The ideology of the UNS derived from the
clerical fascism that was a strand of Catholic social thinking of the 1920s and 1930s, based on the papal
encyclical Rerum novarum of
Pope Leo XIII, which also influenced the regimes of
Engelbert Dollfuss in
Austria,
António de Oliveira Salazar in
Portugal and
Francisco Franco in
Spain. Taking its impetus from the same strand of ultra-conservative Catholicism that had informed the
Cristeros, the group sought to mobilise the peasantry against "atheistic and communist tendencies". It stressed social co-operation and
corporatism as opposed to the
class conflict of
socialism, and
hierarchy and respect for
authority as opposed to
liberalism. In the context of Mexican politics, this meant opposition to the centralist,
anti-clerical and
social democratic 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. The denunciations against the neighboring country were continuous regarding the annexation of half of the territory by the United States, reclaiming what was lost in the
Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo through a certain
irredentism, deploring the
freemasonry, liberalism, and
Protestantism present within the United States, and criticizing the "
materialism" of the North American culture unceasingly as opposed to the Hispanist ideology. Synarchism sought a new social order that would place Mexico at the head of the Ibero-American countries and establish it as the benchmark of the Ibero-American alliance, adopting an anti-American discourse regarding
Pan-Americanism. The geographical condition and the historical past would raise the idea of Mexico as a nation destined to fulfill a historical mission in the universal concert. For
Salvador Abascal, Mexico "must be an imperial nation: imperial because of its missionary vocation, because of its vocation to save peoples and nations soul by soul," highlighting the work of Mexican missionaries. He would then argue that "Mexico will only be saved when we all resolve to emulate the spirit of those giant missionaries." The movement's pursuit of the consolidation of a Catholic state, aiming for the conception of organic democracy in rejection of
liberal democracy, would also imply the rejection of the currents they believed to be ruling the country, such as socialism and
indigenism, which would adversely affect Mexico's Catholic and Hispanic heritage. This would align with other nationalist movements in Hispanic America that would promote Hispanism and social Catholicism as essential elements in their search for a third way. They considered the conquest as the official birth of the Mexican nation and supported historical revisionism regarding national history, whose liberal heritage they rejected outright. Instead, they saw the echoes of
New Spain as the "fertile medieval period in which our races were united in intimate communion with the majesty of the Catholic God," and independence, with the exclusion of the
First Mexican Empire, as a process of national decline. The movement was essentially
counterrevolutionary. They described the revolution as a disintegrating process present in the American ambassador
Joel Poinsett, in the
expulsion of the Jesuits in 1767, and in the post-revolutionary governments. On the other hand, Catholicism was the fundamental core of the Synarchist program and sought the destruction of the liberal order to emphasize the return to the "glorious Hispanic, Greco-Latin, and Christian tradition," considering communism and Americanism as threats to its cultural heritage. In this sense, Catholicism was considered "the essence of Mexico," and
Hernán Cortés was celebrated as the father of the fatherland to the detriment of
Miguel Hidalgo. Several Catholic authors, such as Alfonso Junco, Jesús Guisa y Azevedo, and
José Vasconcelos, praised the movement. Although denounced as fascist by their political adversaries, Synarchism would oppose fascist methods as “pagan and anti-Christian” and stress fascist ideology as incompatible with the national context due to the Roman Catholic identity and the
Catholic social teaching, being more closely related to
Catholic integralisms. The movement's distancing from fascism did not reduce its misgivings about U.S. governments, and while they emphasized formal neutrality in
World War II, they would see a greater threat in U.S. imperialism. Many of them wished for the victory of the
Axis, which, according to Salvador Abascal, "would be useful for the Church and Mexico, but its atheistic ideology made it a possible enemy in the future of Synarchism." Falangism was considered by Abascal as a "merely current phase of the eternal Spain" and as an "eye for an eye" in response to communism. Although he stressed José Antonio as a "Spanish patriot" and differentiated his movement from fascism and Nazism, the nationalist condition of the Synarchist leaders would usually mark a notable line with respect to Spanish Falangism. Nevertheless, interest in closer relations with the Franco dictatorship would grow within the movement, confirming the ideological affinity it held with Synarchism. Anti-Judaism was a trait that the UNS shared with European fascist movements. They rejected the entry of Jewish migrants to Mexico, although outstanding leaders such as Alfonso Trueba did not condone the racial persecution of the Jewish diaspora. In the Synarchist discourse, Jews were one of the social groups considered "enemies of the fatherland," and they emphasized Bolshevism and capitalism as doctrines and tendencies that wanted to undermine the Christian tradition in confluence with Judaism. However, Synarchist
antisemitism was based on religious principles, unlike the racial one espoused by
National Socialism, which posed no possibility of reconciliation. Despite the fact that the Jewish population in Mexico was relatively small, Synarchist leaders deemed the
Judeo-Masonic conspiracy thesis to be valid and stressed the threat Jews posed to Christianity. This mentality would influence the
Legion of the Archangel Michael, which would also have major convergences with the Synarchist movement. Clemente Gutiérrez Pérez, the leader of the civic faction of the UNS, also pointed out the resemblance. His group would endorse Hispanism, Catholic corporatism, and pro-Francoist views as opposed to the Christian Democratic turn that the political faction of the UNS took since the 1960s, engaging in turn with numerous far-right organizations in Spain. The United States played a role of influence and pressure on Synarchism to eliminate the radicalism of Salvador Abascal and to seek a less intransigent leadership, since the UNS represented a stumbling block for U.S. external policy. The expansion of Synarchism and its embedded anti-American discourse threatened the interests of the foreign government, leading to Abascal's ousting from the leadership in December 1941 and a partial reorientation of the movement's activity towards a pro-American stance. Notwithstanding this, Synarchists would strongly oppose
Mexico's participation in World War II, and the radical sector of the organization would persist in upholding the traditional principles of the UNS, claiming Abascal's leading role in the movement. It took until 1947 for the radical sector to take over leadership and reaffirm its anti-American and anti-government stance, albeit lacking the same strength as in the early forties. It would persist as such throughout the 1950s until its ideological conversion to Christian Democracy, which would provoke a significant number of old-school militants, including the writer and historian Celerino Salmerón. ==In popular culture==