Casa del Obrero Mundial
The Casa del Obrero Mundial () or COM was a libertarian socialist and anarcho-syndicalist worker's organization located in the popular Tepito Barrio of Mexico City, founded on September 22, 1912. One of its founders was Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, one of the founders of the Liberal Party of Mexico (PLM) and later a secretary in Emiliano Zapata's army. COM served as a cultural institution promoting worker's education and social transformation through a rationalist, socialist orientation, and as the headquarters for a number of syndicates and unions on a mutual aid basis. Formation and the revolution The Casa del Obrero Mundial was founded in the capital in July 1912, during the presidency of Francisco I. Madero; its founders included Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama, Manuel Sarabia, and Lázaro Gutiérrez. The Casa del Obrero Mundial was at the center of the Mexican labor movement in the early 20th century, and was nourished in part by Spanish anarchosyndicalist exiles of the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo. At the time, the Mexican labor movement was relatively advanced, and though it was not a predominantly industrial economy its non-peasant workers were fairly conscious of popular struggle and their weight in society. It was founded in