The Armed Libertarian Revolution in Mexico (Part 4)

Part 4: One of the finest libertarian moments of the Revolution

Revolutionary generals Zapata (center-left) and Villa (center-right) occupy Mexico City

One of the most libertarian moments of the Mexican Revolution came when Zapata and Villa occupied Mexico City.  For the first time ever, the residents of the Federal District saw genuine people’s armies.  Pancho Villa’s troops all wore distinct uniforms, had northern accents, and were known for partying and looting.  The Zapatistas were a bona fide peasant army and shocked the nation with their self-discipline and good manners.  They wore large straw hats, the clothing in which they worked the fields, sandals on their calloused feet, and carried whatever hunting rifles, muskets, or enemy weapons they could scrounge.  The Zapatists were remarkably respectful of private property, noted for knocking on doors and asking if the residents could spare a tortilla or a cup of water.

During the brief occupation of Mexico City, Villa and Zapata sat in the Presidential Palace.  Both revolutionary generals agreed that neither one of them should be President of Mexico.  As Villa said, “This ranch is too big for us.”  While Villa arguably craved some degree of power and prestige, he was happiest among his troops in the North and had no national political ambitions.  Zapata had no desire whatsoever to rule over Mexico.  Both generals and their armies left the capital and went home.  George Washington is praised for setting the precedent of stepping down from the presidency, but Villa and Zapata literally had it under their seats and chose to walk away.

Scholars and veterans of the Mexican Revolution agree that the Revolution was hijacked and corrupted.  Article 27 of the 1917 Constitution promised significant land reform to the peasants, but the Constitutionalist regime had no intention of expropriating the land from their wealthy backers.  The national revolutionary labor union, the CROM, mirrored the large unions in the U.S. and transformed from a platform for improving wages and working conditions into a cattle pen for delivering workers to state-backed enterprises.  The extreme anti-clerical measures against the Catholic Church went beyond justice against a politicized religious organization, and went so far as to outlaw the practice of Catholicism.  The vast and overwhelming majority of the population is devoutly Catholic, so it’s hardly a surprise that persecuted Catholics would rebel against the Plutarco Elias Calles regime in the 1920s.  Today, the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) dominates most of the government, although both Revolutionary (PRI) and National Action Party (PAN) candidates and elected officials are often bought and threatened by drug lords.

Today, there are three fronts for advancing liberty in Mexico.  One is formed by the guerrillas, including the Zapatista National Libertion Army (EZLN) in Chiapas, who continue to resist eminent domain and illegal forced evictions. Another is formed by libertarian organizations like the Libertarian Party of Mexico (PLM), which openly advocates for limited governments and free markets, and organizes networks of people sympathetic to libertarian ideas.  These people are usually those with grievances against the government or against government-backed cronies in the private sector.  Finally, the third front for liberty in Mexico is formed by the various Community Police and self-defense militias operating throughout Michoacan, Guerrero, parts of Chihuahua, and in other Mexican states.  The most effective civilian militias with the greatest success in fighting the violence and predation of the drug cartels have been those who have not cooperated with the government.

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For further reading:

"The Uprising in Baja California"

Frank McLynn, Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution

Friedrick Katz, The Secret War in Mexico: Europe, the United States, and the Mexican Revolution

The Storm That Swept Mexico (documentary film available on YouTube)

The Last Zapatistas: Forgotten Heroes (documentary film available on YouTube)

And Starring Pancho Villa as Himself (HBO biopic available on YouTube)

Zach Foster, "Civil War in Mexico: Re-Examining Armed Conflict and Criminal Insurgency"

The Armed Libertarian Revolution in Mexico (Part 3)

Part 3: Villa, Zapata, and the citizen-soldiers

Francisco "Pancho" Villa (center), Commander, Northern Division

From 1910 to 1919, Emiliano Zapata led the Liberation Army of the South and is responsible for Morelos’ period of autonomy until his murder under a false flag of truce.  Like Ethan Allen’s Green Mountain Boys, and also like the irregulars at Concord and Boston, the Zapatistas fought a prolonged guerrilla war with the popular support of the public throughout Morelos and in parts of Puebla and Mexico State.  Like the Green Mountain Boys in the New Hampshire land grants, like the American Sagebrush Rebellion, like the militants at the Bundy Ranch standoff and the Oregon wildlife refuge standoff, and like the Zapatista rebels in Chiapas today, the government called the original Zapatistas criminals and terrorists when they took up arms to resist eminent domain. 

Pancho Villa is a controversial figure in the Mexican Revolution.  People from Northern Mexico still revere him as a man of the people, while the descendants of his enemies still revile him as a gangster.  The truth is that he was somewhere in between the two.  Testimonies of Villista veterans and civilians testifies that the Northern Division really did often provide food and badly needed public services to the civilian population.  In this sense, the exploited population were less exploited under the revolutionaries than they were by the federal and loyalist state governments.  However, Villa did have the ability to be brutal and have people executed at the drop of a hat.  Part of the brutality known among Villa and his lieutenants comes from having been gangsters. 

Villa never particularly wanted to be a gangster, but it came out of necessity.  His career as an outlaw began in his teenage years when he had to flee his native Durango after killing the local boss.  The feudal lord was in the process of sexually assaulting Villa’s sister when the boy intervened and killed the man.  Modern courts would recognize this as a justifiable homicide, and the rape of a maiden was certainly a crime in a conservative Catholic country.  Unfortunately, in those days, peasants had no rights in court.  Doroteo Arango, his underground name Francisco Villa, became a criminal when he decided not to let his sister be raped.

Villa was by no means a libertarian--his violent streak and willingness to "liberate" property attests to that.  Zapata was the libertarian, not Villa, but Villa and the Villistas had a series of magnificent libertarian moments and a long list of libertarian grievances.  Despite his record as an outlaw and later as a warlord, Villa was an underdog and a victim of circumstance like millions of other working men and women.  Villa reorganized his cattle rustling gang into a guerrilla army and, through victory and innovation, this militia quickly transformed into a professional army.  Villa’s army represents a true people’s army, recruited from a population hostile to the federal government and loyal to their local underdog whom songs and newspapers were describing as a Robin Hood figure.  The career of Pancho Villa is significant to so many Mexicans because Villa symbolizes victims finally getting back at their oppressors after suffering so long.

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Continued tomorrow in Part 4

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