“It Began in Mexico”: The Beginning of M. N. Roy´s Affair with Communism

(Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas-UNAM1) In his memoirs published in 1964, Manabendra Nath Roy wrote that in the late 1910s “a mutation” occurred in his “political evolution: a sudden jump from die-hard nationalism to Communism”. A few lines later, he added: “It began in Mexico.”2Very little is known about M. N. Roy´s two-year stay in Mexico (summer 1917-December 1919) beyond what´s contained in his Memoirs, which suffer from the shortages and limitations common to autobiographical writing. Nonetheless, it is clear that Mexico played a special role in Roy´s dense and peripatetic life.