I could not have picked a finer introduction to the subject that Stuart Easterling's "Short History", which despite its length is exemplary in its description of events and personalities and its location of the revolution within wider social forces.
The revolution arose out of the contradictions caused by the dictorial politics of Porfirio Diaz, which on the one had was leading to some economic development, but on the other was constraining almost every class of society through corruption and violence. Easterling quotes one future revolutionary who said that "I began to feel the need for change... when I was 19... back in my town.. I saw the police commissioner get druunk, almost every day in the town pool hall, in the company of his secretary, with the local judge who was also the ...tax collector, with the head of the post office; and with some merchant or army officer, persons all of whom constituted the influential class of that small world."
The Diaz regieme was unable to change in the face of such "deep and widespread dissatisfaction", but the discontent was first expressed through the abortive attempt by Francisco Madero to introduce democratic and economic reforms through a Presidential bid. While unleashed social movements from below in a revolutionary wave that brought down the old regime and began to introduce very radical reforms. This story has no doubt been told before, but it is Easterling's analysis that I found so helpful in understanding the revolutionary dynamics. He writes:
A key point to understand concerning the Mexican Revolution is that it did not consist of a single movement. It was not led by a single political party, nor did it mobilise only one social class. Indeed, of the major camps within the Reovlution, only that of Zapara and his allies, based in the campesinos of the 'free' villages, was highly homogeneous in class terms. The Revolution is thus best understood by looking at the various social forces it unleashed - from campesinos to middle-class reformers to industrial workers to disgruntled landlords - and the goals and aspirations they developed. The different revolutionary camps and leaders did not simply float unattached above these various sort of people... it was from this source... that the Revolution's camps formed political programs and leaders formed worldviews.
Thus the Revolution was not a working class revolution rather it was a revolutionary movement whose base reflected the uneven development of Mexican capitalism, and its poor rural base. This is where the revolutionary bandits beloved by this reader found their base. Easterlin recounts how one of the most famous Pancho Villa made the transition from bandit to revolutionary precisely because of his connections to the rural poor. His revolutionary actions thus became those of a Robin Hood type figure:
[Villa's] first act was to attack one of Luis Terrazas' largest estates and summarily execute the administrator. The latter was a man despised by the local peones for numerous abuses, including reserving the privilege of sleeping with bridges on their wedding night.
Other acts of revolutionary violence including forcing a priest to acknowldge a child he had fathered. But Villa's military forces were his real contribution to the struggle, and army that "effectively nationalised wide swaths of territory previously owned by the state's hacendados as well as a number of factories owned by Huerta supporters... In cities and towns under Villista control the Northern Division distributed generous food rations to the urban poor, the unemployed, wiows and orphas. The price of beef was radically reduced".
But it was the tensions between the different revolutionary camps that would prove the revolutions undoing. By Summer 1915 the government had fallen and the radical Carranza was in charge. He was to turn on his previous allies having used his base in urban areas to defeat the government. But Carranza was too tied to the officer class in the army, who were unwilling to tolerate real social reforms. To appease them he turned on his former supporters in the trade union movements. "The destruction of the tyranny of capitalism... [should not be followed] by the tyranny of the workers". The most bizarre anti-capitalist justification for imposing the death penalty for striking and the smashing of the workers' movement. But Carranza himself would not survive these competing interests. He was ousted and then assassinated by the very forces he sought to appease.
The Mexican society that emerged from 1920 was one dominated by military officers, a state which "had acquired an exceptional degree of power relative to the rest of society." The "military caste" was interested in developing capitalism, and this did require a degree of social reform. This meant the state had to make "concessions to the campesino and worker when necessary" to "ensure peace and stability" for the development ocapitalism. Class struggle was to end, and instead a new "perspective was often proclaimed with radical language, and the new leaders often identified this state-supervised capitalism as a form of socialism. This was not seen as the civtory of labour over cpaital, or campesino over landlord, but rather a careful balance between the different sides". That this required the destruction of the most radical and revolutionary forces tells who was really in control.
Easterling's book is by no means a full account of the Mexican Revolution. But it is a brilliant introduction, particularly because its starting point is not just that of description of events, but rather an attempt to understand the often complex and interacting social forces that were emerging in the early 20th century. It really is a brilliant read and it is probably one of the best starting points I could find for a subject that continues to be an inspiration to radicals in South America today. Highly recommended.
Related Reviews
Vergara-Camus - Land and Freedom: The MST, the Zapatistas and Peasant Alternatives to Neoliberalism
Tuchman - The Zimmermann Telegram
Galeano - The Open Veins of Latin America
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