At the turn of the 20th century, Mexico was ruled by an elderly dictator named Porfirio Diaz, who enriched himself and his compatriots via seeking foreign investment to modernize Mexico while giving not even a single shit about the country’s poor. Tiring of such crap, more left leaning members of the body politic formed the Mexican Liberal Party, which united a wide swath of left leaning groups under the common cause of demanding free elections. One of the earliest members of this party was Ricardo Magon, a radical anarchist who ran what today would be considered a far left newspaper through which he called for the violent overthrow of Diaz. Not being a fan of this particular periodical, Diaz declared it illegal in 1904, forcing Ricardo to flee to the United States. He soon after began publishing his paper again, smuggling it south into Mexico. However, feeling that the broader Mexican Liberal Party was too full of moderate pussies, he and a few other radical liberal exiles created their own more hardcore anarchist party, which they still called the Mexican Liberal Party, because why the fuck not.
In 1906, the new Mexican Liberal Party released a manifesto of demands; which sounded completely nuts at the time, but not so much today. The demands included an eight hour work day, free education for children, an end to child labor, a minimum wage, and compensation for people hurt while working. With the manifesto in hand, Ricardo moved to Los Angeles, where he made friends with the local branch of the American Socialist Party, which was a mish-mash of socialists, communists, and anarchists. Now at the time, a good part of the American Socialist Party was totally down with advocating for an all out labor revolt. However, not having much luck in the United States, they instead began giving Ricardo money to train revolutionaries in the U.S. with which to invade Mexico. Convinced that he had wide support south of the border, Ricardo launched his revolution in the fall of 1908. Things went to shit pretty much immediately. Except for a group in the southern part of Mexico, there was little internal revolt. As for those invading from the U.S., they found themselves stymied by American officials, and those who did manage to enter Mexico were largely killed or captured. Ricardo was arrested by police in Arizona, and imprisoned for violating the neutrality of the United States.
Ricardo remained in prison for a year and a half, during which time the dictator Diaz declared there would be open elections, before changing his mind at the last moment. This royally pissed off pretty much everyone in Mexico, and by the end of 1910 the country had collapsed completely into civil war. Not wanting to be left out of the action, Ricardo rushed back to Los Angeles to prepare for another invasion. However, his time in prison had left him with much less influence south of the border. Finding little support from his fellow revolutionaries, he instead turned to his old friends in the American Socialist Party, who in turn put him in touch with the local chapters of the International Workers of the World, better known as the Wobblies. The Wobblies were the first major intra-industrial union in the United States, made up of a wide collection of communists and socialists. Ricardo convinced the Wobblies to back an invasion of the Baja Peninsula, so he could turn it into an anarchist libertarian republic.
In January of 1911, a mix of Mexican migrant laborers, Wobbly dockworkers, and various American barflies who had been promised 160 free acres of land, totaling some 400 men, invaded Baja, a pretty much useless area of desert which contained a few thousand people at best. Crossing the border, they seized the town of Mexicali, the inhabitants of which mostly fled to the United States. From there they took a few other small towns over the next few months. The invasion force was largely led by Americans, Ricardo preferring to remain in Los Angeles where he published made up newspaper stories about his random batch of idiots with guns building libraries and all sorts of other nonsense. In May, Diaz was overthrown in Mexico City and a treaty was signed promising free elections. However, having completely lost touch with reality, Ricardo declared the treaty null and void and called for his so-called army to keep fighting. Hearing this, most of the Mexican portion deserted and went home, leaving Ricardo with an army made up of almost only Wobblies. Short on ammunition, the Wobblies were defeated in a small skirmish south of Tijuana and the revolt in Baja came to an end. Ricardo was soon after arrested again on the same charges as last time.
Mexico held its first free elections in 27 years in November of 1911. However, the new president proved to be little more popular than Diaz. With both conservative and radical left parties in open rebellion, he was assassinated in a military coup led by General Vicoriano Huerta after only 14 months in office. Huerta’s coup united the various political factions against him, though once he was ousted in 1914, they started attacking each other. The Mexican Civil War did not end until 1920. As for back in the U.S., the attempt to create an anarchist republic just south of California freaked the shit out of industrialists and land owners in the area, who of course responded with widespread rampant racism against the Hispanic population in the area. The Wobblies and the American Socialist Party would be largely quashed by the U.S. government during the Red Scare of 1919. As for Ricardo, he remained in prison until 1913, at which point he joined his brother on a small commune/ chicken farm in California. There, he continued to write anarchist articles calling for a broad based labor revolt and later anti-war articles during World War I. For these, he was arrested in 1918 for obstructing the war effort and sentenced to 20 years. He died in prison in 1922 at the age of 48.