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Title: Mexico is not only Chiapas Author: Katerina Date: December 1997 Language: en Topics: Chiapas, Mexico, Zapatistas, Common Sense Source: Retrieved on 2nd September 2021 from https://libcom.org/library/mexico-not-only-chiapas Notes: Published in Common Sense no. 22.
In January 1994, in the south eastern state of Chiapas in Mexico, news
of the Zapatistas armed revolt composed mainly of Indian peasants,
travelled all over the world bringing about an explosion of interest and
information on Mexico because the rebellion was automatically connected
with the Mexican revolution. In this text we undertake an analysis of
the class struggles in Mexico since the beginning of the century up till
now, which includes a critical presentation of the guerilla movement of
the Zapatistas. Among last year’s events, a presentation of the
“National Democratic Convention” was decided upon, not only because its
character transcends the boundaries of Chiapas but also because it is
indicative of the political direction of the class struggle. More than a
year later nothing has been concluded. Whereas the Zapatistas still
constitute a considerable force, the recent devaluation of the peso and
the attempted military repression of the movement, has created a deeper
crisis of class relations in Mexico.
The following analysis is from a viewpoint which goes beyond the
outdated anti-imperialist distinctions of a “First World” and a “Third
World”. The Capitalist International, the only class unfortunately that
has the clearest class consciousness, has seen to that. This class
wouldn’t have won until now if it hadn’t imposed itself on
“underdeveloped” and “developed” countries simultaneously. Because to
every privatization in West Europe there corresponds a new wave of
immigrants from East Europe; to every temp worker there’s a former
“priviliged” one and to every homeless person in North America there’s a
landless peasant in South America. It is against this class that the
Chiapas ejidatarios rebel, and their struggle has a universal dimension
which transcends south east Mexico. It’s in fact the same struggle that
takes place everywhere already, with different intensity and forms,
against immiseration and alienation. If we have managed to show this,
then we think we have contributed not only to the Chiapanecos’ fight,
but to our own.
DEMOCRATICA-CND), SAN CRISTOBAL, CHIAPAS — AGUASCALIENTES, LACANDONA
JUNGLE, 6–9 August 1994.
“Zapata vive, la lucha sigue!”
In June 1994 in their Second Declaration from the Lacandona Jungle, the
EZLN addressed an invitation to the National Democratic Convention for
the purpose of introducing propositions about a transitional government
and a new constitution. EZLN’s sub-commander Marcos intensified his
letter-writing mania inviting Mexican personalities within the left and
center-left spectrum. Due to the Zapatista’s appeal to “Civil Society”
the range of those who finally participated was quite big:
non-government organisations in general, leaders of peasant and Indian
organisations, members of “independent parties”, a few academics, union
delegates, feminists, a few businessmen, lesbians, homosexuals, members
of organisations in defense of the vote and naturally journalists or
fake journalists (like myself). The organising committee of the CND
consisted of Zapatistas delegates and various other organisations (the
“Caravan of the Caravans”, the “Chiapanecos Assembly for Democracy” etc
with a dominant view in favour of the elections).
On Saturday 6^(th) of August in San Cristobal Mesas-workshops were
formed to discuss the “peaceful transition to democracy, the elections,
the formation of a National Project and the defense of the vote”. In
spite of the great majority of supporters of the oppositional PRD (Party
of the Democratic Revolution) and the prevalent tendency in favour of
the elections there was a general distrust of the parties and a minority
(1) against the elections and in favour of the formation of a National
People’s Assembly --a Transitional Government-- consisting of peasants,
workers and Indians.
Among the demands of the Mesas (to which the majority agreed) the
following ones were included: SalinasÆ resignation, expulsion of
members of the PRI (Patry of Institutional Revolution, the government
party) from administrative posts, mobilisation against a possible
electoral fraud, political trial of Salinas, electoral reform for the
representation of the Indians and all the ethnic groups, recognition of
the EZLN as a belligerent force, breaking up the system of National
Security, non-assumption of office of any candidates in case of high
abstention, expulsion of the army from the states of Chiapas, Guerrero
amd Michoacan and satisfaction of the 11 demands of the EZLN. All were
almost devoutly accepted by the Mesas. The same atmosphere of confusion,
recrimination, vexation and euphoria that prevailed on Saturday evening
in San Cristobal with thousands of people bustling in and out of the
Mesas and discussing in circles in the streets while songs were heard
(and tourists were complaining about the sudden lack of rooms) would
prevail even more intensely in the jungle.
6 or 7 thousand people — in hundreds of buses — in the drive towards
Aguascalientes (2) passed through Mexican army outposts and then through
regions controlled by the Zapatistas. Swarms of clapping and cheering
Indians could be seen everywhere along the road, many of those holding
posters of Zapata and placards with slogans in favour of fair elections.
During the descent to the jungle enthusiasm gave way to exhaustion (the
last ones to arrive in Aguascalientes had journeyed for about 24 hours)
and then the excitement on first contacting the Zapatistas at their
outpost. At last in Aguascalientes Fitzcarraldo’s Ship came into view:
for 28 days, 600 Zapatistas had constructed this gigantic amphitheatre,
made of tree trunks and covered by a huge tent, surrounded by hundreds
of smaller tents. Above the stage two Mexican flags were hanging, behind
it the honoured guests were seated and the place was full of posters
with subjects from the Mexican Revolution. There was a colourful and
diverse crowd from elderly, veteran co-fighters of Emiliano Zapata’s
original army, to young punks, to contemporary armed Zapatistas
scattered all over, to reporters armed with cameras; all in an
atmosphere of confusion, exuberance, turmoil and comings and goings
beneath the hot tropical sun. Angry protests were caused when a mural
appeared on the stage depicting Marcos and Zapata on horseback shaking
hands and beneath them Cardenas with the bishop of Chiapas Samuel Ruiz
(3). Protests from many sides led to the withdrawal of the painting.
Around evening Marcos’ appearence on stage set off an outburst of
chanting: “Marcos, our friend, the people are with you!”, “Transitional
Government and a new constitution”, “Long live Ramona and Ana Maria”
(women Zapatistas), “Long live Self-government by the Indians”, “Let the
National Convention be an electoral force” but by way of a reply: “All
against the electoral farce”. Songs about Zapata could be heard as well
as the guevarist anthem of the 70Æs “Dressed in olive green,
politically alive, comrade, you haven’t died, we’ll take revenge for
your death”. Marcos announced the presiding committee of the CND and
called upon commander Tacho to speak, who declared that the EZLN give
Aguascalientes over to the CND. He also presented the people’s
committees of the EZLN, the civil guards, Indian women, men and children
with scarves on their faces and staves in their hands -one of the most
touching moments of the Convention. Afterwards, Marcos presented the
EZLN army, whose gun-barrels had white bands around them, indicating
that “these guns are not to confront the “Civil Society”, but
paradoxically, they wish to become useless”. Marcos’ speech, a mixture
of sentimentalism, patriotism, poetry and populism was received
reverentially and in dead silence by the audience. After exulting at the
large CND attendance, Marcos went on: “thanks to the EZLN having
mobilized parts of society which had until recently been sunk in apathy
and inability to get over their localisms”, he made clear that the EZLN,
“(do not expect from the CND) a civil arm... a civil pretext for
war...or for submission...nor the dubious honour of a historical
vanguard, of the numerous vanguards that made us suffer... We expect
from the CND the opportunity to search for and find those to whom we
will hand over the flag that we found deserted and forgotten in the
palaces of power... To struggle so that all Mexicans will recognize it
as their own, to become the national flag again, your flag,
companeros... We hope that there will be enough maturity at this CND, so
that this place will not be converted into a terrain for settling
internal accounts, something sterile and emasculated... We are moving
aside but we are not leaving. We hope that the horizon will open up so
that we will not be necessary anymore, we the dead since always, who
have to die again in order to live. We hope that this CND will give us
an opportunity, the opportunity we were denied by those who govern this
country, to return to our subterranean life with dignity after we have
fulfilled our duty. The opportunity to return to silence, to the night
out of which we came, to the death we lived in, the opportunity to
disappear in the same way we appeared, one morning, without a face,
without future. To return to the depths of history, of the dream, of the
mountains...”
Amidst a deluge of applause, Marcos left the stage giving the Mexican
flag to Rosario Ibarra (president of the CND and the FNCR, National
Front Against Repression, a leftist organisation). These moments of
patriotic effusions were soon followed by a real storm; a tropical rain
storm that swept over everything. Despite the witticisms subverting the
original slogans: “Zapata lives, the struggle goes on” becoming, ‘Zapata
lives, the rain goes on” — and the few brave ones who half-naked were
sloshing about in the mud — it meant the sudden end of the first day of
the CND in the jungle. The next day after several participants gave
speeches that were no more than greetings and a minimal agreement on
mobilizations against a possible election fraud was finalized, there
followed MarcosÆ press conference. Confident like a pop star and
evasive like a politician, he answered various questions ironically. He
expressed again the EZLN’s wish for a dignified peace and to make
efforts to contact other guerilla armies in the country. To his question
if he would take off his mask, Marcos replied, “Yes, if you want it. You
tell me”. The cries of “NO!” confirmed that the Marcos symbol should
remain masked in order to preserve the legend and, in no way, becoming
an ordinary, recognizable mortal.
So, in this mish mash of people; in this “Civil Society” in a festive
and tense atmosphere somewhere between a rave-up and a political
meeting; in this National Convention that wasn’t really much of a
convention at all, there actually was confirmed a vague and abstract
will for “change”, “democracy” and “peace”. It was a symbolic gesture
just before the elections. A manifestation of patriotism and reformism,
contradictory expectations and general promises amidst the loud “Viva!”.
“You take Revolucion to the end, turn right and you are on Reforma”.
Mexican joke referring to the streets one takes to reach Downtown Mexico
City.
At the end of the previous century the Porfiriato, Diaz’s dictatorship,
combined an expanding capitalist growth with an oligarchic-dictatorial
state. Capital’s dominance through domestic and foreign monopolies, the
centralisation of economy and political power on a national scale caused
the gradual disintegration of the old traditional, feudal structures.
The new bureucrats and technocrats (the Positivists and Social
Darwinists) provided the ideology necessary for the concentration of
capital and the coordination of local big landowners with central
political power.
Agriculture, subsumed by capital was creating an increasing class of
rural proletarians consisting of landless peasants, unemployed or farm
workers alongside peons and immiserated Indian communeros. On the other
hand, small-scale land owners became increasingly disadvantaged with the
onset of large-scale units of production. The working class,
concentrated in the north because of the high degree of investment
there, consisted of independent artisans, the main body of the
industrial proletariat and a relatively better paid skilled section. The
artisans taking one blow after the another over a period of time
gradually united with the rest of the workers who, in their turn, took
to strike action or more violent revolts which were ruthlessly crushed.
The edifice of the Porfiriato started to shake due to a multiform
discontent reflecting different and conflicting interests which later
took the form of an armed revolt. The conflict within the bourgeoisie
between its (mainly northern) industrial-financial sector and the more
traditional, local big landowners, a conflict which represented the
antithesis of the bourgeois-democratic project to oligarchy and
authoritarianism; the discontent of the petite-bourgeoisie in the face
of the monopolies; the rage of the proletariat and the communeros and
the ambitions of the intellectuals who were suffocated within the
repressive regime were the basic reasons for the explosion which
followed.
Emanating from the modern industrial-financial bourgeoisie, Madero came
to power supported by Villa, his initial admirer, and Zapata. The
latter, an uncompromising fighter for agrarian reform, faced with
Madero’s “betrayal” (i.e. his loyal adherence to his class) called for
the continuation of the revolution, issuing in November 1911, his Ayala
Plan (4). Against General Huerta’s dictatorship (1913–14) a loosely
united front was formed consisting of three forces: Zapatistas in the
south, composed mainly of ejidatarios or landless peasants with a
communal social tradition, Villa’s army in the north composed chiefly of
petite-bourgeois and proletarians and the Constitutionalists who
represented the middle-classes, some landlords and even some
proletarians and peasants who believed in their socialist propaganda
(5). The Convention at Aguascalientes in 1914, where these three armies
met, proved the impossibility of their alliance.
Beside the legendary figures of a controversial Villa, and a fervent
Emiliano Zapata whose indomitable proletarian consciousness combined a
romantic nationalism with faith in a democratic government which would
make real the popular vision of revolutionary change and agrarian
reform, the internationalist, anarcho-communism of Ricardo Flores Magon
stands out. Starting as a liberal, Magon gradually formed his anarchist
ideas (which for tactical purposes he did not openly declare until 1910)
and tried to turn the political revolution into a social revolution.
Organizing strikes and revolts, influencing and agitating amongst
workers and peasants mainly in northern Mexico (and having taken over
the northern part of the state of Baja California) the Mexican Liberal
Party (the PLM) founded by Magon, not only ignited many land
expropriations and seizures of the means of production but also gave
such actions a clear communist perspective, as can be seen in the 1911
manifesto.
The outcome of the class war was determined by the alliance made between
the powerful workers’ union, the Casa del Obrero Mundial (espousing an
anarcho-syndicalist and corporate socialist ideology) and the
Constitutionalists in exchange for promises of financial support and the
satisfaction of some demands of the workers. Among the motives of the
workersÆ class alliance one cannot ignore their discontent with
Zapatistas’ religiosity and Villistas’ brutality, whose increasing
militarism had turned them into professional soldiers.
After the crushing of the Zapatistas, the Villistas and the PLM, the
1917 constitution crystallized the dominant nationalist,
anti-imperialist and socialist/populist ideology of the
post-revolutionary Mexican state (6). Some of its reformist articles
which provided for anti-clerical measures, agrarian reform and labour
rights had constituted part of the 1906 programme of the PLM. It was the
triumph of the liberal wing of the bourgeoisie over the peasants and
workers and, ever since, it would make use of the content of the
revolution in its own interests.
The enslavement of the working class by the state through limited
concessions inaugurated a long practice of populism combined with
repression and submission to the state. Alongside a defeated peasantry
and a crippled working class an expanding petite-bourgeoisie started
forming which benefited from state priviliges. During the Revolution
military men, bureaucrats, intellectuals and union leaders emerged, who
later staffed the new state mechanism. This new bourgeois-bureaucratic
state was legitimized with “Revolution” as its ideological banner
recuperating and distorting its content. “Revolution” as a myth became
the unifying ideology of the state domination in the 20^(th) century.
“We want a liberal, democratic and nationalist government...the
concesssions to labour are granted within the economic possibilities of
the capitalist sector”. Lazaro Cardenas
When the sound of the last revolutionary guns had died away, the Mexican
state faced the double need of its reinforcement and capitalist
development. The problem of controlling foreign capital (setting up the
Banco de Mexico was the first act of co-operation between Mexican and
foreign capital) and the class struggle that constantly intensified in
the face of state manipulation, together with the corruption of the
official labour leaders and the 1929 crisis, meant things couldnÆt wait
any longer. The still unfulfilled promises of the Mexican Revolution
threatened the legitimacy of the successive governments and the state in
general as a vehicle of its ideology.
With Lazaro Cardenas’ “socialistic” rhetoric and populist practises, in
1934 Mexico enters the period of state-regulated capitalism, a strategy
already in use in America and Europe. The necessity of reformism which
meant concessions to peasants and workers, nationalisations of selected
sectors, redefinition of the conditions of the imperialist intervention,
discipline of the recalcitrant unproductive landlords and “comprador”
bourgeoisie heightened the “popular” role of the state. At the same time
it satisfied the interests of the modern bourgeoisie.
The “politics of the masses” consolidated the corporate state that
absorbed “Civil Society”. The strengthened national political party (7)
has acted ever since as a powerful administrative committee organizing
and dividing society into separate constituencies that depend on it;
class struggle became “legalized” through the recognition of the labour
movement as an official, national one: the powerful until today CTM
(Confederation of Mexican Workers) was formed. CNC (National Peasant
Confederation) was also formed and the “popular sector” of the party
consisted of state employee unions, women’s and youth organisations.
The consolidation of the democratic-capitalist ideology of the “common
interest” became possible through the creation of a climate of “national
unity” thanks to Cardenas’ “anti-imperialist” politics. This climate
reached its height when the mainly American and English-controlled
oilfields were expropriated in 1938. The limited agrarian reform laid
the basis for state-regulated capitalist agriculture. Land
redistribution (through the expropriation of many unproductive
latifundias) and the granting of state credits aimed at aiding small
private farms so that the national market could be expanded. However,
the intention was the support of the largest and most productive
landholdings under state regulation. In 1940, at the end of Cardenas’
presidency, his “socialist” politics had produced the following results
regarding agricultural production: over 60% of the peasants were either
landless or owners of inadequate plots of lands or ejidatarios trying to
compete with big owners of fertile lands, capital and technology.
Ejidatarios were forced gradually to let their holdings to those big
landowners and work the land on their behalf. This led to the
flourishing of neolatifundismo precisely in those areas of agrarian
reform.
In general, during Cardenas’s period the basis of the modern state was
laid blunting class conflicts through the combined social-patriotic
politics of concessions and repression. Starting in this period, the
practise of populism and corporativism would form a historical
continuity on the state and ideological level that holds until now.
Cardenas’ reforms and the modernization of capitalist development soon
bore fruit. The twenty year period (1940–1960), just before the
tumultuous appearance of the first threatening radical movements, is the
one with the biggest and most rapid capital accumulation. The role of
the state becoming more and more authoritarian and technocratic is
crucial to this concentration of capital. Industrialization took a
different course from the still colonized economies of Latin America
(8).
With the “Green Revolution” there begins the modernization of
agricultural production, which increaces six-fold between 1940 and 1975.
The programmes of the “Green Revolution” (a capitalist rationalization)
financed by the World Bank (and initially by the Rockfeller Foundation)
expressed the state’s need both to control the fragile social relations
in the countryside and to organize a cheap food supply for the hordes of
the proletarians in the cities. This process took place not only in
Mexico but also in other countries where the agrarian question was vital
(India for example). Initially, regions in the north were selected where
“revolutionary” landlords possessed vast quantities of land (10). A
series of loans to pay for modern technological input (from irrigation
to chemical fertilizers) caused not only the intensification of
cultivation and the increase of productivity but also the replacement of
traditional crops with new ones for export. The onerous terms of credits
for the aquisition of the means of production led ejidatarios or
minifundistas (small-scale landholders) to immiseration or to
bankruptcy. Many got forced off their land, becoming part of the
“surplus population” known since the first enclosures in history and
always present when “agrarian reform” takes place, becoming suitable for
multiple purposes: as a reserve army, as an industrial proletariat, or,
as land labourers. Besides the forced land expropriations, which added
to the possessions of the landlords, another usual practice was the
periodical parcelization of ejidos. This functioned as an absorber of
social unrest since it maintained the idea of revolutionary land
disribution.
On the whole the state’s ability to present itself as a guardian of the
ideas of the Mexican Revolution explains the relative political
stability of the decades after the “pioneer” CardenasÆ presidency as
well as the recuperation of the social movements. The revolutionary
heritage of the peasants and the workers was taught through the state
educational system and the state invoked it as its own mother and that’s
why it assumed the role of its defender (10). When the proletarians did
not content themselves with state recognition of their contribution to
the making of a “powerful, independent” state and showed vigorously
their ingratitude they were turned automatically into “enemies of the
Revolution” and “anti-patriots”. However, the systematic propaganda of
the national-democratic advances gave results: many peasants, workers,
petite-bourgeois believed that the big trade unions CTM, CNC and the
“popular sector” really represented them.
Interchanging with the unitary ideology of national interest, class
harmony and populism other divisive ideologies dominate Mexican society:
Indianism (Indigenismo) and that patriarchical Mexican inclination
towards machismo. Saint, whore and cheap worker are the three basic
roles the Mexican woman is called upon to assume (whereas Mexican
capitalism promotes feminism, at the same time, sexism is reinforced -a
common practice everywhere).
Indianism, the official recognition of the Indian heritage, was one of
the contradictory achievements of the Revolution. It holds a central
place in Mexican nationalism (all too often the invocation of the Indian
heritage is overestimated as against the dominant mestizo composition of
the Mexican people or conflicts with the more conservative, pro-Spanish
religious tendencies). Behind the hypocritical ideological mask of the
“national heritage”, that runs through Mexican history, there lies the
state effort to destroy and assimilate the Indian culture within the
national commodity economy. Since 1948, INI (National Indian Institute)
serves as a channel for the legalization of Indians’ exploitation by
caciques (11), bosses, recruiters of migrant labourers, moneylenders,
merchants, landlords and their thugs. According to anthropologist
Marcela Lagarde “INI programmes are directed and planned by
anthropologists who proclaim themselves to be for the Indian, but whose
end is that he cease to be one” (see Cockroft, p. 147–148).