Emiliano Zapata

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.^{[Citation Needed]} 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.