CHAPTER 8 NATIVE MESOAMERICANS IN THE MODERN ERA 297reforms that succeeded revolutionary actions in these same countries. A third and
final section will describe more recent attempts by native Mesoamericans to mobilize
their peoples in order to create “multicultural” national societies. The primary con-
text for such ethnic and national movements was provided by neoliberal economic and
political programs that often work against the Indians’ perceived interests.NATIVE MESOAMERICANS AND THE MEXICAN
AND CENTRAL AMERICAN REVOLUTIONS
“Revolution,” as we define the term here, refers to violent movements by under-
classes attempting to cast aside their overlords and radically transforming the op-
pressive conditions of society. Comparative studies of revolutions in the twentieth
century—especially the Russian, Chinese, and Vietnamese cases—have given us a
much better understanding of the social forces that lead to revolutions and the key
participants in them. The anthropologist Eric Wolf (1969) has suggested three com-
mon features of revolutions that seem relevant to an understanding of twentieth-
century violent uprisings taking place in the homeland of the Mesoamerican Indians.
One of these features points to the fact that revolutions tend to take place in so-
cieties in which large peasantries have been negatively affected by capitalist forces.
These forces break down the old landlord-peasant ties and then free up moderniz-
ing peasants to participate in revolutionary actions. A second feature concerns the
pivotal leadership role played by middle-class radicals—teachers, military officers,
merchants, bureaucrats—who have become frustrated by barriers to their attempted
rise in social status. These leaders and their urban followers meet up with the rebel-
lious peasants in the countryside, from where they march to battle, usually under
“socialist” banners. The third feature has to do with the presence of corrupt regimes
that are highly dependent on outside powers. Such regimes lack legitimacy, and
therefore easily crumble in the face of determined internal opposition. The fallen
regimes create political vacuums that revolutionaries try to fill.
In the account to follow, it will be shown that these three conditions have con-
sistently arisen in the Mexican and Central American region during the twentieth
century, and that the native Mesoamerican peasants have provided the powder, and
at times the leadership as well, that led to revolutionary explosions in the region
(Figure 8.1).
We turn first to the Mexican revolution, followed by the Central American rev-
olutions, particularly the Guatemalan and Nicaraguan revolutions.The Mexican Revolution
Revolution first broke out in Mexico in 1910 with the electoral challenge to the dic-
tator Porfirio Díaz by the conservative reformer Francisco Madero. The conflict was
initially between different factions of the ruling class, and it led to the overthrow of
Díaz and the replacement of Madero by another conservative, Victoriano de la
Huerta. These events eventually unleashed genuine revolutionary forces under the
leadership of Pancho Villa in the north (Figure 8.2) and Emiliano Zapata in the