The writings of Luis Cardoza y Aragón, the Guatemalan writer, art critic and promoter, were in direct opposition to the aesthetic ideals of the frente único. He also takes up the ideas that French writer André Gide (1869–1951) disseminated on the defense of culture at various conferences in Paris, as well as surrealist ideals, which were being rejected at that time for their overt links to Trotskyism.Juan de la Cabada, a founding member and one of the leaders of the Liga de Escritores y Artistas (LEAR), responded to Cardoza in El Machete, a political publication that was directly linked to the PCM, Mexican Communist Party. El Machete would later become the platform for artists’ discussions, despite the existence of Frente a Frente (Front to Front), the Liga’s magazine. De la Cabada placed the entire responsibility for the inconsistencies of the LEAR’s exhibition onto the Sección de Artistas Plásticos [Visual Artists Section]. In his opinion, the problem could have been solved if the members of other sections had intervened. Although it is doubtful that members of the sections for literature, film or architecture, for example, would have had better judgment than the man in charge of the selection: the painter, Santos Balmori.