The countryside as Utopía: for Literate and Revolutionaries in Mexican Narrative from the 1930s

Abstract

In my paper I focus on the proletarian narrative written in Mexico during the 1930s, and its image of rural Mexico. The texts I work with are the novels La ciudad Roja by José Mancisidor (1932), Un sindicato escolar by Miguel Bustos Cerecedo (1936), Protesta by Enrique Díaz Othón (1937), and the short stories “El entierro” and “Los gusanos rojos” by Mario Pavón Flores (1943).  As I explained, the urban proletariat has not always been the leading element in social struggles, even though that was predicted in traditional Marxism. in the 1930s in Mexico the peasantry had a pretty large position in certain regions of the country. This special position was the result of specific historical conditions. In my paper I show the fundamental role that education along with the ideologies of the Mexican Revolution and the  Cardenas administration(1934- 1940) played in the Consciousness-raising process among Mexican peasants during those years. They need for Unity between urban and rural proletariat was also great concern.