[untry. The peasant armies introlled the centre and…]

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untry. The peasant armies introlled the centre and many aportant northern and southan states.

But, as we have seen, they Iked a strategy for centralising weir forces and building a ational state power. The ZapatI revolution was parochial. its ate power did not transcend brelos. Villa wished to base inself on his tried and trusted low peasnts of Chihuahua ate. The war they were now to arsue was defensive and hapizard. The entry into Mexico ty was the military/political quivalent of some kind of tional scout's day gala.

The 'cultured people' to hom the peasant leaders anded over government were -presentatives of the urban -tty-bourgeoisie who similarly Iked a national perspective of sir own. Caught between the *asant forces and the CarranIt bourgeoisie, this 'shadow ernmeat' (reminiscent of * Spanish popular front wernment of 1936-39) evenally defected to Carranza and *e side which had a national litical perspective and ture.

Nevertheless, the bourgeois Emp was undergoing changes -der the pressure of the revotion. Carranza's old position * being challenged by the litary wing of the' bouroisie.

This group realised that they reded a wider social base and bre radical policies to underme the peasant forces. The Anti-Zapata cartoon military faction, which • was eventually to win over all the contesting groups, was headed by General Alvaro Obregon.

The radical military had two strings to their political bow. Firstly, they sought working class support by granting concessions to the trade union moement. The small Mexican industrial working class had, unlike its Russian counterpart, tailed to establish an independent political existence. It was dominated by anarchist and reformist ideas and often the formal anarchist ideas !. of some labour leaders were a mask for their reformism.

Some anarchists had welcomed the peasant rebellion because it presented a violent and chaotic form. Railway workers were key elements in the movement of the Villist army - troop movements by rail being of key importance for the various military campaigns. However, the peasant leaders could not be expected to offer, by their very nature, a working class political programme. The nearest they came to this was the 'nationalisation' of the sugar mills in Morelos but this was very much an empirical and localised action, as distinct from expressing a general social Obregon for his part did offer an alternative. After re-occupying Mexico City he established a welfare network to assist urban workers and their families. At the same time he instituted price maximums on merchants and taxes on businessmen and the church.

He even went as far as to conscript priests into the army. Many priests complained on the grounds of ill-health, but the military decided that 60 priests suffering from VD were fit enough to join the army!

The next step Obregon took was to intervene in a strike between Mexican Electricians and the Mexican Telephone and Telegraph Company over union recognition. The military saw to it that union recognition was won.

Now the stage was set for a 'social contract' between the military and the reformist workers leaders. An agreement was signed whereby the state undertook to improve workers' conditions and recognise trade union organisation. In exchange the labour leaders pledged their support for the war effort of Obregon and Carranza against the peasantry.

The unions became recruiting agencies for the new bourgeoisie agreeing to form 'red battalions' for the army out of trade union based workers' contingents.

These forces would fight peasant reaction' The second political move of the new central government was the formation of the 1917 constitution.

Land

This contained two important provisions - Article 27 which recognised in a limited form the land redistribution which had already taken place and established provision for further land redistribution; and Article 123 which established a number of conditions of benefit to the labour movement (eight-hour day, ban on child employment, profit sharing unfair dismissal procedures, freedom of association, and right to strike etc).

Article 130 secularised society by stipulating marriage as a "civil contract' and taking over the Church's property.

Carranza himself opposed these reforms but accepted them as a necessary evil in 1917. They certainly were an effective political support for the military victories of Obregon against Villa.

In a series of battles in 1915 and 1916, Obregon had reduced Villa's forces to a guerrilla band which was more of a nuisance than a real threat to the new state.

The social commitment of the new regime to land conquests combined with war weariness and lack of political perspective underlined the military defeats of the brave and honest peasant general.

Zapatism as a focus of opposition to the new bourgeois order was a tougher nut to crack. Here Obregon, whether by accident or design had retired from military activity and Carranza had given over the task of invading Morelos to a less able and popular general.

The attack on Morelos by the forces of Carranza took the form of simple genocidal war of extermination and population 'relocation' reminiscent of Vietnam and other colonial conflicts.

Teeth

The new bourgeoisie was showing its teeth and proving that it had the same attitude towards the independent insurgent masses as the old 'feudal' government.

In the years between 1917 and 1920 the Morelos resistance was destroyed.

Naturally the government then turned against the organised working class in an attempt to overturn the gains of the previous period.

Zapata was murdered in 1919 and Villa was pensioned off (later to be murdered in 1923). It seemed as though the clock had been turned back. With all his peasant foes vanquished Carranza was triumphant, but his moment of victory was his moment of downfall.

His threats to turn the military state into a civilian one, was too much for the new officer caste to bear. A military revolt led by Obregon quickly defeated Carranza who was murdered by his own troops.

It is at this point that we must consider the peculiar mutation that was and to some extent still is the Mexican regime.

Many bourgeois countries today eulogise the revolutionary past, the 'national struggle' and create a mythology about it. They seek to present history not as it truly was but as a storybook, telling tales best suited to their own class interest. The 26 county Irish state provides a very notable example. So too does India, where the bourgeoisie put up £l million to finance a piece of hokum, the film 'Gandhi'.

In Mexico we have a state ruled for many decades by the Party of the Institutionalised Revolution. There is a Ciudad Madero and a Ciudad Obregon, but no major city or town named after Zapata or Villa. What kind of state was it, that this ten year revolution created? How can Mexico be characterised today? - Gilly does provide some of the answers, but his book makes us want to go further in a study of Mexico before and after the Second World War.

Gilly, Michael Lowy and others have described the Mexican revolution as an interrupted or unfinished revolution. The 1920 regime, a bonapartist state which relied on popular support, continued to grant concessions to the masses. It was a kind of open ended situation with the regime still capable of further radicalisation under the Cardenas presidency (1934 40).

In actual fact considerable land reforms and labour rights were gained in this later period. The regime was of .. course anxious to keep the popular organisations under its control denying them political independence.

Obregon had trampled over Carranza precisely because he recognised the need for this popular base.

Similarities can be made with Peronism except of course that Argentina had not experienced a social revolution which destroyed the old reactionary forces -old army, church and landowners. In Mexico mass struggles had given the regime and the bourgeois class a continuity of rule which was not to be found in Brazil or Argentina.

But in what sense is the Mexican revolution interrupted or unfinished? Is there still a national struggle or a struggle against imperialism? Are the political questions being raised in El Salvador or Guatemala today of equal relevance to Mexico?

Working class

In the light of the simplified, outline history above we can see, I hope, that it is a simplification to talk of 'progressive and 'reactionary' camps. Clearly Zapatism and Villaism represented the only truly revolutionary current. The 'revolutionary' bourgeoisie was and is thoroughly reactionary against Mexico's working masses. No trade union or land reform concessions are • an adequate substitute for working class power which is on the agenda in all Latin American states.

The study of Latin America has been blighted by 'third worldism'. It assumes common conditions for all countries in the region and confuses anticolonialism with anti-imperialism. It fails to recognise the independent existence of nation states like Mexico and Argentina prior to the epoch of imperialism and talks as if all these states have a common identity in a struggle against US finance capital. It accepts the myth of their own origin promulgated by the ruling bourgeoisies of these states.

Reality is nevertheless more complicated. In the case of Mexico the decisive clash with imperialism took place four decades ago. The Mexican bourgeoisie won, the oil industry was nationalised and has been exploited by the Mexican ruling class in alliance with US big business.

The Mexican bourgeoisie exports capital. It invests it in real estate in the USA!

We can also see in the foreign policy of Mexico (and Brazil) a quite independent stance vis-a-vis the US throughout the 1970g and 1980g.

But what about the foreign debts? Surely these indicate some kind of "neo-colonial' subjugation? Foreign indebtedness is not confined to Latin America. (Poland).

To deny that a country occupies a neo-colonial status is not to say it is equal to the world's giants. The point is to recognise the relativity of that inequality and what it means for the internal politics, of the country concerned.

No alliance Mexico, Brazil and Argentina occupy • a similar position in international economic relations as the peripheral capitalist states of Europe (Portugal, Greece maybe even Italy). These relations must be recognised and not be obscured by talk of 'national independence' If the Mexican revolution was interrupted or unfinished that can only mean that its conclusion can be brought about by a direct socialist change. This will mean giving up any talk of an alliance with the 'national' bourgeoisie which runs the state and may further repress the masses on instructions from the IMF.

It means a recognition on the part of the Mexican masses that they can only rely on their own strength. It means they should no longer continue to trust "cultured people'.

The Mexican revolution was interrupted by the. Mexican capitalist class. It can only be continued by an independent workers' movement which places socialism on the agenda.

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Socialist Organiser no. 141, July 21/28 1983, Page 1Ö