Land and Liberty

The political and ideological legacy of 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 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 ’s government, is very similar to the consummation of the “maderista” revolution, when Emiliano Zapata and 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, 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.

“Front and back” provides us with the opportunity to peek into the relevant aspects of this singular person. Today Carranza is still the example of how a Mexican president should face pressure from the United States: he didn’t let himself be intimidated by that country’s government, in spite of heading a Mexico that was divided and destroyed by war.

In this chapter, in addition to international pressure, the resources of the political power of Venustiano Carranza are explored. In these aspects, it is impossible to ignore two figures who accompanied him, Álvaro Obregon and Luis Cabrera. Obregon was the military backing that eliminated obstacles from the First Commander, since their victories over the Northern Division allowed the President of the United States to recognize Carranza’s government as the de facto government. On his behalf, Cabrera was the organic intellectual of the leader of constitutionalism, who instilled the idea of reducing enemies to ashes to construct a new nation.

Cabrera was not present during the Constitutional Congress in Querétaro, since he was in the United States heading a negotiating commission for the withdrawal of American troops who pursued Francisco Villa into national territory. Nevertheless, in his decree on January 6, 1915, the “Agrarian Law” was also elevated to the category of constitutional law in section VII of article 27, thus Luis Cabrera incorporated one of the most important national topics into the Constitution.

“De la Huerta […] managed to change Obregon’s determination to contend for his boss’s position [in 1917] with the condition that Carranza would not oppose his presidential aspira- tions in 1920”.

Pedro Castro, Álvaro Obregón, fuego y cenizas de la Revolución Mexicana, Era, Mexico, 2009, p.64

“Carranza put together the only arms that he didn’t need to import from the United States: pa- triotism, integrity and prudence and he prepared the only possible battle: that of unarmed rights against armed injustice”.

Luis Cabrera Odyssey for Land

In spite of Mexico’s incursion into industrial production at the end of the XIX century, in 1910 the country continued to be mainly agricultural: 86 per cent of the population was concentra- ted in rural areas. Even though injustices against workers were committed in all sectors, it was in the rural areas where the Revolution extended like a powder keg thanks to peasant insurgence, which was joined by leaders of towns and cities who supported Francisco I. Madero. The spoils of land, water and forests from colonial times to the Porfirian era mobili- zed the people in rural areas around the liberating proclamations in the Plan of San Luis.

Shaped by tragedy, workers in rural areas soon warned that Madero’s revolution was not theirs and they decided to radicalize their fight. They took advantage of the generalized rebellion to remain armed and to attempt to recover their land on their own.

The Porfirian peace was an invention that perfectly functioned for those who did not want to see or hear. In reality, the XIX century was plagued with peasant uprisings and massacres. According to sociologist Lucio Mendieta y Nuñez, the Law of Uncultivated Land issued during the “porfiriato” handed over a great part of national territory to a few individuals. In 1905, in one of the debates in the House of Representatives, Alfredo Chavero claimed that the land accumulated by great landowners came from that dispossessed from peasant masses, who did not have a district judge as one of their buddies. He affirmed that “millions of tears” have fallen on the land dispossessed.

From different studies and statistics from Díaz’s government itself, it is deduced that approxi- mately 64 per cent of land was in the hands of 1 per cent of the population, among which were found many foreigners, who also possessed banks, industries, mines and railroads.

“All of Yucatán and even the entire peninsula, depended on those 50 henequen kings. […] The slaves are made up of: 8 thousand Yaqui Indians, imported from Sonora; 3 thousand Chinese (Koreans) and between 100 and 125 thousand Mayan indigenous people, who were the owners of the land that is now held by the henequen masters”.

John Kenneth Turner, México bárbaro

“Liberty, equality, brotherhood, enlightenment and prosperity are impossible without ownership . . . All of the revolutions have already taken place […] and instead of the progress promised to the nation, the conquest has been sanctioned, taking the sole control of land to the extreme, drowning people in the most desperate of miseries […]

Given in Sierra Gorda on July 15, year 358 of the enslavement of the people”.

Fragment of the Plan Socialista published in Querétaro by the leaders of the insurrection in 1879 Workers in the Peasant Revolution

The fact that workers did not form the main part of revolutionary armies does not mean that their role in the Revolution was not decisive. Some of the strikes that they participated in before 1910 in different parts of the country were flare-ups that intensified the slogans, plans and manifestos of political groups willing to overthrow Porfirio Díaz.

Many workers joined the “maderista” revolution, but their fight did not end when Madero came to power. At the end of 1922, when peasants in Chihuahua and Morelos once again rose up in arms, the World Worker Home, a union anarchist group, sprang up in Mexico City.

In spite of the repression that it suffered during Victoriano Huerta’s government, the organi- zation did not disappear. The triumph of the constitutionalist revolution was strengthened in such a manner that in 1915 it was the oracle of the workers and for that reason, Venustiano Carranza accepted a temporary alliance with them, which was more for political convenience than because he liked them. During his short relationship with the workers, the President authorized the formation of armed workers, better known as “red battalions”, to fight against the peasants.

At all costs, Carranza wanted to avoid the presence of members of the World Worker Home in debates in the Constitutional Congress, since he was afraid that their radicalism would influence the principles of the code. In June of 1916, the notification for a general strike by the Workers Union in the Federal District was the ideal pretext for the President to definitively distance himself from the workers. He accused them of being traitors to the country, he sent the army to take over the organization’s headquarters and, at the same time, he ordered the apprehension of all of their leaders. Gerardo Murillo “Dr. Atl” was among them, who served as the link between him and the worker movement and who had so greatly supported him in Mexico and in foreign countries, in negotiations with his political enemies. Indigenous Communities, Ancestral Obscurity

According to the historian Moises Gonzalez Navarro, “the government took care of the Indians, almost exclusively at first, to end their ancient institutions, later to repress them because of their riots”.

The depredation, harassment and humiliations to which they were subjected upon the arrival of the Spaniards did not end even after the enactment of the liberal Constitution of 1857. In the XIX Century, armed uprisings by the Indians in defense of their rights did not end. It is sufficient to remember the uprising by Yaquis and Mayans (1825-1901), the Mayan War (1947) and the Rebellion of Sierra Gorda (1848-1849). But not even four centuries of plunder caused the constituent members to attend to indigenous needs and demands or to enshrine them in the Republic’s supreme law.

At that time, programs to benefit that wide sector of the population that were begun by the governments of Alvaro Obregon and Plutarco Elias Calles were not based on constitutional precepts concerning the same, since the Constitution of 1917 did not include them. It was during those governments, and especially during that of Lazaro Cardenas, that necessary legislative amendments were made to give a legal framework to allow actions to be taken that had great impact and scope. During the two administrations that followed Cardenas, indigenism was institutionalized as an official policy of good intentions, the main objective of which was to incorporate Indians to Western culture.

It was not until 2001, as a result of the San Andrés agreements, that the second article of the Mexican Constitution was recognized in a multicultural context. It indicated that in addition to the relative rights of people, there are collective rights related to a new subject of law called the Indigenous People.

“All governments that aspire to have a real democracy must consider the use of the virtues of indigenous races and the elimination of vices or consequences imposed by oppressive systems as an essential factor for carrying out the collective program. While there are human beneficiaries deprived of their parents’ land, of their rights as men and citizens, and as long as they are treated as beasts and as machines, it cannot be considered that equality and justice prevail in America”.

Speech by Lazaro Cardenas during the opening of the First Interamerican Indigenous Congress, April 14, 1940

“There is no social actor who has the right to agree to any regulatory system, the right to recognize the existence of others. And in no way in America, where indigenous systems were here before “country” systems […] There will never be a solution if this is imagined as a rela- tionship in which a superior recognizes an inferior’s right to exist […]

The ruling state has to accept the other as equal and come to an agreement. Point by point, law by law and a pact with each regulatory system that is in front of it. A great task. And costly. But it is the only one that can get rid of the colonial entanglement”.

Oscar Correas, “¿Kelsen y el pluralismo jurídico?”, Crítica Jurídica, No. 32, 1911, p. 56

The Cora People from Nayarit

[…]”The severe and marvelous face of that woman expresses an enigmatic dignity, immune from the sorrows that Indigenous women suffer. Above all, immobile and firm. Wearing nec- klaces and dresses showing her queenly supremacy. The impassiveness of a race condem- ned to humiliation can be seen in her, which defeats the will to suffer everything without moving a muscle in her face that is bathed in a light that cannot be understood by us, men of reason, ignorant about a life that, after centuries of suffering, assumes a spiritual strength undamaged by misfortune.

The artist’s eye discovers the meaning, the essence of a race that believes in something out- side of our life and that represents a nobility, faith, and strength that triumphs over our brutal and greedy intromissions, committed to the cult of their gods and nature. These are the Cora People who we tried to destroy and who react with faith and spiritual strength oblivious to our existence as dishonest people dominated by greed and contempt, who have not even dented their legendary strength”.

Fernando Benitez “Gender violence is one of the most frequent violations of human rights due to the mere fact of having been born in a female body. It is linked to the unequal relationship between men and women in all areas of social, cultural, economic and political life, which is socially tolerated […] and it is reflected in greater or lesser degree in legislation, standards and systems of values of a determined society”.

National Citizen Observatory of Femecide Women, the absent party in the constitution

Today it is hard to imagine that women’s civil rights were not included in the Constitution of 1917. Although the tendency around the world was to continue haggling over women’s rights, it is important to note that in January of 1916, months before the Constitutional Congress met, the first feminist congress of Mexico was held in Yucatan, sponsored by none other than Salvador Alvarado, one of the generals closest to the President. In that congress a speech was read in which Hermila Galindo, the famous private secretary of Carranza, gave her unconditional support to the feminist movement. That same year, Miss Galindo herself would send a petition to the Constitutional Congress in Queretaro in favor of voting rights for women, but it had no effect.

Since they were not heard at that time, Mexican women continued fighting. Soon Yucatan was again the scenario of one of women’s great conquests, approval of a state law allowing women to vote and to be voted into office (1922). As a result of those provisions, some Yucatecan women became the first congresswomen in the country. A little later, the socialist governor of the state, Felipe Carrillo Puerto, sent a proposal to the House of Representatives to modify constitutional articles 35 and 36, to recognize the voting rights of all women in the country. The following is a fragment of that proposal:

The initiative we present today is based on the unshakeable rock of justice, against which nothing has any effect, not prejudice or time.

Today or tomorrow, but in all fairness, why not today? The social and political question concerning women will have to triumph.

Unfortunately, it was not “today”, as Carrillo Puerto wanted, since the constitutional modifica- tion he requested did not occur until 1953 and it was applied for the first time to the federal elections in 1955.

“This law’s object is […]to prevent, sanction and eradicate violence against women, as well as the principles and methods to guarantee access to a life free of violence that favors development and well-being in accordance to the principles of equality and non-discrimination, as well as to guarantee democracy, integral and sustainable development to strengthen sovereignty and the democratic system”.

General Law for Access by Women to a Life Free of Violence (2007)

“I. Doors must be opened to women in all fields of action in which a man does battle with daily for life.

II. Women of the future can hold any public position that does not demand a vigorous physique, since there is no difference between their intellectual state and that of men and she is as capable as he is to be a leading member of society”.

General Law for Access by Women to a Life Free of Violence (2007)

“The object of this Law is to regulate and guarantee equal opportunities and treatment for women and men […] promoting the empowerment of women and the fight against all discrimination based on sex”.

General Law for the Equality of Men and Women (2006)

“In 1945, the president of the Republic, Miguel Aleman, promoted the constitutional reform of article 115 to guarantee the vote of women in cities and, in December of 1952, finally and thanks to its promotion by Amalia González Caballero, President Adolfo Ruiz Cortines, presented the initiative to reform constitutional article 34. That reform consisted of specifically mentioning “men” and “women” as citizens of the Republic. […]

The situation of women before the law was not automatically transformed upon acquiring citizenship in 1953. Nevertheless, starting at that time, gradual changes occurred, mainly in the international environment, with regulations and principles that were incorporated little by little into Mexican legal ordinances”.

Leticia Bonifaz, La evolución de los derechos de las mujeres a partir de la Constitución de 1917, Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation, Mexico, 2016. The Socialist Experiment

The socialist character of the government of Lazaro Cardenas was not only found in his speeches; it was also reflected in Constitutional laws and reforms. Less than two weeks after taking office, he modified the third constitutional article to establish socialist education. Those legislative regulations adopted a popular and massive type of teaching even in rural and indigenous zones, as well as the emergence of notable institutions such as the National Polytechnic Institute and the National Institute of Anthropology and History.

From the “cardenist” perspective it was the job of the Secretary of Education to teach a ratio- nal interpretation of the universe to children and young people and, in that sense, to direct their actions and efforts. In other areas of national life, the federal expropriation law issued in 1936 and the reforms of constitutional article 26 set up the legal framework for the expro- priation of oil, electrical and railroad industries for reasons of public interest.

One of the most reiterated demands during the Revolution that was barely dealt with even after the enactment of the Constitution of 1917, was the distribution of land. After almost two years of government, Cardenas distributed more than twice the hectares that had been distributed by all of his predecessors together. At the end of his government, he had given more than one million peasants close to 18 million hectares. The agrarian distribution cannot be dissociated from the great commitment by Cardenas to Indigenous people which mate- rialized in the creation of the Department of Indigenous Matters (DAI), which would later become the National Indigenist Institute (INI).

Before the government of Lazaro Cardenas, Mexico had participated in experiments, fights and even socialist governments. One of the most well-known cases is that of Felipe Carrillo Puerto in Yucatán, who led the state government (1922-1924). In the mid-1920s, Agrarian Community Leagues achieved great notoriety around the country, especially in Tamaulipas, Veracruz and La Laguna. Their flags were red, contained the motto “Land and Liberty”, and the hammer and sickle from the seal of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

The motto “Land and Liberty” was linked to Emiliano Zapata in the Congress of Socialist Workers of Motul in 1918 which was directed by Felipe Carrillo Puerto, later by the National Agrarian Confederation in 1923, in which Marte R. Gomez was involved. Both had worked in agrarian commissions in Morelos under the tutelage of Zapata in 1915.

“No individual […] has helped indigenous peoples in a more complete and meaningful manner, including Western nations, as President Cardenas. As a consequence, he has helped human justice and the spirit of humanity”.

Indigenous Congress, April 14, 1940

“The plan for the distribution of land to the masses was consecrated in the Constitution as the result of a lot of spilled blood, and my government is morally and legally obligated to fulfill that mandate”.

Letter from Lazaro Cardenas to W.C. Townsend, 1938

“When expropriated companies leave our country, they left no tracks behind them and after several five-year periods of exploitation, there was not a single memory that caused Mexicans to be grateful”.

Report given by Lazaro Cardenas to the Congress of the Union, September 1, 1939 The new post-Revolution elite devoured its heroes, limiting itself the majority of times to using its ideological legacy only for political means.

“Constitutions are not objects of worship […] the Constitution has to resolve real problems for us. I want to know who will provide me with medicine, who to complain to when I don’t have water, who can solve pollution problems. Judicial standards have to be effective”.

“Q. Is there a lack of respect for the Constitution?

R. Yes. Is the Constitution applied to drug dealers and organized crime? No. To certain groups of businessmen? Not to them, either. Not to street vendors, etc. Not only the Constitution, but legal order. How many people really have to obey the law or the Constitution? Given the level of impunity that the country has for those who want to misbeha- ve. It is almost an election matter”. […]

Fragments of an interview of Jose Ramon Cossio Minister of the Supreme Court of Justice By Luis Pablo Beauregard from the daily newspaper, El País, México, February 10, 2017