The Traitors! – Ricardo Flores Magón (1912)

_{[As always, the republishing of this article is neither an endorsement of the views expressed nor an encouragement of the actions described by its author. This republication serves strictly to allow an awareness of the historical record, as terrible or as terrific as it may be in each case. -Ed.]}

Translated from the front-page Spanish-language article in ‘Regeneración’, March 23, 1912, Los Angeles, edited by Anselmo L. Figueroa

Mexicans: Pascual Orozco, the vazquista who is receiving hundreds of thousands of pesos from Terrazas, from Creel, from the big millionaires of Chihuahua who are well-known as “científicos” or porfiristas, has decreed that all those with firearms immediately send them to the headquarters established in the city of Chihuahua, under penalty of severe punishment that will be applied to those who do not comply with this order. Pascual Orozco intends to disarm everyone, so that the lands expropriated cannot be defended by the valiant expropriators, and to prevent the expropriation of the land that remains.

Don’t hand over those weapons, mexicans. Keep them within your power; they are the guarantee of your freedom. A man without a weapon cannot be free. Respond with bullets to the order of that fool.

Orozco has formally offered the land to Terrazas, to Creel, to all the big landowners who will shoot anyone who tries to take the land out of the hands of the rich. Keep in mind that Terrazas alone owns almost all the land of the extensive state of Chihuahua. If you do not turn your weapons against your vazquista bosses, to get rid of them, and if Vázquez Gómez or Creel, who Pascual Orozco prefers, come to power, you will be even more wretched than under the yoke of Díaz and the imbecile Francisco I. Madero.

We speak the truth. Remember that our prophecies have always been confirmed. Remember what we told you about Madero, that he would be worse than Díaz, and the facts that are justifying our predictions. If you do not take the land, the machinery of production and the goods, you will be slaves. Forward, disinherited! To shoot bosses! To shoot them because they will be your executioners tomorrow! They will be the ones who enjoy your sacrifice, while those of you who survive will go back to the bottom of the mine, return to the plow, and go back to the factories exactly the same or even worse than before!

To confirm that Orozco and Vázquez Gómez agree with the “científicos” or porfiristas, it’s enough to read the latest decrees of that worthless person who’s been given the title of “generalismo,” the aforementioned Orozco. He declares as null the concessions (the loans and other ruinous operations for the country carried out under the ephemeral government of Francisco I. Madero), and says that the assets of Madero and his very large family will be confiscated, while Madero, his brothers, his father, his uncle, his relatives, will be executed if they are apprehended before the triumph of the revolution. This is how the decrees of Pascual Orozco are recited. I don’t think all that is bad, but why are only Madero and his assets condemned? Why is the same conduct not followed with all of Porfirio Díaz’s favorites? Why not the undisclosed loans contracted by the Díaz government, which must total hundreds and hundreds of millions? Why aren’t the assets of all the rich confiscated?

Because Pascual Orozco and the poor devil Vázquez Gómez have sold the Revolution to the rich, they have betrayed it, because this movement is not being made to protect the interests of the bourgeois who suck the blood of the disinherited of Mexico, but precisely to strip them of all that they have, so that the poor don’t go hungry, so that the poor have clothing and a house to live in, so that the poor may at last rise up, rejoicing in their freedoms.

Mexicans: if you let yourselves be wrangled like herds, you will deserve the chains that the bosses are forging for you. Down with the bosses! Take everything that exists, because it’s all yours!

Long live Land and Freedom!

RICARDO FLORES MAGON