AHC: Mexican Marxist Insurgency

kernals12

Banned
Mexico's politics in the 20th Century were remarkably boring by Latin American standards. As the rest of the region lived through coups, civil wars, and revolutions, Mexico stayed quiet from 1929 to 2000 under the one party rule of the PRI. So let's make things a little more interesting. Can Mexico have a marxist insurgency movement similar to FARC in Colombia or the Shining Path in Peru.
 
If the EZLN doesn't count, I think it's impossible short of a Red USA timeline. It's simply too easy for the USA to intervene in Mexico, and a Marxist movement there is too likely to engage in real or imagined slights against the States. The only Marxist movement to last that close to the US was Cuba, and there that was really only due to the Missile Crisis and the fact that a Cuban Marxist state rather than insurrection was fait accompli by the time the US got involved.
 

kernals12

Banned
If the EZLN doesn't count, I think it's impossible short of a Red USA timeline. It's simply too easy for the USA to intervene in Mexico, and a Marxist movement there is too likely to engage in real or imagined slights against the States. The only Marxist movement to last that close to the US was Cuba, and there that was really only due to the Missile Crisis and the fact that a Cuban Marxist state rather than insurrection was fait accompli by the time the US got involved.
It was very easy for the Soviets to intervene in Afghanistan, yet the Mujihadeen were still quite a headache.
 
It was very easy for the Soviets to intervene in Afghanistan, yet the Mujihadeen were still quite a headache.

Afghanistan isnt the "Graveyard of Empires" for nothing. And, as the Mexican American War and later the incursion against Pancho Villa show, the US has been more than capable of intervention in Mexico throughout its history.
 
Mexico's politics in the 20th Century were remarkably boring by Latin American standards. As the rest of the region lived through coups, civil wars, and revolutions, Mexico stayed quiet from 1929 to 2000 under the one party rule of the PRI. So let's make things a little more interesting. Can Mexico have a marxist insurgency movement similar to FARC in Colombia or the Shining Path in Peru.

Well, Mexico packed all the excitement any nation could handle into the first three decades of the 20th century.

Also, this happened, basically the North American equal to Tiananmen Square : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tlatelolco_massacre

Anyway, a communist insurgency/takeover in Mexico is the stuff of bad Red Dawn fan fiction. The US would probably intervene in Mexico directly (even in the post-Vietnam malaise) and it would probably be a bloodbath, especially since a competent insurgency would be able to coordinate retaliation strikes against the continental US (i.e. the inevitable My Lai or bombed out village is answered with IRA-style car bombs, etc...). Also, given that the Cold War is likely still going on, one wonders what the Soviets would do, especially if they were fighting in Afghanistan at the time. A bit of tit for tat would be tough to resist, so you might see an insurgent with some quite nice weapons.

It would be a massive clusterfuck.
 
Just to further elaborate, the Dirty War of the 60s, 70s, and 80s was active in Mexico as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_War_(Mexico)

It seems that the leftist guerrilla groups in Mexico weren't as strong as in other countries, hence the lack of a truly open conflict along the lines of, say, the Salvadoran Civil War.

A point of departure might be a strong, unified guerrilla group against the PRI, probably with some kind of Cuban backing.
 
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