Revolutionary Mexicanist Action
The Revolutionary Mexicanist Action (Spanish: Acción Revolucionaria Mexicanista), better known as the Gold Shirts (Camisas Doradas), was a Mexican fascist, secular, anti-Semitic, anti-Chinese, anti-communist, ultra-nationalist paramilitary organization; it originated in March 10, 1934 in Mexico City and disbanded in 1936.
With ultra-nationalist, strikebreaking roots and Nazi German support, the organization sought to expel Chinese, Jews, and communists from Mexico.
[6] Members of the ARM wear bright golden ranch-style shirts, tied at the waist, with black pants and a palm hat.
The shield of Moctecuhzoma II, the most notable and powerful lord of Pre-Columbian America, from Tenochtitlan to Nicaragua, was the Chimalli with gold half-moons, all decorated with symbols of the god of war.
Organizations such as the Pro-Race Committee and the Anti-Chinese and Anti-Jewish Nationalist League were created in response to a large influx of immigrants to Mexico.
As Chinese-Mexicans, and Jews to a lesser extent, had come to constitute a considerable portion of the merchant class, many protests and boycotts against Chinese businesses were held.
[1][2][7] The Mexican government, both state and federal, actively enacted and enforced discriminatory laws targeting people of Chinese descent.
[1][5] Plutarco Elías Calles wished to "keep workers under control" in response to the support Vicente Lombardo Toledano had been garnering among laborers.
[1][2][5] As the result of labor strikes and the support Toledano had garnered, Calles wished to protect the business interests of industrialists from strikers.
The organization declared its fundamental objective was the moral and aggrandizement of Mexico, stating that their struggle "was not an offensive against foreigners but rather a defense of national interests.
[2][8] Roque González Garza led the group for a few months from its foundation until Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco assumed the position of supreme leader.
On November 20, 1935, a violent clash between communists and the Gold Shirts during the Revolution Day parade at the Zócalo resulted in 3 deaths and more than 40 injuries of which included Rodríguez Carrasco.
On November 22, senators Ernesto Soto Reyes and Guillermo Flores Muñoz condemned the Gold Shirts for the incident and called for a commission to ban the group.
Rodríguez Carrasco approached wealthy Texan oilmen whose assets in Mexico were negatively affected by worker strikes and government policies for funds.
[1] Throughout this time, Rodríguez Carrasco drafted numerous manifestos against the Mexican government, Jews, communists, and President Cárdenas in The McAllen Monitor.
[1] By March 1937, Rodríguez Carrasco was receiving $2000 to $3000 a month in donations from American and Mexican nationals alike for the Revolutionary Mexicanist Action.
Carlos Walterio Steinman, a former colonel in the Mexican Army residing in New York, told Rodríguez Carrasco he had raised over 4 million dollars to help in a "change of government" in a letter dated July 3, 1935.
[1] The Gold Shirts received funds to purchase armament from former governor of San Luis Potosí and very close friend of Rodríguez, Saturnino Cedillo.
In August 1940, Rodríguez Carrasco requested a pardon from President Cárdenas to be allowed to return to Mexico stating he wished to pass in his mother's house citing his illness.
Joaquín Rodríguez Carrasco's faction retained the organization's original objectives as the more radical and militant members comprised this group.
[2] López Salazar's faction was noted to have developed anti-fascist sentiments, less xenophobia and anti-Semitism, while remaining implacably opposed to communism and labor-strikes.
This faction also was noted to have been much more amendable with the government with López Salazar consistently publicly disavowing the group's past violent actions.
López Salazar and other members of his faction routinely met with government officials to discuss the paramilitary's role in "maintaining national interests".
In the confrontation Luis Morales Jiménez, a student of the IPN, and Lucio Arciniega, a shoemaker artisan, members of the Communist Youth, died.
The organization had a female Section called Mexican Nationalist Women's Action in charge of Leonor Gutiérrez, the first wife of General Carrasco.
[8][3] They were fiercely antisemitic and Sinophobic: they demanded the removal of citizenship from and immediate deportation of Jews and Chinese from Mexico, with all their businesses turned over to "Mexicans.
"[8][3] Although the dorados copied their style from the Blackshirts and Sturmabteilung, the anti-communism and authoritarianism of the former and the anti-Semitism of the latter, they nonetheless lacked the fascist mission, being essentially, according to Fascism expert Stanley Payne, counterrevolutionary and reactionary, and as such were more easily employed by the existing state.
[19] John W. Sherman, an expert in Mexican right-wing organizations, describes them as "fascist" and "fascist-inspired," for their nationalistic, racist, and pro-business beliefs and activities.
Nicolás Rodríguez, founder of the ARM, said about Adolf Hitler:“Hitler, an insignificant ex-soldier of the world war, but a man of clear vision and an unsuspected love for his homeland; he took in at a glance the great problem of the Jewish danger, matured his plans, and when he found himself master of Germany, he bravely faced the situation and expelled without mercy, in a brilliant and audacious act, all the Jews residing in the Reich.”[21]The Gold Shirts often violently clashed with supporters of the Mexican Communist Party and the Red Shirts, including a famous attack on a communist protest in 1935 in Mexico City.
[3] The most relevant conflict in which they were involved was the Battle of Zócalo in 1935 ARM members were often hired to intimidate workers or to prevent agrarian reform on haciendas.
