Building social memory: transforming anarchists into reformists

Abstract

The article addresses the issue of the construction of social memory based on the need to adjust the discourse to new circumstances. History, as a discipline, is confronted with the desires of groups that seek to create a memory about a certain event, so it is necessary to historicize the construction of social memory. The case of Ricardo Flores Magón, an anarchist who changed his struggle by becoming a reformist, which became functional for those who wanted to be recognized in the post-revolution years, is discussed. His brothers, Jesús and Enrique, were part of that transformation. A comparison of the writings published in the newspaper Regeneración, of Mexico City, and the participation of Enrique Flores in the 1930s, shows that the anarchist idea was sacrificed so that the Flores Magón brothers would be recognized as the men who carried out the Program of the Mexican Liberal Party of July 1906, the basis of the Constitution of 1917. The name of Ricardo Flores Magón was placed in streets, squares, schools, but the message against all government, law and religion was displaced.