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Land and Liberty the Political and Ideological Legacy of Emiliano Land and Liberty The political and ideological legacy of Emiliano Zapata was subordinate to the needs of different artists and political groups, especially those who coined the anarchical motto of “Land and Liberty”. Although it fits like a ring on the finger of “Zapatista” postulates, it is paradoxical since the head of the Liberating Army never used that motto as its rallying call. Not a single document is found that was sealed by him with those words. In spite of that, as of 1929, when Diego Rivera finished the mural in the National Palace in which Zapata appears beside the anarchist Lazaro Gutierrez de Lara and the socialist Felipe Carrillo Puerto holding a red flag with that motto, the entire country assumed that the phrase was inseparable from Emiliano Zapata. The Russian anarchist motto from the XIX century, Zemlya I Volya (land and liberty), was Hispanicized by Spanish anarchists who named their official publication: “Tierra y Libertad” (Land and Liberty). It was introduced to the Mexican political collective imagination by Práxedis G. Guerrero in the Revolución newspaper in 1907; later, in 1910, Ricardo Flores Magón made it popular after he left prison in the Regeneración newspaper thanks to his column “Let Land and Liberty Live!” The motto “Land and Liberty” was attributed to Zapata for the first time in an explicit manner in 1923 in leaflets and pamphlets distributed en masse by the National Agrarian Confederation, which was then directed by Gildardo Magaña, Zapata’s political heir. During the following years, other socialist rural organizations in Veracruz, La Laguna and Tamaulipas made it theirs, as well as some graphic artists, among whom was found Xavier Guerrero who published several engravings associating Zapata to the anarchical motto in El Machete newspaper. The same thing occurred with more impact in dazzling pictorial art that presents the demands and achievements of the revolution on the walls of public buildings. By 1930, the one and only Diego Rivera had already painted more than 30 paintings with Zapata, several of them with the motto “Land and Liberty”. This group of actions became the backbone of a hybrid system that practically allowed all splinter groups, ideologies and banners to find the synthesis of the Mexican Revolution in that motto. The Ideal Search, the Constitution of 1917 The proposal by this presentation on the Constitution of 1917 is from a historical perspective. What is interesting is the knowledge of how and why the revolutionary process ended with it, but what is even more important is to ask ourselves if the content of the constitu- tion embodied the aspirations of constantly humiliated Mexicans, who seized arms in the search for an ideal country that would liberate them from misery. This exhibit is an invitation to approach that event critically and to reflect on the conse- quences of the limited representation of popular classes in the Constitutional Assembly in Queretaro in 1916. All of this is carried out by way of a dialog among images in historical files and works by contemporary artists, that provide us with the records and symbolic aspects, respectively. In effect, after making Luis Manuel Rojas president of the Constitutional Assembly, the same person to whom Carranza had entrusted the project for the Constitution, and General Candido Aguilar as Vice President, then Secretary of Foreign Relations of the President, we have an idea of the small amount of time that the congress had for doing something other than voting for a national project already drafted by the elite “Carrancista”. This exhibit is not a tribute to the Constitution since, as was recently stated by Jose Ramon Cossio, Minister of the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, “Constitutions are not objects of worship” (El País, February 10, 2017). In any case, this is an examination of the historical moment when that document was written as well as an examination of many other documents used to modify the Constitution to guarantee the rights of Mexicans who were relegated in 1917. In spite of the new social contract, thousands of citizens continued fighting to get their rights recognized and incorporated into the Republic’s supreme law. Among them, as will be seen during this exhibit, is found the full citizenship of women in 1953 and the revindi- cation of indigenous people in 2001. Miguel Angel Berumen “The adaptation of the right to social change is simply the adaptation of lawyers to the changes in hegemony within the group in power”. Arturo Berumen, “La enseñanza del derecho y el conservadurismo de los juristas”, Alegatos, No. 77, Mexico, January-April of 2011. p. 114 “All fundamental Political Constitutions that originate in a victorious revolution, even though it has been imposed by a scant majority, must be considered to be the most exact expression of the national will, because it sums up the actions of those who impose it, the approval of those who permit it and the impotence of those who resist it”. Andrés Molina Enríquez, Boletín de la Secretaría de Gobernación, September of 1922 The First Leader against the Republic’s Executive Council The end of the constitutionalist revolution, a period that ends with the defeat of Victoriano Huerta’s government, is very similar to the consummation of the “maderista” revolution, when Emiliano Zapata and Pascual Orozco felt used by Francisco I. Madero upon achieving a triumph in a revolution that was not his, rebelling against him when he occupied the presi- dency of the Republic. In similar circumstances, Venustiano Carranza and Francisco Villa, men who were complete opposites, joined their forces to defeat Huerta, the common enemy. This time, before concluding the fight against “huertismo”, Villa thought that his military power would be used in the service of his country and not by Carranza. This vision coincided in a certain manner with Zapata’s vision, who did not believe that the First Leader would call for free elections when the time came, and that, in fact, is what happened. The Sovereign Revolutionary Convention held in Aguascalientes, instead of serving as a reason to bring the “Villista” and “Zapatista” groups on one side and the “Carrancista” group on the other side together to reconcile their differences, confirmed the mutual antagonism between the groups and their need to annihilate each other without looking back. Under the pretext of a lack of liberty in the debates, Carranza disobeyed the Convention’s mandates and established a provisional government in the Port of Veracruz, while “Zapatistas” and “Villistas” made the City of Cuernavaca theirs, and they declared it the country’s capital and the seat of the Executive Council of the Republic, the supreme organ of the government. During 1915 and 1916, in addition to confronting each other militarily, the team of the First Leader and the Executive Council of the Republic issued very important laws and decrees from their respective territories. Examined in perspective, the contributions and concerns of one and another today help us to understand the different national projects that inspired them. Nevertheless, most of the laws issued in Cuernavaca were excluded from the Constitution of 1917. In a full fight against Huerta, Carranza was afraid that Villa would increase his political power and dispute national leadership, to the degree that it hindered him from taking Zacatecas. But due to the fact that only the head of the Northern Division could evaluate the military situation since he was found in the place where the events were occurring, and given the importance of the place, Villa and his generals overlooked that instruction and advanced towards Zacatecas, preventing the definitive defeat of “huertismo”. In spite of that, after all was said and done this was the most important victory for constitutionalism, Carranza prevented Villa and the Northern Division from entering Mexico City to celebrate the triumph of the common cause. These events marked the definitive rupture between Villa and Carranza. The Constitution of 1917 was the coronation of an absurd war between sectors. Their repre- sentatives could not resolve differences in a pacific manner during the opportunity offered them during the Aguascalientes Convention. José Vasconcelos, one of the members of the government found in that Supreme Convention, referred to this drama as follows: “it is a stupid process of dissolution and disgrace of an entire race”. (La Tormenta) José Vasconcelos, as a part of the government headed by Eulalio Gutierrez, originating in the Supreme Revolutionary Convention of Aguascalientes, suggested, approved and signed the manifest that dismissed General Francisco Villa and General Emiliano Zapata in January of 1915, and it also dismissed Venustiano Carranza as the person in charge of the executive power of the Republic. “Those who follow Zapata, those who follow Villa and those who follow Carranza are bad revolutionaries, as well as anyone who fights for people and not for principles”. (La Tormenta) The new Constitution, exactly as was issued by the legislators in Querétaro, is not perfect. It could never be one. There was not enough time to make it better, since the international situation in which we were found demanded that constitutional order be reestablished quickly, whatever the defects may be found in the new Constitution. […] There was not enough time to review our absurd territorial division, or our federal system, or the balance of power; not a single word is found concerning the organization and function of political parties, so there can be effective universal suffrage. Luis Cabrera, La Reacción Weekly, Mexico City, D.F., February 16, 1942 Carranza: Front and Back For some historians, with the enactment of the Constitution of 1917 by Venustiano Carranza the cycle of the triumphant revolution closed. If Álvaro Obregon called that vision into question three years after the enactment of the Constitution, when he rebelled and named himself as the First President, Plutarco Elías Calles pulverized it during his government, because in his national project not one single “carrancista” was left.
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