Twelve years ago, a revolt broke out in the south of Mexico, among the poorest and most oppressed in a poor country. The revolt was timed to mark the coming into force of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) on January 1, 1994, which opened Mexico to unbridled exploitation by U.S. imperialism. The rebels seized five towns in the largely indigenous state of Chiapas. Calling themselves the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), after Zapata, the peasant leader of the Mexican revolution of 1910, their revolt galvanized the popular forces throughout Mexico and gained the respect of progressive forces throughout the world. Though the Zapatistas soon withdrew from the five towns under pressure of the Mexican army, they waged a low-level guerrilla war for several years and took part in mass political campaigns.

But the hopes that the Zapatistas aroused in Mexico have gone largely unfulfilled. Among other things, the Zapatistas, and particularly their leader, Subcomandante Marcos, not only refused to take up a vanguard role in the fight against the Mexican bourgeoisie, but denied the need for such a vanguard at all. Also, Marcos now portrays violence as the dark side of human history, ignoring its transforming role in the class (and national) struggle. As the Mexican Marxist-Leninists describe in this article, Marcos’ pronouncements have led the Zapatistas deeper into a position of support for the reformist and social-democratic forces in Mexico.

At the same time, certain reservations must be made as to this article. First, the indigenous peoples in Mexico are treated here as ‘ethnic’ groups rather than as oppressed nationalities (particularly in section VI: ‘The problem of the land and the ethnic question’). To ignore the fact that the indigenous peoples in Mexico who live in their communities and have been oppressed since the time of the Spanish conquest are oppressed nationalities is to downplay their role and the significance of their struggle.

Furthermore, there is a weakness in reference to the indigenous struggle, particularly the struggle for land, and its relation to the overall revolutionary struggle. In the last section of this article, the Mexican Marxist-Leninists state that, even if the indigenous people are granted territorial autonomy and carry out an agrarian reform, ‘Without the working class coming to power, it is clear that even with such a reform, sooner rather than later things will get worse with the differentiation of classes in this area, a product of the laws of the capitalist market.’ This is true, but in the sense that any reform can be reversed as long as the bourgeoisie continues to hold state power. The point, however, is not to use this fact to reduce the importance of such reforms, but to use these reforms to strengthen the consciousness and organisation of the working class and all popular classes to build toward the fight for revolution.

With this reservation, we recommend this analysis to readers worldwide as part of the fight to uphold the Marxist-Leninist world outlook against all attempts to oppose it ideologically.

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