Diego Rivera’s Trotskyist Sojourn

In his 1939 biography, Bertram Wolfe portrays Diego Rivera as revolutionary painter. But in his 1963 revision, “Diego was a professional only in painting. In politics, he was an amateur and a passionate dilettante.” This paper is part of an exploration of Rivera as a self-described “revolutionary painter,” specifically considering his involvement with Trotskyism during the 1930s. After his expulsion from the Communist Party of Mexico (CPM) in 1929, Rivera began an ideological exile that ended with his return to the party in 1954, just before his death. During the 1930s, Rivera looked to the anti-Stalinist left and Trotsky in particular for ideas and allies. This paper considers three aspects of Rivera’s Trotskyist sojourn.

The first is his conflict with the CPM, starting with his intimate ties to the government at a time when the CPM took an ultra-left position towards collaboration with “bourgeois forces.” Ironically, as the CPM moved by 1934 toward “Popular Front” alliances with the reformist government and organizations, Rivera assumed the more radical, anti-Stalinist position of Trotsky (and sponsored Trotsky’s political refuge in Mexico from 1937), assuring the continued enmity of the CPM and the majority of politically engaged artists affiliated with it.

 A second aspect is Rivera’s relationship with and patronage of a few small, radical unions that challenged the “Popular Front” hegemony of the dominant CTM federation. These include the coalition of urban and rural unions incorporated in the Casa del Pueblo, and in particular the building trades union at the center of his 1936 conflict with Pani over modifications to his Hotel Reforma mural.

Finally, I consider the extent to which Rivera’s evolving association with Trotskyism shaped his art, with particular attention to a possible Trotskyist reading of the final, 1935 wall of his National Palace mural, Epopeya del pueblo mexicano.