Cardenas and the Stalin Prize

...They will not fight it out as organized groups, but public opinion will know at once which side the eventual candidate represents...

...It is composed of former collaborators of General Cardenas--none of them top-ranking figures--and is supported by the Communists and the pro-Communist Popular party of Vicente Lombardo Toledano, as well as intellectual fellow-travelers...

...The Russians were not rewarding him for his past services to the cause of "peace," but rather attempting to "mortgage" him and make it appear that any future political candidate whom he endorsed must necessarily be pro-Soviet...

...Cardenas still carries some weight in Mexican politics, particularly because he is popularly identified as the man who expropriated foreign oil holdings eighteen years ago...

...He has also taken part in such openly Communist events as the funeral of painter Diego Rivera's wife, where he stood next to the Communist painter Alfaro Siqueiros...

...and Aleman himself, a shrewd politician and a man of great personal attraction...

...The award climaxed a long series of acts by which Cardenas has lent his prestige to the worldwide Communist "peace offensive...

...Mexico has thus been subjected to a subtle form of Soviet intervention in her internal affairs, the purpose of which is to muddy her political waters and draw Cardenas and his followers even closer to the Communist camp than they had previously been...

...The two chief factions contending for the nomination will be the alemanistas and cardenistas...

...Mexico is to elect a President in 1958...

...Avila Camacho had acted as a sort of mediator between the two extreme wings of the movement stemming from the Mexican Revolution of 1910-17, the alemanistas and the cardenistas...

...The two groups' political principles can be summarized as follows: The alemanistas favor rapid industrialization, supported by foreign investments...

...While they have always been jealous of Mexico's independence in foreign policy (as, for example, in the case of Spain), they believe in cooperating with the democratic nations and have no illusions about Soviet aims...

...They also believe in strengthening the small farmers and curbing the development of ejidos or agricultural cooperatives, which they consider uneconomic...

...The alemanistas have some highly intelligent leaders with wide experience in public affairs, such as Ramon Beteta, Finance Minister under former President Miguel Aleman and now Ambassador to Italy...

...He signed both the Stockholm and Vienna manifestoes and sent messages to "peace" congresses in various cities...

...It was the latter who organized the famous machine-gun attempt on the life of Leon Trotsky, who had been granted refuge in Mexico by Cardenas...

...now the two, which differ in both aims and methods, confront each other without any intervening balancing force...

...In the all-important agricultural question, they believe in promoting the ejidos and giving less support to the small farmers...

...The cardenista group is much more diversified...

...Rogelio de la Selva, Aleman's secretary...

...The recent death of former President Manuel Avila Camacho has enhanced his position...

...Moscow's astuteness in giving the Stalin Prize to Cardenas thus becomes apparent...

...Next year, the dominant Party of Revolutionary Institutions, which is almost certain to win, will name its candidate...

...Cardenas and the Stalin Prize A move to bring his followers more firmly into the Soviet orbit By Victor Alba The year's end here was featured by a spectacular piece of news out of Moscow: the awarding of the Stalin Peace Prize to Lazaro Cardenas, former President of Mexico...

...The cardenistas show a marked distrust of American foreign policy (during the Guatemalan crisis of 1954, Cardenas pledged his support to the pro-Communist Arbenz Government), while blindly accepting all Moscow's promises at face value...