The notion of democracy in the agenda of the socialist Left in Mexico since the 1960s until the formation of the PRD

Abstract

It is argued that democracy —not so much as a theoretical concept, but as a political-ideological notion circulating in the programmatic documents, propaganda, press, and general discourse of Mexican left-wing political organizations since the early 1960s— was both a vindication and a political value of the nationalist left as well as of the socialist left, led by the Mexican Communist Party (PCM). This reconfiguration of the notion of democracy began to gain central importance even before the political debates of the 1980s and figured in the formation, in 1989, of the Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD). It was a zigzagging process that also unfolded concurrently with others, such as the process of left-wing unity. To understand the passage through these conjunctures, the aforementioned political sectors are contextualized within the national situation and in relation to other forces. An operational framework for the Left is proposed that accounts for its dynamism, and two specific interpretations of how the process unfolded are criticized. Reassessing the role that the Mexican socialist left played during those decades as a bulkwark of democracy is key to understanding the evolution of recent political forces such as the National Regeneration Movement (MORENA).