Red Shirts

The Red Shirts (Spanish: Camisas Rojas) were a paramilitary organization, existing in the 1930s, founded by the virulently anti-Catholic, atheist and anticlerical Governor of Tabasco, Mexico, Tomás Garrido Canabal during his second term.^[1] As part of their attempt to destroy the Church, they systematically destroyed church buildings.^[2] The group, created to carry out the governor's orders, takes its name from its uniform of red shirts, blacks pants, and black and red military caps and it consisted of men aged 15 to 30.^[1]

Apart from religion, the Red Shirts also attacked other things they considered to be detrimental to progress, most notably alcohol. They have been described as fascist, with an ideology more akin to that of Hitler or Mussolini, ^[3][4][5] by some authors,^[6]. He also considered himself a Bolshevik^[7] and the anthem of the Red Shirts was the Internationale.^[8]

The Red Shirts have been described as "shock troops of indoctrination for the intense campaign against 'God and religion.'"^[9] The Red Shirts were also used to put down the Cristeros revolt, an uprising which rebelled against what they felt was the persecution of Catholics.^[10] In 1934 Garrido was named secretary of Agriculture by the new president Lázaro Cárdenas, hoping to contain the Red Shirts that way. However, Garrido took the Red Shirts with him to Mexico City at the National Autonomous University of Mexico to intervene in student politics.^[1]

On December 30, 1934, the Red Shirts opened fired on Catholics as they were leaving Mass at the Immaculate Conception Church in Coyoacán, killing five and wounding many others.^[11] Garrido sent the murderers a case of Champagne in jail and declared that they were under his protection.^[12] Garrido was fired and exiled shortly after. Not much later the Red Shirts were disbanded.

The Red Shirt regime in Tabasco is the setting for Graham Greene's 1940 novel The Power and the Glory.

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