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→Role in the Mexican Revolution
[[Image:Emiliano Zapata.jpg|thumb|500pix|Emiliano Zapato]]
Emiliano Zapata lived August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919. He was of key importance in the [[Mexican Revolution]].
Zapata has been identified as a [[communist]] by [[21st century]] [[historians]] because of his emphasis on [[land reform]].{{fact}} He believed [[liberty]] flowed partly from this and partly from an armed citizenry. Persons throughout [[Latin America]] with this [[ideology]] have been continuously pigeonholed as communists by the [[United States]] and other [[conservative]] forces at least since [[Operation Success]] in 1954. It is not clear what [[Vladimir Lenin]] and other contemporaneous leaders of Communism thought of Zapata while he was alive.
== Social milieu of pre-revolutionary Mexico ==
For the first 31 years of Zapata's life, Mexico was ruled by [[dictator]] [[Porfirio Diaz]], a veteran of the second [[independence]] war (against the [[French]] and their puppet [[Maximilian]]). Despite a rapidly increasing population during this time, and very slow [[industrialization]] in comparison to the United States or [[Europe]], the number of landowners actually decreased throughout Diaz's tenure. This meant that more and more persons who formerly owned their own land actually found themselves in a state of [[debt peonage]], similar to [[sharecroppers]] in the southern United States during the same period.
By the early [[20th century]], a much larger percentage of Mexicans than Americans identified themselves as what is now called [[native]]. As with most Mexicans, it is not clear what [[blood quantum]] Zapata possessed of the [[Nahua]] tribe, the most populous in his home state of [[Morelos]], in southern Mexico. However, he spoke their language fluently and was trusted by them and by most in his community, leading to his being elected head of his village's "defense committee" in 1909, at age 30.
== Role in the Mexican Revolution ==
[[Image:Zapata.jpg|left]]
When it became clear that Diaz would not permit an election he might lose to challenger [[Francisco Madero]] in 1910, Madero's supporters across the country began to arm themselves. Among these was Zapata, who that year formed the [[Liberation Army of the South]], which would be a thorn in the side of successive Mexican governments for the ensuing nine years. Even Madero himself felt threatened by the ELS (Spanish initials) and asked Zapata to demobilize it, but Zapata referred Madero to the need for an armed citizenry.
By that time (winter of 1912), Zapata had fled with his army to [[Puebla]] state, where he published with co-conspirators [[Ricardo Flores]] and [[Otilio Montano]] the [[Plan de Ayala]]. The Plan was not so much a proposed [[constitution]] as an aspirational [[social contract]] for Mexico, which would have broken up all large [[haciendas]] whose owners dominated rural life. Paradoxically, in an effort to recruit former supporters of Diaz, Zapata identified his movement as a "counter-revolution."
Madero had little choice but to attempt to restore central government authority; his efforts initially failed, which was one cause of his overthrow and subsequent murder the following winter by [[General]] [[Victoriano Huerta]]. By the late spring, a revolutionary movement which in some ways mirrored Zapata's had risen up in the north of Mexico under [[Pancho Villa]], who later became infamous as the only person to lead a [[cavalry]] raid against the United States in the 20th century. Unlike Villa, anti-Americanism does not seem to have been a significant part of Zapata's appeal.
Yet a third anti-Huerta movement, the [[Constitutionalists]] under General [[Venustiano Carranza]], arose in late 1913 and finished off Huerta's supporters the following year. While all parties agreed that the [[1871 Mexican Constitution]] was a dead letter, the factions divided yet again over whether delegates to the new constitutional convention should be popularly elected.
Technically, Carranza won, and was still in power at the time of Zapata's death (by [[ambush]]) in 1919. The latter event followed a three-year [[counterinsurgency]] led by General [[Pablo Gonzalez]] and [[Colonel]] [[Jesus Guajardo]], in Zapata's new stronghold and original home, Morelos. They were initially as unsuccessful as Madero had been, but all other rivals to Carranza were now more or less exhausted by years of war. Eventually, Guajardo pretended to be trying to defect to Zapata's side, enabling them to lure Zapata to a "meeting" where he was killed. Perhaps because Guajardo had killed 57 of Gonzalez's men to make himself credible to Zapata, Guajardo's men were given only half the bounty promised by Carranza to whomever killed Zapata.
[[category:history]]
[[category:political people]]
[[Category:Communists]]
Emiliano Zapata lived August 8, 1879 – April 10, 1919. He was of key importance in the [[Mexican Revolution]].
Zapata has been identified as a [[communist]] by [[21st century]] [[historians]] because of his emphasis on [[land reform]].{{fact}} He believed [[liberty]] flowed partly from this and partly from an armed citizenry. Persons throughout [[Latin America]] with this [[ideology]] have been continuously pigeonholed as communists by the [[United States]] and other [[conservative]] forces at least since [[Operation Success]] in 1954. It is not clear what [[Vladimir Lenin]] and other contemporaneous leaders of Communism thought of Zapata while he was alive.
== Social milieu of pre-revolutionary Mexico ==
For the first 31 years of Zapata's life, Mexico was ruled by [[dictator]] [[Porfirio Diaz]], a veteran of the second [[independence]] war (against the [[French]] and their puppet [[Maximilian]]). Despite a rapidly increasing population during this time, and very slow [[industrialization]] in comparison to the United States or [[Europe]], the number of landowners actually decreased throughout Diaz's tenure. This meant that more and more persons who formerly owned their own land actually found themselves in a state of [[debt peonage]], similar to [[sharecroppers]] in the southern United States during the same period.
By the early [[20th century]], a much larger percentage of Mexicans than Americans identified themselves as what is now called [[native]]. As with most Mexicans, it is not clear what [[blood quantum]] Zapata possessed of the [[Nahua]] tribe, the most populous in his home state of [[Morelos]], in southern Mexico. However, he spoke their language fluently and was trusted by them and by most in his community, leading to his being elected head of his village's "defense committee" in 1909, at age 30.
== Role in the Mexican Revolution ==
[[Image:Zapata.jpg|left]]
When it became clear that Diaz would not permit an election he might lose to challenger [[Francisco Madero]] in 1910, Madero's supporters across the country began to arm themselves. Among these was Zapata, who that year formed the [[Liberation Army of the South]], which would be a thorn in the side of successive Mexican governments for the ensuing nine years. Even Madero himself felt threatened by the ELS (Spanish initials) and asked Zapata to demobilize it, but Zapata referred Madero to the need for an armed citizenry.
By that time (winter of 1912), Zapata had fled with his army to [[Puebla]] state, where he published with co-conspirators [[Ricardo Flores]] and [[Otilio Montano]] the [[Plan de Ayala]]. The Plan was not so much a proposed [[constitution]] as an aspirational [[social contract]] for Mexico, which would have broken up all large [[haciendas]] whose owners dominated rural life. Paradoxically, in an effort to recruit former supporters of Diaz, Zapata identified his movement as a "counter-revolution."
Madero had little choice but to attempt to restore central government authority; his efforts initially failed, which was one cause of his overthrow and subsequent murder the following winter by [[General]] [[Victoriano Huerta]]. By the late spring, a revolutionary movement which in some ways mirrored Zapata's had risen up in the north of Mexico under [[Pancho Villa]], who later became infamous as the only person to lead a [[cavalry]] raid against the United States in the 20th century. Unlike Villa, anti-Americanism does not seem to have been a significant part of Zapata's appeal.
Yet a third anti-Huerta movement, the [[Constitutionalists]] under General [[Venustiano Carranza]], arose in late 1913 and finished off Huerta's supporters the following year. While all parties agreed that the [[1871 Mexican Constitution]] was a dead letter, the factions divided yet again over whether delegates to the new constitutional convention should be popularly elected.
Technically, Carranza won, and was still in power at the time of Zapata's death (by [[ambush]]) in 1919. The latter event followed a three-year [[counterinsurgency]] led by General [[Pablo Gonzalez]] and [[Colonel]] [[Jesus Guajardo]], in Zapata's new stronghold and original home, Morelos. They were initially as unsuccessful as Madero had been, but all other rivals to Carranza were now more or less exhausted by years of war. Eventually, Guajardo pretended to be trying to defect to Zapata's side, enabling them to lure Zapata to a "meeting" where he was killed. Perhaps because Guajardo had killed 57 of Gonzalez's men to make himself credible to Zapata, Guajardo's men were given only half the bounty promised by Carranza to whomever killed Zapata.
[[category:history]]
[[category:political people]]
[[Category:Communists]]