Lombardo Toledanomarxismo y populismo en México y América Latina antes de Laclau

Abstract

In past decades, the life and thought of Vicente Lombardo Toledano (1894-1968) were much more studied by historians than by philosophers and historians of political thought. In this sense, while his great historical importance as one of the main trade union leaders in México and Latin America, the relevant role he played during the presidential mandate of Lázaro Cárdenas (1934-40) and the campaigns that, from the late 1940s on, he undertook as the main leader of the leftist opposition tolerated during the PRI regime, have been studied in detail in different historical works, his extensive corpus of writings and political philosophy have not been studied systematically and from a genuinely philosophical perspective.On the other hand, privileging as tools for the study of populism academic monographs and articles, researchers neglected until now the dimension of populism as a discourse oriented to the masses and conceived as an instrument for their mobilization. Nevertheless, it is impossible to understand populism without approaching 'minor' genres such as opinion columns, manifests and political speeches, usually despised by the philosophical tradition. Most of Lombardo’s philosophical production, circumstantial texts aimed to have a direct influence on the 'people' and on individuals with different levels of education, corresponds precisely to these popular genres...