An incisive look at ten years that shook Mexico

Scan page 16

The Mexican Revolution, by Adolfo Gilly, Verso Editions, 1983, $11.50.

For most Americans, indeed for most people on the left, the names Pancho Villa and Emiliano Zapata con -jure up images of banditry. These images have been carefully fostered by the U.S. media in harmony with the official histories written by the apologists for the ruling class in Mexico.

The Mexican ruling class has a long memory and it can never forget and will never forgive Pancho Villa, the peasant general leading a peasant army, for destroying the Federalists' army at Zacatecas: Equally slighted are the accomplishments in the area of land reform by Zapata and the peasantry of the state of Morelos.

Adolfo Gilly, a revolutionary socialist and columnist for the Mexico City daily newspaper Uno Mas Uno, published this landmark history in 1971 while he was still serving a six-year sentence for allegedly smuggling weapons to Guatemalan revolutionaries. Going through 16 editions in Spanish under the title, "La Revolucion Interrumpida," the book finally appeared in English in 1983.

The early part of the book traces the capitalist development of Mexico in the latter part of the 19th century and the first 10 years of the 20th. It details the efforts of Even before the September quakes, Mexico's economy had begun to shatter. The country is in debt to foreign banks to the tune of $96 billion and must use more than half of its foreign-exchange revenue to pay the $12 billion a year in interest payments.

Despite three years of austerity-in which the real wages of Mexican workers tumbled 40 percent-the bankers have tried to draw the economic noose even tighter. On Sept. 19, the same day as the first earthquake, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) threatened to refuse more loans to Mexico unless the government took further steps to limit public expenditures and to lay off workers in the nationalized industries.

Ricardo Pascoe, one of six deputies in the national legislature from the Revolutionary Workers Party (PRT)-the Mexican section of the Fourth Inter -national-recently spoke about Mexico's economic crisis during a lecture tour of the United States.

"At this point we are in an absolute morass," Pascoe reported to a meeting in Los Angeles. "During the last 13 years, Mexico has paid $70 billion in interest on its debt, but the principal continues to grow. It's absolutely impossible to pay the debt."

Pascoe said that neighborhood organ -izations that arose to help victims of the earthquake have discussed the debt crisis in their meetings. "After a great deal of debate," he said, "agreement was reached in the movement that it was necessary to not only demand houses and water and health services, but to also demand that the Mexi -can government not pay the foreign debt."

Most left-wing parties in Mexico, how -ever, call for a limited "moratorium" of 16 SOCIALIST ACTION the rising industrial bourgeoisie to supplant the landed oligarchy and to channel the revolutionary impulses of the masses within the boundaries of a purely bourgeois revolution.

After dictator Porfirio Diaz was overthrown in 1910, the failure of the new leaders-first Madero and then Huerta-—to deal effectively with the issue of land reform led the peasants to rise throughout most of Mexico.

Unfortunately, the Mexican working class was very small and immature at this time and unable to offer leadership to the peasantry. The peasantry never for -mulated a national program and never developed a national perspective for ruling the country.

The revolutionary forces divided into two segments. One segment, the "conventionist wing" headed by Villa and Zapata, represented an anti-capitalist orientation favoring true land redistribution under what was known as the Ayala Plan.

The other segment was headed by Venustiano Carranza, a long-time senator during the rule of Diaz, who represented the interests of the bourgeoisie and the landed oligarchs. This segment also contained a petty-bourgeois conciliationist wing, represented by the future Bonaparte of the revolution: Alvaro Obregon.

Although the forces of the peasant revolution con -trolled most of Mexico in December 1914, their power-except for that of Zapata in Morelos—was commune against the full weight of the bourgeois state. Despite the loss of half its population, Morelos fought on until 1919. On April 10 of that year, Zapata, in whom the hopes of the Morelos peasantry rested, was murdered.

It is important to note the activities of the fledgling working class and its leadership at this time since it foreshadowed the course of the Mexican proletariat.

The majority of the working class responded to reforms promised by the Carranza-Obregon forces. The became a shameless profiteer—sided with the bourgeoisie against the peasantry forming what were known as "red battalions." When the working class attempted to assert its rights in 1917, it was mercilessly crushed by Carranza.

The final image of the revolution-dramatically depicted by Gilly-shows the Mexican Bonaparte, the one-armed Obregon, riding on horseback into Mexico City in December 1920. He is flanked by two riders. On one side of him is riding General Genovevo de la O, a trusted subordinate of Zapata. On the other side of him, is riding General Pablo Gonzalez, the butcher of the Morelos peasantry during the civil war there.

This book is an exciting narrative and a trenchant analysis of the most important events to happen in Mexico in the 20th century. Without knowing the Mexican Revolution, our understanding of current Mexican realities is severely circumscribed.

In the final analysis, it will be the collective revo -lutionary experience of the Mexican people combined with a program of socialist revolution that will lead to the establishment of the just society for which so many Mexicans died in the second 10 years of our century.