The research question of this essay is: "To what extent did Emiliano Zapata contribute to the agrarian aspect of the 1910 Mexican Revolution?" In my eyes, Emiliano Zapata contributed a lot to it. This would be proven by looking at the events leading up to the Revolution, at a brief biography of his life and then finally at the ideas and at the guerilla tactics of Zapata.
I find this topic interesting because this Revolution was the first to happen in the 20th century, even before the Soviet Revolution of 1917. It is the only one spelled with a capital "R" in this country's history. Its essnce was the agrarian struggle for land which is still today determining the political scenario of many Third World countries, (including present day Mexico) where land ownership is still concentrated in relatively few hands and remains an unsolved problem which creates tensions and unrests.
In 1909, the American reporter James Creelman from "Pearson's magazine' interviewed Diaz. In a surprising statement for a man who clunked to power, he said:
"I have waited patiently for the day on which the Mexican people should be prepared to choose and change their government at all times without the danger of war or danger to national credit I believe the moment has come."
This statement reached every corner of Mexico provoking the surprise of the Mexican people.
At the time of Madero's election, Diaz was not in Mexico, but as soon as he came back, he announced that he would once again, for the seventh time, be a candidate during the presidential elections.
Madero was imprisoned. There were only 196 votes recognized for him nationwide . This result is highly questionable since there were more people at the Tivoli Theater than that. He was a very popular political figure as well. In Mexico, he is populary known as "el apostol", the apostle.
After his release from prison, he went to Texas where he declared himself president. There, he drafted the "San Luis de Potosi Plan" in which he urged the Mexicans to rebel on the 20th of November 1910. The slogan was "Liberty for Mexico" (real Democracy). He also promised to change the landowning regulations.
His call for rebellion was not followed by many. There were only 25 people ready to fight with him. He went back to Texas.
Not all of Madero's efforts were in vain. Since his plan addressed the issue of land, he awakened leaders such as Pancho Villa in Chihuahua and Emiliano Zapata in Morelos. These leaders maintained the revolt going untill Diaz gave up his position.
Diaz did not want to step down from government, but he had to on May 25th of 1911 . One of the main reasons for this was the impact that Zapata's army had on the farmers and the pressure they were able to exert over the central government. Everyone was amazedin Mexico by seeing a peasant army taking land by force. This obviously led to many more uprisings in the countryside, imposing a huge pressure on finally toppling the dictator.
De la Barra became temporary president, letting months later Madero taking his position. After becoming president, the latter, promised Zapata to reorganize the land property laws, as he declared in the San Luis de Potosi Plan, in exchange, he asked that the Zapatista Army would stop its military actions. The problem is that he only wanted Liberty by destroying the Diaz as a dictator, but Zapata, wanted to get rid of Diaz but he also wanted land for the peasants. His war cry was precisely that of "Liberty and Land".
Since Madero was born to a family of landowners he did not realize that the main problem in his country was that a few people had control of most of the land. In Chihuahua, most of the land was in the hands of just one family. Albeit his promises in the Plan of Potosi, he did not graspthe full extent of the significance that the land ownership problem had for Mexico.
He actually became very surprised when he saw a political revolution that he started turning into an agrarian rebellion. He became very slow in implementing the change process and since he was not a very revolutionary man, he started loosing popularity.
Another relevant issue is the importance of agriculture in the Mexican society at the beginning of the century. In 1910, 80 % of Mexicans were directly dependents on agriculture. At that time that was 12 millions of people.
"Since the great majority of Mexicans do not own land and are powerless to improve their social condition or engage in industry or agriculture because the lands, woods and waters are monopolized in a few hands, one third of these monopolies of the powerful property owners will be expropriated, with indemnity."
Emiliano Zapata's "Ayala Plan" is a remarkable example of the way he was influenced by the incident that happened years earlier when the people of his village lost their land to the big landowners. According to the plan, the villagers would own the land through "ejidos"( "consisting of farms and others tracts of land owned, not by individuals, but collectively by the residents of villages in an ancestral pattern that pre-dates the Spanish" ). With his plan, Zapata intended to give the land to those who rightfully owned them because they were the ones that worked there.
The Ayala Plan also describes Madero as a traitor. He is not seen as the leader of the Revolution. The Plan ends with Zapata's slogan war cry: "Land and Liberty".
The Ayala Plan had many weaknesses. First of all it was not radical enough. Zapata only intended to take a third of the land and nationalization was only to be used when landowners did not want to cooperate. By letting landowners retain two thirds of their lands, they would remain too strong, and in specific cases, might end up buying the ejidos back which could not compete on an equal footing with the landowners. The Ayala Plan would not put an end to Feudalism.
Secondly, I do not see the need for compensation. Although one can see the moral intent that supports this decision, there are other series of factors to be considered. First of all, Zapata was fighting a war and needed money. Why spend it on paying the rich? Also why did he have to pay compensations if most of the land had either been stolen or gained through illegal means, through corruption of the government who gave land to "special" people like General Terrazas who ha dthe millions of hectares?
But even though this plan had many problems, it was an important program that influenced others. An example of this is the Worker'S Syndicates Federation's program for action, a very strong movement of workers from Mexico City with Communist and Anarchists tendencies. The second article of this program was clearly influenced by the "Ayala Plan":
"To bring back to the municipalities communal lands [ejidos] and waters stolen and provide the other communities with them."
Pancho Villa also agreed with this paln and used it as a template to make his own months later. It also provides a sense of unity to the Zapatistas soldiers because now they knew exactly what they were fighting for and inspired intellectuals in Mexico City.
Why would Carranza include such regulations if he was not interested in them? The answer to this is the importance of the military pressures of Villa and Zapata. Villa had a huge importance in the North while Zapata controlled most of the South. It should not be forgotten that the Zapatistas army was made up of thousands of peasants, an important number at that time. The fact that they managed to take over the land, the dream of every farmer, by force offered inspiration to many others throughout Mexico and therefore increasing his popularity. Carranza's popularity decreased because, just like Madero, he was not very keen in social and agrarian aspects (it should be remembered too the importance of agriculture in Mexico at that time, as mentioned before). So in order to improve his popular support, he added this to the Constitution.
However, these reforms are not quite being respected in present day Mexico. Peasants are still without land and without proper housing nor food. Since the assesination of Zapata by Carranza's troop in 1919, many rebellions took place in this country. One of the sources I used was o a book written by an ex-guerrillero of the Ejercito Popular de Liberacion Nacional ( Popular National Liberation Army). When he explaine the causes of this revolt it seems that Zapata is repeating his words again. Another guerrilla present in Mexico is the Ejercito Zapatista de Liberacion nacional (Zapatista Army for the National Liberation). The leaders of this armed gourp, who are based on Emiliano Zapata's thinkings, fight for causes from rights for indigenious people to anti neo-liberalism.
This leads to a few questions related to the Mexican Revolution; why are there the same problems in landowning as it was before the 1910 Revolution? Why did the Revolution lost its way from agrarian struggle?
