The first person to develop the idea of the unification of the armed organizations at the national level was Raúl Ramos Zavala, who since 1969, by means of texts such as "
El Proceso Revolucionario en México, el tiempo que nos toco vivir" (The Revolutionary Process in Mexico, the Time We Live), criticized the
Mexican Communist Party, considering that it had not been consistent with the political needs of the youth in the face of the 1968 movement, since no formal condemnation was made after the events of the bloody October 2 massacre. Moreover, he argued that socialism would not be achieved through a peaceful means or through collaborations with the State, which was the strategy that had been followed by the PCM, as instructed by the
Comintern since the times of the
Second World War. Ramos was at that time the national leader of the
Juventudes Comunistas (Young Communists) and decided to break with them in 1969. His break with the PCM led many of the young party militants to leave alongside him and create their own political groups. Many of them became armed groups. Ramos Zalava, for his part, founded the group known as "
Los Procesos" (the Processes) from which he sought to integrate the new groups that shared the need for a joint struggle. In one of his trips to his former college, the
Autonomous University of Nuevo León, he met Ignacio Arturo Salas Obregón "Oseas" who was a student leader and, after abandoning the
Movimiento Estudiantil Profesional (Professional Student Movement) which followed the lines of
Liberation Theology, turned to communism and worked with Ramos in the merging project. With this new organization, briefly called
Coordinadora Nacional Guerrillera (National Guerrilla Coordination), they sought to end ideological dispersion and begin joint actions with other organizations to provide "political education" to the Mexican proletariat in order to construct a revolutionary party and army. However, Ramos was assassinated in February 1972 in Mexico City during a police confrontation. After the death of Ramos Zavala, Ignacio Arturo Salas Obregón founded the
Organización Partidaria (Partisan Organization) in 1972, and wrote texts known as the
Madera Viejos, (which are called
Madera I, II, III and III-Bis), which developed Ramos Zavala's proposals on unification in a single organization at the national level, systematizing the political approaches that should begin to govern proletarian politics in Mexico. To this end, "Oseas" made an analysis of the conditions of the workers' struggle in Mexico, as well as the level of the existing relations of production, with the purpose of constructing a theory that would explain and sustain the actions of the organization to which they aspired. These documents were personally delivered by him to the various leaders of existing organizations in Mexico and a first National Meeting was convened on March 15, 1973 in Guadalajara, Jalisco for discussion and analysis. This first National Meeting lasted about 12 days. From this discussion arose the “
Manifiesto al Proletariado: Questiones basicas del Movimiento Revolucionario, 1973” (Manifesto to the Proletariat: Basic Issues of the Revolutionary Movement, 1973). This document is better known as "
Cuestiones" (Issues) and is the fundamental document of the League, where it theorizes about its actions, its political position, its strategy, among other things. With this document the ideological foundation for the September 23rd Communist League was set.
Founding organizations The idea behind the concept of a communist "League" was to agglomerate all the armed socialist organizations that were active in Mexico. While it was successful in doing so with many small, newly formed and beaten out organizations, it wasn't able to convince bigger organizations like that of Lucio Cabañas, the Partido de los Pobres (PdlP). Some of the organizations (in no particular order) are the following: •
Los Lacandones: Formed from the remnants of the 1968's student movement in Mexico City. They first started acting as an armed organization during 1969, making "expropriations" in order to maintain their weapon supplies, as well as to pay for food and housing. After a series of successful assaults, six members of the organization were detained, on the 21 of February, 1972. By November of that year, most of the members of the armed group had been detained by the Dirección Federal de Seguridad (DFS). By February 1973, only three members were still free. After hearing of the unification proposal of
Los Procesos, they joined the
Organización Partidaria. •
Los Macias: With a Spartacist (Mexican Marxist school of thought created by Mexican poet
José Revueltas, not to be confused with the German spartacist movement or the American Trotskyist organization) background, the organization was created in 1968. It was a splinter from the
Movimiento Espartaquista Revolucinario, MER (Spartacist Revolutionary Movement) led by Mónico Rentería Medina and active in the state of
Durango. After a few "expropriations", Rentería left the organization and the rest of the group, now led by Eduardo Medina Flores, decided to join the
Organización Partidaria. •
Los Guajiros: Originally known as the
Grupo N (N Group), conformed, mainly, by young people of northern origin (
Baja California,
Chihuahua, Durango, etc.) and started performing military actions in 1970. They were one of the first organizations to get in touch with other national groups (like the PdlP and the
Procesos). They were named "Guajiros" by Lucio Cabañas. After a series of successful "expropriations", by 1972 the armed group suffered huge casualties, including that of their leader, Diego Lucero. The remnants of the organization joined the LC23S. •
Los Procesos: A splinter from the Juventudes Comunistas (Communist Youth), its main leader was Raúl Ramos Zavala, a student from the
Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León. It was the first group to come up with the idea of creating a "federation" of armed groups that would work in coordination throughout the country. Like the
Guajiros, they had a series of successful "expropriation" actions, which later resulted in enormous casualties. Ramos Zavala was executed on February 6, 1972. •
Grupo 23 de Septiembre: •
Los Enfermos (The Sick Ones): The radical wing of the
Autonomous University of Sinaloa’s Students Federation. Its aims and goals shifted from academic objectives to more broad, social issues. •
Los Vikingos (The Vikings): Sometimes described as a gang,
los Vikingos was a group of young people from a neighborhood in Guadalajara who, through the influence of liberal politicians, socially conscious Catholic priests and communist sympathizers, got involved in social and university activism. They would join the LC23S and become one of their main suppliers of guns and ammo. • Movimiento 23 de Septiembre: • A splinter section of the
Movimiento de Acción Revolucionaria, MAR (Revoluctionary Action Movement): Created in 1969 in
Moscow, by students affiliated to the Mexican Communist Party. They got military and political education in
North Korea. After being crushed by the security forces, a small splinter section would later join the LC23S. •
MAR-23 de Septiembre: Some of the surviving members of the MAR organization decided to separate from their main group, and join forces with the Movimiento 23 de Septiembre. They later joined the LC23S. •
A section of the Movimiento Estudiantil Profesional, MEP (the Professional Student Movement): A group of radical Catholic students who, at first, were active in different social causes and later became convinced that real change would only be achieved through revolutionary actions. • A section of the
Frente Estudiantil Revolucionario, FER (Student Revolutionary Front): First appeared in the
Universidad de Guadalajara in 1972, as a response to the political violence that was taking place. It disputed the political control of the university with the Federación de Estudiantes de Guadalajara (Guadalajara's Students Union). == History ==