Salvador Abascal Infante

Salvador Abascal Infante (18 May 1910 – 30 March 2000) was a Mexican politician and leading exponent of Mexican synarchism. For a time, he was the leader of the National Synarchist Union (UNS). Abascal represented the orthodox Catholic tendency within the movement.

Background Born in Morelia into a landowning family, Abascal was the fourth of eleven children. Partly educated at a seminary, Abascal was sympathetic to the Cristeros from an early age. Indeed, his father was a member of the Popular Union, the Cristero party. As a result of these sympathies Abascal passed through a variety of Roman Catholic counterrevolutionary organisations during the 1930s. He was dismissed as a judge in 1933 after falling foul of local bosses when he made judgements in favour of claimants to land.

Accused of Nazism by opponents, Abascal officially denounced the system, although he was noted for his anti-Semitism. He also resisted attempts by Manuel Gómez Morín to fuse the UNS with the National Action Party in 1939 as a result of these convictions.

Commune An unpopular figure with moderates, he was replaced as leader by Manuel Torres Bueno in 1941 and left to set up a sinarquista commune in Baja California. It has been claimed that Abascal, who stated that he was inspired by God and Thomas Aquinas in his actions, was driven by Millenarianism in leading his followers into what was a hostile desert climate.

Personal life At 31, Abascal met 16-year-old Maria Guadalupe Carranza Pulido while in Los Angeles in 1940. They developed a courtship that lasted two years. They married on 17 March 1942, on the Sinarquist commune María Auxiliadora.

Abascal had 12 children in total. Their first born son, born on the sinarquist commune on 11 March 1943, was Juan Bosco Abascal Carranza. Juan Bosco would go on to be a professor of psychology, published author and a YouTube personality. Their second born, the late Carlos Abascal, was the Secretary of the Interior in the government of Vicente Fox whilst another son, Salvador Abascal Carranza also followed a career in politics, serving as a federal deputy from 1991 to 1994, both for the National Action Party.