Zapata and the Mexican Revolution 
by 

John Womack Jr.

 

Catalytic Converters

Emiliano Zapata is an important figure in the history of Mexico, not particularly for what he accomplished but rather for what he allowed others to cause to happen. John Womack is a widely praised historian of Latin America who does an outstanding job of describing the national circumstances that led to Zapata’s involvement in revolutionary activity. Womack also makes it clear that Zapata was largely unaware of the politics of his situation or the likely consequences of his actions. Zapata’s role was catalytic not formative; his participation generated consequences because of the intentions of others. Womack does a less good job, I think, considering this or what it meant and means for Mexico’s future.

The War of Mexican Independence at the beginning of the 19th century replaced the Spanish monarch as head of state but maintained, even strengthened, the feudal character of New Spain, which character had been under threat in the late eighteenth century by mercantilist directives from Spain. Although begun as a popular uprising sparked by racial inequality and officially sanctioned oppression, the War of Independence eventually produced a republic organised and maintained by essentially the same local network of elite loyalties that the country had started with. 

A nominal democracy, Mexican Republican politics from their origins were not a matter of parties, publicly competing candidates and issues, but of balancing factional interests in the selection of candidates behind the scenes. Deals were made in private and candidates selected on the basis of acceptable compromise. Possible competitors would then withdraw and the result of elections would be a certainty. From an exterior perspective, this appeared as stability.

This Mexican form of democracy was not a model for the world perhaps, but it worked to some degree, interrupted by the occasional coup when compromise could not be reached. This system, I am told, is very similar to the accommodation between feudalism and democracy that exists in the Channel Island of Jersey, which, while also a democracy, has all its most important executive, judicial and law enforcement officials appointed by the British Crown. Jersey is a place also proud of its political stability.

After the failure of the French Intervention in Mexico during the American Civil War, Porfirio Díaz led a coup d’etat that proved decisive for the country. For 35 years Diaz presided over a programme of strict political feudalism (to call it dictatorship would be to misrepresent it entirely I think) and overt economic capitalism, a feat perhaps used subsequently as a model in other Latin American countries. 

Diaz’s strategy was one of ‘scientific management,’ that is the promotion of the rationality of production efficiency regardless of the human costs of dislocation or poverty. The success of this programme was certainly a mark of political genius, evil genius perhaps, but nevertheless genius. Decades in advance of so-called Taylorism in the United States, Diaz created an expert staff of cientificos to advise him on the intricacies of microeconomic rationality. He took that advice and incorporated it into his political negotiations.

And the strategy worked as it was meant to, especially in the the sugar cane producing state of Morelos, the home of Zapata. By the first decade of the 20th century, Diaz, through political appointments, legislation, and (if necessary) pure thuggery, had facilitated the transformation of the local family-run haciendas into enormous corporate estates with the latest industrial milling equipment. He had also given these agrarian conglomerates access, through railroads, to international markets. In short, he had done what he set out to do, that is, to re-create Mexico, or at least this sector of it, as an example of industrial capitalism.

But Diaz still ran an essentially feudal state, which because of his success, required increasingly complex ‘deals’ among an increasing variety of interests. He essentially blew that feudal system apart in Morelos by appointing an inept and unilaterally chosen person as governor of the state. As a consequence, uncontrolled factionalism emerged that eventually compromised the entire system in Morelos, and undermined confidence nationally. 

Political instability led to repression which led to resentment which led to violence. Zapata organised and led an army of the dispossessed and disaffected that defeated the government forces of Diaz in fairly short order. Zapata was promptly betrayed by Diaz’s replacement, who in turn was ousted quickly by Zapata’s fellow revolutionary, General Huerta, who was in turn ousted from his position with the support of Zapata’s troops within a year. Clearly once a feudal order has been disrupted, the end result is hard to imagine (as the late Roman Empire, and the subsequent one called Holy, can attest). As was in the case 100 years earlier, a decade of revolution led directly back to the status quo ante.

Zapata is a heroic martyr in the political mythology of Mexico. But the practical outcome of Zapata’s efforts and the sacrifice of his life are really insignificant - an ambiguous and largely meaningless Article 27 about land reform in the Mexican Constitution, and some half-hearted land redistribution in the 1930’s. Not that the revolution of 1910 had no effect. Essentially the feudal system was reconstituted in the Partido de la Revolución Mexicana, now the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), which continued the same intra-party political deal-making among (new) conflicting interests as was traditional for the previous century. 

The PRI’s hegemony succeeded in maintaining stability from its formation in 1929 until its first loss in national elections in 2000. It lost to the candidate from the National Action Party (PAN), signalling the end of the intra-party deals and accommodations. ‘Real’ democracy had emerged. And with that the ability to maintain some kind of balance among competing interests evaporated. When the PAN President Felipe Calderón declared a national war on drugs in 2006, he disrupted the existing feudal equilibrium that had been established by the PRI. 

It appears in the light of subsequent nationwide violence that Calderón too may have been the catalyst for yet a new Mexican revolution. The feudal equilibrium again has been disrupted. But the feudal democratic tradition is the only one available. There is no difference in principle between the interests of the sugar cane producers of 1910 and the black tar heroin manufacturers of 2010, except for the profit margins (or for that matter between the founder of the Sinaloa drug cartel, ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, and the bandit Pancho Villa, whom Zapata fought both with and against). And as in previous national conflicts both sides have been forced into a stalemate. It is clear, as it always has been, that the solution is political not military. I wonder when the new Diaz or PRI will emerge and in what form to stop the violence - before Mexico becomes Peru?