Graham R (Ed.) - Anarchism - A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas Volume One - From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE to 1939)

Chtpter 16
The Mexican RevoCution
71. Voltairine de C1eyre: The Mexican Revolution (191 1)
Anarchist ideas were first introduced into Mexico during the 1860's. From 1868 to 1869, the
anarchist Julio Chavez Lopez led a peasant uprising in Chalco province, which spread to
neighbouring provinces before Chavez Lopez was captured and shot by firing squad. The insurgents
would seize whatever arms andfunds they could find, burn the municipal land titles,
and redistribute the land among the peasants. In his 1869 manifesto, Chavez Lopez calledfor
the abolition of government and exploitation, declaring that: "We want: the land in order to
plant it in peace and harvest it in tranquility; to leave the sys tem of exploitation and give liberty
to all in order that they migh tfarm in the place that best accommodates them without
having to pay tribute; to give the people the liberty to reunite in whatever manner they consider
most convenient ... without the need of outsiders who give orders and castigate ... Long
live socialism! Long live liberty!" (as quoted by John M. Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican
Working Class, 1860-1931, Austin: University of Texas, 1987, page 39).
Anarchists also played a prominent role in the National Congress of Mexican Workers.
Founded in 1876, it affiliated with the anti-authoritarian International in 1881, but was dissolved
by the Diaz dictatorship shortly thereafter.
There was a resurgence of anarchist activity in the years leading up to the 1910 Mexican Revolution,
the first great revolution of the twentieth century. Ricardo Flores Magan and the
Partido Liberal Mexicano (PLM) attempted armed insurrections in 1906 and 1908, but the
U.s. authorities conducted a series of preemptive arrests of many of the would-be participants
before they could marshal their fo rces on the u.s. side of the border. Several PLM members
were arrested and imprisoned in the aftermath, including Ricardo Flores Mag6n, with most
of them remaining in various U. S. jails until the very eve of the Mexican Revolution.
Emma Goldman met with the PLM leadership in 1905, throwing her support behind the Mexican
revolutionary cause. In 1908, when many of the PLM leaders were in jail and their paper
suppressed, she published their "Manifesto to the American People " in Mother Earth.