Valentín Campa

Valentín Campa Salazar (14 February 1904 – 25 November 1999) was a Mexican railway union leader and presidential candidate. Along with Demetrio Vallejo, he was considered one of the leaders of the 1958 railway strikes. Campa was also the founder of the National Railroad Council, and the defunct underground newspaper The Railwayman.

Valentín Campa was born in Monterrey, Nuevo León, and joined the Mexican Communist Party (Spanish: Partido Comunista Mexicano, PCM) in 1927 at the age of 25; eventually becoming the youngest member of the parties Central Committee. Campa's views would eventually draw the ire of the party. In March 1949 he was expelled from the PCM in along with the party Secretary General, Hernán Laborde. The two, along with others in the party, were removed due to their views that the assassination of Leon Trotsky should wait. Campa believed the killing of Trotsky would make him a martyr, and only blacken the message of the party.

In 1976 Valentín Campa was chosen as the presidential candidate for the PCM. The PCM was not certified to run an electoral candidate, however it is rumored Campa garnered approximately one million votes. The vote count was never reported since the candidate ran officially unopposed, the government also refused to release the number of votes each person received. Campa's campaign was supported by the Socialist League and Movimiento de Organizacion Socialista. The campaign was called "The March for Democracy" by supporters and bore the slogan "Campa, Candidate of the Workers Struggle." Campa supported, and discussed in the 97 political meetings he attended over the three-month race, priests' political rights, academic freedom, and democracy within the Mexican army. While the campaign, due to its unofficial structure, ran without media access, it is calculated over 100,000 people attended the political meetings held by Campa, and over 10,000 people in support of Campa, attended the closing event at the Arena México in the nation's capital.

Valentín Campa was a member of the Executive Committee of the Union of Railroad Workers of the Mexican Republic (Spanish: Sindicato de Trabajadores Ferrocarrileros de la Republica Mexicana, STFRM) from 1943 – 1947. In 1944 a split began to develop within the party and the president was asked to step and assist in a compromise. Luis Gómez Zepeda was chosen as secretary general and Campa was elected to serve as Secretary of Education, Organization and Propaganda.

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