When female prostitutes in the Veracruz working class neighborhood of La Huaca quit
paying rent to their landlords in February of 1922, they sparked a social protest that would soon
involve more than half the city’s population. Fed up with bad housing conditions, excessive
rents and constant harassment by rent collectors, residents of some of port’s poorest
neighborhoods along with local anarchists and members of the Mexican Communist Party
founded the Revolutionary Syndicate of Tenants (Sindicato Revolucionario de Inquilinos)
directed by local agitator Herón Proal. As the mobilization grew, protesters first called for
specific housing reforms but then added a number of other demands influenced by the
internationalist ideals of the time: the abolition of private property, the emancipation of workers
and the eventual elimination of the state.