Revolution and Reaction: Week 8 Reading

The 1910 revolution in Mexico was an unavoidable reaction by peasants and the urban poor to the program of agricultural displacement and growth of an industrial proletarian culture brought on by the Export Boom and the accompanying dislocation felt by most levels of society who did not enjoy the material benefits of international trade. After implementing his program of free trade and modernization so thoroughly hailed by observers in the United States, Mexico's seven-term president Porfirio Diaz lit the fuse of revolt by suggesting the possibility of open elections when for so long he had refused to recognize the validity of lower-class discontent with his vision of modernity. Even if he hadn't dangled the temptation of a new government before their eyes, the industrial process inevitably leads to the generation of class-consciousness in the fluid spaces of factory floors as former divisions of race and religion dissolve in the face of their shared productive capacity. This alone had the potential to foment revolutionary discord within major cities, which historically have been the seat of formal governance and are the ideal arena for a campaign of radical reform. While typically revolutions are urban affairs, with the countryside serving as a base for counter-revolution, Diaz's policies of land privatization had created a fierce opposition in the agricultural communities of Mexico's hinterland. This mixture of cross-sectional discontentment with the deferred promise of reform created an explosive mixture that ultimately resulted in the occupation of Mexico City and much jubilation by the victorious militants.

Unfortunately the Mexican Revolution fell prey to the classic predator of successful revolutions, the reactionary response from elements of the old regime mixed with members of the population who disagreed with the aims of said revolution. These counter-revolutionary elements tend to be the wealthiest members of society, so they are not bound by the recurring need to bring in an income to sustain themselves. This was the stumbling block of the Zapatistas and the rural element of the Villistas, who had to abandon their occupation of Mexico City and return to their villages in order to preserve their local power blocs, allowing the counter-revolutionary liberal elements of the major cities the time and space to organize against the perceived violation of their sanctified bastions of privilege and class by mixed-blood bandits and natives. And ultimately, the tools that industrialism offers to the managerial classes (railroads, telegraphs, machine guns, etc.) make dominion over large territories by small groups of urban elite all the more defensible against revolutionary discontent.