In Combat: Historical Materialism

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1 Changing Times and Ideas

1 Family
1The Village
2Children
3Vicente Lombardo Toledano
4The Wise Man
5The Family

2 Knowledge and Power
1Renewal
2The Break
3On the Campaign Trail
4From the Government Palace
5On the Road to the Chamber of Deputies
6The Trip
7The Polemical Dispute
8Ideological Passion

3 Exodus
1In the CROM
2Collapse
3The Labour Law
4The Road to the Left

Part 2 Crusades

4 A Journey into the World of the Future
1The Preparations
2The Trip
3Different Perspectives
4Back in Mexico
5The President and the Leader
6The Gide Case

5 The Foundations of the Nation
1The Preparations
2The First Pillar
3Into Action
4The Schism
5Disunity
6The President and the Leader

6 A Continental Feat
1In Santiago de Chile
2The Planning
3In the United States
4In Europe
5The Founding Congress
6To the Attack

Part 3 War: Threshold of a Better World?

7 Fight Fascism!
1The Defeat of the Spanish Republic
2Exile
3Face to Face with Leon Trotsky
4The Pact and Its Violation
5In Soviet Intelligence
6The Undesirable Anti-fascists

8 The Illusory Unity
1On the Campaign Trail
2The Victory
3The Farewell
4The Re-election
5The Elusive Unity

9 The Fragile Harmony
1The Latin American Panorama
2The Congress
3The Celebrated Trip
4The Catavi Massacre
5Coups and Blows
6From Montevideo to Caracas
7From Philadelphia to Cali
8The Elusive Harmony

Part 4 Animosities and Confrontations

10 For the Renewal of the Nation
1The Future
2On the Campaign Trail
3The Roundtable
4Elections in the CTM
5The Expulsion
6The Crisis of the Nation

11 For the Spilled Blood
1The Postwar Map
2In London
3In Paris
4In the Other Europe
5Confrontations
6In People’s China

12 Emancipation
1Removing Obstacles
2On an Inspection Tour
3In Lima
4The Third Congress
5The Oil Workers
6Failed Emancipation

Part 5 On the Fronts of the Cold Peace

13 Rearmament
1The People’s Party
2UGOCM
3Back on the Campaign Trail
4Aftermath of Defeat
5The Succession
6The Cold Peace

14 Mission Completed
1Anti-communist Liberalism
2Liberal Internationalism
3In Decline
4The CTAL Dies in Bucharest
5The CTAL Completed Its Historic Mission

15 The Road to 1968
1PPS
2Against the Current
3On the Final Campaign Trail
4Schism in the Party
51968

Epilogue: Testament and Testimonies

Bibliography and Works Cited
Index
Illustrations

Daniela Spenser, Ph.D. (1994), University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is a professor at Centro de Investigaciones у Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social in Mexico City. Her research focuses on the history of communism and the Cold War in Mexico and Latin America.

"Spenser provides a highly readable portrait of Lombardo Toledano, deftly navigating the complexities of Mexican domestic politics and global ideological crosscurrents. She is remarkably balanced, giving us insights into her subject’s worldview while not hesitating to present him in a critical light. [...] In Combat offers a clear and coherent view of a figure who stood at the heart of Mexico’s twentieth century."
– Tony wood, Princeton University, in: HAHR (February, 2022), doi 10.1215/00182168-9497668

“… there is no doubt that Spenser has written a tome that will be cited for years to come. This work will prove useful not only to scholars interested in Lombardo Toledano himself but also to those who seek to learn more about postrevolutionary Mexico, Latin American labor movements, and even the transnational influence of the Soviet Union.”
– Nathan Ellstrand, Loyola University Chicago, in: Humanities and Social Sciences Online (May, 2021) [Full review]