Vincent Lombardo Toledano

Vicente Lombardo Toledano (Teziutlán, Puebla, July 16, 1894-Mexico City, November 16, 1968) was a Mexican trade unionist, politician and philosopher with a Marxist tendency.

Beginnings

Vincenzo Lombardo Catti married Marcelina Carpio, both of Spanish-Italian Sephardic descent. Seven children were born from this relationship: Luis, Vicente, Emilia, Marcelina, Alejandro, Pedro and María. Vicente, Don Vincenzo's second son, born in 1870, was the administrator of his father's assets, dividends and his own patrimony, which he had started in 1895. He had been a bookkeeper and, when Teziutlán began operating Copper (owned by Don Vincenzo), owned a business where he made utensils with zacatón root. For the year 1901 his personal capital amounted to 15,191 pesos. In 1890 he married a Teziutecan woman, Isabel Toledano Toledano, with whom he would have eleven children, two of whom died at a very young age. The first daughter, Isabel, born around 1892, died at the age of six. After Isabel, in July 1894, Vicente was born. Luis, María, Margarita, Isabel (the second), Humberto, Guillermo, Elena and Aída followed.

Studies

He completed his basic education at the Liceo Teziuteco, the same institution attended by the brothers Maximino and Manuel Ávila Camacho. His higher studies were carried out at the National Preparatory School. He graduated as a Lawyer from the National School of Jurisprudence, where together with brilliant young men of the time such as Manuel Gómez Morin and Alfonso Caso, he was the founder of the Society of Conferences and Concerts, a group known as the Seven Wise Men of Mexico, belonging to the generation of 1915. Later he obtained the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Political activity

He was a member of the Concert and Lecture Society, whose goal was to spread culture among college students. The society was founded in 1916 and was known in the university environment of that time as the society of Los Siete Sabios de México. She was an editorial writer at El Heraldo de Mexico .

He stood out for being a union leader with an indisputable presence and influence in post-revolutionary Mexico of the early and mid-20th century. He was general secretary of the Confederation of Workers of Mexico (CTM) (1936-1940), of the Confederation of Latin American Workers (CTAL), and vice president of the World Federation of Trade Unions.

He never belonged to the Mexican Communist Party (PCM), however, he was a militant convinced of the construction of a socialist society. He was very influential at the national and global union level. His moral authority allowed him to influence the founding of many workers' unions in Latin America, as well as promote the unity of the communists in several countries. He pointed out on several occasions the mistakes made by the workers' parties, for which he was often criticized and misunderstood by those who "should be companions in struggle". He never boasted of being a communist, because he said that he tried to be one every day.

In his political performance he was: Deputy to the Congress of the Union for the Labor Party on three occasions, Senior Official of the Government of the Federal District in February 1921; Alderman of the City Council of Mexico City in 1925, and Interim Governor of Puebla from 1924 to 1925.

On March 13, 1925, the regent together with his colleague Juan Rico chose this date for the first contemporary celebration of the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlan at its 600th anniversary.

Academicly, he was director of the National Preparatory School and founder of the Universidad Obrera de México.

He was a federal legislator on two occasions and became governor of the state of Puebla. In 1948 he founded the Popular Party, later, from 1960, the Popular Socialist Party. In 1952 he was a candidate for the Presidency of the Republic for the Popular Party.

Sepulchre of Vicente Lombardo Toledano in the Rotonda de las Personas Ilustres (Mexico).

He died on November 16, 1968 in Mexico City leaving behind eight unfinished books which he was writing. His funeral was attended by former President Lázaro Cárdenas del Río. His mortal remains were transferred to the Rotunda of Illustrious Persons on July 16, 1994. During World War II, according to some, he collaborated with Intelligence in the defense of the USSR. Despite the arduous international confrontation against the fascists, during the short non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, relations between the agents of both nations were cold, not openly aggressive. After the German invasion of the USSR, Soviet agents, among whom Lombardo Toledano was supposedly included, denounced their similar Pro-Nazis to the Mexican police, collaborating decisively in favor of the USSR against fascism.

Political Thought and Legacy

Despite being recognized as a notable intellectual, his political activity was controversial. It is said that for Lombardo the only possible "left" was the one that supposedly existed within the post-revolutionary regimes. According to Lombardo, in Mexico one could not move towards something else (such as socialism) due to dependence on the United States, so that these regimes should be supported despite all their failures and growing authoritarianism, following this slogan he never gave his support to the emerging social movements in Mexico, nor did he condemn the fierce repression against the movement of the railroad workers of 1959 and that of the teachers of 1958, nor of the students of 1968. This increased the critics of him within all camps of the left and his intellectual profile was diluted.

Before the presidential succession of 1940 and in an international context where the Communist International promoted the strategy of the Popular Front (the alliance of the communist parties with sectors of the center) to face the worldwide rise of fascism and Nazism, Lombardo In a letter before the Kremlin and the Comintern, he accused the Mexican Communist Party of not following the strategy of following the pre-candidate of General Francisco J. Múgica against the "moderate" Ávila Camacho. The International's response to the Mexican communist leaders was to go along with the strategy and follow the influence of Lombardo. Later the PCM would disqualify General Múgica as "Trotsky's candidate", vetoing him from any support. For the 1952 elections, a broad progressive front was brewing that would compete for the presidency, after a six-year term perceived as deviations and excesses, as was the Germanism. The candidacy of General Miguel Henríquez Guzmán, who would be supported by Lombardo's socialist popular party, was agreed upon. However, shortly before the elections, Lombardo would break the alliance and run as a candidate, which was seen as a useful maneuver for the State party., in an election with the suspicion of electoral fraud.

The "collaborationist" de Lombardo would continue in a complicit alliance with the PRI regime, until in 1988 the party he founded would take a dissidence attitude, joining the broad opposition National Democratic Front.

Works

• The humanist sense of the Mexican Revolution
• Theory and Practice of the Trade Union Movement in Mexico
• The Philosophy of the Proletariat
• The battle of ideas in our time
• Idealism vs. dialectical materialism
• Letter to the youth
• Case-Lombard