The Workers' Revolutionary Party ( es, Partido Revolucionario de los Trabajadores, PRT) was a

Trotskyist Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...

political party A political party is an organization that coordinates candidates to compete in a particular country's elections. It is common for the members of a party to hold similar ideas about politics, and parties may promote specific political ideology ...

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

. It was originally founded in 1976 by the merger of two Trotskyist groups: the International Communist League, associated with the

United Secretariat of the Fourth International The Fourth International (FI), founded in 1938, is a Trotskyist international. In 1963, following a ten-year schism, the majorities of the two public factions of the Fourth International, the International Secretariat and the International Com ...

and the Mexican Morenists. In 1977, the Marxist Workers' League, associated with the Organising Committee for the Reconstruction of the Fourth International, joined the party. In the following years, other small groups of Trotskyists also joined the PRT, but the group associated with Moreno left in 1979 to form the Socialist Workers' Party. (Partido Obrero Socialista) (POS) From their base in the 1968 student movement, the PRT grew quickly, soon gaining bases of support among some telephone, electrical, nuclear, and hospital workers. By the 1980s, it was the largest

far-left Far-left politics, also known as the radical left or the extreme left, are politics further to the left on the left–right political spectrum than the standard political left. The term does not have a single definition. Some scholars consider ...

party to challenge the ruling

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). In 1981, the federal government recognized the PRT as an official nationwide party. In the 1982 general elections, it was also the first Mexican party to raise

gay rights Rights affecting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people vary greatly by country or jurisdiction—encompassing everything from the legal recognition of same-sex marriage to the death penalty for homosexuality. Notably, , 3 ...

as a campaign issue; the party fielded several openly gay candidates for 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 ...

. It also entered informal alliances with the other main party on the far left, the

United Socialist Party of Mexico The Unified Socialist Party of Mexico ( es, Partido Socialista Unificado de México, PSUM) was a socialist political party in Mexico. It later became the Socialist Mexican Party () in 1988. History The PSUM was founded in November 1981 by the m ...

(PSUM). During the latter half of the 1980s, the PRT began to face a series of crises and in-fighting as its progress slowed. It has been alleged that the ruling PRI sent agents into the PRT to disrupt its activities. During the 1988 presidential election, the PRT lost ground as an electoral party because of the campaign of leftist

Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Cuauhtémoc Cárdenas Solórzano (; born 1 May 1934) is a Mexican prominent politician. The son of 51st President of Mexico Lázaro Cárdenas, he is a former Head of Government of Mexico City and a founder of the Party of the Democratic Revolut ...

, who soon formed the

Democratic Revolutionary Party The Democratic Revolutionary Party ( es, Partido Revolucionario Democrático, PRD) is a political party in Panama founded in 1979 by General Omar Torrijos. It is generally described as being positioned on the centre-left. History Since its creat ...

(PRD). In 1996, after losing federal recognition, what remained of the PRT (led by Edgard Sánchez Ramírez) formed Socialist Convergence.

Further reading