targeted in this way due to the broad-based support his movement enjoyed and the possibility that it could become a focus for wider resistance.
Decline
![Sinarquista-meeting](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/82/Sinarquista-meeting.jpg)
The UNS was firmly pro-
Axis powers
The Axis powers, ; it, Potenze dell'Asse ; ja, 枢軸国 ''Sūjikukoku'', group=nb originally called the Rome–Berlin Axis, was a military coalition that initiated World War II and fought against the Allies. Its principal members were ...
during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, and its propaganda increased in this direction following the increase in anti-American feeling engendered in Mexico by the
Sleepy Lagoon murder
The "Sleepy Lagoon murder" was the name that Los Angeles newspapers used to describe the 1942 death of José Gallardo Díaz, who was discovered unconscious and dying near a swimming hole (known as the Sleepy Lagoon) with two stab wounds and a b ...
. Government schemes aimed at taming the UNS, notably giving the land in Baja California to Abascal's followers, did not prove a success and soon it was felt by the government that the group had to be controlled.
President
Manuel Ávila Camacho
Manuel Ávila Camacho (; 24 April 1897 – 13 October 1955) was a Mexican politician and military leader who served as the President of Mexico from 1940 to 1946. Despite participating in the Mexican Revolution and achieving a high rank, he cam ...
placed a ban on the UNS holding public meetings in June 1944 at a time when factionalism was dividing the movement. Some radical members went rogue, including one, De La Lama y Rojas, who on 14 April 1944 shot at Camacho and bemoaned the President's survival with the words "I was not able, sadly, to complete my mission". De La Lama y Rojas was shot and killed in police custody soon after the failed attack.
The movement split in two in 1945 when Carlos Athie replaced Torres Bueno as the leader. The deposed leader started his own group, and both factions claimed the UNS name.
[LA UNIÓN NACIONAL SINARQUISTA DE MÉXICO: El Sinarquismo en el período de la posguerra](_blank)
/ref> Above all however the group was outmanoeuvred by the policies of the Camacho government, which maintained a policy of openly supporting Catholicism whilst also enacting legislation aimed at improving the lot of the working classes, effectively occupying political space that would normally be associated with critics from the right and left respectively.
Revival
In 1946 the Torres Bueno faction regrouped as the Popular Force Party (Partido Fuerza Popular). This party was banned in 1949 along with the Mexican Communist Party
The Mexican Communist Party ( es, Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM) was a communist party in Mexico. It was founded in 1917 as the Socialist Workers' Party (, PSO) by Manabendra Nath Roy, a left-wing Indian revolutionary. The PSO changed its name ...
as part of a wider policy against "extremism". In 1951, however, when it was clear that the more moderate National Action Party (PAN) had become the main party of opposition to the PRI government, the Synarchist leader Juan Ignacio Padilla converted the movement to a non-party one promoting conservative Catholic social doctrine, promoted through co-operative
A cooperative (also known as co-operative, co-op, or coop) is "an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-control ...
s, credit union
A credit union, a type of financial institution similar to a commercial bank, is a member-owned nonprofit organization, nonprofit financial cooperative. Credit unions generally provide services to members similar to retail banks, including depo ...
s and Catholic trade union
A trade union (labor union in American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers intent on "maintaining or improving the conditions of their employment", ch. I such as attaining better wages and benefits ( ...
s. Nonetheless, the PAN actively sought cooperation with the Sinarquistas as part of its attempts to form a mass movement, and the Synarchist movement was active on behalf of the party during the 1958 election campaigns. The group also established links with Opus Dei
Opus Dei, formally known as the Prelature of the Holy Cross and Opus Dei ( la, Praelatura Sanctae Crucis et Operis Dei), is an institution of the Catholic Church whose members seek personal Christian holiness and strive to imbue their work an ...
, which partially funded the Synarchists in the late 1960s by diverting funds to the Synarchist journal ''Hoja de Combate.
Synarchism, which had become largely localised to Guanajuato
Guanajuato (), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Guanajuato ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Guanajuato), is one of the 32 states that make up the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 46 municipalities and its capital city i ...
, was revived as a political movement in the 1970s through the Mexican Democratic Party
The Mexican Democratic Party ( es, Partido Demócrata Mexicano, PDM) was an ultra-Catholic social conservative political party in Mexico that existed between 1979 and 1997. At its height in 1982, the party had over 500,000 active voters and 12 seat ...
(PDM), whose candidate, Ignacio González Gollaz, polled 1.8 percent of the vote at the 1982 presidential election; in the same year the PDM won 10 seats in the Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourbon R ...
. In midterm elections in 1985, but in the 1988 elections it lost all 12 seats it had held in the Chamber, never to return. The party soon split, with both factions taking up the UNS name once more; in 1994, the rump party polled a dismal 0.4% of the vote; the PDM was formally dissolved by the Federal Electoral Institute
The Instituto Nacional Electoral (INE) (English for ''National Electoral Institute'') (formerly Federal Electoral Institute (, IFE)) is an autonomous, public agency responsible for organizing federal elections in Mexico, that is, those relate ...
in 1997. The split was never ended, and to date, there are two organisations, both calling themselves the Unión Nacional Sinarquista. One has an apparently right-wing orientation, the other is apparently left-wing, but they both have the same philosophical roots. A group of former PDM/UNS organizers sought to organize a new party by the PDM starting in 2013 but have yet to be admitted to the electoral register.
Ideology
The ideology of the UNS derived from the clerical fascism
Clerical fascism (also clero-fascism or clerico-fascism) is an ideology that combines the political and economic doctrines of fascism with clericalism. The term has been used to describe organizations and movements that combine religious elements ...
that was a major strand of Catholic social thinking of the 1920s and 1930s, based on the papal encyclical
An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Roman Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop. The word comes from the Late Latin (originally from ...
''Rerum novarum
''Rerum novarum'' (from its incipit, with the direct translation of the Latin meaning "of revolutionary change"), or ''Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor'', is an encyclical issued by Pope Leo XIII on 15 May 1891. It is an open letter, pass ...
'' of Pope Leo XIII
Pope Leo XIII ( it, Leone XIII; born Vincenzo Gioacchino Raffaele Luigi Pecci; 2 March 1810 – 20 July 1903) was the head of the Catholic Church from 20 February 1878 to his death in July 1903. Living until the age of 93, he was the second-old ...
, which also influenced the regimes of Engelbert Dollfuss
Engelbert Dollfuß (alternatively: ''Dolfuss'', ; 4 October 1892 – 25 July 1934) was an Austrian clerical fascist politician who served as Chancellor of Austria between 1932 and 1934. Having served as Minister for Forests and Agriculture, he a ...
in Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
, António de Oliveira Salazar
António de Oliveira Salazar (, , ; 28 April 1889 – 27 July 1970) was a Portuguese dictator who served as President of the Council of Ministers from 1932 to 1968. Having come to power under the ("National Dictatorship"), he reframed the re ...
in Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
and Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (; 4 December 1892 – 20 November 1975) was a Spanish general who led the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War ...
in Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
. Taking its impetus from the same strand of ultra-conservative Catholicism that had informed the Cristeros
The Cristero War ( es, Guerra Cristera), also known as the Cristero Rebellion or es, La Cristiada, label=none, italics=no , was a widespread struggle in central and western Mexico from 1 August 1926 to 21 June 1929 in response to the implementa ...
, the group sought to mobilise the peasantry against "atheistic and communist tendencies".[Krauze, ''Mexico'', p. 504.] It stressed social co-operation and corporatism
Corporatism is a collectivist political ideology which advocates the organization of society by corporate groups, such as agricultural, labour, military, business, scientific, or guild associations, on the basis of their common interests. The ...
as opposed to the class conflict
Class conflict, also referred to as class struggle and class warfare, is the political tension and economic antagonism that exists in society because of socio-economic competition among the social classes or between rich and poor.
The forms ...
of socialism
Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...
, and hierarchy
A hierarchy (from Greek: , from , 'president of sacred rites') is an arrangement of items (objects, names, values, categories, etc.) that are represented as being "above", "below", or "at the same level as" one another. Hierarchy is an important ...
and respect for authority
In the fields of sociology and political science, authority is the legitimate power of a person or group over other people. In a civil state, ''authority'' is practiced in ways such a judicial branch or an executive branch of government.''The N ...
as opposed to liberalism
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality and equality before the law."political rationalism, hostility to autocracy, cultural distaste for c ...
. In the context of Mexican politics, this meant opposition to the centralist, anti-clerical
Anti-clericalism is opposition to religious authority, typically in social or political matters. Historical anti-clericalism has mainly been opposed to the influence of Roman Catholicism. Anti-clericalism is related to secularism, which seeks to ...
and social democratic
Social democracy is a political, social, and economic philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy. As a policy regime, it is described by academics as advocating economic and social interventions to promote soci ...
policies of the PRI government. As a result, UNS members were denounced as fascists and persecuted by the Cárdenas government and the group's ability to impact Mexican politics was hindered.
In 1949, the UNS was banned by the authorities along with the Mexican Communist Party
The Mexican Communist Party ( es, Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM) was a communist party in Mexico. It was founded in 1917 as the Socialist Workers' Party (, PSO) by Manabendra Nath Roy, a left-wing Indian revolutionary. The PSO changed its name ...
but continued to exist on a largely local level in Guanajuato under various names; the party became a social movement in 1951 but was largely unsuccessful; a small revival in the 1980s was not sustained and by 1988 the UNS electoral vehicle, the Mexican Democratic Party
The Mexican Democratic Party ( es, Partido Demócrata Mexicano, PDM) was an ultra-Catholic social conservative political party in Mexico that existed between 1979 and 1997. At its height in 1982, the party had over 500,000 active voters and 12 seat ...
, had lost all seats in Congress before dissolving in 1997.
In popular culture
In the 1981 Luis Valdez Broadway play '' Zoot Suit'' and film of the same name, one character brings it to the attention of the protagonist that the popular Chicano styles and mannerisms of the day had been pegged as stemming from ''sinarquismo'' with sympathies for the Axis powers by the yellow press
Yellow journalism and yellow press are American terms for journalism and associated newspapers that present little or no legitimate, well-researched news while instead using eye-catching headlines for increased sales. Techniques may include e ...
.
Notes
References
{{Authority control
1937 establishments in Mexico
Catholicism and far-right politics
Far-right politics in Mexico
Mexican nationalism
National Political Associations in Mexico
National syndicalism
Organizations established in 1937
Fascism in Mexico
Falangist parties
Fascist parties
Anti-communist parties