WHAT FEATURES OF peasant culture in Mexico gave force to the revolutionary movement led by Zapata?
Adolfo Gilly: During the last decades of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th, the expansion of capitalist relations throughout the Mexican territory led to a new wave of expropriation of lands from indigenous communities in the central and southern regions of the country, and of settler peasants’ lands in the North. These land seizures were backed by Porfirio Diaz’s regime and were carried out by sugar haciendas in Morelos, livestock haciendas in the North, coffee haciendas in the South, and by others of all types throughout the country. This happened as railroads, money circulation, modern mining and foreign trade expanded. As with the whole history of capital, up to now, the expropriation of communal goods was one of the factors that sustained this expansion. The communities in the state of Morelos, south of Mexico City, organized their peasant war, under Emiliano Zapata’s leadership, on the basis of community relationships passed on from generation to generation from t
