By JOANA COUTINHO & MAURÍCIO BRUGNARO JÚNIOR*
Entry from the “Dictionary of Marxism in America”
Life and political praxis
Elena Torres Cuéllar (1893-1970) was born at the end of the 1907th century, into a family of poor workers in the Mexican interior, having difficulty completing her first studies. In 14, at the age of XNUMX, she began her working life as a cashier in a store called American Negotiation. During this time, she started attending a night course, organized by teachers at the Guanajuato State School, aimed at low-income student workers, and also attended private accounting and mechanography classes.
At the age of 16, she published her first writings, denouncing the dictatorship of Porfirio Díaz (1830-1915) – already in its fourth term – and demonstrating her nonconformity with the subordinate condition to which Mexican women were subjected, both in the social and professional spheres. At first, Elena Torres Cuéllar signed some of her articles with the pseudonyms “Una Guanajuatense”, “Violeta” and “Julieta”. At this time, several women contributed to the revolutionary struggle, opposing the dictatorship and demonstrating publicly, among which, in addition to Elena Torres, Dolores Jiménez (1850-1925) and Juana Belén Gutiérrez de Mendoza (1875-1942) stand out. ).
In 1915, in the middle of the revolutionary war, she was a teacher at the Educational Center da House of the World Worker, in Guanajuato. During the same period, he met and became close to constitutionalist general Salvador Alvarado (1880-1924), carrying out educational work in rural areas of several Mexican states. He also had brief experience as a stenographer at General Headquarters of the Northwest Army, under the command of General Álvaro Obregón, when José Siurob, governor of Guanajuato, appointed her as intervener of the Guadalupano School, of nuns, within the revolutionary intervention measures applied in the state. His first measure consisted of promoting the importance of education and revolutionary ideals, requiring nuns to attend the Pedagogical Congress, in December this year.
In the months of January and December 1916, having become close to Hermila Galindo (1886-1954) – one of the most important feminists of the time –, Elena Torres Cuéllar traveled to Yucatán (Mérida), to represent her in two of the Feminist Congresses.
The following year, he moved to Yucatán, where he took a Drawing course at School of Fine Arts of Mérida, worked at the Escuela Experimental and developed political activities, joining the team of Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1874-1924), leader of the Socialist Workers Party of Yucatán (PSTY) – which later became known as Socialist Party of Yucatan (PSY).
Still in 1917, at a conference, Elena Torres Cuéllar met professor Cayetano Andrade, a specialist in pedagogical methods. From this meeting onwards, she would begin to study the methodology Montessorian – method created by the Italian doctor and educator, Maria Montessori. According to this pedagogue, education should prioritize self-education as an achievement for the child, thus guaranteeing greater autonomy and individual freedom in the learning process. Elena Torres Cuéllar then begins to apply the method Montessori to a small group of children and, in Mérida, presented her project for new educational practices to general and governor Salvador Alvarado, who invited her to collaborate with his government, as they shared the same concern: education as the path to improvement the living conditions of the population.
During Alvarado's mandate (1915-1918) around a thousand rural schools were created. Elena Torres Cuéllar was at the forefront of this project, having directed the first school Montessori. Such institutions, aimed at training the children of poor workers, in addition to being educational establishments, had the function of being a home for children, teaching them to take care of themselves, to develop their games and intellect without forcing them to follow traditional practices.
In 1919, affected by the consequences of the civil war, the government of Venustiano Carranza (1917-1920) took anti-popular measures, facing several strikes. One, however, would gain prominence, that of May 12th – having attracted workers and public opinion. This strike contributed to the formation of an organizing center among the capital's educators, opening more political space for feminism and gaining support from the press (through Juana Gutiérrez de Mendoza and Evelyn Trent Roy). Elena Torres was then sent to the Mexican capital, by PSY, to try to unite radical feminism from Yucatán with groups from the Federal District.
In August, driven by Elena Torres Cuéllar, together with Trent Roy and Gutiérrez, the organization of the National Council of Women. Elena Torres Cuéllar took over as first secretary. This Council proposed to unify the different local and regional groups that began to emerge in different states, in addition to working to establish contact with feminist organizations in other countries – adopting a program organized into three axes: first, economic emancipation with equal pay, minimum wage, sanitary adequacy in companies and working conditions for women; second, social emancipation, with the formation of free associations between workers and intellectuals, and equal participation between men and women; and third, political emancipation, with equal political rights for men and women.
That same year, the National Socialist Congress, which was intended to form a party that could be recognized as the Mexican section of the newly founded Communist International (IC). At the event, Evelyn Trent Roy, the only woman who had participated as a delegate at the socialist congress, was the one who explained to her fellow members of the National Council of Women the ideas of the communist movement – which were beginning to spread throughout the world. However, with the expulsion of Juana Gutiérrez (for publishing the periodical Alba as if it were an organ of the Medical Counsel), the other members organized themselves to form, still in 1919, the so-called Mexican Feminist Council, of which Elena Torres became the general secretary.
This new entity, considered the first feminist political organization in Mexico, contributed to developing the projects and organizational forms that the women's movement would follow at the time, joining the Partido Comunista de Mexico (PCM) as its feminist front. Along with the PCM, the new Medical Counsel would found the Leon Tolstoy school (in Ixtacalco) and sponsor publications of books by women, creating libraries for its members (mostly educators and workers). With the end of the periodical Alba – which only had one copy –, the official magazine of the Feminist Council, called La Mujer.
As a feminist leader, Elena Torres Cuéllar would contribute to periodicals from several countries, whose themes were quite broad, such as “El Desmonte" (1919), “La Antorcha” (1924-1925), “American Repertory of Costa Rica” (1927) and “El Maestro Rural” (1932), in addition to education magazines from Peru and Ecuador.
At the end of 1920, she worked in the Federal District with José Domingo Ramírez Garrido (1888-1958), as a secretary in the Secret Service; Ramírez was willing to radicalize and modernize this institution, for which he employed women who would collaborate in organizing and improving the situation of female workers. In the same year, Álvaro Obregón (1880-1928) was appointed Mexican president (1920-1924) – by Mexican Labor Party (PLM).
During his government there was attention to the educational field, having promoted, in 1921, the foundation of the Secretary of Public Education (SEP). In this context, Elena was one of the closest collaborators of the then rector of National University of Mexico, José Vasconcelos (1882-1959), who promoted the creation of this Secretariat, which aimed to educate the people through the democratization of education, consolidating national links around Mexican culture. Still in 1921, she founded and directed for two years the SEP's first National Morning Meal Program, which, by the time she left, was already offering more than ten thousand meals a day in schools in poor neighborhoods in Mexico City.
In 1924, Elena Torres Cuéllar received a scholarship from the Teachers College da Columbia University (New York), where he would specialize in Rural Education. During his stay in the USA, he participated in the Panamerican Conference of Women (1925), in Washington.
She returned to Mexico in 1926, and in the same year was appointed professor at the Letters faculty da Superior Normal School – a position that he would lose the following year, due to his proximity to Vasconcelos and criticism of then president Plutarco Elías Calles (1925-1928). He then returned to the US, where he taught Spanish at International School of Missouri.
Among the many activities she carried out during these times, in 1926, she became an inspector commissioned to organize the Cultural Missions of the Superior Normal School da Faculty of Philosophy and Letters da National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).
In 1929, he positioned himself in favor of José Vasconcelos, candidate for president for the National Anti-reelectionist Party (PNA), in opposition to Pascual Ortiz, representative of National Revolutionary Party (PNR) and considered loyal to Calles. The PNA led to the formation of a women's front, in which students, peasant women and urban workers participated. As a form of support for the PNA, Elena Torres and other feminists sent correspondence to the American ambassador Dwight Whitney Morrow, in which they stated their point of view: “our enemies are men who dream of being rich, like the millionaires in your country, who they take advantage of public power to enrich themselves.”
In 1932, appointed by the Secretary of Public Education (SEP), she returned to the rural normal schools project. The following year, she participated in an innovative program, teaching home economics classes on the radio – an activity that aimed to expand the dissemination of educational programs throughout the country. Still in 1933, she returned to SEP, heading the educators at Cultural Travel Mission of SEP, being responsible for organizing the Cultural Missions da Escuela Normal Superior da Faculdad de Filosofía y Letras from UNAM – having carried out studies on food (nutrition).
In 1934, he participated in the Rural Education Technical Team, whose function was to develop a model study plan for teaching domestic economics. In the same year, he traveled to a conference in Chile, then went to Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Peru and later Venezuela – in an itinerary that included giving lectures on rural education and seeing the educational facilities in these countries.
Two years later, he became part of the Permanent Committee of the National Council for Primary and Rural Education in States and Territories.
In 1937 she was appointed director of Rural and Urban Primary Education Affairs Workshop, developing impactful research into the economic and social conditions of the inhabitants of more than three hundred Mexican towns.
From the beginning of the 1940s until the middle of the following decade, she was inspector of primary education (1942-1955). In 1941, she participated in the 1st Mexican Congress of Social Sciences, organized by Mexican Society of Geography and Statistics. She also served as an advisor, representing Mexico in the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), working in Paris and London between 1945 and 1947.
In 1956, he became a member of the commission that led to the Pro-Language Improvement Campaign da Technical Office of the General Directorate of Primary Education and Supervision of States and Territories.
Already septuagenarian, in 1963 she returned to the position of inspector from Zona Maestro Normalista Urbano (which it had occupied in 1942).
Elena Torres Cuéllar died in the Mexican capital, in October 1970, at the age of 77.
Contributions to Marxism
Revolutionary, feminist and educator, Elena Torres Cuéllar was one of the protagonists in the development of socialist ideas in Mexico in the first half of the 20th century. Having grown up in an environment marked by the revolutionary movement, she was aware from an early age of the reality of social inequality in her country. Its main issues of struggle were education, rights and the social, political and economic conditions of workers, with special dedication to the cause of women and peasants.
In the political sphere, his participation in the National Socialist Congress, in 1919, which formally created the Partido Comunista de Mexico (from the group initially called Socialist Party) and requested membership in the Communist International. Furthermore, her contribution to the process of establishing the Party's feminist program was fundamental – the only committee of which was appointed to its elaboration was a woman. The organization of the PCM was led by several political groups, and it was not a single process. At the Congress, called by the Mexican Socialist Party (PSM), representatives from various currents of the popular movement participated – such as Elena Torres Cuéllar, Luis N. Morones, Ciro Esquivel, José Allen and even some exiles such as Manabendra N. Roy, Frank Seaman and Mike Gold.
Passionately adopting socialist ideas, Elena Torres Cuéllar began to actively participate in the communist movement. Initially, she attended meetings of the Panaderos Union [S. dos Padeiros], in which, due to his convincing speeches, he won the sympathy of the workers. She was then director of The Soviet (1919), “socialist propaganda weekly”, published by Hermanos Rojos Group, a newspaper that was based on the structure of this union and that served as a communication organ for the PSM and, therefore, for the nascent PCM (later being called The Communist). As director of this periodical – which promoted theoretical debates and revolutionary propaganda –, she became the first woman in the world to command a central organ of a communist party.
Between 1919 and the early 1920s, Elena Torres Cuéllar was one of the main representatives of the Third International in America. As international secretary and treasurer of the Latin American Bureau of the Communist International, she promoted communist organizations on the continent, participating in the writing of historical documents, such as the “Manifesto of the Latin American Bureau of the III International to Latin American Workers” (December 1919) – being the only woman to sign it, along with the other four members of the Bureau’s management.
The campaign promoted by Álvaro Obregón against the government of Venustiano Carranza Garza (1859-1920) – one of the leaders of the Revolution, alongside Emiliano Zapata and Pancho Villa, who was president between 1917 and 1920 – led to the adhesion of several members of the Party Communist of Mexico. This was the case of Felipe Carrillo Puerto and Elena Torres Cuéllar, who were part of the collective that created the manifesto “El Plan de Agua Prieta” against Carranza – who would end up deposed.
In 1921, Obregón – who in December 1920 had assumed the presidency, after the brief interim government of Adolfo de la Huerta – created the Secretary of Public Education, appointing José Vasconcelos to lead it, as first secretary. Since then, alongside Vasconcelos, Elena would play an increasingly central role in political reforms for the development of the Mexican educational system, an activity that would lead her to move away from the PCM (a party that at various times would come into conflict with the Obregón government and his successors). Due to this break, she suffered strong criticism from her former Party comrades – being accused of having abandoned communist principles.
From the mid-1920s onwards, the role that Elena Torres had at the Mexican Public Education Secretariat stands out, as founder and first director of the Department of Cultural Missions, and participating, in the 1930s, in the organization of indigenous education (when he promoted popular “domestic economics” courses).
Elena Torres Cuéllar's contribution to the creation of Cultural Missions occurred in two moments: the first, between 1923 and 1924, when she prepared the work plan and directed the “experimental” stage of the project, then working as a missionary educator in the interior of the country, until September 1924, when she won a scholarship studies and left to dedicate himself to his specialization in Rural Education, in Columbia University (in New York); the second was at the beginning of 1926, when she returned from the United States and, appointed commissioned inspector, began to organize the Missions at a national level, now with the broader objective of cultural and professional improvement of teachers, in addition to promoting initiatives aimed at the social and economic progress of rural communities.
The main function of calls Missions it was to guide rural communities on ways to develop well-being and protect the health of their citizens, which took place, for example, through training to combat illnesses. In 1923, during the period of her initial participation, Elena Torres Cuéllar, together with a group of collaborators (supported by the Secretariat of Agriculture and Development), coordinated an experimental mission in San José Morelos, carrying out tasks such as establishing cooperatives and organizing a school for children and another for illiterate adults.
It is important to emphasize that rural education was not restricted to teaching how to read and write, but above all included learning techniques for manufacturing products (such as personal hygiene), which in addition to resulting in an improvement in the local economy, expanded culture and social awareness of the population. Among the rural teachers, specialists in tanning, soap making, perfumery, singing, drawing and agriculture participated.
In this first experience, 101 teachers from the region participated – offering courses on industrial production and agriculture. By the end of 1924, there were six Missions, with courses in Puebla, Iguala, Colima, Mazatlán, Culiacán, Hermosillo, Monterrey, Pachuca and San Luis Potosí, all staffed by a boss, an industry teacher, a music teacher, a physical education teacher, a home economics teacher and a doctor responsible for teaching hygiene. However, although Vasconcelos granted Elena a license to conduct the experimental mission in Morelos, he would soon change his mind – which Elena perceived as opposition from a “spoiled” leader to her work.
In the second stage of his work on the Missions, Elena Torres Cuéllar was appointed general director of the project in the Mexican Republic. At this time he was recognized as a “specialist in social work and rural education”. She would then play a fundamental role in the establishment of regional indigenous boarding schools and in the development of teaching domestic economics – together with Elena Landázuri and Catalina Sturges, also important figures in the fight for women's civil rights. The focus of these leaders was, especially, on the leading role that mothers play in the education of their children – as nuclear agents in the process of sociocultural transformation –, understanding that the cultural modification of domestic tasks was an important element in the historical process that Mexico was going through: of building its national identity.
The feminist idea that Elena embraced was centered on the idea that women had the right to give their opinion and that their thoughts should have value in any social space – even those previously reserved for men. It is worth noting that she herself was an example of this, having been, in 1917, the only woman to participate in the first meeting of the Socialist Party of Yucatan, as well as the only one to join, in 1919, the leadership of the communist Latin American Bureau.
With this aim, Elena Torres Cuéllar embraced the peasant, agrarian and feminist cause, focusing on the participation of rural women in work; to this end, she promoted the organization of domestic cooperatives, aiming to improve the social and economic conditions of this group. Her feminist stance started from the recognition of the reality of working women, dependent on marriage for their existence; and how society at the time placed her as a simple appendage of man.
In a world in which equality is inconclusive, Elena advocated for the emancipation of women: “men”, she says, should neither out of “selfishness” nor “convenience”, deny the “independence that women demand”.
Her feminism, however, is not disconnected from the class issue: “we ask you to vote for women” – she proclaims – “but for conscious women”. He insists that combating ignorance is necessary, because many of society's misfortunes emanate from it. He sees education and economic issues as essential factors for the emancipation of workers.
In short, Elena Torres' importance to Marxism lies in her pioneering socialist and feminist activism, as well as in her activities as an educator with government institutions focused on social reforms, through which she worked to defend the education and living conditions of workers. – dedicating himself especially to the cause of women and peasants. Educator and socialist, she was a protagonist in the construction of Mexico's national identity project.
Comment on the work
Although Elena Torres Cuéllar's contributions to rural education and women's struggle in Mexico were very important, there is little data about her life and legacy. Information about this can be found, in particular, in the Archive Elena Torres Cuéllar (AET), from the Historical Collections Area of the Ibeoamerican University (Mexico) – archive made up of his articles published between 1913 and 1948 in periodicals, books, conferences and correspondence, in addition to containing other documents and photographs.
From her initial writings, as a member of the PCM and the direction of the Latin American Bureau of the Communist International, Elena is one of the authors – alongside Antonio Ruiz, Martin Brewster, José Allen and the Peruvian Leopoldo Urmachea – of “General bases for the work of the Latin American Bureau of the Third International”. In this emblematic document, produced at the end of 1919, the communists called for a revolutionary task – “in accordance with the Third International” – to carry out “broad propaganda in all regions” of Mexico, taking advantage of an armed movement that was to occur, in order to “seize weapons” and “other elements of defense and attack”.
It is stated that as the regions communicated with each other, “general administrations” would be organized, responsible for the adequate distribution of “defense, production, distribution and exchange” materials, which should be organized “according to the needs of the community”, with some being responsible for cultivating the land and producing the “necessary goods for the life and defense of the community”, while others would be responsible for the “military defense of the territory dominated by the workers”.
It is interesting to note, in the document, the attention dedicated to the protection of “useful instruments” for the subsistence of the community, as well as the clear rigor with which any “crimes of theft”, “rape” or “unnecessary destruction” of equipment should be treated. community interest: to be “punished by death”. Furthermore, the text explains that the “best food” and “care” had to be destined for the “elderly, children and sick”, and schools must also be established – with “the best material and intellectual components” – for children and adults in all regions that were to be controlled.
During this period, still as the only female representative among the five members of the Bureau of Latin America, Elena participated in the elaboration of the “Manifesto of the Latin American Bureau of the III International to Latin American Workers"(The Soviet, n. 8, 16 Dec. 1919), which aimed to “strengthen relations between all organizations and groups whose principles are communist, similar to those of the so-called Third International”. Citing the Russian Revolution – as a “heroic vanguard” of the historical process that demonstrated that “the salvation of the proletariat lies in communism” –, the manifesto affirms the need for the labor movement to understand “the mission of the Third International” and adhere to it, moving away from “organizations that serve bourgeois governments dominated by capital”: “Awake, comrades, let us unite our efforts to redeem humanity, to found a new society in which everyone works and is happy.”
Among her work as an educator, from the 1930s onwards, stands out A book of technique through a six-week course (Mexico City: Editorial de Cultura, 1937), collective work that Elena Torres Cuéllar directed with teachers from rural areas of the State of Mexico, in which education and rural missions are discussed – a rare work, but available in the AET collection (box 5).
Another of his best-known texts, although still unpublished, is the manuscript, dated 1939, “Cultural missions and rural education” (AET, box 6), in which she describes her leading role in the beginnings of Cultural Missions – of which she was the creator and leader –, stating that, however, due to political difficulties, her participation was overshadowed.
In the context of her activities as a teacher of Home Economics courses, she wrote several articles, such as the following, included in the series “Domestic economy: policies for rural women and small towns”, which brings together speeches [“talks”] focused on popular education published in the magazine American repertoire (National University of Costa Rica): “Domestic Economics” (Feb. 1933); “Los Alimentos” (March 1933); “La nutrición” (mar. 1933); “The use of edibles” (Apr. 1933); “El hogar” (Apr. 1933); and “Las Telas” (June 1933), among others.
In 1934, he wrote “Teaching and public teaching”, text in which we have a small sample of his thoughts on the role assigned to women – treated in society as if they were “servants” of men; states that the “most difficult” part of his “inner discipline” is having the “necessary tranquility to read” without letting himself be discouraged by “the derogations” against women.
On issues of public education on the condition of women, still in American repertoire, published: “Biological foundations of the moral education of women” (1935).
In 1941, he wrote “The Personaje: biographical data, training and educational trajectory” (Ps: sn), a kind of autobiography. The text resumes the discussion about women and their participation in Convention of the League of Women, declaring that the issues that made her interested in the topic were the insecurity caused by poverty, the abandonment of children and the illegitimacy, dependence and violence of marital relationships.
Fragments: international nexus (C. México: Editorial Libros de México, 1964) is another autobiographical writing. In the book, she reveals the concrete material conditions that surrounded her childhood, her father's abandonment and the responsibility that fell on her to guarantee the family's survival; she claims that her “option” for celibacy was actually given by the life situation she was forced to face.
In addition to her aforementioned archive and the collection of other universities, most of Elena Torres Cuéllar's writings are scattered across various magazines, and have not yet been brought together in an edition that does justice to her theoretical work and political activism. Some of her texts can be found online, cited partially or in full in works by scholars of her thought or related topics, such as the book authored by Crespo, Jeifets and Reynoso entitled Formation of Mexican Communism (1919-1921) – published in 2022 (disp. https://inehrm.gob.mx).
*Joana A. Coutinho is a professor at the Department of Social Sciences at the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA). Author, among other books, of Theoretical problems of the integral State in Latin America (anti-capital fights).
*Maurício Brugnaro Júnior holds a degree in Social Sciences from Unicamp.
Originally published on the Praxis Nucleus-USP.
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