Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico

Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States
Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico: The De-Christianization Campaigns, 19291940 Author(s): Adrian A. Bantjes Source: Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Winter, 1997), pp. 87-120 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States and the Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1051867 . Accessed: 10/08/2011 21:34
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Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico: The De-Christianltation Campaigns, 1929-1940*

Adrian A. Bantjes
University of Wyoming
Este ensayo analiza la llamadacampania desfanatizante de los aiios trienta desde la perspectiva del Estado revolucionario. Su objetivo era la creaci6n de "gente nueva" y de una religion civil revolucionaria. Sin embargo, este intento violento fracas6 por la resistencia tenaz de los cat6licos mexicanos.
Uno, dos, no hay Dios
-Mexican school chant, 1930s'

Nuestro populacho... cree mds a unfraile en el pulpito, aunque diga herefias, que al patriota mds elocuente -Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi, 18272
On June 30, 1929, church bells pealed throughout Mexico to celebrate the resumption of Catholic services. President Emilio Portes Gil and Archbishop Ruiz y Flores had reached an agreement
*Iwould like to thankthe studentsin my seminar,"Culture and Revolution," at the Universityof Wyomingfor their enlightenment,and the University's College of Artsand Sciences and HistoryDepartment for theirgenerousresearchsupport.Commentatorsand panel membersat the 1992 LASA meeting and the 1995 meeting of Historical Associationprovidedhelpfulcommentson earlierversions. the Canadian 1. Quoted in J. LloydMecham,Churchand State in LatinAmerica:A History Relations (ChapelHill:University of NorthCarolina Press, of Politico-Ecclestastical 1966), 409.2. Quoted in FernandoEscalante Gonzalbo,Cludadanos imaginarios. Memorial de los afanesy desventurasde la virtudy apologfa del vitco trtunfante en la repabltca mexicana: Tratadode moralpublica (Mexico:El Colegio de Mexico, 1992), 142. 2. Quoted in FernandoEscalante Gonzalbo,Ciudadanos imaginarios. Memorial de los afanesy desventuras de la virtudy apologia del viclo triunfante en la repablica mexicana: Tratado de moral piblica (Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico, 1992), 142.
Mexican Studies/EstudiosMexicanos 13(1), Winter 1997. ? 1997 Regentsof the Universityof California.
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which put an end to the bloody Cristero rebellion. Mexicans were optimistic about the chances for permanent peace. The national daily Excelsior stated that a "new era of tolerance" had dawned in Mexico: "The past, with all its misfortunes, is finally over... What was known as 'the religious conflict' doesn't exist anymore."3These optimistic reactions were, however, rather premature. True, the worst of the Cristiada (1926-29), a savage guerilla war waged by Catholic peasants against the Federal Army, had come to an end. But the government crusade against the Roman Catholic Church continued. Although generally less violent than in the past, at times it was manifested in extremist fashion. Between 1930 and 1936 the Mexican revolutionary elite initiated a veritable cultural revolution, which formed an integral part of the wider social revolution. In the wake of the armed phase of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920) it sought to destroy traditional culture and create a modern society. Backwardness and religious "fanaticism"were to be eradicated by the use of cultural tools such as iconoclasm, the substitution of revolutionary festivals for Catholic rites, and the molding of the revolutionary youth and citizenry through education, popular theater, and art. The ultimate goal was to forge "new men" and a new, revolutionary, civil religion.4 This conflictive episode in Mexican history is another chapter in the history of Western secularization-part of the persistent
3. Excelsior 22 June 1929. 4. Forculturalaspects of the revolutionsee AlanKnight,"Popular Cultureand the Revolutionary State in Mexico, 1910-1940,"Hispanic American Historical Review 74,3 (August1994): 393-444; Ilene V.O'Malley, The Myth of the Revolution. Hero Cults and the Institutionalization of the Mexican State, 1920-1940 (New York:GreenwoodPress, 1986);Rituals of Rule, Rituals of Resistance:Public Celebrations and Popular Culture in Mexico, ed. WilliamH. Beezley,Cheryl English DE:Scholarly ResourcesBooks, 1994); Martin,and WilliamE. French(Wllmington, Everyday Forms of State Formation. Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in ModernMexico,ed. GilbertM.Josephand DanielNugent(Durham: DukeUniversity work of CarlosMartinez AsPress, 1994); Regionalstudies includethe pathbreaking sad, El laboratorio de la revoluci6n. El Tabascogarridista (Mexico: Siglo XXI, and the MexicanCounter-Revolution: The 1979); Marjorie Becker,"IazaroCardenas 1988) Struggleover Culturein Michoacan,1934-1940; (Ph.D.diss., YaleUniversity, and her Setting the Virginon Fire:L4zaro C4rdenas,Michoac4nPeasants,and the Press, Redemption of the Mexican Revolution (Berkeley:Universityof California 1995), which assumes a more moderateposition; MaryKayVaughan,"Actuacl6n politica del magisteriosocialistaen Pueblay Sonora(1934-1939); Crfttca.Revista Trimestral de la Universidad Aut6noma de Puebla (Julio-Diciembre 1987): 90-100, and her CulturalPoliticsin Revolution:Teachers, Peasants,and Schoolsin Mexico, 1930-1940 (Tucson:Universityof ArizonaPress,forthcoming);AdrianA. Mexico. Cardenismo and Bantjes,"Politics,Classand Culturein Post-Revolutionary of Texas,Austin,1991) and As If Jesus Sonora, 1929-1940;' (Ph.D. diss., University Walkedon Earth:Cardenismoand the PoliticalCultureof the Mexican Revolution in Sonora, 1929-1940 (Wllmington, DE:Scholarly ResourcesBooks, 1997).
Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns
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effort to establish a new religion of humanity, a cult of man and society, not God. Rooted in the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, this process has been an essential component of most modern revolutions: Impatient elites, eager to quicken the pace of history, have used violence to impose modernist utopian blueprints and to forge a civil religion of humanity. Catholic historian Christopher Dawson writes that the French Revolution gave rise to as the creed a realreligion... which aspiredto take the place of Christianity of a new age. [This]was a religionof humansalvation,the salvationof the world by the power of man set free by Reason. The Cross had been rethe Graceof God by the Reasonof Man,and placed by the Tree of Liberty, Redemptionby Revolution.5 Modernity in this context can be defined, following Daniel Bell, as "the inchoate Promothean [sic] aspiration, now made flesh, of men to transform nature and transform themselves: to make man the master of change and the redesigner of the world to conscious plan and purpose."6 Or, as Jean Baudrillardputs it, modernity is a characteristic mode of civilization, which opposes itself to tradition, that is to say, to all other anterior or traditional cultures: confronting the geographic and symbolic diversity of the latter, modernity imposes itself throughout the world as a homogeneous unity, irradiating from the Occident.7 The Enlightenment project of modernity and reason has come under attack by postmodernists like Michel Foucault, who have strongly criticized utopian efforts to homogenize and "normalize" individuals through discourse, ritual, and the construction of new identities. Instead of liberating man, humanism resulted in state projects to control and dominate the masses.8 This critique of modernity lends a useful perspective from which to approach the problem of religion during the Mexican Revolution. Traditional approaches to the study of modern revolutions, including the Mexican Revolution, have emphasized structural factors. I believe it is time to bring back culture and ideology into our analysis and to broaden existing definitions of revolution.9
Gods of Revolution (New York:New YorkUni5. ChristopherDawson, Th7e versity Press, 1972), 58, 74-5. 6. Daniel Bell, The End of Ideology: On the Exhaustion of Political Ideas in Harvard the Fifties, 2d ed. (Cambridge: Press, 1988), 436. University 7. Jean Baudrillard, Semiotext(e), 1987), 63. ForgetFoucault (New York: 8. See, for example, MichelFoucault, Discipline and Punish: TheBirth of the Prison (New York: VintageBooks, 1979). 9. The classic structuralist approachis ThedaSkocpol'sStates and Social RevCamolutions. A ComparativeAnalysis of France,Russia, and China (Cambridge: bridge UniversityPress, 1979). Foran overview see MichaelS. Kimmel,Revolution: A Sociological Interpretation(Philadelphia: Press, 1990). TempleUniversity
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Mexicanos MexicanStudies/Estudios
William H. Sewell Jr., in a critique of structuralist approaches to revolution, has argued that modern revolutionaries sought to restructuresociety from top to bottom and across the board.Indeed, I ambitionbe includedas part would insist that this totalityof revolutionary The French,Russian, of any meaningfuldefinitionof "socialrevolution." and not only beChinese Revolutionswere "social"[I would argue, "cultural"] cause they included revolts from below and resultedin majorchanges in the class structure,but because they attemptedto transform the entiretyof people's social lives-their work, their religiousbeliefs and practice, their even their experifamilies,their legal systems, their patternsof sociability, ences of space and time.10 Theda Skocpol has agreed that there is a "metaphysical" aspect to modern revolutions. However, she qualifies the Mexican Revolution as a "nonmetaphysical" revolution, and argues that Mexico never witnessed the type of "moralistic efforts to remake all of social life" which, she concedes, were more evident in Russia and France.1 However, a new spate of cultural histories demonstrates that the Mexican Revolution did have a strong metaphysical or, better, cultural, component. A comparative approach may be useful in placing Mexican history within the broader context of modern history, and so I will venture some limited comparisons between the Mexican and the French and Russian revolutions. I conclude that De-Christianization in Mexico was related ultimately to the revolutionary attempt to forge a new culture. This study examines one essential component of the Mexican revolutionary cultural project, the so-called de-fanaticization campaigns of the 1930s. Why did Mexico's revolutionary elite embark on a violent anti-religious campaign that put the entire revolutionary project at risk? There was more to it than an effort to undermine the political and economic power of the Catholic Church. A revolutionary creed and ritual could not be established without the elimination of competing belief systems, symbols, and rites and the subsequent "transfer of sacrality,"as Mona Ozouf calls it, to a new, revolutionary civil religion.12 Below I discuss the ideology of anticlericalism, as well as the cultural tools employed to win the hearts and minds of the Mexican masses. De-Christianization was ultimately a miserable failure: The
10. William H. Sewell Jr., "Ideologies and Social Revolutions: Reflections on the French Case, The Journal of Modern History 57,1 (1985): 76-77. 11. Theda Skocpol, "CulturalIdioms and Political Ideologies in the Revolutionary Reconstruction of State Power: A Rejoinder to Sewell, The Journal of Modern History 57,1 (1985): 94-5. 12. Mona Ozouf, Festivals and the French Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988).
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campaign forged no new de-fanaticized Mexican citizen.13 This does not mean that the entire cultural project was a failure, however. Certain aspects had a lasting legacy. A new patriotism and cultural nationalism, propagated by the revolutionary state, took root in the Mexican consciousness. (They have begun to wane only in the neo-liberal Mexico of the 1980s and 1990s.)14 However, largely in response to widespread popular opposition in the form of petitions, civil disobedience, school boycotts, riots and armed resistance, the revolutionary civic cult was purged during the 1930s and 1940s of its strongly anticlerical and anti-religious content. Mexicans were quite selective in their acceptance of the revolutionary cultural project, and they changed its agenda profoundly. This article addresses questions raised in the debate on postrevolutionary hegemony and the relationship between 'popular' culture (or, better, local cultures) and 'official' state culture.15 Obviously, the relationship between a relatively weak state and a "recalcitrant people," which resulted in the emergence of a new Mexican political culture, was interactive. 6 However, portrayal of this historical process as negotiation or bargaining between an inclusionary, flexible and malleable state and local cultures underestimates the violence and intrusiveness of the revolutionary cultural project.17
see JeanMeyer, 13. On church and state relations,religion,and anticlericalism La Cristiada, 6th ed., 3 vols. (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1980); Lyle Brown, "Mexican Church-State Relations,1933-1940,"A Journal of Churchand State vol. 7 (1964): 202-22; JesuisTapiaSantamaria, Campo religiosoy evoluci6n polftica en el Bajfo zamorano (Zamora:El Coleglo de Mlchoacan,1986); Martaelena Negrete, Relaclones entre la iglesia y el estado en Mexico 1930-1940 (Mexico:El Colegio de Mexlco, 1988); SalvadorCamachoSandoval,Controverstaeducativa entre la ideologfa y la fe: La educaci6n socialista en la historia de Aguascalientes, 1876-1940 (Mexico: Consejo Nacionalparala Cultura y las Artes, 1991); Roberto Blancarte, Historia de la iglesia cat6lica en Mextco (Mexico: El Colegio MexA. Bantjes Econ6mica,1992);Adrian iquense, Fondode Cultura Ar6stegui,"Religi6n y revoluci6nen Mexico, 1929-1940, Boletfn.FideicomisoArchivosPlutarco Elfas Callesy Fernando Torreblanca15 (1994). 14. MaryKayVaughan,"TheConstructionof the PatrioticFestivalin Central Mexico:Tecamachalco,Puebla, 1900-1946" in Rituals of Rule, ed. Beezley,Martin, and French,213-45. Cultureand StateFor15. See GilbertM.Joseph and DanielNugent, "Popular in EverydayForms,ed. Joseph and Nugent,3-23; mationin Revolutionary Mexico," On the nineteenth-century, Peasant and Nation: TheMaking see FlorenciaMallon, of California Press, 1995). of Postcolonial Mexico and Peru (Berkeley: University 16. Alan Knight, "Revolutionary Project,Recalcitrant People: Mexico, 19101940;' in The Revolutionary Process in Mexico:Essays on Political and Social LatinAmeriChange 1880-1940, JaimeE. RodriguezO. (LosAngeles,Irvine:UCLA can CenterPublications,University of California, LosAngeles,Mexico/ChicanoProIrvine, 1990), 227-64. gram,Universityof California, 17. Vaughan,"TheConstruction," 228, 233; Becker,Settingthe Virginon Fire, 116, 132, 160. Becker'searlierwork, on the other hand,tends to overemphasizethe culturalauthoritarianism of the revolutionary state. See her "Lazaro Cardenas."
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One must not forget that the state's resources were significant and that the pervasive de-fanaticization campaign of the 1930s constituted a serious threat to the ontological security of millions of Mexicans. This article seeks to demonstrate that the orgy of saint burning in Tabasco (well described by Carlos Martinez Assad), for example, was hardly an exceptional case of Jacobinism gone out-of-control but part of a carefully orchestrated national project. "Quiet"regions like Puebla and San Luis Potosi-Puebla saw its outbursts of Cristero violence, too-where a sensitive cultural dialogue is said to have taken place, were the exception.18 Although other aspects of Mexico's cultural revolution may be interpreted correctly as part of an interactive process, one should describe the de-fanaticization campaign of the 1930s as a "top-down imposition."19 As Alan Knight points out, we need to understand, not merely criticize, the positions of both anticlericals and their Catholic opponents.20 Why did the revolutionary elite initiate a fierce, nationwide de-Christianization campaign? Did the religious conflict merely mask socioeconomic interests, representing yet another aspect of Mexico's rural class warfare? Was it an attempt to break the culture of "piety and property" that, according to Marjorie Becker, enabled landowners and the clergy to dominate a submissive peasantry?21 Did it primarily reflect political motivations-an effort by the revolutionary state to impose its will on resistant local communities, an attack on political enemies, or a Machiavellian ploy by Callista diehards to destabilize the youthful Cardenas administration?22 Obviously, such factors were often closely intertwined with defanaticization. But Becker's portrayal of Cardenismo as an attempt to reconstruct everyday campesino habits, customs, and beliefs seems a more convincing explanation.23 Why else launch a crusade that would penetrate into the remotest regions of Mexico and into millions of Mexican households? The de-Christianization campaigns
18. Vaughan, "The Construction." On violence in Puebla see, for example, David L. Raby, Educaci6n y revoluci6n social en Mexico (1921-1940) (Mexico: Secretaria de Educaci6n Pfiblica, 1974) 158-159. 19. The term is from Knight, "Popular Culture,"401. 20. Ibid., 416. 21. Raby, Educact6n y revoluci6n social en Mexico, 149, 158, 164, 196-7; Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire, 9, 39. 22. Ram6n Jrade, "Counterrevolution in Mexico: The Cristero Movement in Sociological and Historical Perspective," (Ph.D. diss., Brown University, 1980); Martinez Assad, El laboratorio, 13; Meyer, La Cristiada, vol. 1, 362. 23. Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire. Meyer's classic La Cristiada places religiosity at the center of the conflict.
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must be interpreted as an integral part of the revolutionary elite's utopian drive to create gente nueva and a new civil religion. In this brave new Mexico there would be no place for fanaticism and superstition. The Ideology of De-Fanatici7ation By the 1930s revolutionary anticlericalism consisted of an amalgam of distinct but interrelated discourses. The ideology of defanaticization sprang from various sources: radical nineteenthcentury liberalism, scientific positivism, Marxism, and even protestantism.24 Revolutionary ideologues attacked Catholicism with political, socioeconomic, scientific, and historical arguments. The political elite of the 1930s believed that the Mexican Revolution was a struggle for both the economic or material emancipation and the spiritual liberation of the Mexican masses: "The task of economic emancipation will not be completed until spiritual emancipation has been attained."25The goal of the armed struggle was not only to break the political power of the Porfirian elite and to end the economic exploitation of the masses, but also to create the revolutionary "new man," free of superstition, fanaticism, prejudice, and idolatry. This argument's underlying assumption was that the Mexican masses-the vulgo as they frequently were called-were ignorant: "our people lack intelligence and thus believe that they are doing This their duty by frequenting a Roman Catholic shrine to pray."26
24. On church and state relations see Mecham, Church and State, and in and Changein the MexicanCatholicChurch," SoledadLoaeza-Lajous, "Continuity Churchand Politics in LatinAmerica, ed. DermotKeough(New York:St. Martin's see CharlesA. Hale,Mexican Liberalism Press, 1990), 272-98. On anticlericalism, in the Age of Mora, 1821-1853 (New Haven:Yale UniversityPress, 1968), 35-7, 125-41, 160-75; Jean Meyer,"Elanticlericalrevolucionario,1910-1940. Un ensayo de empatia historica, in Lasformas y las polfticas del dominio agrario. Homenaje a Franfois Chevalier,ed. RicardoAvilaPalafox,CarlosMartinezAssad, and Editorial Universidad de Guadalajara,1992), 286-8; Jean Meyer (Guadalajara: Guerra,Mexico:del antiguo regimen a la revoluct6n,vol. 2 (MexFranqois-Xavier ico: Fondo de CulturaEcon6mica, 1988), 339; MartinezAssad, El laboratorio, 15-28, Becker, Setting the Virgin on Fire, 45-8, 64-6; On Protestantism see: Bastian,Los disidentes: sociedades protestantesy revoluci6n en MexJean-Pierre ico, 1872-1912 (Mexico:El Colegio de Mexico, 1989). El Maestro Rural 25. AnatolloG. Bautista,"Las mujeresrojasde Michoacan," 5, 12 (15 December 1934): 22. 26. Cartel "Medallones Agua Prieta,Sonora,28 August 1934, Republicanos," Fondo Lazaro Cardenas, exp. 533.3/48, Archivo General de la Naci6n (AGN); CardeCulture," 404; For Cardenas's opinion, see Becker,"Lazaro Knight, "Popular nas,"296.
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condescension towards popular culture, already evident in the works of nineteenth-century writers like Jose Joaquin Fernandez de Lizardi and Jose Maria Luis Mora, was also common among revolutionary elites in France and Russia. "The people" were often compared to children who needed to be educated and to grow up.27 Women, Indians, and children were considered particularly vulThis is an ancient nonerable to the "intoxication of fanaticism."28 tion that dates as far back as early Christendom. According to David Freedberg, male intellectuals, whether Christian or not, have always considered women, children, and the illiterate peasantry more susceptible to the sensuous seduction of idolatry: [M]admen,women, children, and less educated people generally (especiallythe primitiveand illiterate)... areall more susceptibleto the base and easy charms of images, to their power and seductiveness... Only women and ordinaryfolk are seduced by cheap beauty(vulgarcolors, adornments, in general), fripperies,and the overly emotional aspects of representation not mature male beholders... It is only these groups who use images as books and who are more likelyto lingerlongerbecause they cannot readat all, or because they trust more to the susceptible sense of the eyes-the one faculty... that providesthe straightest channelto the lower senses and rouses them.29 Many revolutionary educators regarded the indigenous population of Mexico as fanatic, melancholic, and alcoholic, and in need of "reinvention."30Tabasco cacique Tomas Garrido Canabal stated that "the cassocked vultures have seized their prey, digging their talons into the heart of the Indian, who is less prepared than any other race to resist the seduction of the whole ritual farse."31How222. 27. Escalante Gonzalbo, Ciudadanos tmaginarios, 142; Ozouf, Festivals,
28. Resp. Log.'Simb.'"Independencia" No. 250. -Or.Guanajuato. Ponencia en el Or.' de Torre6n,Coaj.[sic], 10 parael XIICongresoMasonicoque se celebrara December 1936, Fondo Direcci6n General de Gobierno (DGG) 2.347, exp. 10, AGN. 29. David Freedberg,The Power of Images:Studies in the History and Theof ChicagoPress, 1989), 424. ory of Response(Chicago:University 30. Inspector FederalGuillermo Castillo,Tezuitlan,Puebla, to Director de Educaci6n Federal,21 January1936, Fondo Direcci6n Generalde Educaci6nPrimaria(FDGEP), de Educaci6nPiblica (AHSEP); 316.9, ArchivoHist6rico,Secretaria InformeInspectorFederalQuintanaRoo, 11 January1936, FDGEP, 316.12, AHSEP; See Alan Knight, "Racism,Revolution,and Indtgenismo: Mexico, 1910-1940" in The Idea of Race in Latin America, 1870-1940, ed. Richard Graham (Austin:University of Texas Press, 1990), 71-113. On Cardenista efforts to restructurethe see Becker,Setting the Virginon Fire,75, ch. 6. Tarascans, 31. Tomas Garrido Canabal,Manifiesto a los obreros organizados de la Tabasco,1925), 9-10. repablicay al elemento revolucionario (Villahermosa,
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ever, the revolutionary elite was often reluctant to inflame the religious sensibilities of indigenous peoples, like Michoacan's Tarascans or Sonora's Yaquis.32 Women in particular were depicted as victims of the clergy. Francisco J. Muigica,one of the foremost ideologues of the Revolution, considered that the "weight of religious ideas" had converted the Mexican woman into "a being of almost no economic or social importance."33 Revolutionary attitudes also reflected primordial male sexual fears that women might be seduced by priests in the confessional: Confession "is a corrupting ploy... that benefits the wicked clandestine pleasures" of the priests.34 This disdain for the culture of the lower classes and women is a common trait of many revolutionaries, however proletarian their ideals might be. For example, in 1921 the Central Committee of the Russian Communist Party opined that women were more easily influenced by religious ritual, clerical propaganda, and, of course, confessors, due to their "political backwardness."35Religion did, indeed, have a strong hold on Mexican women, and this important phenomenon requires more study. A possible explanation may be offered by research on the French case. Suzanne Desan's work on popular religion during the French Revolution concludes that religion "legitimated and even acclaimed the potential spiritual value of those without earthly power" and "simultaneously provided women with an earthly arena for collective activism, initiative, and Becker offers an analysis of the voice in the community at large."36 Mexican revolutionary process as a "male-dominated enclave." Male campesinos benefitted from revolutionary land reform. Women, on the other hand, banned from the public arena and relegated to the role of childbearers, "clung to their rosaries" and to a culture of "purity and redemption" propagated by landed and clerical elites. Anticlericalism, thus, was primarily a masculine endeavor.37
32. Becker,Setting the Virginon Fire, 110; Bantjes,"Politics,Classand Culture,"146. 1935. 33. El Nacional, 20 February en Valparaiso, 34. Meyer,"Elanticlerical," 292-3; Discursodel gral.J. B. Vargas 297. volante, sin fecha, 1927 o 1928, Anexo I in: Meyer,"Elanticlerical," 35. Central Committee, RKP,"On Anti-religiousAgitation and Propaganda in Bolshevik Visions: and Peasants," FirstPhase of the CulAmongWomenWorkers tural Revolution in Soviet Russia, ed. WilliamG. Rosenberg,part 1, (Ann Arbor: Universityof MichiganPress, 1990), 244-5. 36. SuzanneDesan,Reclaimingthe Sacred LayReligionand PopularPoliticsin Cornell Press,1990),208;Fora gendered University analyRevolutonaryFrance(Ithaca: LaPurisima, and women'sreligionsee Marjorie sis of anticlericalism Becker,"Torching Dancing at the Altar:The Constructionof Revolutionary Hegemonyin Michoacan, M.JosephandDanielNugent,247-64. Forms,ed. Gilbert 1934-1940, in Everyday 37. Becker,Setting the Virginon Fire, 19, 29, 48, 78, 114-5.
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This is a plausible, but only partial explanation. It tends to neglect the male, communal, and even ontological aspects of local religion. It underemphasizes the importance for women of religiosity and ritual as an alternative realm of spiritual, political, and economic power.38 Instead, it perpetuates notions of "false consciousness." Most important was the battle for control of the mind of the Mexican child, the citizen of the future. Revolutionaries complained that the clergy had taken advantage of the youth's innocence to control their minds.39 Plutarco Elias Calles, in his famous called for the Mexican state to "take 1934 "Grito de Guadalajara," control of the consciousness of the youth."40 How did the revolutionary elite explain this "fanaticism?"The Mexican masses were obviously the victims of intoxication, contagion or delusion. Revolutionaries considered religion a drug, "the opium of the people," or a mental illness.41 The clergy had used religion to "deceive and submit the people for three centuries by Catholic ritual was a setelling them to suffer for the love of God."42 ductive trick designed to exploit ignorant peasants "hallucinated by floats adorned with clouds, little angels, chalices and all the artifice the clergy uses to cheat them out of their last penny."43 Radical liberalism, propagated by new sociWt6sde pens6e, the carriers of modernity, constituted one of the roots of revolutionary anticlericalism.44 Liberals turned to history in their attacks on the
38. See Luis E. Murillo, "Women and the Politics of Local Religious Practices in Porfirian Mexico," (paper presented at the Joint Conference of the Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studies and the Pacific Coast Council on Latin American Studies, Santa Fe, NM, March 1996). 39. Ortega to Secretaria de Gobernaci6n (Sec. Gob.), 7 February 1935, Fondo Secretaria General del Gobierno (FSGG), Secci6n Primera, Instrucci6n Publica, Gobierno y Guerra, exp. 1.40(57)2, Archivo General del Gobierno del Estado de Guanajuato (AGGEG). 40. Quoted in Adrian A. Banties, "Burning Saints, Molding Minds: Iconoclasm, Civic Ritual and the Failed Cultural Revolution," in Rituals of Rule, ed. Beezley, Martin, and French, 265. 41. El Faro. Peri6dico Doctrinario, de Combate en Informaci6n. Organo de la Liga Anticlerical y Antireligiosa Guzmanense (Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco), Afio 1, no. 13, 30July 1933; Resp.' Log.' Simb.' "Independencia" Nim. 250. -Or. Guanajuato. Ponencia para el XII Congreso Mas6nico que se celebrara en el Or.' de Torre6n, Coaj. [sic], 10 December 1936, DGG 2.347, exp. 10, AGN. 42. El Tribunal del Pueblo (Los Angeles, CA), 14 September 1935. 43. Vecinos Morole6n, Guanajuato, to Sec. Gob., 31 December 1934, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(8)15257, AGN. 44. Jean-Pierre Bastian, "Introducci6n, in Protestantes, liberales y francmasones. Sociedades de ideas y modernidad en Amrtica Latina, siglo XIX, ed. JeanPierre Bastian (Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica, 1990), 11.
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Roman Catholic Church. They evoked the long struggle after the Enlightenment between church and state in Mexico and elsewhere, tracing it as far back as the the Bourbon reforms and the liberal Reforma of the nineteenth-century, which had sought to ban the clergy from nonspiritual affairs.45Throughout Mexican history the clergy had supported "la reacci6n," whether in the form of the Inquisition, Augustin de Iturbide's empire, or Victoriano Huerta's infamous regime.46 This age-old battle against the forces of clericalism had yet to be won. Morelos Governor J. Refugio Bustamante, writing in 1934, lamented that The clergy flourishesas well as ever... The spectacle that the fertileland of EmilianoZapataoffers the revolutionary conscience of the nation is truly deplorable... It is time that we rid ourselvesof the men who have systemit submergedin aticallyretardedthe evolution of humanityby maintaining obscurantism.47 Traditional liberal anticlericalism meshed neatly with Marxist theory, particularly fashionable among Mexican intellectuals and politicians during the 1930s. Unfortunately, little is known of the influence of the Bolshevik Revolution on the Mexican revolutionary elite. One may assume that it was significant. The architects of Mexico's cultural policies were aware of the utopian experimentation of Soviet Commissar of Enlightenment Anatoli Lunacharsky.Intellectuals and artists like Diego Rivera traveled to Russia to witness the progress of the Bolshevik Revolution. No one less than Alexandra Kollontai became Soviet ambassador to Mexico.48 Civics textbooks published by the Education Ministry offered reading lists including works by Vladimir Lenin, Alexander Bogdanov, Nikolai Bukharin, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels.49 Celso Flores Zamora, head of the Department of Rural Education, saw the religious conflict as part of the larger problem of social oppression and believed it could be solved only by class struggle: "In the modern capitalist nations the foundation of religion is primarily social. Modern religion is firmly rooted in the
45. Emilio Portes Gil, "Lalucha secular de la iglesia contra el estado en Mexico, El MaestroRural 5, 12 (15 December 1934):6-7. 46. Comisariado to Goberador Sinaloa, Culiacan, EjidalLomade Rodriguera, 24 October 1935, DGG 2.340, exp. 75.4, AGN;Interviewwith GilbertoEscobosa Gimez, 21 May1992, Hermosillo. to DiputadosSecretariosdel 47. GobemadorMorelos,J. RefugioBustamante, H. Congresodel Estado,13 August1934, DGG2.340, Caja20, exp. 9, AGN. 48. EnriqueKrauze,Reformar desde el origen. Plutarco E. Calles (Mexico: Fondode CulturaEconomica,1987), 62. 49. Ctvismo.Lecturasde orientaci6n social (Mexico:ElNacional,1940).
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social oppression of the working masses."50Revolutionary intellectuals often compared the economic exploitation of the proletariat by the bourgeoisie to the spiritual exploitation by the clergy. They called the clergy a "class" or a "caste,"that "had always made a living exploiting human stupidity,"exacting the tithe and high fees for religious rites.51 Governor Adalberto Tejeda of Veracruz considered the Roman Catholic Church "the most powerful capitalist enterprise in the world."52 In addition, Catholic peasants, deluded by priests, wasted huge sums on frivolous fiestas and extravagant religious paraphernalia.53 Others used the discourse of science to decry Mexico's fanaticism. Only by exposing the ignorant masses to scientific knowledge would religion be defeated. As Minister of Education Ignacio Garcia Tellez stated, the lack of confidence in human resourcefulness leads the oppressed masses to expect everythingfroma supraterrestrial being. Theirstate of ignorance keeps them from understanding the physical or chemical of processes that determinethe formationof the earth, the manifestations flora and fauna, the naturalphenomena and social processes... and because they don't find any logical explanations because they ignore scientific truths, as these have never been taught to them, they attribute occurrences to the mysterious faculties of material or animated objects that they comprehend, thus falling into primitive states of idolatrous superstition.54
Thus revolutionary anticlericalism drew from a variety of sources. But all agreed on the task ahead:
50. Celso Flores Zamora, Jefe Departamentode EnseiianzaRuraly Primaria Forinea to Directorde Educaci6nFederal, Hermosillo,16 April1935, FondoDeparRural Foranea tamento de Enseiianza 249.7, AHSEP. (FDERPF), y Primaria in Plutarco Elfas Calles.Pensamiento tendencias de la candidatura" 51. "Las polftico y social. Antologia (1913-1936), ed. CarlosMacias(Mexico: Fondo de Cultura Econ6mica,1988), 122;El Faro.Peri6dicoDoctrinario, de Combateen Informaci6n. Organo de la Liga Anticlericaly Antireligiosa Guzmanense (Ciudad to Guzman,Jalisco),Aiio 1, no. 13, 30 July 1933;VecinosSanJer6nimoXayacatlan de Admininstraci6n GobernadorPuebla, 20 March1943; Visitador EnriqueCastro Ray6n,Pucbla, to SecretarioGeneralde Gobierno,8 June 1943, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(18)15884, AGN. 52. John B. Williman,La Iglesia y el Estado en Veracruz,1840-1940 (Mexde Educaci6nPublica,1974), 92. ico: Secretaria 53. AlfonsoTerronesBenitez,Jefe Zona Ejidal, Tehuacan,to Agente Delegado del Departamento 31 January1934, DGG2.347, Puebla,LuisC. Rodriguez, Agrario, Nuim. 250. -Or.Guaexp. 2.347(18)15884, AGN;Resp. Log.'Simb' "Independencia" najuato.Ponenciaparael XIICongresoMas6nicoque se celebraraen el Or.'de Torre6n, Coaj.[sic], 10 December 1936, DGG2.347, exp. 10, AGN. 54. Ignacio GarciaTellez, Socializact6n de la cultura. Seis meses de acci6n educativa (Mexico:LaImpresora,1935), 237.
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We will topple from their thrones not only the gods, but also the philosophy and the trappingsof dogmas and lies that support them... Our first task consists of sweeping fromthe mindof the people the piles of gods and saints that so obstructthe awakeningof their spirit.55 Iconoclasm The demise of fanaticism would be attained by a three step process. First, a broad program of revolutionary iconoclasm aimed at destroying religious beliefs, symbols, rituals and institutions would be initiated. Then Catholicism would be replaced by a new, revolutionary, civil religion via a "transfer of sacrality."Finally, the tenets of this civil religion would be instilled in the young by means of socialist education, and in adults by propaganda and civic ritual. Revolutionary iconoclasm, the purging of society of all signs and symbols related to the ancien regime, is an integral part of all modern revolutions, during which symbols of royalty and religion like fleurs-de-lis, coats of arms, statues, saints' images, crucifixes, and church bells were purged from public space.56 As Freedberg writes, "To pull down the images of a rejected order or an authoritarian and hated one is to wipe the slate clean and inaugurate the promise of utopia."57However, more motivates iconoclasts than sociopolitical and theological considerations. Freedberg stresses that for both iconoclasts and iconodules, the image is fused with the prototype, or at least infused with power by a sacred contagion. The sign is assumed to be the signified. "The people who assail images do so in order to make clear that they are not afraid of them, and thereby prove their fear." [The iconoclast] "feels he can somehow diminish the power of the represented by destroying the representation or by mutilating it."58As Ozouf argues, there is "fear behind all the bravado."59 Iconoclasm took many forms in Mexico. The revolutionary elite envisaged a new, secularized topography and, as in the French Revolution, names of towns and barrios with religious connotations were changed, often to the name of a revolutionary hero. San Carlos, Tabasco, for example, became Epigmenio Antonio. San
55. Santiago Arias Navarro, Las misiones culturales. Reflexiones de un mlsionero (Mexico, 1934), 9. 56. Ozouf, Festivals, 225; Richard Stites, Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989), 64. 57. Freedberg, The Power of Images, 390. 58. Ibid., 392, 402, 406, 418. 59. Ozouf, Festivals, 93-4.
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Jeronimo, Oaxaca became Ixtepec.60 In composite religious/secular place names, the religious component often was dropped.61 Some zealots proposed changing names of streets, shops and even buses related to religion, such as La Guadalupana or La Fe.62 Even personal greetings with a religious meaning, such as adios, were outlawed in Tabasco.63 The sacred space of the Mexican village was to be secularized as well. The village shrine was not just a space for religious gatherings but symbolized village pride, history, and identity.64 Now its position was to be replaced by the rural school. Church buildings, nationalized in 1935, generally were closed for organized worship and often converted into school buildings, union headquarters, cultural centers, government offices, or ejidal granaries.65Some either were taken over by juntas vecinales of lay individuals, and left open to private devotion, or were sealed altogether.66 In Sonora, Sinaloa, Chiapas, Tabasco, and other states, no churches were permitted to remain open.67 Many were destroyed. In Tabasco, Tomas
60. Horacio Lastra, to President,30 August 1929, DGG 2.347. Villahermosa, Tabascoto OficialMayorSec. Gob., 9 November exp. 65, 2.347(23)3; Gobernador 1928, DGG 2.347. exp. 66, 2.347(23)4, AGN;Redenci6n (Villahermosa), 23 April 1935; MartinezAssad,El laboratorio, 38; Williman,La Iglesia, 144-6; Stephen E. Stateand Nation:LocalResponsesto FederalSchoolingin ChiaLewis, "Negotiating of California, SanDiego, forthcompas, Mexico, since 1921"(Ph.D.diss., University A CulturalHistory of the FrenchRevolution (New ing), ch. 2.; EmmetKennedy, Haven:YaleUniversityPress, 1989), 339. 61. AdolfoMaldonado, Secretario Generalde GobiernoGuanajuato to Inspectores de Culto, 2 November 1934, exp. 1.40(57)43, FSGG, ler Departamento, Serie Gobernaci6n,AGGEG. 62. EdmundoPeimbert,D.F, to Sec. Gob., 15 January1935, DGG2.340, Caja 114, exp. 9, AGN. 63. Martinez Assad,El laboratorio, 198. 64. CompareWilliamA. Christian Jr., Person and God in a Spanish Valley (Revisededition, Princeton:PrincetonUniversity Press, 1989). 65. See for example:DGG2.347, exp. 66, 2.347(23)4, AGN;DGG2.340, Caja cat6licos retira77, exps. 23, 31, AGN;Bautista,"Las 22; "Templos mujeresrojas," dos...en el estado de Sonora,"DGG 2.340, Caja 118, exp. 8, AGN; Mecham, Churchand State, 408; Becker,Setting the Virginon Fire,81. 66. Informebimestral,agosto-septiembre1935, Inspector5a zona Queretaro, Alvaro Subdirector Direccl6nGeneralde Blenes 211.12, AHSEP; J. Bass6A., FDERPF, Nacionalizados to Sec. Gob., 26 September1935, DGG2.340, Caja55, exp. 8, A(N; Laura PatriciaRomero,"Dela religi6njacobinaal socialismo.Jalisco,todo un caso," in Religtosidady polfttca en Mexico ed. CarlosMartinez Assad(Mexico:Universidad Iberoamericana, 1992), 247; CamachoSandoval,Controversiaeducativa, 91. 67. SecretarioGeneral LigaAnti-Fanatica de Sinaloa,J. CarlosRuiz to President, 26 October 1934, DGG 2.340, exp. 75.1, AGN; Legislaci6n social y econ6mica de Sonora durante elperfodo de gobierno del C RodolfoElfas Calles, comprendi6ndose hasta noviembre de 1934 (Hermosillo:ImprentaCruz Galvez, ch. 2. 1934), 139-154; Lewis, "Negotiating;
Bantjes: The DeChristianization
Campaigns
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Garrido Canabal and his "savage hordes" torched the church of Santa Cruz in Villahermosa, tore down several churches in Villahermosa, including the cathedral, and demolished the towers of the church of Cundacan.68 The school director of Teapa, obeying superior orders, set about to smash the baptismal fonts and altars of the village churches of his district.69 In Sonora, the rural police burned most of the Mayo Valley indigenous churches to the ground.70 In Veracruz twenty churches were torched or dynamited.71 The sacred space was filled with religious symbols, in particular crosses and saints' images, which needed to be purged as well. Prior to the 1930s, acts of revolutionary iconoclasm were relatively random. Now they were carried out in a systematic fashion by many state governments, such as those of Sonora, Michoacan, Chiapas, and Tabasco.72 The Tabasco government outlawed crosses and tombstones in cemetaries.73 The so-called Cruz del Perd6n on the road from San Miguel de Allende to Atotonilco, Guanajuato, was toppled from its pedestal and hacked to pieces by the local teacher, causing "a real avalanche of cristeros and reactionaries."74Agraristas in San Carlos de la Llave, Veracruz, called for the destruction of several trees in which it was said the Virgin had miraculously appeared, causing day and night vigils, "so that the deluded may grasp the deception to which they have been subjected and don't allow themselves to be fooled again."75 The predominant form of iconoclasm was the burning of saints' images from churches, seminaries, Catholic schools, and private homes. The dreaded quemasantos (saint burners) were active in Sonora, Tabasco, Michoacan, Chiapas, the Federal District, Veracruz, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, and elsewhere. Schoolteachers or policemen conducted raids and collected and burned images publicly on village plazas, often to the accompaniment of revolutionary
68. See DGG 2.347, exps. 64, 2.347(23)2; 66, 2.347(23)4, AGN;Martinez Assad, El laboratorio, 45. 69. ArzobispoPascualDiaz to Subsec. Gob., 14 December 1929, DGG2.347, exp. 66, 2.347(23)4. 1-2. 70. Bantjes,"Burning Saints," 71. Williman,La Iglesia, 131. 72. Raby,Educaci6n,162. 73. Fondo Conflicto Religioso 1927-1967, Carpeta 1/1. Memo. Senado, Repfiblicade Chile, 1944? by Miguel CruchagaT, ArchivoHist6rico Condumex; Martinez Cardenas," Assad,El laboratorio, 38; Becker,"Lazaro 103-4; Lewis,"Negoch. 2. tiating," SanMiguelde Allende,to Secretario 74. Uni6n de MaestrosFederales, General 4 July 1932, DGG2.347, exp. 2.347(8)15244, AGN. CMM, Guadalajara, SanCarlosde la Llave,Veracruz, to Sec. 75. Comite Particular Administrativo, Gob., 26 March1927, DGG2.347, exp. 17, AGN.
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hymns. On December 12, 1931, more than two thousand "fetishes" were burnt in Jalpa, Tabasco alone. Widely venerated saints were targeted, such as San Francisco Xavier in Sonora, Santa Teodora in Veracruz, and La Purisima in Michoacan.76 Becker says that in Michoacan, the images of saints sometimes were replaced with those of revolutionary heroes like Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, and Alvaro Obreg6n.77 There existed considerable confusion over whether or not the circulation of religious literature should be prohibited. Customs officers and postal officials bombarded the Interior Ministry with queries: Were they to allow works such as the Catecismo a la Doctrina Cristiana and the Explicacion Literal del Catecismo de Ripaldi to enter the country or to circulate by mail? They even considered "holy cards" suspect.78 Lawyers consulted by the Interior Ministry agreed that the reformed Article 541 of the Ley de Vias Generales de Comunicaci6n (Communications Law) only forbade the circulation of works considered immoral or fraudulent, or offensive and denigrating to the nation, and recommended permitting the circulation of religiously oriented publications.79 But while Mexican law allowed for the free circulation of religious literature, in practice overzealous customs and postal officials were responsible for a considerable degree of random anticlerical censorship. Even though the Interior Ministry acknowledged the legality of the circulation of religious pamphlets, it still found it "opportune" to suppress certain cards relating to the execution of the Padre Pro and Luis Segura Vilchis.80 This tendency was also apparent in private and public schools and in the public libraries. The Education Ministry forbade the use in schools of specified
76. For example: Grafica bimestral del aspecto social. Noviembre-Diciembre de 1934, 7a zona Escolar Federal, Caborca, Sonora, FDERPF, Secci6n Inspecci6n Escolar Federal, 249.7, AHSEP; DGG 2.347, exps. 2.347(5)15175; 2.347(5)15180; 2.347(5)15171, AGN; Plan de Trabajos, Inspector la zona, Villahermosa, Tabasco, Alvaro J. Basso A., 27 January 1935, FDERPF, 211.8, AHSEP;Martinez Assad, El laboratorio, 45, 49, 53; Williman, La Iglesia, 131-6; Lewis, "Negotiating," ch. 2; Cama-
cho Sandoval,Controversia educativa, 273; Becker,Setting the Virgin on Fire,

77-8; Bantjes, "Burning Saints,"268; Martinez Assad, El laboratorio, 48.
77. Becker,Setting the Virginon Fire,82.

78. Francisco Diaz Leal to Sec. Gob., 13 September 1933; Report Abogado Consultor, 2 November 1933, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(22)16146; Director General Oficina Tecnica Postal Internacional to Sec. Gob., 17 April 1935, DGG 2.340, Caja 114, exp. 17, AGN. 79. Subdirector Correos to Sec. Gob., 20 June 1935, DGG 2.340, exp. 17; Report Abogado Consultor, 2 November 1933, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(22)16146, AGN. 80. Esteban Garcia de Alba, Oficial Mayor Gobernaci6n to Secretario de I-lacienda y Credito Publico, 20 June 1936, DGG 2.340, Caja 114, exp. 17, AGN.
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works, and warned teachers only to use authorized textbooks.81 Devotional literature often was removed from public libraries, as it was considered a "revolutionary measure to take these works away from the peasant and proletarian classes."82 From Catholic Rite to Civic Ritual: Cultural Festivals and De-Fanaticitatlon Cultural anthropologists and historians recently have given considerable attention to rituals and the role they play in the creation of social solidarity and political legitimacy, the conveyance of sacred meanings concerning power relations, and the construction of new political realities. In the realm of ritual, the Mexican revolutionary elite, like its counterparts in France and Russia, sought to suppress religious festivals and replace them with civic rituals, whether "cultural Sundays" or "patriotic festivals."83These fulfilled a function similar to the Festival of Reason, the fte d&cadaire, or May Day. The revolutionary state undertook an "intelligent, discreet, and well-conceived campaign to substitute the so-called religious festivals, according to the 'Nationalist Calendar' [compare France's Republican Calendar] with festivals, celebrations, and ceremonies of a Mexican social type."84 President Cardenas specified that official holidays were not to coincide with religious festivals, especially the "so-called Holy Week."85In Tabasco secular festivals, such as the Fiesta of the Banana Flower, were celebrated in small towns with the explicit purpose of replacing the festivals of patron saints, thus "wounding the sentiments of the people."86 Similarly,in
Primaria 81. Jefe Departamento de Ensenianza y Normal,EfrenE. Mata,Circular No. II-37-105,23 June 1934, Fondo Departamentode Ensefanza Secundaria, CircularII-109-222,24 August 1935, by Jefe Departamentode En147.42, AHSEP; seiianzaPrimaria y Normal,FondoOficinade Publicaciones y Prensa(FOPP),264.6, AHSEP. 82. Jefe Departamento de Bibliotecas,LuisChavezOrozco,to Directoresy EnNfim.VI-7-50,12 February cargadosde las Bibliotecas,Circular 1935, FOPP, 264.12, Document Dario Maiion hijo, Fondo AbelardoL. Rodriguez(FALR), AHSEP; exp. 514/4, AGN. 83. Compare Ozouf, Festivals, 95, 106; and Stites, Revolutionary Dreams, 110-11. 84. Circular Num. IV-17-124, Flores Zamora, 19 April 1935, FOPP,264.8, AHSER 85. Flores Zamora to Director Educaci6n FederalTabasco, 9 March 1935, Secci6n Inspecci6n EscolarFederal,249.42, AHSEP. FDERPF, 86. Vecinos San Carlos,Tabasco,to Sec. Gob., 30 August 1929; and to President, 5 September 1930; Presidentto Subsec. Gob., 2 September 1929; Horacio Lastra,Villahermosa,to President,30 August 1929, CartelGranFeriade la Yuca, DGG 2.347, exp. 65, 2.347(23)3; EugenioGonzalez,Teapa,to President, 10 September 1930, DGG2.347, exp. 66, 2.347(23)4, AGN.
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Aguascalientes the domingos rojos (red Sundays) were designed to compete with Sunday mass and saints' fiestas, while the school calendar was to pay no attention to important religious holidays.87 In Michoacan the Confederaci6n Revolucionaria Michoacana del Trabajo organized an agrarian congress on Holy Thursday and staged sports events on Sundays, while a regional fair was held in Villahermosa, Tabasco, during Holy Week.88 Religious processions, dances, pilgrimages, bell ringing, offerings to the dead, and other forms of "external worship" were outlawed and stopped when possible. In Batuc, Sonora, rural teachers even tried to halt funeral processions.89 Private assemblies of a religious nature also were forbidden. In Mexico City agents of the Interior Ministry were responsible for monitoring compliance with the Ley de Cultos (Law of Public Worship).90 In the high sierra of Sonora military officers checked whether illegal masses were being held or saints' images worshipped in private homes.91 Throughout the country policemen arrested individuals for holding private religious gatherings in their homes.92 The Mexican state, like all revolutionary states, also tried to enhance its control over rites of passage. Attempts were made to instate socialist weddings and baptisms, which might be compared with the Bolshevik "octobering" (christening), and "red weddings."93 Revolutionaries often have tried to replace existing religious cults with state-dominated ones. In an effort to compete with the Catholic Church, President Calles initially tried to create a schismatic, state-controlled Mexican Church, the Iglesia Catolica Apost6lica Mexicana, similar, perhaps, in its symbolic value, to Robespierre's Cult of the Supreme Being or, to a lesser extent, to
87. Camacho,Controversiaeducativa, 212-3, 246. 88. Tapia,Campo religioso, 210; Martinez Assad,El laboratorio, 46; Becker, Setting the Virginon Fire, 90. 89. Informe Inspector Miguel Villa, Texmelucan, Puebla, to Director Educaci6n Federal,20 January1936, FDGEP, 316.4; Album, 6a Zona Federalde EduInterview with 318, AHSEP; cacion, Cullacan, Sinaloa, 12 August 1936, FDGEP, ErnestoL6pezYescas,Bacum,Sonora,24 May,1992. del D.E, 23 April 1935, DGG2.340, Caja 90. Sec. Gob. to Jefe Departamento 117, exp. 3, AGN. 91. MayorReyes Orozco Villa, Granados,Sonora,to Comandantede la De fensa Rural,Dolores Fuentes Gutierrez, Nacori, 25 April 1936, Archive Ernesto Bacum,Sonora. L6pezYescas(AELY), 92. Rodolfo Elias Calles to Sec. Gob., 21 August 1933, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(22)16190; CarmelaAguilar,Comalcalco,Tabasco,to President, 22 August 1935, DGG2.347, exp. 2.347(23)16199;Gobernador Chiapasto Sec. Gob., 26January 1934, DGG2.347, exp. 2.347(5)15173, AGN. 93. Knight,"Popular Culture," 412; Stites,RevolutionaryDreams, 111-3.
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Lunacharsky's Godbuilding. However, these halfhearted attempts were largely unsuccessful and soon abandoned.94 New civic festivals had a variety of goals, in particular the creation of a new revolutionary cult, or Mexican civil religion. But a related and important secondary goal was to "perform plays, presentations, recitations, etc., aimed at enlightening the masses to banish fanaticism, while at the same time trying to ridicule the clergy"95 Revolutionary festivals (domingos culturales, domingos rojos, ferias escolares, reuniones sociales, festivales, as they were called), usually the responsibility of teachers and school inspectors or of state and municipal Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) committees, often included anticlerical satire, antireligious lectures, and the burning of fetishes. Even the pledge to the Mexican flag included a clear anticlerical message: "I will fight the three powerful enemies of our Fatherland, which are: the Clergy, Ignorance, and Capital."96 Though many festivals were short-lived, especially those with a strong anticlerical element, some new festivals managed to establish themselves as important conduits of the new, nationalist, civil religion, especially revolution day on November 20, and the refurbished Cinco de Mayo celebrations.97 These were purged, however, of anticlerical elements. Anticlerical Legislation
Religious persecution and iconoclasm were not merely the result of random revolutionary vandalism or an expression of excessive Jacobin zeal. They were part of a cultural masterplan that successive Mexican governments designed and implemented. In 1930 President Emilio Portes Gil decided to enforce full compliance of Article 130 of the 1917 Constitution, which prohibited religious education and public displays of worship, required the registration of
94. Williman,La Iglesia, 135; Martinez Assad,El laboratorio, 32-4. 95. Inspector InstructorTirso Garcia,VillaJuarez, Puebla, to Director Educacion FederalPuebla, 10 April 1935, FDERPF, Secci6n Inspecci6n EscolarFederal, 210.1, AHSEP. en la EscuelaRural 96. Programa Federalde la que se desarrollaridiariamente Veracruz..., 1 May 1935, Congregacionde Antonio Plaza,Municipiode Minatitlan, FDERPF, 208.8, AHSEP. 97. See two papers presented at the 9th Conferenceof Mexicanand North AmericanHistorians,Mexico City,October 1994: Thomas Benjamin,"'AVigorous Mexico Arising': Mexico's Twentieth of November Commemorations;" David E. Festivitiesand StateFormation in Post-Revolutionary Mexico:CeleLorey,"Patriotic brationsof RevolutionDay (November 20) in the 1920s and 1930s;"and Vaughan, "TheConstructionof the PatrioticFestival."
106
priests, and limited the number of priests allowed to officiate.98 Pressure from above resulted in a rush by state governments to limit dramatically numbers of priests and to forbid masses and other religious practices in most churches and chapels. Mexican law did not acknowledge the legal personality of religious associations. Church property thus was not recognized and reverted to the state.99 Most states already had implemented such legislation after the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and reformed it in 1926. But religious laws were tightened in 1932. More stringent limitations were set on the number of authorized priests. According to Jean Meyer, by 1935 all priests had been expelled from seventeen states, especially in the north and the southeast, leaving only a few central Mexican states like Jalisco, San Luis Potosi, and Morelos with substantial numbers of clergy. Only 305 legally registered priests were left in all of Mexico.1?? Most state laws on public worship stipulated that authorized clergymen had to be Mexican nationals. Nonregistered priests could be fined up to five hundred pesos and jailed for up to thirtyfive days for officiating illegally.101 Mayors were responsible for registering priests and enforcing laws on religion. Those who neglected these duties could be fined up to one thousand pesos and lose their positions.102 Some state laws went further. In Garrido's Tabasco, for example, priests not only were required to be Mexican born, of good moral fiber, and educated in government schools, but also were expected to get married.103The 1932 Ley de Cultos of Michoacan, proposed by Governor Cardenas, stipulated that no minister would be registered who had previously excercised a func98. CircularNum. 17, 11 April 1930, Emilio Portes Gil to Gobernadores,
DGG 2.340, Caja 20, exp. 1, AGN. 99. Procuraduria General de la Repuiblica, Nacionaltzacl6n de Bienes de Asociaciones Religiosas. Interpretaci6n del Artfculo 27 de la Constituct6n y Leyes Complementarias (Mexico, 1934), 6. 100. Jean Meyer, "La(segunda) cristlada en Mlchoacan," in La cultura purhe. II Coloquto de antropologfa e historia regionales. Fuentes e btstorta ed. Francisco Miranda (Zamora: El Coleglo de Mlchoacan, FONAPASde Michoacan, 1981), 251; Jean Meyer, La cristiada, vol. 2, El conflicto entre la iglesia y el estado 1926-1929 (Mexico: Siglo XXI, 1980), 331. Priests were expelled entirely from Sonora, Baja California, Chihuahua, Sinaloa, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Veracruz, Tabasco, Yucatan, Chiapas, Guerrero, Colima, Tlaxcala, Campeche, and Quintana Roo. Between one and five were allowed in Coahuila, Durango, Nayarit, Queretaro, Hidalgo, Oaxaca, and Aguascalientes. 101. Michoacan de Ocampo, Ley reglamentarla de cultos, 16 May 1932, DGG 2.340, Caja 20, exp.3, AGN. 102. DGG 2.340, AGN. 103. Garrido Canabal, Manifiesto a los obreros, 10-2.
107
tion within the Church hierarchy, such as archbishop or bishop, or represented that hierarchy.104 The persistent influence of the jefe mdximo, Calles, was evident in many of the extreme anticlerical measures taken at the state level. Sonoran Governor Rudolfo Elias Calles consulted with his father before expelling all priests from the state.105Governor Cardenas of Michoacan defended his legislation by stating that he had received the blessing of the "Statesman of the Revolution, General Plutarco Elias Calles,"during a personal interview.106 The Discrimination of Catholics
Attacking the symbols and rituals of religion, persecuting priests, and closing churches was not sufficient to root out fanaticism. Those in official positions might be tainted by religious beliefs. Fanatics needed to be purged from government and the ruling party. The PNR specifically excluded ministers or those belonging to a religious corporation from membership.'07 Revolutionary youth clubs, the Bloques Juveniles Revolucionarios, specified that potential members had to prove to be "revolutionaries free of fanaticism."08 In Magdalena, Sonora, future associates of the Bloque Revolucionario de Obreros y Campesinos de Magdalena, an organization affiliated with the PNR, had to "publicly profess their socialist faith and burn several of the most widely venerated fetishes in the region."109 Anticlerical organizations, school inspectors, and Masonic lodges all clamored for a general purge of state and federal bureaucracies, and, in particular, of teaching personnel.110 Numerous civil servants were investigated. Many state governments (for ex104. The InteriorMinistryconsidered the law unconstitutional.Cardenasto Sec. Gob., 14 May 1932; Jefe DepartamentoConsultivoy de Justicia to Subsec. Gob., 16 May 1932; Subsec. Gob. to Cardenas,30 September 1932; 14 January 1933, DGG2.340, Caja55, exp. 7, AGN. 105. PlutarcoEliasCallesto President,17 May1934, FALR, exp. 514.6/5, AGN. 106. Cirdenasto Subsec.Gob., 15 September1932, DGG2.340, Caja55, exp.
7, AGN.
107. Constttuci6ndel PNR(Mexico:PNR,1934), 8. 108. "Lajuventud empieza a preocuparse seriamente por organizarse," El Maestro Rural 5: 9 (15 November 1934): 20. 109. Estatutos y reglamento del bloque revolucionarto de obreros y 1935). campesinos de Magdalena, Sonora (Magdalena, 110. Acci6n Civica Revolucionaria, Colima,to Presidentemunicipal, 12 December 1932, DGG 2.347, 2.347(5)15136, AGN; Inspector escolar Victoriano GranadosBasurto, Sa zona, Macuspana, Tabasco,to Director Educaci6nFederal, 211.5, AHSEP. May-June1935, FDERPF,
108
ample, those of Jalisco, Puebla, Zacatecas, Yucatan, Veracruz, Sonora, Aguascalientes, Guanajuato, Baja California, and Sinaloa) established "purge committees" and started firing employees "due to their clerical or conservative filiation.""' In 1932 all state employees in Veracruz were forced to join an anticlerical organization.112 Nowhere was the purge more evident than among teachers.113 Guanajuato Governor Melchor Ortega fired about 150 teachers with the aid of the Bloque de Maestros Revolucionarios.1l4 In Sonora an estimated one-third of the teachers were dismissed due to their beliefs.115 In Aguascalientes 128 of 200 state teachers resigned after the purges started.116 The authorities devised methods to identify and root out fanatics and conservatives. In states like Veracruz, Tabasco, San Luis Potosi, Yucatan, Hidalgo, Durango, Michoacan, Guanajuato, and Sonora, teachers were forced to sign a federally sponsored pledge, or fill out a questionnaire, promising to combat fanaticism.117The pledge included this reverse credo:
I declare that I am an atheist, an irreconcilable enemy of the Catholic, Apostolic, Roman religion, that I will endeavor to destroy it, detaching consciences from the bonds of any religious worship, and that I am ready to fight against the clergy anywhere and wherever it may be necessary.'18 111. Diputado RodolfoT. Loaizato Sec. Gob., 3 October 1935, DGG 2.340, exp. 75.2, AGN;Director Educaci6n FederalJalisco to SEP,12 December 1934, Romero,"De la religi6njacobina," FDGEP, 329.2, AHSEP; 249; Bantjes,"Religion y revoluci6n, 4. 112. Wllliman,La Iglesla, 141-2. La educact6n social113. Raby,Educaci6n, 55-6, 211-2; PabloYankelevich, de Educaci6n,1985); 58; Williman,La ista enJalisco (Guadalajara: Departamento ch. 2. Iglesia, 144-6; Lewis, "Negotiating,' 114. Informe que el ciudadano MelchorOrtega,gobernador constitucional del estado librey soberano de Guanajuato, rindi6 ante el H. XXVLegislaturadel del Talleresdel Gobernador mtsmo... con fecha 1? de abril de 1935 (Guanajuato: Estado,1935), 6. 115. El Imparcial (Hermosillo,Sonora), 14 August 1966; Document teacher No. W.Dworak,Circular Cananea,25 August1935, AELY, Bacum,Sonora;Fernando 71-53, Hermosillo, 23 April 1934, RecordGroup 84, ConsularPost Records, No gales, Confidential Correspondence1936, Vol. II, NationalArchives,Washington. 116. Camacho,Controversiaeducativa, 132-7. 117. RafaelBolio Yenro, DirectorEducaci6nFederal,Villahermosa, Tabasco, to Flores Zamora,24 January1935, FDGEP, 329.14; Inspector FederalEducaci6n, SantaMariadel Rio, San LuisPotosi, Perfecto S. Rodriguezto DirectorEducaci6n Interview with Ernesto L6pez 329.15, AHSEP; Federal, 1 February1935, FDGEP, Relations," 211, note Yescas, Bacum, Sonora, 24 May 1992; Brown, "Church-State 36; Meyer,"Elanticlerical," 295, note 19. 118. Quoted in Mecham,Churchand State, 407.
109
Those who refused to sign the anticlerical Ideological Declaration were fired.119 Civic gatherings could be used for screening purposes. In Jalisco, teachers who did not present themselves at a public meeting in favor of socialist education were blacklisted as "reactionary personnel" and dismissed.120 Purging was the work not only of state committees but also of the Education Ministry. The traveling Instituto de Orientaci6n Socialista, which visited the states in an effort to inculcate federal teachers with revolutionary dogma, formed regional purge committees consisting of school inspectors, union leaders, and teachers. In the summer of 1935 the institute stopped in Sonora, and the purge committee immediately set about to examine the files of all federal teachers. Participation in the institute was obligatory. Absenteeism was considered a subversive act: Absence from the Institutewithout a fully justifiedcause will be tacitly infor the revolutionary terpretedas a lack of supportand solidarity principles which the Governmentof the Revolutionsustainsand consequentlywill determine the definitiveeliminationof the absentee... Daily... the "ideological hour" will be held, duringwhich in rigoroussuccession the teachers will be submittedto oral,written, and practicaltests in which their realideological sentiments and their opinion concerning religiousprejudice,the shameful vices of the proletariatand the wicked exploitation of man by man will be exposed. No teacher will be exempted from passing this
test.121
Thus, during the early 1930s revolutionary committees throughout Mexico purged hundreds, if not thousands of teachers and civil servants on the basis of their religious beliefs alone. The Persecution of Priests and Believers
During the early 1930s hundreds of Mexican priests, including Archbishop Pascual Diaz, were fined and jailed for disobeying the Ley de Cultos, usually for conducting masses, baptisms, and other rites without official authorization, participating in processions, wearing the cassock, or criticizing government policy, in particular socialist and sex education. Some were arrested for participating in
119. Interview with Ernesto L6pez Yescas, Bacum, Sonora, 24 May 1992; Inspector Federal Educaci6n, Santa Mariadel Rio, San Luis Potosi, Perfecto S. Rodriguezto DirectorEducacionFederal,1 February1935, FDGEP, 329.15, AHSEP. 120. Director General EducaclonJalisco, Alberto Teranto SEP, 8 December
1934, FDGEP,329.2, AHSEP 121. Instituto de Orientaci6n Socialista para los Maestros Federales del Estado de Sonora. Plan de Trabajo, 12 June 1935, FDERPF, 249.7, AHSEP.
110
armed Cristero revolts, the burning of schools, and other subversive activities.'22 State authorities expelled unregistered priests and even sent them into foreign exile.'23 Sonoran priests fled to Arizona and Texas. Priests often were subjected to brutal treatment: The padre of Chilcota, Michoacan, was beaten, thrown in a sack, and dumped along the highway.124In 1937 agrarista reserves captured Father Pedro Maldonado, who participated in the torching of a school at General Trias, Chihuahua, and beat him until he died.125 During the early 1930s seven Veracruz priests were kidnapped and dumped outside of the state, while several were ambushed and shot, or killed while officiating mass.'26 Individual believers also were persecuted and sometimes killed. Those discovered conducting illegal religious ceremonies at home or hiding saints' images or crucifixes received stiff fines. Harboring an unregistered priest was sufficient to warrant arrest.127 Random acts of harassment against Catholics were common. Near San Juan del Rio, Queretaro, federal troops stopped a group of pilgrims on their way to the Basilica of the Virgin of Guadalupe and forced them to work on a road construction project without pay.128 In Atzalan, Veracruz, local freemasons discovered a group of women who regularly met to say the rosary, and threatened that next time they would be "disrobed and publicly paraded through the village."29 Who Were the Jacobins? Besides the revolutionary leadership, who were the Jacobins responsible for supporting and carrying out the de-fanaticization campaigns? Thanks to the hundreds of denunciations of infractions against the Law on Public Worship, we can at least pinpoint the
122. See DGG 2.340 and 2.347, AGN;Brown, "MexicanChurch-State Relations,"211. 123. Gobernador provisional Aureo L. Calles to Sec. Gob., 24 September 1935; Vecinos Reforma,Chiapas,to President, 10 September 1935, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(23)16200, AGN. Chihuahua to Sec. Gob., 11 February Talamantes 125. Gobernador 1937, DGG 2.347, 2.347(6)23235, AGN. 126. Williman, La Iglesia, 104-7, 112-4. 127. Vecinos Copainala to President, 6 January 1938, DGG 2.347, 2.347(5)30484, AGN. 128. Union Peregrinosa pi al Tepeyacto Sec. Gob., 3 December 1931; Ibid. to PresidentOrtizRubio,3 December 1931, DGG2.347, 2.347(8)15239, AGN. 129. Carmen Galindo, Altotonga, Atzalan,Veracruz,to President, 29 May 1933, FALR, exp. 514.1/35, AGN.
124. Tapia, Campo religioso, 211.
Banties: The De-Christianization Campaigns
111
types of organizations involved. It is harder to identify the class origins of the individuals, though one gets the sense that, as during the French Revolution, the saint burners were male and of petty bourunion geois and, to a lesser extent, bourgeois origin-teachers, leaders, military officers, local officials, students and policemen.130 Like France's revolutionary commissioners, some were "parachuted into a provincial life of which they knew nothing... They neither could nor did they wish to see traditional life; they fought relentlessly against popular customs ..."'31 Active anticlerical groups existed throughout the country, though they never reached the level of organization of Russia's League of the Militant Godless, for example.132 The Bloque Antireligioso Vanguardia (CROM) of Jalapa, Veracruz; the Liga Anticlerical y Antireligiosa Guzmanense of Ciudad Guzman, Jalisco; the Centro Civico Revolucionario of Colima; the Grupo Anticlerical Mexicano of Salvatierra, Guanajuato; the Federaci6n de Grupos Anticlericales y Antirreligiosos de Jalisco; the Liga Comunista Anticlerical and its successor, the Uni6n Anticlerical Revolucionaria of Veracruz; and the Liga Anticlerical Revolucionaria of Tabasco all busied themselves denouncing unregistered priests, illegal chapels, processions, the Knights of Columbus, and seditious sermons.133 Many of these organizations operated under an umbrella association, the Federaci6n Anti-Clerical Mexicana.134 Their importance should not be underestimated. Anticlerical clubs organized lecture series and cultural meetings, and published anticlerical magazines such as El Faro (Ciudad Guzman) and La Sotana (Veracruz).135 They also collaborated with state and municipal authorities, denouncing violations of the religious laws and drawing up blacklists of fanatics.136 Teachers played a particularly important role as de-Christianizing agents, especially in rural areas. As Plutarco Elias Calles stated in 1934: "The rural teachers are the soldiers that the Revolution uses
130. Ozouf, Festivals, 95; Meyer, "Elanticlerical," 284.
131. Ozouf,Festivals, 217.

132. Daniel Peris, "The 1929 Congress of the Godless," Soviet Studies 43,4 (1991): 711-32. 133. DGG 2.347, AGN; Martinez Assad, El laboratorio, 31; Williman, La Iglesia, 131; Raby, Educaci6n, 213. 134. DGG, 2.347, exp. 2.347(6)15183, AGN; Bantjes, "Religi6n y revolucion, 5. 135. Invitaclon Grupo Acci6n Anti-religiosa, Guadalajara,Jalisco, 26 December 1932, FALR,exp. 514/4, AGN; Willlman, La Iglesia, 131. 136. Presidente municipal Colima to President ACR, 14 November 1932, DGG 2.347, 2.347(5)15136, AGN.
112
to conduct a de-fanaticization campaign among the peasant masses."137Teachers denounced priests, burned fetishes, and organized anticlerical gatherings.138 In many towns and villages schoolteachers and inspectors founded "de-fanaticization committees."139 Of particular importance were the widely distributed youth organizations, the Bloques Juveniles Revolucionarios (including Tabasco's radical Camisas Rojas), which incorporated youths from fourteen to twenty-one years of age. The Bloques considered themselves to be "enemies of any type of mysticism and of any notion of contemplation, which only serve to fanaticize the people and deliver them to the clutches of the clergy."140Teachers organized these clubs of boys and girls, which met after class to discuss revolutionary topics, march in parades, attend civic gatherings, and receive fanatically anticlerical indoctrination.141 Masonic lodges, to which most leading revolutionaries and military officers belonged, were another important vehicle of de-Christianization. Lodges throughout Mexico, especially the Gran Logia "Vallede Mexico," denounced acts of fanaticism, organized anticlerical gatherings, and petitioned for the use of nationalized churches. Masons in Acambaro, Guanajuato, acted as confidential agents of the mayor and were permitted to carry arms to defend themselves against irate Catholics.l42 Other de-fanaticizing agents were the officer corps, state and local policemen, students, labor leaders, PNR state committees and the government bureaucracy.143 In some areas agraristas and efidatarios denounced the clergy, often as a reaction against the anti-agrarista preachings of the village priest, and petitioned for the right to use churches and chapels as ejidal offices, schools, and granaries.144The Confederaci6n Revolucionaria
137. El Maestro Rural, 5, 10 (15 November 1934): 3. 138. Secretario General SMU to President, 28 December 1934 and to Gobernador Guerrero, 17 March 1935, DGG 2.347, exp. 21, 2.347(9)64, AGN; Redencl6n (Villahermosa), 23 April 1935; Bantjes, "Burning Saints." Secci6n Inspecci6n Escolar Federal, 1935, 208.14, AHSEP 139. FDERPF, 140. "Lajuventud empieza, 20; Declaract6n de principtos de la escuela socialista de Sonora (n.p., n.d.), 14. 141. Interview with Gilberto Escobosa Gamez, 21 May 1992, Hermosillo; Fondo "Enrique Diaz" 48/14, 54/19, AGN; Bloque de J6venes Revolucionarios Rojinegro, D.F to Sec. Gob., 20 December 1934, DGG 2.340, Caja 114, exp. 3, AGN. 142. Presidente municipal Acimbaro to Gobemador Guanajuato, 12 February 1932, DGG 2.347, exp. 2.347(8)15242, AGN; Meyer, "El anticlerical," 288-9;
La educact6n, 36; Williman, La Iglesia, 141-2. Yankelevich,

143. See DGG 2.347, exps. 2.347(22)22185; 2.347(8)15236; 68, 2.347(26)67; 2.347(22)16196; DGG 2.340, Caja 114, exp. 3; Caja 55, exp. 7, AGN; Redenct6n (Villahermosa), 23 April 1935; Wllliman, La Iglesia, 102. 144. See DGG 2.347, exps. 2.347(5)15138, 2.347(3)15122; DGG 2.340, Caja 55, exps. 8, 75.4, AGN.
113
Michoacana del Trabajo, which consisted of agraristas, teachers, and politicos, was responsible for much of the violent anticlerical campaign in Michoacan.145 Popular Culture and De-Fanatici.ation: The Arts
The revolutionary elite considered the arts "an instrument of social agitation" in service of the Revolution.146 A variety of art forms, such as theater, poetry, corridos, murals, and posters were seen as convenient tools for de-fanaticization, possibly more effective than blatant iconoclasm. Though Mexico never developed a strong institution like Russia's Proletkult to propagate revolutionary culture, a clear and unified cultural policy emanated from the Education Ministry and the Department of Fine Arts. Theater was an excellent means to reach both children and adults. Young children were indoctrinated through the Teatro Guignol or puppet theater: "The puppet theater is undoubtedly an extremely efficient medium with which to establish the new ideas in the minds of both children and adults." The development of the Teatro de Muiecos, inspired by Bolshevik examples, was stimulated by the Department of Fine Arts.147Open-air theaters were a widespread and popular cultural tool. Each rural school was supposed to construct one to "enlighten the masses so as to banish their fanatic and superstitious notions."'48 The revolutionary elite considered theater ideal for social engineering because in this form... one doesn't wound the sensibilityof the people, who, ignorantand imprudent,often don't toleratean explanationof this or that error.... but do applaudand accept a work of theater... that makes them think and correct their errors.149 Throughout the country students and teachers performed anticlerical comedies to audiences of children and adults. Touring companies like the Compaiia Fronteriza traveled from village to village, offering works which featured depraved priests during confession.150 Anticlerical works were performed during cultural festivals and school fairs, which often included the recitation of antifanatic po145. Becker,"Lazaro Cardenas," 98-9. 146. EnriqueCalder6n,Ideario de goblerno Durango,1936), 90. 147. "Elteatro de los muiiecos,"El Maestro Rural 6, 7 (1 April 1935): 36-7. 148. Plan de trabajo,Inspector FederalMiguel Angel Godinez, Matamoros, 316.10, AHSEP Puebla, 1 February1936, FDGEP, 149. InspectorEscolarto DirectorEducaci6nFederal,Puebla,31 March1936, FDGEP, 316.6, AHSEP 150. InspectorLeonardo G. to DirectorGeneralde Educaci6n,29July Ramirez 211.3, AHSEP 1935, FDERPF,
114
etry as well.151 In the poem "Apreg6n de la miseria," written by a rural teacher from Jeticoac, Guerrero, the poet laments the cruelty of God at the sight of a group of miserable beggars:
Ypens6 en la injusticia de ese Dios vengativo / que es tan cruel y tan duro; tan austero y tan altivo / con las masas que sufren su dolencia fatal / sin hallar en el mundo quien les cure su ma. 152
In his poem "Van Cayendo"ruralteacher Abel Mendozaof Actipac, Tlaxthe cala, depicted clergy as "traitors,...octopuses who suck the blood of the people,... treasonous idlers... sucking mosquitoes... those priests will pay their deceit with their lives."'53 who are so fratricidal Revolutionaries also acknowledged the power of music. Socalled vernacular music embellished official ceremonies, especially anticlerical corridos such as the "Corrido de la Confesi6n" and the "Corrido Cholula."'54 In Hermosillo, Sonora, a choir of 1,300 schoolchildren sang the "Iconoclast Hymn" during the 1935 Labor Day festivities.'55 The omnipresent posters of the 1930s were another effective tool in the de-fanaticization campaign.'56 During the Cardenas years many street posters stressed the partnership between the bourgeoisie and the clergy, both 'pulpos del trabajo bumano" who exploited and repressed the proletariat. "The Clergy serves Capital," stated one poster. Another featured a hand holding up a book entitled Science, while another deposited the catechism in a garbage bin. The clergy's exploitation of the proletariat is symbolized by coins dropping through a piggy bank into a collection tray and afterwards raining on the domes of the Vatican: "Comrade. Your savings, in the hands of the Church, enrich the spongers of Rome." One placard displays a soldier bayonetting a bloated bishop and sweeping away crosses, churches, clergymen, rosaries, and holy cards with a broom.157 Similar scenes were reproduced ad infinitum in engravings and drawings fashioned in school art classes.158
151. See for some excellent Tabascan examples Martinez Assad, El laboratorio, Anexo II. 152. Antonio Hernandez S., Escuela Rural Federal de Santiago, Jeticoac, Guerrero, 9 September 1936?, FOPP,453.48, AHSEP. 153. "Van cayendo" by Abel Mendoza, Actipac, Calpulalpam, Tlaxcala, 1936, FOPP,453.35, AHSEP. 154. Asamblea Cultural... Escuela Rural Federal Alto, Tabasco, 22 June 1935, FDERPF, 211.5, AHSEP. 155. Programa de Festejos..., Hermosillo, Sonora, 1 May 1935, FDERPF, 249.7, AHSEP.
156. Declaraci6n de principtos de la escuela soclalista de Sonora, (n.p.,

n.d.), 103. 157. Fondo "Enrique Diaz, AGN. 158. Bantjes, "Burning Saints,"273.
115
Education The rural school, federal teachers, and the Education Ministry played a key role in the de-Christianization campaign. To what extent did Mexican teaching include an anticlerical subtext and how was this conveyed in the classroom? Anticlericalism became a significant issue in Mexican education after President Cardenas implemented socialist education. The socialist school was seen as "a The reformed Article weapon in the struggle against fanaticism."159 3 of the Constitution specifically stated that socialist education would exclude "all religious doctrine [and] combat fanaticism and prejudices by organizing its instruction and activities in a way that shall permit the creation in youth of an exact and rational concept of the Universe and of social life."60 The socialist school was to forge a "new youth," free of fanaticism and prejudice. Educator Rafael Ramirez wrote that "We shall educate the new generation in such a manner that we shall have men without religious prejudices."161De-fanaticization in the schools was to be conducted by the study of Church history, and especially of nature and science. Teachers also founded anti-fanatic committees of children ages six to fourteen, and encouraged them to further the anticlerical cause both at home and during cultural festivals.162 The Mexican revolutionary elite, like the French and Russian, considered that religious education poisoned the minds of the youth: The CatholicSchool is immoralbecause it spreadshypocrisyand lies, and it is an enemy of the workersbecause it preachessubservienceto the powerful, resignationand docility.The CatholicSchool breeds hypocrites, "sinners,"slaves.The socialistschool will formfree men and women.163 Though the Education Ministry reluctantly acknowledged the clergy's constitutional right to teach catechism in the churches, many governors outlawed it anyway. In 1935, Guanajuato Governor Melchor Ortega stated that I consider that the catechistic work by which Mexican children receive
TomasCuervoto Secretariode 159. Directorde EducacionFederalQueretaro Educaci6nPufblica, See Martinez 30 June 1936, FDGEP, 295.8, AHSEP Assad,El laboratorio, ch. II. 160. Quoted in George C. Booth, Mexico's Schcol-MadeSociety (Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress, 1941), 2. 161. Quoted in Ibid., 20. 162. Plan de Trabajos,Inspector la zona, Villahermosa,Tabasco, AlvaroJ. BassoA., 27 January1935, FDERPF, InformeDirectorEducaci6nFed211.8, AHSEP; eral Tabasco,RafaelBolio Yenroto FloresZamora, 26 March1935, FDERPF, 249.34, AHSEP 163. CartelPN.R.,n.d., DGG2.347, Caja3 Bis,exp. 28, AGN.
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Catholic confessional education, during that phase of life when man lacks the indispensable self-criticism to accept or repudiate confessional dogmas, must, it seems, be condemned by the reform of [Article 3 of the Constitution]. [We must absolutely forbid] that religious education is offered outside of the home, and, especially, in the churches.164
Daily practices in many schools were blatantly antireligious. Sim6n Villanueva Villanueva, a teacher from Durango, remembered the efforts of a couple teaching in a remote mountain village in the Sierra Madre Occidental to convince their pupils that God does not exist:
The female teacher asked the children to say "There is no God" when they greeted her, and she would answer "Nor was there ever one." The male teacher would ask the children "Where is God?" and the students would answer "In heaven, on earth, and in all places"; then the teacher told them "Well, then I urinate on God, because he doesn't leave me any space to urinate."
This experiment in anticlerical education ended in tragedy: Some time later,they were found dead, the woman teacher naked, raped, and with her breastscut off, the male teachercastrated,with his penis cut off, and on one of those little wooden shingles that they use for roofing houses and with a piece of pinewood charcoalthey wrote some awkwardly spelled words that said "Soyou don't go aroundpeeing on God."'65 Attempts at de-Christianization were most evident in the teaching of Mexican and world history and the natural sciences. According to the revolutionary elite, history demonstrated how the clergy had converted the masses into "abject toadies of capitalism and an abulic and irredeemable factor"166During the conquest, the Spanish clergy used force and the hated Inquisition to impose a religious culture on the inhabitants of Mexico. In colonial Mexico a corrupt, venal clergy accumulated wealth and power. Mexican Independence, which the Church hierarchy had strongly opposed, brought little change. By the nineteenth century the Church owned half of the nation's wealth; the clergy thus was closely allied with capital and formed a state within the state. Teachers glorified Reform legislation and articles of the 1917 Constitution aimed at limiting the
164. Ortega to Sec. Gob., 7 February1935, FSGG, Secci6n Primera,Instruccin Pfiblica,Gobiemo y Guerra, exp. 1.40(57)2, AGGEG. 165. "Elmaestro rural en la educacion" in Los maestros y la cultura nacional. 1920-1952. vol. 1, Norte (Mexico:Secretaria de Educaci6nPfiblica,1987),
185.
166. La escuela socialista de Sonora (Hermosillo:ImprentaCruz Galvez, 1934), 90.
117
Church's political, economic, and cultural stranglehold on the nation. Recent conflicts (the Cristiada and the controversy over socialist and sex education in the early 1930s) were depicted as a continuation of this prolonged struggle between church and state.'67 World history classes and readings emphasized the nefarious role of the Church and its corruption. One popular textbook featured a tale about the children's crusade, an example bound to have a strong impact on youthful readers.168 As in Bolshevik Russia, the study of science, "the greatest foe of fanaticism and superstition," was central to the de-fanaticization campaign in the schools as a means to destroy "the erroneous notions which the plebs hold concerning [naturalphenomena and] to extirpate the erroneous ideas that Religions use to explain" [the creation of Earth].169For example, knowledge of physics would undermine the notion of supernatural beings and miracles.170 Educators stressed practical laboratory work as the best means to de-fanaticize: The best way to wrest fromyouthfulmindsnotions of the supernatural and extraterrestrialis to convert the children, in the laboratory,into "little gods";to create micro-organisms, produce electrical discharges,pulverize rocks, enlarge objects, etc. All these are experiments that make children trulyconsider themselvesto be masterof Nature.171 Biology and chemistry, for example, would teach children that the fruition of maize was not due to the blessings of priests or sacrifices to Christian or pre-Columbian gods, but the result of careful fertilizing. 172 Some educators even spoke of a new cult, not a revolutionary civic cult, but a cult of science:
167. Declaraci6n de prtciptos, 83; Jose MariaBonilla, Individualismo y
socialismo. Educaci6n cfvica, 4th ed. (Mexico: Herrero Hnos. Sucs., 1944), 29-37;
RafaelRamirez,"La in Rafael Ramfrezy la escuela iglesia,el estado y la educaci6n," rural mexicana, ed. Concepcion Jimenez Alarc6n (Mexico: Secretariade Educaci6n Piiblica,1986), 149-157. 168. MarcelSchwob, "Lacruzadade los nifios, in Lecturaspopulares para escuelas primarias, superiores y especiales, 3d ed., ed. EsperanzaVelazquez Bringas(Mexico:LaImpresora,1935), 75-82. 169. La escuela socialista de Sonora, 65; Le6n Diaz Cardenas,Cartas a los maestros rurales (Mexico: EdicionesEncuadernables, El Nacional, 1938), 275-80. 170. Juan B. Salazar, Bases de la escuela socialtsta (Caracteristicas, finalidadesy organizaci6n). Proyectoenviado al Instituto de Orientaci6nSocialista de
la Secretarfa de Educaci6n Pablica (Mexico: Talleres Graficos, 1936), 27; Plan de Trabajo... Inspector Escolar La Paz, Baja California Sur, 31 January 1935, FOPP,216, exp. 1, legajo 35, AHSEP. 171. Diaz Cardenas, Cartas, 275-80.
172. Booth, Mexico'sSchool-Made Society,78.
118
In our times there is no place for any other cult than that of the Heroes of Science, Laplace, Darein, Lyell, Marx, Spencer... You must teach the children that society entrusts to you that in a thousand laboratories there are many heroes who have dedicated their lives to the discovery of... objective truth...; they are the priests of the future idol: Science.'73
The End The worst of the de-fanaticization campaigns began to subside by 1936.174 This was not the result of enlightened, tactful Cardenista religious policy, as some have suggested, but a response to widespread opposition to the cultural revolution in states like Sonora, Puebla, Veracruz, and Jalisco. President Cardenas, though a rabid anticlerical himself,175 was forced to realize that Catholic resistance, combined with rising opposition from conservative groups within the revolutionary family and broad sectors of the population, threatened the very future of the Revolution.176 After 1935, correspondence from the Education Ministry shows considerable apprehension concerning the excesses of the de-fanaticization campaign and the reactions of many Catholics. Throughout the country, often violent popular resistance forced teachers to scale down the campaign. 77 Teachers were warned not to go too far in their efforts to enlighten the ignorant masses. Fines and "outrages to the religious feelings of believers" were now considered counterproductive.178
la humanidad in Lecturaspopulares,110-3. futura," 173. Jose Ingenieros,"Por Interview with 174. This conclusion is based on research in the AHSEP. ChurchAmadeoHernandezCoronado,Hermosillo,26 May1992;Brown,"Mexican StateRelations"214-22; Becker,"Lizaro Cardenas" 299. 266-7. 175. Bantjes,"Burning Saints," 176. AlbertL. Michaels,"TheCrisisof Cardenismo,"Journal of Latin American Studies 2,1 (1970): 51-79; Bantjes,"Politics, Classand Culture," ch. 10. Classand Culture"; 177. See for Sonora: Bantjes,"Politics, Meyer,La cristiada, vol. 1, 385; Engracia Reactionsto the Educational Reformsof CarLoyo, "Popular "TheEdudenismo,"in Rituals of Rule, 247-60; See on Puebla:MaryKayVaughan, cational Project of the Mexican Revolution: The Response of Local Societies (1934-1940)," in Molding the Hearts and Minds. Education, Communications, and Social Change in Latin America, ed. John A. Britton(Wilmington,DE:ScholWomen'sLiteracyand arly ResourcesBooks, 1994), 105-27, and, Vaughan,"Rural EducationDuringthe MexicanRevolution: a Patriarchal Event?" in CreSubverting ating Spaces. Shaping Transitions. Women of the Mexican Countryside, and MaryKayVaughan(Tucson:Univer1850-1990, ed. HeatherFowler-Salamini sity of ArizonaPress, 1994). 178. Victor Pefia, PresidentemunicipalTexcoco to Inspector Educaci6n,27 February 1935, Fondo LazaroCardenas,exp. 533.31/13, AGN;Flores Zamorato DirectorEducaci6nFederal,13 May1935, FDERPF, Secci6n Inspeccion EscolarFederal, 249.7, AHSEP
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Instead, education officials advised "careful" and "intelligent" deChristianization, preferably by means of scientific persuasion.179 This change of heart became increasingly evident after President Cardenas himself entered the debate in the wake of a series of brutal Catholic assaults on federal teachers. The president gave a speech in Guadalajarain March 1936 stressing that the government was not antireligious:
The Government will not make the error committed by previous administrations of considering the religious problem as a prime problem to which all other aspects of the program of the Revolution must be subordinated. It is not the Government's business to promote antireligious campaigns.'18
The Director General of Primary Education interpreted this message for the confused teachers:
It's not that we are abandoning this important aspect of the program of the socialist school, but that it should be implemented in an intelligent manner so that the results may be permanent and are not translated into mere effervescence that almost always produces disunity and unrest which impede the work of the Government. It is well known that the system used until now to combat fanaticism has been limited to demagogic procedures [that] have done little but affirm in the conscience of believers the notion that they are martyrs of their own convictions.181
Revolutionary de-Christianization in Mexico failed due to the widespread resistance of Catholics, who responded to what they perceived as a threat to their way of life. The de-fanaticization campaign was ultimately a short-lived and failed experiment. But its importance and impact should not be underestimated. De-Christianization efforts generally did not mask more profound socioeconomic or political conflicts, but formed an integral part of the revolutionary cultural project. The religious conflict represented, as Jean Meyer put it, a "clash of two worlds."182The revolutionary elite deemed it impossible to forge new Mexicans without eradicating the nefarious influence of the Church. They targeted not merely the clergy but religiosity itself. The seriousness of this effort is demonstrated by the wide array of cultural techniques used, including iconoclasm, the closure of churches, the banishment of priests, the
179. Informe 9a Zona, Veracruz, 1935 by Carlos Mercado, FDERPF, Secci6n Inspecci6n Escolar Federal, 208.5, AHSEP;Informe Inspector Federal Juan E Corzo, Queretaro, 1936, FDGEP,316.16, AHSEP. 180. El Nactonal, 4 March 1936. 181. Circular Nim. IV-22-77, Flores Zamora, 10 March 1936, FOPP, 438.22, AHSEP 182. Meyer, La cristtada, vol. 1, 185.
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prohibition of religious practices, and the often violent persecution of Catholics, as well as more constructive methods such as festivals, the popular arts, and education. De-fanaticization was seldom popular, although a tradition of popular anticlericalism undoubtedly existed. Acts of iconoclasm were carried out by members of the revolutionary elite and those dependent on them, such as teachers, policemen, labor and peasant leaders, and government bureaucrats. Characterized by intrusiveness and violence, the campaign was implemented on a national scale, with few states escaping its impact. It constituted an exclusionary, top-down imposition. Revolutionary antireligious campaigns seldom have been successful. An excellent example is France, where revolutionary anticlericalism spawned a stubborn Catholic revival.183This is because religion is not just related to spirituality. For many, it encompasses the entirety of their experience. Clifford Geertz argues that sacred symbols function to synthesizea people's ethos-the tone, character, and qualityof their life, its moraland aesthetic style and mood-and their world view-the picturethey have of the way thingsin sheer actuality are, their most comprehensiveideasof order.84 Few cultural revolutions have been able to change a people's world view or ethos overnight. In Mexico this attempt was definitely a failure. The Revolution would ultimately prosper without the de-fanaticization campaigns. The revolutionary elite erred in believing that a new civil religion could not coexist with traditional Catholicism. From the late 1930s on, Mexican leaders gradually would defuse the religious conflict and discovered that the masses would accept the state's nationalist cultural project as long as blatant anticlericalism was avoided.185 Still, only today are the last vestiges of revolutionary iconoclasm finally fading. While the Revolution's idols tremble on their pedestals, the old fetishes persist.
183. Desan, Reclaiming the Sacred. 184. CliffordGeertz, The Interpretationof Cultures(New York:BasicBooks, 1973), 89. 185. AdrianBantjes,"The EighthSacrament: Nationalismand Revolutionary PoliticalCulturein Mexico," (paper presentedat the Conferenceon MexicanPolitical Culture, Universityof Utrecht, The Netherlands, 1994); Vaughan,"The Constructionof the PatrioticFestival."

Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico

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Universidad Nacional Autnoma de Mxico University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States

Idolatry and Iconoclasm in Revolutionary Mexico: The De-Christianltation Campaigns, 1929-1940*

-Mexican school chant, 1930s'

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The DeChristianization

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

cho Sandoval,Controversia educativa, 273; Becker,Setting the Virgin on Fire,

77. Becker,Setting the Virginon Fire,82.

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Banties: The De-Christianization Campaigns

131. Ozouf,Festivals, 217.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

La educact6n, 36; Williman, La Iglesia, 141-2. Yankelevich,

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

156. Declaraci6n de principtos de la escuela soclalista de Sonora, (n.p.,

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

166. La escuela socialista de Sonora (Hermosillo:ImprentaCruz Galvez, 1934), 90.

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

172. Booth, Mexico'sSchool-Made Society,78.

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

Bantjes: The De-Christianization Campaigns

Mexican Studies/Estudios Mexicanos

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