Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco

Who was Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco?

Nicolás Rodríguez Carrasco was a Mexican general and fascist.

During the Mexican Revolution Rodríguez fought alongside Pancho Villa. He managed to become brigadier general but deserted in 1918. After the revolution he moved to the right and joined several racist, antisemitic and antisinist organizations. In 1929 he supported the presidential campaign of José Vasconcelos. Vasconcelos lost the election, claimed it had been rigged, and had to flee the country but Rodríguez decided to stay and instead befriended Vasconcelos' enemy Plutarco Elías Calles, former president and at that moment strongman of Mexico.

Under protection of Calles Rodríguez founded the green shirts, though they were disbanded by president Abelardo L. Rodríguez in 1932. A year later he founded another fascist organization, the Gold shirts, which would become more successful than his previous one. The gold shirts opposed the new president Lázaro Cárdenas and his reforms, and demanded the immediate expulsion of all Jews and Chinese. After Calles' deportation in 1936 Rodríguez lost his protector and in August of the same year he was arrested and deported. Rodríguez moved to Texas joined by many of his gold shirts, and sought cooperation with American fascists like the Silver shirts of William Dudley Pelley.