The Mexican Dirty War: From Cárdenas to Zapatismo with Adela Cedillo

Rudy joins Adela Cedillo, co-editor of Challenging Authoritarianism in Mexico Revolutionary Struggles and the Dirty War, 1964-1982, and author of several studies on the Mexican dirty war such as El Fuego y El Silencio, Historia de las Fuerzas de Liberación Nacional Mexicanas (1969-1974), for a conversation on this period of history. We discuss the mixed legacy of the Mexican revolution, the state of the left after the progressive presidency of Lazaro Cárdenas, the two periods in Mexican insurrectionism: before and after the 1968 Tlatelolco massacre and how the left responded to this event. We continue by discussing the origins of the Frente de Liberación Nacional (FLN), how its strategy evolved, and how it laid the base for the Zapatistas. We finish by briefly discussing how the Zapatistas are different from their predecessors and how the dirty war slowly evolved into the drug war.