As president of Mexico, Luis Echeverría (1970–76) faced the unfortunate task of` attempting to restore the popular legitimacy of the PRI's supposedly ‘revolutionary’ governance in the aftermath of the October 1968 massacre of hundreds of protesting university students in the Plaza at Tlatelolco. He did so, in part, by rhetorical appeals and policy decisions that appealed to state-sponsored organized labor, which had dutifully condoned the massacre. His efforts, the broader contour of labor policies and practices, and the multifaceted nature of Mexican labor during the Echeverría sexenio is the topic of Joseph Lenti's book. With weighty narrative and thoughtful analysis, Lenti enhances our understanding of this important period and extends our knowledge of Mexican labor history into the 1970s.
Even before Echeverría took office, the PRI crafted a new labor code as a gesture of solidarity with the Fidel Velázquez-led Confederation of Mexican Workers. After his inauguration, Echeverría was able to use the timely natural death of his distant predecessor, Lázaro Cárdenas, as an opportunity to shroud himself in the cloak of Revolutionary nationalism. Aided by its new director Jesús Reyes Heroles, the PRI renewed its fiery, occasionally class-oriented rhetoric, and staged massive labor rallies on behalf of the government, which found itself again ensnared in scandal with a second public killing of protesters (1971). Through the middle years of the sexenio, Lenti chronicles, among other issues, examples of worker unrest including activities of the upstart National Tripartite Commission, which arbitrated labor disputes; tensions with Monterrey's powerful business elite; and the advent of a modest and largely ineffective independent labor movement. A nicely crafted but disappointingly short chapter examines the limited rights and circumspect expectations accorded to women within the male-dominated Confederation.
Although this book is a welcome addition to Mexican labor historiography, it has some shortfalls. Despite functional transitions, the chapters largely stand apart. Lenti uses a rhetorical bridge of ‘sin’ and ‘redemption’ to contextualize the state-labor rapprochement. This is a philosophical stretch. Drawing on the work of Glenn Dealy, he posits that notions of the common good traceable to Augustine and Aquinas spoke to the Mexican body politic. A far deeper foundation is needed to support this intriguing secondary thesis. Even if true, given the distance between student protests and labor (and labor's support for the repression of student movements), what rupture (or ‘sin’) was committed that required absolution? Indeed, the assumption that the precepts of the Revolution appealed to a majority of postwar Mexicans, in a nation with such a decidedly conservative political culture, can be questioned. It was of course the conservative opposition that robed itself in Christian theological tradition and ultimately came to own that discourse. Use of an obscure gasolinera strike in Monterrey—which by Lenti's own count involved just “one hundred or so workers” (173)—could indicate labor docility as much as “heightened agitation.”
But Lenti's broadly negative conclusions about Echeverría and his governance are beyond dispute. The gap between the president's rhetoric and praxis is conspicuous, as exemplified in the “Mexicanization” of select industries, in which the government acquired a market-defined controlling interest even while billing the process as something akin to economic nationalism. Lenti reaches these conclusions even as he strikes a balance between narrative and the vogue study of discourse: his primary sources are print media, albeit often lesser publications such as the Confederation's Ceteme newsletter and the political left's obscure ¿Por Qué?
And herein lies the severe limitation placed on historians: our lack of easy access to archival material from businesses, the police, and security services. What means of control over labor were exercised from behind the scenes? How were protester-killing halcones and strike-busting esquireles organized? Who paid them? Did the Confederation play a role in their operations? What connections did Velázquez and other senior labor leaders have with security forces and the United States' Central Intelligence Agency? These and other pertinent questions must invariably remain unaddressed, given the nature and persisting limitations of postwar historical research.
