Mexico in Transition

001041 Mexico in Transition By CLARENCE SENIOR flORIDA ATLANTIC UNIVERSITY LIBRARY • '. SOCIALIST· tABOB ~OLL[CTlON L. I. D. PAMPH LET SERIES LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL 15 cents DEMOCRACY ~iiiiii~iiiiiiiiiiii~iil!~112 ET~'iiii § NEWEASTy, 019th R K STCITRE Y ~ L. I. D. Pamphlet Series Studies in Economics and Politics • Six or more issues during the year, each devoted to a detailed work of research on a current vital problem-the kind of authentic research material you cannot get else- where and four 1. 1. D. News· Bulletins. Subscription: $1.00 per year BOARD OF EDITORS: MARY FOX CARL RAUSHENBUSH HAROLD GOLDSTEIN ESTHER RAUSHENBUSH QUINCY HOWE JOEL SEIDMAN HARRY W. LAIDLER HERMAN WOLF ALONZO MYERS THERESA WOLFSON ORLIE PELL ROBERT G. WOOLBERT • LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 112 East 19th Street. New York City Mexico in Transition By CLARENCE SENIOR • L. 1. D. PAM PH LET SERIES VOL.VI 1939 NO.9 LEAGUE FOR INDUSTRIAL DEMOCRACY 112 EAST 19TH STREET. NEW YORK CITY 1 5 c TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION 3 CHAP'l'ER I- MEXICAN BACKGROUNDS 4 II - FROM DIAZ TO CARDENAS • 6 III-LAND. 10 IV - LABOR 18 V- EDUCATION . 28 VI - THE CHURCH AND STATE • 32 VII - IMPERIALISM 35 VIII - BUILDING THE NEW MEXICO 43 FOOTNOTES 49 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY • 53 Copyright August, 1939, by the........League for Industrial Democracy , j, BRANDENaURl' CLA KUNIVERSITY WORCESTER, MAS MEXICO IN TRANSITION By CLARENCE SENIOR ROM the Rio Grande to Patagonia, Latin Americans are strug gling with new ideas, with domestic and foreign forces which F demand an answer to the question, "Where Are We Headed?" In the United States, fear that the New World countries may follow the path of Spain is growing, as totalitarian nations reach out for new markets and for allies across the oceans. In the Latin American struggle, Mexico occupies a key position. Nineteen million people are struggling for freedom, for the right to exist as a nation, and the right to shape that nation's course to its own needs. The peoples south of Mexico watch her with hope in their hearts. Just as in 1776 the revolutionaries of the Thirteen Colonies needed the sympathetic understanding of other peoples, so Mexico needs such understanding in order that she may cast off the chains that have bound her for almost four centuries. Just as the freedom won by the colonies served as a torch for other liberty-lovers, so will success in Mexico spread among the other peoples of the Western World. Mexico will either go forward to the goals for which her Revolu tion st~ives, or backward, through civil war, to fascism. The germs of fascism are there. The agents of fascism are busy and well-financed. In the hope that an increased understanding of what Mexico is trying to accomplish will hinder those in the United States who would interfere with her struggle for freedom, this material is presented. Interference from our own imperialists in the United States is the most certain road to fascism in Mexico. 3 CHAPTER I Mexican Backgrounds N THE past five centuries, Mexico has supplied more than one third of the total production of silver in the world-yet Mexico I is abysmally poor. From colonial days to the present, the wealth of Mexico has been drained from that tremendous cornucopia for the benefit of others. Her people have had to content themselves with the drippings from the pipes that have siphoned away her natural resources. As late as 1804, a large part of the income of Spain was secured from Mexico. The Spanish ruling class prevented the development of an independent economy in any of the new world colonies. For three hundred years, the Spanish colonial system isolated Mexico from the rest of the world and sucked her life blood. Few of the Conquistadores went to Mexico with the intention of making their homes in the New World. They went to enrich them selves and return to Spain as quickly as possible. The conquerors of Mexico differed in motive and action from the settlers of the United States. From these differences stem many of the divergencies in gov ernment and other social institutions between the two countries which today interfere with a genuine understanding of one country by the . other. The chains of caste, race, and class hatred forged during the colon ial period still bind Mexico. Survivals of feudal institutions of that period, imbedded in the soil by centuries of undisturbed existence, are seen today in Mexico's feeble political life, in the stranglehold the hacendados have on the most backward sections of the country and in the widespread superstition and illiteracy which, combined with poverty, lead to one of the world's highest death rates. The problems inherited from the colonial period, which lasted three centuries from 1521 to 1820, have been complicated since Independ ence by the intervention of the French and British empires and the United States. For over a century, these countries have employed 4 diplomatic pressure, economic coercion and armed intervention. They have fomented internal disturbances. They have wrested from Mexico large land areas. They have run the whole gamut of modern imperial ism, with Mexico as the victim. To the foregoing handicaps borne by those who have been trying to build a free and progressive nation must be added the country's geography. While possessing an abundance of mineral wealth, only 10 percent of Mexico's land is arable, as compared with over half the land in the United States. Of this 10 percent, 79.20 percent now de pends upon uncontrolled rainfall; 11.5 percent, upon irrigation. For untold centuries rocky heights have separated tribe from tribe, vil lage from village. Even today, ~percentof the villages can be reached only by burro trail; ~percent by railroad,.-: percent by automobile. Such geographic isolation has meant diversity of languages, cus toms, culture. Such diversity continues to the present day. Just off the Pan-American highway a few hours north of the capital, in the Valley of the Mezquital, a recent survey by Manuel Gamio, Mexico's outstanding anthropologist, showed the material culture of 43.8 per cent of the inhabitants was pre-conquest in its nature, 43.5 percent colonial, and 12.70 percent, modern (since 1870)." In the country at large, five ancient Indian languages are each still spoken every day by more than 100,000 persons, while seven more languages are in daily use by more than 10,000 persons. Fifty-four dialects are spoken by large numbers. The 1930 census showed that 1,185,000 Mexicans speak only an Indian language. Masters of the Mexican Indian have generally preferred to learn the local idiom rather than risk helping the unity of the tribes by teaching them a means of communication. Missionaries, conq.uistadores, landlords, generals, politicians, all, have seen the preservation of the indigenous language as a weapon for domination: It is against this background that The Revolution, with its genera tion of trial and error, its triumphs and betrayals, its weaknesses and its aspirations, must be understood. 5 CHAPTER II From Diaz to Cardenas N OCTOBER 4, 1910, Porfirio Diaz, dictator for thirty-four years, declared himself elected President for another six-year O.. term. Less than eight months later, his flight from the coun try signalized the end of an era. Diaz represented a triumph of the class which wanted freedom from feudal restrictions, the advantages of foreign capital, a regime of "law and order" in which its business would be safe. He had gathered support from the older ruling class groups by respecting their huge haciendas. He had gained the favor of local political bosses by a dis tribution of graft, and the support of foreign investors by protecting their interests against labor organization. The Diaz regime, while outwardly strong, was inwardly weak. It depended for its existence upon a vigorous national leadership which could reconcile, at least on the surface, the contradictory forces from which it drew its strength. It began to lose that leadership as Diaz and his self-perpetuating group grew old and contented. In 1908, Francisco 1. Madero, a large landowner with democratic ideas, raised his banner of "Effective Suffrage; No Re-election", and opposed another term for the "dictator. By election year, the forces which rallied to his support were so varied, the old regime so weak, the unsatisfied needs of the masses so great, that Diaz gave up his post after a feeble attempt to make concessions to the demand for change. Under Madero, no real attempt was made to challenge the problems of the Mexican people. The leader of the revolution himself had no thought except to introduce the forms of political democracy. Peasant groups thought differently. The slogan, "Land and Lib erty," had been raised in the state of Morelos by Emiliano Zapata, who had recruited an army of peon irregulars to back up their de mand. By 1913 six of the states south of the capital were controlled by Zapatistas, and the seat of governm\ent itself was almost sur rounded. 6 Zapata was asked by Madero to disband his men, but the answer was a manifesto: "Be it known to Senor Madero, and through him to the rest of the world, that we will not lay down our arms until we have recovered our lands." The small but growing trade union movement also supported Madero, but made demands that his wealthy backers would not coun tenance. Madero was opposed by other groups, chief among them Vietoriano Huerta, commander-in-chief of the army, and Felix Diaz, nephew of the former dictator.

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