The specialist will not learn much about Mexico from this book, but he will get a good dose of the Marxist interpretation of Mexican history. The editor-in-chief is a doctor of historical sciences and belongs to the governing body of the U.S.S.R.-Mexico Society. His preface sets the tone. The United States is the villain and has prevented the development of the Mexican economy. The Soviet Union is Mexico’s great friend.
The book is divided into two parts, “Politics and Economics” and “Culture.” The first part has six chapters, the second eight. Like so many Soviet books, it is the work of several scholars, directed by a four-man editorial board. Three of the authors are Mexican. Some of the information is dated—for example, the authors do not seem to know that the bracero program has ended. They have suppressed information which might embarrass the Soviet Union. Thus they refer to Soviet and Mexican opposition to Hitler, but say not a word about the Soviet pact with Hitler or about the contribution of Great Britain and the U.S. to Hitler’s destruction. The authors accuse American historians such as Howard Cline and Daniel James of distorting the facts of Mexican history. The Mexican government appears as a tool of the United States, and strikes which threaten to bring down Mexico’s capitalist system are reported with glee. Thus the authors seek to weaken Mexican ties with the United States and strengthen Mexican-Soviet friendship.
The second part, dealing with culture, contains some extremist views about the Indian cultures of Mexico. The authors construct a simplistic analogy with the Soviet theory of nationalities, according to which the various nationalities in the U.S.S.R. are allegedly encouraged to develop their own culture, whereas, they say, the Mexican government has failed to give the various Indian groups their autonomy and official status to their languages. To quote the 1965 declaration of the All-Mexican Indian Conference to this effect is to give a falsely romantic picture of Mexico. The authors accuse the Mexican government of continuing the encomienda system and demand that teaching up to the high-school level be carried on in Indian dialects. It does not seem to bother the extreme indigenistas that there are 33 or 46 quite different language groups in Mexico (both figures are given). They propose a council comprising the leaders of the Indian tribes. The Soviet authors becomingly submit that they are simply repeating the demands of Mexican indigenistas, and that they do not necessarily accept all the arguments.
Part II contains some interesting information about Mexican culture. In particular, the story of Eisenstein’s film-making in Mexico is not well known, although, as one might expect, American entrepreneurs appear to be guilty of cutting up his magnum opus beyond recognition for commercial purposes. They fail to indicate, however, that Eisenstein’s interpretation of Mexico is doctrinaire and unhistorically romantic, however great its artistic merits.
The book ends with a description of Mexico as the city of the Olympic games, for the book was timed to appear on the eve of the games. The author, A. I. Sozonenko, expresses his satisfaction that the Olympics’ governing body turned down the U.S. invitation to hold the games in Detroit, since in 1963 the American government refused East German athletes admission to the United States. Invitations from the United States and France were both properly rejected because the two countries belong to NATO.
