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Chapter 4 villismo and intellectual authority in martín luis guzmán’s El águila y la serpiente Martín Luis Guzmán’s Iconografía, a book of photographs published in 1987, reveals a certain attachment to Mexico’s presidents, perhaps like no other intellectual of his generation, or since.1 To be sure, his journalistic work and political career, his literary prestige, and the fact that he lived a long life may reasonably explain the inordinate number of photographs in which Guzmán appears with the country’s leaders. Nevertheless, it is difficult not to see in these images a man drawn almost instinctively to the higher echelons of power. Guzmán’s presence in the photographs suggests a tacit endorsement of the nation’s successive authoritarian regimes, even though a careful review of his biography indicates that the doors of the powerful were not always open to him. There were times, in the early stages of his life as a public intellectual, when his political loyalty raised suspicion and led on several occasions to a falling out with the nation’s strongmen and to self-exile in 1915, and forced exile in 1923. It was during these periods that he wrote some of his most memorable works, as if he had to regain (or compensate for) his loss of presence and influence in the political and cultural arenas through the power of the pen. El águila y la serpiente (The Eagle and the Serpent),2 an extensive testimony of Guzmán’s participation in the revolutionary war, was written during his second exile.3 The events leading to Guzmán’s expulsion from Mexico and eventually to the writing of El águila tell a cautionary tale, not untypical of the time, of an ambitious revolutionary intellectual abruptly ostracized from the nation’s top political circles. In 1919, Martín Luis Guzmán, a lawyer by profession and a writer and journalist by calling, returned from exile in New York to a country precariously pacified after the ravages of war. What prompted his return was an offer to head the editorial section of the daily El Heraldo de México. At the time, Guzmán was already a wellrespected and established writer. A collection of sociological essays on Mexican politics, culture, and history, La querella de México (The Quarrel in Mexico, in Obras completas, 1915), published during his years abroad, 78 writing villa’s revolution had earned him a name in intellectual circles. This was soon followed by a second collection of essays, A orillas del Hudson (By the Banks of the Hudson, 1920). On arrival in Mexico City, he immediately became a political insider, well connected in government circles and quite visible in the sphere of public opinion. In 1921, he was appointed personal secretary to Alberto J. Pani, minister of foreign affairs. A year later, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies (1922–1923) and founded the evening newspaper El Mundo, which he owned and directed. By all appearances, his return to Mexico was a political and financial success, and a promising future seemed to lie ahead of him. His good fortune, however, was to be short-lived. During the 1923 presidential campaign, Guzmán and his newspaper declined to support the candidacy of Gen. Plutarco Elías Calles, Pres. Álvaro Obregón’s handpicked successor, backing instead the opposing ticket of Gen. Adolfo de la Huerta. In the face of growing government repression against his campaign, de la Huerta issued a call to arms against Obregón. The precipitous turn of events placed Guzmán in the perilous position of having publicly endorsed a candidate who was now the leader of a seditious military movement against the legitimate government. His fall from grace was swift and dramatic. Warned that an order to have him killed was imminent, the writer had to relinquish control of his newspaper and hastily negotiate his departure from the country in December 1923.4 Like other intellectuals who had found a place in the Obregón regime (notably, José Vasconcelos), Guzmán fell victim to the volatile world of power struggles between the military caudillos. He would never make the same mistake—challenge the powers to be—again. After a short stay in the United States, the author worked his way to Europe, where he made a living writing for newspapers and magazines. Although he settled in Spain and apparently became a Spanish citizen, El águila...

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