Magonistas Days

Magonism ( es, Magonismo) is an anarchist, or more precisely anarcho-communist, school of thought precursor of the Mexican Revolution of 1910. It is mainly based on the ideas of Ricardo Flores Magón, his brothers Enrique and Jesús, and also other collaborators of the Mexican newspaper ''Regeneración'' (organ of the Mexican Liberal Party), as Práxedis Guerrero, Librado Rivera and Anselmo L. Figueroa.

Magonism and anarchism

The Mexican government and the press of the early 20th century called as ''magonistas'' people and groups who shared the ideas of the Flores Magón brothers, who inspired the overthrow of the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz and performed an economic and political revolution. The fight against tyranny encouraged by the Flores Magón contravened official discourse of '' Porfirian Peace'' by which the protesters were rated as the ''Revoltosos Magonistas'' (i.e. "Magonist rioters") to isolate any social basis and preserve the image of peace and progress imposed by force.

Both of Flores Magón's brothers, like other members of the Mexican Liberal Party (PLM), used the term ''magonista'' to refer to the libertarian movement that promoted; as they felt they were fighting for an ideal and not to elevate in power to a boss or a group, they called themselves "liberals", as they were organized in the PLM, and later "anarchists". Ricardo Flores Magón himself affirmed: ''Liberal Party members are not magonistas, they are anarchists!''. In his literary work ''Verdugos y Víctimas'' (i.e. "Executioners and Victims"), one of the characters responds indignantly when he was arrested and judged: ''I'm not a magonist, I am an anarchist. An anarchist has no idols.''

Magonist thinking was influenced by anarchist philosophers such as Mikhail Bakunin and Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, and others such as Élisée Reclus, Charles Malato, Errico Malatesta, Anselmo Lorenzo, Emma Goldman, Fernando Tarrida del Mármol and Max Stirner. They were also influenced by the works of Marx, Gorky and Ibsen. However, the most influential works were the ones of Peter Kropotkin ''The Conquest of Bread'' and '' Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution'', at the same time they were influenced by the Mexican liberal tradition of the 19th century and the self-government system of the indigenous people.

Magonism and indigenous movement

Indigenous peoples, since the Spanish conquest of Mexico, searched to preserve the practice of direct democracy, decision-making in assembly, rotation of administrative charges, the defense of communal property, mutual aid as the community exploitation and rational use of natural resources, shared anarchist principles raised by the magonists.

The direct influence of indigenous thought in magonism were the teachings of Teodoro Flores, mestizo Nahua, father of the Flores Magón brothers, and the coexistence of other members of the PLM with indigenous groups during periods of organization and insurrection of PLM, between 1905 and 1910, such as the Popoluca in Veracruz, the Yaqui and Mayo in Sonora, and the Cocopah