‘Por las buenas no se puede’: Ruben Jaramillo's Campaigns for Governor of Morelos, 1946 and 1952

Abstract

The jaramillistas are an example of the popular protests and struggles that have marked the Mexican post-revolutionary landscape. Named after their spokesperson and leader Rubén Jaramillo (1900–1962), this group of campesinos fought to secure the gains promised and only partially fulfilled by the Revolution.1 This article will discuss the jaramillistas, a movement in the state of Morelos during the 1940s and 1950s. A generation schooled in the revolutionary tradition, the campesinos of this small state reminded the government that Emiliano Zapata's (1879–1919) legacy was not easily forgotten. As an ardent cardenista, Jaramillo's initial demands and expectations did not extend beyond the 1917 Constitution and the jaramillistas struggled primarily through legal channels. But in 1940, when the Mexican state was actively moving away from the policies of the former President Lázaro Cardenas (1934—1940), the jaramillista demands appeared almost as radical as those made by their Zapatista predecessors.