The murder of Yucatans’s left-wing governor Felipe Carrillo, defender of indigenous Mayan collectivism, by reactionaries in 1924..

‘Felipe Carrillo, Staunch Fighter for Rights of Mexican Workers, Slain by Counter-Revolutionists’ by Bertram D Wolfe from The Daily Worker. Vol. 1 No. 313. January 15, 1924.

MEXICO CITY. “Felipe Carrillo is dead! He was shot in a prison yard by a counter-revolutionary firing squad.” The Mexican proletariat has lost its biggest figure. With a shock we heard the report as it ran around the capital. The weeks of rumors and anxious waiting for news on the part of his friends and admirers have ended in this awful certainty—Felipe Carrillo, labor governor of Yucatan, organizer and president of the Leagues of Resistance, leader of the Workers Party of the southeast, has been shot.

I pick up Excelsior, organ of the Catholic reaction, the landlords, and foreign capitalism. Never has it had anything for Carrillo but slanders and libels. But today it runs a three-column picture of this dreamer’s face and a streamer headline all across the page. What has it to say of him now?

“Owing to the radical politics of Governor Carrillo there rose up against him a veritable wave of hatred on the part of the elements of society (sic) and especially among the landowners of Yucatan who were losing their hennequin estates some of which, were divided up among the workers and others administered directly by a Socialist commission deputized by the government…Its (state of Yucatan) organization…may be considered as very near to perfection, even though naturally, due to the radical form in which it was installed, it was the cause of the biggest capitalists being ruined.”

Had Only Capitalist Enemies.

In the time I have been here I have heard accusations against every one of the Right leaders from the lips of rank and file workers—against every one save Carrillo. He was not a Communist, yet I have never known a Communist who did not praise him. He was not an Anarchist, yet never have I heard an Anarchist say one word against him.

The workers recall how he organized the Ligas de Resistencia in Yucatan under the government of Gen. Antonio I. Villareal. How Carranza removed Villareal, dissolved the league and put Carrillo in prison.

How he escaped and returned that very night to disarm the prison garrison of eight men and persuade six of them to go out into the hills with him. That was the beginning of the revolution in Yucatan which ended with Felipe Carrillo becoming governor of the state and Obregon occupying Mexico City. Now there are stories clustered about him. Soon there will be legends.

Jailed By Landlords.

When the present rebellion broke out in Vera Cruz, the big land owners of Yucatan bought the commander of the local garrison and imprisoned Carrillo. Tho finance commissioner of Yucatan, Manero, escaped with the government funds to New York, and then tried to buy the life of Carrillo from the rebels. Rumor says he offered a million pesos. Manero has telegraphed to President Obregon: “I exhausted whatever recourses and arguments could be humanly employed to secure the liberty of Felipe Carrillo.

But the big land owners of Yucatan thought the blood of this hated man who the slow but inevitable socialization of their land, was worth any price, so they murdered him.

Governor Carrillo was about to be married, when the rebellion broke out to Miss Alma Reed, California author and liberal. She had saved some Mexican prisoners under 21 years of age from the death penalty in California. The Mexican government had sent her a gold medallion and invited her to be the guest of the nation. It was on her trip as the nation’s guest that she met Carrillo.

Revolution Will Continue.

The land owners of Yucatan are mistaken if they believe they can end the revolutionary movement there by shooting him. The Maya Indians of the peninsula have never been subjugated. Until Carrillo there has been no real peace there since the Spaniards first landed and tried to root out the primitive communist of the Mayas. Even Diaz never had it thoroughly subjugated. Madero left it alone. Against Huerta and Carranza it was in open rebellion. The Mayas will fight until they have found a new leader of the genius of Felipe Carrillo.

The whole nation is prepared to acknowledge his greatness now that he is dead. From the presidential palace comes the following tribute:

“The assassination of Felipe Carrillo brings sorrow into the homes of the proletariat…Don Adolfo de la Huerta will understand the magnitude of his crime when he receives the burning protests that the proletariat of the entire world will direct against him for the assassination of Felipe Carrillo. The generous blood of Felipe Carrillo is the testimony of the apostasy of Don Adolfo de la Huerta.”

The Daily Worker began in 1924 and was published in New York City by the Communist Party US and its predecessor organizations. Among the most long-lasting and important left publications in US history, it had a circulation of 35,000 at its peak. The Daily Worker came from The Ohio Socialist, published by the Left Wing-dominated Socialist Party of Ohio in Cleveland from 1917 to November 1919, when it became became The Toiler, paper of the Communist Labor Party. In December 1921 the above-ground Workers Party of America merged the Toiler with the paper Workers Council to found The Worker, which became The Daily Worker beginning January 13, 1924.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/dailyworker/1924/v01-n313-jan-15-1924-DW-LOC.pdf