ABSTRACT

Until now, Mexican workers have been primarily presented in the historiography as a bulwark of revolutionary nationalism and a pillar of the emerging revolutionary state and—without a doubt—nationalism was an influential force in the construction of labor identity throughout the Mexican Revolution. However, the Mexican labor movement also possessed strong universalist currents—anarchist as well as communist. How these meta-narratives and the process of identity construction influenced the development of the Mexican labor movement is the key question of this chapter. In an increasingly globalizing and interconnecting world, Mexican labor had to find its place and identity between the global proletarian revolution and the national power struggle. In many cases, however, these influences weren’t mutually exclusive, but worked as complements in forming a unique local identity of the Mexican labor movement.