CHAPTER ELEVEN The Political Project of Zapatismo Arturo Warman Translated by Judith Brister Revolutions will come and revolutions will go and Fl keep on with mine (Attributed to Emiliano Zapata) Th recent yeas, as our knowledge of Mexican Peasant movements hhas advanced, analyses that stress their limitations, deters Perspective of their potential ta transform society, we study the Peasant {rom the perspective of his Iimitations. A bourgeois prow Rouncement in 2760 is vision of the future, while Zapatismo is ihe relic of the past, as aro the Indian rebellions of colonial times and the peasants’ demands today. The defeats of other social movements are explained by the brutal disproportion of thoir numbers in rela. tion to enemy forces, while those of the peasarts are due to thels intrinsic weakness. In a rather unclear yet persistent manner, the idea—now almost dogma—has developed that peasant groups, or more precisely, the Peasant class, cannot generate a global project forthe transformition of complex societies. The origins of this prejudice can be tocol with precision to uineteenth-contury evolutionary modols, although antecedents can be found, In those cases, the peasant was consift, ered the remnant of a previous evolutionary stage, with no historic destiny possible but that of extinction. Urbanization and industeah, {zation in Western nations was taken for grantee and projocted as universal and total. The assumption that the peasant—a survivor of the past-—was destined to disappear influenced and still influences22 Arturo Warman analyses of peasants and their behavior, Emiliano Zapata’s move- ment was called barbaric by huis urban and conservative contempo- raries, and his troops were described as “tribes and hordes.” Para~ doxically, they were also called “socialists and communists.” It seems absurd that today, using another language yet sometimes the samo, we persist in this approach. In this essay I altempt to demon- strate, in a preliminary and incomplete fashion, that Zapatismo gem- crated a radical class-based and coherent political plan for the global transformation of a complex society. Zapatismo as a Subject ‘The revolutionary movement of the south of Mexico headed by iano Zapata between 1910 and 1919 was remarkable in many ways. His radical intransigence on the issue of land distribution, which exerted so much influence on the later development of the country, is well known. It may be said that the ideological influence of Zapatismo surpassed its military capacity and extended more widely and profoundly than did its direct action. This fact serves as a point of departure for stressing the need to acquire a thorough un- derstanding of the origin, formation, and transformation of the éde- ology of Zapatismo. Iis today possible, and even somewhat unnecessary, to show that the political proposition of the revolution of the south, which was built around the agrarian issue, was not limited to that problem, but rather explicitly encompassed multiple aspects of economic, social, and political reality. Zapata made proposals regarding individual guarantees, municipal liberties, state ond national government, and labor relations, as well as agcarien reform. Togothor with explicit programs, the political action of Zapatismo implicitly proposed methods required for the implementation of changes. Zapatista ide- ology above all expressed itself as a revolutionary practice, giving its proclamations new political and analytic dimensions. ‘The ac- complishments of Zapstismo in the transformation of society ex- ceealed its statements. ‘The formal prograramatic proposals, together with the concrete political practices of Zapatismo, comprised a complex yet coherent [project for the radical transformation of the state and entire society, but it was noither systematized nor formalized in an ordered sot of legislative proposals. The formulation of a revolutionary plan for the transformation of society does not begin with such a document; sather, such a plan emerges from a complex and contradictory social ‘The Political Project of Zapatismo 23 process. Zepatismo did not triumph. Formal comparisons between, its plan end the formal proposals of the victors cannot be used to maintain that Zapatismo lacked program or that its program was simply defensive. While the Zapatista plan was not systematized, it is increasingly clear that its elements were prosent. To retrieve and to order thom Is not tho task of the combatants but of historians. Zapatismo was notable for the abundant documentation it pro- duced. This, in contrast to other peasant movements, is @ result of the magnitude, duration, and the complexity of the movement, It also has to do with the fact that Zapatismro wes the peasant move- ment that came closest to seizing power, end that it governed a ter- ritory for prolonged periods. The Army of the South created en ad- ministrative apparatus in its headquerters that recruited and used a small group of “urban intellectuals"—the secretaries, as John Wo- ‘mack calls them—who played an important role in publicizing and documenting the movement. Although maay of the documents were destroyed, dispersed, or lost after its miliiay defeat, those that re- main are suificiently rich and numerous to provide a good under- standing of the ideological development of the movement. In addi- tion to the documents, a series of participants’ testimonies, the result of later fiidwork, enrich and complement the original docu- rmonts and permit (albeit with limitations) the study of the ideology of the armed and civilian bases of the movement. On tho other hand, it is worth remembering that much ink has been spont attacking Zapatismo. Few movements were so fiercely ‘opposed in tho military as well as the ideological spheres, a situa- tion that also gonorated a wealth of documentation. The imcompre- hension, torror and indignation provoked by the uprising generated authoritative information for the understanding of the political achievements of the Zapatista proposals, As almost always occurs in the case of peasent movements, documentation drawn up by the movement's political and military opponents surpasses that pro- duced by the rebels in quantity and availability, and this resource has not really been exploited for the purpose of elucidating the class santagonisms generated by Zapatisma. More frequently, Zapatismo is compared, implicitly or explicitly, to the Bolshevik revolution in or- der to stress its limitations or deficiencies, but itis almost never cox trasted with the concrete pastalates ofits enemies. 11 is interesting to note that the documentation generated by Za- patismo is today more abundant, and more easily available, than ‘was twenty yours ago. Scatered archives have been brought together and made public, end sew documents are constantly being pub-224 Arturo Warman lished. The argument that the documentation for the study of Zapa- tismo is poor and restricted is today difficult to support. Zapatismo increasingly has become an object of historical research. The abun- dant historiography with respect to Zapatismo is obviously irregular and heterogeneous, but If forced to categorize, we could distinguish two great moments in its development. In a first period, the princi- pal objective of historians has been to locate Zapatisiu ite uational context in order to establish it as a founding and integral current of the triumphant “Mexican Revolution.” The second moment was in- augurated by the publication of Wemack’s exceptional book, which was preceded by the work of Sotelo Inclén. In the first, the external relations of the movement are stressed in an attempt to legitimize it, while in the second the purpose is to explain it. ‘Yet wo still lack clear idea of the ideological plan of Zapatismo, of its mode! for transforming society. Even Womack's work, which seems the most complete and penetrating in the sphere of ideology, does not completely fill the vacuum. Unfortunately, the ingenious statement in Womack’s preface, that Is "... a book about country people who did not want to move and therefore got into a revolu- tion,” has been frequently misunderstood and misused to demon- strate a conservative and retrograde aspect of Zapatismo, The Public Proposals ‘The pubic proposals of Zapatismo for social reform are contained in plans, manifestoes, laws, and decrees. Although we do not have a complete set of these documents at our disposal, those that have boen published can give us an idea of the evolution and scope of the propositions of Zapatismo, It should be pointed out that they were directed to tho Mexican notion, and were thus largely propaganda, but through them an attompt was made to explain positions taken, to attack prejudices, refute lies and calumnies. and to win or main- tain allies, Their function was not to establish the line of action, nor did they constitute simple declarations of intent that might not be carried out, Itke the agrarian proposals of the plan de San Luis Po- {ost of Francisco 1. Madero. They wore meant to justify completed actions and to propose them as models for the whole nation. They wore nat documents to govern the exarcise of politieal power, but rather propaganda for the broadening and deepening of processes that had been initieted in practice. The public documents were the consequence of revolutionary experience. This conslitutes a clear difference from other revolutionary pro- ‘The Political Project of Zapatismo 325 grams that were sometimes moro coherent in their formalization and even more radical, such as that of the Pastido Liberal, which never became a revolutionary movement, The documents can also be dis- tinguished from others that only mado promises or declared inten: tions in order to gain support for tho soizure of power, but which corresponded neither to the experience and objectives of the armed movements, nor to their social buses. tu Uke public documents of Zapatismo, and in spite of their exalted ard grandiloquent languege, there is almost no demagoguery but rather propaganda in the strict- est sense. ‘The plan de Ayala, the first Zapatista document, was promulgated in 3911, almost a year after the armed uprising and es « result of the {allure of the negotiations for the immediate implementation of the agrarian promises of the plan de San Luis. Verious authors and sur- vivors have said that Zapata justified the drawing up of the docu- ment @s an indignant response to the accusation that the rebels of the south lacked a banner or program, thet they were simply a band of cattle thieves. The document was discussed by Zapata's military leaders until consensus was reached, a practice that would be fol- lowed with other important documents. The clarity and intransi- gence of their demand had already been expressed as concrete polit- ical action before the formulation of the plan. Its purpose was largely, although not exclusively, propaganda, ‘The same time lapse between revolutionary action and its public expression is seen in the legislative proposals. The Zapatista Ley “Agraria was passed on October 28, 1915, almost six months after the successful distribution of land among 100 villages in the pueblo of Morelos, and almost four years after the first agrarian actions or- dered by the Army of the South. Again the contrast can be made with formally similar documents, such as the Ley Agraria of January 6, 1915, issued by General Venustiano Carranza. Its objective was to regulate future action, which in practice would be repressed and confined 10 a symbolic level and subordinated to the pregmatic: ex- ercise and consolidation of governmental power. Very few of the Zapatista laws could be applied after their pas: sage, although there were precedents in their implementation, since the peasant army had lost control over the territory and the institu tions of government, As Womack pointed out, the laws were propa- gandistic, directed toward extending Zapatista ideology and toward political agitation. ‘The writing of Zapatista documents appeared to be the responsi- bility of a fow radical intellectuals who joined the movement who