Liberal and radical intellectuals were some of his closest associates, and poor workers were his followers-the magonistas.

Ricardo Flores Magón’s radicalism helped spark the Mexican Revolution. His father had fought for Díaz, but by 1901, after Díaz had persuaded the Mexican Congress to alter the constitution to allow his continuous rule, Flores Magón and his brothers had become dissidents. Díaz had modernized and brought stability to a young nation that, prior to him, had more than thirty leaders in its first fifty years, but, because of his ruthless tactics, his opponents had worked to dethrone him from the early years of his Presidency.įlores Magón’s family was not among them at first. Díaz had held power for two decades with support from armed henchmen called rurales, spies listening for whispers of dissent, and powerful business and political interests in Mexico and the United States. The man who had convened the gathering, Camilo Arriaga, an admirer of European critics of capitalism and state power such as Karl Marx and Mikhail Bakunin, asked himself, “Where is this man taking us?”Īt the time of the gathering in San Luis Potosí, Mexico was a tinderbox. Eventually, they stomped their feet and clapped loudly. But they hadn’t heard it expressed so brazenly. They may have agreed with the sentiment: Díaz had stolen from too many Mexicans their land, rights, and wages. The crowd of anti-Díaz liberals sat in disbelief. “The Díaz administration is a den of thieves!” he shouted-not once, not twice, but three times.

In 1901, Ricardo Flores Magón, a journalist and political dissident in his late twenties, stood on the stage at Teatro de la Paz, in San Luis Potosí, Mexico, and denounced President Porfirio Díaz.

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