Regionalizing Mexico's Long Cold War Violence and Anti-Communism in Puebla, 1930-1979

The aim of this article is to analyze the impact that the regional context had in the ways in which individuals experienced the discourses, practices, and conflicts that characterized Mexico's long Cold War. The article focuses on the regional history of Puebla, a state marked by the prevalence of anti-communist and conservative ideologies, and by a close relationship between the Catholic Church, the economic elite, and the dominant political groups. Based on secondary literature, and the analysis of archival materials and periodicals corresponding to the period between 1930 and 1979, the article seeks to go beyond an approach that subsumes the history of the Cold War in the country under the framework defined by uSSR and uS power relations, and underline instead the importance of the local level in the ideas and practices that defined this period.